Slitherine

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ORIGINAL: hawker

Just tell me please someone,in what aspect Sherman was better than Tiger except speed and numbers what is better on sherman???
Armor-NO
Gun-NO

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ORIGINAL: hawker
Maybe crew was better looking

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ORIGINAL: Ursa MAior

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ORIGINAL: Big B

Oh, and my favorite tank is still the funky looking M-3 Lee, Terror of the PzKw III J

If it is for me than I'd glady bring my Pzgr 40 armed agile III mark special against that lumbering giant of yours. [:P]

BTW which weapon was used in AT role? The 37mm or the 75?

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TIGER IS BETTER THAN ANY VERSION OF SHERMAN

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ORIGINAL: Kevin E. Duguay
On a side note, take a look at the Abrams. Without heavy and constant mantenance this supurbe tank also would not last long on the battlefield.

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ORIGINAL: Big B





BTW which weapon was used in AT role? The 37mm or the 75?

They were both used in the AT role with the 75 being the much more effective weapon, most American M3's had the same 75L40 M3 Gun as in the Sherman, unlike the British Grant that used a shorter M2 75mm gun with a little less performance.

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ORIGINAL: ezz

or you could argue that allied airpower could destroy german armour faster than they could manufacture it and air support was plentiful so a really powerful tank was never required at all.

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BTW which weapon was used in AT role? The 37mm or the 75?

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ORIGINAL: IronDuke

On the shatter issue, do we know how often it occurred? I suppose this is difficult to generalise because it depends on a variety of tactical factors, but how big an issue was it? Would every round fired between the problem ranges be at severe risk?

Regards,
IronDuke

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ORIGINAL: IronDuke
Well, they had the same area to manoeuver in that they had in 1940 when winning arguably the greatest operational victories in history.

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Yes, but this is precisely down to an innability to interdict and the logistics mismatch and is therefore part of the air reasoning.

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I also think it is less the size of the opposition as the relative theatre strengths. It is difficult to fight an enemy when you can't threaten in many places at once as he can counter conentrate more easily.

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I don't think this is strictly correct. A third of the Panthers stopped at mortain were destroyed by Germans (10)

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with 6 from air power and 14 classed as US Army. Certainly, the general feeling on the ground amongst the US units was that it was Allied air power that stopped the assault, yet their kills were quite low, indicating that it was the disruption they caused that really mattered.

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ORIGINAL: Paul Vebber

Goll Dern it - the damn board ate my response...I had a much better version but this hits the high points...


According to WO 291/1186 only 14.5% of Allied tanks were damaged or destroyed by german tanks. (22.1% to mines, 22.7% to AT Guns, 24.4% to SP guns and 14.2% to "Bazooka" (ie PFs/PSs))
...

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Paul, that is fascinating. Do you know where I could find that, and moreover - do you know of a breakdown of actual numbers lost, along with similar info for the Germans?

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ORIGINAL: mdiehl
The US37mm gun was the best light anti-tank gun of the war, and proved easily capable of punching holes in most variants of the PzIII and some early PzIVs.

Art by the amazing Dixie

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ORIGINAL: mdiehl

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I haven't read many { or indeed any } combat reports or biographies of German tankers asking thier commanders to be allowed to swap thier mkv + vi for Shermans. { where is the 'give me a squadron of spitfires' quote?}

I haven't read any biographies where German tankers requested to pull a TOW missile out of their Bag of Holding either. Was "here's a captured Sherman, now go find some ammo for it, or else you can drive this [insert any German AFV here]" ever a choice?

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ORIGINAL: Twotribes

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ORIGINAL: IronDuke

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ORIGINAL: Rune Iversen

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ORIGINAL: mdiehl


And regularly did same.

Well, as "regularly" as Tigers showed up anyway. There weren´t really that many of them in the West between 1943 and 1945. High point is probably Normandy (around a 100 all told over the entire fight).

Indeed, and many of those would have faced the Commonwealth forces where they would have been bested by the 17 pdr.

If memory serves, Kelly's battlegroup did meet one outside the bank and Oddball's Sherman had a few issues if memory serves, but don't quote me since it was 20 years ago when I read the AAR and he may have been using a 75 and/or had none of the gold dust HVAP available.

In the movie the lone american tank to make it the city broke down after destroying all but the single tank in the town square. But who really cares? It isnt like "Kelly's Heroes" was about anything that really happened or might have happned.

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As has been repeatedly pointed out by many qualified people here the M4 was the equal of anybodies medium but it wasn't { or supposed to be} a Heavy

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lacked anything like a Schwere tank.

