When talking about German tanks, the first thing they remember is not the graceful "Panther" or "workhorse" in the person of the Panzer IV. In the minds of the vast majority of people, the main “give you fantasy” of the Third Reich pops up - Panzerkampfwagen VI “Tiger”. The question arises: why did neither our ancestors nor the Allies try to copy such a formidable machine?
In fact, the answer to the question: why did they not copy the formidable "Tiger" is quite simple and consists of two parts. First reason is that, as paradoxical as it may sound, it was corny hard to copy German tanks, even if it was possible to capture the maximum entire copy for study. And all because in German production in the 1930s and 1940s there was a lot of manual assembly. Both in the USSR and the USA factories increasingly gave preference to process automation. The average quality of specialists on the assembly line in the main democracy of the planet and the country of victorious socialism was lower than in the German Reich. However, the degree of automation of the assembly line was much higher, which made it possible to make many of the same, cheap and simple tanks. And the key word here is "many". Unfortunately for the pedantic Germans, in an all-out protracted war, quality most often does not beat quantity.
Yes, German locksmiths could do true miracles in production literally with a file in their hands. And the German technology was really great. However, no matter how strange it sounds: two identical "Tigers" assembled at the same plant, as a result, could differ in dimensions almost on the palm of your hand... They didn’t get worse from this, but mass production and subsequent repairs are very suffered.
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The second important reason is the organization of production lines. As a rule, the development of fundamentally new products requires the installation of new equipment, additional training of specialists, and re-equipment of the entire line. In a war, no one will do this. That is why much attention is paid not so much to the development and development of something fundamentally new as to the modernization and evolution of existing weapons. The simplest example is Sherman tanks and T-34 tanks. Both combat vehicles were modernized several times, but fundamentally still did not change. Although both tanks received new turrets, new guns, new equipment. But to do all this, you don’t have to re-equip the production line.
Separately, the question should be asked: why copy the "Tiger" at all? The heavy German "cat" was a formidable, albeit not an indisputable machine. However, if the enemy has a serious tank, then it is much more rational not to master a completely new one, and even more so not to try to copy the enemy one. It would be more rational to simply improve your tanks: add armor, improve driving performance, replace weapons, aiming fixtures, etc. Or go from the other side and upgrade your anti-tank weapons, first of all antitank artillery.
Much more important is the fact that in German technology there were many interesting design solutions that were taken into account and even borrowed by the engineers of the countries of the anti-Hitler coalition. However, the Germans did not lag behind in this regard, every now and then "picking up" something from the enemy. For example, sloped armor on tanks.
If you want to know even more interesting things, then you should read about why the Soviet cannon-forty-five nicknamed "Farewell, Motherland!".
Source: https://novate.ru/blogs/270322/62521/