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Comment by munin | Hacker News Reader

> America built 74,000 Sherman hulls and engines; Germany built just 1,347 Tigers.

The Tigers were heavy tanks plagued by manufacturing problems. The Sherman was a medium tank more comparable to the Panzer line - the Germans built around 45,000 of those. The American M6 was comparable to the Tigers, of which few were built and 0 saw battle.

Panzer is just the German generic term for tank (or more literally, "armor".) Everything from the tiny, machine-gun armed Panzer I, to the Panzer VI Tiger.

The standard, 75mm Sherman was roughly equal to the long-barreled Panzer IV (~6000 built).

Sherman: 33-ton tank, Tiger: 60-ton tank; Sherman: mainstay of US armor, Tiger: heavy tank. You're comparing apples and oranges.

The Sherman's counterpart was the Panzer - which the Germans still only built roughly 15k of - but then again, the Germans also made heavy use of tank destroyers and assault guns - the Stug III by themselves were another 10k worth of hulls.

But, again, just because someone has more capacity than you doesn't mean you're not building at scale.

"Panzer" just means "armor", and was the label used for all German tanks. Everything from the tiny Panzer I to the Panzer VI Tiger. Presumably you're thinking of the Panzer IV? But only about 8000 were built, of which only about 6000 were the long-barreled version which could match the Sherman.

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