Just watched an interesting vid by the guy who does tank chats (Chieftains Hatch) discussing this. Basically amounts to: M4 is very reliable, does the job, better than the German tanks and the “heavy tank” was a white elephant anyway. He also brought up the issue that it’s difficult to physically move the larger tanks and so it’s impractical to do so.
I am not sure on that though. It felt like he was going too much in the direction of defending the tank and the designers reputation. Just a few general points.
- He mentions that it was impractical to move heavy tanks. But the US took heavy tanks to Korea. So it can be done with the technology of the time. We’re not talking about the Maus, this became a regular thing to move big tanks around. He sort of framed that like it was an impossibility to move a 60 ton tank.
- Just a general glance at an M48 shows that they completely threw away the old Sherman design after the war. If it was this perfect tank then why did all subsequent tanks become bigger, heavier and have bigger guns? Even just the general shape of the tanks tells a story in of itself. The lecture was framed as “oh fans of the Pershing just like the big toys and aren’t thinking about the logistics”. But, clearly the post war designers did not share this opinion which is a very good suggestion that they were not happy with the Sherman. As well as that the logistics and maintenance issues were surmountable. They did make bigger tanks with bigger guns and they use that formula to the present day. All those Sherman’s went to the scrap heap very quickly.
- We know they could have built better tanks because they did build better tanks within a few years of the war. If they didn’t get them built then that is a failure on the part of the designers and the decision makers. This is framed as if the Sherman was all that could have been built and building a better tank was impossible. This is a case of eye of the beholder, but bungling through is not the same thing as steady as she goes.
- He brought up that the Sherman could beat the German tanks. I get that he is trying to counter the myth of “the Tiger” and all that. But, the US was a vastly richer and more industrial nation than Germany; which was being bombed and lacked resources. Given that during the Cold War the US leveraged that advantage against the Soviet Union I am not sure why “good enough” cuts it when we’re talking about the Sherman. If the Germans were building trash tanks then why is it reasonable that the US build more reliable trash tanks? Are we saying that if the US could have built M48’s that they would not have used them? Wouldn’t that have given the US an edge?
- Why would the US be developing the Pershing and bigger guns for the Sherman if they were happy with its performance? If it was part of the plan to have the reliable tank through the course of the war? Doesn’t that suggest they wanted a better tank but couldn’t do it until after the war ended? I think the lecture oscillates a lot on this point between the Sherman being good enough for WW2, whilst also implying that it’s impossible to make a MBT in the 1940s.
I think it’s more that the lecture came across as making excuses for the designers and decision makers. Especially since he spends quite some listing their failures and scrapped projects. This is not evidence of the sage masters of logistics knowing that big tanks with big guns was a silly idea that would never catch on.
This seems like a strange question - retrospection doesn't necessarily put you in the mindset of the time. You could say "well why didn't they just jump right to building M1 Abrams then?"
Tank design in the inter-war had it's own trends, and once they had something it's always easier to keep making more of an average design than try for an outstanding design.
After all German tank history showed what happens when you're constantly chasing the next big thing - you end up without enough of any tank and a nightmare logistics system of a dozen different marks of tanks to get parts for.
Professional historians today generally have a more approving outlook on the Sherman's field performance than is often held by the popular mind. The Sherman was a reliable and perfectly functional workhorse and did the job the army needed of it just fine. It's flaws are often overstated, or lacking in proper context.
Namely, that people often act like Tigers were abundant. They weren't. At any given time after 1943, Germany never fielded more than 200 Tigers at any given time. Most of those served in the Eastern front, and they lost Tigers almost as fast as they built them. Part of the issue is that from a distance the silhoutte of the Tiger is akin to most German tanks, including the much more numerous Panzer IV (later variants of which the Sherman matched). Another part of the issue is that Germany by 1944 just didn't have many tanks, so people are looking at the Army to solve a problem that didn't really exist.
Germany fielded 600 tanks and SPGs at the Battle of the Buldge. In the Invasion of Fance five years earlier, they fielded 2,400.
"Better" is ambiguous. It's hard to define "better" in the context of tanks in 30s-50s because no one really knew exactly what better was going to be. Everyone held a different opinion about the role of tanks and their use in the field until basically the end of the Korean war. I'd also debate that in hindsight, there was no better tank. Part of why the Pershing came so late in the war is because of that debate. Field commanders generally had a very high opinion of the Sherman, but popular opinion back home was generally sold on the "Myth of the Tiger" especially after the well publized acts of Michael Wittmann at Villers-Bocage. The Army didn't change tune until the appearance of the Tiger II in 1944, but after that point, German armor existed mostly in name only.
And that's without looking into the general design issues of the Sherman's immediate successors. The Pershing was technically superior but suffered a number of design flaws. Those flaws got inherited by the M48 in more than a few ways, and the Army was still debating what a proper tank should be able to do. The Sherman remained the main Army tank through the Korean War and wasn't retired from Army service until 1957.
Post war is a very different atmosphere than actually-in-a-war. You have time to redo from start and begin testing.
That said, you don't stop the research- if a better design is viable and your entire supply line can be retooled to produce something new, it isn't the worst idea in the world, but you don't do that unless you're absolutely sure or the gamble is definitely worth it.
Reliability and logistics win wars. Jumping horses incautiously usually doesn't.
- We know they could have built better tanks because they did build better tanks within a few years of the war. If they didn’t get them built then that is a failure on the part of the designers and the decision makers
No. This is a claim that 'perfect hindsight can retrospectively alter reality'
At the time, no one could be certain that ~5 years later it could be done without issue (which itself is a dubious claim, not taking account to the difference five years can make).
You really need to take into account the bigger pictures and the realities of wartime- on decision making, training and _especially_ on supply chains. Post war is a completely different reality with none of the same stresses.
But US replaced Shermans later, no? We may ask why Napoleon didn't use two barrel shotguns, trenches and steel helmets. Questions like that just no meaning outside of fiction.
Replacing the Sherman would have been a bad idea, for the very reason because US Army did not thought about Tank VS Tank combat
So the Sherman was the perfect tank for what it was used for.
It was that the US never really got into big Tank Battles like the Russians did early on and their only General of thinking about future warfare was Patton.
There were a lot of tank projects to get better Medium or Heavy tanks on the field, but they were not suited for the combat doctrine and this only changed after the US army realised that the next conflict will see much more tank vs tank combat leading to the Main Battle Tank concept
More or less for every point The Chieftain makes any time someone tries to take a dump on the thing.
For your points: - "There were heavy tanks in Korea" isn't an argument against it being impractical, not least because it's an entirely separate war fought several years of development and restructure after WW2, but also because it was still impractical there, too, as was any use of armour on the same scale and with the same mindset as WW2.
It was unquestionably difficult to move such equipment - or any similar equipment - around a theatre severely lacking in any rail or sturdy infrastructure that hasn't been bombed, or demolished during a retreat. There's a very good reason that not securing a single bridge over the Rhine during Market-Garden extended the war by months. Even getting it there to begin with is a challenge. For example, a restriction for UK armoured vehicles was that they had to be thin enough to fit through British rail tunnels, a design that is wholly useless outside the UK, but of crucial logistical importance.
- Nobody said the M4 was perfect. The Chieftain himself is careful to never say it in any of his discussions about the M4, of which he's done several, and I believe argues the entire opposite - multiple times. What is argued is that it was probably the best option for the US, at the time, all things being as they were. That it a massive distinction to make, and very much different to the point I feel you wanted him to be making, as opposed to one he was making.
- Again, same as "perfect", you need to stop throwing around words like "impossible", because nobody claimed it was impossible to build a better tank, and the fact better ones appeared later doesn't mean anything. Would you rather have a Sherman, or a promise that you'll get a better tank in 5 years?
You also simply cannot lay as much blame as you clearly want to at the feet of designers and decision-makers. Remember that just 1 year before the invasion of Normandy, the war was fought on 3 fronts: Russia, the Pacific, and the Desert. Where Panthers had only just had a minor, very rushed and catastrophic first outing at Kursk, and Tigers were still rare sights.
Every reason to develop the M26 had not yet materialised. Should it have been happening anyway? Debateable, in the M26's form. Some planning for the future should, but you can't judge that accurately from 80 years on. Also bear in mind that the US are still very much building their entire military from the ground up. The British and French have been busy resting on the laurels of WW1, poking and prodding at various military ideas, but the US, fresh out of the Great Depression, essentially has nothing, as evidenced by how much US doctrine changed to match what they found WW2 to be. The battle of Kasserine Pass is probably one of the best known examples of a militarily-inexperienced America having to learn and adapt.
By the time D-Day had occurred, and the shortcomings of even the 76mm M4s fully known, you already had to quickly reinforce units that had lost strength in the break-out, and Operation Market-Garden was already being planned, the success of which would bring a quick end to the war by giving the Allies an easy entry point into Germany.
In the wake of the failure of Market-Garden, you have such cases as the Battle of the Bulge, the aftermath of which required a lot of immediate reinforcement.
All the while the front was, by necessity, being pushed. All materiel needed to have spares ready and waiting and in number. Commanders had to react to changing conditions and terrain, requiring different approaches.
Amongst all this, why would there be a sudden interest in trying to focus on developments and productions that might easily become obsolete in a week? Light tank development is a fun example, as there was a hell of a lot of it during the early and mid-war, the majority of which got wholly binned around 1944/45 and immediately post-war when it was realised they were devloping armour for a type of war they were no longer fighting, or would likely ever fight again.
This isn't WW1, with generals spending years trying to make throwing men at machine guns work before finally accepting it doesn't. This is a war machine that actually already works, simply continuing to work. Perhaps not as optimally as it could have, but that can only be known with the benefit of hindsight.
- I honestly don't understand what you're trying to say here. The Sherman could beat German tanks, and that's somehow a bad thing? A thing to be decried, and uttered only as a damnation?
As for the last bit of whatever point it was you were trying to make, your hindsight is showing again, as well as ignoring that, for much of the war, the US was an isolated, civillian economy. You don't just build a new factory and suddenly start pumping out prstine materiel.
The fact that it flipped and became such an industrial machine over such a short period of time isn't a given, it's a goddamn marvel. Pumping out one of the most reliable, easy to maintain tanks of the war to a similar degree that the Soviet Union were pumping out anything that vaguely had 4 armour plates, tracks, and a turret, so shortly after one of the harshest and most memorable recessions in history is, quite frankly, a social, indsutrial, and military miracle.
What you seem to think is that America waded in with fistsfuls of cash and hundreds of factories already primed to make military hardware of every kind with thousands of people fully trained to do it, and the reality could not have been further from that. The US built its military industry and might up from somewhere between Sod All and Feth All, and went through several borderline disastrous baptisms of fire to get there.
- Again, I'm not sure what your point is, here, especially trying to argue that bigger guns for the Sherman is somehow something to decry the Sherman for. It's... It's still a Sherman... You know that, right?
As for development of the Pershing... Your original points hinged on the US not doing that. And they weren't, for the most part, owing to pressure from various sources and a complete lack of intel. But I see how you're not managing to connect the dots here: you think, again, that the argument is for the Sherman being Perfect Tank™.
Being happy with something isn't mutually exclusive with working out how to improve it or make something better than it, and neither is that exclusive with using what already works. You seem to feel that development and use cannot run in unison; that you cannot try and improve what you're already using, nor can you use anything you're trying to improve.
What it suggests is that while the M4 was working, it's never a bad thing to prepare for when it stops working. The British didn't produce the Centurion until post-war. The USSR didn't produce the IS-3 or the T-54/T-55 until post-war, or the T-44 quickly enough to see combat.
Hell, the British barely got the Comet out in time to get a run about, and it certainly had no significant impact whatsoever. It was regarded as a fantastic tank, but a good enough tank you have is always better than a fantastic tank you don't. Famously, the first division to get them had to quickly go back to their Shermans to respond to the Ardennes Offensive, highlighting the issue of introducing new hardware into an active warzone: sometimes it's better to use what you know works, because you know damn well it works.
On it being "impossible" to make an MBT in the 1940s... In WW2, certainly; WW2 was an era of military upheaval in more or less every way, and it was only when the dust settled you could truly inspect the remnants. Indeed, it can be argued there was no real MBT until the 60s, in the T-64 and the M60, with the Centurion and M47/M48 Patton of the later 40s, and T-54/T-55 of the mid-50s somewhat uncomfortably straddling the definition.
I suppose the more accurate thing to say is that it was impossible to make an MBT during the war.
Ultimately, I think you're looking at this with: A) A LOT of benefit from hindsight. B) Some weird desire for various people in charge to be wrong about everything to do with the Sherman. C) A pre-existing dislike to of the vehicle itself, or if not that, then at least a dislike of any good thing said about it. D) A complete misunderstanding of what "the best tank for the US in WW2" actually means.
I think his question has a bad premise. That being he is assuming that there was a consensus that the Sherman was good enough and there was no need to replace it, and that was why the Sherman was the main tank of the war for the US.
Its clearly not the case since they were continually rolling out new tank designs even through the war. The T26(later M26) was deployed in Europe to good reviews. It was simply that the war ended before there was any need for them there. And since this line of tanks eventually became the M48 and M60 Patton designs it wasn't like they stopped and then restarted tank design during the Cold War.
Its just that the Sherman was in mass production during the war itself and that alone will have a lot of inertia which will prevent it from being replaced. You're not going to throw away perfectly functional vehicles just because a replacement exists because it takes time to actually replace it.
I think what he means when saying its impractical to move heavy tanks is that the engine technology wasn't quite there yet during WW2. But right after the war, we ended up with the M48 and M60s. Those tanks are actually quite close to a Tiger in size.
Tiger I: 54 tons(57 on the Ausf E). 6.3 meters long. 3.56 meters wide. 3 meters high.
Its not that big tanks can't work. Its that tanks the size of Tigers weren't practical in ww2 given technological limitations. But development shortly after the war made tanks of that size feasible. MBTs of today would quite snugly be defined as Heavy Tanks in WW2 based on size alone.
the Germans were building oversized tanks, for the time. They are not oversized when you consider all tanks across history. They're just on the larger end. You have to consider specific cases like the Maus to actually find a ridiculously oversized tank.
kodos wrote: Replacing the Sherman would have been a bad idea, for the very reason because US Army did not thought about Tank VS Tank combat
So the Sherman was the perfect tank for what it was used for.
