Allies in WWII

Nope

The Allies where to afraid of going to war a second time which aloud Germany to start the war with a better position. The Allies saw the war coming and they should have dealt with it. 

Fascism

@Nope I think only America was at fault for this. 

Neville Chamberlain is often given blame for not attacking Germany quicker, but it was a good thing he did this. Britain wasn't militarized and Chamberlain wasn't naïve. He got peace for a while, but he still wanted to be careful so he started building an army so that if war actually comes, Britain will be prepared. This ended up being the right choice. 

Fredsnephew

@Nope ;

This is very simplistic.

Who were the allies before WW2?

I would suggest that the term "allies", refers to the coming together of individual sovereign nations after the onset of the German initiative.

It took the combined might of the allies, over 5 years to bring the situation to an end.

There was never going to be a quick fix.

joecavalry

The allies did a mostly good job. The US should have been involved earlier possibly.

Fascism

@joecavalry I believe that they should have attacked the soviets earlier while the Germans were still there. 

someone234

They didnt do much wrong. If they had been faster in offence more would have died in one go.

Fascism

@someone234 And we might have reached the Soviet Union as well before they went through their second industrialization and nukes were developed. 

someone234

@Fascism If you were UK, France or Scandinavia at the time of the war, you would definitely have found bigger issue with Nazi Germany than USSR. I guarantee you that even you, a Fascist, would have sided with Stalin.

Fascism

@someone234 Yes that is true, but similarly, if I lived in a gulag camp, I would have sided with Hitler (not much to my benefit either way). Looking at it from a neutral perspective, I would want to get rid of the Soviet Union first. Many American generals, including Patton and Eisenhower expressed their feeling that they should have attacked the Soviets first. The Soviets ended up being just as bad as the Nazis, but on a much larger scale. 

Let me point out that since I I'm judging the past based on what happened after the war, I'm not blaming the allies for incompetence. They had no idea that the Soviet Union would turn out to be worse than the Nazis and become a superpower with nukes. The only reason I know this is because I live in the future. 

someone234

@Fascism No, from a neutral perspective, USSR wasn't trying to spread out and invade others on any big scale, Nazi Germany was.

whiteflame

I'll go a different route: bombing Auschwitz, Treblinka, Belzec, and other extermination camps, along with the railroads used to send Jews, gypsies, and other groups to them. It could have saved millions of lives if done correctly.

Fascism

@whiteflame They did do that, but it ended up backfiring. Those railroad transportation routes were used to supply the concentration camps, and after the allies bombed them, the Nazis weren't able to supply the imprisoned Jews, causing them to starve to death. 

whiteflame

@Fascism

Could you please provide support for that? To my knowledge, the only substantial targets of railroad bombings were chiefly aimed at disrupting Germany's access to significant resources, like oil. I haven't seen any significant examples of them bombing the railroads aimed chiefly or solely at transporting victims to concentration or extermination camps.

Fascism

@someone234 The USSR was expanding aggressively just like Nazi Germany. They invaded Ukraine, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Eastern Poland, Belarus, and tried to invade Finland. 

They were even more aggressive after the war. 

someone234

@whiteflame they didn't know how bad these camps were until they physically invaded Germany towards the end.

whiteflame

By the way, anyone notice how Debra's flagging these posts as inconsiderate? I suppose it's because we're talking about deaths and bombings, but that seems like a fault with its programming.

someone234

@Fascism Stalin was a lot smarter than Hitler in how he played the domination game and the nations USSR invaded allowed them to take over quite rapidly.

Hitler invaded countries who hated him and wanted him out the millisecond he took hold of them so unlike Ukraine etc, Poland and Czechoslovakia cried to the Allies to save them.

someone234

@whiteflame AI is a plague to humanity, letting it moderate a website is just asking for your website to get doomed by AI.

whiteflame

someone234 said:

@whiteflame they didn't know how bad these camps were until they physically invaded Germany towards the end.

Two problems with that. One, they were made aware, albeit somewhat late in the war. 

