I dont know what is going on in this thread, but I do know that I disagree with JeanValJeanVanDamme in that I think this question is entirely fine for this subreddit. Its a question of historical interpretation and I dont think you should delete it (unless a mod tells you to, of course).

As to your question about tanks, I think there is a lot that plays into why these topics are so hotly debated. First is the popularity of World War Two, especially outside of historical circles. Simply put, people really love World War Two, its battles, its personalities, and the equipment which defined the conflict. To many Tiger tank is as representative of World War Two as Erwin Rommel, and every country had their own "mini-Tiger", be it the American Sherman or the Russian T-34.

And that brings me to number two: each country had their tank, so when you ask "which tank was better" you get mired in a debate about national prestige. Often times these debates, be it tanks, ships, rifles, or anything else, become a proxy war for larger debates about which country is better. Instead of keeping the debate to the merits of weaponry, tactics, combat experience, and technological limitations, people try to rope in national philosophy and other unrelated topics. Whether conscious or not, these partisans tend to wrap up the value of nations in the quality of the war materiel it produce. "Sure the Soviets built a lot of T-34's, but the Germans built better tanks", you might hear one say. But the subtext of arguments like that are "The Soviets only won through sheer attrition, one German tank is worth many Russian tanks". Variations of these kinds of arguments exist for every combination of nations you could think of.

Lastly, I do think that the growth of games like War Thunder and World of Tanks have influenced how people look at their tank comparisons, though I would argue its much bigger than that. Rather, the growth of the internet has allowed these conversations to move outside the sphere of academic debates. The internet connects people who are separated by geography, education, experience, and philosophy. Its a perfect breeding ground for debates just like these. And if you spend enough time on Reddit, Im sure youll find exactly those kinds of debates over everything from tanks to vaping rigs. In addition, the vast amount of information available freely online, from wikipedia articles and youtube "documentaries" to scanned primary sources, makes everyone a mini-expert in armored warfare. Both people in the debate are able to bring a staggering array of facts, figures, and anecdotes to bear which all seem to prove their point. But rather than solving these debates, this information simply muddies the waters and enables more circular discussion.

Because the truth of it is, there were a lot fewer differences between these vehicles than people might think. The Tiger was not as scary as the American GI thought it was, while the Sherman was better than people give it credit for. Moreover, these tanks largely did their jobs, which often varied from army to army. Trying to find a singular "best" tank is often hard to do, because its hard to make direct comparisons between vehicles which were designed at different times, to do different jobs, while supported by different soldiers. These debates are good at highlighting the differences between vehicles, but not the relative quality of each vehicle. Really, there is no best tanks. There are really only "my tanks", and "my favorite tanks".

I think the debate is so hot partly because people might find it hard to agree on what are the qualities that make a tank good. There can be many definitions and all of them hold value.

For example, you could look at the many levels of warfare: tactical, operational and strategical. A tank that is excellent on a tactical level might not be that great on a strategic or operational level and otherwise. That is because the qualities that are valuable at different levels often counteract each other. Take something like armour: it's nice to have good armour protection in battle, but it's not very easy transporting such a tank because all that armour makes it heavy. The weight and amount of steel needed also makes a more heavily armoured tank more difficult to produce. And both of those things are important, a tank needs to be well protected in battle but it must also be present at the battle, it needs to get there and armour makes that more difficult. Another example would be very high quality advanced equipment: having the latest technology available on the battlefield is great, but the things that make it advanced also make it hard to maintain and expensive to produce.

The answer to what makes a good tank and what are the most important qualities, is not clear cut because all factors are important and must be considered. Saying that a tank needs good armour and a good gun is logical, but saying that a tank needs to be easy to transport and that it must be simple enough to produce to achieve significant numbers is also logical. You see the problem? It's not an argument about what makes sense because all sides of the argument do, it's an argument about how much weight each factor in the debate holds and that is not such a clear cut question.

Generally I think people often focus too much on tactical aspects: it's easy to compare armour thickness and the penetrating ability of different shells, just look at which number is bigger. But something like ease of production is much more difficult to put into such clear cut numbers, it is also significantly less cool, which I think is important to your question. But that is just as important of a question, if you are trying to win a world war you need lots of tanks, it doesn't matter how superb their quality is, you'll need thousands.

I'll stick my oar in on an issue that has been skirted a bit previously, but WW2 was the first proper experiment of widespread tank warfare doctrine that evolved significantly throughout the war and varied by nation. The British started the war with 'Infantry Tanks' that were slow and heavy, designed to advance in line with the infantry, and 'Cavalry Tanks' built for speed to rush forward and attacked the side and rear of enemy armour in a 'broadside' tactic. Neither proved particularly effective and were dropped (only the Churchill survived as a heavy tank). There were also issues with reliability. The Americans on the other hand began with a doctrine of using tanks to engage infantry and using specialised Tank Destroyers against armour, again this didn't work out as intended either. Supply and logistics as ever play a huge factor with Soviets producing some streamlined and easy to use tanks (generalisation) and the Allies deploying the M3 Lee as a stop-gap until more Shermans could be produced.

What this creates then is a field where untried methods are evolving in a total war scenario, with doctrines and hardware undergoing near-constant modifications- even the stalwart Sherman went through dozens of variations before the end of the war. There is therefore an almost endless combination of scenarios which could be debated- how many Shermans could beat a Tiger? Were Shermans ever expected to do this? Were Tigers as bad as everyone feared? And so on and so on.