The Sherman Tank what an amazing vehicle!!

[von Poop]

Excellent montage from colour footage of (mostly) Shermans in (and out ) of action:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V-7JZIHsRN0&NR

[Hawkeye90]

Thats good footage VP, especially the Sherman being hit at about 50

seconds into the clip.

I wonder what that guy was thinking when choosing the music though?

[morse1001]

Originally Posted by Von Poop

Excellent montage from colour footage of (mostly) Shermans in (and out ) of action:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V-7JZIHsRN0&NR

Very good footage of shermans.

[Owen]

Very interesting, foot was taping to the music.

[von Poop]

Ok, so it's a Wolverine but it's M4 based and he had a point:
London parking.

[sapper]

Nice to see my half track again. Shermans? been to war with them and on top of them. Tommycookers!
Sapper

[Slipdigit]

I just finished reading a book about a the commander of a Tiger company on the eastern front. While he never specifically addressed reliability of the Tiger, I got the strong impression that they were at best difficult to maintain and a large portion of them were out of service at all times. In the back of the book, in the appendix, there was a list of Tigers in the battalion in one column and Tigers actually available in another. Rarely were the numbers in the second column more than about 50-60% of the 1st column. The author was constantly mentioning that this or that tank was in the shop for repairs and the crews were shifted around a lot when tanks were out for repairs.

A neighbor of mine who is now dead, was greviously wounded as driver in a Sherman on the German border in the 3rd Army area. That he survived was a testament to his fortitude, as he was left for dead at the battalion aide station only to be found alive by the graves registration. He was complimentary of the Sherman and when asked about its reputation to ignite easily, he said no. He pointed out to me that the German tanks also had gasoline engines. His tank was disabled by infantry, he thought a panzerfaust or similar weapon.

While the stories are anecdotal, they must have some basis in fact.

I believe stongly that the Sherman was a good tank, for when it was designed and for the limitations that were placed on the designers. The poor choices by the heads of the Armor Board, led by Lesley McNair added to the incorrect understanding of the purpose of a tank, leading to the development of tank that was not intended to fight other tanks. This came as quite a shock when it was discovered that the Germans didn't want to play along with this scenerio.

The Sherman was intended to break through the MLR and gallop around the enemy's rear like the cavalry of old, killing soft-skinned forces. Unfortunately, the narrow tracks of the Sherman made this hard for the tank to do, unless it stayed on the roads. It had such a high weight to footprint ratio, it tended to get stuck easily. I think the HVSS tracks resolved this somewhat, along with the add-on track extensions.

I remember reading somewhere once that the Pershing could have been ready in similar numbers as the M4 by 1944, had the decision to produce them had been made. The Armor board keboshed that. It was a slower and heavier tank, but it had lower weight to ground pressure ratio than the Sherman due to wider tracks, actually resulting in better off-road ability. It was larger and in 1942, shipping was a concern, but that 90mm gun would have been a god-send when facing 75mm/L70 and 88mm/L56 guns.

I'm getting long-winded.

[von Poop]

Jeff, welcome to the honourable company of M4 defenders.


Cheers,
Adam.

[Slipdigit]

Well, it did well what it was designed to do, which unfortunately was not to fight tanks. I place most of the blame for its inadequacies on Gen McNair. Development of the Pershing began in 1942, but was delayed by McNair because it did not suit his firmly held beliefs in what a tank was supposed to be.

The Sherman was essentially a 1940 design fighting in a 1944 war. Much had changed since then. McNair's death at the start of Cobra helped facilitate the Pershing's production, but it was too late by then to be of much help to the tankers that were on the recieving end of good German anti-tank weapons, tracked and man-portable.

[T. A. Gardner]

Aside from all else, one has to remember that, unlike German and Soviet tanks, the Sherman had to serve world wide. In all the theaters it served, it really only was deficient to any significant degree in NW Europe. That is something to keep in mind when looking at it.