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While this forum does have a presence of Panzer Police, who have an obvious chip on their shoulder, I don't think you quite understand why you got downvotes.
First of all, your post was inflammatory and was inviting a fight. Back in the mid-2000s, when the "Sherman vs. Panzers" debate was starting to turn, this was the sort of behavior that was most exhibited by Germanophiles. These days, it's the other way around and I wish the pendulum would just stop.
Secondly, your post wasn't 'verifiable fact.' While there were kernels of truth in it, your hyperbolic overstatement of the Mark V being a 'piece of trash' was just that: hyperbolic.
Even the staunchest Sherman fanboys (and believe me, I am one of them) will tend to agree, when armed with the information, that the 'Panther' was the superior vehicle. That's why we tend to avoid the comparison where possible; it's just not worth going in to, and it's not like the Mark V became the majority of the Panzerwaffe in the West until around the beginning of the Battle of the Bulge. Even before then, after Normandy, the majority of Mark Vs were concentrated under the command of the ill-designed Panzer Brigades, who had very mixed success.
These operational failures don't speak to the quality of the tank. Rather, they speak to the tactical and strategic situation. In most of the battles wherein Shermans fail, you will often find that it isn't because of any sort of inadequacy of the M4, either; it's because of the disposition and employment of the hardware.
An interesting take on the comparison between the M4A3(76)w HVSS (which won't be present in this game, in any case) and the Pz.Kpfw. V can be found in the pages of United States vs. German Equipment, compiled by Major General Isaac D. White:
As you can see, here, these weaknesses are mostly of strategic significance and don't lend the M4 with very many advantages in the middle of an actual tactical-scale action against the foe. That being said, the Panzerphiles on this board have been equally insipid in their never-ending quest to degrade the Allies to nothing more than cavemen banging rocks together until somehow they won.
I may try the 101st airborne, always been an airborne fanboy since i was a child 
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Really interested to see how the infantry mechanics will play out.
.Really interested to see how the infantry mechanics will play out.
I don't think I effectively communicated my actual point. The conclusion to everything that I said wasn't whether one tank was better than the other. The original post was a response to a claim that the Americans didn't have any good tanks and the Germans did. I was arguing that the Sherman isn't given enough credit, and that the Panther is given more than it really deserves. I also didn't say that the Panther was "trash", but that it was put into service before it was ready and suffered severe mechanical problems, in addition to other drawbacks that are often brushed over.
I said that the Sherman was the best tank in its class in its time period — ~30 ton medium tanks. While the Germans classified the Panther as a medium tank (and, doctrinally, it was used as one), it weighed substantially more (heavier even than the Churchill heavy tank), and the Allies considered it a heavy tank. In my book, it's a bit of an apples and oranges situation.
Thanks for sharing that book chapter, though. It was very informative. Here's where a lot of what I said about the Sherman came from.
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He didn't say a lot of the things you were saying. You sprinkled your posts with opinion phrases and hyperbole that were not present in your source material. Do note, as well, that if you outright refuse to acknowledge the comparison between the M4 and the Mark V on grounds of weight, then you must also carefully judge whether it's proper to compare the American tank to the Mark IV. Especially considering that the M4 has the advantage of being about five to six years newer than its more numerous contemporary. In the future, I would politely ask that you mind your research. I also suggest that you reevaluate your loyalties to a piece of hardware.
The World of Tanks community is the worst thing to have happened in the school of armored warfare history. Get some kids who've played a few hours of that game, watch a few of Chieftain's videos, and think they're ready to match wits with people who have access to and have extensively read peer-reviewed works and primary sources.
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Seeing as the weight has a direct influence on the flghting qualities of the tank and age doesn't, why wouldn't it be a good idea to compare them?
The medium tank M2 came along 3 years after the first Panzer IV, did that make it a better combat vehicle?
Don't get me wrong, though: aside from the utter crap final drive/maintainability and the gunner's only way to look outside being his sight, Panther was a better tank than any wartime Sherman. No dispute there. The Jumbo rectified the armor disadvantage and the Firefly fixed the firepower difference, but both of those were troubled in one way (weight for the design) or another (rate of fire) that the Panther wasn't, so there were no real allied equivalents until M26/Centurion Mk. 1/T-44.
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Missed the point of my post.
Some people like to say that the Sherman/Panther comparison is invalid because of the weight difference. Then they turn around and say that the Panzer 3, Panzer 4/Sherman comparison is perfectly valid. In both cases, one of the vehicles has a substantial weight advantage.
