Cryhavoc101
Donor
On the subject of cost of a certain peice of equipment - for me more important is the man hours and the ability of that nation to mass produce them
An example would be the Lewis gun - it was for various reasons including a large liceance fee more expensive to make than a Vickers MMG however for the same man hours you could build 5 of them!
So comparing the Tiger to a Sherman in purely terms of cost does not really tell us that much as US workers were among the best paid in the world which increased the cost relative to other nations and the Shermans were being built in Kahn sytle modern factories using modern mass production methods including single use machine tools and relatively low skilled workers (the same is true to a much higher degree when considering the war time T-34 which where being made to the lowest possible standard ie only intended for 6 months of service or 1 day in combat) - while in Germany the Tiger tanks by comparison were being effectively hand made with limited machine tools having to be recalibrated for multiple jobs.
Had the USA decided to build the M6 heavy tank from late 42 it would very likely have spammed out many 1000s of them, the KV1s and IS2s where also produced in 1000s and the Churchill was likewise built in larger numbers than the Tiger - not because they were necesarily easier to build but because of the fashion in which they were built allowing them to be built in larger numbers.
So there
An example would be the Lewis gun - it was for various reasons including a large liceance fee more expensive to make than a Vickers MMG however for the same man hours you could build 5 of them!
So comparing the Tiger to a Sherman in purely terms of cost does not really tell us that much as US workers were among the best paid in the world which increased the cost relative to other nations and the Shermans were being built in Kahn sytle modern factories using modern mass production methods including single use machine tools and relatively low skilled workers (the same is true to a much higher degree when considering the war time T-34 which where being made to the lowest possible standard ie only intended for 6 months of service or 1 day in combat) - while in Germany the Tiger tanks by comparison were being effectively hand made with limited machine tools having to be recalibrated for multiple jobs.
Had the USA decided to build the M6 heavy tank from late 42 it would very likely have spammed out many 1000s of them, the KV1s and IS2s where also produced in 1000s and the Churchill was likewise built in larger numbers than the Tiger - not because they were necesarily easier to build but because of the fashion in which they were built allowing them to be built in larger numbers.
So there