Sherman: Why the bad Reputation?
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- Опубликовано: 23 сен 2024
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In this video Nicholas "The Chieftain" Moran and I talk about why the M4 Sherman had such a bad reputation. I suspected it was mostly a post-war issue, but learned that this is not correct.
Special thanks to the WW2 Armor for helping with the interview and providing an excellent backdrop, be sure to check out their sites here:
WW2 Armor Channel: / @ww2armor
WW2 Armor Homepage: ww2armor.org/
WW2 Armor facebook: / ww2armor
Chieftain's Channel: / @thechieftainshatch
D-Day Ohio: www.ddayohio.us/
Thank you to vonKickass for helping with the thumbnail.
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» SOURCES «
Wettstein, Adrian E.: Die Wehrmacht im Stadtkampf 1939-1943. Ferdinand Schöningh: Paderborn, 2014.
www.ausa.org/a...
Glantz, David M.; House, Jonathan M.: Armageddon in Stalingrad. The Stalingrad Trilogy, Volume 2: September-November 1942. University Press of Kansas: United States, 2009.
Glantz, David M.; House, Jonathan M.: Endgame at Stalingrad. The Stalingrad Trilogy, Volume 3: Book One: November 1942. University Press of Kansas: United States, 2014.
Glantz, David M.; House, Jonathan M.: When Titans Clashed. How the Red Army stopped Hitler. Revised and Expanded Edition. University Press of Kansas: USA, 2015
von Senger und Etterlin, F. M.: Die Panzergrenadiere. Geschichte und Gestalt der mechanisierten Infanterie 1930-1960. J. F. Lehmans Verlag: 1961, München.
Fennell, Jonathan: Fighting the People’s War. The British and Commonwealth Armies and the Second World War. Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, UK, 2019
Murray, Williamson: The Luftwaffe Experience, 1939-1941. In: Cooling, Benjamin Franklin (ed.): Case Studies in the Development of Close Air Support. Office of Air Force History: Washington DC, United States (1990), p. 71-113
Condell, Bruce (ed.); Zabecki, David T. (ed.): On the German Art of War. TRuppenführung. Stackpole Books: Mechanicsburg, PA, USA, 2009 (2001)
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I had a simlar mistanding of 577's armor when I was in. It has thin aluminum armor with the fuel tanks sandwiched inbetween. It turns out that 4 inches of fuel has the same armor value a 4 inches of steal when it comes to RPGs or HESH rounds. It's not as good for sabbot rounds though.
12:20 Kelley's Heroes
we need a rap battle between the Sherman, Tigre and T-34.
Just out of interest probably both are equally good but which was better the British 17pdr or the American 76mm?
war thunder is way better.
One of the reasons that the Sherman took so many casualties is that they were always on the attack, in huge numbers. The defenders were able to bring every type and class of anti tank weapon they had down on them and they had a LOT of different weapons that were capable of killing a medium tank that could be used at all ranges, right down to the guy with a bag full of explosives or a mine.
I'll second that
Also the attackers lose more than the defenders in most cases.
@@adamkorzon2972 and when the attack fails, the attackers abandon broken down or disabled tanks on the field for the defender to burn. Does that go into the stat book as disabled or burned and destroyed?
@ Shawn: Your analysis makes sense. Attacking an enemy who knows you are coming and where, with a pretty good idea of when, and who has had time to prepare his defenses - is going to present a hardened target. The hedgerow-by-hedgerow fighting in Normandy over the summer of 1944 provides an example. Attrition was high, much higher than expected by Anglo-American intelligence estimates, partly because of the intel failure to appreciate the terrain and its suitability for defense, but also simply because the Germans often knew when/where the next attack would come from. Conversely, when the tables were turned, the math flipped and the German armored forces suffered correspondingly higher losses. At the Battle of Mortain in early August 1944, the 823rd TD Battalion (whose guns were mostly towed as opposed to self-propelled) - anchored the line along with the 30th Infantry Division - when they were attacked by elements of four panzer divisions on 6 August. The 823rd managed to knock out fourteen tanks, despite taking some significant losses themselves. Especially if the enemy could be canalized or made to attack along a known route which was pre-registered for AT artillery and other weapons, significant losses could be inflicted, even against the cream of German armor. Even the most well-protected German tanks which could shrug off hits frontally, were usually vulnerable from the flanks and the rear. Or from the top, if plunging or overhead fire was possible.
@@GeorgiaBoy1961 On the other end of things, Patton's forces seemed to manage to keep casualties abnormally low, in terms of kills/losses despite (or possibly because) of him maintaining an offensive push that prevented German forces from being able to organize defensive positions before Patton's forces would break through again.
For this strategy, and in this usage, Patton had nothing but praise for the Sherman, as it was reliable enough and otherwise very quick to repair, meaning that he was not going to run out of armored support, despite the breakneck pace of Patton's 3rd Army.
Don't hit me with them negative waves Moriarty!
How many people caught that Kelly's Heroes reference? He just kind of slid it in there.
@@Taranaki66 Cracked me up! Seems to me the host did not catch the reference.
@@CelestialLites How many Americans would catch a reference to a movie that came out in 1970? I love that picture.
@@Taranaki66 If you're interested enough in tanks to be watching this RUclips video? I would hope most.
@@TheChieftainsHatch Maybe you should do a poll. Have you seen Kelly's Heroes and if not why not. Like MASH which was set in Korea and also came out in 1970, Kelly's Heroes was more about Vietnam than WWII.
I think one of the things responsible for the Sherman having a poor reputation was its crew survivability rate. Many people managed to survive bailing out of knocked out Shermans and their voices are going to be much louder than the guys that didn't manage to survive being knocked out in other tanks.
squeeky wheel and all that. It seems to be a common complaint up until modern MBTs that have yet to face a peer adversary. the ww2 and cold war arms races made sure no one actually got far ahead until the USSR fell apart. No one knows how good certain tanks even are simply because they haven't been fielded yet against an enemy strong enough to knock one out and send it to its allies for it to be torn apart. Now all i hear about are theoretical threats or stationary IEDs that rely on sheer mass to cripple tanks.
Dude , do you actually understand what you just said?
Soooo.... Survivorship bias?
@@strangelyukrainian7314 that is a stretch given what is actually going on. i understand the concept.
except you were more likely to survive in a sherman than say a t-34 or a panzer 4. the average loss rate inside of a sherman was 1 killed 1 wounded. that doesn't mean the crews were not gunned down escaping the sherman, or on foot scouting. the american tank crew losses also show that.
to back up my claim i found this on another site:
The Johns Hopkins University memorandum ORO-T-117 Survey of Allied Tank Casualties in World War II studied tank casualties extensively, in particular 274 medium tanks and 48 light tanks. The tables comprising the study are too unwieldy to replicate, so I'll provide a link and restate the core findings below.
The study found that in the medium tank, the commander had the highest probability (percentage in which the position was a casualty in all the incidents) of becoming a casualty, at 57%. The cannoneer (loader) and gunner were tied at 51%. The bow gunner was a casualty 48% of the time, while the driver was a casualty 47% of the time. The casualty figures for the light tanks are slightly higher, presumably due to their thinner armor and smaller internal volume. The driver and bow gunner were casualties 67% of the time, while the gunner was a casualty 65% of the time. The commander/loader became a casualty 63% of the time
In the 274 medium tanks each with 5 crew (1,370 crew), 171 were killed (an average of 0.62 per tank), 466 were wounded (1.7 per tank), and 59 were missing (0.22 per tank). In the 48 light tanks each with 4 crew (192 crewmen), 52 were killed (1.08 per tank), 72 were wounded (1.5 per tank), and 1 was missing (0.02 per tank). An average of 1 man killed and 1-2 wounded for a medium tank loss and 1 man killed and 1 wounded for a light tank loss is not an outlandish statement; many tank losses had no casualties, while other tanks were destroyed with all crewmen killed.
A number of tank crew casualties, perhaps half, occurred after crewmen had abandoned their vehicles or were outside them performing other tasks. ORO-T-117 sampled three tank battalions. In the 753rd Tank Battalion, 9 medium tanks were lost, with 21 crewmen casualties inside them and 102 outside. In the 756th Tank Battalion, 23 medium and 3 light tanks were lost, with 49 crewmen casualties inside them and 60 outside. In the 760th Tank Battalion, 21 medium tanks were lost, with 36 crewmen casualties inside them and 31 outside.
Chieftain has said in the past that the Sherman was good enough, and perfection is the enemy of "good enough". He's also said the whole design of the Sherman was based on the requirements to transport them to all theaters of war world wide and provide logistical support for them.
yeah part of it to a degree, but also for various other lack of. now saying its good enough then giving a general quote like that which is a true things. however doesn't match the topic. sometimes you need to exercise healthy skepticism. you need to realize when your brain might be tricked into thinking its actually what it is. a fallacy is when you can take something and make it seem or be like its something it isn't or else. if I talk about the complexity of a gun then give a quote about how quality can be more useful than terribly quantity. this is a generally accepted fact. however it doesn't help add to the content or relevance entirely. i seen someone make a comment about t34 saying quantity is its own quality. in a way its true but not true to the situation. t34s were very messed up in quite a few ways. gaps in armor from sslave labor. equipment failures as well. required keeping more replacement equipment etc around. i have heard that many had extra transmissions around and or bolted to the tank. for every so many lost. another makes the opportunity to get that certain goal done. for example if a t34 or panzer takes our 20 shermans and that t34 is taken out. thy still got the job done yes. however the damage is still considerable. and vise versa. a lot of russians died to achieve various things and people. anyways try to think about what is being said etc and think about the context and realistic side. i think I remember the cheiften saying that sherman crews said they didn't need another tank or upgrade. well if not then why did they try to upgrade it themselves so much with sandbags etc etc. there are various proof in the putting kinda stuff. anyways that isn't meant to get too into detail its just to try and help promote healthy thinking and learning =]
@@quarreneverett4767 not to mention how different the later american designs would be from the sherman. Engineering is a very cyclical process, and because of that we see designs moving in a evolutionary format. So it speeks volumes when almost nothing from a prior tank's design philosophy is moved over to the next project.
the problem I always say is that the sherman is a 1941 design fighting in 1942. its honestly pretty comparable to the pz3 but the 4 is what kills the armour meta which prevailed since ww1 and the sherman sadly never really gets moved to that new standard till the nearest opponent gets moved out of production (disregarding the 4j as that thing is a bastardization at best)
So true. A Jack of all trades may be a master of none, but it's better than being a master of ONE.
