Well seeing this thread is back on track I have a question for those who have extensive knowledge of WW2 history. You guys are talking about manufacturing capacities and the like thus I ask the following.
Why did Nazi Germany prefer to focus on expensive and over engineered tanks such as the Panzer IV, Panther, Tiger, Tiger II instead of a single solid tank design meant for mass production?
They Germans never managed to mass produce any tank in the war, the Soviets manufactured roughly 60 000+ T-34s (All variants). The USA took a similar approach by producing nearly 50 000 M4 Sherman (All variants). The Panzer IV production is around 5000, the most produced armoured vehicle was an assault gun, the Stug III whose's production output was around 13 000 (all variants).
Why not try to mass produce the Panzer IV ausf J earlier, instead of the lavish Panzer IV ausf H, Panther and Tiger ?
I would say that by manufacturing several different tanks they put a huge strain on their manufacturing industry seeing the different tank models did not overlap in manufacturing, it was wasteful. But I'm quite uninformed on the manufacturing details So I could be wrong.
I've read online that Hitler himself was obsessed with tanks. He supervised even the tiniest details such as the armour thickness, the guns calibre, and specially names for them during their conception. Which is odd for a Statesman, especially seeing he did not know much about engineering, even less about strategy, let alone grand strategy.
I remember reading something about his disputes with Guderian on Wikipedia. If I recall correctly Hitler was convinced that tanks gave political advantage and diluted them across several panzer divisions instead of concentrating them on fewer divisions as Guderian wanted
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As Iosef Stalin said, "Quantity has a quality all its own", and this is even truer on total wars to the death where no price is too high; as opposed to limited wars where qualitative advantages can prove decisive.
Another issue with the quality over quantity approach is that the German wunderweapons could not be everywhere and I get the feeling that they where rarely present when truly needed (independent Tiger/Panther battalion had to be sent where most needed, thus it might arrive too late, also they seemed to have serious reliability issues and limited operational range). Sure qualitative weaponry is more efficient, but in a total war, quantitative weaponry is much more effective overall.
Was the German high command so incompetent not the see such a gaping flaw in their grand strategy?
Ultimately their self proclaimed "superior" tanks were barely effective at the strategic level compared to Soviet or American ones. I could go as far as claiming that the Panther & Co cost the Germans the war on the eastern front. Due to the many technical and reliability issues with the Panthers, Elefants and Tigers the Germans were was forced to delay the Kursk offensive for 2 months (Not sure of the exact length of the delay). This allowed the Soviets to dig in and prepare huge minefields and AT gun kill zones. They believed these new weapons were the key to victory but ironically lost the initiative forever because of a god damn expensive tank (That could be easily immobilized by an extremely cheap mine).
Can anyone shed some light on Nazi Germany's tank rationale?
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