Its been a while but I came across this and figured it would be a good one to post here.
Someone actually did some testing.
Depends very much on terrain, I would say.
In snow, for example, you generally want narrow tyres to have more pressure on the surface. The alternative is to have such a wide contact patch that you can drive on top of the snow (i.e. tracked vehicle), which is unrealistically wide in most cases. For mud or sand, you rarely have that advantage, and wider (and aired down) for more contact patch is probably better. For rock crawling, what he says might very well be true.
Still, an interesting video.
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I agree there are terrains that wider would be better, especially if you consider soil compaction.
But I have been considering that narrower may overall be better for a bit now, especially when taking also into account comfort and fuel economy on a non dedicated rig.
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I have found my 10.5" a bit sneaky on the snow for example, you never really know if you’re going to break through or not. I guess going narrower OR wider could have had benefits there.
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