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ORIGINAL: mdiehl

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As has been repeatedly pointed out by many qualified people here the M4 was the equal of anybodies medium but it wasn't { or supposed to be} a Heavy

In general, I, you, and some of "they" seem to agree. It should be noted, however, that some others among "they" (who do not seem to be very qualified on this matter) have stated right out that the Sherman was inferior to every German tank in 1944 (which isn't correct) or that it was (in the 76 armed variants) incapable of holing a PzVIE (which is also incorrect).

My point all along has been that as a medium tank the 75 armed ones are comparable to PzIVs, and the 76 armed ones superior to PzIVs and (one could argue by experience of Korea) to T34s as well. They (the 76 armed ones) were quite capable of taking on the Tiger (as I have noted), but not so great vs a PzV (as I have noted). On occasion, as Rune has noted, Shermans still shot the pants off of PzVs and Panzer VIs used en masse.

So the whole "Sherman is crap Tiger is bestest ever" AF Party Line agitprop is at best a gross oversimplification. Sherman was in fact as good as or better than something like 80% of the AFVs deployed by the Axis in the western front in 1944.

What the US lacked was anything like a Schwere Co attached to armored regiments or a Schwere Rgt attached to armored divisions because the US (apart from 76 armed Jumbo-ized M4s) lacked anything like a Schwere tank.

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ORIGINAL: hueglin


I agree with what you have stated and it is a very good synopsis of the discussion. There is one thing I would like to add though, at the risk of flaring up the argument some have raised that the M4 was "better because it won the war". The Panther was a new generation of medium tank. It was intended to replace the MkIV in the Panzer Divisions. As I have stated much earlier in this thread, I think it can be viewed as the first MBT, in the sense that it shared many of the characteristics that the generation of tanks in the 1950s and onwards shared. The Centurion and the M26 also could fit into this category of a new generation of tanks. The Sherman and the MkIV were clearly of a different "generation".

The T-34 is a really interesting case in the sense that Russian design philosophy was so different than western design that it is harder to make comaprisons. The Russians clearly designed with simplicity in mind. I'm wondering if the basic T-34 design could have been made into a much more capable tank (optics and transmission and radios) if designed using a more western design approach.

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ORIGINAL: hueglin

The T-34 is a really interesting case in the sense that Russian design philosophy was so different than western design that it is harder to make comaprisons. The Russians clearly designed with simplicity in mind. I'm wondering if the basic T-34 design could have been made into a much more capable tank (optics and transmission and radios) if designed using a more western design approach.

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:ORIGINAL Big B
The Russians did upgrade the T-34/85 post war with better optics, drive train, and armor - the result was the T-34/85 II pictured below. This was the tank US forces met in Korea.

The tank you are imagining to be developed into an MBT was the T-44 (also pictured below) from late WWII. This tank was the direct predecessor of the T-54 - T-62 series, as M-26 led eventually to M-60.

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ORIGINAL: hueglin


On a related note, the Abrams has a similar kind of shot trap. I've often wondered if this might become more of a problem if it ever had to face a tank of comparable capabilities. As it stands right now, the Abrams has always fought against earlier generation tanks with significantly fewer capabilities than it has.

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ORIGINAL: hueglin

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ORIGINAL: hueglin

The T-34 is a really interesting case in the sense that Russian design philosophy was so different than western design that it is harder to make comaprisons. The Russians clearly designed with simplicity in mind. I'm wondering if the basic T-34 design could have been made into a much more capable tank (optics and transmission and radios) if designed using a more western design approach.

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:ORIGINAL Big B
The Russians did upgrade the T-34/85 post war with better optics, drive train, and armor - the result was the T-34/85 II pictured below. This was the tank US forces met in Korea.

The tank you are imagining to be developed into an MBT was the T-44 (also pictured below) from late WWII. This tank was the direct predecessor of the T-54 - T-62 series, as M-26 led eventually to M-60.

I know the T34/85 was up-gunned and up-armoured but I don't think it had improved optics or transmission (on a par with western designs), although I did do some checking and found out that it had electric power traverse introduced on it. I think most T34/85s still did not have radios in them. Of course, none of that stopped them it being an excellent tank. One interesting thing I did read was the new turret created a shot trap between the hull and the turret. This was one of the problems that the design of the T44 was to eliminate.

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ORIGINAL: hueglin

Hi Big B,

I just read your comment on pg 13 about the Panther being a new class of tank - the MBT. I had missed it earlier when I made exactly the same comment on this page. Sorry to repeat your comment, although it does show that we both have made the same analysis, independent of each other.

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I'm saying the Sherman was out of its depth, not criticising those Americans responsible.

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ORIGINAL: Paul Vebber
Your line of argument earlier appeared to be "those Americans responsible" were not listening to the complaints of the troops that the Sherman was deficient.

