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 BaronIveagh wrote:

 cuda1179 wrote:
. You could get all 5 crew out of a Sherman well before you could even open the only hatch on a T-34 (no exaggeration).

Yeah, i remember from the fire safety course for Sherman's that to pass you had to be out of the tank within five seconds of someone yelling 'Fire'.

This might seem like a strange question, but what did the commander shout when he wanted the gunner to...fire...the main gun? "Shoot?" "Hit it?" "Nail the Bastard?" Because "Fire!" seemed the obvious choice to me, until now!

 Witzkatz wrote:

This might seem like a strange question, but what did the commander shout when he wanted the gunner to...fire...the main gun? "Shoot?" "Hit it?" "Nail the Bastard?" Because "Fire!" seemed the obvious choice to me, until now!

Modern American tankers use the phrase "send it" responded with "on the way" for firing the main gun. While I haven't researched it, it seems like this would be the same, or really similar in WW2

 Witzkatz wrote:

 BaronIveagh wrote:

 cuda1179 wrote:
. You could get all 5 crew out of a Sherman well before you could even open the only hatch on a T-34 (no exaggeration).

Yeah, i remember from the fire safety course for Sherman's that to pass you had to be out of the tank within five seconds of someone yelling 'Fire'.

This might seem like a strange question, but what did the commander shout when he wanted the gunner to...fire...the main gun? "Shoot?" "Hit it?" "Nail the Bastard?" Because "Fire!" seemed the obvious choice to me, until now!

You know I never thought of that, but it makes complete sense XD

Well they say send it/on the way in Fury, and everyone knows that it's an accurate representation of ww2 tank warfare and tactics.

 Witzkatz wrote:

 BaronIveagh wrote:

 cuda1179 wrote:
. You could get all 5 crew out of a Sherman well before you could even open the only hatch on a T-34 (no exaggeration).

Yeah, i remember from the fire safety course for Sherman's that to pass you had to be out of the tank within five seconds of someone yelling 'Fire'.

This might seem like a strange question, but what did the commander shout when he wanted the gunner to...fire...the main gun? "Shoot?" "Hit it?" "Nail the Bastard?" Because "Fire!" seemed the obvious choice to me, until now!

In the old days you got instructions beyond just 'fire' when it was time to fire a gun, though 'Bail Out' was the actual command when the tank was on fire. As far as gun firing these days for the British I believe the sequence goes 'on' when the gunner finds his target, 'fire' which is firing the laser rangefinder, and then 'Firing' which is the actual gun firing, at least according to a pal from UK.

simonr1978 wrote:
I don't think I suggested it was anything to do with the range of the tanks concerned, if that was implied then I apologise, it was more a counter to Scootypuffjunior's original assertion that only the Russians fielded diesel engine tanks. Aside from that I wholeheartedly agree with everything both he and you have said in reply about the Sherman.

Sorry, the mistake is all mine. It sounded like I was correcting you, when I was just trying to add to your post. I was trying to make a point that diesel engines had advantages but also drawbacks, and so even when the US moved to some diesel powered Shermans it wasn't done as an upgrade but just as a way of making more Shermans.


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 LordofHats wrote:
To bring up the Battle of the Bulge again, one of the keys in holding the cross road cities like St. Vith were *drum roll* Shermans! Us tanks and tank destroyers became pivotal in holding those cities because sure the Germans had Tiger IIs but they didn't have a lot of them and they wouldn't advance without infantry, a lesson Germany learned hard at Kursk when Soviet troops overran and destroyed the first Tigers to see battle because they advanced without infantry support.

The Sherman didn't have to beat German tanks in a fight if they blew up their supporting infantry and lighter vehicles, which Shermans were superbly good at. St. Vith was basically held by a single platoon of Hellcats and a company's worth of Shermans sitting inclined on a hill shooting their guns artillery style into every German advance on the position. It didn't matter than 75mm had a long shot at killing a Tiger II, or that the 76mm was ineffective. No Tiger II is going to advance alone into a closed quarters environment. Infantry would overrun and destroy it, and infantry and lighter vehicles struggled to advance against tanks they couldn't see.