It was that the US never really got into big Tank Battles like the Russians did early on and their only General of thinking about future warfare was Patton.
There were a lot of tank projects to get better Medium or Heavy tanks on the field, but they were not suited for the combat doctrine and this only changed after the US army realised that the next conflict will see much more tank vs tank combat leading to the Main Battle Tank concept
Well... that the conflict they were planning for would likely see a lot of tank battles. Which was reasonable, since the most likely scenario involved fighting over the same ground again.
As it turned out, however, that expectation didn't materialize. A point for contingency planning and not getting too fixated on a single strategic doctrine.
It’s all about inertia; you’ve got entire countries geared up to mass produce certain designs, everyone is trained in them, from the lowest technician to the top commanders and all of the supply chain (parts, ammunition, etc.) is also geared up to support them. It’s just too difficult to change in the middle of a war where the key to victory is out-producing the other side.
You see this in all areas, not just the M4; within a few years of the end of the war you had countries wholesale equipped with jet fighters, assault rifles and early MBTs, because they could afford to take the time to change direction.
As mentioned by some of the other posters, the Allies ability to concentrate on a few adequate designs and produce them in vast quantities was probably a key factor in victory over Germany, who were constantly trying to invent super weapons. Ironically, they were probably best placed to understand that you didn’t need superior weapons if you use what you have correctly, because that’s exactly what they’d done in 1939/40!
Yes and it’s also using hindsight to say that the Sherman won the war therefore it was the perfect tank for the job and would have been perfectly fine in different circumstances that the designers risked. It’s validating the idea of just using old faithful and that’s not always a good idea; never mind not considering the benefits.
Also weren’t the US tankers told their tank was better than anything the Germans had and designers believed this? That doesn’t sound like part of the plan.
For example, what if the Sherman had come against the Soviets in the immediate aftermath of WW2 and they had been asked to oppose the annexation of Eastern Europe? They would have put themselves at a major disadvantage. As it happens they lucked out and only had to fight an enemy that could barely field a tank force and army by the end of the war.
AlmightyWalrus wrote: How many times do people have to explicitly say no one's arguing the Sherman was perfect before it will stick?
There is no perfect tank, only the tank for the job the army needs that uses it.
there is no point for switzerland to field big, breakthrough tanks or many tanks infact (terrain)
There is no point for the US army and Navy to use bigger tanks when they mostly just need them to be reliable with a supply net spanning half the world and decent enough.
THere is no point for the UdSSR to produce huge ammounts of quality material, when they just need material asap. (t34)
Armies will use their tanks or their weaponry that are adapted to their needs. because armies can learn. the issue comes into play when you have the politics interfere with the army in ways that generally are delusional with the state of the possibility.
Also for people stating that the tiger was ineficent. Sure Germany could've built more PZ IV's. But germany could not supply their vehicle fleet allready so even more tanks in the field will solve no issue, infact only worsen it. Add to that a general staff that was for decisive battles and not long term strategy in a attriton conflict with the focus of supply and you get a part of the picture.
Totalwar1402 wrote: - Why would the US be developing the Pershing and bigger guns for the Sherman if they were happy with its performance? If it was part of the plan to have the reliable tank through the course of the war? Doesn’t that suggest they wanted a better tank but couldn’t do it until after the war ended?
The Sherman should be considered in the context of it's creation - which was an an infantry support tank sufficently narrow to be loaded onto trains to be transported around the US (and general logistical practicality).
American doctine at the time was to send dedicated tank destoyers and later aircraft against enemy armour. Other countries had different ideas (the UK for instance retrofitted a significant portion of their Shermans with the high velocity 17 pounder).
As with all things during the war technology improved with experience, research, and the back and forth of the enemy building a better tank to counter your tank. When they faced the Japanese forces the later model shermans were total overkill for the obsolete Chi-Ha tanks.
Post war you started to see things like the Centurion but they were the culmination of lessons learned. At the start of the war expectations were very different.
I think we can solve most issues by saying that the US should have mirrors UK doctrines at the time. Put a 17pdr in one tank per platoon, problem (mostly) solved.
The Firefly was adopted by the US Army but not in any numbers and way too late. There is no reason why the US army could not have had massed Firefly variants in time for the Normandy landings.
As for using the Sherman as a focus of quantity and logistical quality. I think that was sound even with hindsight.
As others have said once the Sherman was in production there was no point shifting to another tank design as redoing all the factory tooling would have been slow and expensive
(and in part one of the reasons they were able to put the Sherman into production so fast was that it made use of the lower hull running gear etc of the Lee/Grant)
while a heavy tank might have been useful as a supplement it needed to stay within the size and weight restrictions of railroads, bridges (including engineering pontoons etc), as well as being simple enough to maintain by the mechanics already in the field), plus and design work was done (even if it was a bit slower than it perhaps could have been) both in the US and UK. One of the limiting factors was engines of sufficient power that would fit in the space available (a problem the germans had too, with underpowered tigers with cooling issues which got worse when the same engines ended up in the Tiger II)
The one criticism that could have been levelled at the Sherman (especially those being used by the US) was a reluctance to realise it needed upgunning as the war went on, the 76mm could have been pushed earlier to be used as a proportion of tanks in a unit (it was worse against 'soft' targets as its HE shell was lower performance) in the same way the firefly was used by the british & commonwealth forces.
Edit: this is based on a situation where there was still abundant manpower, the Germans are criticised for overdeveloping (certainly true), but given their lack of manpower even if they'd stuck to the Pz III/IV (and to be fair Tiger I since that was in development pre-war) it wouldn't have made much difference
Orlanth wrote: The Firefly was adopted by the US Army but not in any numbers and way too late. There is no reason why the US army could not have had massed Firefly variants in time for the Normandy landings.
Just a matter of timing I think. The firefly conversions started at about the same time as the US were bringing their own 76mm forward for combat testing.
A quick glance at wikipedia suggests mass production of the 76s were delayed due to muzzle blast problems found in the trials, resolved in June 1944 - the same month as D-day. But the US wouldn't have known this when they turned down the firefly in 83 - given that they were already set up for the 76, that they'd already had balance issues with long guns on the sherman, and the need to rebuild the turret if they wanted the 17pdr to fit properly it made sense at the time.
The one criticism that could have been levelled at the Sherman (especially those being used by the US) was a reluctance to realise it needed upgunning as the war went on, the 76mm could have been pushed earlier to be used as a proportion of tanks in a unit (it was worse against 'soft' targets as its HE shell was lower performance) in the same way the firefly was used by the british & commonwealth forces.
That was actually touched upon in other videos of "the Chieftain". US started developing heavier gun for the M4 early on, there was a working prototype as early as 1942 iirc...but it's ergonomics were so horrible the testing commision did not approve of it. Same reason why the Firefly was never adapted by the US, it was apparently horribly inefficient to work. US vehicles were, for the time period, incredibly user-friendly- to their credit, US command realized that a tank crew rattled and near-concussed by just being in a tank won't fight effectively.
In essence, the M4 was a working, comfortable and effective design that had no problem taking on German tanks until they ran into one of the cats. And there were so few of the cats, most of them deployed in the East, that statistically speaking, a US tanker would fight from 1942 till 1945 without ever seeing one. No point in bringing up the Pacific theater, except maybe to point out how universal the design was.
After the war, the situation had changed as the enemy had changed, which warranted new design, but there was little point in switching horses mid-race during WW2.
Because the Chieftain is saying that it was held back for technical limitations and insinuating that no mistakes were made. Yes I get that he’s trying to counter a common perception that the Sherman was bad but he’s overstating the point.
Take the quote below for example.
“The M4 tank, particularly the M4A3, has been widely hailed as the best tank on the battlefield today. There are indications that the enemy concurs in this view. Apparently, the M4 is an ideal combination of mobility, dependability, speed, protection, and firepower. Other than this particular request—which represents the British view—there has been no call from any theater for a 90 mm tank gun. There appears to be no fear on the part of our forces of the German Mark VI (Tiger) tank... There can be no basis for the T26 tank other than the conception of a tank versus tank duel—which is believed unsound and unnecessary. Both British and American battle experience has demonstrated that the antitank gun in suitable number and disposed properly is the master of the tank. Any attempt to armor and gun tanks so as to outmatch antitank guns is foredoomed to failure... There is no indication that the 76 mm antitank gun is inadequate against the German Mark VI (Tiger) tank.[29]”
This is a quote from General Lesley McNair who advocated for the tank destroyer doctrine; who was one of the main opponents of developing the Pershing. Clearly, this is not a man who believes the Sherman was a “just good enough” tank. He actually says it’s a better tank than the Tiger in the first sentence. If you had put a working M48 in front of this man he would have still said no. Quite a few people are saying that the US designers and planners knew they had a “just good enough tank”. That this was all part of the plan to mass produce cheap tanks. This quote suggests they thought they had the best tank in the world and didn’t need anything better. That is not the same thing and it’s a view that deserves to be on the record as bad behaviour. It’s hindsight to say that “oh but everything worked out fine so no mistakes were made”. The plan was that the US already had the best tank in the world and it was a waste of time to do anything more.
I think the Chieftain does mention the guy above but his point is that the technology couldn’t have existed at the time and therefore opinions above were reasonable. This is trying to rationalise poor judgement and mistakes; which comes across as making excuses.
So... the original question was "with perfect hindsight why didn't the US just leap to the biggest bestest tank available?" and at least one of the responses was that inter-war design philosophies/trends existed that pushed specific directions in development.
And now you're posting a quote proving that trends existed and influenced design. And that's somehow badwrong and should rile people up? Even though it answered your original question?
Maybe you should figure out what you actually want to be the point of your topic and then come back to it.
There's a very good book on this subject by Charles Baily (Faint Praise) that directly addresses this question with an in depth analysis and review of the Army's pre-war and wartime development programs. It's a worthwhile read.
Totalwar1402 wrote: Because the Chieftain is saying that it was held back for technical limitations and insinuating that no mistakes were made. Yes I get that he’s trying to counter a common perception that the Sherman was bad but he’s overstating the point.
Take the quote below for example.
“The M4 tank, particularly the M4A3, has been widely hailed as the best tank on the battlefield today. There are indications that the enemy concurs in this view. Apparently, the M4 is an ideal combination of mobility, dependability, speed, protection, and firepower. Other than this particular request—which represents the British view—there has been no call from any theater for a 90 mm tank gun. There appears to be no fear on the part of our forces of the German Mark VI (Tiger) tank... There can be no basis for the T26 tank other than the conception of a tank versus tank duel—which is believed unsound and unnecessary. Both British and American battle experience has demonstrated that the antitank gun in suitable number and disposed properly is the master of the tank. Any attempt to armor and gun tanks so as to outmatch antitank guns is foredoomed to failure... There is no indication that the 76 mm antitank gun is inadequate against the German Mark VI (Tiger) tank.[29]”
This is a quote from General Lesley McNair who advocated for the tank destroyer doctrine; who was one of the main opponents of developing the Pershing. Clearly, this is not a man who believes the Sherman was a “just good enough” tank. He actually says it’s a better tank than the Tiger in the first sentence. If you had put a working M48 in front of this man he would have still said no. Quite a few people are saying that the US designers and planners knew they had a “just good enough tank”. That this was all part of the plan to mass produce cheap tanks. This quote suggests they thought they had the best tank in the world and didn’t need anything better. That is not the same thing and it’s a view that deserves to be on the record as bad behaviour. It’s hindsight to say that “oh but everything worked out fine so no mistakes were made”. The plan was that the US already had the best tank in the world and it was a waste of time to do anything more.
I think the Chieftain does mention the guy above but his point is that the technology couldn’t have existed at the time and therefore opinions above were reasonable. This is trying to rationalise poor judgement and mistakes; which comes across as making excuses.
You should really mention that this quote is from 1943. That is very relevant to the argument, because at this point, the Sherman almost certainly was the best all-round tank in the world at that point. Was it matched against a Tiger in a one-on-one? No, but the number of Tigers encountered was tiny, and they had massive issues when used outside of their specific role of being a heavy breakthrough tank, or being used as a gun emplacement.
The most common threat encountered by a US tanker is anti-tank guns, not enemy tanks. The 75mm Sherman was arguably the best Sherman variant at dealing with these because of its fast target acquisition, fast reloading, and good explosive payload in the HE round- the 76mm had a much less effective HE payload and the 105mm was slower to respond. Tank-on-tank combat is relatively uncommon, most of the work is tank-against-infantry and artillery.
Does the quote above show a lack of foresight? Yes. The situtation did change over the next year, and the Sherman was a little behind the curve in being upgraded as a result (in particular, why on earth HVAP ammunition for the 76mm wasn't pursued earlier is quite an oversight). Is McNair wrong in 1943? No.
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Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote: Big as America is, I don't think fielding an entire country is any substitute for an armoured, self propelled weapon of war.
McNair doesn’t say there are not many tigers and we have more of our cheap reliable tanks. He says, point blank, we have the “best tank in the world” and is directly comparing it to the Tiger. So he really is saying that had it come to even numbers of Tigers and Sherman’s that this wouldn’t have mattered because the Sherman was the better tank. That’s a bit more than just complacency. It’s the job of generals and thinkers to have foresight and stay ahead of the curve.
I’ll take a comparison. Let’s say that France stopped the Germans in 1940; but took significant losses until they made a more mobile army. People would look back and say “well for 1939 it made sense the French has this opinion but it all worked out anyway so no bad”. This is the line of thinking with defending bad decisions in the past, you’re really only considering the end result. For example, what if the US had been forced to oppose the Soviet Union straight after WW2. It would have lacked a major tool in opposing Russian tanks. That could have led to disaster or unnecessarily high losses. Then you would say, oh but the US should have learnt from WW2 when they were fighting a weaker opponent and had time to rearm to oppose the USSR. It is applying hindsight to say things worked out.
Totalwar1402 wrote: McNair doesn’t say there are not many tigers and we have more of our cheap reliable tanks. He says, point blank, we have the “best tank in the world” and is directly comparing it to the Tiger. So he really is saying that had it come to even numbers of Tigers and Sherman’s that this wouldn’t have mattered because the Sherman was the better tank. That’s a bit more than just complacency. It’s the job of generals and thinkers to have foresight and stay ahead of the curve.
