It can be argued that the best tank is the one that destroys the enemy. Or, depending on your point of view, it's the one that isn't shooting at you. But otherwise, choosing the top tank is always a nightmare of technical and historical analysis.
On 19 August 1942, Allied armies put their plan for an invasion of Occupied Europe to the ultimate test - by landing troops on the beaches and trying to capture a French port. France had, by this time, been under German control for more than two years.
Book Review: Weapons of the Tankers: American Armor in World War II Zenith Press, 2006, Hardback. On VE (Victory Europe) Day in Germany the United States Army fielded 91 tank battalions grouped in 16 armored divisions and 49 separate tank battalions attached to infantry divisions.
The heavy tank never found a satisfactory role in the American military. A number of factors such as logistics, economics and evolving military doctrine eventually eliminated it from the formal inventory of the US armed forces in peacetime, but its role in wartime has never diminished.