M4 Sherman Tank - The American Deathtrap
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- Опубликовано: 28 сен 2024
- Doctrine
As the US approached entry in World War II, armored employment was doctrinally governed by FM 100-5 Operations (published May 1941, the month following selection of the M4 tank's final design). That FM stated that:
The armored division is organized primarily to perform missions that require great mobility and firepower. It is given decisive missions. It is capable of engaging in all forms of combat, but its primary role is in offensive operations against hostile rear areas.[10]
In other words, the M4 was envisioned to primarily fill the role of a cruiser tank - although the US Army did not use that doctrinal term. The M4 was not primarily intended as an infantry support tank; in fact, FM 100-5 specifically stated the opposite. It placed tanks in the "striking echelon" of the armored division, and placed the infantry in the "support echelon". Neither was the M4 primarily intended for tank versus tank action. Doctrinally, anti-tank engagements were the primary role of tank destroyers. The field manual covering the use of the Sherman (FM 17-33, "The Tank Battalion, Light and Medium" of September 1942) devoted one page of text and four diagrams to tank versus tank action (out of 142 pages).[11] This early armored doctrine was heavily influenced by the sweeping initial successes of the German blitzkrieg tactics. Unfortunately, by the time M4s reached combat in significant numbers, battlefield demands for infantry support and tank versus tank action far outnumbered the occasional opportunities for cruiser tanks.
Although envisioned primarily as a cruiser-type tank, US doctrine did also contemplate the M4's use in other roles. Unlike some other nations, which had separate medium tank designs tailored specifically for anti-tank roles (e.g., the German PzKw III) and support roles (the PzKw IV), the US intended the M4 to fulfill all roles. Although not optimized for tank versus tank engagements or infantry support, the M4 was capable of performing these missions to varying degrees. In the Pacific Theater, the Sherman was used chiefly against Japanese infantry and fortifications; in their rare encounters with lighter Japanese tanks with weaker armor and guns, the Shermans were vastly superior.
The doctrine of the time had Shermans as a sort of infantry tank. All anti-tank work was supposed to be done by tank-destroyer crews. Speed was essential in order to bring the tank-destroyers from the rear to destroy incoming tanks. Thankfully, for Sherman crews, this doctrine was not entirely used as it would create a small window of time of weakness in the armored battalion until tank destroyers moved to the front. Obviously this would make it harder for an armored force to achieve a breakthrough, a main objective of armor, if the enemy had tanks. It would also be easier for an opposing armored force to achieve a breakthrough against an American tank battalion which would not have all of its anti-tank assets at the front during the beginning of any attack
"the Sherman tank was somewhere between the light tank and the heavy tank" its called a medium tank
And this the exact moment in which everyone should stop watching this vid. Second one is referencing "Death Traps" - a book written by a guy who worked with damaged and destroyed M4's. Of course he thought they're shit if he only saw damaged or destroyed ones.
they are shit if he literally saw thousands destroyed, look at numbers
@@papameowmeow8236 What numbers? Those official, declassified ones from 50's saying that M4 was, not counting Churchill, the safest tank of the war with like 1,5 casuality (which includes both dead and wounded) per destroyed tank? Even less for later models with better armor, second hatch in turret and wet stowage?
Like it or not, M4 was an amazing tank. Easy to repair, reliable (read a bit about the tests it had to go through to be accepted by the army), good armour - front was only few cm thiner than Tiger, and good enough firepower - even short barell 75mm from earlier versions was capable of taking out Panthers and Tigers at short distances, which were standard fighting range in Italy and Normandy.
This book was and its myth were debunked ages ago. He saw thousands because it was his job! It's like oncologist saying that everyone has cancer, because he sees cancer patients all day.
@@oumajgad6805 I think that the main reason the Sherman looks bad is that the German tanks just had more firepower. If the Sherman had a similar gun as the panther it could probably punch through well. The Sherman just wasn't produced as a tank killer.