Watch Drach's video on the mulberry harbors. THe british admiralty had a lot of new military only harbors built in the UK as the war progressed because the original civilian harbors lacked the facilities to rapidly unload SO MANY incomming ships. So by the time the war ended, the logistics existed for tanks the size of pershing and centurion, but in 1941... they didn't. This is also why the british lacked a production tank larger than churchills until 1945. Churchils were 40 ton tanks...Centurions were 50 ton tanks. That extra 10 tons makes a difference to the cranes that existed in 1941 vs the ones available in 1945. THe true heavyweight cranes at the time were almost exclusively to be found in shipyards, especially navy shipyards, which are busy building and fixing ships. They're positioned to service the drydocks and slipways, not to unload cargo from ships pierside. Also when it comes to transporting the tanks across an ocean... if the cargo ship has 2000 tons available for armored vehicles in the hold... and you need to get as many tanks as possible overseas quickly....fifty 40 ton tanks that can be loaded and unloaded at any available port is better than forty 50 ton tanks that might only be possible to be handled at a handful of ports. The boom cranes on liberty ships were typically only rated for 5 or 10 tons themselves. Most assault transport ships in WW2 were built with 15 ton derricks capable of lifting the smaller landing craft but not actual tanks or the landing craft sized to tank tanks ashore. At least one class replaced one 15 ton derricks with a single 30 ton derrick so as to transport and launch LCMs which were 28 tons unloaded and upwards of 63 tons when carrying a 40 ton tank, crew, fuel and ammunition.
A medium tank does poorly against a heavy tank. This is news?
Isn’t a Panther a Medium tank?
@@SeismicHammer A next gen medium tank that weighed like 10 tons more.
@@SeismicHammer By german standards (intended use), yes. By everyone else's standards (weight), no.
It didn't . The Sherman 76 with 64 mm hull was the equal of the Tiger 1 in armor and firepower.
@@markcorrigan3930 In firepower sure, in armor... no.
Is overstocking ammunition a common British problem? “They’re something wrong with our bloody ships today” at Jutland, for example.
That's exactly what I thought when he said that too
I thought that too. Can you say HMS Hood!
Well, Jutland was Beatty's fault for refusing to close blast doors and other basic safety precautions supposed to you know.. protect the flammables because "hurr durr, then we can fire faster". I believe I heard his crews left cordite bags lying around in corridors unless I misremember
You should train the way you will fight - because - you WILL fight the way you train.
What happened to the British Battle Cruisers at Jutland was the result of the way they trained. The British had competitions where you were rated on things such as Rate of Fire. To score higher in these competitions - where of course no one was actually shooting at them - the gun crews took to disabling the safety precautions built into their ammunition handling systems. The problem was - when they went into battle at Jutland - they did the same things - and thus - when Battle Cruisers took turret hits - there was the chance that there would be a flash from the turret right down into the magazine - because the safety systems had been disabled. Once they figured out what had happened - they stopped doing that.
Hood was just unlucky.
.
"Ooh bugger, the ship is on fire."
The reason that the Sherman has such a bad rep is two fold.
1)more American tankers survived the lose of the tank.
2) more data was collected from combat and after the end of the war.
No other country has collected and released such information,
But the statistics show that they did very well.
Why cant people just agree that there is no best tank of WW2 because everyone had different needs and requirements, which is why we had such a wide variety of vehicles developed in the first place...except for the Bob Semple tank which obviously is the best, no competition.
Because people love ranks and list.
I dont know about that. TOG II was pretty good too.
PS4 versus Xbox One. iPhone versus Samsung Galaxy. F4 versus Mig-19. Apples versus Oranges. People love comparing. :)
Because losers who have amounted to nothing in their entire lives have tied their own personal identities to random pieces of equipment from a war 75 years ago in a futile and completely transparent attempt to pretend otherwise.
That's the only reason why anyone has ever gotten butthurt over any of this shit.
There are no "Best Tanks" as you people say but all I hear is everyone calling pretty much every tank dogshit except for a few American Tanks, and whenever you point out the flaws of those aforementioned American tanks you are just called a traitor, Wehraboo or a person who's brainwashed for suggesting that there are any flaws with these tanks, of which there are dozens per [tank].
I watched a documentary on the History Channel last year (I believe it was called " Greatest Tank Battles" and opposing tankers talked about there own and opposing tanks. What stuck out to me was one German tanker commenting that German tanks were always broke down and American Shermans "ran like clockwork".
Because, by comparison, they did. It was a common joke in the German military about how if a Tiger or Panzer IV ran for over 10-15 minutes without the engine imploding, it was a miracle.
i also heard them both talk about how they lost and shot down many shermans and stuff because they couldn't handle the fire as a result of the design.
i know someone might look into it and draw a wild unbrained assumption. i just stating facts. nothing more ggeezee pizzzaa
Before I’ve watched the video: because troops tend to exaggerate the effectiveness of enemy equipment, and exaggerate the problems of their own
When soldiers actually stop complaining, that's when you need to worry.
@Carnivorus Veteran opinions vary wildly dependent on experience and personal outlook. Many Germans respected the _M4_ especially several excerpts in _Panzertruppen 2_ by Thomas Jentz, regarding the German 26.Panzer division.
@Carnivorus This probably depends on which Germans were asked. Tankers in Tigers or Panthers would have a much different opinion than infantry.
@Carnivorus
> *_"let's look at the most well known tanks in WW2 and impressions they left..when T 34 was introduced it was a big shock to the Germans thir guns couldn't penetrate it it"_*
This issue stems from confusion between the _KV_ tanks and the _T-34_ while frontally the _T-34_ still proved a tough nut to crack, the armor was very poor and prone to shattering.
> *_"Sherman was introduced who really gave a shit? Who was shocked or impressed by it.. nobody ."_*
The Germans in North Africa. Because the _Tiger_ didn't fight in Africa or the Western allies until almost into Spring of '1943. From June '1942 onwards the _M4_ was quite well off against all German tanks encountered.
Mediocre how?
Yeah, I feel that a lot in War Thunder. The enemy tanks seem like they are way better than whatever I'm using, so I try whatever tank they were using. Then I find out that tank also sucks, just in different ways.
My dad fought in the Pacific had an argument with a tanker. The tanker was telling them that their tanks didn't have that much protection and the Japanese had stuff that went through. My dad pinched his shirt you have a lot more than this!
The japanese had no real heavy artillery...
@@haroldcarfrey4381 This was a war story from guys that were there. Their fears might not be real. The Japanese did have anti tank guns though. Plus they had 75mm, 105mm and 150mm all effective against armour.
That's a line from "To Hell and Back".
@@mathewm7136 bawhahahaha, sounds like my dad quoting a movie! There is a kernel of Truth in it.
@@haroldcarfrey4381 If there was a Shinhoto Chi-ha tank on whatever island they attacked, the Shermans would have certainly been vulnerable, if only slightly. That said, there were other AT guns available to them.
Only if you had Gun Jesus too!
We need colaborations with Ian! Give the people what they want!
I would donate time/money to make that happen.
# Dream Team
"Ian here from Forgotten Weapons giving you a behind-the-scenes look at the M4 Sherman... I don't think a pen cap is going to cut it for this episode. Also, I'll be here for the next 4 days disassembling this 75mm."
What's he going to do? Your dream is already on the video. Ian covers firearms. I love his channel as much as guys but this is not the right crossover. :)
Loved the "freedom" intermission, thanks.
"in any nation, that says if faced by a superior enemy force to attack?"
[glances sideways at the Imperial Japanese Army]
**Cough** Soviet Union **Cough**
And how well did that that work out for the Japanese? By late 1943 the Japanese realized that a mad dash into American firepower was not a way to fight a war. Most of the time the "banzai charge" was being used as a form of suicide, not a tactic to win a battle.
@@oldgysgt Those sorts of tactics also worked reasonably well against poorly trained Chinese troops. Sometimes experience can be a bad teacher, when improperly applied.
@@oldgysgt Or as a last resort.
@@tomwelshshore at no point was the soviet army the inferior force they always had superior men and machine numbers... as far as the OP responded the Japanese just didn't give a crap
I just finished Cooper's book. Couple of things: he perpetuated the myth that there was a Tiger or a Panther behind every tree. And, for a tank expert, he somehow got the idea that the Pershing had a Christie suspension and interleaved road wheels.
He didn't realize that a torsion bar suspension is not a Christie suspension and that the Christie suspension had very definite shortcomings, which is why even the Soviets dropped it for the torsion bar suspension. He also didn't seem to like Patton and blamed him and him alone for why the Pershing didn't see action two years earlier than it did. It was a better read than I expected from what I'd heard about it prior.
It's a good read and it's message is worth taking notice of. Obviously it's not meant to be a historical reference book and so it will contain some errors but they don't take anything away from the message.
R Greenup I think it 100% does take away the message. This man saw one thing, destroyed Sherman tanks with brain matter blow over the inside. His view was so one sided that bias isn’t a strong enough word. The “message” he’s trying to send us an opinion, and a flawed opinion at that.
Sounds like a hilariously bad book
Cooper was a senile old man in his 80's when his book was published which should explain why he made so many stupid statements. He also never repair tanks and just was the head clerk at a main repair depot and salvage yard where shot-up tanks were sent for evaluation and possible repairs. He grumbled about the lack the armor enough that headquarters gave him a Pershing to up armor. He got some welders to cut sections off Panthers' glacis plates and weld those on over the front hull and gun mantlet of the Pershing. Those made it too nose heavy to operate and the turret transverse didn't work. Cooper wanted to weld the same amount of armor onto the rear hull and turret to restore their balance but was told to remove what he added then go back to his junkyard job.
