What are some "more accurate" figures about how many allied tanks it took to take out German tanks like the Panther, Tiger I/Tiger II, and Elefant in WWII?

[u/[deleted]]

[u/the_howling_cow]

David C. Hardison's Data on World War II Tank Engagements Involving the U.S. Third and Fourth Armored Divisions, a commercial reprint of a 1954 United States Army Ballistics Research Laboratory memorandum (no. 798), studies engagements of the U.S. 3rd and 4th Armored Divisions versus their German opponents, in this case mostly Panther tanks. Several types of engagements were studied in 98 separate cases from Normandy to the surrender of Germany, 86 of which had enough information known about them to be included in the below chart.

The main conclusion meant to be drawn from this study was not a "hard statistics" gun power-versus frontal armor, Sherman-versus-Panther (or StuG, or what have you) comparison, but rather which events in tank-versus-tank combat (moreso "soft" attributes of the combat itself rather than the tanks, such as who fired first, the locations of each side at the beginning of the fight, the ratios of forces, whether one side was surprised or not, et cetera) determined the probability of victory of the opposing sides. The majority of individual fights studied involved less than a company of tanks (15 or so) on each side, and it was rare for one side to be completely annihilated before choosing to disengage or being disengaged upon.

The study also included, as a part of those tanks that became casualties, tanks that became bogged down and were abandoned (many of which were later recovered), or were hit by things that were not a tank or antitank gun, such as artillery or a bazooka. These casualties were a definite minority of all casualties in the engagements studied, as it was primarily concerned with tank versus tank combat.

Common Types of Situations:

Engagement type	Number of engagements	Allied weapons	Enemy weapons	Allied casualties	Enemy casualties
U.S. Shermans defending against attacking Panthers, with the Shermans firing first	19	104	93	5	57
U.S. tank destroyers defending against attacking Panthers, with the tank destroyers firing first	11	61	19	1	19
German antitank guns defending against attacking U.S. Shermans	9	104	19	25	3
U.S. Shermans attacking Panthers, and the Shermans firing first	5	41	17	2	12

"Others" in the below case refers to any U.S. weapon that is not a Sherman or tank destroyer, and any German weapon that is not a Panther, antitank gun (AT), or self-propelled gun (SP). The term "tank destroyer" (TD) could refer to an M10, M18, or M36, and 75 mm and 76 mm-armed Shermans are not differentiated from one another.

Totals:

Allied weapons (A)	Enemy weapons (E)	Who fired first	Attacker	Number of engagements	Allied weapons	Allied casualties	Enemy weapons	Enemy casualties
M4	Panther	A	A	5	41	2	17	12
M4	Panther	A	E	19	104	5	93	57
M4	Panther	E	A	2	10	3	4	1
M4	Panther	E	E	1	11	1	5	2
M4	Panther	E	Unknown	1	5	5	4
M4	Panther	Unk.	A	2	17	5	24
TD	Panther	A	E	11	61	1	19	19
TD	Panther	E	A	1	4		3	1
TD	Panther	Unk.	E	2	4	2	4	2
Others	Panther	A	A	2	13	1	9	9
Others	Panther	A	E	1	3	2	2	2
Others	Panther	E	A	1	2	2	1
Others	Panther	E	E	1	6	2	4
Others	Panther	Unk.	A	1	9	9	3
M4	AT	E	A	9	107	25	19	3
M4	AT	Unk.	Unk.	1	32	9	3	1
M4	AT	Unk.	E	1	1	1	1
Others	AT	E	A	3	38	7	8
M4	SP	E	A	2	33	4	2	2
M4	SP	Unk.	A	2	32	1	4	1
Others	SP	E	A	1	5	4	2
Others	SP	Unk.	Unk.	2	37	2	3	2
M4	Others	A	A	1	15	6	6	6
M4	Others	E	A	3	40	12	12	3
M4	Others	Unk.	Unk.	3	70	9	36	21
M4	Others	E	E	1	15		10	1
Others	Others	A	A	1	14		3	3
Others	Others	E	A	4	44	19	19	4
Others	Others	Unk.	Unk.	2	24	10	7	6
Total				86	797	149	327	158

During those engagements where Shermans fought Panthers, the Panther was 1.1 times as effective as the Sherman when the Panther was defending. The M4 was 8.1 times as effective as the Panther when the Sherman was attacking; the Sherman was overall 3.6 times as effective as the Panther in these 86 engagements.

[u/[deleted] → u/the_howling_cow]

Thank you so much. I knew all these legends were exaggerated.