Like almost everything simple comparisons of pieces of hardware is often at best moderately helpful, and far more often counter productive. Without marrying it to equal examinations of doctrine, supporting structures(economic, political, production rate and standards etc.), and their place in the system of systems that make up a modern force, you really only get to some basic rivet counting.

Let's take the Bismarck for example. She was essentially the ultimate realization of German naval architecture of 1917 after being dusted off 20 years later. She was perfect for an engagement 2 hours from Wilhelmshaven at 15k yards on the North Sea with a QE, or even Rodney or KGV coming out of the mists. But was absolutely up against it 2 weeks out from home in the rollers of the South Atlantic trying to gobble up a convoy with a North Carolina protecting it at 25k yards.

So where does that leave us? With a feared and fearsome but deeply flawed ship built on principles that naval warfare had long moved past. She was over engineered for for her realistic foes in the aging RN, but under thought out for trying to build the ideal capital ship for Germany's position in 1939. This is honestly a bit of a trend with them. Afterall she was the largest battleship ever built in Europe at the time, but was left with well known issues like just 3 screws, a radar set that was disabled by vibration from the main battery among others.

I would then contend that your attempt to simply say Tigers were better than Sherman's represents that disconnect of a weapons system in its proper place that gets to unproductive places like comparing tanks with vastly different purposes and used in two very different ways by their forces.

Well, the Tiger v. Sherman comparison could be written about for endless pages, and luckily it has been before, so I'll link some reading from this very sub that you can look through. u/the_chieftain_wg always gets a mention, and I'll link a video of his you can watch. Honestly just search "Tiger tank" or "Sherman tank" in the search bar and limit it to this sub, you will not run out of reading material. Bottomline, the Sherman tank was an acceptably mobile and survivable medium tank with good reliability that the US could and did field in enough numbers to matter, unlike the Tiger. It could destroy the vast majority of threats it encountered at normal ranges (and it was mostly threatened by infantry and AT guns, and if tanks then Panzer IVs and StuGs which were actually most of Germany's armor force, then Panthers, rarely ever Tigers). The Tiger tank was an over-engineered heavy tank that could still be destroyed by TDs and 76mm-equipped Shermans at normal ranges, and 75mm-equipped Shermans from slightly lower ranges. It suffered from severe and time-consuming maintenance requirements that severely reduced its operational capability, led to unreliability due to poor maintenance, and resulted in many being abandoned towards the war's end (also due to lack of fuel).

When the Sherman did encounter German tanks in roughly equal circumstances it generally came down to which tank saw the other first, which had better supporting arms, which was attacking/defending, etc. One good battle to read about is the the Battle of Arracourt. It was a tank engagement between the US force of Shermans with supporting arms, TDs, etc defending against an attacking German force equipped with a number of Panthers. You might think, Panthers are superior so the Germans won or inflicted severe damage, and you'd be wrong. The American force, with supposedly "inferior" tanks, destroyed several times more tanks and vehicles than they lost and very effectively repelled the German attack. You can read about it, but just pay attention to the factors that affected the outcome of the battle, mainly which side was attacking/defending, which happened to position and maneuver their forces more effectively, not the relatively inconsequential differences between the American and German tanks.

Now the Panzerfaust (that's how you spell it) v. Bazooka comaprison confuses me; I imagine a better comparison would be to the Panzerschrek, which was a German copy of the American Bazooka. But, as for the Panzerfaust vs. Bazooka, I can agree that the Panzerfaust was probably superior as a purely defensive weapon. It had a lower range for almost the whole war and so required the user to either expose himself to attack or lie in a good defensive position and wait, say near a road, but this wasn't so difficult if you knew the enemy had to attack along it. In the same circumstances the Bazooka would do well, but as the US was generally on the attack in Europe the greater range of its weapon and the fact that it can be reloaded instead of having to get a whole new one are probably better suited to its role. Overall I'd say that they were somewhat different weapons, and shouldn't be directly compared.

The night vision claim is inaccurate. You're thinking of infrared vision systems, which every nation worked on but Germany spent the most before they figured out IR was a bad idea to use except for headlights on vehicles. You probably think that an IR scope or sight could simply be mounted on a vehicle and it would be able to see at night, which is wrong; the first generation of sights weren't sensitive enough to do that. You had to also mount a big infrared spotlight to illuminate the area in front of you so the scope had enough infrared light entering it to distinguish anything. The problem with this system is that if the enemy has an infrared sight they would see your spotlight as a huge shining beacon and shoot it. It wasn't until well after World War II that practical systems were invented; so no, IR wasn't a wonder weapon, it was one more example of Germany wasting resources and scientists on impractical and ineffective programs that serve only to give the history channel crap to inaccurately sensationalize.