Well things are different in hindsight. He obviously didn’t do research with after action reports or German logistical reports.
He just repeated what he knew at the time.
So he wouldn’t have know Americans never fought Tigers in France,
Perhaps Japan is one of the few that said 'when faced with superior force, charge'...
Thought the same thing!
Yeah, kinda makes you wonder why, but then you look at Japan's history and it's focus on Bushido and stuff and it's perhaps a little less strange.
I mean, even into modern times Japanese businessmen seemed prone to committing suicide if they had done something wrong...
I guess they took the whole 'death before dishonour' thing a bit too seriously - perhaps even to their own detriment.
@@KuraIthys I would like to point out the Bushido that the Japanese used in WW2 wasn't the proper Bushido it was a warped version because the Samurai Also believed in respecting your enemy.
It was probably a tactic that worked in china.
@@samuel10125 An enemy that has surrendered deserves according to bushido no respect, only death for he has disgraced himself. There was nothing warped about ww2 bushido.
Another 2 factors running down the Sherman.
1. Most historians (especially "popular" ones tend to not research they repeat earlier works.
2. The British write a LOT of histories per capita (especially unit/regiment ones and their accounts are over-represented. This is particularly true of Normandy where Shermans got a lot of the blame for the failures of major attacks (Goodwood,, Charnwood etc.) that more likely should have been laid at the feet of poor tactics (especially a lack of infantry/tank co-operation, as in the infantry weren't even WITH the tanks).
Games also had something to do with the rep (though it's more inflating German tanks). The Panther is absolute "top trumps| if you go by measurables, Most games didn't take into account the other issues involved. Most games also made flank shots a LOT harder to make than in reality (and ASL "fudged" a lot of armor values in favor of the Panther). It's worth noting that most of the "classic" games never tried to simulate Arracourt (many included the propaganda version of Barkman's Corner).
More modern scholarship may have swung too far back, but it starts with with "Hey, if they were so great, how come they lost the war?"
I don't think the "hey, if they were so great, how come they lost the war?" is much of an argument since Germany did a fine job considering they were fighting a strategically unwinnable war. The main issue is that people don't compare apples to apples- compare a Sherman to a Mark IV and the Sherman does not seem so antiquated. Most of the Sherman death tap myth comes from the simple fact that war is hell- US and British forces were locked in mortal combat with German forces who had developed tank-killing into a fine art and had fielded many specialized weapons to do so and had been doing so for years on the Eastern front. What is generally more unforgivable are historians who praise the T-34 as the best tank of the war and call the Sherman shit while failing to realize that T-34s were killed in much greater numbers per- capita and had many of the same issues that Shermans encountered.
Thing is most historians tend to not have practical knowledge of the things they are researching- that is why things like ergonomics will not be noticed by civilians but someone like the Chieftain will.
It's not just a minor argument, it's THE argument. Fighting with style can't obscure that the German nation got into 2 wars inside of 50 years that rapidly spiraled toward being unwinnable. And that both were marked by an overemphasis on tactics and basic operations and not enough emphasis on a grand strategy and operational work toward achieving them (compare the Muddle that led to Kursk to Bagration. To loosely paraphrase Oscar Wilde "To lose one world war is unfortunate. To lose two begins to look like carelessness."
The British are over - represented in these negative accounts because the British Commonwealth forces in Normandy faced the mass of the German Panzer reserve. Therefore they faced more Panzers, more anti tank guns and more artillery . Hence, alot more tank on tank fighting , alot more Tigers , Panthers and 88mm guns.
I have no opinion about the games, but I very much doubt that they in ANY way represent real fighting. They seem to convince some people otherwise.
I have a feeling than doing a flank shot was MUCH harder in real life. I mean, I haven't played WOT, or maneuvered a real tank in action either, so I can't say for sure. It's just a suspicion I have.
Don't worry about modern scholarship swinging too far. This is a WOT sponsored video on youtube. No scholarship here, trust me.
@@andrewwoodhead3141 The Commonwealth (let's be straight British, the Canadians got stuck with Caen) were on the only Open Level Ground in Normandy (which is why half the British High Command wanted Monty's head, that was ground that was supposed to become tactical airfields.
NOTHING (except bad doctrine) forced the British to attack with waves of tanks (with the nearest Infantry unit in the 2nd wave, a couple miles back) to make a breakthrough. The Germans wouldn't do it, and many of their attacks in the Bulge failed when artillery "Stripped off" their panzer grenadiers (Twin Villages, Dom Butgenbach). "Holding" the panzers was an excuse made to cover the lack of breakthrough (the Germans DID send panzers west later on, and hated the ground there just as much as the Allies).
Saying the Sherman was too weak for breakthroughs was rather "a good craftsman doesn't blame the tools". Using Armor without ready infantry (and with the Artillery support stuck behind a river) is not "best practices". Later scholarship (including a fair amount of British scholarship) has pointed up the Normandy problem as being at least partially a failure of tactics (and an attempt to keep infantry losses down, which mostly lead to higher losses WHEN the infantry had to be committed.
The British did coordinate with Infantry, they even often gained the high ground and fired first. Problem was, the Panzers just no selled their rounds while their rounds penetrated the Shermans with ease. When all was said and done, the Cromwells actually accomplished more than the British Shermans did.
I'm ethnic russian and I love the Sherman !
M4 Kicked ass from Africa to Korea 1950! And those "proud soviets" kind of people never mention how they used the Sherman in Berlin as well. Banzai!
Russian Col. Dmitri Loza wrote a great book about the use of the Lend-Lease Shermans by the Russians. He commanded a Sherman battalion in WWII in Europe and in Manchuria, fighting against the Nazis and the Japanese.
He didn't help to take Berlin, but he did help to take Vienna.
img.4plebs.org/boards/tg/image/1366/70/1366701417638.pdf
It's also available as a published book, translated in English.
The Sherman M4 was the best overall tank of WWII...IMHO. It was simple to manufacturer...relatively simple to maintain, and the Allies had more than they needed to win the war...lol So, give me 10 Sherman M4 to one Tiger any day. Or, give me 5 Sherman M4 to one Panther any day. With those numbers, I win that battle every time. Merci
@@biz4twobiz463 I mean the Panther will just break down for like after 150km of driving. I will go for the Shermans anyway.
thanks for the laughter
What a roller coaster of a comment
Honestly I used to be one of those "If only Germany had built more Tigers" kind of guy. It wasn't until much later that I appreciated the qualities of the Sherman. There is more to a tank than penetrating armor and having lots of it. There is a large "checklist" of qualities a tank can have, from fuel economy to optics and ergonomics and everything in between. I would argue the Sherman had the largest number of "checks" on this list. It wasn't the best at everything, or even most things. But it had enough of just about everything. It wasn't a heavy breakthrough tank, it was a general purpose medium tank. It wasn't built to duke it out with Tigers. It handled most combat tasks pretty well though. And I don't think there is another tank in its class that offers better cost effectiveness.
Arrogant Jerk ruclips.net/video/Jw_gutZZXnc/видео.html, you find this interesting. Best Sherman the 75mm, could do anything anywhere. 21st Army Sherman Firefly 1/ troop of 4, to babysit the 75mm worked brilliantly.
Definitely agree with you that the Sherman was an excellent general-purpose battletank. I also very much thought the same about "More Tigers = Victory" but as I educated myself more, I came to decide that the reason for the poor reputation of even good Allied tanks really is simply that virtually every anti-tank weapon in the German arsenal (from 1943 onwards) could harm their enemy, but Allied weapons couldn't harm everything the Germans had. Very unsettling for soldiers to know that most everything to hit them will hurt while they may find something that will laugh at their own efforts. Very much will distract them from the positives of their own equipment.
@Generic Person X
About the Sherman's armor I think its been given unreasonable expectations. Late war German anti-tank weapons were effective against anything in the 30 ton category. No mass produced medium tank of the war could have eaten 88's and Pazerfausts. We seem to forget that the same weapons that "annihilated" Shermans and give it such a poor reputation were destroying unholy numbers of T-34's in the east. If being vulnerable to 75mm and 88mm guns makes a tank an"inadequate deathtrap", why do we consider the T-34 the king of all tanks? Russian tanks burned up and killed their crews far more often than Shermans did, yet the latter is considered the "deathtrap". Shame.
😓😓😓😓😓
@@xxx6797 There, there...we all know your Daddy was very cruel to you, never giving you enough fuel, ammunition, spares, or maintenance time. You have our sympathy. You will always be the biggest guy on the block next to your cousin Jagdtiger. Hold your barrel up high!
The sherman was a good tank
Because, by any reasonable metric, it was the best tank to see service in significant numbers during World War II.
Videos like the one linked continue to make the rounds on the internet, just like the book Death Traps, and are oft cited as proof that Sherman was a terrible tank. It was not. It was a good medium tank, and the myth that it was anything else needs to die.
The following are what I consider to be the most egregious falsehoods perpetrated about the M4:
1. The M4 was prone to burning
This is in my opinion the worst lie about the Sherman, especially when it is claimed that the use of a gasoline engine was the cause. Sources differ, but the most reliable ones claim a 40 to 60 percent burn rate. In one case study of the 166 early-model Shermans knocked out from the British 8th and 29th Armored Brigades, 94 burned - 56.6 percent. This compares favorably with the roughly 60 to 80 percent for the other mainstay tanks of the war, e.g., T-34 (roughly 85% - sources disagree), Pzkw. IV (76%), Panther (80%), or Cromwell (62%).
However, the already low burn rate of the M4 was improved further with the introduction of “wet” ammunition stowage. In 1945, a study by the US Army concluded that between 10 and 15 percent of thus equipped Shermans would burn when knocked out.
To address the claim of the gasoline engine being the cause of the supposedly high burn rate, I would point out that the majority of accounts about burning Shermans describe jets of flame coming out of the hatches. This is not consistent in any way with gasoline fires. Furthermore, in many cases (sources disagree wildly), the fuel tank was found intact even after the tank was knocked out. Lastly, there was a firewall between the engine and the fighting compartment, with the express purpose of preventing a fire in the engine compartment from spreading to the crew.
