What was the main reason that Germany lost w.w.2?

The Italians themselves used to refer to their tanks as "self-propelled coffins."

You did, and I was too dense to catch it. Sorry. (Your reply and my edit crossed.)

I agree that the premises of the question aren't true. In addition, the frequent comparison between the quality of German and American tanks ignores the fact that German and American armored warfare doctrines differed markedly. German doctrine, influenced by stormtroop tactics in the First World War, saw tanks as a means for breakthrough and exploitation. American doctrine, in contrast, saw tanks as mobile infantry support artillery. The Tiger was suited for German doctrine but not for American, whereas the Sherman was suited for American doctrine but not for German. Viewed in this light, it is harder to argue that the Tiger was vastly superior to the Sherman.

There's another aspect, too, which seriously challenges superficial judgments. The Tiger and Panther tanks were resource intensive, they required highly-skilled workmen to machine the parts and assemble them, and they were high maintenance. Their battlefield range was less than 200 km. Although that's the same as a Sherman tank, the Allies were able to deploy the Sherman on an order of about 30:1 to the Tiger I. The Tiger II had an even shorter range, and there were fewer than 500 manufactured. I have read that German infantry said that a Tiger could take out ten Shermans before the Shermans could get the Tiger, and the Amis (Amerians) always have at least 11.

One of the things that made the Tigers high-maintenance was the treads, which wore out quickly. This meant that they were usually transported to the intended operational area by rail. That was OK when they were used in the offensive role of which Joe writes, but it didn't work out really well for them after June, 1944.

I agree with Joe--based on a comprehensive examination of all the relevant factors, they were not superior. I believe that the same can be said of a comparison of the Tiger and the T34. Guderian and von Kleist called the T34 the deadliest tank in the world.

Speaking of the Italians...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SdsKz_0JcQk

I agree. The Tiger was a very good tank if you had unlimited supplies of oil and an undamaged industrial infrastructure working at full capacity. Germany had neither. So although the Tiger may have been a great machine, it was inappropriate in light of Germany's military and industrial situation at that time. In short, Germany bought a Mercedes tank on a Volkswagen budget.

That may be indicative of a German tendency to "over-engineer" weapons. The Germans decried the American method of "Materialschlacht" - in effect, applying the lessons of mass industrialization to the battlefield by over-producing relatively cheap weapons and emphasizing quantity over quality. But the Americans adopted a method of warfare that was well-suited to their industrial base, and the results were impressive. In other words, America bought a Buick tank on a Buick budget.

That's bullshit. I've spoken with people who were living in Russia in the 30s. Theyy all say the CCCP was on the edge of collapse. Hitler needed to invade England, he did not need to invade Russia.

I wasn't reflecting the Russian view but that from Germany.

Oh yeah, sure . . . he needn't have worried about insignificant things like the RAF and the Royal Navy. The first German fallschirmjäger (paratroop) division did not reach full strength until 1941. In their first mission in Holland in 1940, their performance was a complete failure. They later did very well in Belgium, but the division consisted of just two under-strength regiments. It is highly unlikely that they would have been able to set up and hold an airhead while troops were ferried across the channel, which is the only thing that would have made a successful invasion possible. Had Hitler not interfered, Hermann Göring's plan to destroy the RAF in southern England might (might, mind you) have succeeded, at which time the Kreigsmarine would have had a very narrow window of opportunity to ferry and escort troops across the channel.

When Scharnhorst, Gneisenau and Prinz Eugen made their "Channel dash" in 1942, Adolf Galland says that he was able to defend them by keeping 50 aircraft overhead at all times. However, the two battleships, the cruiser and the destroyers and torpedo boats has a twelve hour start before they were detected. They weren't going to get that steaming across the Straits of Dover. Even with Galland's air cover, hundreds of aircraft succeeded in breaking through to attack. They were attacking a moving target--that would not have been the case in an invasion.

Such an invasion would have been "do-able," but certainly not assured, as your remarks seem to suggest. Hitler screwed the pooch when he interfered with Göring's attack on the RAF. The RAF bombed Berlin, and the idiot Hitler had an hysterical fit and ordered the bombing campaign to be switched to London. No invasion would have been possible without first destroying the RAF, and even then the Royal Navy made it a very dicey proposition. Hitler made sure it would never happen with his idiot decision to bomb London.

...and that his mother, the dirty bugger, cut the other off when he was small. And that Göring didn't have any at all.