I’ll take a comparison. Let’s say that France stopped the Germans in 1940; but took significant losses until they made a more mobile army. People would look back and say “well for 1939 it made sense the French has this opinion but it all worked out anyway so no bad”. This is the line of thinking with defending bad decisions in the past, you’re really only considering the end result. For example, what if the US had been forced to oppose the Soviet Union straight after WW2. It would have lacked a major tool in opposing Russian tanks. That could have led to disaster or unnecessarily high losses. Then you would say, oh but the US should have learnt from WW2 when they were fighting a weaker opponent and had time to rearm to oppose the USSR. It is applying hindsight to say things worked out.
Here is the quote you used:
General McNair, 1943 wrote:“The M4 tank, particularly the M4A3, has been widely hailed as the best tank on the battlefield today. There are indications that the enemy concurs in this view. Apparently, the M4 is an ideal combination of mobility, dependability, speed, protection, and firepower. Other than this particular request—which represents the British view—there has been no call from any theater for a 90 mm tank gun. There appears to be no fear on the part of our forces of the German Mark VI (Tiger) tank... There can be no basis for the T26 tank other than the conception of a tank versus tank duel—which is believed unsound and unnecessary. Both British and American battle experience has demonstrated that the antitank gun in suitable number and disposed properly is the master of the tank. Any attempt to armor and gun tanks so as to outmatch antitank guns is foredoomed to failure... There is no indication that the 76 mm antitank gun is inadequate against the German Mark VI (Tiger) tank.[29]”
Aside from the fact that a single paragraph is never going to be a detailed refutation of the advantages of the T26 over the M4, the paragraph still doesn't support what you say it does.
Firstly: "There appears to be no fear on the part of our forces of the German Mark VI (Tiger) tank... There can be no basis for the T26 tank other than the conception of a tank versus tank duel—which is believed unsound and unnecessary." He does not directly say it, but the clear implication is that a tank-on-tank duel is not a common part of warfare, or this would not be deemed unnecessary*. This is true, especially on the Mediterrannean and Western fronts. In addition: "There is no indication that the 76 mm antitank gun is inadequate against the German Mark VI (Tiger) tank." So they clearly were planning to provide sufficient tank firepower to counter the Tiger I. As it happened, the 76mm was not as effective as hoped (without HVAP ammunition) but this is only known with hindsight. The US maybe could've got 76mm guns deployed sooner, but it certainly was not sticking its head in the sand and avoiding improving the Sherman.
In all honesty, if the Germans had had even numbers of Tigers as the US had Shermans in 1943 (presumably by replacing other vehicles like Pz.Ivs, because the extra manpower can't come out of thin air), they would not have been better tanks. The Tiger was a specialised tank, it needed support to be effective in the proper context. It would not have the mobility to be used as a Pz.IV, and would leave the German forces much less able to respond to enemy attacks and make their own rapid counter-offensives. A tank that isn't there is less effective than one that is.
Ability to knock out an enemy tank is not the sole marker of how good a tank is on the battlefield or in a war. In any case, why do you suppose the US forces at the close of WWII would be unable to contend with the Soviet forces based on the armour fielded? The late war Sherman is easily on parity with the late war T34, which are by far the most common tanks for each side. The Soviets actually followed a similar strategy for the most part, focusing on reasonable, capable medium tanks in large numbers.
*McNair's adherence to the US tank destroyer doctrine was inherently flawed, but the vehicles themselves functioned very effectively as self-propelled anti-tank guns.
1. Shipping. Its a numbers game. They could ship a battleship if they really wanted but the weight and dimensions allowed them to optimize the shipping they had. The weight and size limitation allowed them to effectively ship 2x a heavier tank IIRC.
2. M26. (Full disclosure I love this tank). Its a good tank but it took time to design a heavier tank. Even in late 1944 the tank was very underpowered, and it took time for them to design a bigger engine (which was the basis for the upgrade to the M46). The US did not want to put a tank out that was going through teething problems (Panther looking at you). This was not slow. The M4 came out in 1942 after an amazingly quick design, learning lessons from France. From 1941 - 1944 they designed a very capable heavy (later considered medium) tank. Considering the Tiger began development in the late 1930s this is an impressive turnaround.
3. Armor and gun were effective when it came out and remained effective through the war. Critics are focused with gleaming eyes on the German super heavies, but there were very few of them in the real world. The Sherman / Churchill / Cromwell faced infantry with antitank artillery, STGs, and the occasional PZ IV or JagdPZ. The M4 was optimized to deal with these.
4. The Army wanted high explosives on target. If anything based on the threats they faced, they may have been more optimized (and there were discussions on this) with two M4s with 76mm, and three with 105mm in every platoon.
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For example, what if the Sherman had come against the Soviets in the immediate aftermath of WW2 and they had been asked to oppose the annexation of Eastern Europe? They would have put themselves at a major disadvantage. As it happens they lucked out and only had to fight an enemy that could barely field a tank force and army by the end of the war.
M4s went through T34/85s like crap through a goose in Korea. IS2s were heavy but assault tanks with their own problems. Hit them with artillery and aircraft and hit their support with artillery and aircraft, just like they did to the Germans. Both Centurions and Pattons did just fine against IS 2s and 3s in the ME later.
besides you are all wrong. PZ III with long 50mm was the best tank of the war. Prove me wrong!
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Orlanth wrote: I think we can solve most issues by saying that the US should have mirrors UK doctrines at the time. Put a 17pdr in one tank per platoon, problem (mostly) solved.
The Firefly was adopted by the US Army but not in any numbers and way too late. There is no reason why the US army could not have had massed Firefly variants in time for the Normandy landings.
As for using the Sherman as a focus of quantity and logistical quality. I think that was sound even with hindsight.
No. Firefly is good on paper. Its accuracy was poor at distance. Its turret ergonomics were terrible. The 3in on the M10, 90mm on the M36, and 76mm with good ammo were good guns against German armor considering distances they were facing.
They had what they needed. More artillery than Dog and enough radios to use it properly. Then you can use the best tactic: Move forward until you bump into something. Retreat and drop 210,000 artillery rounds on it (and maybe some airstrikes to spice things up) then move forward again.
Frazzled wrote: No. Firefly is good on paper. Its accuracy was poor at distance. Its turret ergonomics were terrible
From what I understand 25% better penetration than the 76mm shermans but half the rate of fire, and the reduced accuracy meant the higher penetration didn't particularly translate into higher range.
That said the firefly was up-gunned from the low velocity 75 as a stop gap, not built in competition to the 76mm.
1. Shipping. Its a numbers game. They could ship a battleship if they really wanted but the weight and dimensions allowed them to optimize the shipping they had. The weight and size limitation allowed them to effectively ship 2x a heavier tank IIRC.
2. M26. (Full disclosure I love this tank). Its a good tank but it took time to design a heavier tank. Even in late 1944 the tank was very underpowered, and it took time for them to design a bigger engine (which was the basis for the upgrade to the M46). The US did not want to put a tank out that was going through teething problems (Panther looking at you). This was not slow. The M4 came out in 1942 after an amazingly quick design, learning lessons from France. From 1941 - 1944 they designed a very capable heavy (later considered medium) tank. Considering the Tiger began development in the late 1930s this is an impressive turnaround.
3. Armor and gun were effective when it came out and remained effective through the war. Critics are focused with gleaming eyes on the German super heavies, but there were very few of them in the real world. The Sherman / Churchill / Cromwell faced infantry with antitank artillery, STGs, and the occasional PZ IV or JagdPZ. The M4 was optimized to deal with these.
4. The Army wanted high explosives on target. If anything based on the threats they faced, they may have been more optimized (and there were discussions on this) with two M4s with 76mm, and three with 105mm in every platoon.
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For example, what if the Sherman had come against the Soviets in the immediate aftermath of WW2 and they had been asked to oppose the annexation of Eastern Europe? They would have put themselves at a major disadvantage. As it happens they lucked out and only had to fight an enemy that could barely field a tank force and army by the end of the war.
M4s went through T34/85s like crap through a goose in Korea. IS2s were heavy but assault tanks with their own problems. Hit them with artillery and aircraft and hit their support with artillery and aircraft, just like they did to the Germans. Both Centurions and Pattons did just fine against IS 2s and 3s in the ME later.
besides you are all wrong. PZ III with long 50mm was the best tank of the war. Prove me wrong!
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Orlanth wrote: I think we can solve most issues by saying that the US should have mirrors UK doctrines at the time. Put a 17pdr in one tank per platoon, problem (mostly) solved.
The Firefly was adopted by the US Army but not in any numbers and way too late. There is no reason why the US army could not have had massed Firefly variants in time for the Normandy landings.
As for using the Sherman as a focus of quantity and logistical quality. I think that was sound even with hindsight.
No. Firefly is good on paper. Its accuracy was poor at distance. Its turret ergonomics were terrible. The 3in on the M10, 90mm on the M36, and 76mm with good ammo were good guns against German armor considering distances they were facing.
They had what they needed. More artillery than Dog and enough radios to use it properly. Then you can use the best tactic: Move forward until you bump into something. Retreat and drop 210,000 artillery rounds on it (and maybe some airstrikes to spice things up) then move forward again.
Are you saying the Patton tank would be a negligible improvement on a Sherman? Even if the Sherman can kill a Panzer or T34 that doesn’t invalidate the notion of getting the greatest possible advantage you can get.
Just because the Sherman uses combined arms warfare/numbers to be effective doesn’t mean that wouldn’t be done with a Pershing/Sherman. You’re insinuating that they would stop doing that if they had the big tank.
Is it impossible to fire a HE shell out of a longer gun? You’re assuming these technical hiccups were insurmountable but they were all overcome. Again we’re not talking about the Mause which was never going to work. We’re talking about the US being on he cusp of getting an MBT into the field.
Are you saying the Patton tank would be a negligible improvement on a Sherman? Even if the Sherman can kill a Panzer or T34 that doesn’t invalidate the notion of getting the greatest possible advantage you can get.
Yes, that is exactly what I am saying. How is one Pershing better than two Shermans, which is what could be shipped? While a 90mm has about the same explosive filler as a 75mm and definitely more than a 76mm shell, two Shermans have...two tubes vs. one. To put the situation in a better context, US actions were the first 2/3 of Fury. The tiger fight almost never happened.
Just because the Sherman uses combined arms warfare/numbers to be effective doesn’t mean that wouldn’t be done with a Pershing/Sherman. You’re insinuating that they would stop doing that if they had the big tank.
Yes I am. There would be less tanks overall. In urban / wooded Western Europe, a Pak40 and a Panzerfaust are going to kill a Pershing almost as well as a Sherman.
In the steppes of Mother Russia (VODKA!!!) the long range of German antitank guns (both towed and attached to large armored behemoths) were a far more dangerous threat in 1943 - 1944 (untl they moved out of the steppes). Even there the Russians had a similar response: upgunned T34s / SUs, and big heavy assault guns (IS2s, and SU 152s) lots of artillery and more Stormoviks than flies. Had the US been been facing the Germans on the Eastern Front they would have employed the same strategy. It would be an interesting question if the tank destroyer doctrine would have actually been better on that front.
Is it impossible to fire a HE shell out of a longer gun? You’re assuming these technical hiccups were insurmountable but they were all overcome. Again we’re not talking about the Mause which was never going to work. We’re talking about the US being on he cusp of getting an MBT into the field.
Yes actually, given the technology of the time. The same shell is going to have less filler, because the shell has to be made substantially stronger with thicker steel walls.
OT: we forget that the actual engagements are not Game of Tanks. GIs with antigrenades from dinky Garands killed almost as many tanks as Bazookas, and the threat facing US / UK tanks was kids with Panzerschrecks and Panzerfausts. The US typically dealt with Hitler's fire brigades very well indeed.
Are you saying the Patton tank would be a negligible improvement on a Sherman? Even if the Sherman can kill a Panzer or T34 that doesn’t invalidate the notion of getting the greatest possible advantage you can get.
Yes, that is exactly what I am saying. How is one Pershing better than two Shermans, which is what could be shipped? While a 90mm has about the same explosive filler as a 75mm and definitely more than a 76mm shell, two Shermans have...two tubes vs. one. To put the situation in a better context, US actions were the first 2/3 of Fury. The tiger fight almost never happened.
Just because the Sherman uses combined arms warfare/numbers to be effective doesn’t mean that wouldn’t be done with a Pershing/Sherman. You’re insinuating that they would stop doing that if they had the big tank.
Yes I am. There would be less tanks overall. In urban / wooded Western Europe, a Pak40 and a Panzerfaust are going to kill a Pershing almost as well as a Sherman.
In the steppes of Mother Russia (VODKA!!!) the long range of German antitank guns (both towed and attached to large armored behemoths) were a far more dangerous threat in 1943 - 1944 (untl they moved out of the steppes). Even there the Russians had a similar response: upgunned T34s / SUs, and big heavy assault guns (IS2s, and SU 152s) lots of artillery and more Stormoviks than flies. Had the US been been facing the Germans on the Eastern Front they would have employed the same strategy. It would be an interesting question if the tank destroyer doctrine would have actually been better on that front.
Is it impossible to fire a HE shell out of a longer gun? You’re assuming these technical hiccups were insurmountable but they were all overcome. Again we’re not talking about the Mause which was never going to work. We’re talking about the US being on he cusp of getting an MBT into the field.
Yes actually, given the technology of the time. The same shell is going to have less filler, because the shell has to be made substantially stronger with thicker steel walls.
OT: we forget that the actual engagements are not Game of Tanks. GIs with antigrenades from dinky Garands killed almost as many tanks as Bazookas, and the threat facing US / UK tanks was kids with Panzerschrecks and Panzerfausts. The US typically dealt with Hitler's fire brigades very well indeed.
Why would the US not be able to build or ship as many Pershings as they did Sherman’s? Was the US operating at 100 percent? Did it have a shortage of skilled workers and steel? Given that they did upgrade the entire tank fleet with Pattons and stationed a lot of them in Europe this was a surmountable issue. You’re vastly understating the advantage the US had over Germany, it had one arm tied behind its back for that entire war.