Finally, about the supposed nickname “Ronson”: the company did not use the slogan until the 50’s. So unless the Armored Force had time travelers in its midst, the nickname is pure fiction.
2. It was a death trap
The average crew casualty rate for the Sherman was 0.6 men killed or wounded per tank knocked out. For comparison, the average for the T-34-85 was 3 men killed or wounded per tank lost. The idea that it was a deathtrap compared to any of its contemporaries to of any sort is pure fiction.
3. The armor was inadequate
The thickness of the upper glacis of the M4 was 50.8mm (later models 63.5 mm) in thickness. However, it was angled at either 57 or 47 degrees, depending on the variant. We can use the equation TE= TN/cos(𝛳). This equates to an effective thickness of 90.8 mm (later models 93.1 mm)
- slightly less than the 110mm of the Tiger 1, which was a supposedly an invincible behemoth. Up armored versions such as the E2 would add an additional 100mm (roughly) of armor, although effectively much more.
4. The gun was useless
The most common target for any Allied tank would be German infantry or light vehicles. And the 75mm L/37 had an excellent HE round. On the comparatively rare occasions a Sherman encountered an enemy tank, it would very likely be a Pzkw III or IV - which both the M61 and M72 APCBC rounds could penetrate out to at least 2000m, and the M72 the front of a Tiger from close range.
The 76mm M1, on the other hand, had a lackluster (by comparison) HE round, but was quite sufficient for killing a Tiger or Panther out to 2000m with the use of HVAP ammunition, or a Tiger II from 1000m. The 17-pounder took this even further, being positively abysmal for shooting at squishy targets like infantry, but could also kill any tank it faced from 1500m or beyond.
5. It took five Shermans to kill a big cat
This one I find genuinely funny. It’s true that it usually took five Sherman’s to kill a Tiger/Panther, but it also took five of them to kill a Pzkw. III, or an AT gun, or a group of Volkssturm really regretting not moving to Switzerland when they had the chance. Why? Because American tanks traveled as platoons of five. The aggregate kill/loss rate for the German “Big Cats” against the Sherman was 1.45 Shermans for every German - better than I expected when I began researching this answer.
Finally, I’d like to point out the enormous upgrade potential of the Sherman. Israel used the M50/M51 versions with either CN-75-50 or Modèle F1 guns as late as the Yom Kippur War, giving good service despite their age. Some were sold to Chile which used them until 1999, and Paraguay used some variants until 2018. I don’t see anyone operating Big Cats into the 1950’s, let alone the 21st century.
As always, this is my opinion. Feel free to fight a flame war that would make a Churchill Crocodile jealous in the comments. In fact, please do. I’ll get the popcorn.
Edit #1: Some people seem to be missing the point of this answer. There were several tanks that were technically superior to the M4. However, none if them served as the primary tank of their respective nation. Likewise, the T-34 could be argued to have had a greater impact on the war, but that does not affect the fact that it was technically inferior in all respects.
SOURCE-www.quora.com/profile/James-Harding-40
Would like to add that in France 3.6 panthers died per Sherman
I’m looking for the “bow down” emoji for you!
Opinion, you’re giving facts! 👍🏾
Oh please. That is all I am going to say. Sherman fan boy. Sherman superior to the T 34? That is a hoot!
@@JohnSmith-ct5jd Found the Commie-boo
@@JohnSmith-ct5jdHe wasn't saying the Sherman was superior to the T-34
Based on readings I have done and of course, those history channel documentaries panning the M4 combined with information provided by people like MHV and the Chieftan, it all comes down to the circumstances that M4 crews found themselves in. Basically, from the time the US Army landed in North Africa, to the time of the German surrender, the US Army was almost always on the offensive. Military consensus indicated that when you are attacking a defensive position you need to have a numerical advantage between 3 to 5 times the number of defenders. And this cuts both ways. On the occasions we see German armored counter attacks, it is the Sherman achieving a 5:1 kill to death ratio.
This is combined with American tankers being told they have the best piece of equipment in the world. Imagine being a new recruit, you were told all through training that you have the best tank in the world. Then suddenly your ordered to make an armored charge into prepared enemy defensive positions with AT guns on both flanks. Imagine the shock that must have been, seeing your shiny new tanks that you were lead to believe were invincible get blown to smithereens by AT guns. Of course, many of the early losses can be directly attributed to poor tactics and leadership but as a tanker, to suddenly and violently be left with the impression that your armor won't always save you and that the enemy has guns that can rip holes in your tank the size of a basketball. That has to be rather disconcerting to say the least.
Then you have early ammunition stowage problems which lead to high fire rates and high rates of tanks being total losses. The German tanks on the other hand still burn but their ammo does not seem to go up as readily as the Sherman's. So if your an American tanker, you have to be looking at the situation going, "why do ours burn and theirs don't?". So someone along the way concluded that the Germans use diesel engines reducing the chances of fire. Which of course was not true and German tanks were just as prone to engine fires as any other countries vehicles. The ammo stowage problem is also fixed but the crews are still left with this perception of the enemies supposed superiority. This is not helped by the introduction of the Panther and Tiger. While the Sherman would rise to the challenge the crews were still left with a distinct feeling of inferiority over their German counter parts. It didn't matter the Sherman was more reliable, easier to fix, and great against just about every other armored vehicle the Germans fielded. All the mattered was that the Germans had a tank with thicker armor and bigger guns. If your the guy on the receiving end, that's all that really matters to you. Strategic and operational concerns are not your number one priority. It is no comfort to you that all five tanks in your platoon are operational to support that infantry push against a line of German machine guns. The Infantryman could not be happier. All you care about is that over the next ridge, there may be a Panther pointing its gun at you.
Thank you sir. A very cogent observation.
From what I have seen the burn up rate for all medium tanks was roughly the same until the Advent of wet storage
Hitler wanted production of the Tiger I to continue and the Tiger II developed because he rightly reasoned that these heavy tanks would install fear in the enemy outsized to the vehicles' actual capabilities. The Soviet "tankists" rightly feared the big German cats that they had to go up against, but it was even more 'deadly' to express 'defeatist' sentiments!
Both Gen. Guderian and Albert Speer saw the real problem with Panzer production was the same problems that plagued the German war machine overall: poor overall management, too much infighting and political intrigue among the Party functionaries overseeing production along with the competing contractors. As the excellent UK series "the World at War" put it, "too many TYPES of tanks, too FEW tanks in all, too many calibers of guns...". That was bad enough just in using domestic designs. It was made worse by taking over French and Czech factories and making use of THEIR designs as well, some of which DID admittedly have their advantages. It's hard to argue with the Germans using the excellent T-38 Czech designs out of the Skoda works and developing it into the Hetzer tank destroyer. Just imagine the logistics involved in maintaining and supplying a variety of foreign vehicles, "as is" or modified, now in German service! The ultimate example of this improvisation is seen in the "Marder" series of Panzerjager, with the adaption of the Soviet 76.2 mm gun, re-chambered to take a longer German anti-tank round, in a fixed superstructure on the T-38 chassis, which itself simply couldn't take even the 5 cm gun with a turret (and they tried, desperately, to do just that as they didn't want to give up on this great light tank). The contraption looks like the product of a committee of heavy vehicle engineers on a collective weekend "bender", and yet it performed in the field VERY well, well-liked by its crews (Google the "coal thief" tank destroyer) and running up impressive kill counts. The ultimate German solution was to come up with a "Entwicklung" (development) series of AFVs, in order to share common components where possible and standardize production, but even this had FIVE series of vehicles, and only a few notable prototypes were even made before the war ended.
One thing that's also forgotten in comparing tanks is that performance in the field also depends greatly on the using armies leadership, doctrine, training, strategy, and supply. If one looked at the utterly lopsided kill ratios of Sherman "Easy Eights" versus the vaunted Soviet T-34/85s in Korea, especially in the 1950 battles along the Naktong river, he'd be forgiven in concluding that the T-34/85 was a piece of junk. Most analysts agree that the DPRK tankers were actually poorly trained to go up against the Americans when they had something better than the miserable few M24 Chaffees that Task Force Smith had; they also didn't get the 'help' of experienced Soviet 'tankists' that had fought in the "Great Patriotic War" as the Soviets weren't willing to risk their own personnel in what they termed an "internal matter' in Korea. Likewise the Israelis scored hugely lopsided kill ratios against Egyptian and Syrian tanks in the Golan Heights and in the Sinai in both the 1967 and 1973 wars, much of it with upgraded SHERMANS, but again, one would have to look at differences in leadership, doctrine, and MOTIVATION rather than the respective (de)merits of each side's equipment. In fact, the Israeli's have long stated that they could have swapped gear with their adversaries and the outcome of the battles would have been scarcely different.
@@selfdo Or as David Fletcher and so many others have said, "its not the tank but the guy inside the tank that really matters".
People love to complain about their equipment, and the grass is always greener.
Also, the postwar stories passed down were overwhelmingly American, with very little German perspective for obvious reasons.
Two legends together!
I didn't realize that you knew about each other.
well, our first Interview was in 2018: ruclips.net/video/G-Z2eV72iv4/видео.html
the follow up was at Tankfest 2018: ruclips.net/video/AGH7FEwz08E/видео.html
legend how so
14:10
[freedom intensifies]
18:58 - Well... To be be mildly hyperbolic, it at times it seemed like that the German Wehrmacht's motto was "When in doubt, counter-attack."
@Nasim Aghdam watch Timeghost's (Indy Niedel hosts it) Between 2 wars series. In one of the episodes he debunks that common misconception
@@Legitpenguins99 Love those series, but while I remember the situation being a bit more nuanced (with special attention of debunking that the inflation crisis resulted in a significant rise of the national-socialist party - it didn't, took another decade and especially the 1929 crisis-), you've got to remind me on what you are referring at as being 'debunked'.
Also, the 1940s Wehrmacht and Luftware where basically prepared decades in advance, and the Hitler had the luck he inherited armed forces that where ready to revived at a moments instance. The Nazi's just politicized society.
Yeah, that does seem to be an old Prussian tactical doctrine that was accepted into the German tactical doctrine.