The reasons for invading Russia were actually various:
their were the ideological differences,
the Russian territorial claims, which Hitler wanted to prevent,
then, of course and most important, the German territorial claims (Lebensraum Ost),
not to forget economic reasons - especially for getting much needed supplies of natural sources,
the Russian troops were moving towards the German borders ... ... ...

Better say that quietly when Supermarine fans are around. The Mustang airframe certainly came into its own when it was married to the Rolls-Royce Merlin engine, 37,000 of which were manufactured under licence by Packard.

In 1944, The RAF compared a Spitfire XIV (with a Griffon 65 engine) with a Mustang III (P51-B) in a tactical test. (The report doesn't say if the P51 had an Allison or a Merlin engine) The conclusions were:

Radius of Action
Without a long range tank, the Spitfire XIV has no endurance. With a 90 gallon long-range tank it has about half the range of the Mustang III fitted with 2 x 62 1/2 gallon long range tanks.

Maximum Speed
The maximum speeds are practically identical.

Maximum Climb
The Spitfire XIV is very much better.

Dive
As for the Spitfire IX. The Mustang pulls away, but less markedly.

Turning Circle
The Spitfire XIV is better.

Rate of Roll
The advantage tends to be with the Spitfire XIV.

Conclusion
With the exception of endurance no conclusions can be drawn, as these two aircraft should never be enemies. The choice is a matter of taste.

I know this is oranges vs. apples, but I would suggest maybe that the Spit was the ultimate dogfighter and not a very good bomber escort without long range tanks, whereas the P51 was a good dogfighter and the ultimate bomber escort. At least that's what my dad (603 Squadron, 1940-45) always said. Still does, actually.

The Royal Navy's chief test pilot, Captain Eric Brown tested the Mustang in March 1944, and noted:

"The Mustang was a good fighter and the best escort due to its incredible range, make no mistake about it. It was also the best American dogfighter. But the laminar flow wing fitted to the Mustang could be a little tricky. It could not by no means out-turn a Spitfire [sic]. No way. It had a good rate-of-roll, better than the Spitfire, so I would say the plusses to the Spitfire and the Mustang just about equate. If I were in a dogfight, I'd prefer to be flying the Spitfire. The problem was I wouldn't like to be in a dogfight near Berlin, because I could never get home to Britain in a Spitfire!"

Chuck Yeager, a World War II ace and America's most famous test pilot can answer that one. In a television interview he once said: "What a Spitfire could do for 40 minutes, a Mustang could do for eight hours." In Galland's war memoir, The First and Last, he tells of Mustangs which had turned back at Aachen after the bomber stream was taken up by P47 escorts, and returned to Germany to shoot up the highways and the railroads, and which followed German fighters back to their air bases and shot those up, too.

The P51 was the best fighter plane in Europe, there is no doubt about that.

However, to say it was the best fighter plane of the war is stretching it. The Japanese Zero was a remarkable aircraft, with its weakness being it had no armor.

IMHO, the best fighter plane of the war was the Corsair. It had the speed, it had firepower, it could take a beating, it was capable of long range, and it was able to operate off of short runways.
It was everything you could want in a fighter plane.

Most of the bad carrier landing scenes in Victory at Sea involve Corsairs. The one thing the Corsair never got good at was carrier landings.

I can't agree with that. I would want some armor to make it survivable. It was also "under-gunned." P40s, Buffaloes and Wildcats all survived attacks by Zeros in the opening days of the war. If any of them could actually get in a position to fire on a Zero--which they frequently did--nine times out of ten,the pilot and his aircraft were doomed.

That was the pilot, not the plane.

I doubt anyone with real responsibility during WWII was quite so sanguine about the Allies' superiority over Germany and the Axis.

It's not as if the Allies made one brilliant decision after another, while the Germans couldn't take a military step without tripping over their jackboots.

In retrospect, it's hard to imagine how Germany thought it could ever prove victorious, but we need to keep in mind that simultaneously a major war was being fought with Japan. This may have had a greater impact on the US than the rest of the Allies, but not, by any means, exclusively so.

You can't win a war without two important things . firstly, a nation needs money ,or the ability to borrow it;this was almost an impossibility for germany ,given who controls international finances. secondly a nation needs the backing and support of the world media;and we know who controls that.
germany had been for a long time on a barter system with east europe . henry ford was only one a very few foreign investors and that didn't last long.
german ingenuity allowed for improvisation but with the brit navy, that went only so far.

well the media ;let's say without media backing no nation can fight any war.

without u.s media supporting the invasion of iraq ,it probably wouldn't been able to take off.

Every major media in the world portrayed germany as a nation out to conquer the world and deprive the world of its freedoms. Even the soviets were concerned about this.

The Australians?