Won’t you get the first shot off if you have a gun that can fire at a longer range? That’s a pretty major advantage.
I don’t see why it’s relevant to bring up that artillery and infantry can kill tanks. That’s a reason against using tanks at all. The criticism of the Sherman isn’t that it was too vulnerable to those things. It’s that, inexplicably, the US didn’t leverage its industrial capacity to crush a vastly inferior enemy and instead decided to create an unnecessary gap in its arsenal. That probably got people killed unnecessarily. Yes, it’s just one cog in a machine that was mostly working. But that doesn’t mean you approve of doing nothing to fix the cog. That’s defending complacency.
Totalwar1402 wrote: Why would the US not be able to build or ship as many Pershings as they did Sherman’s? Was the US operating at 100 percent? Did it have a shortage of skilled workers and steel? Given that they did upgrade the entire tank fleet with Pattons and stationed a lot of them in Europe this was a surmountable issue. You’re vastly understating the advantage the US had over Germany, it had one arm tied behind its back for that entire war.
For a start, the Pershing is a heavier vehicle, which uses more raw materials- it is absolutely not going to be a one-to-one ratio based on that alone. Secondly, changing to a new vehicle requires retooling production- whilst changing over, those factories are producing nothing. Switching factories over takes time, and reduces the number of tanks (and tank spare parts) available now. The Sherman had commonality of some parts with the M3, that aided this transition. During wartime, the costs of such a change is not negligible.
In addition, the logistics of transporting the tanks is changed up. A standard US flatbed rail truck of the era could hold two Shermans, but only one Pershing. The Liberty ships the US was pumping out had cranes that were rated for a tonnage that could lift Shermans, but not Pershings. How are you getting all of your new tanks to the frontline? It doesn't matter how many are being produced if you can only transport a small fraction of those per unit time- it will deplete frontline tanks stocks compared to before. Changing all of these logistical elements to be able to handle larger vehicles also costs resources, and time.
Won’t you get the first shot off if you have a gun that can fire at a longer range? That’s a pretty major advantage.
Most of the time, in Western Europe? Not really. The majority of tank combat already happened at ranges of 1000m or less. The terrain in Western and Southern Europe is not amenable to long-range sniping. Things were different on the Steppe in the Eastern front- here the German big cats made good anti-tank snipers.
I don’t see why it’s relevant to bring up that artillery and infantry can kill tanks. That’s a reason against using tanks at all. The criticism of the Sherman isn’t that it was too vulnerable to those things. It’s that, inexplicably, the US didn’t leverage its industrial capacity to crush a vastly inferior enemy and instead decided to create an unnecessary gap in its arsenal. That probably got people killed unnecessarily. Yes, it’s just one cog in a machine that was mostly working. But that doesn’t mean you approve of doing nothing to fix the cog. That’s defending complacency.
It absolutely did by prioritising getting an effective tank in sufficient numbers to effectively support frontline infantry across the entire front, and not just a small number of cat-counters.
Why would the US not be able to build or ship as many Pershings as they did Sherman’s? Was the US operating at 100 percent? Did it have a shortage of skilled workers and steel? Given that they did upgrade the entire tank fleet with Pattons and stationed a lot of them in Europe this was a surmountable issue. You’re vastly understating the advantage the US had over Germany, it had one arm tied behind its back for that entire war.
***After retooling they could have produced gobs of Pershings. The issue is that the weight and dimensions of the Sherman were specifically tailored for ease of shipping. The Wallies could physically load substantially more M4s than M26s in the same ship. If the Western Front was accessible by rail instead of ship, I'd proffer that your argument would have a much stronger case.
Won’t you get the first shot off if you have a gun that can fire at a longer range? That’s a pretty major advantage.
***Yes, except that ranges in West Europe were generally less due to terrain and a more built up overall area breaking up LOS. Its the same reason tanks were such a thing in North Africa campaign and the ME wars. You had LOS for miles. Again the Allies were facing concealed AT guns / TDs and dudes with early RPG weapons. A pershing is only marginally better in that environment against that opposition.
I don’t see why it’s relevant to bring up that artillery and infantry can kill tanks. That’s a reason against using tanks at all.
***Its an argument that there were plenty of things to kill German armor.
The criticism of the Sherman isn’t that it was too vulnerable to those things. It’s that, inexplicably, the US didn’t leverage its industrial capacity to crush a vastly inferior enemy and instead decided to create an unnecessary gap in its arsenal.
***Its a stupid argument. The US did indeed leverage its industrial capacity. In addition to tens of thousands of Shermans, they also built more fighter bombers than German armored vehicles and 6,500 M10 tank destroyers.
That probably got people killed unnecessarily. Yes, it’s just one cog in a machine that was mostly working. But that doesn’t mean you approve of doing nothing to fix the cog. That’s defending complacency.
***The cog was continuously improved through the war. A 76mm could kill any tank it faced. It was operationally better than any German tank it faced, with better radio, better reliability, and easier maintenance. It had equal or better vision than its opposition, and its front armor was better than a Tiger with slope. It proved capable of wiping out regiment strength panther formations.
Its not perfect, but its its what the Wallies needed in WWII.
Frazzled wrote: I don’t see why it’s relevant to bring up that artillery and infantry can kill tanks. That’s a reason against using tanks at all.
***Its an argument that there were plenty of things to kill German armor.
As a point of fact, most German armor destroyed by the Western Allies was destroyed by air elements, not ground elements. The US so rarely needed tanks to deal with other tanks that indirect fire training became mandatory of US tank and tank destroyer crews, cause 75-95% of their time was spent using their guns as artilly to dig out entrenched German positions.
LordofHats wrote: As a point of fact, most German armor destroyed by the Western Allies was destroyed by air elements, not ground elements.
I'm not sure that is a point of fact. I believe it's more thought to be a myth at this point, owing to a significant number of reports not matching up with each other, either regarding numbers claimed vs numbers present (the favoured Soviet style), or numbers claimed vs post-battle analysis. The two most infamous cases I've seen are:
Operation Goodwood, where the RAF and USAAF claimed 257 and 134 tank kills respectively - 222 from Typhoon rockets - and of the 301 wrecks from 456 German tanks counted in the aftermath, only 10 could be accredited to Typhoon rockets, with only 3 out of 87 APCs due to Typhoon rockets, too.
And at Mortain, where the RAF and USAAF claimed 140 and 112 destroyed tanks respectively, where not only was the number of tanks in the area only 177, but only 46 were ever lost and of those only 9 to air attack.
LordofHats wrote: As a point of fact, most German armor destroyed by the Western Allies was destroyed by air elements, not ground elements.
I'm not sure that is a point of fact. I believe it's more thought to be a myth at this point, owing to a significant number of reports not matching up with each other, either regarding numbers claimed vs numbers present (the favoured Soviet style), or numbers claimed vs post-battle analysis. The two most infamous cases I've seen are:
Operation Goodwood, where the RAF and USAAF claimed 257 and 134 tank kills respectively - 222 from Typhoon rockets - and of the 301 wrecks from 456 German tanks counted in the aftermath, only 10 could be accredited to Typhoon rockets, with only 3 out of 87 APCs due to Typhoon rockets, too.
And at Mortain, where the RAF and USAAF claimed 140 and 112 destroyed tanks respectively, where not only was the number of tanks in the area only 177, but only 46 were ever lost and of those only 9 to air attack.
Destroyed probably isn't the right word.
The Germans by 1944 were very good battlefield scavengers/salvagers, and they didn't record vehicles they recovered from the field as lost but a vehicle that has to be recovered from the field is also a vehicle that got knocked out of the fight. Most of these losses came from allies bombing campaigns that preceded major offensive. That also meant the Germans got to recover their vehicles and rework them into field conditions, but it still removed them from battle. The prime example is the Panzer Lehr Division on the eves of Operation Overlord and Operation Cobra. They lost half their tanks to allied bombing before the offensive even began.
My understanding is that around 5-7% of German armour losses on the Western front after D-Day were from aerial attack. The majority lost to enemy action were still inflicted by gunnery and mines.
Aerial attacks were great at destroying morale though- inexperienced crews had a habit of abandoning their vehicles for "safety", which was actually a terrible idea when only a direct hit would kill a tank, but shrapnel can devastate the unprotected crewman. Experienced crews wold button up and ride out the strom instead.
Aerial attacks were also great at destroying armoured mobility- they could devastate the support elements that supplied the tanks, which prevented them from operating effectively just as much as knocking out the tanks themselves. Can't do much if the ammo and fuel is blown up. The Germans still relied on a lot of horse-drawn supplies, these were especially vulnerable to air interdiction.
This is an excellent, well-sourced video on the matter.
LordofHats wrote: As a point of fact, most German armor destroyed by the Western Allies was destroyed by air elements, not ground elements.
I'm not sure that is a point of fact. I believe it's more thought to be a myth at this point, owing to a significant number of reports not matching up with each other, either regarding numbers claimed vs numbers present (the favoured Soviet style), or numbers claimed vs post-battle analysis. The two most infamous cases I've seen are:
Operation Goodwood, where the RAF and USAAF claimed 257 and 134 tank kills respectively - 222 from Typhoon rockets - and of the 301 wrecks from 456 German tanks counted in the aftermath, only 10 could be accredited to Typhoon rockets, with only 3 out of 87 APCs due to Typhoon rockets, too.
And at Mortain, where the RAF and USAAF claimed 140 and 112 destroyed tanks respectively, where not only was the number of tanks in the area only 177, but only 46 were ever lost and of those only 9 to air attack.
He is correct however in that TD's were used much more in the dire and indirect fire support role for infantry vs. dealing with German armor. TDs were often used like the tank companies that became attached to infantry formations as assault support.
While i'm a fan of the firefly as Frazzled said it is a bit of a lash up with a gun that only just fits in the turret which means terrible ergonomics and slow firing (got to make that first shot count),
but it was only ever suitable for supplementing a units firepower as the lack of a hull MG (and a turret MG that was harder to use than normal because of the 17 pounder main gun getting in the way of everything) would mean real problems when it came up against infantry
The internet never disappoints - home to historical revisionists with their perfect 20/20 hindsight and Wehraboos alike. And M4 Sherman bashing is a cottage industry for each of them.
totalfailure wrote: The internet never disappoints - home to historical revisionists with their perfect 20/20 hindsight and Wehraboos alike. And M4 Sherman bashing is a cottage industry for each of them.
Whats cool is how everyone is having a nice discussion and then this pops up. As the daughter would say, "not cool bro."
OrlandotheTechnicoloured wrote: While i'm a fan of the firefly as Frazzled said it is a bit of a lash up with a gun that only just fits in the turret which means terrible ergonomics and slow firing (got to make that first shot count),
but it was only ever suitable for supplementing a units firepower as the lack of a hull MG (and a turret MG that was harder to use than normal because of the 17 pounder main gun getting in the way of everything) would mean real problems when it came up against infantry
A fact I used to great effect in my FoW games. Firefly's were easy pickings for my FJs.
That isn't a bad point. The German tanks were prone to breakdowns and hard to repair since they were designed based on how much armor and guns was wanted, not on what could easily be achieved. The Sherman on the other hand was built with ease of manufacture, transport and maintenance first. A service crew could pull the transmission on a Sherman, replace it and bolt the thing back up before a German crew had even dismantled a Panther so they could remove the same part. Tanks that can't move have to be left behind if your position is being overrun, and that's where a huge number of German tanks were lost.
That isn't a bad point. The German tanks were prone to breakdowns and hard to repair since they were designed based on how much armor and guns was wanted, not on what could easily be achieved. The Sherman on the other hand was built with ease of manufacture, transport and maintenance first. A service crew could pull the transmission on a Sherman, replace it and bolt the thing back up before a German crew had even dismantled a Panther so they could remove the same part. Tanks that can't move have to be left behind if your position is being overrun, and that's where a huge number of German tanks were lost.
Sometimes this was MUCH worse when it came to German repairs. Changing a Sherman Transmission was (if I remember correctly) a 4 hour job for 2 men in the field with hand tools.
If a Panther blew a transmission (which it did at much higher frequency) it needed to be towed to a workshop, have the turret lifted off with a crane, a firewall removed, the driver's chair removed, radio removed, some hydraulic lines removed, and then the transmission was unbolted and pulled back to the turret ring where it was crane-lifted up and out. Then everything was replaced. This was a 6-day ordeal for an 8-man crew in a well-supplied workshop.
That's a repair time factor of 80 times the man-hours of labor, not including the towing. That's staggeringly huge.
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Orlanth wrote: I think we can solve most issues by saying that the US should have mirrors UK doctrines at the time. Put a 17pdr in one tank per platoon, problem (mostly) solved.
The Firefly was adopted by the US Army but not in any numbers and way too late. There is no reason why the US army could not have had massed Firefly variants in time for the Normandy landings.
As for using the Sherman as a focus of quantity and logistical quality. I think that was sound even with hindsight.
The Firefly used the smaller turret from the 75mm Sherman, and the 76mm Sherman used the new, larger turret. I've been in one of those "larger" turrets before, and I really wouldn't want anything smaller.
Yes.... the 17 pounder was more powerful, but at the ranges you'd expect to engage in both shredded armor. the 17 pounder was just overkill. It's like wondering if you should use a .357 or a 500 S&W to hunt rabbit during pistol hunting season.
the 76mm was simply less taxing on crews, target acquisition was significantly better, and follow up shots were better too.
I think we need to be fair on German armoured maintenance requirements. The Panther and later tanks were famously difficult to maintain, but the earlier vehicles were actually pretty good. Not as easy as a Sherman with its factory-spec interchangeable parts, but still fairly straightforward.
I think we also need to consider one perspective: It's not just what you have, it's where you can take it and how fast you can get it there.
Europe at the time was industrialized, but a lot of it's road infrastructure was NOT modern at all. A vast majority of their road bridges were well over 100 years old, some several hundred years old. They were designed to last many years, but they were intended to have a handful of well stocked carts on them at any given time. An architect in the late 1700's really didn't plan on having heavy armor drive over it. The difference in weight and width between the Sherman and the Patton was the difference between taking any old stone bridge, or waiting for the Army Corp of engineers to set something up. When literal minutes count, I'd rather have something decent now than the perfect tool rolling in too late.