@@alwayssunnyinsuncity4736 It wasnt build for that role, but still was competent at this. Frontline troops basicaly said "meh" when they were told they're getting long barrell 76mm version. They were still killing Panthers and Tigers. Later it was proven to be not enough hence the 76mm + HVAP ammo which was unfortunately in short supply. Fortunately so were Tigers.
My grandfather was a tank Gunner during WW2, he was killed in the winter of 1944, we're not exactly sure where (Belgium or Germany) because his records were destroyed in a fire where the records were held. He was twenty four years old, and left a wife and three children. His brother, my great uncle, was killed in Italy nine days later, he was twenty. Their last surviving brother was sent home from the Pacific after they were killed, he's will be ninety seven on December second.
My wife lost all of her grandfather's records in that same fire. You couldn't have got me in one of these Sherman death traps I take my chance with my GI shirt. Thank your family for the sacrifice
@@brt-jn7kg Agreed, that's exactly what they were, death traps.
Deep story.
@@brt-jn7kg And what exactly did your family gain from that sacrifice ??????????????
@@brt-jn7kg The _M4_ was considerably more survivable to be in than being infantry...
0:35 "The Sherman Tank' weight class was somewhere between a light tank which was small and a heavy tank was a monster"
.....so a medium tank then
@@steffenjespersen247
What are you even talking about? Medium tank term were already a thing during the interwar period which is after the Great War and before WW2.
Steffen Jespersen bruh
If you need more words for your essay
Medium doesn't really make sense as a class anyways if you think logically so it makes sense they wouldn't immediately jump to it. You could describe a tank as relatively light or heavy but you would never say "Yeah I weighed that tank and it was... medium"
@@nohbodhi1120 you can already know if its a medium tank if it has an average speed,weight and armor by comparing it to a heavy or light tank if its the middle of it so its medium
As Chieftain (an armor historian and tank commander himself) explains: Despite what they show in movies like Fury, there were only 3 instances of American tanks taking on a German Tiger. The first time the Sherman's won. The second time the Pershing lost. And the third time the Tigers were being loaded onto railway cars - so it wasn't really a fair fight.
That was the 3 recorded instances of American armor fighting German heavy tanks. Not bad considering the Sherman was a medium tank!
very much so
we all know that every fight americans had not been victors is a unfair fight. the british feel the same.
The Pershing was actually a draw. The Tiger's shell ricochet and destroyed the cannon's barrel, but then the Tiger got stuck on some rubble while moving to flank the Pershing and was stuck in such a way that it couldn't shoot it.
Both tanks were abandoned.
Context, it was from Harry Yeide who found the records in the archives for western europe and this was post Normandy. Shermans had encountered and killed Tigers seperately in Italy and North Africa but they were so rarely encountered because so few were ever built.
A Sherman tanker had a 3 percent mortality rate while infantry had an 18 percent mortality rate. Bomber crews over Germany had a mortality rate between 35 and 40 percent. All things considered, I'd rather be in a tank.
@DB Cooper, they never had a chance to bail. Then a lot of times once they hit the ground or were near ground the Nazis gunned them down
People say the Sherman sucks but it was one of the most survivable tanks in the war 🤷♂️
ohh screw being in a bomber, that would of been truly awful.
Like Chiftain (a guy from WOT documentaries) show up, sherman was very easy to escape from but 3% means that majority of them was from long range and enemy infantry couldn't suppress tank crew. It looks like tank amour was made form wrong metal alloy, making weaker than in German counterparts with the same thickness. There was a story on DH when British sherman tank was hit by 88, project penetrate get through and get out with out exploding
@DB Cooper British Bomber Command aircrew had an overall mortality rate of about 18%. The USAAF 8th Air Force (bombers) had a similar rate. That's WW2, European Operations. Both British and American bombers dropped about 1 million tons of bombs, each for the war. American bombers had lower payloads so 8th Air Force flew more sorties than Bomber Command. 18% was higher than ANY other Allied WW2 combatants. Neither Brit or American aircrew had anything like 50% killed.
Back when the History channel actually made shows about historical things.
