Just to clear things up about the Bismark .The steering was damaged in a Swordfish torpedo raid but the attack was only
successful because the Bismarks anti aircraft gun's timing was not slow enough to down the Swordfish.The result of German logic that no one would be mad enough to attack a battleship with a first world war aircraft.
On the subject of tanks the early panzers were flat fronted and relatively lightly armoured and had no real advantage over our tanks structually but had one big other advantage they were fitted with radio.The MK3 panzer was no match for the russian tanks which had sloping armour, wide tracks andeven though they would make an engineer weep due to their crude build they were therefore quick to build in large numbers.The sloping armour was a trick learnt from the Americans before the war when the Russians had been in the states learning about tank construction.
The German answer to russian tanks was given to them by Rommel who often lead our tanks onto his anti aircraft guns,an anti aircraft gun mounted on tracks.The tiger tank was born followed by the king tiger.These tanks were excellent examples of engineering but heavy, often roads would suddenly give way under the king tiger and time consuming to build so production often lagged behind demand unlike the Russian tanks and sherman.
Just in case anyone's interested, Shermans were an long lived and extended marque (much like the Spitfire), and were built in the best traditions of American mass production (unlike the German tanks, and the Spit!). They had, through the war an interesting array of power plants, including...
Five, six cylinder chrysler flat head car engines set in a pentagon - 425 bhp (aka 30 cyl multibank)
Nine cylinder radial engine 4 stroke petrol
12 Cyl 2 stroke diesel (2 x 6 cyl engines)
8 cyl 4 stroke petrol
Depending on the manufacturer.
If you want to know more - eg all the detail including armour thicknesses, guns, track details, crew complements etc, look at:-