Excellent point. Another example is Dubno, the barely known battle that actually had more tanks in operation than Kursk. At this early point in Barbarossa the T-34 was near immune to German tank guns, the KV series even more so, and in addition to several hundred of them they also had several thousand lighter tanks (some good, many not so good). But the mechanized divisions they were in were not ready when the Germans rolled over the border, their supporting infantry had few if any trucks. So when the Russians attacked they rapidly outpaced their infantry, their attacks stagnated and the tanks were picked off by field guns, magnetic mines, molotovs etc. The Russians were slaughtered, losing loads of their superior tanks and a stupid number of soldiers.


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 LordofHats wrote:
History is not immune to the myth of "memory". Belton Y Cooper's example is actually incredibly common in late accounts of prior events. It's why today Historians encourage the distinction of contemporary records of an event, from record of an event by contemporaries. While not commonly studied in respect to WWII, it is a major topic of study in the Civil War that veterans often undergo a paradigm shift in how they remember their war time experiences during, after, and way after an event. This extends outside of war as well which is a common subject in the study of race relations in US history. US popular culture gradually accepted as a norm that the Sherman was a bad tank and that it got US soldiers killed for being so inferior. Actual war records completely contradict this narrative, but that doesn't matter because far more people bought into the myth than fought in the war, and even the people who fought in the war are not immune to group think. Even tankers who liked their Shermans during the fighting, undoubtedly had bad memories of being in a Sherman. It's a fething war of course they do! Combine this with popular notions and even a veteran who might presumably know better might start to think "yeah the Sherman was kind of gak."

I wonder if part of the issue is that no matter what tank you're in, no matter its qualities, its a pretty freaking terrifying experience. You can't see a damn thing, you are everyone's first target and even with all that armour there's a lot of stuff that can pop you and you will not see it coming.

But at the same time the tank itself is a war winning weapon.

So if in the US you have a lot of popular accounts coming from men on the ground, they're going to focus on how gak it was being a tanker, which they're going to think is the experience of being in a Sherman, because it wasn't like they got to spend a month in a Panzer IV just for a contrast. At the same time the popular accounts in the West of German armour is going to come from the officers who all wrote their accounts after the war, and they're going to talk about how their tanks were used in various breakthrough operations and other high level stuff.

Just a thought.

 sebster wrote:


So if in the US you have a lot of popular accounts coming from men on the ground, they're going to focus on how gak it was being a tanker, which they're going to think is the experience of being in a Sherman, because it wasn't like they got to spend a month in a Panzer IV just for a contrast. At the same time the popular accounts in the West of German armour is going to come from the officers who all wrote their accounts after the war, and they're going to talk about how their tanks were used in various breakthrough operations and other high level stuff.

Just a thought.

The events of Villers-Bocage is a good example of this honestly. Michael Wittmann performed an overwhelming tactical coup with a very small number of tanks and basically "defeated" a division. In and of itself this was an amazing feat on the part of Hauptsturmfuhrer Michael Wittmann, but the German propaganda machine seized it, turned his half-strength Battalion into "one Tiger slaughters the British" with lots of heavy photo editing, a radio interviews, news articles, the whole shebang. The Germans of course were amazed cause it's pretty damn amazing but the really shocking part is the British bought the entire bit. Even the wildly exaggerated parts. On the front lines reports of losses were conflicting and it was weeks before a real assessment of the battle was done. By then the myth of Wittmann had already cemented itself in the public mind and spread to American troops as well.

Despite being a single engagement the Battle of Villers-Bocage immortalized the Tiger as a fearsome warmachine and German tank crews as top knot, even though the Tiger was just "okay" outside of its superb gun and German tank crews at the time were already basically bled white.

 LordofHats wrote:
While not commonly studied in respect to WWII, it is a major topic of study in the Civil War that veterans often undergo a paradigm shift in how they remember their war time experiences during, after, and way after an event.

