Quote Originally Posted by English assassin
Absolutely spot on. "strongest" tank of the war for me was therefore unquestionably the Sherman in all its guises.

Not that I would have fancied being IN one in its tommycooker days, but then the early T34 had a lot of problems too. (Blindspots out to 200 yds? One man turret? No radio? No thanks)

Here's a random thought: how about the Matilda? Entirely impervious to 37 and 50mm AT fire, and withdrawn from service before 75mm guns came in. Survivability is looking good...
The Sherman, for all its obvious shortcomings, is vastly underrated. My vote still goes to the T-34, though, as it provides a better balance of combat effectiveness and reliability. In addition, the T-34 has a longer combat record, and, via the T-44, it lead to the T-54/55 series and most of the Soviet Union's future tank designs. (The Sherman essentially deadends; subsequent US tank designs follow from the M-26 Pershing). On a side note, the early T-34s had two-man turrets, not great, but infinitely better than a one-man turret; the T-34 M43 and T-34/85 had three man turrets and radios.

The Matilda II has always been one of my favorites (it just looks cool), but it's 2-pounder was not much use after 1942 and couldn't be upgunned, it was painfully slow, mechanically unreliable, and very expensive to make.

I'd probably rank the top WWII tanks as follows:

1. T-34 - revolutionary when introduced, best balance of protection/mobility/firepower, rugged and reliable, cheap and easy to produce.

2. M-4 Sherman - extremely versatile (75mm, 76mm, 105mm and 17-pounder versions as well as an assortment of specialty vehicles), cheap and easy to produce, extremely rugged and reliable.

3. Panther - excellent balance of protection/mobility/firepower, magnificent main armament

4. Tiger I - decent mobility/protection, fearsome main gun, fear factor

5. Panzer IV - in service throughout the war, decent mobility/protection, excellent main gun on late war models

6. Panzer III - the tank that made the blitzkreig happen, base chassis for the StuG III

7. IS-2 - massive main gun and frontal armor, decent mobility

8. Cromwell - good speed, decent protection, reliable

9. KV-1 - excellent protection, decent firepower, fear factor

10. M3 Stuart - good speed, decent protection for a light tank, excellent small bore cannon, reliable

After that, there's a whole bunch of mediocrity - British infantry tanks (Matilda, Valentine, Churchill), M3 Lee/Grant, Panzer II, T-70 - and even more general crap - M-13/40, early cruiser tanks, French tanks with their one-man turrets, pre-T-34 Soviet tanks