The last incarnations of the German Tiger tank were the most powerful overall tanks in the world through 1954, by most military analysts, when they worked. But it took them until 1945 to get the kinks out of it and by then they didn't have enough materiels to build more than a handful of them (The Tiger II). Plus, they were very, very finicky tanks that tended to break down a lot, had to use near-midgets for breech loaders, etc.

When I was a boy, a client of my father's was a former tank commander in the SS Tottenkopf (sp?) division and commanded a Tiger. He used to tell some really interesting storie....

>>>>There've been tons of examples of advanced technology that didn't survive; go >back and look at the tanks used in WWII - the German tanks were far more >advanced than the Sherman...
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>>>For years our military told us the Sherman was the better tank. The truth is a Tiger could fire one 88mm shell and destroy a Sherman. It took an average of three Shermans firing at one tread to knock the tread off the track and disable the Tiger.
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>>It didn't take the Tiger's 88 - the high-velocity 75 used on the Panther was more than adequate to fry a Sherman. A cranky Cub Scout with a pea shooter could do in a Sherman...
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>He darn well better have a lot of wind and freakin tanker load of peas, because there were 3 to 4 Sherman's to every Tiger and Panzers. Thats one of the reasons I don't speak German. :)