I recommend St Clair Mulholland's History of the 116th PA for an example of this, with Mulholland relating events he was not actually privy to. Conversely, some WW2 instances, it's actually the documents that are wrong, either for propaganda, or simply inaccuracies slipping in. Contemporary documentation would, for example, have you believe that a Duplex Drive took out a Tiger by penetrating it from the front. In reality, the duplex drive was at the bottom of the channel and the tank crew in question had been remounted in a Firefly. It was simply that the change had not made it's way back yet and the initial AAR was a bit bare of detail and poorly worded. So we get the doc that floats around to this day insisting that 75mms had no problems with Tigers from any side.

Im sure they've been brought up at somepoint, but 15 pages is pretty long so I'll bring them up again.



The Panzerkampfwagen V, or Panther, sure she was a little on the heavy side for a medium tank. And her transmission was apparently the literal definition of Kraut Space Magic that had no right to work. But she's got it all, ascetics, speed, armor and a great gun. Such a good tank even the French used her for a time after the War.


The Centurion Mk 1 on up to the Olifant Mk2. Arguably one of the world's First Main Battle Tanks and one of the best tanks ever designed. She's got a long a proven history, and is still in service today in one form or another. With the South Africans still using her as an MBT in the form of the Olifant Mk1B and Mk2.

My favorite tank is the

BBBBAAAAAAAAAAAANNNNNNNEEEEEEBLADDDDDDDEE

BBBBBAAAAAAAAAAAANNNNNNNNEEEEEBBBLLAAADEE

BBBAAAAAAANNNNEEEEEBLLLLLLAAAAAADDDDDDEEE

BAAAAAAAAAAAAANNNEEEEEEEEBBBBLLLLAAAAAADEE

AN IFV, not a tank, but what a monster! IDF Namer (the one pictured being used in the US ... not sure why?).

I absolutely love massive AFVs (I think most minis companies make their SF AFVs way too small...).
This must be the closest EARTH currently has to the

 War Drone wrote:
AN IFV, not a tank, but what a monster! IDF Namer (the one pictured being used in the US ... not sure why?).

I absolutely love massive AFVs (I think most minis companies make their SF AFVs way too small...).
This must be the closest EARTH currently has to the

Spoiler:

CRASSUS ARMOURED ASSAULT TRANSPORT!!!

It was being tested for evaluation as a replacement for the Bradley.

 War Drone wrote:
AN IFV, not a tank, but what a monster! IDF Namer (the one pictured being used in the US ... not sure why?).

I absolutely love massive AFVs (I think most minis companies make their SF AFVs way too small...).
This must be the closest EARTH currently has to the

Spoiler:

CRASSUS ARMOURED ASSAULT TRANSPORT!!!

The Namar is a full size, tank grade armoured Hull... With more armour!

They come just shy of a full battle tank.
There defenitely a upgrade on a M113

Yep, just been reading about them. Based on the Merkava IV, but with even MORE armour as they saved weight through not needing the tank turret ...

2x crew and can hold 10x fully-equipped bods. And getting all sorts of goodies, like active defence system.
2x of them were deployed in action and struck by multiple RPGs & ATGMs and suffered absolutely no armour damage or injuries whatsoever ... As you say, quite the upgrade over the M113!

 VictorVonTzeentch wrote:
Im sure they've been brought up at somepoint, but 15 pages is pretty long so I'll bring them up again.

Probably 6 or 7 of the 15 pages of this thread was debates about the Panther. It's like entering the UK politics thread and saying 'I'm sure this has been brought up before but what does everyone think about Brexit'

Such a good tank even the French used her for a time after the War.

Sort of. The French used captured Panthers to equip a regiment until they had a native tank to replace it. I want to say they were in use until 1948, so three years after the war. And it was very much about the French looking to rebuilt their capacity as fast possible. In contrast new Shermans and T34s were built and used around the world in to the 1980s.

