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- 12/19/2000 11:23:00 PM

Kluckenbill

Posts: 278
Joined: 6/7/2000
From: Lancaster, PA, USA
Status: offline

This subject has been ranted about often on this board. I think the Sherman was an excellent tank in 1942, a pretty good tank in 1943, an obsolescent tank in the spring of '44 and obsolete by late '44. Certainly it would have helped greatly to have upgunned all the Shermans to 76 or even 90 mm, but the real answer was to build the Pershings in late '43. The saddest aspect of this whole sad story is that we had an excellent tank available in the M26, but refused to build it due to sheer stupidity on the part of senior officers. The only thing stupider than the Sherman story is reequipping a large portion of our curent mechanized forces with LAV3's instead of real tanks and Infantry Fightning Vehicles. The one thing the US Army is never short of is stupid generals. ------------------ Target, Cease Fire !

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Post #: 31

- 12/19/2000 11:36:00 PM

AmmoSgt

Posts: 1002
Joined: 10/21/2000
From: Redstone Arsenal Al
Status: offline

Kluck ya just got no respect for Tradition thats the problem here ... We didn't get repeating Rifles because Tradition said you should never add new calibers of ammo when ya alredy got about 300 in the supply chain... Tradition said no MG's because troopies would use to much ammo We Gots Traditons ya Know

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"For Americans war is almost all of the time a nuisance, and military skill is a luxury like Mah-jongg. But when the issue is brought home to them, war becomes as important, for the necessary periods, as business or sport. And it is hard to decide which

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Post #: 32

- 12/20/2000 4:44:00 AM

bravo.john

Posts: 21
Joined: 10/1/2000
From: Orlando, FL
Status: offline

The guys I really feel sorry for were the guys who got picked one morning to drive 17 new Shermans up a road that afternoon. Some of them had never even seen a tank up close before. Five hours of driving around and each tank got to fire a whopping three rounds from the main gun. 15 out of the 17 tanks were out of action before night fell. Ouch. Bailing out seems to have been bad, but not always instant death. Several of the persons interviewed had bailed out of at least three tanks during the war, one poor bastard had to bail out five times! It is a given that crews with so little training aren't going to do well against any trained enemy, much less enemies with excellent equipment. We quickly adapted however, Americans are very good at adapting to new situations. Blind em with arty, sneak up on em, shoot them in the back, quickly adopted as SOP. :-) [This message has been edited by bravo.john (edited December 19, 2000).]

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Post #: 33

- 12/20/2000 6:32:00 AM

Blitzenberg

Posts: 5
Joined: 12/18/2000
From: Gardendale, AL. 35071
Status: offline

I think it is important to remember that the U.S. never saw the tank as an essential component of it's grand strategy. Air power and Artillery were far more important to the Americans than tanks, and in those areas the U.S. was far ahead of Germany. It is also important to remember that, as a Democracy whose existance was not really threatened directly by the war, high casualties might have caused the U.S. public to return to it's isolationist roots. FDR and the U.S. Military Commanders understood that it was essential to keep casualties as low as possible. That is why the U.S. concentrated on weapons and tactics designed to inflict heavy casualties on the enemy without taking a lot of losses in return. Air Power and Artillery were the obvious ways to achieve this goal. Even today the U.S. Marines have the motto "never send a Marine where you can send a bullet instead". The Germans and Soviets, on the other hand, had different priorities. Tactical air-power is of little use when you are fighting on a front over 1,000 miles long! There simply were not enough aircraft to go around, so Infantry and Tanks played a much larger role, and recieved the majority of resources on the Eastern Front. In other words, Tanks were essential to the German and Soviet war efforts, so it is no surprise that they led all nations in tank development during WWII. However, there is still no excuse for sending U.S. soldiers into battle with a sub-par tank against an enemy that was the master of Armored and Anti-Tank warfare. The Sherman did just fine against Japan, however, who had even less of a need for tanks than the U.S. did... Ever wonder what one M1A2 Abrams could do on a WWII battlefield?