@@Knirin There is a tv-film about the German-Danish-War with a scene that pictures this perfectly. A low graded general and a marschall are discussing the situation. The low hraded general enumerates: we don't know what the chief of the army staff wants to do, we don't know how strong the enemy is, we don't know when the wheather will get better. The marshal starts to make fun of him and provocatively asks: "So what do we do?" The younger general: "We attack!" *Cut* Soldiers in shock after the failed attack at Misunde "How can people be so cruel?"
No. There is a very common tactic called "The Spoiling Attack". It's a limited counterpunch that prevents or (more commonly) delays the enemy's ability to exploit the breakthrough. It gains time for an adequate defence to be established by preventing the enemy from seizing the initiative and forcing them to react to you.
Tanks had to be packed on ships for a 5000 mile trip..this is part of the reason for the Sherman size.
I underside the weight was governing factor. Weight restrictions of overpasses?
From my research the weight of the Sherman tank was governed by the US overpass load rating?
They shipped as well >1000 railway engines (>100to) to France. Thus it seems a bit unlikely that this is a strict restriction.
The Sherman’s size was governed by its weight and the weight was governed by highway overpass max load bearing.
@@frankcorner8716 this limits applied for all tank producing nations....The USA built the M26 2 years after the M4. That`s why I assume that the limitations were not completly exhausted.
I remember reading memoirs of a Soviet tanker who swapped commander seats from a T-34 to the lend-leased M4. Overall - his battalion loved it compared to T-34.
Unsurprisingly - one of the reasons was simple - interior comfort.
Their whole batallion armed with M4s fought throughout the entire length of the Eastern Front and then switched to the far East against the retreating Japanese.
Those men cried when they had to return their machines to the Americans, who, iirc simply dumped them into the water as they were far enough from the port.
One of the oldest stories in history is from Herodotus, about soldiers who preferred to be comfortable rather than marching in heavy armor. They all ended up dead.
@@anonymousturtle8562 even in any regard, the Sherman's protection was comparable to the T-34 anyway
@@anonymousturtle8562A comfortable tank crew fights better than an uncomfortable one.
“Sherman: Why the bad Reputation?”
Well I’m sure the March to Sea played a big part in it...
I mean Sherman looked fucking awesome strolling through burning cities, so did Shermans aswell
Kind like burning and pillaging of the mansions and those young Georgia peaches Sherman was a great tank as long as there was plenty of them
Do it again Billy…
Well, it's nice to see experts from both sides coming together to try and clear a couple of myths...
outcast668 they do like they’re having fun just chatting.
They express opinions.
@@Stratigoz and cite sources, which gives those opinions considerably more weight than what you'd find on wikipedia...
@@petriew2018 Wikipedia articles cite plenty of sources as well.
Sides?
Some fun M4 Sherman facts:
To determine the number of Shermans needed to destroy a German tank, take the number following "Panzer" (I, II, II, IV etc.) multiply by .7 and round up.
Captain Pierre Billotte would have required 19 M4 Shermans to complete his famous run at Stonne.
When a Sherman expended it's ammunition, the "ping" sound was a dead giveaway that lead to the deaths of many crewmen.
When German soldiers inspecting a Sherman saw how much cake the crew had packed inside, they knew they had lost the war.
British soldiers nicknamed the Sherman "Hei Hei" because it reminded them of the character from Moana.
The Japanese army issued a special bayonet to be fitted to the barrels of captured M4s.
Joseph Stalin recognized the importance of lend lease M4s and insisted that they were as important to the Red Army as having bread in their hair.
Instructions for a simplified version of the M4 were given to French resistance fighters by British agents who trained them how to make homemade Shermans in local machine shops.
Man! So much rich history for such a memorable military vehicle.
"Hei hei" means bye bye in finnish😂
French Homemade Shermans? That's rare.
you sir, are the true historian
Dad was a tanker with the 3RD US Army and never complained about the Sherman.
Holy shit a people talking about stuff. WITH FOOTNOTES ADDED IN LATER. i am impressed.
It's good stuff.
That's what i loved about the video the most.
Why the bad reputation. Let me guess, from all sorts of previous sources, including Mr Chieftain... M4's had more crews left alive afterwards to tell everyone how dangerous their tank was. All those other ammo-racked tanks just ended up in the statistics.
oiSnowy
It's a statistical fact that M4 crews had the highest survival rate of all combat jobs in the ETO for American forces. Lafayette G Poole, Americas highest scoring tank commander of the war had 3 Sherman's shot out from underneath him in just 81 days, him and the rest of his crew with the exception of his original bow gunner survived the first 2 and lost just one more man when the last one got hit, his first one was taken out by a Panzerfaust, the second one was lost to a trigger happy P38 pilot and the last one to a Panther that ambushed them going down a road, three tanks with the loss of only two men is a pretty good survival rate, Poole himself lost one of his lower legs in the last one but wound up re-enlisting in the Army after his rehabilitation and retired from it.
@@dukecraig2402 and then you had Creighton Abrams run 6 of them into the dirt as well. technically that counts as lost shermans too
@@signolias100
What exactly is your point? Abrams didn't lose any of his personal mounts to enemy fire so how exactly does that factor in to a statistic that's about crew survivability in vehicles lost to enemy action?
@@dukecraig2402 statistically they also count as tanks lost. Meaning the losses were not all devastating crew lost tank on tank kills that the "death trap" myth ie perpetuated on
@@signolias100
No they don't count, they don't factor into the math at all if they weren't lost to enemy action.
-The more you use, the less you lose.
“Quantity has a quality all its own.”
yeah if you discount the human life value. How many Sherman tankers died because of that strategy? For me give me the very best armor and the most powerful gun.
@@stephanM5 the Sherman was actually one of the more survivable tanks of the war. The crew loss on Shermans was a very low percentage as compared to German or Soviet tankers. Mostly because the Sherman had plenty of escape hatches if you needed them
A major drawback of the T-34 is the high hardness of the armour. The M4's BHN of 240 was far more effective. A T-34 with BHN 240 glacis would be amazing.
Also the visibility and crew efficency was quite bad. The T-34-85 fixed a lot of the problems apart from upgrading the gun.
Personally, I don't think crew ergonomics is as vital as some people suggest. There's a Lindybeige x Chieftain video where they call a lack of gun depression a "design compromise". I think that perfectly describes lacking crew ergonomics as well.
Meanwhile, they could have had the T-34's armour at 240 BHN without compromising anything else in the design, so I'd say that was an outright flaw, as with some of the initial reliability problems.
Then again, you could take cost into account...
Depends on your definition of cheap. It was definitely easier to use only 45mm plates for front, sides, and rear, instead of different thicknesses; the high BHN was definitely a cost reduction tactic; and there are a lot of other minor features that were employed just to get as many tanks out as fast as possible. Of course, that doesn't mean that it was a piece of crap that sacrificed everything for cheapness, like Panzer enthusiasts would have you think.
@@MaxRavenclaw Eh, crew efficiency can be pretty helpful in the heat of the moment - having enough room to reload quickly, being able to acquire a target fast... all of these little things can add up in battle.
I said ergonomics. And yes, it can be very helpful in certain circumstances, but I don't think it's the be-all and end-all that some Sherman enthusiasts suggest. And there's a curve to how useful it gets. For example, a 3 man turret is a lot more important than having enough leg space.
Two of my favorite military history RUclipsrs in conversation. Excellent. I hope to see more of this cross-collaboration like this and like The Chieftain is doing with Indy and the AsTimeGoes channel. Keep it up, guys!
My admittedly uninformed opinion is that the Sherman was designed years before it saw service and due to logistics/distance constraints and was already becoming outdated by the time it arrived in North Africa and relatively ancient by D-Day. It also took many months to get fixes sent to the field for it's obvious shortcomings in battle. Plus, you couldn't expect the US military with NO combat experience to hold their own against the Germans who had been in battle almost constantly since 1939. One doesn't get to become an accomplished killer overnight.
You two,
Work very well together.
I believe Major Moran is in his element.
Doing the question and answer thing worked great.
Q: How many Shermans does it take to stop a Tiger?
A: None. It'll break down all by itself
@John Cornell
They worked well going backwards towards the Rhine
@John Cornell
Meh
Sherman tank crews: Sherman good.
People who don't understand why the Sherman was the way it was: Sherman bad.
Tank crew opinions vary wildly. I think the general consensus is that the _M4_ did it's job adequately.
The 3rd Armored Division entered combat in Normandy with 232 M4 Sherman tanks. During the European Campaign, the Division had some 648 Sherman tanks completely destroyed in combat and we had another 700 knocked out, repaired and put back into operation.
This is called combat. 50,000 plus Sherman's were built, the tanks and crews were expendable and replaceable. The Sherman could be destroyed, and replaced in 72 hours or less. NONE of the Panzers, Tigers or Panther's were replaceable, NONE. More than 1,500 Panzer's, Tigers and Panthers were destroyed in Normandy, France and Germany on the western front.
@John Cornell Right, which is why the nutzies won.
Nick: "Is there any nation's infantry manual, that says 'when faced by a superior enemy force - attack!'?"
The Light Brigade: ...
Coleman, I believe we all know how the Light Brigade turned out. Ugh!
@@rancidpitts8243 Better than the Banzai charges
@@nukclear2741 Without shouting BANZAI, it was in effect a Banzai charge.
The US 7th Cavalry at Little Big Horn. Pickett's Charge at Gettysburg.
@@rancidpitts8243 The charge succeeded, they took the guns and slaughtered the gunners. The wrong guns, granted, and they had no tools to disable the guns, no infantry support because they where in the wrong place, and then had to ride back through the same crossfire, but their charge did work.
Best way to use a tank in defense is hull defilade, supported by anti-tank weapons. Since the Americans were usually attacking, so they were out in the open without camouflage.
The Brits loved to trash talk on the Shermans as if their domestic tanks weren't mostly garbage and they switched to almost all Shermans
The battle of Kassrine pass was a disaster for the US armoured units. The German advance in the US sector was halted by field artillery and infantry which were without armoured support. But dug in troops on the high ground with plenty of 105s will tend to check an armoured advance.