Anyhow, I agree the Panther was a gorgeous looking tank, and had an excellent gun for tank hunting.

 Riquende wrote:
The campily named 'Flamingo'.



That commander looks so calm for someone watching human barbecue happening a few dozen yards away.

Teeny tiny side turret? Does it turns around? if so, how.

 Lone Cat wrote:

 Riquende wrote:
The campily named 'Flamingo'.

Spoiler:

That commander looks so calm for someone watching human barbecue happening a few dozen yards away.

Teeny tiny side turret? Does it turns around? if so, how.

Looks like they do, and can also be elevated a little bit:

I'd guess they can be turned using a handle inside the hull with the view ports used to aim. Flame throws aren't long range weapons with much need for accuracy.

 sebster wrote:

 VictorVonTzeentch wrote:
Im sure they've been brought up at somepoint, but 15 pages is pretty long so I'll bring them up again.

Probably 6 or 7 of the 15 pages of this thread was debates about the Panther. It's like entering the UK politics thread and saying 'I'm sure this has been brought up before but what does everyone think about Brexit'

Fair, still...

Such a good tank even the French used her for a time after the War.

Sort of. The French used captured Panthers to equip a regiment until they had a native tank to replace it. I want to say they were in use until 1948, so three years after the war. And it was very much about the French looking to rebuilt their capacity as fast possible. In contrast new Shermans and T34s were built and used around the world in to the 1980s.

Anyhow, I agree the Panther was a gorgeous looking tank, and had an excellent gun for tank hunting.

Well they did look to basing their post war tanks off the Panther and the King Tiger. It was just... problematic. That Kraut Space Magic.

As for the Sherman, I do like how it was continuously used, it was a solid tank. Personally I prefer it to the T-34.

 VictorVonTzeentch wrote:

 sebster wrote:

 VictorVonTzeentch wrote:
Im sure they've been brought up at somepoint, but 15 pages is pretty long so I'll bring them up again.

Probably 6 or 7 of the 15 pages of this thread was debates about the Panther. It's like entering the UK politics thread and saying 'I'm sure this has been brought up before but what does everyone think about Brexit'

Fair, still...

Such a good tank even the French used her for a time after the War.

Sort of. The French used captured Panthers to equip a regiment until they had a native tank to replace it. I want to say they were in use until 1948, so three years after the war. And it was very much about the French looking to rebuilt their capacity as fast possible. In contrast new Shermans and T34s were built and used around the world in to the 1980s.

Anyhow, I agree the Panther was a gorgeous looking tank, and had an excellent gun for tank hunting.

Well they did look to basing their post war tanks off the Panther and the King Tiger. It was just... problematic. That Kraut Space Magic.

As for the Sherman, I do like how it was continuously used, it was a solid tank. Personally I prefer it to the T-34.

Imagine a T34 built to US quality, with an 85mm turret, but with a US 76mm (which had higher penetration) and optics/radio...


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Personally I would rather an M4 or M10. Crew fight ability and survivability are better.

 Frazzled wrote:
[

Imagine a T34 built to US quality, with an 85mm turret, but with a US 76mm (which had higher penetration) and optics/radio...


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Personally I would rather an M4 or M10. Crew fight ability and survivability are better.

Yeah I know the Sherman was better than the T-34, its why I prefer it. Heck the M4A3E3 HVSS Shermans beat T-34-85s in Korea. Im a big fan of the Sherman VC Firefly as well.

Sebster wrote:The Ronson lighter is also a myth. It was supposedly used because of the motto 'lights up first time, every time'. Except that motto wasn't even used by Ronson until years after the war. There was possibly an issue with Shermans lighting up, but if it did happen more than in other tanks it was due to the ammo, not the engine. And the problem ended with the introduction of wet ammo stowage and redistributed ammo, at which point the Sherman was one of the tanks least likely to explode. Sure, when knocked out the Sherman did light up, but that's true of every tank - because once penetrated and abandoned the enemy would typically keep shooting it until it did light up, because you don't want to leave the enemy with a tank they can recover and use again. But in terms of Shermans lighting up while the crew were in them, it was probably never true, and the opposite became true when ammo stowage was changed.