"On April 10, 1944, two men escaped from Auschwitz: Rudolph Vrba and Alfred Wetzler. They made contact with Slovak resistance forces and produced a substantive report on the extermination camp at Auschwitz-Birkenau. In great detail, they documented the killing process. Their report, replete with maps and other specific details, was forwarded to Western intelligence officials along with an urgent request to bomb the camps. Part of the report, forwarded to the U.S. government’s War Refugee Board by Roswell McClelland, the board’s representative in Switzerland, arrived in Washington on July 8 and July 16, 1944. While the complete report, together with maps, did not arrive in the United States until October, U.S. officials could have received the complete report earlier if they had taken a more urgent interest in it."

"Jewish Agency officials appealed to British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, who told his foreign secretary Anthony Eden on July 7, “Get anything out of the Air Force you can and invoke me if necessary.” Yet the British never carried through with the bombing."

"Requests were also made to American officials to bomb Auschwitz. Similarly they were asked to come to the aid of the Poles in the Warsaw Uprising of 1944 by bombing the city. Yet the Americans denied the requests to bomb Auschwitz"

https://www.britannica.com/topic/Why-wasnt-Auschwitz-bombed-717594

Two, I'd argue that the question itself allows for 20-20 hindsight. Even if I allowed that the Allies had no material evidence to support such a bombing at the time, I can still argue that they should have done so. Granted, it was outside of the means of the US and other Allied powers to pursue such an undertaking for much of the war, but the option was there towards the end of the war when the Nazis were liquidating the camps, and they could and should have acted at that time. 

someone234

@whiteflame July 1944... How did that disprove me?

Nope

Germany was violating the Versailles without much punishment. The Soviet Union was not preparing for a attack by Germany as much as they should have as Germany was showing sines of possibly attacking the Soviet Union. The French and British underestimated the Germany army capability which lead to the taking over of France by Germany.

whiteflame

@someone234

...Because your argument was that they had no idea how bad the camps were until they invaded Germany, which, at the very earliest of estimates, started in February 1945 with Operation Veritable and Operation Grenade (though many consider the real invasion to have started on March 22, 1945, when they crossed the Rhine River). July 1944 is at least 7 months before anything resembling an invasion of Germany began.

someone234

@whiteflame two men run to you telling you something about your enemy so you go bomb their key train tracks rather than hope they want peaceful resolution?

Fascism

@whiteflame ;
I was talking about bombing normal transportation. They weren't targeting the Jewish camps, but they ended up affecting them anyways. 

It ended up being myth anyways so sorry about that. 

Fascism

@someone234 Yes, but that doesn't disprove my point that from a neutral perspective, the USSR should have been invaded. Just because Stalin was smarter in his crimes doesn't make a difference with a neutral perspective. 

someone234

@Fascism allies had to work with one against the other. They could t handle USSR and Germany uniting with China and Italy (which would never have turncoated to the Allie in those scenario) against them.

Fascism

@someone234 Just because the US attacks the USSR doesn't mean Germany will automatically ally with them. Plus invading the USSR while it is already at war with Germany makes it possible to win. 

whiteflame

someone234 said:

@whiteflame two men run to you telling you something about your enemy so you go bomb their key train tracks rather than hope they want peaceful resolution?

That is an incredibly dismissive statement to make about a highly credible and widely backed piece of intelligence. Let's just forget about the fact that this was far more than 2 people telling a story. The Allies knew ahead of receiving that report that Jews were being killed en masse, and the reason we know that is because that knowledge was published in 1942, both in the US and Israel.

https://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=9A0CEFDF1039E33BBC4D51DFB7678389659EDE&legacy=true
https://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=9405E4DE1039E33BBC4D51DFB7678389659EDE&legacy=true

Subsequently, other reports (bearing marked similarities to the one we're discussing now) were issued, but generally treated as not genuine, one from the Polish government-in-exile in March 1943, and one from the Polish underground named Aneks 58.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vrba–Wetzler_report#Background

What this report did was provide detailed, inside information on what was happening within a specific camp, which was certainly a new piece of intelligence for the Allies to receive. When the Vrba-Wetzler report was published, it was in fact so damning that the Hungarian regent actually halted the deportation of Jews to Auschwitz.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vrba–Wetzler_report#Deportations_halted

So, please, explain this to me: how could this report rationally be treated as not credible? You say it's just 2 men running to tell you a piece of information, yet it's clear that the intelligence they were providing was following on a litany of other reports that portrayed a similar problem.

