ORIGINAL: pcomm1
The German 2nd and 3rd generation WWII tanks are interesting, my favorite models to build and paved the way for much later modern tank design, for sure. But in 1944 and 1945 those tanks were dangerous
duds.
OK, clearly the 3rd generation of German tanks on paper clearly out classed the USA 2nd generation Sherman tank. But in the field the German 3rd generation tanks did not perform to expectations.
The Panthers failed in the 3rd Invasion of Russia, they couldn't even drive to the fight without breaking down. The King Tigers couldn't get through the Ardennes without similar problems.
Patton was right to stick with the Sherman, big Sherman tank numbers, Sherman reliability, beat the new German (more modern for the era); and better high quality industrial design tank concepts on the WWII battlefield.
During WWII, unit movements, logistics and maintenance proved to be the most important necessary factors to achieve armored victory. 
Wolfgang Schneider in both
Tiger in Combat I and Panzer Tactics repeatedly writes (with some defiant pride, I might add, LOL) about the significant losses of both type of Tigers do to mechanical breakdowns, their inability to travel many road types or terrain; the issues getting across bridges and the painful labor – time required to get any Tiger aboard a railroad flat car for movement to the next fight.
Remember, General Patton had his tankers just drive at top tank speed over European roads & terrain to get to the next fight!
And of course, Allied air power destroyed much of the German rail system making the movement of any German tank even more difficult.
The Germans might be living in Antwerp today if they could have driven all their spearhead King Tigers over the narrow country roads, terrain and bridges during the Battle of the Bulge, December 1944.
But they couldn't and didn't. And that was the key bitter German Military lesson learned and cost Germany virtually all its remaining armored forces necessary to defend Germany's European Front.
A tank that you can't get to the fight is worthless and Patton seemed to know that.
Heck, the US Army was still returning captured King Tigers to the German Army as late as 1956. By wars end the US Army was no doubt the largest operator of German 3rd generation tanks.
Though they had a very difficult time getting them started.
As with a lot of pcomm1 posts they are usually filled with little fact and plenty of propaganda this post is no different.
What are you talking about, you have a situation where Germany has been loosing the war since 1943 its industrial infrastructure is decimated building Pz IV and Stug III in the numbers it did is an achievement in its self but building Panther and Tiger II in this period is an outstanding achievement as for your statement of “Dangerous duds” Tiger II had the highest crew survival rate of the war unlike Sherman which had one of the worst
I take it from this statement you mean Panther D and the battle was Kursk, which as you say was a huge problem but one has to remember that this tank was 9 months from design board to production without testing but by late 43 when the A model was introduced all these problems where resolved and went on to be the finest medium tank of the war and no country then or since including the US has designed and built a tank in 9 months these days not even 9 years.
Patton blah blah blah had his political carrier to guard, pity the Pershing proved him wrong.
Schneider, in all 3 Volumes of Tigers in Combat and other books he has written points out the problems with Heavy tanks and the deployment of these tanks in Russian 90% of roads where not paved but merely compressed dirt which in rainy seasons turned to rivers of mud this effected the Russians as much as the Germans as did the bridges in this area most where made of wood and where designed to carry horse and cart not tanks of any description, yes the Germans had a hard time building bridges to carry tanks but they built timber bridges to carry 56 tone tanks, and if you wanted to invade Russia today you would still have the same problems in many areas but you would have tanks that are now 70 tonnes
Patton blah blah blah again, Sherman shed track ends at an alarming rate apart from spent cartages shed Sherman track ends litter Europe due to there frequent failure and even the mighty Sherman had to have frequent maintenance stops to replace track ends or tighten the bolts on the track ends on top of all the other maintenance issues there are plenty of pictures and film showing the crew with spanners at work on the tracks, top speed would clearly be out of the question especially with vastly overstretched supply lines.
Allied air power did destroy vast amounts of rail but the Germans did move there tanks over considerable distances much to the annoyance of Montgomery
Tiger II was not the spearhead of the German advance in the Ardennes offensive they where used in small numbers in 2 abteilungs, Pieper had part of SS501 attached to him he put them at the rear of the advance this is well documented unless of cause you use Hollywood as reference, and the biggest problem the Germans had was lack of fuel which had to be captured on the first day of the offensive which it was, the offensive was domed to failure due the fuel shortages and lack of man power, and if it wasn’t for the British and Canadians lending a hand again the US cost would have been even higher than it was.
Patton also knew that a tank full of holes when it got to the front was more useless than one that didn’t make it but then he never crewed a Sherman so didn’t have the worry.
The US has only ever returned 1 Tiger II to Germany which was one of 2-3 captured in tact the rest either destroyed by the crews or disabled then destroyed by the crews, the US only ever fought a small Number of Tigers far smaller than the English and Canadians fought in Normandy, the largest operator of German tanks again was not the US but the French who used several Tiger I and II along with Panther, Panzer IV and Stug III the Russians also used a number of captured Panthers, the French used Panther up to the 1970’s and helped in the development of the AMX series they also supplied 75mm guns to Israel for the M50 Isherman which was a direct copy of the Panther 75mm gun , there are no known pictures of German tanks in US use and one Panther “KooKoo” used by the English, the English also built around 30-40 Panther and Jagdpanther for testing purposes after the war Bovington has one of each and there are several other British built Panthers in museums.
Germans only had problems starting there tanks when it was -20 or worse other than that they where no worse than any other tank