Didn't the wet stowage come in later though into the war? My previous reading was that the Panzers had compartmentalised ammo so it wouldn't immediately go off if the tank was penetrated, but that in its self was from experience gained in 39/40. Designers of the Sherman realised pretty early on that they wanted to introduce a similar system but it was still introduced later on that in the Panzer, and it's possible that they had got that idea itself from witnessing the tanks in the field or captured Panzers.

 VictorVonTzeentch wrote:
Well they did look to basing their post war tanks off the Panther and the King Tiger. It was just... problematic. That Kraut Space Magic.

It wasn't space magic. Panthers broke down at stupidly high rates, and the heavier German tanks broke down even more often. It's just that in war time mechanical reliability is something a nation might be more willing to tolerate, if it increases performance just a little. But no-one is going to tolerate tanks that have mechanical breakdowns from 100km onwards in peacetime. So failure rates in the AMX50 were intolerable, but tolerated in the Panther, despite the latter being much higher.

As for the Sherman, I do like how it was continuously used, it was a solid tank. Personally I prefer it to the T-34.

They're the two best designs of the war.


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 Pacific wrote:
Didn't the wet stowage come in later though into the war?

It did, and it was in response to a perception that ammo in the Sherman was igniting more than it should. However, subsequent reviews found this was more a perception than a reality - Shermans were getting lit up, but no more than other tanks. Still, the wet stowage system and redesign of ammo locations was brought in, and the result was instead of the Sherman being about as vulnerable as most tanks, now it was significantly less vulnerable.

My previous reading was that the Panzers had compartmentalised ammo so it wouldn't immediately go off if the tank was penetrated, but that in its self was from experience gained in 39/40. Designers of the Sherman realised pretty early on that they wanted to introduce a similar system but it was still introduced later on that in the Panzer, and it's possible that they had got that idea itself from witnessing the tanks in the field or captured Panzers.

I can't speak for all panzers, but none of them had anything like the wet stowage system. In terms of specifics, the Panther had a noted ammo problem, with most ammo stored in the side sponsons, where it was quite vulnerable. The Panzer IV actually got worse stowage as the war went on - the compartments were removed to save on weight. Other tanks I don't know the details of their storage.

 VictorVonTzeentch wrote:

 Frazzled wrote:
[

Imagine a T34 built to US quality, with an 85mm turret, but with a US 76mm (which had higher penetration) and optics/radio...


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Personally I would rather an M4 or M10. Crew fight ability and survivability are better.

Yeah I know the Sherman was better than the T-34, its why I prefer it. Heck the M4A3E3 HVSS Shermans beat T-34-85s in Korea. Im a big fan of the Sherman VC Firefly as well.

The British actually considered producing the T-34 locally, with their own improvements. It didn't go ahead however for whatever reason.

An interesting question might be at this point, why did the excellent design of Russian & US/UK vehicles not translate into automotive design quality after the war?


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Sorry that's a bit of a trolling thing to mention but you know what I'm saying!

This is speculation but drawing some parallels on what happened in terms of aircraft. Once the US entered the war there was a tacit agreement that with lend-lease the US would provide the transport lift capacity which allowed the UK's air industry to concentrate largely on producing bombers and fighters, this meant that by war's end the US more or less dominated the civilian air transport sector whilst the UK had to play catch up and in the short term having to make do to a certain degree with adapted bomber designs like the Avro Lancastrian.

I wonder if something similar occurred on the ground with the US providing a good chunk of the motor transport capability meaning that they were in a position to exploit this in the immediate post-war period whilst British and Soviet industry had to re-adjust back to producing designs more appropriate for civilian use again? I'm not sure on this one I have to admit, hopefully someone with a bit better knowledge can correct me.