I'm also having a hard time understanding your latter point. We're talking about 1944, several years into the war effort when it was quite clear that there would not be a peaceful resolution to the war. Both sides had lost tens of millions of people, and it showed no signs of letting up. Even if they had a sliver of hope that there might be some peaceful resolution available, the Allies pursuing that slow process towards peace would have allowed the deaths of many more people in those same camps, while they had actionable intelligence of what was going on in them. I don't see how that would have been a viable alternative.

whiteflame

Fascism said:

@whiteflame ;
I was talking about bombing normal transportation. They weren't targeting the Jewish camps, but they ended up affecting them anyways. 

It ended up being myth anyways so sorry about that. 

Alright, that's fine. Do you agree, then, that bombing those tracks would have been a better course of action, or are you of the mind that their impaired capacity to supply those camps would have led to more deaths?

someone234

@whiteflame do you think that if you give Germany nothing to lose that Hitler wouldn't kill his own people just out of rage?

They had to ensure also that he'd use camps instead of wiping out the Jewish race by instant extermination.

someone234

Fascism said:

@someone234 Just because the US attacks the USSR doesn't mean Germany will automatically ally with them. Plus invading the USSR while it is already at war with Germany makes it possible to win. 

You don't understand much about war if you think that would help anything. They had to side with USSR against Germany for defensive reasons.

Fascism

@someone234 The US did not have any defensive reasons. Germany could not attack the US since it had  regained the Atlantic Ocean from Germany. USSR was also starting to push back against Germany. This time would have been perfect to attack the USSR. The Wehrmacht had been defeated in the East and is on full retreat. The allies also now have the information on the tactics used to counter the blitzkrieg. 

Keep in mind that I stated in my original post that only the US would have been able to do this, so I agree the rest of the allies should keep the pressure on Germany only. 

whiteflame

someone234 said:

@whiteflame do you think that if you give Germany nothing to lose that Hitler wouldn't kill his own people just out of rage?

They had to ensure also that he'd use camps instead of wiping out the Jewish race by instant extermination.

Sorry, I'm a bit confused. Its your assertion that, in mid-1944, after much of the war had been fought and many of the lives had been lost, there was a chance that that Germany was going to seek a peace agreement, and that said peace agreement would have been impossible if the Allies were attempting to destroy and disrupt the mass extermination of peoples within Germany's expanding domain. Additionally, you're stating that Hitler would have tried to liquidate the Jewish population (not a big fan of designating myself and others in my religion as a race, but hey, you do you) if he was backed into a corner, and would have... exterminated his own people?

These have been your assertions, and yet you haven't supported any piece of them. What's more, the evidence is either directly against you, or agrees with you in a way that hurts your case.

So, let's break it down.

1) There was no reason to believe that the Allies were attempting a peaceful end to the war. As I've already stated, the Allies lost tens of millions of lives leading up to 1944, and the idea that they'd accept a peace deal after that is absolutely absurd. That's not to mention that Germany still controlled much of the territory around it. That included Poland, France, Belgium, The Netherlands, Denmark, much of what would become the Ukraine, the rest of what would soon be behind the Iron Curtain. So, you're functioning under one of two misapprehensions: that Hitler would have surrendered these territories to end the war, or that other countries would have accepted their dominion over those regions. Neither is true, particularly in the case of the USSR, which would have had a very hard time accepting the tremendous losses (in lives and land) it was dealt by Germany during the war. 

2) If such a peace deal was somehow possible, though, I highly doubt that disrupting Hitler's grand design to end the lives of those he considers undesirable would somehow derail that. In order to believe that a peace deal was possible, and that Hitler was going to be the one to deliver on such a possibility, you have to believe that he was a rational human being who valued the safety of his country (or at least himself) first and foremost. That would be the reason he would have sued for peace: to protect his life and those he values most. He wouldn't sue for peace if his goal was to protect his Final Solution, because, in peace, he wouldn't have been allowed to continue doing that. Even if a deal was somehow struck, I have a hard time believing that all of the various abuses that led to a drafting of the Geneva Conventions and the Nuremberg Trials would have just been swept under the rug. The Allies would have required that Germany submit to international law in key ways. As I explained in my previous post, I don't think they would even have accepted those abuses continuing during the prolonged peace process, as Germany would have been required to bring in statesmen from Allied countries in order to broker a deal, and it would have been rather difficult to keep them from asking questions about one of the largest human rights abuses known to humankind. And if you're going to state that bombing Auschwitz and the railways would have somehow been a step too far for Germany to sue for peace, why weren't the 10's of millions of German lives lost during the first several years of the war similarly egregious? Why is that massive loss of life a reason to sue for peace, while disruption of his plans to exterminate millions of people is reason enough to stay at war?