This guy is so true; he knows his stuff! My dad was a Tank Commander of a M4 Sherman with the 20th Armored Regiment of the New Zealand Army in WW2! It was powered by a Ford GAA V8 18 litre engine, he only drove fords to the day he died! NZ only purchased the Mk4 with Ford Engines!
My dad had great respect for the German Mk 4 etc
It's the same reason the M-16 and a bad reputation, or the M-9, or the Bradley, or the F-35. The American press loves to print stories of the troops complaining about their equipment. Sometimes this serves the needs of a defense contractor that have an alternative product to sell. Sometimes it's politicians who like to use this for grandstanding. Sometimes it's just the American public who are outraged their sons are not getting the best gear. The British also have a similar newspaper culture and this is why all the military equipment with famously bad reputations are American or British. It's not that other countries have better stuff.
The thing is with the sherman, that it might have good ergonomics and generally be more relyable than the opposition, its still at best equal or slightly worsethan the enemy equipment regarding its combat performance, which is basically inexcusable considering theabsolute economic superiority of the US.
@@ineednochannelyoutube5384 It had the BEST ergonomics and was BY FAR the most reliable tank, was the only tank in the world (for the entire war) that could accurately fire while on the move due to it's gyroscopically stabilized main gun, and it's crews enjoyed unsurpassed situational awareness compared to the crews of any other tanks in the war, and it was also remarkably simple and easy to repair. It was maybe the best infantry support tank in the war (more than 3/4 of it's main gun rounds were HE rounds fired in support of infantry, not AP fired at enemy tanks, AT guns, or tank destroyers) and was one of the, if not THE most survivable tank of the war from the crewman's perspective. When the early Shermans first hit the battlefield they were hands down the best tanks in the world until mid 1943, and when the upgraded 76mm armed, thicker armored, HVSS wide tracked Shermans appeared in late 1944, they were as good or better than any other medium tank in the world at the time, being outclassed only by 44+ ton and larger heavy tanks. But that's not even what makes them so remarkable, no what makes them remarkable is that unlike all of the other medium tanks being built, the Sherman was also designed to travel several thousand miles by rail, ship, and road before ever fighting in combat, designed to be easily transportable by any rail lines (narrow, medium, and wide guage) in the Americas, Europe, or Asia, was designed to be easy to load onto and unload from cargo ships (with most dock and ship cranes maxing out at 35 to 38 ton capacities), to be able to drive 150+ miles nonstop to make it to the front and have 99% of your vehicles be combat ready the minute they show up, to be simple enough for dozens of allied countries that speak different languages to rapidly train men, often rural, uneducated men how to operate and repair these vehicles very quickly, to be robust enough and with a simple enough supply chain to have thousands in service in every corner of the globe all being repaired and maintained in forward operating bases thousands of miles from the factories by all of these allied forces, and be able to operate in any kind of weather, any kind of climate, and any kind of terrain that medium tanks were found in.....and on top of all of that it's got to be cheap to produce and able to be produced in utterly massive numbers (roughly 50,000 made in 3 and 1/2 years). Fact of the matter is, the Sherman was asked to do far, far more than any other medium tank in history and it did everything it was asked to do and did it damn well.
@@ineednochannelyoutube5384 That's because it had to be as multipurpose and reliable as possible. Tigers were designed to go against other tanks and little else. The Sherman had to go against everything. Tanks. Infantry. Artillery. The reason it was stuck with a low velocity gun was that it was better against buildings.
@@ineednochannelyoutube5384 There's a few things to keep in mind: The US had (before WW2) barely ever produced tanks. They had to build an industry very quickly, and consequently had to invest a lot in tooling and mass production to make it happen. This means that *any* new vehicles using entirely novel designs is a massive investment to make.
Couple that with the US having some pretty strict requirements (both in regards to quality, ergonomics, serviceability, maximum shipping weight, exterior dimensions, etc.) and you end up with a definite lag period.
Though practical issues also rear their heads - like how it was even a struggle late war to find railway stock that could *carry* a Pershing to harbour, let alone a ship and crane that could load it.
That said, they were a bit too reactive than proactive in regards to their AFVs IMO.
@@foxymetroid the 74/L40 was not low velocity.
The one thing I always liked about the Sherman's the hatches was large and spring open for fast exists.
Love the Kelly's Heroes reference.
Sherman: *Best Tank Of WW2!*
T-34: *wishes it was as well-built, as fast, had properly heat-treated engine and transmission parts, and armor, was as roomy, easily repaired and maintained, and had parts that fit, To Spec, right out of the factory, ETC.*
I was unaware that shermans had a poor reputation
There were only a little over 5,000 tankers ***casualties*** in US Sherman tanks in ww2. Being in a Sherman tank was one of the most survivable battlefield jobs that you could have been given in the second world War. It wasn't necessarily hard to knock a Sherman out, but it was constructed in a way that protected the crew well and allowed them to abandon very easily. It was also engineered in a fashion so that it could be shipped in used in any climate anywhere in the world, so supplies were always ample. it was a good survivable tank that could be produced and shipped anywhere in the world and work well. That's why it won the war.
***CORRECTION***
I stated "over 5,000 deaths", however, it seems more likely that "casualties" in the sources I was using refer to wounded and dead. What percentage of the m4 tanker crew casualties died, what percentage was wounded, and what percentage of m4 tankers who were wounded later died, I have not yet been able to discover. Presumably it was less than half of the total casualties died, if not less than 1/3.
Out of interest, where did that number come from? I presume it includes Commonwealth, Soviet and Marines, but I don't recall ever seeing a breakdown to type of tank.
The Sherman was great for sure, but no one piece of equipment won the war
"Won the war?" I think Allied Airpower played a much greater role in winning the West than the Sherman.
Mmm. Armored Force indicates some 1,600 personnel KIA from all causes assigned to all types of vehicle. I've seen a good assessment, possibly by The Howling Cow over on Reddit, that the actual numbers (when one includes tankers who were branched infantry, such as, for example, all those chaps in the Pacific and much of 1st Armored, as Armored Force was only a recent creation) are closer to 2,500 from all causes and all vehicles. His maths did seem to make sense.
Looking at Dupuy's numbers, taken from a single formation in a single theater, I note he refers to 'casualties'. I don't see anything in there offhand saying 'fatality' vs 'injury', and a casualty could very well be both. Note that Army G1 considers "Casualty" to include both injured and dead: Of 6,825 battle casualties in Armored Force (Again, see above caveat), you are looking at 1581 "deaths among battle casualties", and 4,954 wounded, of whom 3,082 were returned to duty, and 1,703 so badly wounded that they were sent back to the US. Doing some basic mental arithmetic, the Dupuy figures don't seem unreasonable when one considers casualty to be injured or killed as opposed to just killed.
@@TheChieftainsHatch
I think it's an extrapolation from the crew casualties rate per tank loss x the amount of American Sherman's lost from the the 1951 allied tank report. If I am mistaken, please do correct me.
Mass produced Shermans had to be shipped across the pond en masse. A bulky tank would have made it more difficult.
Yep, that's something that people never take into consideration when they're talking about WW2 tanks, Germany could make ridiculous sized tanks and railroad guns etc etc and ship them directly overland to their theater of operations, tanks made in Detroit had to be shipped to a coastal facility, get loaded onto boats, shipped across the Atlantic, then unloaded again on the other side, then railroaded to their area of operations, there were railroad tunnel width concerns going through the Appalachian mountains to an eastern port, then there's crane weight limits to deal with, then there's the issue of how many you can fit on one ship, then you have to do it all again on the other side, more Sherman's are better under these conditions then less Tiger sized tanks.
The thing is the allies DID make heavy tanks like the T29 (Though it was after the war, it was meant for the war) and the Pershing it was just the fact that the Army REFUSED to transport them.
Me: casually listening to video like it's a podcast
Video: 14:14
Me: JUMPING JESUS WTF EVERYONE GET DOWN INCOMING FIIIIIIIRRRRE!!!!
There was one army that had the "if faced by a superior enemy attack" doctrin, the Carolineans.
Fall in line
Battle formations
Show no fear
Riding them down
Remember a tank was needed to be built in huge numbers and had to be shipped 3000 miles or more predominantly at sea. Limitations at that time were huge in what could be transported by ship.
The M-4 was easy to produce mechanically reliable, easily Maintained and easy to operate probably the best tank of the war
Not individually most powerful, but best design relative to the needs of the armed forces which used them, I'd say. The Mark III was also a very good design, which served very well in the early parts of the war, and even served somewhat well later on as well (with continual upgrades of various kinds helping to keep it relevant). The Tiger 1 and Tiger 2 were also pretty good, but their overall usefulness was more limited to specific types of roles, as they were far too expensive to make, to maintain, to keep fueled, to transport, etc. to be used as the primary tank type for the German military. The Panther seems to have come close to being a good design, but was seemingly a little too ambitious, and a little too rushed.
Both the Sherman’s and T34’s were very influential tanks I would say.
My first suspicions about the Sherman actually being a good tank came when I studying Patton in secondary school(High School).
In his diary he had listing of 3rd Army material loses and the tank loses didn't add up.
In short US Medium Tank loses were about par with German heavy Tank loses and German material loses were much higher in general.
While reading this even my history teacher was commenting that German were much better.
He was even a little perplexed when I was showing him that the number didn't add up.
Maybe your history teacher should have cautioned you on viewing figures in a vacuum. Roughly equal losses when one side has overwhelming air superiority doesn't suggest parity.
@marsnz Air attacks weren’t actually all that efficient at taking out tanks, given the lack of munition guidance. There is also the fact that loss parity when one side has significantly more means the side with less is losing in terms of available assets.
Air superiority is misunderstood regarding the Western front. People think its about tank busting but it's not. Reconnaissance, interdiction, strategic bombing etc. caused a large part of German material loss.
The OP said material loss, not combat loss.
Aerial recon was such a problem Germany preferred to move at night. German factories were bombed to the point certain weapons were in shortage, though not tanks in particularly.
As for regarding loss parity between a larger and smaller force, I don't think that matters when determining equipment's superiority over one another. Just because the smaller force is losing due to less available asset, that doesn't really mean their equipment was inferior.
