So much has been said about Germany losing the war because of building the Tiger or Panther instead of a Sherman/T34 type tank. I have got to disagree with this thinking. It didn't matter if Germany built a Tiger or some sort of Sherman/T34, they were going to lose because they didn't have the raw material to build enough of anything. So lets say they build a cheaper easy to produce tank: Now instead of a 20-1 kill ratio the Tiger had(or whatever the Tiger to Sherman/T34 kill ratio was), they are back to exchanging tanks 1 for 1 with Shermans and T34's. That strategy wont work any better then the historical strategy did because they can't produce as many tanks as either the US or the USSR much less both of them together. Fact of the matter is, Germany was going to lose, it's what happens when you pick a fight with the entire freaking world and your country is half the size of Texas, oh except for those wonderful butt-kicking Italians, and the Japanese on the other side of the planet.
Germany did not lost the war because it was building this or that type of tank. It lost the war because of many factors, like trying to take it on 3 major world powers, the quesionable use of it's resources, along with resources of it's allies occupied coutries, mistreatment or outright killing of many people it had under authority etc. Once they were against UK, the sea trade was out, once they were against USSR, they were into a quagmire they could not sustain, manpower fuel wise (but not only that), while loosing the cooperative power that was providing them with raw materials. Germany acquired many war-willing allies, yet it was not in position to equip them with decent arms until it was too late. The Axis have had it's problems in cooperation, the technical cooperation with Japan started way too late to matter.
Then, on battlefield level, Hitler tended to micro-manage stuff, much like Stalin early on, but unlike Allied leaders, and Stalin in later years.
With all of that taken into account (parsifal can cover economy mis-management), no tank, no matter how god, was to save Germany from defeat from 1942 on. You can note that, when Germany made its greatest victories, the tanks faced by them were mostly featuring either thicker armor, or bigger guns, or both. It was the German skillful use of combined arms, while having competent people from OKW down to riflemen that enabled the victories.
Further about taks Germany can use: we should not forget thousands of AT guns fielded, field fortifications, blockhouses, etc, all thing tanks need to tackle. If there is no enough tanks around, infantry need to do heavy lifting, at dire cost.
