During World War II, the Allies recorded the serial numbers of captured German tanks' gearboxes. Why?

to track the movement of tanks
to identify the tanks re-captured by Germans
to estimate total tanks production
to take part in the "Top tank killer" contest
The allies found out, that the gearbox numbers fell in two unbroken sequences, so large production resulted in influx of large serial numbers. Today, the problem of estimating the maximum of a discrete uniform distribution from sampling without replacement, is known - in the English-speaking world - as the German tank problem.
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Answers by country

to track the movement of tanks
to identify the tanks re-captured by Germans
to estimate total tanks production
to take part in the "Top tank killer" contest
answers
flagthe Netherlands
3%
14%
75%
3%
54
flagRepublic of Ireland
4%
16%
70%
6%
62
flagPoland
7%
18%
66%
5%
30303
flagthe United Kingdom
7%
15%
66%
5%
468
flagFrance
2%
20%
65%
8%
35
flagNew Zealand
10%
14%
64%
7%
28
flagNorway
3%
23%
63%
3%
30
flagGermany
6%
15%
62%
11%
135
flagAustralia
18%
17%
58%
2%
107
flagthe United States
14%
18%
57%
4%
1189
flagIsrael
0%
31%
57%
0%
19
flagUnknown
19%
16%
54%
9%
42
flagCanada
12%
19%
53%
6%
105
flagGreece
21%
21%
52%
4%
23
flagSweden
17%
21%
50%
10%
28
flagMalaysia
20%
15%
50%
5%
20
flagSouth Africa
10%
35%
45%
0%
20
flagIndia
19%
29%
36%
8%
269
flagPakistan
30%
26%
34%
8%
23
flagthe Philippines
29%
27%
20%
20%
54