Anyways, the focus on whose equipment is better is flawed. Requirements for each military is different. There's also millions of different factors that determine their success. Logistics, positioning, doctrine, tactics, training, air superiority, infantry support, intelligence etc.
We can only claim one is better than another in this specific circumstance under this condition.
SeismicPebble it’s also worth noting that the US was on the offensive against a prepared and capable defender. Most of what tanks fought weren’t other tanks.
@@deriznohappehquite True, and given that the Germans didn't have a comparable number of tanks, it makes sense that many Allied tank losses were to stuff like Panzerfausts.
World of Tanks free to play. kind of. Not really. Not even close. Unless my wife asks then yes.
IDK what you mean. I got several tier X lines and an E-25 for free, and had a WN8 of well over 1800. It's really not hard to play since the vast majority of players are complete trash.
@@infinitelyexplosive4131 If you started off years ago you grew with the game. If you start off now you are entering into a very mature game with players that have 30K 40K and even 50K experience playing down in T3. It is hard. I am happy you are happy. You are superman good for you. "VAST MAJORITY of players is trash." so sad for everyone else. Don't you think that is what I am saying. Vast majority of players find it hard yet you are saying the game is easy for you. This post is just you saying you are so good look at me. . You pay to play unless you are a good player. It takes 11,000 games to become a good player according to Skil and other CC's. As I said I am very happy for you. I will send the media around to interview you seeing as you are such a humble guy. You can tell them how VAST MAJORITY of players in WOT are trash but you and a few others are good at it. Maybe you will be the new Kanye West and declare yourself the greatest? Maybe send us a photo and we can worship it.
Play world of tanks blitz. You can play it on a mobile device and the battles last 6 minutes and yes you can play it for free.
I still play sometimes, and it is fun if you don't bother with the high-tier stuff (6+). There are too many weird trolls with $70 tanks up there.
Grahame Nicholson - From reading all your comments it sounds like you're just upset because you aren't very good and just mad because of players like me that are very good and have lots of high tier tanks.
I will tell you what I tell everyone, this game doesn't care what tank you are in if you are good. A good player will always beat a bad player and it doesn't matter if the bad player is spamming gold ammo and the good player is using normal AP ammo. You know why? Because the most important skill in WOT is POSITIONING! Of course there are a lot of other things a player needs to know but if you put enough time and effort into the game then you will figure all of them out. InfinitelyExplosive was correct when he said that majority of WOT players are trash. That's just a fact. Also if you want to get good at the game and not be a noob, don't play arty because a retarded monkey can play arty and be good at it.
The funny thing is that since there were so few tigers, Sherman tanks rarely faced them at all.
Tiger 2s were more common and took part in the Ardennes assault... and almost all were destroyed, one by an armored car.
Most Sherman tanks were destroyed by artillery fire, mine's, panzerfaust, and German tank Destroyers. Most German tanks were destroyed by the equivalent Allied weapons. And many tanks on both sides were abandoned when they ran out of fuel, broke down mechanically in battle, were disabled by a damaged track, or stuck.
Additionally many German tanks were destroyed while sitting on railroad cars.
Actual Tank vs. Tank battles were uncommon. Only fourteen percent of Sherman's engagements With the Enemy were tank to tank.
Nice KELLY'S HEROES reference😊
Interesting that the American Army’s doctrine of updating existing platforms worked for the Sherman in Korea where the tank crews took on Soviet T-34/85s and T-34s and held their own with their updated gun in the E models
If something works, it works. And if they've got a lot of them left over, and they did, why not use it? Besides, the Sherman was made to be able to be used in jungles and islands, due to the war with Japan. So... Why not?
The didn’t hold their own, they absolutely demolished the t-34’s
The tank also did very well against t-54/55 in the IDF
The old saying goes, "It isn't the ship, it is the sailor." A mediocre or inexperienced crew in an excellent tank may very well lose to an experienced, well-trained crew in a less-capable tank, or one of roughly the same capability. That's certainly what we learned in Korea. After recovering from the enormous shock of the start of the war and early communist successes, once U.S. armored forces began arriving in theater in numbers, they did very well, not just in their M-26 Pershings (and later in their M-46s), but their M4A3E8 "Easy Eight" Shermans. The North Korean crews in T34-85s had been thought to be invincible during the early dark days of the war, but once capable troops arrived and with some decent gear/equipment, the tables were turned rapidly. The M-26s made easy work of the NK tanks, and so did the Shermans once sufficient HVAP tungsten-cored AT ammo for their 76mm tubes arrived. The T34-85 was a good tank, but the better training and experience of U.S. and Allied crews made the decisive difference. Many of the Allied crews had fought together in WWII, not just U.S. but British as well. The Brits did amazing things with their Centurions, getting them to mountain-tops that looked impossible for armor to climb, and so forth.
GeorgiaBoy1961- it’s interesting you stated that many WW2 vets were reactivated- on one Korean War documentary a Marine of the First Marine division stated that many of the division vets were hopping mad that they got reactivated- veterans of the Japanese Island campaigns- granted the North Koreans and Chinese were tough and fresh off their victory defeating the Nationalist Chinese forces but experienced USMC had the edge on experience from Guadalcanal to Okinawa.
When the Sherman was designed it was the best tank around. When it finally got into combat the Germans had advanced their armor tech beyond the Sherman. But it's what we had and so it was what we used. Upgrading our Armor was going to take too long. Besides, all our transport ships were designed to take Shermans.
The burning rate could be attributed to the lack of wet ammo storage. Once that was addressed the burning rate went down considerably. Dont forget that German A.T. and Panzer crews were trained to keep firing on a target until it began to smoke. It can be very hard to tell if a tank is K.O.ed, so they shot til it burned.
Cromwells, Cruisers, Comets, etc... burned too. So did all the Panzers. I don't know why this myth still prevails. Nose to nose, the M4 Sherman is almost equal to a Panzer IV. Altho the Panzer IV had a bit better gun. It was designed for killing tanks. The Sherman's gun was designed for Infantry support. Both are 75mm, but the Panzer IV has a higher velocity gun.
Which of the 50 versions of the Panzer IV are you talking about?
@@chaosXP3RT lol! Yeah, there were a few weren't there? I'm talking later war of coarse. With the 75L48 gun.
@unsuccessful alias Well said. I wonder how the folks at Ronson did in sales that year? Just goes to show how powerful a good rumor can be.
They have a bad reputation because people like to oversimplify tank warfare. The Sherman and the Tiger were designed for different things. The Tiger was a glorified tank destroyer. It was designed to fight tanks and little else. The Sherman, on the other hand, was designed to fight whatever the army needed it to fight. It was designed to fight tanks, but it was also designed to destroy soft targets and support infantry. Both tanks are the product of compromise. The difference is that the Sherman's compromise limited its ability to fight heavy tanks and the Tiger's compromise limited its ability to fight everything else.
There wasn't enough running Tigers for and real concern.
Didn't the Tiger 1's 88mm have a good HE shell?
Soviet M4 commander said two to take out a Tiger. One blew the track and when the Tiger slewed sideways the other M4 hit it from the side where is was way weaker.
I believe the Sherman was the best tank of the war - hands down.
Sherman did light up, but it took a little while for them to get there.
Fortunately for the crew of the Sherman the very easy to get out of.
A big reason we used medium tanks and no heavy tanks until the end of the war was because we had to arm our allies and ourselves by the hundreds with these all while moving them across the ocean full of U boats.
Chieftain calling the M4 in 1942 the "best tank in the world"...triggered Panzer fans incoming!
Hey even geniuses can be wrong
@@marcl.1346 MHV and I actually talked about this with the director of the Panzermuseum Munster. He pretty much said the same as the Chieftain.
I hold that the long Pz4 is the best overall tank of the war.
@@1320crusier Nah. For the whole war its, in my opinion, without a doubt the M4 Sherman. Especially late war the M4 was far superior to the Panzer IV.
@@HistoryGameV I disagree but that why theyre opinions =p
Only about 4% of Sherman tanks were taken out during WWII and they built 49,324 tanks which include variants and lend lease vehicles.
@2:42 FINALLY somebody in a public filming had enough sense to (essentially) say "Hey goof, they are FILMING! GO THE OTHER WAY!!!!" Or at least it looks like that is what took place.
A good discussion continues. It seems many times the Sherman was tasked with attack. How much armor to be protected from a high velocity German 75.... Yes the best cas woul be to deploy the 76 with HVAP and wet storage at earliest date possible. I rember the M1 Abrahams delelopment....diffrent times.
West Lands is correct. But let me put it like this: WHY did the Soviets defeat Germany? Logistics. We had to SHIP our war material to the war. We did so successfully it turns out on two fronts. No one else can say they did. so.... While the German military could boast 72 of the finest tanks in the world (in France), the US could boast of (I no longer remember the correct figure) 5000 Shermans, aaaaaand the victory. Which side would you want to be on?
Australia probably had as many tanks as the Germans had in France in 44 and we hardly went in for much armour . Most our good stuff stayed home , we tried Stuarts but in end went with Matildas
Thommy Berlin if you are saying only the US shipped war materiel to Russia you would be wrong. As far as I can remember half of the UKs war production went to Russia. The Russians were doing al the fighting ad dying until well after Dday.
@unsuccessful alias the first thing I read of your post is incorrect I did not say Normandy was America’s debut to WW2. You must be a Democrat? I said most of the American boys on Dday were green and it was their fist combat. I will read the rest of your post and see what else you can twist around for everything I state on here is the result 80 years of studdy
The one with the mostest but the Sherman was still something to use as target practice. According to my file they made 30,000 Sherman tanks.
all these replies and all of you forget that the American war production was never hampered by having their factories bombed to hell. The only factory in the UK that did not get bombed was Ford? Old Henry was a nazi sympathizer.
2:40 "Hey dude, gtfo"
That was my gunner! He didnt know there was a camera set up.