I didn't cover everything you mentioned, but I highly recommend that you look at the links I provided and search through this sub for posts that have covered the questions you asked, I guarantee they're there. Here's another one right out of the FAQ section that details Allied v. German tanks. There's another.

I said the Nazi's rocket program (missiles and planes-V1 and V2's) was unparalleled and many of their scientist would be driving forces behind the Soviet and US space programs.

The point is that while other nations were developing similar (or in many cases better) technology, none of them were as desperate or as deluded as the Germans to actually rush them into production.

This doesn't just apply to rocketry, but to things like the Me262, Tiger II, Maus, and the various other wonderwaffe that signally failed to achieve anything of significance, other than wasting resources in a vain hope that some deus ex machina could be stumbled upon and save Germany from total defeat.

For example, only a few months separated the Gloster Meteor and the Me262, but unlike the Germans, the British didn't have to desperately rush their new airframe into service - they were quite happy to keep them at home defending friendly skies - meanwhile the Me262 had to be rushed into service, despite it's quite dreadful unreliability

Similarly with rocketry - the V2 programme was far more expensive than the Manhattan project and yet it returned little.

In fact, V2 rockets achieved 2 kills per launch, on average, and virtually all of these civilians.

The V2 programme actually killed more slave labourers working on the project than it did anyone else.

When you consider that half of the 6,000 or so rockets were never launched, that each rocket cost around the same as a Panzer IV tank, and consumed 20 to 30 tons of potatoes to fuel, its pretty obvious that the V2 was a particularly spectacular way of wasting finite resources .

There is absolutely no reason why the Soviets, British, or Americans would waste such resources on such desperate, last ditch gambles.

They didn't need to.

They were winning just fine with their tried and tested kit.

edit: I'm also curious to know how you reckon this is true

German tanks are what most American ones are based on today

Given that the only significant post-war use of German armour was the French experiment with Panthers (which they rejected), its hard to see how the claim can be substantiated at all.

How exactly do you think current American tank designs are based on WWII German designs?

I can't add too much to what has already been said, but an important distinction is that nobody was developing technology for the sake of developing technology. They were developing technology only insofar as it was necessary to win the war. There was no 'consolation prize' for "Best Technological Achievement."

And, face it, in most cases, the US the best technology in almost every sector of combat. What was in the axis counterpart during the war which could do the jobs as well as the jeep and deuce-and-a-half, the M1 Garand, the artillery VT fuze, the walkie-talkie radio, the Essex class carrier, the B-29 Superfortress, the P-51 Mustang (which, granted, had to be shoved down the US's throat by the British), the Gearing or Fletcher class destroyers or even haul rail freight like an Alleghenny class locomotive?

Not only was American equipment cutting edge, or at least right up there, but it was also rock reliable. US forces had a policy of not releasing anything into the field until they were absolutely sure that it worked. After all, their troops' lives would be reliant on their equipment doing their jobs as they expected it to. The same cannot be said about the German stuff.

As to the stuff you specifically mention, Sherman and Tiger were two entirely different classes of vehicle. One was a breakthrough tank, designed to excel in specific situations. The other was a general purpose tank designed to be the standard war-winning weapon and able to do pretty much anything well enough. I can go on at long length about the advantages Sherman had (and indeed in the video linked to by /u/blanglegorph I do!), but I really can't do better than to link you to the article written 1946 by LTC Irzyk. https://www.ausa.org/articles/irzyk-explains-performance-american-tanks-world-war-ii (Article starts about a page down). As he says, "Yes, considering all factors, I believe that even the most prejudiced or the one most difficult to convince will nod toward the Sherman." Even at that, Sherman had features not present in the German heavies, from synchromesh transmissions to gun stabilisers. The reduced wear and tear on the gearbox and driver from being able to more easily change gears may not garner much praise from armchair enthusiasts, but absolutely helps win wars.

MG-42 is a very interesting case and is almost a reversal of the Sherman/tiger argument. It was a GPMG in a world before the concept truly came about. It was not as good a section weapon as a Bren. It was not as good an anti-aircraft weapon as a .50 cal. It was not as good a tank machine gun as a Browning .30 cal. It was not as good a sustained fire machinegun as a Vickers. But it was pressed into service doing all these things. Quite possibly it was the best example of the Germans doing something right in the realm of 'optimising production.' However, it is also a problem in doing side-by-side comparisons. There is nothing really to compare the MG-42 against. If you want to compare it against a BAR or a Bren, you are comparing a weapon in the section role only, at which point the barrel changes and ridiculous rate of fire become serious comparative issues. So, to a point, yes, MG-42 is a point of relative technical advantage to the Germans, but not by way of comparing it to anything in the Allied inventory. Especially since the allies didn't run out of BARs, 1919s, M2s, etc and had no particular need to optimize production.