I agree that Panzer III is not comparable. Gun's much smaller and less powerful, even on the ausf. N, armor's much lighter, even on ausf. J+, and at its heaviest it weighed about 22 tons. If anything, it's comparable to M24.
I really have to disagree re: Panzer IV, though. Sherman A1 (30 tons) has a 4-ton weight advantage over the comparable PzIVH (26 tons). T-34 model 1942, which is comparable to both, weighs right in between them at 28.5-ish. They're all reasonably similar in terms of 'raw stats'- none is very slow, or particularly heavily armored, or has a particularly large gun. That's not to say that they weren't different in important ways, but none had an overbearing advantage over the others.
Panther D weighs 44 tons. That's ~47% more than Sherman. Sherman is only ~15% heavier than PzIVH. That's a pretty big difference, and it shows, because Panther did have an overbearing advantage over M4A1 when employed properly.
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The point is that the Sherman is still heavier - regardless of your cherry picking a secondary model.
So, where is the line drawn? Is it only "okay" when the American tank is heavier than the German tank, but not the other way around? That's a double standard. Where do you draw the line? Any answer you give is going to be arbitrary.
The correct way to compare these vehicles is by deployment and operational role. The M4 Medium was the primary offensive weapon of the tank battalions where it was deployed. The Pz.kpfw V was the primary offensive weapon of the OpFor tank battalions where it was deployed, regardless of weight. You can make any arbitrary rule about weight you want; it doesn't change reality.
So, where is the line drawn? Is it only "okay" when the American tank is heavier than the German tank, but not the other way around? That's a double standard. Where do you draw the line? Any answer you give is going to be arbitrary.
The correct way to compare these vehicles is by deployment and operational role. The M4 Medium was the primary offensive weapon of the tank battalions where it was deployed. The Pz.kpfw V was the primary offensive weapon of the OpFor tank battalions where it was deployed, regardless of weight. You can make any arbitrary rule about weight you want; it doesn't change reality.
The H was not a secondary model.
Why? You could make the same argument for Sherman Jumbo vs. Panzer IV H. It's not a US vs. Germany thing. I don't know why you think I want it to be.
So why bother classifying them at all? Tiger I was the primary offensive weapon of its battalions, until Tiger II started superseding that in its role.
The M4A1, however, was.
Because the Tigers were designated Heavy Tanks, assigned to Heavy Tank Battalions, which were attached to divisions by the Army Corps headquarters. They were not organic to divisions (in all but one case.) These were Corps level weapon systems that were designed to fulfill a different mission requirement from the tanks of the organic Panzer battalion.
Kind of like U.S. Tank Destroyers.
As compared to what? The M4 or the M4A3, both of which were lighter than the A1?
Fair enough. I guess you're right.
M4A1 came in at 30,300kg
M4A1 (76)w (late production) came in at 32,000kg
M4A3 (75)w came in at 31,600kg
M4A3 (76)w came in at 32,300kg
The first generation M4A3 was, indeed, lighter than the first generation M4A1. But that was only a small production batch prior to improvements being made to the whole line; 1,690 hulls for the former, 6,281hulls for the later.
Tallied up, not counting Tank Destroyers built on the M4A3 chassis, you get around 12,342 M4A3s compared to 9,527 M4A1s by war's end. Of these M4A1s, 3,024 were set aside for foreign aid. Of the M4A3s, the U.S. Army kept all but 7. The M4A3 was viewed by the U.S. Army as the best of the type for their logistical requirements. It also had a far better performing engine than the M4, M4A1, and M4A4.
But, in closing, I am personally of the opinion that the M4 series is a brilliant piece of hardware that managed to prove itself as a suitable workhorse despite its troubled development cycle. It is, after all, my favorite tank. That being said: refusing to compare it to the Panther on the basis of weight is arbitrary, when both vehicles were deployed and utilized in the same role. Especially when zealous Sherman fanatics are eager to turn their sights on the lighter Pz.Kpfw III and IVs, just to make 'their' tank look better.
43rd Wessex... if its in the game.
Or one of the british armoured divisions, preferably the 7th armoured division, then the 11th, then the guards.
Or one of the british armoured divisions, preferably the 7th armoured division, then the 11th, then the guards.
Atleast the Sherman worked properly. 76 Armed shermans were slightly better then the P4H but if a working panther showed up it was a bit outclassed but thats when you call a plane.