@@tankatron7387 well done
The reason for the Sherman's bad reputation is because of the operational conditions that were imposed on them. The Sherman had to be small because it had to be shipped from the US to Europe and more tanks could be shipped if they were smaller and lighter so therefore they were smaller and lighter than tanks like the Tiger 2 which did not have those constraints. That in turn led to the small tank syndrome when they met large tanks like the Tiger, the Sherman looks puny and sad beside a Tiger which convinced the troops that their tanks were inferior to the awesome looking German tanks. No one asked the Germans how reliable their cool looking tanks were, they just thought that since they looked cool they must be better but at the end of the day the T-34's and the Shermans ate the Tigers and Panzers so therefore they are better. Case closed.
From D-day on the Germans were dug in like a tick on a dog in France, Belgium, Holland & Germany. In many engagements they had the element of surprise with ambushes from high ground, giving them a clean shot into the thinner side armor of the Sherman. So yeah, you're gonna lose some Sherman's & crew members from those attacks. But in 30 engagements with the Panther Mk5's, the Sherman had a 3:1 kill ratio. Pretty darn good, I'd say...
@John Cornell The answer to all of these debates is usually "it depends"; i.e. is it an ambush attack? What is the range? Where are the Panthers placed? Is the Sherman column on a sunken road where they can't maneuver off of the road? The Panther had a decent top speed but was sluggish from a dead stop and had a slower turret rotation rate. I'll have to go back and find the source for that claim which I read a while ago, but I believe those 30 engagements were long after the breakout in the Bocage / after Sherman crews gained a lot of experience.
Just a note....when I was young and in industry there were many ww2 veterans in our place. One supervisor had been a tank commander in North Africa. He said that a German tank was spotted and five Sherman’s were sent on the attack. A few moments later he and his driver escaped the encounter with a tiger, he statement was ...... we were taught that we could go tank to tank with any German. He and the driver were I believe the only survivors and the poor man never got over the guilt. God bless them all.
Probaganda is good for getting men to fight, not so much after that...
Not a true story
No you are not to believe those who were there but you are to believe those who were not there. Make sense?
I thought for many years , the Sherman was a killer. It was really no worse than its opponents or allies. I think most battles came down to 2 factors. Who saw who first and accuracy of the gunner.
For some odd reason, I expected the engineers' Sherman 105 to have at one point been forced to hit enemy tanks with the HEAT rounds they may have used in demolition duty or hard point neutralization
There are several cases of 105mm Shermans using HEAT on enemy tanks.
heat rounds were having difficulty with fuses when fired by tank guns- that is why most development happened after the war.
@@williamt.sherman9841 That's American HEAT fuses which had problems, everyone elses were fine.
@@FairladyS130 I don't think that is the case. why did no one use them in tank cannons until after the war?
@@williamt.sherman9841 You need to do some actual research .
Why so much about the Sherman? Because there were so many Shermans. Why don't you hear bad things about the Panther? The people with first hand information didn't survive. Oh bugger the Panther should be called the German tanker cooker.
I think it comes more down to shitty TV documentaries and news paper articles.
About the Panther: ruclips.net/video/EzEXBbQC7BU/видео.html
Thank you for the fantastic video. I hope you are enjoying your time here in the USA. I feel like the Sherman is a great tank in the context of the purpose it was designed for. American doctrine never intended to use the Sherman as the primary anti-tank weapon, they were planning to lean on tank destroyers, artillery, and air power for that. The Sherman was built to be rugged and reliable, fuel efficient, light and nimble (both for transport across the Atlantic and surviving without factory assistance). I think the people who designed and built the Sherman did a pretty good job fulfilling the requirements and staying inside the weight limits. Once it became clear that the tanks were going to have to be pressed into the primary anti-tank role, they started working to upgrade to the 76mm. The panzer IV is somewhat similar in that originally it was equipped with a short 75mm and not expected to be a tank killer but more of an infantry support tank. Eventually the panzer IV was up gunned for much the same reason - you don't always get to choose which of your tanks is going to be engaging enemy tanks!
This re-enactment is 15 miles away from me and I never had any idea they did it. Guess I know what I'm doing next year!
You didn't hear our 155mm Long Tom 15 miles away??? Well, Guess what... We will be there again this coming August 19-21. You have no excuses NOT to be there now!
@@Bendejo301 Guess not, but to be fair a lot of people use tannerite around here :) I'm sure my 4 little kids will love it.
@@mrdumbfellow927 If you come out, I'll be with the Artillery of WW2 Armor down by the beach! Be glad to have you and the family come out and have some fun!
Re: Cooper...it's the opposite of survivor bias. Read Abraham Wald for that.
The Sherman was too tall certainly for the desert,so said an old tanker to me back in the 60s.
Was a few inches taller than PzKw IV...
I wonder how much it has to do with the tigerboos reading the book “Death Traps”
The British were grateful to have a good tank. But us Americans who had all the tanks we wanted complained because it wasn’t our only option.
The US had far longer logistical lines to keep in mind.
Of the tanks the US had available for most of the war the Sherman was the best, and for a few years it was better than anything the Germans had.
I would be interesting to compare the Sherman to the T-34 and see how much of each tanks reputation that came from a different tolerance to casualties.
The Russian's have a certain romanticism about the second world war. Perhaps even more to an extent than the western allies. To the Americans and British, it was the "good war" but to the Soviets it was something even greater. There is a reason they call it the great patriotic war. So despite the mass casualties the T-34 suffered, it still became a symbol to the Russians representing their struggle against the German Army. It also helps that the T-34 was not a terrible tank. The German over reactions to the T-34 also helped to develop the T-34 legend.
@@Avalanche041 Good answe! :)
Survivors Guilt
Sherman crews were more likely to survive their tank being knocked out of action.
12:20 quoting Odd Ball from Kelley's Heroes lol
It's funny how this happened with a lot of equipment. The m1 carbine was a miracle weapon in ww2 but come Korea and its a jamming peice of garbage... i saw an interview with a ww2 veteran who talked about how most people who had the carbine would never recover magazines after firing. They had so much accessibility to equipment that magazines were just replaced and the shortcomings of them were never made apparent until a war where funding was more closely watched. The myth of the m1 ping has no historical evidence also. So much myth exists because soldiers will bitch and if rumors were a physical substance they'd be considered an explosive with how easily they catch fire and spread
I think what you are describing (specificaly with the carbine) is not so much a problem with the gun itself but instead it is a problem with the fact that most carbines which were used in the korean war were leftovers from ww2. If leave a carbines laying around in a warehouse for 7 years then ofcourse the magazine springs will start to unpreasure, the weapon will rust a little bit here and there and all sorts of stuff will happen.
With the M4 Sherman it was actualy not the case since (correct me if I am wrong) most M4 Shermans used in the Korean war were actualy build during the corean war since all of the world war 2 shermams were ether sold to european countrys after the war or throwm into the sea because the U.S. army sadly didnt want to pay for shipping and stowrage for 40 000 30 ton tanks. That is why the M4 Sherman ended up crushing the T-34-85s in the corean war.
The issue with the best tank argument is like asking what's a better vehicle a 2007 Honda Accord or a 2019 Formula 1 Ferrari racecar. That's very much a matter of what are you trying to do. Are you trying to drive to work and drop your kids off and school or are you trying to win a race. The point is the Sherman was a solid all purpose tank which is what the Allies needed. The big cats were heavy armored, big gun slow tanks that were suited to defense. The Tiger would have been terrible for the Americans.
Kudos for thinking about what the tank is used for. The Sherman was a reliable workhorse that fought its way across France, and was easily a match for 97% of the AFVs the Germans fielded. It was pretty much only the Tigers and Panthers that caused it problems, particularly when they were skillfully deployed on defense.
What swayed me on the topic was reading a Russian tanker's opinion about the Sherman, one the Soviets received from Lend Lease. He was full of praise for the Sherman, how it was so reliable, the suspension was very good and surprisingly comfortable on all kinds of roads, the tracks were reliable and they carried spares. As for Tiger fights, yes, getting in a ranged duel was terrible. But since the Germans liked to be on the attack, two Shermans waiting in ambush could wait until it was close and moving closer, then one would make a careful shot on a track. With one track gone, the Tiger would ride off the track and spin. When the Tiger had spun 90 degrees, both Sherman would hammer the exposed side armor for the kill.
Some of the best and most-proficient German panzer generals disliked the heaviest German tanks/AFVs for the very reasons you mention - they were detrimental to fast-moving offensive operations because they were too thirsty, too heavy, too big, and too mechanically-unreliable. They often required rail flatcars for transport, and were too heavy and bulky for the bridges, roads and streets of many older European towns and cities. Gearbox failures in particular dogged them, and hence they often broke down on longer road marches. Many of the best Panzer leaders preferred the humble but serviceable Mk. IV "Special" with its high-velocity 75mm gun. Hard-hitting, reliable, of manageable size and weight, more economical fuel economy, and well-proven in combat and on mobile operations.
12:45 le wild DUKW passes by
As always an informed discussion.-time to adjust the stabiliser on my SUV.🔩
I see you're a man of culture, Oscar.
But could this medium tank knock out an enemy super heavy tank?
it doesnt need to... it just needs to kill all its support
@@geraldmuntuerto5769 LOL
There's a Kelly's Heroes reference from the Chieftain at 12:23. I caught it right away and laughed. Was not expecting that in this discourse.
What i learned to drive 1st and it kept me safe even in Horseshoes perfect driver and gunner
The M4 devastated German forces in a sweeping victory with one of the lowest casualty rates of the war. It successfully served several nations for decades after the war. It was an amazingly versatile and effective weapon for the many requirements it had to meet. That is what the Sherman was in reality despite the death trap myth born of narrow perspectives.
I think the only book were someone says to attack superior numbers is from Rommel in the first world was.
no one mentioned the tracks, a Sherman could go 2 thousand miles on it's treads, german tanks could only do 4 hundred miles. Wittman took on 50 t-34s in his tiger and only left after he ran out of ammo. The Sherman was faster than other tanks.
Such a bad reputation, that they were modernized and in service until the 70s with some seeing reserve assignments in the 80s.
Maybe it has something to do with a certain book which had a Sherman tank on it and blunt all caps title DEATH TRAPS