An interesting comparison between the Sherman and the Panther tanks is one of doctrinal use: the Sherman was designed from the outset as an all-purpose war machine and force multiplier, while the Panther was primarily a tank hunter, designed in response to the rising tide of good Russian tanks. One-on-one combats were exceptionally rare yet are all too often used to judge the performance of individual machines.

The Sherman was an excellent design, and one of the very first tanks to incorporate a gyro-stabilized main gun. The early combat experience of too many crews deaths due to fire was determined to be more of a crew disciplinary one than a technical one; as training increased the rate of crew loss went down dramatically - the wet stowage system used later was merely a bonus.

The survival rate of Sherman crews once the tank was knocked out of action was one of the highest of any tank during the war (the British Churchill may have been the highest) by ease of crew debarking, as noted by several already. Both the Panther and T-34 were extremely difficult to exit quickly.

I have read that while the Germans designed the Panther they considered a diesel power plant but another reason it was rejected is that there was concern about the smoke and loudness of diesels turning over on start up. Probably a secondary consideration compared to availability, but one regarded by tacticians nonetheless.

The Panther suffered from many teething problems during its career but overall it was an extremely modern and capable design. It suffered from very poor metallurgy later in the war and the armor often shattered quite dramatically from hits and high explosives. Inter-leavened road wheels provided a very smooth ride but mud and tree limbs tended to jam the works and replacing an interior running wheel could require the removal of 9 other wheels! The transmission never was very good, and many crews were ordered not to ever drive the tank in reverse for fear of damaging the final drive train. Talk about a liability! General Guderian didn't like the machine at all and preferred the upgraded Panzer IV. The operational range was usually kept to under 30 kilometers because of how often half or more of the tanks couldn't reach their rendezvous.

But for style points, the Panther wins hands down!

As a note on the Panther (and really a lot of the German big tanks in general) a lot of its issues werent so much due directly to mechanical breakdown or the like because of poor parts or whatnot, but rather that repair and maintenance were nightmares because of the way stuff was put together.

Yeah, the Panther had lots of final drive issues. That isnt necessarily because the final drive itself was terribly designed (though could have been better) , but that getting at it at all, even for simple maintenance, required the tank the be half disassembled and was an all day affair that involved cranes and lots of people, whereas on a Sherman it took a couple of hours to swap out. The aforementioned road wheels are another good example.

Now, these were also conscious design choices based on different warfare paradigms. In a short, decisive war like that of the Battle of France, with well trained and experienced crews, the Panther's issues wouldn't be so huge, and its tactical capabilities and advantages would be much more broadly felt. In a years long war of attrition, something like a T34 or Sherman that could be overmatched by something like a Panther in a quick campaign become dramatically more effective in a longer conflict where crews have little experience and haphazard training.

Likewise, the Sherman, when initially introduced, was among the best in the armor/firepower/mobility mix in late 1940/early 1941, it really was able to match or exceed the best in the world on each of those counts, and it gets a bad rap for later issues.

The chieftans hatch in youtube through world of tanks actually has some pretty good commentary on this stuff, from a real world tanker going through and visiting and exploring these tanks in museums and collections.

 sebster wrote:

 VictorVonTzeentch wrote:
Well they did look to basing their post war tanks off the Panther and the King Tiger. It was just... problematic. That Kraut Space Magic.

It wasn't space magic. Panthers broke down at stupidly high rates, and the heavier German tanks broke down even more often. It's just that in war time mechanical reliability is something a nation might be more willing to tolerate, if it increases performance just a little. But no-one is going to tolerate tanks that have mechanical breakdowns from 100km onwards in peacetime. So failure rates in the AMX50 were intolerable, but tolerated in the Panther, despite the latter being much higher.

Well some of the break downs were attributed to the needlessly complex design of some aspects of the tank's transmission, hence the space magic. The design proved too difficult to fully work the kinks out of.

Yeah Chieftain is awesome. He's pretty disdainful of the Panther. It's fun watching him get around early war French tanks and the Matilda 2.