ORIGINAL: Darksheer

2 points

the simplified drive was designed for a panther that weighed 12+ tonnes less than what was actuallly produced when the flaw was discovered drivers were taught how to run the tank within these limitations and the problem went away with very little loss in performance.... also most of the drive failures were from sabotage from the slave labor being used at the factory
its a documented fact that during the rebuild of the littlefield panther they found a cigarette butt jammed into one of the oil tubes used to lubricate the drives and that the drives were the easiest part of the rebuild do to the bolts all being loose. also they spoke to surviors who stated they messed up the pours and machineing to make the gears brittle so they would fail anything to thwart the germans was done.

the russians didnt like the tiger or panther for the simple reason they could not fix them and thier crews had major problems operating the tank due to its complexity

second point

it was the other way around the germans captured huge amounts of russian artilllery and guns and used them on thier vehicles im sure the russians made some but the vast majority were made by the germans
The marder series is a prime example of this
the panther was concidered the best tank in the world till the late 50's france used them till then and some other countries did as well
and for reliability the panthers gun had zero issues which kinda derails your reliabilty claim. most panthers were in the defencive/delaying roll at this point and when mr reliable allied tank needs to close within 400 yards to pentrate "reliabley" ill take the immobilized panther 1800 meters away punching holes "reliably" at a rate of 12/15 rounds a minute over anything. specially in most cases something was behind it hooking up chains to drag the thing off

and honestly i take any US military history claims concerning ww2 with a grain of salt

PS sorry about the spelling