I would have to say no. The US had the 90mm TD and artillery. Which is more than sufficient when you consider how outnumbered the Germans were at that point in the war. Just heard a stat the other day that was pretty telling. 97+ % of TD use on the western from was indirect (they actually had to retrain the crews because they had nothing to do). Perhaps if Germany had handled the war differently it could have been a necessity to match their heavy armor but Germany was not really a capable foe the way things turned out. In a hypthoetical situation in which Hilter does not engage in invading Russia and another 2 million men and 1000 more tanks with lots being tigers...Yeah. Then the US would have needed a heavy tank to match the tiger1.
Also for all the gakking about the Tiger being so fantastic. Reliably mobility and guns are the most important factors for tanks. The Tiger really only had 1 of these - It had a great gun and huge armor. That armor wasn't enough to stop the t34's gun most the time (and the t34's gun was only a 76.2mm) and the t34 was far more reliable and mobile. Tigers were pretty mobile for a big tank but it put it's priorities in the wrong -places and was WAY over engineered. For the cost they could have built 3000 more panthers and it would have been a better decision.
As for the Sherman - it actually did really well during the war. It was basically never seeing tigers anyways. It's biggest failing was always being quite combustible on being knocked out. It killed a lot of crews than might have lived in a safer tank. Really though - this also seems a little embellished. How often does a tank crew survive when they have an AP round bouncing about the cabin? I'd say...rarely but I don't have that data.
I thought most war time production T34s were the upgunned T34/85 with an 85mm main gun.
I also understood that the Sherman's tendency to burn was somewhat overstated, they were no more likely to burn than a PzIII or PzIV both of which were also petrol fueled and was less likely once wet stowage was introduced. Because it was extremely numerous and mostly used offensively compated to the Panzers though Shermans were more likely to be hit and penetrated in the first place, so you would be more likely to encounter a burned out Sherman on the battlefield compared to a German tank.
Looking at the numbers - it appears that the soviets produced significantly more 76.2 t34s but you are right. The 76.2 struggled a bit more than I thought it did against tiger frontal armor. At Kurst though. These would have primarily been 76.2mm t34s.
For the earlier "dry" shermans I believe the chieftain himself had that data and stated it as being an average of 2 deaths and I think 1 injury per 5 crew.
With "wet" I think it was 1 death 1 injury.
It was something along those lines.
And that seems to of been also down to hatch access compared to earlier smaller hatch shermans.
Where as other tanks like T-34 and the much hailed Churchill was pretty much "why do crews need to survive?"
The Churchill was practically a death trap if penetrated.
Which it could be despite claims of its immortality.
That armor wasn't enough to stop the t34's gun most the time (and the t34's gun was only a 76.2mm) and the t34 was far more reliable and mobile.
Don't know where you got this information but that is wildly inaccurate. The 76.2mm gun on the T34 was absolutely no match for a Tiger except at point blank range, and even then it wasn't exactly a sure thing.
Tigers were pretty mobile for a big tank but it put it's priorities in the wrong -places and was WAY over engineered. For the cost they could have built 3000 more panthers and it would have been a better decision.
I see this argument often. I don't think most armchair military historians take into account the Wehrmacht's manpower problems when they think of this issue in those terms. Fewer, more sophisticated machines was pretty much their only option. Even if they did churn out more Panzer IVs, I highly doubt they could have manned them all.
The exaggerated claims of Shermans bursting into flames is pretty much a myth. The main cause of combustion came from the ammo cooking off, and due to how US ammo was made it was actually more stable than that of other countries. Even the dry storage version of the Sherman was ever-so-slightly LESS likely to burst into flames than a Panzer4 or Churchill. Of course this doesn't totally matter because normally both sides kept hitting an enemy until they burned anyway.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Can we all agree though that the most over-hyped tank of the war is by far the T-34? I often see it praised as the end-all, be-all of WWII. Honestly though, in many areas it totally sucked.
It was what it needed to be, which was easy to produce and be used by untrained crews and have a field life expectancy calculated in days, not weeks or months.
The t34 did exactly what it was supposed to do, so no.
It isn't overhyped and considering that it probably best achieved the need of the side it fielded is a big plus.
I think people tend to overestimate the T34's arms and armor, but that's mostly because people in general have a poor grasp of the realities of tank warfare in the war.
In 1941 at least, the hype is generally accurate. The Germans didn't have any guns capable of reliabily penetrating the T34's armor in 1941. The emergence of the 75 and 88 guns that became standard on German vehicles as we popularly remember them happened specifically because of the T34 and the KVs. The Germans needed to upgrade their guns to deal with these vehicles, but in 1941 when this first became apparent neither of these vehicles were that common.
By 1943 the T34 was still a very good tank, easily one of the best warmachines of its time. But it certainly wasn't the same monster it was in 1941 when it was too well armored. Instead it was a different monster, a metaphorical horde.
“Was the Sherman actually bad” is the question very new armchair historians ask when they get bored asking how Germany could have won the war. It’s a great topic because there is tons of information, and a great gateway to thinking about tactics, logistics, and mass production.
That said, most serious historians think that the Sherman did what it was supposed to do in the war that it actually fought. Even if the US had fast tracked the Pershing in, say, 1943, the impact would have been marginal.
Different allied forces were all ready arguing about who got the fuel. This was a rather limited resource, and there literally wasn't enough to go around all the time. The Pershing sucked up WAY more fuel than the Sherman, and was slower on roads and across country. This means fuel transportation lines would have been even more of a limiting factor in the war, and speed was a huge factor.
If I had to choose between 100 shermans rolling into an area on Thursday, or 60 Pershings coming into the same area on Monday (giving the enemy 3 days to dig in) I know which I'd prefer.
Xenomancers wrote: As for the Sherman - it actually did really well during the war. It was basically never seeing tigers anyways. It's biggest failing was always being quite combustible on being knocked out. It killed a lot of crews than might have lived in a safer tank. Really though - this also seems a little embellished. How often does a tank crew survive when they have an AP round bouncing about the cabin? I'd say...rarely but I don't have that data.
From June 1944 until April 1945, American armored forces suffered .98 crew casualties per vehicle loss (both medium and light tanks combined).
The Sherman was one of, if not the, most survible tanks of the war.
Xenomancers wrote: Looking at the numbers - it appears that the soviets produced significantly more 76.2 t34s but you are right. The 76.2 struggled a bit more than I thought it did against tiger frontal armor. At Kurst though. These would have primarily been 76.2mm t34s.
T 34 (76) struggled. Thats why they went they went into emergency production of SU 85s (then 100s), and used their monster artillery and KV 152s. 152s could blow the turret right off.
What really was the problem was that Soviet tactics continued to be hampered by - well combined arms tactics - and poor communications until late 1943.
Interesting note: the T34 / 85 had less penetration than the M4's 76mm.
Also, why are big Cat designs so uber loved? The IS 2 had more armor and a better gun with equal weight to a Panther. The Centurion went on to serve for decades.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Polonius wrote: “Was the Sherman actually bad” is the question very new armchair historians ask when they get bored asking how Germany could have won the war. It’s a great topic because there is tons of information, and a great gateway to thinking about tactics, logistics, and mass production.
That said, most serious historians think that the Sherman did what it was supposed to do in the war that it actually fought. Even if the US had fast tracked the Pershing in, say, 1943, the impact would have been marginal.
Interesting that, if you take the top turret monstrosity off the Grant, it becomes a much more low silhouette US version of a STG.
Israel used the Sherman to great effect in two major conflicts long after WWII, and kept it in their forces until 1986. I know they modded them, but still that's a testament to the design.
Xenomancers wrote: As for the Sherman - it actually did really well during the war. It was basically never seeing tigers anyways. It's biggest failing was always being quite combustible on being knocked out. It killed a lot of crews than might have lived in a safer tank. Really though - this also seems a little embellished. How often does a tank crew survive when they have an AP round bouncing about the cabin? I'd say...rarely but I don't have that data.
From June 1944 until April 1945, American armored forces suffered .98 crew casualties per vehicle loss (both medium and light tanks combined).
The Sherman was one of, if not the, most survible tanks of the war.
I honestly believe Belton Y Cooper bears a lot of the responsibility for the Sherman's poor reputation. On a forum I used to be a member of we had a standing challenge to anyone who would cite the Sherman-Ronson comparison (Supposedly it was nicknamed that because like the advertising slogan for the contemporary lighter it would light up first time, every time). Produce a reference to a contemporary source that actually mentioned this, this could be unit war diaries, personal diaries, personal correspondence. It didn't even have to be a quote, just a reference.
Not one taker in over a decade.
The emergence of the 75 and 88 guns that became standard on German vehicles as we popularly remember them happened specifically because of the T34 and the KVs.
IIRC the famed 88 had to be first deployed to counter British Matilda IIs which the Germans struggled to knock out with either the high velocity 37mm or low velocity 75mm guns. True, the Matildas were equally handicapped by the weak 2lber, but they were tough opponents. Though I agree that the long barreled 75 and 88 weren't vehicle mounted until after Barbarossa.
It isn't overhyped and considering that it probably best achieved the need of the side it fielded is a big plus.
I disagree. Proponents of the T-34 generally laud the fact that it featured sloped armour like this was a unique feature (The Renault FT-17 of WWI vintage for example already had this, also look at the front of the Sherman...), or that it had a low silhouette (Seriously, look at a T-34 and a Sherman side by side, there's not much to chose between the two). It also had apparently very poor crew comforts, which might seem trivial but really isn't when you consider that a crew that's exhausted after driving their tank a few hours will be less effective than a crew that's relaitively comfortable. The armour quality was also often poor, the internal facing would IIRC frequently splinter even if not penetrated. A 76mm armed Sherman had better penetration than a 76.2mm armed T-34 and the optics on the T-34 were generally poorer. Soviet Sherman crews generally had few complaints about their rides.
But the T-34 is often regarded as the zenith of WW2 tank design whilst the Sherman is almost as often disregarded as little more than a death trap.
So, yes I would consider the T-34 overhyped. The two were a fairly even match-up, and if I had to travel any sort of distance I'd probably rather be in a Sherman at the end of it rather than a T-34.
I disagree. Proponents of the T-34 generally laud the fact that it featured sloped armour like this was a unique feature (The Renault FT-17 of WWI vintage for example already had this, also look at the front of the Sherman...), or that it had a low silhouette (Seriously, look at a T-34 and a Sherman side by side, there's not much to chose between the two). It also had apparently very poor crew comforts, which might seem trivial but really isn't when you consider that a crew that's exhausted after driving their tank a few hours will be less effective than a crew that's relaitively comfortable. The armour quality was also often poor, the internal facing would IIRC frequently splinter even if not penetrated. A 76mm armed Sherman had better penetration than a 76.2mm armed T-34 and the optics on the T-34 were generally poorer. Soviet Sherman crews generally had few complaints about their rides.
TBF that is the issue of the perosn, knowing jack about tanks rather then it beeing overhyped.
The T34 is the best possible solution for an army that generally relies on mass and needs material in the field.
it has strategic value.
It's the same with the sherman, everyone complaining about it's capability to supposedly burn down as soon as someone looks at it funny. Even with that the tank is strategically superior due to reliability and quality.
That armor wasn't enough to stop the t34's gun most the time (and the t34's gun was only a 76.2mm) and the t34 was far more reliable and mobile.
Don't know where you got this information but that is wildly inaccurate. The 76.2mm gun on the T34 was absolutely no match for a Tiger except at point blank range, and even then it wasn't exactly a sure thing.
Tigers were pretty mobile for a big tank but it put it's priorities in the wrong -places and was WAY over engineered. For the cost they could have built 3000 more panthers and it would have been a better decision.
I see this argument often. I don't think most armchair military historians take into account the Wehrmacht's manpower problems when they think of this issue in those terms. Fewer, more sophisticated machines was pretty much their only option. Even if they did churn out more Panzer IVs, I highly doubt they could have manned them all.
Aye - you are right about the 76.2 - that was my error in the timing of the armaments on the battlefield. I was thinking about the upgraded gun. Though I am not sure you are correct on the tiger. I think they could have manned more smaller tanks and it probably would have been more efficient too. Were talking about an army that was moving most of it's supplies by horseback and it is constructing the heaviest and most resource intensive tank in the war. It was a huge mistake IMO. If anything what the German army needed was trucks. The whole idea of the tiger was just Hitler being a mad man trying to develop super weapons. I love the tiger too. It just looks like a tank should look IMO. The tiger 2 is even sillier. Developing a super tank and you don't even have a chance at maintaining air superiority.
Xenomancers wrote: As for the Sherman - it actually did really well during the war. It was basically never seeing tigers anyways. It's biggest failing was always being quite combustible on being knocked out. It killed a lot of crews than might have lived in a safer tank. Really though - this also seems a little embellished. How often does a tank crew survive when they have an AP round bouncing about the cabin? I'd say...rarely but I don't have that data.
From June 1944 until April 1945, American armored forces suffered .98 crew casualties per vehicle loss (both medium and light tanks combined).
The Sherman was one of, if not the, most survible tanks of the war.
I honestly believe Belton Y Cooper bears a lot of the responsibility for the Sherman's poor reputation. On a forum I used to be a member of we had a standing challenge to anyone who would cite the Sherman-Ronson comparison (Supposedly it was nicknamed that because like the advertising slogan for the contemporary lighter it would light up first time, every time). Produce a reference to a contemporary source that actually mentioned this, this could be unit war diaries, personal diaries, personal correspondence. It didn't even have to be a quote, just a reference.
Not one taker in over a decade.
The emergence of the 75 and 88 guns that became standard on German vehicles as we popularly remember them happened specifically because of the T34 and the KVs.
IIRC the famed 88 had to be first deployed to counter British Matilda IIs which the Germans struggled to knock out with either the high velocity 37mm or low velocity 75mm guns. True, the Matildas were equally handicapped by the weak 2lber, but they were tough opponents. Though I agree that the long barreled 75 and 88 weren't vehicle mounted until after Barbarossa.
It isn't overhyped and considering that it probably best achieved the need of the side it fielded is a big plus.
