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I am reading at this moment "Death Traps" by Belton Y. Cooper. An LT. Liason officer with an Armored Maint. Battalion with the 3rd Armor 1sy Army. He talks in depth about the shortcomings and all of the Sherman. As I said it was the best we knew of at the time. The Pershing came out of intelligence but the Sherman was numbers we had a turnaround time of 48 hours or less to replace damaged or destroyed tanks. No army before or since could match that. As a liason officer he had to make a report drive in the middle of the night in one jeep with a driver to get replacement tanks and bring them back. His men were repairing o in the field what they could.

But it is not the tank or armor but the TC (tank commanders)
the sherman was faster and the turrent was hydraulic or electric all the German tanks were manual traverse. Sit and fire and die. Move and shoot and live. All combat wins on shoot and manuever. The Germans master of the Blitzkreig, did not even understand this. The Blitz was about bypassing heavy defenses with armor and cutting its supply. Patton did that. We did that in Iraq. But the Abrahms shoots while moving. The Pershing was the first tank that could do that. The Sherman had to stop but technology came late for the Sherman. The later ones had 76mm higher velocity and ford V8 as oppossed to 75mm and radil engines.

The Pershings next gun would have been a 90mm high velocity but the war ended. The 105mm on mobile arty were good tank killers.

Germans used the all purpose 88's in arty and on tanks. More for uniformity. But the 88 was a hihg velocity round and a good one at that. The soviets on the other hand built then as they do now. The Ak47 Kal is made with tolerances so low that sand inside it does not effect it. Their planes and vehicles were made to take punishment of climate but had a dual effect of battle damage survival. It was not planned. It was residual. Build it to last winter in Siberia and it last longer in the field.