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THe purpose of teh whole Hunnicutt story was that the reason the Sherman had a poor gun (and other deficiencies) was BECAUSE the armor board was giving so much consideration to "grunt level" issues like, room in the turret to operate efficiently, ability to observe the enemy after shooting, being able to use the radio and shoot at the same time, safely move ammo, etc, etc.

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Now it seems that line of argument has played out and now it was simply "outclassed" by tanks weighing 50% and nearly 100% more, yet must be considered comparable.

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Well, what does "outclassed" mean.

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Based on your previous line of argument and what facts are available, it is not based on mission success. According to WO 291/1218, the ratio of Allied tanks to german tanks required for Allied succes was 2.2 in NW Europe, 1.6 overall. the average Allied ration in battle was 4, which should not be surprising, since we won the war. So overall mission accomplishment can't be the reason the Sherman was "outclassed". It would seem it is the casualty rate incurred while winning.

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T-34 casualty rates were much higher, so by that argument the T-34 must have been even more "out-classed".

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According to WO 291/1186 only 14.5% of Allied tanks were damaged or destroyed by german tanks. (22.1% to mines, 22.7% to AT Guns, 24.4% to SP guns and 14.2% to "Bazooka" (ie PFs/PSs)) Casualty rates are a function of exchange ratio per engagement, and number of engagements. Your apparent preffered solution is to increase Sherman lethality to shift the exchange ratio in tank combat, only addresses part of the problem as who has "tactical control" of the engagement and gets the first fire drives the casualty rate more than relative lethality (this was the secreat of how the germans won with equipment "out of its depth" earlier in the war...

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Adding the 17lber to the Sherman may have made matters worse since, while it increased lethality, its size reduced efficiency and rate of fire. It is unclear if the increase in lethality would ahve made up for the decrease in engagability.

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There is also no evidence that had a "super Sherman" been fielded in large numbers that the germans would have continued to use heavy tank tactical counterattacks nearly as often to counter Allied tank thrusts.

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Given teir adapability it is likely they would have relied more on mines and AT guns, and use heavy tanks more like SP gunsin mobile defense rather than tactically offensive flanking and turning maneuvers. Given the greate proportions of tank casualties to those weapons, reducing casualties to tanks may have resultdin GREATER over all casualies to the other weapons.

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So the issue driving the Sherman being "out of its depth" relates to casualty rates. So the question is, sure you would like to see victory with as few casualties as possible, but what is the "threshold" for casualties that sees an "acceptable tank" becom "out of its class". And by this metic is teh T-34 similarly "out of is depth"?

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Is the fact german heavy tanks apparently had an "acceptable" casualty rate, thus being "within their depth" - yet they still lost render the distinction moot?

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ORIGINAL: Rune Iversen

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ORIGINAL: ezz

or you could argue that allied airpower could destroy german armour faster than they could manufacture it and air support was plentiful so a really powerful tank was never required at all.

Well, Operational reseach studies tends toward alleging, that even during the period that Allied aircraft were most active over the front (Falaise etc.) less than 10% of german tanks shows signs of having been knocked out from the air. Which is not to say that tac. Aorcraft was not a threat or couldn´t have a major impact in one or two instances (At the battle of Dompaire, the 112th Panzer brigade was caught with it´s Panther battalion in a valley. The french 2nd AD encircled and called in XIX Tac. Fighter Bombers who then proceeded to mess up the constricted Panthers majorly. The french then gradually tightened the perimeter and destryed the germans. Only 2 Panthers out of 40 or so got away). But as for the majority of german tank losses, the reason was something else than aircraft.

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Yes, since it is all an academic exercise anyway. However, as I mentioned earlier, three Oliver McCalls may take Ali, but who was the better fighter?

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ORIGINAL: Paul Vebber

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Yes, since it is all an academic exercise anyway. However, as I mentioned earlier, three Oliver McCalls may take Ali, but who was the better fighter?

Yup, academic - and you have a different set of assumptions as your boxing analogy shows. Oliver McCall was a heavyweight was he not? Mine would be Sugar Ray Robonson was a better fighter than Ali, despite the fact Ali would have had the advantage in a direct confrontation. Two Sugar Rays could easily have a taken Ali. And it would be little comfort to Ali that he could beat one Sugar Ray if he were set upon by 4.

QED.

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ORIGINAL: Paul Vebber

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Yes, since it is all an academic exercise anyway. However, as I mentioned earlier, three Oliver McCalls may take Ali, but who was the better fighter?

Yup, academic - and you have a different set of assumptions as your boxing analogy shows. Oliver McCall was a heavyweight was he not? Mine would be Sugar Ray Robonson was a better fighter than Ali, despite the fact Ali would have had the advantage in a direct confrontation. Two Sugar Rays could easily have a taken Ali. And it would be little comfort to Ali that he could beat one Sugar Ray if he were set upon by 4.

QED.