I disagree. Proponents of the T-34 generally laud the fact that it featured sloped armour like this was a unique feature (The Renault FT-17 of WWI vintage for example already had this, also look at the front of the Sherman...), or that it had a low silhouette (Seriously, look at a T-34 and a Sherman side by side, there's not much to chose between the two). It also had apparently very poor crew comforts, which might seem trivial but really isn't when you consider that a crew that's exhausted after driving their tank a few hours will be less effective than a crew that's relaitively comfortable. The armour quality was also often poor, the internal facing would IIRC frequently splinter even if not penetrated. A 76mm armed Sherman had better penetration than a 76.2mm armed T-34 and the optics on the T-34 were generally poorer. Soviet Sherman crews generally had few complaints about their rides.
But the T-34 is often regarded as the zenith of WW2 tank design whilst the Sherman is almost as often disregarded as little more than a death trap.
So, yes I would consider the T-34 overhyped. The two were a fairly even match-up, and if I had to travel any sort of distance I'd probably rather be in a Sherman at the end of it rather than a T-34.
Sherman is kinda ugly. I think that is where the majority of it's hate comes from. I really dont understand the straight lies about it though. For decades I've been told the sherman went up into flames easier than other tanks...turns out it's not actually true? Jezz..I guess it's really just about anecdotes. The T34 even has comparable speed to the Sherman even though it looks faster. Yet from seeing real war footage - I would have though the t34 was much faster than the Sherman - just from the number of times I've seen a t34 flaming across an open field charging German tanks.
Xenomancers wrote: As for the Sherman - it actually did really well during the war. It was basically never seeing tigers anyways. It's biggest failing was always being quite combustible on being knocked out. It killed a lot of crews than might have lived in a safer tank. Really though - this also seems a little embellished. How often does a tank crew survive when they have an AP round bouncing about the cabin? I'd say...rarely but I don't have that data.
From June 1944 until April 1945, American armored forces suffered .98 crew casualties per vehicle loss (both medium and light tanks combined).
The Sherman was one of, if not the, most survible tanks of the war.
From the stats I have seen quoted. The majority of Sherman were destroyed by mines. Do we have the statistics from being hit by 88's? or really just anti tank shells?
TBF that is the issue of the perosn, knowing jack about tanks rather then it beeing overhyped.
But that's exactly what causes the hype and exactly why it's over-hyped. I agree that the T-34 was a good tank and probably just what the Red Army needed at the time, but it wasn't the revolution in armour design that most people seem to think it was.
Suggests that the earliest models of sherman had issues with poor ammo storage leading to fire hazards (see the ammo storage heading). A lots of rounds stored in the turret (IIRC 12 at the back of the turret basket) and unarmoured bins to either side. https://imgur.com/wQ2Rlg8
Later shermans would stack the rounds up in the hull, along with heavier armour on the tank itself and in some cases 'wet' storage of the rounds to reduce fire risks - a long way from the 'whoops. why is there gunpowder on the floor' issue mentioned in the early model. https://imgur.com/wlKUREF
In terms of tanks prone to catching fire, I seem to recall that the Panther was prone to it at times due to poorly secured hydraulics.
TBF that is the issue of the perosn, knowing jack about tanks rather then it beeing overhyped.
But that's exactly what causes the hype and exactly why it's over-hyped. I agree that the T-34 was a good tank and probably just what the Red Army needed at the time, but it wasn't the revolution in armour design that most people seem to think it was.
It was mostly the revolution of minimalist maximum production design and one of the first real massproduced armored vehicles in the world, imo it's more a Economic wonderchild due to beeing literally dirt cheap to manufacture to the point of insanity, especially when one compares production numbers of tanks. ( But that has more to do with war economics and logistics.)
Actually Shermans are pretty much flawed designs compared to any other European ones.
1. Tall sillouette, too easy to be spotted. European tank desgins has always constrained track - turret height not to exceeding 3 meters high, (or tried to be as close as possible) because. they've learned that Landship psycho factors didn't do much, it might scare soldiers without any viable antitank countermeasures, but these landships often deployed against considerably defended areas where if no AT countermeasures, there's still artillery to call a barrage against enemy AFV he sees. Shorter silloutette means less exposure to eyesights at distances.
2. Narrow hull. This shortcomings might be due to the fact the vehicles were made in Automotive assembly plants originally made to produce cars and trucks. also anticipations of European bridges and tunnels to be narrow (or American railroad tunnels weren't wide since railroads were and still owned by private sectors reflected in the inconsistence roadway quality among different railroad corporates.
1+2 resulted in the the limited main gun choices.
Actually Shermans were more or less modelled after Vickers 6-ton Mark E.
Lone Cat wrote: Actually Shermans are pretty much flawed designs compared to any other European ones.
1. Tall sillouette, too easy to be spotted. European tank desgins has always constrained track - turret height not to exceeding 3 meters high, (or tried to be as close as possible) because. they've learned that Landship psycho factors didn't do much, it might scare soldiers without any viable antitank countermeasures, but these landships often deployed against considerably defended areas where if no AT countermeasures, there's still artillery to call a barrage against enemy AFV he sees. Shorter silloutette means less exposure to eyesights at distances.
There really isn't that much in it when you compare the Sherman and the T-34 side by side.
Lone Cat wrote: 2. Narrow hull. This shortcomings might be due to the fact the vehicles were made in Automotive assembly plants originally made to produce cars and trucks. also anticipations of European bridges and tunnels to be narrow (or American railroad tunnels weren't wide since railroads were and still owned by private sectors reflected in the inconsistence roadway quality among different railroad corporates.
1+2 resulted in the the limited main gun choices.
Actually Shermans were more or less modelled after Vickers 6-ton Mark E.
It's the turret ring rather than the hull which dictates the maximum gun size, true the hull dictates the maximum turret ring size, but again comparing the two images the hull at turret level of the T-34 is about the same as the Sherman, if anything the Sherman actually looks to me like it has the edge there.
Yes, the Sherman is taller. But only by a little over a foot. And its really all about trade-offs. The Sherman is narrower which is a real advantage in confined areas.
The T-34 does have an advantage in its armor slope. Both tanks are cheap and easy to mass produce. The Sherman definitely had an edge in overall tech and crew comfort.
And if you're really going to be nitpicky, the Panther is actually taller than the Sherman.
Lone Cat wrote: Yeh but T34 is wider. while both shares the same turret ring size. what makes T34 looks wider?
At the risk of repetition, there really isn't that much in it. According to wikipedia, the Sherman was between 2.69m and 2.99m depending on the model, the T-34 was 3m, so the difference isn't great.
Lone Cat wrote: Actually Shermans are pretty much flawed designs compared to any other European ones..
Which European tank was superior to the M4 in 1942 again? This should be full of laughs.
German:
PZ III, worse gun, worse armor.
PZIV worse gun, worse armor, not capable of the same level of manufacturing speed.
STUG not bad for what it was but worse armor and not a comparable vehicle.
British...you've got to be kidding.
Soviets:
BT series. crap armor, gun, no radio, poor layout.
SU 76, not bad for what it was, but not a comparable tank.,
T34, suicidal layout and two man turret. Better traction and diesel engine. NO RADIO. Optics worse. T34 / 85 is a different animal.
KV1: good armor and gun but too expensive to mass produce in comparison. Heavy tank vs. a medium tank.
Japanese: see British.
Italians: whats a tank?
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Grey Templar wrote: Yes, the Sherman is taller. But only by a little over a foot. And its really all about trade-offs. The Sherman is narrower which is a real advantage in confined areas.
The T-34 does have an advantage in its armor slope. Both tanks are cheap and easy to mass produce. The Sherman definitely had an edge in overall tech and crew comfort.
And if you're really going to be nitpicky, the Panther is actually taller than the Sherman.
The slope is a disadvantage as much as an advantage. Interior space was nonexistent. Plus lets talk about how a two man turret makes it a deathtrap. Plus no radio, and poor vision. Seriously, who designed that...France?
cuda1179 wrote: Israel used the Sherman to great effect in two major conflicts long after WWII, and kept it in their forces until 1986. I know they modded them, but still that's a testament to the design.
India used up-gunned Shermans against the M47 and M48 Pattens as well so yea the logevity of the desgin was amazing!
What impresses me about the T34 was that the Soviets could continue to produce so many despite the massive disruption of their industry caused by the German invasion. Like all designs it had its limitations, but they could really throw those things together!
Lone Cat wrote: Actually Shermans are pretty much flawed designs compared to any other European ones..
Which European tank was superior to the M4 in 1942 again? This should be full of laughs.
German:
PZ III, worse gun, worse armor.
PZIV worse gun, worse armor, not capable of the same level of manufacturing speed.
STUG not bad for what it was but worse armor and not a comparable vehicle.
British...you've got to be kidding.
Soviets:
BT series. crap armor, gun, no radio, poor layout.
SU 76, not bad for what it was, but not a comparable tank.,
T34, suicidal layout and two man turret. Better traction and diesel engine. NO RADIO. Optics worse. T34 / 85 is a different animal.
The traction part is also somewhat misleading. The T-34 spanked the Sherman when it came to mud and snow, although this was somewhat mitigated later on with wider Sherman tracks. The Sherman though, actually had the edge over the T-34 when it came to traction on rocks, rubble, and logs/brush.
Lone Cat wrote: Actually Shermans are pretty much flawed designs compared to any other European ones..
Which European tank was superior to the M4 in 1942 again? This should be full of laughs.
German:
PZ III, worse gun, worse armor.
PZIV worse gun, worse armor, not capable of the same level of manufacturing speed.
STUG not bad for what it was but worse armor and not a comparable vehicle.
British...you've got to be kidding.
Soviets:
BT series. crap armor, gun, no radio, poor layout.
SU 76, not bad for what it was, but not a comparable tank.,
T34, suicidal layout and two man turret. Better traction and diesel engine. NO RADIO. Optics worse. T34 / 85 is a different animal.
KV1: good armor and gun but too expensive to mass produce in comparison. Heavy tank vs. a medium tank.
Japanese: see British.
Italians: whats a tank?
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Grey Templar wrote: Yes, the Sherman is taller. But only by a little over a foot. And its really all about trade-offs. The Sherman is narrower which is a real advantage in confined areas.
The T-34 does have an advantage in its armor slope. Both tanks are cheap and easy to mass produce. The Sherman definitely had an edge in overall tech and crew comfort.
And if you're really going to be nitpicky, the Panther is actually taller than the Sherman.
The slope is a disadvantage as much as an advantage. Interior space was nonexistent. Plus lets talk about how a two man turret makes it a deathtrap. Plus no radio, and poor vision. Seriously, who designed that...France?
I'd refers to Germans (Pz4), British (Past Crusaders and Churchill), and Soviets (since T34 onwards), they've been evolved by the time USA joined the war in full swing.
Japanese and Italian designs were no problems to Americans at all
Also Pz4 is shorter, and somewhat more flexible.
Don't forget the 1943-44 scenario where Germans already relegated Pz3 to different roles as these were outclassed.
PZIV at time M4 came out had a weaker gun and weaker armor. While it was a good tank it did not match the ease of maintenance and manufacturing as the M4.
How is a PZ IV more flexible? The M4 served in every theater of the war. It was the basis for tank destroyers, tanks, assault tanks (15s), tanks with rocket launchers, mobile artillery and "funnies." There were M4s they floated. There were even M4s that served as IFVs with the turrets taken off.
British (Past Crusaders and Churchill),
Crusader: Less armor, crappier gun. IT HAD BOLTED ARMOR.
Crusader III (coming out at time of M4) had a three man crew. This is a deathtrap not a tank.
and Soviets (since T34 onwards)
T34 had a two man turret, restricted vision, and few radios. No radios mean the Germans dance around you.
T34/85 is a different beast entirely. However it did not come out until 1944 and still never had enough radios. M4 advances were equal or better.
(M4 Easy 8s with poorly trained crews stomped T34/85s with poorly trained crews in Korea).
In the interest of full disclosure the SU 100 is one of my favorite armored vehicles.
The T-34 is easily the most influential tank of the war, in that it was the first tank to combine mass production with a good balance of the top three criteria for tnaks: firepower, protection, and mobility. It was genuinely innovative, and directly inspired/influenced the Panther, which is in many ways the first main battle tank.
Either way, both hand enormous flaws. The Panther was difficult to maintain and expensive to build, while the T-34 lacked many secondary systems that add to success: ergonomics, optics, radios. Due to this, training and doctrinal difficulties, and effective Axis anti-tank weapons, the USSR built about 65,000 of them during the war, but lost 45,000 in combat.
The Sherman obviously had many of it's own flaws, but the M4 was actually a very well designed tank for what it was intended to do. As a breakthrough tank, used mostly on the offensive, it enabled the Allies and the US in particular to engage in fast moving, combined arms combat. Yes, by 1943, the Panther really outclassed the Sherman, but the limited tank on tank combat, combined with the readily availability of tank destroyers, artillery, and air power reduced the need for a heavier tank.
From an organizational standpoint, you can kind of see why the US kept the status quo. They had invested in the Tank Destroyer Corps, and while it worked when it got the chance, the lack of massed tank battles in the west and Mediterranean really limited how effective that combat branch was. I think in hindsight, cutting bait on Tank Destroyers in 1943 and shifting harder to the 76mm gun and other upgunned shermans would have made sense.
Fundamentally though, equipment quality matters a lot less than people think. The German successes in the early war weren't due to having better firepower or protection, but rather having more mobile and concentrated tanks. It wasn't until the Late War that the Germans had superior tanks, and that's when they started losing. The T-34 was widely considered the best tank in the world, but they did little to slow the Germans done. (It was the difficulty of logistics, combined with a masterful counteroffensive outside of Moscow, and not the winter, that doomed Barbarrosa).
Let's say the US had replaced the Sherman. What would that replacement look like, and how would it change the war? The Sherman's time of worst obsolescence maps directly to the time when the allies advanced most quickly!
Fundamentally though, equipment quality matters a lot less than people think.
Indeed. You have to have a massive advantage in equipment before it translates to your troops steamrolling the opposition. As long as you meet a minimal performance than the real difference maker will be tactics and logistics.
For example. The M1 Garand was definitely the best standard issue rifle of WW2. Semi-automatic with an 8 round magazine firing 30.06. But the result of the war would have been the same even if US troops had still been equipped with their old M1903 Springfields. Sure, it made a difference in small unit engagements to have semi-auto weapons vs your opponent's bolt actions, but on the larger strategic picture how much the Garand hastened the end of the war is probably negligible.
