The Sherman Tank what an amazing vehicle!!

[sapper]

Highly inflamable!
The terrible thing about the Sherman was that the Tiger could knock it out at long range, before the Sherman could get within an effective range for its gun.YUK.
Sapper

[lancesergeant]

Originally Posted by kfz

statistis eh?

I think the official figure is 6 shermans to a Tiger, But then it was 9 T34's to a tiger and a tiger is clearly not worth 9 T34's so it shows that figure for what it is.

I didint think the twin cadalic engines where ver put inthe sherman. I t was tried in the Grant and found not up to scratch. The best motors where supposed the Wright radial and the ford. But then the tank had a choise of a lot of engines and thats my point.

Kev

I standed corrected kfz. I think it was two chryslers linked together -that's if the blurb at the Land Warfare building at Duxford is correct. They have an engine in the entrance, before you go down the stairs.

They also talk volumes about the T34, but at Prokorovka, the T34's got in among the German tanks so that they couldn't use their main armament effectively.

[Owen]

Going back to percentage losses of Armoured units, I asked Gerry Chester about the NIH's total tank losses. I know they are for a Churchill unit but here is his PM. He's back in Bali, by the way.

As far a Churchills go, total losses in Africa and Italy (although I am still compling data on the latter)approximate something less than 100% of inventories. I have a page in the works with specific details for the North Irish Horse. Although stats for Italy are still to be done, checking 8th Army Tank States indicate the other five Churchill units had a similar loss ratio to that of the NIH.
Here is info on Africa:
http://www.northirishhorse.org/nih/A...anceSheet.html
Please note as my site is still in the updating process the links to other Artciles are not yet open.

The regiment's full quota was 60, with the three fighting squadrons having 18 each - most times at full strength when going into a major battle.

[Kyt]

Look up this book at Amazon.com (you can browse the first few pages) and read some of the reviews. You may find it interesting'

http://www.amazon.com/Death-Traps-Su...130764-9400922

"Death Traps: The Survival of an American Armored Division in World War II" by Belton Y. Cooper

• Mass Market Paperback: 384 pages
• Publisher: Presidio Press (April 29, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0891418148

The publishers blurb reads (but make sure you read the reviews):

"Without a doubt, this is one of the finest WWII memoirs ever written by an American junior officer. Lieutenant Cooper served with the 3rd Armored Division's Maintenance Battalion and saw action from Normandy to Germany in 1944-1945. One of the army's two heavy armored divisions, the 3rd lost 648 M4 Shermans and had another 700 tanks damaged, repaired and put back in service by the time the shooting ended in May 1945. Cooper, as one of the division's three ordnance liaison officers, was in the midst of the division's tank recovery operations. He writes about the tenacity of the maintenance mechanics and their ability to improvise and devise their own policies. Cooper is unsparing in his criticism of George S. Patton and other generals whose belief in mobility over heavy armor kept the Sherman medium tank as the standard. American tank crews quickly learned that these "death traps" were no match for heavier German tanks such as the Panther and King Tiger. Cooper describes the difficult maneuvering in the hedgerow country, the confusion of the Battle of the Bulge, the liberation of Nordhausen concentration camp and the destruction of an entire column of tanks and other vehicles. Cooper demonstrates convincingly that it was the unheralded work of the maintenance section that allowed the 3rd Armored Division to maintain its combat effectiveness. This detailed story will become a classic of WWII history and required reading for anyone interested in armored warfare."

[von Poop]

Same book/quote Owen referred to in post 28.

I don't believe anyone would, or has here, truly seen the Sherman as a direct 'top trumps' match to the Pz.V or VIb, the more subtle point here is that it was remarkable that so much was achieved from such an unpromising beginning on paper. Full on though those German designs are, they didn't have anywhere near the appropriateness to a massed conflict that the M4 displayed (even if it took five Shermans to take on a Tiger I wonder what each side of that combat cost in overall 'war effort'? Considerably more expensive to the germans I'd guess.) What men like Cooper saw every day was the shot up remnants of the days combat, that's bound to put something of a slant on his perceptions, maintenence crews on the German side recieved knights crosses for doing the same amazing job in returning tanks to the line, destruction cuts both ways.

On statistics,
I'm a little hesitant to include the Churchill's replacement stats as it was such a resilient and tough tank. So much so that it could seriously distort such statistics if entered into the allied figures as a whole. There is one remarkable feature of the Churchill that would probably prove far more interesting than losses of vehicles, it had an exceptionally high survival rate amongst the men inside it, even if the tank was destroyed. In a production/attrition conflict this human survival rate would be a far more interesting area... (still digging for that info.)
Having said that it is possible that the big boxes like the koenigstiger might get better stats on this as so many of it's crews had to destroy the thing themselves from a nice safe distance after a mechanical breakdown or running out of fuel .

As an aside, Stuart Hill's 'By tank into Normandy' is an excellent and honest insight into life for the crew of an allied Sherman, at no point is he really over-concerned at the deficiencies of his vehicle, more appalled at the war in General and impressed by the bravery of his padre. (Sherman booklist anyone?)

[Kyt]

Originally Posted by Von Poop

Same book/quote Owen referred to in post 28.

You're right VP - should have left the blurb out. I just wanted to highlight the book again (forgot to cross-reference it with the previous posting) because the reviews make interesting reading too.

I hang my head in shame

[Owen]

When the Americans first tested the atom bomb, what was the first vehicle at ground zero?....yup a Sherman.

[BulgarianSoldier]

I was woundering what do you all think about M10 tank destroyer ?

[Owen]

More effective with a 17 Pounder in it.
http://tanxheaven.com/achilles/achilles.htm

http://www.geocities.com/Pentagon/Qu...0achilles.html

Last M10 I saw looked like this.
moerbrugge1.jpg

[von Poop]

TD's tend to get quite a slagging as people blindly work from the paper 'stats' to form an opinion, David Fletcher refers to them as SP-AT guns instead, seems a much more useful term to me than TD, their primary role was to get the AT guns up alongside the Infantry in a way that couldn't be achieved with conventional wheeled/towed carriages at less expense than a fully armoured tank.
I agree with Owen that an Achilles seems far more reassuring than a Wolverine, beautiful Achilles comes to Beltring every year. Where's that memorial owen? It wasn't found in that state was it?

Edit: Just saved it for a 'name that vehicle' with mates, I see it's Moerbrugge, and if it was found in that state then some laws of physics may have been slightly distorted