just to say that, the 17pf with the usual APCBC amunition was slightly better then the Panther, though not by much so it was definetly very comparable.
The advantage of the Panther was its main gun in combination with the optics which have been some of the best in war. And its armor together with a great suspencion (again one of the best the Germans ever produced). The Panthers engine as well saw much use not just in the Panther design for example as it was a reliable and powerfull design.
The 17pf has never seen a good use before the Centurion and Comet eventualy (why is the comet not in game by the way !!!) as the Achiles, Firefly and Archer have been al just designs to fill the gab before better designs could be developed and send to the front. While the Cromwell was one of the most reliable British vehicles though it was not possible to squeeze the 17pf in it without designing a more or less completely new vehicle (which happend with the Comet but it shared many mechanical parts with the cromwell). Thankefully the idea with the Firefly just came right in time for the normandy champaign as luckily the first prototypes have been ready just before the invasion in france but even to achieve that was not easy and the crew inside the firefly turret really had NO room. The 17pf when deployed against the Panther proved to be a deadly weapon at least up to 1000m with a shoot to the turret. The structure was a different case as there have been panthers with different armor quality deployed in the west at least (on the east probably as well). British and US tests revealed that there have been somewhat 3 levels of quality in the armor of the Panther, with low, average and good. While Penetration (with both the 17pf and 90mm) was not achieved on the good armor plate they did have success with the low and average quality Panthers. The panther was a very good vehicle as there are enough Panthes which survived countless shoots from heavy guns, even some 122mm shoots though there are also Panthers in normandy which have been penetrated on the front by smaller calibers (starting with 76mm).
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