The fact that many conflicts today are STILL seeing the use of bolt action rifles shows that the difference in equipment is not a huge factor.
From what I remember Russians who got their hands on Shermans loved them, much more comfortable and many liked them better. Odd thing is they note that a t-34 when hit would burst into flames...while the sherman (ronson) wouldn't....so they had the opposite experience that a lot of people claim.
They say at the Tank Museam that the battles at Khalkhin Gol made the Russians against petrol engines for tanks.
Supposedly, becuase it was a deisel, you could light a fire underneath the T34 to keep it unfrozen without it bursting into flames!
PZIV at time M4 came out had a weaker gun and weaker armor. While it was a good tank it did not match the ease of maintenance and manufacturing as the M4.
People unfamiliar with German wartime development tend to overlook this. When Germany entered WWII they thought the PzIII would be their man tank for the entire war (enter the Somau S35, CharB1, KV-1, and the T-34 who all laughed at the PzIII's weaker armor and guns). The PzIV was originally produced in small numbers, intended as a command and control platform and carried a weak stub gun that wasn't even designed for engaging other tanks. The laater war variants of the PzIV wouldn't be common until early 1944. Up to that point, German armor was generally inferior to its opponents (in comparison PzIIIs and early variant PzIVs), mostly made up of underperforming early war variants or superior models ripped from conquered countries.
Crusader III (coming out at time of M4) had a three man crew. This is a deathtrap not a tank.
British armor design in WWII was so bad it could be considered treason. I really really wish I could find the damn book I pulled that quote from.
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Grey Templar wrote: Indeed. You have to have a massive advantage in equipment before it translates to your troops steamrolling the opposition. As long as you meet a minimal performance than the real difference maker will be tactics and logistics.
Case and point, in the Battle of France French armor was markedly superior to those in use by their German foes, but having better tanks didn't mean jack when your command was woefully inferior, your tactics overall outdated, and your opponent rapidly achieves air superiority.
Should the US have replaced the Sherman, without hindsight? No.
Should the US have replaced the Sherman with hindsight? Still no, but like almost any weapon it would have helped to fix it a little at design stage.
British Tanks
Yes most of therm were rather crap, but often had indirect advantages. The Churchill was very slow but could climb slopes impossible to other vehicles, it was an infantry tank and the idea behind that was sound, only the British did not stick with the doctrine but flip flopped. They could have profited by placing Infantry tanks under infantry commanders, like Germans often did with their STGs. However they kept trying to do blitzkrieg with them. Matilda was a very good tank, so long as it was put to the right purpose.
Later the British learned and used Shermans for armoured formations and assigned Churchils to infantry support, and this was largely successful. the Churchil has a bad reputation post war because people look at its paper statistics and try to compare it to other medium or heavy tanks. Really all the Churchil needed to do was be able to traverse very difficult terrain without bogging, be fast enough to keep up with an infantry advance and have firepower enough to deal with problems to the infantry they support. Both the Matilda and the Churchill did what they were expected to do very well.
T-34 vs Sherman and logistic mobility
Yes the T-34 was lower and wider and the Sherman was taller and narrower, and yes that made a difference. However the T-34 was designed for the Eastern front, it could work well in Russia. The Sherman was designed from the outset to work in urban confines and on narrow but heavily bordered western European roads. Combat performance played second fiddle to logistic performance and I do not think the doctrine was unsound. Shermans and Stuarts could be relocated in large numbers along fairly narrow roads. Patton did this a lot and it gave the Germans problems with the strategic mobility and logistical mobility of the US armour assets which nearly all had similar logistical handling requirements and space and load limits. Germans tanks on the other hand needed to manoeuver very carefully. Thankfully for them they didn't require large manoeuvers to get from one counterattack position to another due to the type of campaign they were facing, also the German staff were up to the planning involved.
Indeed, Churchills were heavily armored, especially as time went on. One of their big weaknesses was poor hatch design which made escape difficult. Additionally their narrow waist made putting a larger turret (and gun) impossible.
Matilda IIs were armored like Tigers in comparison to the Germans. They were just too slow for tank fighting and the German doctrine was better.
We should remember, German combined arms doctrine was better, but they also had more experience honing that doctrine. The German military was on a revenge streak before Hitler came to power (and actively supported him due to that). Before they faced the French and British they had been refining doctrine in the USSR , and learned very valuable lessons in Spain and Poland.
Whats amazing is that the USSR art was so bad until 1943. They had also been in Spain, Finland, and Poland and helped the Germans pre-war.
Matilda IIs were armored like Tigers in comparison to the Germans. They were just too slow for tank fighting and the German doctrine was better.
They were also seriously restricted by their turret ring size which IIRC made upgunning them beyond a 2 pounder impractical or impossible and the 2 pounder was already inadequate even in 1940.
Matilda IIs were armored like Tigers in comparison to the Germans. They were just too slow for tank fighting and the German doctrine was better.
They were also seriously restricted by their turret ring size which IIRC made upgunning them beyond a 2 pounder impractical or impossible and the 2 pounder was already inadequate even in 1940.
Yes indeedy. Fair disclosure but I find them cool and maybe the best prewar tank alongside the PZIII, which I also think is cool.
Frazzled wrote: Indeed, Churchills were heavily armored, especially as time went on. One of their big weaknesses was poor hatch design which made escape difficult. Additionally their narrow waist made putting a larger turret (and gun) impossible.
6pdr was good enough for infantry support, then you got the AVRE and the very nasty Churchill crocodile which was a very good flamethrower unit as it had plenty of fuel and carried it externally.
If they wanted a Churchil to fight tanks they could have placed a 17pdr tank destroyer mount on it. However they liked the Firefly and up to a point the Challenger..
Whats amazing is that the USSR art was so bad until 1943. They had also been in Spain, Finland, and Poland and helped the Germans pre-war.
Stalin was fed false inteligence about Red Army coup plots and ordered a brutal purge that removed just about every competent officer by late 1940. Just as planned.
They did trial a Churchill with a 17pdr, the Black Prince variant, but it was horribly underpowered and pretty much obsolete by the time any prototypes had actually been produced, given that the Firefly and Challenger were mainstays, the Comet was already in use, and the Centurion was in early production.
Avatar 720 wrote: They did trial a Churchill with a 17pdr, the Black Prince variant, but it was horribly underpowered and pretty much obsolete by the time any prototypes had actually been produced, given that the Firefly and Challenger were mainstays, the Comet was already in use, and the Centurion was in early production.
Actually, Black Prince was a completely new design. They just gave the job to the same guys who did Churchill. Who proceeded to design it from the ground up to just be a Churchill VIII. Except it was even slower.
Question: When wass the M4 mass prduced? To my knowledge that was 1942 or did i get that wrong?
Second question: Which variant of the PZ iv consider you the workhorse, because the long 75 mm ones outnumber the short barreled pieces of crap by 7/1 according to lentz.
Avatar 720 wrote: They did trial a Churchill with a 17pdr, the Black Prince variant, but it was horribly underpowered and pretty much obsolete by the time any prototypes had actually been produced, given that the Firefly and Challenger were mainstays, the Comet was already in use, and the Centurion was in early production.
Actually, Black Prince was a completely new design. They just gave the job to the same guys who did Churchill. Who proceeded to design it from the ground up to just be a Churchill VIII. Except it was even slower.
That's why I called it a variant, because for any degrees of separation there were on paper it was basically just a tweaked Churchill.
Why did the US replace the Sherman at all then if it had all these advantages? If there was no advantage in the M26 Pershing that is the bedrock of the Patton series of tanks then what was the rationale for changing the tanks over at all? Why not just have a fleet of super Sherman’s like the Israelis did? Improve the optics and ammunition with regular upgrades. If it’s already a sound platform then why scrap the entire fleet? Quite a few people have said there was a completely negligible advantage in upgrading the fleet at all even if it was feasible. Is this literally a case of the US looked at the big Russian tanks and said “we need bigger toys” and this was an egregious waste of resources?
As an aside I think a lot of Myth busting videos are overly focused on rationalising and making excuses for past mistakes. Being in a job you quickly learn that mistakes and problems abound in life. The way some people talk about it in this very deterministic manner nobody has ever screwed up or made a mistake. Yes, you do have Myth busting of “this was amazing” like I think the Chieftains hatch says a few things about the T34 on one of his videos and why it’s a tad bit overrated. But my impression is that a lot of myth busting is more about “X was not as bad”.
I get why they didn’t replace the Sherman in the war. It is a good tank and it is a tank that won the war. That’s a very difficult point to contend with. People mentioned tank on tank engagements being rare and killing infantry being more important. Well, oddly, this is one instance you can actually tell by playing video games. If you play Battlefield it’s way more important to kill the infantry and I’ll take a big monster HE mortar over an AP round any day. Plus I hope I was clear that I don’t consider “oh German tanks are amazing woot” because well, no. Again, Germany lost the war so that’s a big point to bring up in any discussion on the topic.
Well, the US was entirely correct to start replacing the Sherman after WWII, I don't think anyone is disputing that. The Sherman was reaching its practical limits as a chassis in comparison to the tanks being produced by peers at that point, like the Centurion.
But during the war, it would have cost lives to go all in to replacing the vehicle.
Haighus wrote: Well, the US was entirely correct to start replacing the Sherman after WWII, I don't think anyone is disputing that. The Sherman was reaching its practical limits as a chassis in comparison to the tanks being produced by peers at that point, like the Centurion.
But during the war, it would have cost lives to go all in to replacing the vehicle.
Aye, short production runs in order to improve or replace are just as bad as non innovation.
Totalwar1402 wrote: Why did the US replace the Sherman at all then if it had all these advantages?
A service life of 16 years in the US military is pretty good for hardware like an armored vehicle in the 40s and 50s. Technology for tanks was rapidly advancing throughout the first half of the twentieth century, especially as we learned more about armor, ballistics, and engines. The Sherman had a good long run compared to many of its peers. Only the T34 family really compares.
If there was no advantage in the M26 Pershing that is the bedrock of the Patton series of tanks then what was the rationale for changing the tanks over at all?
Technological and doctrinal advancement in the post-war era.
Why not just have a fleet of super Sherman’s like the Israelis did?
Because we had money.
If it’s already a sound platform then why scrap the entire fleet?
It wasn't scraped. Like the M48, and later M60, a lot of Shermans moved into the Army reserve once new tanks got rolled in to replace it. Others were sold overseas to allies during the cold war, because a Sherman was better than the interwar-period British and French tanks commonly used by many developing nations up to that point.
Is this literally a case of the US looked at the big Russian tanks and said “we need bigger toys” and this was an egregious waste of resources?
We, did? Minus the egregious part. The Sherman continued to serve as a main tank in the US military for another ten years after World War II. It's immediate replacements simply weren't good enough until later variants of the M48 and then the M60 rolled out in the late 50s. Some of that is down to slowness in the Army, some is due to ongoing debate about what a good tank should look like, and others are just technoligcal challenges that took time to hurdle.
Honestly it feels like you're selectively ignoring parts of people's responses to keep beating a dead horse you've already gotten answers for.
M46 was good but M47 and M48 were already in development. There were also delays in Army gear universally until 1950 because there was a thought that all future land wars would be solved with nuclear bombs and artillery.
Totalwar1402 wrote: Why did the US replace the Sherman at all then if it had all these advantages? If there was no advantage in the M26 Pershing that is the bedrock of the Patton series of tanks then what was the rationale for changing the tanks over at all? Why not just have a fleet of super Sherman’s like the Israelis did? Improve the optics and ammunition with regular upgrades. If it’s already a sound platform then why scrap the entire fleet? Quite a few people have said there was a completely negligible advantage in upgrading the fleet at all even if it was feasible. Is this literally a case of the US looked at the big Russian tanks and said “we need bigger toys” and this was an egregious waste of resources?
The US didn't scrap the Shermans, and the M26 never fully replaced them. They were still the most common UN armor in the Korean war, and even after that they were mostly transferred to allies. It wasn't until the Patton series that the Sherman was fully phased out.
By the early 50s, the USSR was starting to mass produce the T-54, which easily eclipsed the WWII vintage tanks in terms of armor, firepower, and mobility. The Sherman was pretty clearly obsolete by the mid 50s as a front line medium tank. Even then, the Sherman could have played a role, it was just more efficient to use specially designed kit, such as armored cars, self propelled artillery, etc.
WWII saw enormous leaps in both firepower and protection, with early war tanks carrying limited armor and small caliber guns, and late war tanks, especially on the eastern front, had enormously thick armor and huge guns. Still, there's a constraint on both protection and firepower, as eventually weight becomes too much for the engines, transmissions, suspensions, and roads of the time. Still, these developments were gradual and evolutionary after the war, topping out with the limits of rolled steel armor driven by piston engines. The Main Battle Tank that we know now is a very different piece of kit, relying on composite armor, seeing helicoptors as a primary threat, and requiring high speed and long range compared to WWII tanks.
So I was doing a bit of a tank wiki-walk the other day and started wondering if we’re in a bit of a similar situation now; a lot of people like to claim that tanks are obsolete, but they’ve consistently found use in the low-medium intensity conflicts of the last 20-years, even in urban environments, so I don’t buy into that argument. However most armies are stuck with the open field MBTs designed to fight the Cold War, because it’s far too expensive to replace them and their associated training, logistics, etc. I wonder what a new ground-up armour design would look like optimised for current conflicts and incorporating the latest technology in terms of guidance, sensors, network connectivity, etc.
I think the JLTV is basically what you're looking for, Jadenim. It's meant to meet the challenges of current low intensity guerrilla warfare by being a super armored car with a turret. It's cheaper than a tank, so it can be more places, and tougher than a Humvee so you'll lose less to IEDs. All but useless against a tank, of course, but that's the tradeoff.
Jadenim wrote: So I was doing a bit of a tank wiki-walk the other day and started wondering if we’re in a bit of a similar situation now; a lot of people like to claim that tanks are obsolete, but they’ve consistently found use in the low-medium intensity conflicts of the last 20-years, even in urban environments, so I don’t buy into that argument. However most armies are stuck with the open field MBTs designed to fight the Cold War, because it’s far too expensive to replace them and their associated training, logistics, etc. I wonder what a new ground-up armour design would look like optimised for current conflicts and incorporating the latest technology in terms of guidance, sensors, network connectivity, etc.