3) When the Allies invaded Germany, the Nazis DID try to liquidate their concentration camps and death camps (I don't know where you're getting a mass extermination of German citizens from, but insofar as they were part of the population they were already trying to exterminate, I agree that they would have done it if backed into a corner). That actually happened, and it happened without any effort on the part of the Allies to destroy or impair those extermination efforts. If your thought is that the Allies couldn't risk that liquidation, then they also never could have invaded Germany. The USSR certainly would have, though, which means that the liquidation was inevitable. The only thing that the Allies could have done is reduce the severity and impair their progress, which would have been possible if the facilities and railroads necessary to do so had been damaged.

CYDdharta

whiteflame said:

By the way, anyone notice how Debra's flagging these posts as inconsiderate? I suppose it's because we're talking about deaths and bombings, but that seems like a fault with its programming.

Then again, Debra may be invoking Godwin's Law, not realizing the subject of the thread.

Fascism

@whiteflame Bombing tracks was ineffective back then. Not only is it hard to do since bombers back then were inaccurate, but the tracks are relatively easy to replace. Partisan militaries have a better chance of disrupting tracks. 

I would say that bombing the death camps themselves like you originally said would be good though. 

whiteflame

Fascism said:

@whiteflame Bombing tracks was ineffective back then. Not only is it hard to do since bombers back then were inaccurate, but the tracks are relatively easy to replace. Partisan militaries have a better chance of disrupting tracks. 

I would say that bombing the death camps themselves like you originally said would be good though. 

I somewhat disagree, since replacing those tracks would have required the Nazis taking personnel away from either the war effort or their efforts to end as many lives as possible in those camps, but I agree that targeting the death camps would have been more effective.

whiteflame

CYDdharta said:

Then again, Debra may be invoking Godwin's Law, not realizing the subject of the thread.

You may very well be right.

someone234

Fascism said:

@someone234 The US did not have any defensive reasons. Germany could not attack the US since it had  regained the Atlantic Ocean from Germany. USSR was also starting to push back against Germany. This time would have been perfect to attack the USSR. The Wehrmacht had been defeated in the East and is on full retreat. The allies also now have the information on the tactics used to counter the blitzkrieg. 

Keep in mind that I stated in my original post that only the US would have been able to do this, so I agree the rest of the allies should keep the pressure on Germany only. 

The US? Hahaha the guys who only came at the end to help out the real allies who had shed blood, sweat and tears all the war long?
USA is so irrelevant to this debate. They barely were relevant to the allies at all until the ending.

Fascism

@someone234 That's exactly why I'm criticizing their strategy. The whole point of this debate is to talk about what the allies should have done differently. 

I stated in my first argument that America is at fault for not joining the war earlier. 

someone234

@Fascism ok that I agree to

CYDdharta

I'm surprised at how short this thread is considering the number of blunders, both tactical and strategic, that the Allies made.  The raid on Dieppe, Operation Market Garden, Battle of Hürtgen Forest; none of them were necessary, and we wouldn't stand for the losses incurred in any of them.  In the Battle of Hürtgen Forest (a battle which the Allies could have avoided, surrounding the forest and starving Axis forces into submission), for instance, the Allies suffered 33,000 casualties.  As a point of reference, so far in total, Coalition forces have suffered 8,411 casualties in both Iraq and Afghanistan in 17 years of fighting.  In addition, the Allies blew it with some of their equipment.  The jet engine was developed by the British, but the Allies ignored it until the Germans demonstrated their effectiveness.  And when a major power fields a tank so under-armored and under-gunned that their crews nickname the tanks "Ronsons" because, like the lighter, they "light every time" they're struck, you know you have a problem.

Pogue

They could have done a lot better by looking at them now. Their biggest mistake was letting Germany disobey the Treaty of Versailles. In complete violation of it, the first Luftwaffe squadrons were set up. Conscription was introduced and he pimped up his army. This went against Germany not being allowed to have an airforce and only allowed to have 100,000 men in the military. Hitler then militarized the Rhineland. He just strengthened his military and the Allies did nothing. 

