Comments by "Retrosicotte" (@Retrosicotte) on "Leopard 2: The German Battle Tank Turns 40 | Forces TV" video.

@deserteagle6776 They really didn't. Either too expensive, too heavy, too unreliable, or too big a logistics impact.
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@bobsjepanzerkampfwagen4150 Such as horrible road-wheel layout. Such as small details irrelevant to the quality that they still spent far too much time/money on (Bovington has a perfect comparison with chains). Such as spending time and money on pointless stupid prototypes. Such as having an awful gunner position ergonomic for sighting on the Panther that leaves them blind bar the small aperture gunsight. Such as chronic unreliability in every tank made from scratch in service after 1941. Such as exceeding their own logistics limits to the point they needed to constantly change treads and make their situation even worse than before. Such as forgetting to put MGs on a tank destroyer. Such as using overly hungry engines. Such as using full chassis lift conditions for maintenance, such as badly designed slow open cupolas...the list only goes on.
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@sanakhtthefatetwister9116 That's a roundabout way of saying "they were bad in combat". Logistics, maintenance, user ergonomics are all part of combat.
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@deserteagle6776 All the more reason not to completely overengineer them to the point of anal retentive unneccessity.
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@bobsjepanzerkampfwagen4150 You miss my point. The critique isn't that they needed good tanks that could overmatch numbers. The critique is that the designs they chose were riddled with inefficiency and flaws that were not a "tradeoff" but just were flat out due to bad design.
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@sanakhtthefatetwister9116 Not necessarily. The Panther as you say had severe issues with its 'time on target'. From point of Commander spot to gunner engage was much longer than its enemies, while its crew survival rate on damage was hampered by poor cupola design. Factor in the machine's unreliability to break down in combat conditions, and on a tactical scale, it wasn't necessarily a "better tank". Better armour, maybe. But many many times Panthers lost more than they achieved in terms of victory due to their drawbacks, and experienced crews dying rather than surviving never helps.
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@Crackmonkey2110 Hard to be efficient in battle when most of them break down, can' t reach, take too long to make, and have bad user layouts. Meanwhile the M4 and T-34 were out there actually winning battles and retaining operational pace whether they had numerical superiority or not against the supposedly "more efficient" tanks. Once you look at war through the lens of more than a video game, it becomes clear how bad they were.
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@Crackmonkey2110 Good thing mine is based in hard facts where opinion isn't a thing then. The issues I've mentioned are all hard facts. Bad roadwheel design - Fact. Bad gunner position - Fact. Slow cupolas - Fact. Too heavy for train transit without modification - Fact. Unreliable - Fact. Very expensive - Fact. etc etc etc
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@Crackmonkey2110 And yet by using a better designed, more reliable, simpler to maintain vehicle that matched their logistical capabilities, they won the war. It was by far a more efficient design, because it actually had an effect on the outcome. The big cats did not, if anything they lost it even faster.
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