I think it's silly to claim that heavy close infantry support will ever be obsolete. I'm not sure the field requirements for such weapons platforms will be shifting much either. The Stryker is kind of a modernized urban AFV, but I think that we're in a similar place now as we were at the end of WWII with the exact picture of future armed conflicts being unclear or cloudy, especially since armies increasingly find themselves dealing with asymetrical conflicts while simultaneously needing to be prepared for more traditional wars.
Totalwar1402 wrote: Just watched an interesting vid by the guy who does tank chats (Chieftains Hatch) discussing this. Basically amounts to: M4 is very reliable, does the job, better than the German tanks and the “heavy tank” was a white elephant anyway. He also brought up the issue that it’s difficult to physically move the larger tanks and so it’s impractical to do so.
I am not sure on that though. It felt like he was going too much in the direction of defending the tank and the designers reputation. Just a few general points.
- He mentions that it was impractical to move heavy tanks. But the US took heavy tanks to Korea. So it can be done with the technology of the time. We’re not talking about the Maus, this became a regular thing to move big tanks around. He sort of framed that like it was an impossibility to move a 60 ton tank.
- Just a general glance at an M48 shows that they completely threw away the old Sherman design after the war. If it was this perfect tank then why did all subsequent tanks become bigger, heavier and have bigger guns? Even just the general shape of the tanks tells a story in of itself. The lecture was framed as “oh fans of the Pershing just like the big toys and aren’t thinking about the logistics”. But, clearly the post war designers did not share this opinion which is a very good suggestion that they were not happy with the Sherman. As well as that the logistics and maintenance issues were surmountable. They did make bigger tanks with bigger guns and they use that formula to the present day. All those Sherman’s went to the scrap heap very quickly.
- We know they could have built better tanks because they did build better tanks within a few years of the war. If they didn’t get them built then that is a failure on the part of the designers and the decision makers. This is framed as if the Sherman was all that could have been built and building a better tank was impossible. This is a case of eye of the beholder, but bungling through is not the same thing as steady as she goes.
- He brought up that the Sherman could beat the German tanks. I get that he is trying to counter the myth of “the Tiger” and all that. But, the US was a vastly richer and more industrial nation than Germany; which was being bombed and lacked resources. Given that during the Cold War the US leveraged that advantage against the Soviet Union I am not sure why “good enough” cuts it when we’re talking about the Sherman. If the Germans were building trash tanks then why is it reasonable that the US build more reliable trash tanks? Are we saying that if the US could have built M48’s that they would not have used them? Wouldn’t that have given the US an edge?
- Why would the US be developing the Pershing and bigger guns for the Sherman if they were happy with its performance? If it was part of the plan to have the reliable tank through the course of the war? Doesn’t that suggest they wanted a better tank but couldn’t do it until after the war ended? I think the lecture oscillates a lot on this point between the Sherman being good enough for WW2, whilst also implying that it’s impossible to make a MBT in the 1940s.
I think it’s more that the lecture came across as making excuses for the designers and decision makers. Especially since he spends quite some listing their failures and scrapped projects. This is not evidence of the sage masters of logistics knowing that big tanks with big guns was a silly idea that would never catch on.
Long and short:
1) The Sherman was already in mass production and good enough to do the job.
2) After the war ended, new and better tanks were developed and put into production, so those tanks were available for Korea.
Also, the Americans worked on a wide variety of projects - both medium and heavy. Several were specifically in developments to potentially replace the M4. Of those, the ones that would have been beneficial needed more work, and many of their benefits were added to the M4's editions over time (the turret mounting the 76mm for example, HVSS suspension as another).
Once you get to the "heavy" class, those were still in teething. Realistically they could have advanced six months with less resistance from mcNair, with M26 production beginning in May 1944. That would have buzzsawed right into the heavy production going for DDay, and resulting lower number of total tanks in production for several months. Did the Americans really want a hole in production RIGHT at the time of the intended heaviest fighting?
But lets assume thats the case. Following history, they wouldn't get production above 100 M26s per month for four months, plus shipping to the ETO, so figure 5 months, plus retraining. So units wouldn't be seeing material action until November 1944.
McNair might have resisted the deployment of the M20 series but he did nothing to delay it. I think a strong case has been made that the delays in the M/T20 tanks came mostly down to the Ordnance Department’s feth ups and McNair personal opposition to them never prevented their progress. The narrative that he did appears to be a post-war attempt to shift the blame to a dead man by the Ordnance Dept..
Totalwar1402 wrote: Why did the US replace the Sherman at all then if it had all these advantages? If there was no advantage in the M26 Pershing that is the bedrock of the Patton series of tanks then what was the rationale for changing the tanks over at all? Why not just have a fleet of super Sherman’s like the Israelis did? Improve the optics and ammunition with regular upgrades. If it’s already a sound platform then why scrap the entire fleet? Quite a few people have said there was a completely negligible advantage in upgrading the fleet at all even if it was feasible. Is this literally a case of the US looked at the big Russian tanks and said “we need bigger toys” and this was an egregious waste of resources?
As an aside I think a lot of Myth busting videos are overly focused on rationalising and making excuses for past mistakes. Being in a job you quickly learn that mistakes and problems abound in life. The way some people talk about it in this very deterministic manner nobody has ever screwed up or made a mistake. Yes, you do have Myth busting of “this was amazing” like I think the Chieftains hatch says a few things about the T34 on one of his videos and why it’s a tad bit overrated. But my impression is that a lot of myth busting is more about “X was not as bad”.
I get why they didn’t replace the Sherman in the war. It is a good tank and it is a tank that won the war. That’s a very difficult point to contend with. People mentioned tank on tank engagements being rare and killing infantry being more important. Well, oddly, this is one instance you can actually tell by playing video games. If you play Battlefield it’s way more important to kill the infantry and I’ll take a big monster HE mortar over an AP round any day. Plus I hope I was clear that I don’t consider “oh German tanks are amazing woot” because well, no. Again, Germany lost the war so that’s a big point to bring up in any discussion on the topic.
One of the reasons the US stuck with the Sherman is that they worked out they could ship three Shermans for the same effort as a single Pershing, and the Sherman was already better than anything the Japanese had.
It was also as good as any German tank except the relatively small number of Panthers, Tigers and King Tigers.
Pershing was the US' version of a Panther, except it was much better. Further, the Super Pershing had a gun that was equal to the Tiger II's. Like the Panther it had initial teething problems with an underpowered engine. Had the war continued that would have been rectified in similar fashion.
What I always wondered about was why didn't the later M26s and M46s not go with the longer caliber gun on the Super Pershing. Any information on that?
I think they had the same issues as some of the German long gunned stuff in that the calibration on the gun sights tended to fail as the just couldn't be kept stable enough when the were driving even with a travel lock, especially if the had to go over rough ground
and of course in action the travel lock wouldn't be used anyway
OrlandotheTechnicoloured wrote: I think they had the same issues as some of the German long gunned stuff in that the calibration on the gun sights tended to fail as the just couldn't be kept stable enough when the were driving even with a travel lock, especially if the had to go over rough ground
and of course in action the travel lock wouldn't be used anyway
LordofHats wrote: I think it's worth pointing out the Army replaced the Pershing faster than it replaced the Sherman
The Pershing is an amazing tank on paper.
In practice it suffered a number of very annoying practical use limitations, mostly centered on its transmission and drive train.
But it looks...COOL!
Yes, it had the same issues as the German cats, and to a much lesser extent the JS II series. Say what you want about the Soviets, but they were way ahead in diesel engine design. It also helps that they were the first to bring a big tank to the game in 1941, and had the teething problems for all that sorted out before the Tiger even went into production.
EDIT Its interesting that the dimensions are so similar:
Panther: L/W/H
8.86 m x 3.27 m x 2.99 m
(29ft 1in x 10ft 9in x 9ft 10in)
Pershing: L/W/H
28’4” x 11’6” x 9’1.5”
8.64 x 3.51 x 2.78 m
Yeah. The Soviet's just went straight diesel, while many western nations tried to make more conventional gasoline engines work, or even experimented with electric engines. I think it's easy to forget that in the 30s the internal combustion engine was still new technology. Much of the war machine of the participant nations in WWII was still horse drawn in the late 30s and early 40s. The US and the USSR were the only nations to come out of the war with the industrial capacity and technology to have true fully mechanized armies.
LordofHats wrote: Yeah. The Soviet's just went straight diesel, while many western nations tried to make more conventional gasoline engines work, or even experimented with electric engines. I think it's easy to forget that in the 30s the internal combustion engine was still new technology. Much of the war machine of the participant nations in WWII was still horse drawn in the late 30s and early 40s. The US and the USSR were the only nations to come out of the war with the industrial capacity and technology to have true fully mechanized armies.
I think you can add the British to that list, they had the most motorised/mechanised armed forces of any nation at the start of WWII, andcontinued increasing vehicle use.
Interestingly, the Italians were the second most motorised at the outbreak, but simply did not have the industrial and resource capacity to maintain that advantage.
LordofHats wrote: Yeah. The Soviet's just went straight diesel, while many western nations tried to make more conventional gasoline engines work...
IIRC Len Deighton mentioned in Blitzkrieg that this was partly for logistical reasons on the part of the German military. Whilst internal combustion engines were relatively new technology in the 1930s, they were still around in civilian use and the use of petrol/gasoline rather than diesel engines allowed the military to refuel from civilian filling stations as they encountered them rather than relying on much rarer supplies of diesel fuel. It's been a while since I read it but I think he suggests that at least one of the pre-war German expansions (I think it may have been the Anschluss or it might have been the annexation of Czechoslovakia) would have probably been a different prospect if the military had been using diesel engine vehicles since the supply chain just was not up to the task without essentially looting or requisitioning civilian supplies.
I think the logistics of refueling were less significant than the domestic production ability of the countries involved.
Domestically tractors were a big industry in the USSR at the time, and the USSR used diesel engines in their tractors. So, obviously, when building tanks they built what they knew. Diesel engines.
Likewise, the US and Germany had big commercial car industries, used gasoline engines, so when they built their tanks they used gasoline. The Germans experimented with diesel engines and found they lacked the industrial expertise and capacity to do so. It would cost more to switch to diesel than to just keep building gasoline engines (or petrol, I know the difference between gas and diesel but I can't say I'm clear on the difference with petrol).
Pershing was the US' version of a Panther, except it was much better. Further, the Super Pershing had a gun that was equal to the Tiger II's. Like the Panther it had initial teething problems with an underpowered engine. Had the war continued that would have been rectified in similar fashion.
What I always wondered about was why didn't the later M26s and M46s not go with the longer caliber gun on the Super Pershing. Any information on that?
They did fix the Pershing's issues, eventually. That's what the M46 patton is
i think that they went with the smaller gun because it meant that they could stuff more ammunition in the tank. Something about needing to fit 70+ rounds, which they could barely do with the regular 90mm.
Ballistics also advanced in the post-war period. The M46 had better penetration with it's smaller gun than the Pershing owing to improvements in ammunition.
LordofHats wrote: Yeah. The Soviet's just went straight diesel, while many western nations tried to make more conventional gasoline engines work, or even experimented with electric engines. I think it's easy to forget that in the 30s the internal combustion engine was still new technology. Much of the war machine of the participant nations in WWII was still horse drawn in the late 30s and early 40s. The US and the USSR were the only nations to come out of the war with the industrial capacity and technology to have true fully mechanized armies.
The Soviets went with Diesel mostly because they simply didn't have the gas production to sustain gasoline engines. IIRC this was also a mistake of the Germans during WW2 when they went with Gasoline instead of diesel for lack of a good diesel engine for most of their tanks. It made their fuel woes even worse.
LordofHats wrote: I think the logistics of refueling were less significant than the domestic production ability of the countries involved.
Domestically tractors were a big industry in the USSR at the time, and the USSR used diesel engines in their tractors. So, obviously, when building tanks they built what they knew. Diesel engines.
Likewise, the US and Germany had big commercial car industries, used gasoline engines, so when they built their tanks they used gasoline. The Germans experimented with diesel engines and found they lacked the industrial expertise and capacity to do so. It would cost more to switch to diesel than to just keep building gasoline engines (or petrol, I know the difference between gas and diesel but I can't say I'm clear on the difference with petrol).
It was actually a surprisingly big part of the military planning of all the Western European nations prior to WWII. The infrastructure in Western Europe was really good and dense, and a significant part of what allowed Germany to neglect logistical preparation so much in their planning- roads and railways are plentiful and good, bridges are good, food and petrol stations and horse fodder plentiful, landing strips plentiful. A large degree of living off the land for military units is achievable, and what needs transporting is done efficiently. This is why they struggled so much logistically when invading the USSR (especially with the Soviet scorched earth policy).
There is an interesting video by MHV or the Chieftain talking about this (can't remember which). It basically boils down to logistics being of secondary importance to operational needs in Western European campaigns, and this has long been a feature of Western European warfare. The Battle of France is the textbook example. Of course, logistics are vitally important when shipping supplies across an ocean, which is why the US has invested so much in this area over the last century. They also become increasingly important the longer a war drags on, as the resources and infrastructure get depleted.
LordofHats wrote: Yeah. The Soviet's just went straight diesel, while many western nations tried to make more conventional gasoline engines work, or even experimented with electric engines. I think it's easy to forget that in the 30s the internal combustion engine was still new technology. Much of the war machine of the participant nations in WWII was still horse drawn in the late 30s and early 40s. The US and the USSR were the only nations to come out of the war with the industrial capacity and technology to have true fully mechanized armies.
The Soviets went with Diesel mostly because they simply didn't have the gas production to sustain gasoline engines. IIRC this was also a mistake of the Germans during WW2 when they went with Gasoline instead of diesel for lack of a good diesel engine for most of their tanks. It made their fuel woes even worse.
In part the Germans choice of Petrol (Gasoline) as their primary fuel was pragmatic, they didn't have decent supplies of oil to make either and it's far easier to make synthetic petrol than it is synthetic diesel, so their late war fuel shortages would have been a lot worse if they'd gone down that route