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Post #: 34

- 12/20/2000 6:45:00 AM

Huffy

Posts: 497
Joined: 7/6/2000
From: ,USA
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Yes Blitz....now wouldn't that be interesting?HeHeHe Huffy

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Post #: 35

- 12/20/2000 7:19:00 PM

frank1970

Posts: 1678
Joined: 9/1/2000
From: Bayern
Status: offline

The US were leading in airsupport and artillery????? Would you like to compare the abilities in 1939 to 1942? The US learned a lot from the Luftwaffe and the Wehrmacht. Who used groundsupport aircraft in a great scale first? Surely not the US. Who introduced the system of forward observers? Surely not the US. The US weren�t leading in artillery, just look at he Soviets, they could show you what artillery is. In groundsupport by air the british are not really bad, are they? Germany had great ground support planes in 1944, they had a great system to use it. The problem was there were not enough planes. The US was maybe leading in numbers (compare to Soviets???) but they did not have the best material.

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Post #: 36

- 12/20/2000 11:16:00 PM

Lou

Posts: 69
Joined: 10/20/2000
From: Central Maine
Status: offline

quote:

Originally posted by Frank: The US were leading in airsupport and artillery?????

I don't know about the artillery...except maybe the U.S. had better radios, but... In terms of air power, the mid to late war USAAF was second to none. Granted, the Germans paved the way with tactical air support, but the U.S. took those lessons to a whole other level, plus they led the way in the strategic air war. Granted, the B-17 crews suffered horribly, but that all started to change with the addition of drop tanks to the P-47 and P-38 (although, the Lightning didn't perform as well in Europe as it did in other theaters). The final nail in the Luftwaffe coffin was hammered home by the P-51. So, in the long run, Germany had really great tanks and the US tanks sucked (according to prevailing opinion). But, having really great tanks doesn't really matter if your enemy is bombing the snot of the refineries needed to fuel said tanks. In an earlier post, the implied question was, "Where would you rather be...in the turret of a Sherman or in one of a Panther?" I think I'll take door number three and sit myself down in the cockpit of a Mustang. Zoooooom Lou

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Post #: 37

- 12/21/2000 4:05:00 AM

Blitzenberg

Posts: 5
Joined: 12/18/2000
From: Gardendale, AL. 35071
Status: offline

Thanks for answering the air power question for me, Lou. However the U.S. did make superior use of it's artillery during WWII as well. Just as the Germans perfected the art of armored warfare, the U.S. perfected the use of artillery. The U.S. was the first to coordinate it's artillery so that it could bring massed fire on a single target using a large number of scattered artillery batteries. This massed fire could also be rapidly shifted to new targets, giving U.S. artillery a distinct advantage by the closing years of the war. U.S. artillery pieces were not necessarily superior to their German counterparts, but were used much more effectively. If you don't believe me, read about it for yourself. I didn't realize it was such a controversial topic!

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Post #: 38

- 12/21/2000 4:11:00 AM

AmmoSgt

Posts: 1002
Joined: 10/21/2000
From: Redstone Arsenal Al
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Blitzen a dear sweet friend of mine was working hard to get a Masters in History..unfortunately he chose a certain meeting Between Churchill, Stalin, Rosevelt, and Degaule ...Having the Diaries of all four at his disposal he thought this would be an easy paper...the problem is that in their Diaries the four Principles at the meeting each said only 2 of the other three leaders were present and none of the Diaries agreed on which of the 3 were actually there ....My Friend decided on a carreer in real estate

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Post #: 39

- 12/21/2000 4:26:00 AM

dox44

Posts: 668
Joined: 5/7/2000
From: the woodlands, texas
Status: offline

If you ever want to be knocked out of your socks, read Death Traps. [/B][/QUOTE] Great book, I got it for Christmas last year. casebier

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Post #: 40

- 12/22/2000 1:03:00 PM

Huffy

Posts: 497
Joined: 7/6/2000
From: ,USA
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death traps...so that is about the crews of tanks? Thanks .. Huffy

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Post #: 41