Yes Wittman was truly one of the greatest Tank commanders of all time but at Villars Bocage he came up against mainly lighter Tanks (Stuarts etc) and Armoured Vehicles rather than heavier armour and tanks (these mainly being cromwells which were never great). Also he had the element of surprise and a lot of combat experience. However, the Tiger never arrived in enough numbers to make the difference and although the Tiger commanders were of the highest calibre they were never used to their full potential by high command. Rather than use them in force to attack they had them split over all units where they were too watered down to acheive what they could have done - which is just as well for the allies. The Allies suffered themselves with poor tactics and also from lack of experience that people like Wittman had and this added to the losses and high attrition rate, but as the war progressed and better armour was supplied then the tables turned and not even the Tiger could stem the tide. Documents now show that even Wittman sucumbed to a lonely Firefly that took out most of his unit (6 Tigers) that day and not to a mass atack from Shermans. It was well concealed and well commanded and proved that the Tiger was not the invincible war machine that the German propoganda machine had portratyed. I appreciate that to the allied tankers on the field the Tiger was a terrifying sight and cannot immagine what it must have been like to come up against but my main point is that it happened a lot less than people think as there were less Tigers on the field than folk actually believed - every German Tank was called a Tiger even if it were only a Panzer at one point with Kursk being a prime example (and yes I know that was in Russia but this was also the case in France).

As for the Pershing, I am not aware of it ever being used by the UK in WWII due to the small number that were available being made for the US troups although no doubt someone will have a reference to it (which I would like to see as it would make an interesting modelling project ). The British tended to use the Firefly anyway as although it was not match in armour for the German Tanks it could still penetrate their armour.