The second thing they did wring was just letting Germany invade and conquer territories. He just went into Austria and it was Germany now. Next, he wanted the Sudetenland. This was an area filled with many ethnic Germans. The Allies let Germany do it but they had to sign this piece of paper saying that they will not invade the rest of Czechoslovakia. Chamberlain returned to Britain declaring that a crisis was averted. Then, the rest of Czechoslovakia was invaded. The Allies did nothing

It was not until Germany was strengthened and he invaded Poland that the Allies finally did something.

Germany could have won but Hitler just acted stupidly. 

Ampersand

CYDdharta said:

I'm surprised at how short this thread is considering the number of blunders, both tactical and strategic, that the Allies made.  The raid on Dieppe, Operation Market Garden, Battle of Hürtgen Forest; none of them were necessary, and we wouldn't stand for the losses incurred in any of them.  In the Battle of Hürtgen Forest (a battle which the Allies could have avoided, surrounding the forest and starving Axis forces into submission), for instance, the Allies suffered 33,000 casualties.  As a point of reference, so far in total, Coalition forces have suffered 8,411 casualties in both Iraq and Afghanistan in 17 years of fighting.  In addition, the Allies blew it with some of their equipment.  The jet engine was developed by the British, but the Allies ignored it until the Germans demonstrated their effectiveness.  And when a major power fields a tank so under-armored and under-gunned that their crews nickname the tanks "Ronsons" because, like the lighter, they "light every time" they're struck, you know you have a problem.

No action in war is necessary - it's picking form the available options and trying to find what works and trying for the best available option. Also comparing WW2 to the Iraq and Afghanistan wars is fairly redundant as they're so very different in almost every way. 

It also fails to understand the chaos that war causes. Your last point refers to the the Sherman tank. Now this had problems early on with ammunition storage which were corrected in later models - as well as various upgrades which make some models like the M4A3E8 version in use by the end of the war contenders for the best tank of the time when all factors were taken into consideration. Tank design at the time was cutting edge as as everyone strove to be at the forefront or - in some cases - catch up. Pretty much all nations had serious issues with their tanks - Britain had lagged behind significantly in pre-war development and had to play catch-up with mediocre tanks for years; Germany made inefficient monsters like the Tiger and Panther which were almost as likely to be undergoing maintenance as actually available for the front lines and even the Soviets who made the revolutionary T-34 still hampered it massively with a lack of radio communication and no dedicated commander's position.

All sides improved on these issues as the war progressed but it is not especially noteworthy that when tank design was moving forward in leaps and bounds designs needed revisions to work out the issues and kinks.

CYDdharta

Ampersand said:

No action in war is necessary - it's picking form the available options and trying to find what works and trying for the best available option. Also comparing WW2 to the Iraq and Afghanistan wars is fairly redundant as they're so very different in almost every way. 

It also fails to understand the chaos that war causes. Your last point refers to the the Sherman tank. Now this had problems early on with ammunition storage which were corrected in later models - as well as various upgrades which make some models like the M4A3E8 version in use by the end of the war contenders for the best tank of the time when all factors were taken into consideration. Tank design at the time was cutting edge as as everyone strove to be at the forefront or - in some cases - catch up. Pretty much all nations had serious issues with their tanks - Britain had lagged behind significantly in pre-war development and had to play catch-up with mediocre tanks for years; Germany made inefficient monsters like the Tiger and Panther which were almost as likely to be undergoing maintenance as actually available for the front lines and even the Soviets who made the revolutionary T-34 still hampered it massively with a lack of radio communication and no dedicated commander's position.

All sides improved on these issues as the war progressed but it is not especially noteworthy that when tank design was moving forward in leaps and bounds designs needed revisions to work out the issues and kinks.

True, we can argue all day long about the differences between WWII and the War on Terrorism, but I believe the biggest change is in what society is willing to accept, which is what I was pointing out.  The Allies lost as many people in a training exercise as we did in a year of fighting terrorism.

