Find this interesting.
The US Medium Tank, the M4, known better by its later nickname, "the Sherman Tank," had state-of-the-art optics, perfected by the advent of the M4A4 in 1943. So superior to other nation's optics technology that the rest of the world did not catch up to our 1943 optics until the late 1950's.
In a nutshell, most of the geeky details aside, it was a dual optics system tied straight to the targeting/stabilizing mechanism of the main 75mm gun. In a real, practical sense, you could call it a "computerized" system. Simply put, the gunner could use a periscope for long range spotting/identifying targets, switch to the actual gun sight, also optics, and zero in on a specific target. The whole while the gun "floated" with the gunner's vision using a stabilizing gyro system. How would it work in practice?
You're in a "Sherman" tank and the Germans are approaching in a column of heavy armor, Panthers and oh crap! Tigers too. Either the Panther and especially the Tiger was superior to "the Sherman" and no way would you want to confront one head to head out in the open. So! the Americans in the M4s would lay in wait in ambush, hoping to catch a German tank in flank, or better yet, in the rear. The dual optics allowed the M4s to hide behind a hill, a berm, on the reverse slope, pick out a target, lock on, and then, quickly motor up on top of the ridge and usually get off two shots in rapid succession before the Germans even knew where the shots were coming from. By 1943 American armor-piercing technology had become quite good and often a Panther, and sometimes, even a Tiger, could be knocked out without even a return shot.
Also, we built 33,000 "Shermans" the Germans built fewer than 5,000 Panthers and less than 1,000 Tigers. So, 3 or 4 "Shermans" could team up and pick on one larger German tank.
There is a popular myth that "Shermans" were death traps. But the stats of WWII debunk this. We lost on average .6 crewman per "Sherman" hit and disabled. This represents BY FAR the highest survivor rate of any tank, of any nation, in WWII. The Japs had the worst rate. They were not known for building good tanks and a Jap crew rarely survived the fireball their tank became if hit even with light anti-tank weapons, like the hand-held bazooka.
So, once again, despite all the arrogant BS smugness of then, and even today's German and British historians, the US led the way in military equipment development.
BTW, why do I put "Sherman" tank in quotes? Because, the US tankers of WWII rarely, if ever, referred to their tank as a "Sherman." Even during the Korean War when the M4 was still the primary US tank, it was not called "Sherman" by its crew. That designation, nickname, was popularized later, usually in Hollywood movies.
Yes, it is true, the "Sherman" tag was toyed with by US weapons' developers, the US Army and the Marines were kind of okay with the name, but it never caught on with the men who actually fought in one. To them, it was the good ole "M4."