Why the fixation with big tanks?

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Like Nickdfresh pointed out, use of medium/heavy tanks as armored spear to break enemy lines while light/medium tanks act after is a common tactic in WWII.
At the same time, I think that part of “success” of heavy and super heavy Nazi tanks is based upon the change of tactic in general. Introduction of Panther and Tiger see Wermacht starting to act as a defensive force, where they normally fight in “closed space” like cities. In this scenario, slowly up armored heavy tanks are more useful than light fast tanks.

@Leccy
I think that the approach of what is reliable is very different. For sure when Guderian says that reliability of mechanics system is a weapon, he said well. But at the same time, in wartime theory is not followed very well.
I mean, also T-34 on the first revision is not exactly a “reliable” vehicle, but with some modification it became reliable. While during interwar the Nazi/Russian bureaus had all the time to design, test and refine their prototype in wartime they simple press into service everything it seems to give an advantage on the battlefield. Panther is not perfect, but his designers have only one year from initial real request to production of a prototype.

[leccy]

@burp

Like Nickdfresh pointed out, use of medium/heavy tanks as armored spear to break enemy lines while light/medium tanks act after is a common tactic in WWII.
At the same time, I think that part of “success” of heavy and super heavy Nazi tanks is based upon the change of tactic in general. Introduction of Panther and Tiger see Wermacht starting to act as a defensive force, where they normally fight in “closed space” like cities. In this scenario, slowly up armored heavy tanks are more useful than light fast tanks.

@Leccy
I think that the approach of what is reliable is very different. For sure when Guderian says that reliability of mechanics system is a weapon, he said well. But at the same time, in wartime theory is not followed very well.
I mean, also T-34 on the first revision is not exactly a “reliable” vehicle, but with some modification it became reliable. While during interwar the Nazi/Russian bureaus had all the time to design, test and refine their prototype in wartime they simple press into service everything it seems to give an advantage on the battlefield. Panther is not perfect, but his designers have only one year from initial real request to production of a prototype.

The Panther was designed to make use of an hard to produce final drive system, they opted for a cheaper and quicker to make type that was a constant point of failure after a very short space of time.

The Panzer IV had an auxilary power unit to traverse the main gun - the Panthers was reliant on main engine revs which to conserve the life of the engines was reduced.

The Gunner had one sight - no panoramic sight with a wide field of vision to enable them to aquire a target as directed by the commander (the French in their post war report on the ones they used said this added 30 secs to aim time over a Sherman)

All of these were limitations they deliberately built into what was supposed to be their premier tank, things that were already in use in their earlier tanks - which actually made it worse than the tank it was supposed to replace in many aspects

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All choices made in order to save money. In pre-war Germany, money aren’t a problem so the designers can use whatever they want, more or less. In wartime Germany the problem of expansive tanks start to grow.