As for the Sherman, I have to agree with the assessment that "The Sherman Was America’s Best Worst Tank".  Mechanically, it was quite capable and reliable, easy to work on and most importantly, easy for the US to mass produce.  As a tank, however, it had many major flaws, most of which would never be addressed.  It was under-gunned (the British would have better luck addressing this inadequacy with the Sherman Firefly variant).  It was under-armored, and it used a gasoline-powered engine.  Gasoline, as I'm sure you are aware, is rather volatile, which is not a particularly good attribute for a vehicle that is certain to be the target of artillery fire.  The better designed tanks, like the Panther, the Tiger, the T-34, all used diesel engines to reduce that problem.  While it's true that the Germans tended to over-engineer their tanks reducing their reliability, there is no question that on the battlefield, the Sherman was no match for the Tiger, the Panther, or even the Panzer MkIV.  Of note for this discussion, the Soviet T-34, which is widely regarded as the best tank of the war, was based on the American T-3 Christie tank; yet another opportunity and more American lives lost.

Ampersand

CYDdharta said:

Ampersand said:

No action in war is necessary - it's picking form the available options and trying to find what works and trying for the best available option. Also comparing WW2 to the Iraq and Afghanistan wars is fairly redundant as they're so very different in almost every way. 

It also fails to understand the chaos that war causes. Your last point refers to the the Sherman tank. Now this had problems early on with ammunition storage which were corrected in later models - as well as various upgrades which make some models like the M4A3E8 version in use by the end of the war contenders for the best tank of the time when all factors were taken into consideration. Tank design at the time was cutting edge as as everyone strove to be at the forefront or - in some cases - catch up. Pretty much all nations had serious issues with their tanks - Britain had lagged behind significantly in pre-war development and had to play catch-up with mediocre tanks for years; Germany made inefficient monsters like the Tiger and Panther which were almost as likely to be undergoing maintenance as actually available for the front lines and even the Soviets who made the revolutionary T-34 still hampered it massively with a lack of radio communication and no dedicated commander's position.

All sides improved on these issues as the war progressed but it is not especially noteworthy that when tank design was moving forward in leaps and bounds designs needed revisions to work out the issues and kinks.

True, we can argue all day long about the differences between WWII and the War on Terrorism, but I believe the biggest change is in what society is willing to accept, which is what I was pointing out.  The Allies lost as many people in a training exercise as we did in a year of fighting terrorism.

As for the Sherman, I have to agree with the assessment that "The Sherman Was America’s Best Worst Tank".  Mechanically, it was quite capable and reliable, easy to work on and most importantly, easy for the US to mass produce.  As a tank, however, it had many major flaws, most of which would never be addressed.  It was under-gunned (the British would have better luck addressing this inadequacy with the Sherman Firefly variant).  It was under-armored, and it used a gasoline-powered engine.  Gasoline, as I'm sure you are aware, is rather volatile, which is not a particularly good attribute for a vehicle that is certain to be the target of artillery fire.  The better designed tanks, like the Panther, the Tiger, the T-34, all used diesel engines to reduce that problem.  While it's true that the Germans tended to over-engineer their tanks reducing their reliability, there is no question that on the battlefield, the Sherman was no match for the Tiger, the Panther, or even the Panzer MkIV.  Of note for this discussion, the Soviet T-34, which is widely regarded as the best tank of the war, was based on the American T-3 Christie tank; yet another opportunity and more American lives lost.

There is no set limit to what society will accept now or in the future. If the USA suddenly found itself at war with China for instance, I believe the number of casualties it would be willing to accept would be far higher because of the nature of the struggle - far more in line with the WW2 type scenario than the current war on terror.

Also there are two key problems in your analysis:

1) The Sherman design did improve. You complain about it being under-armoured and undergunned for instance, but contrary to your claims that this was never addressed there were not only uparmoured and upgunned (76mm variants were built as well as the usage of HVAP shells and additional plates) of the Sherman but then additional models built as successors to the Sherman with a completely new design such as the M26 Pershing.

Many of your comments on the engine are also incorrect. There is very little statistical evidence to support gasoline engine tanks being more prone to fires - ammunition fires were the primary cause of catastrophic tank fires (as they were in early editions of the Sherman before they used wet ammo storage and other advances to correct this). Gasoline engines were generally prevalent in most countries due to the origins of the engines - most countries adapting existing engines for tanks rather than developing dedicated tank engines. The U.S. army for instance in the early war years favoured aircraft radial engines and in fact two of the three tanks you name as having diesel engines actually had gasoline engines - the Tiger and the Panther. They in fact had the same gasoline engine, the Maybach HL230. They had originally looked at a diesel prototype and Hitler had considered a diesel engine important, but in the end they went with a petrol variant.