STG-44 was not the first assault rifle, though it was the one which garnered most attention. It may interest you to know, for example, that the French Army used Winchester 1907s in WW1. They meet all the requirements for an assault rifle: select-fire, magazine fed, intermediate-sized cartridge. It just beat into combat the Federov Avtomat, which saw service from WW1 through the Russian Civil and Russo/finnish Winter wars. It was not a lack of technology which did not see such weapons in common use in the Allied armes in WW2, as much as a lack of interest. Note that post-war, Western nations did not really move to assault rifles until the 1970s and 1980s. The battle rifles NATO moved to, such as the M-14, FAL and G3 were closer in capability to the M1 Garand, being 'full-power' self-loading rifles.

I can see the Panzerfaust argument, for the same reason that MG-42 has a leg up. It fausted panzers like nothing else: In terms of disposable AT weapons, there was no competition.

Rocket program was, indeed, unparalleled, but not because of a lack of capability. The Allies just didn't care during the war. The scientist grab at the end of the war was for short-cuts, not that they couldn't get there eventually on their own.

Night vision is already mentioned as something of a technical dead end.

So, sorry, and I don't wish to cut you down (At least you asked, which is something to encourage in history students!) most of your arguments really aren't up for debate, possible exception of the MG-42 and Panzerfaust, for the reasons already stated. They are either fundamentally incorrect, or miss the point.

Just to toss out a basic idea worth keeping in mind:

Why would German engineers and scientists be smarter than American, English, or Soviet ones?

While this is by no means a historical fact that I'll cite something on, it's a useful tool I've found to doing comparisons between equipment. Intelligence is not something anyone's cornered the market on, and in societies with generally functional education except in the case of absolute genius, you're going to see a pretty equal distribution of engineering skill.

As to your specific examples:

1. The Tiger is 100% the wrong tank to compare to the Sherman. In German use, the most common AFV was some manner of STUG variant, and the most common tank was the Panzer IV, both of which offered similar, or in some cases worse performance to the Sherman and it's various models. Someone else has already detailed the specifics on this one a bit better. Also modern US tanks are 100% not in any way based on German armor of world war two. The M46-M60 were all virtually direct lines back to the M26, the M1 has a little cross pollination thanks to the failed MBT-70 program, but is again, based on American designs and American needs, nothing at all to do with the Germans of 1939-1945.

2. The MG 42's contribution to war fighting was being a practical squad level belt fed MG. This would be it's lasting contribution in many ways (outside of the MG3 of course), but in that regard there's no technical genius about it, nearly as much as the Germans did something that other people refined into better ideas later.

3. STG-44 and the AK-47 have virtually nothing in common except for broad layout and both weapons use banana shaped magazines. The STG-44 is also 100% not the same sort of weapon as the BAR (the BAR being an automatic rifle, which would be the squad's base of fire, the STG-44 is better seen as a SMG replacement in that it gives the soldier an individual automatic weapon that still has some reach, the M1 Carbine is a better analog).

4. Panzerfaust is not an RPG predecessor, the Bazooka is the RPG predecessor. The Panzerfaust is best viewed as the proof of concept for the idea of a LAW/disposable AT rocket systems (a short ranged AT weapon that's cheap enough to give to everyone and their dog), but the technical aspects of the weapon were nothing to write home about

5. The rocket stuff is simply not true. The US and Soviet Union both had more than their fair share of rocket scientists, and successful rocket programs. The race for the Nazi rocket scientists had a lot more to do with the Allies and Soviets hadn't opted to go with ballistic missiles for a variety of reasons (the Allies could burn down cities more or less at will from the air already, the Soviets had other priorities). The V2 was worth exploiting because it was a path not taken at that point by any of the victorious powers, but in practical terms the V2 had done very little damage for great expense.

6. The US developed an equal, or perhaps even superior night scope in the same timeframe, and deployed it with great success at Okinawa.

The Germans were technically capable of building equipment equal to their opponents in many ways. They were however facing significant problems in terms of lackluster industrial capabilities and strategy, and the highly political nature of R&D and procurement (and a certain mustached chap who had some very strange ideas). The concept of"superior" German technology only carries water if you do not look too closely at history or the actual technical capabilities of the various powers at play in the Second World War.