2) This was before the age of the Main Battle Tank and all armies employed a variety of tanks for different roles. The Sherman's primary purpose was infantry support, requiring effective HE shells rather than AT capability. As mentioned above they did upgrade their gun, but they didn't particularly push this variant through in large numbers because there are always trade-offs in tank design (e.g. more armour = less manoeuvrability and speed) and in this case the change in calibre allowed for greater penetration with AT rounds but reduced the amount of charge from 1.47 pounds of explosive to .86 pounds which lowered the Sherman's use as an infantry support vehicle. This would have been particularly disastrous as for much of the war they didn't need the extra AT capability in the various aspects of the Mediterranean theatre, including Italy and even the first couple of months following on from Overlord, but He fire was vital. The various tank destroyer models like the M10, M18 and M36 were the designated tank killers, not the Sherman.

Also the T-34 was not based on the T-3 Christie tank. An early prototype had the Christie wheel and track system but it was removed before the tank even went into production. Early production models had the Christie suspension - which (in another example of trade-offs) has an issue is taking up a lot of room in the tank - but by 1942 this was getting phased out for a modern torsion bar suspension in newer T-34 models. After that the Christie tanks had no influence whatsoever on the T-34 and even before then they didn't influence the key components that lead to the T-34s success, its combination of armour and armament.

Lastly, you don't seem to have an actual basis for criticising the Sherman tank in comparison to other tanks. In one sentence you criticise the Sherman for not being a match for the Tiger, Panther or Pz IV (It actually would have been a fair equivalent to the PzIV or PzIII) even though it wasn't meant to stand up to heavy tanks, then in the very next sentence acclaim the T-34 as the best tank of the war even though it had exactly the same issue with being unable to match those same tanks. You can't have it both ways.

Both tanks would have struggled to stand up to a Tiger or Panther in a square one on one fight - however that was not their role and the Panther and Tiger were massive resource hogs. Although inter-country comparisons are difficult, Germany could have produced 10 StuG III assault guns for every 3 Tiger tanks it employed. When you take into account relative reliability and ability to actually field the vehicles without them breaking down and needing to go back in for maintenance Germany could have actually operated 7 StuG IIIs in the field for every 1 Tiger tank. If the US had chosen to make larger more costly tanks which were equivalent to the Panzer and Tiger (although hopefully less prone to comprehensively breaking down) they would have been producing a fraction of the number of vehicles and then with this new bigger design would almost certainly have had more operational breakdown issues. Producing less powerful vehicles is not in and of itself bad when it gives you the benefit of being able to produce more of them.

I have no idea why you would pick those tanks for comparison anyway. Panthers and Tigers always formed a minority of the German tank production while the Sherman was the standard workhorse of the American army. Why aren't you comparing like for like - comparing the standard US tank (Sherman) to the standard German tank (Pz III) or comparing the biggest most heavily armoured US tank (Pershing) to the biggest most heavily armoured German tank (Tiger)?

Ampersand

Pogue said:

They could have done a lot better by looking at them now. Their biggest mistake was letting Germany disobey the Treaty of Versailles. In complete violation of it, the first Luftwaffe squadrons were set up. Conscription was introduced and he pimped up his army. This went against Germany not being allowed to have an airforce and only allowed to have 100,000 men in the military. Hitler then militarized the Rhineland. He just strengthened his military and the Allies did nothing. 

The second thing they did wring was just letting Germany invade and conquer territories. He just went into Austria and it was Germany now. Next, he wanted the Sudetenland. This was an area filled with many ethnic Germans. The Allies let Germany do it but they had to sign this piece of paper saying that they will not invade the rest of Czechoslovakia. Chamberlain returned to Britain declaring that a crisis was averted. Then, the rest of Czechoslovakia was invaded. The Allies did nothing

It was not until Germany was strengthened and he invaded Poland that the Allies finally did something.

Germany could have won but Hitler just acted stupidly. 

I don't think letting Germany breach Versailles was necessarily bad in and of itself - if it had been done by a more liberal government asserting its sovereignty to ensure popular support for a domestic peaceful agenda then it wouldn't have been a problem - I think there is a general view even at the time that the terms of Versailles were harsh and unfair.

The problem is that Hitler breached it with a purposeful view to building power and invading other countries - which until it happened couldn't have been known.