+Josh E I actually learn more about history watching Pawn Stars than most shows.
Shame this is mostly all bullshit.
Hmm, Sherman gets hit once: 3 crew dead, 1 crippled for life, 1 survived. Panther gets hit 3 times: 4 crew survived, 1 unaccounted for. Yep definitely bullsh#t. I get that we could not have better tanks because we had to ship them overseas, but the only thing that is bullsh#t here is what those tank crews had to work with. Typical American tactics: we have a tank that's completely inferior to what its going up against, so lets just produce thousands of them and screw the guys who have to drive them. At least the British knew enough to put a f#cking 17 pounder on the d#mn thing instead of just shipping out death traps to their men.
From 1 video that doesn't exactly show the whole picture of the war. Now i can't rember the numbers off the top my head but i think US army studies during and early post war stated crew losses per knocked out Sherman was 1 dead 2-3 wounded (later 1-2 when they sorted out ammo flash issues) hardly the figures from the Sherman panther fight.
The real picture (in my opinion) is "our factories kicked your factories' asses"...all the things that made the Sherman so-so were a consequence of it being a product per se..."shippable" and "bridgeable" etc. They had hundreds, we had thousands. Same with half-tracks too...they had 100's of SdKfz 251 and we had 10's of thousands of M3/M16 etc. etc.
My dad was a Sherman tanker trained at camp Cambell. He entered the war with 7th Army, southern invasion of France, during Operation Dragoon a couple of months after Normandy. He said it was a shocker during the first gunfights with nazi tanks. He said they placed good hits on them but their shells didn't do any damage just bounce off. If you were lucky to survive long enough you started to learn the enemy tanks weaknesses and devise tactics to kill them.
He told me their (enemy's) gun was accurate and deadly at range so you had to establish diversions while other Shermans would sneak or rush up behind them to put a cap in their rear where the engine was located and armor the lightest. He said their turret traversed slowly so speed and timing was important. If you were unable to get behind them you fired into their tracks on the side which immobilized it allowing you to get behind it for the kill shot. He also talked about the crew's always gathering things to attach to the outside of their tanks to enhance the armor and counter the panzerfoust anti tank weapon that were so plentiful.
I would always try to picture in my mind what it would be like in a Sherman to face off with an enemy tank and watch your hits bounce off their frontal armor while their telephone pole of a cannon lines up on you for the shot. INSANE!!!
Hell just to think about it makes you want to shit yourself, geeze. Having room to maneuver was important but to travel through town on roads sometimes barely wide enough for a tank was a killer.
He was the only survivor of his crew when he got hit during the battle for Munchin Glaudback on the Julick river. He had a shrapnel wound to the side of his head and spent several months of hospitalization in Holland. Of course before being completely healed went into some intense training for the Rhine crossing. The crossing was another scary experience where he came close to not making it.
Bottom line as he explained in the argument whose tanks were better, once you learned how to properly fight with the weapon given you the outcome took a drastic change. God bless them they were all so brave.
Brave does not adequately describe the men that fought in that war. There are no words that could describe these guys. Allied forces used sheer numbers to overcome the Germans. The men that fought knew it... And went anyway. Sheer grit. There are brave men fighting today there is no doubt . But there will never be any like these men or the men of WW EVER again.
The Soviets used sheer numbers, not the U.S. or Britain. Our tanks were very effective against the German armor. Don't believe the myths about the Sherman being a cardboard box of a tank.
"I would always try to picture in my mind what it would be like in a Sherman to face off with an enemy tank and watch your hits bounce off their frontal armor while their telephone pole of a cannon lines up on you for the shot. INSANE!!!"
That only happened with Panthers and the occasional Tigers, which were extremely rare. The main German tank, and hence the one most encountered, was the Panzer, and the Sherman was very much a match against the Panzer. It had superior armor protection to the Panzer and its gun could very much penetrate the Panzer.
Thank you for Sharing that.
@@WheelsRCool Swallow your pride Kyle, its physics. Sherman designers were not at the same level as Germans. Just swallow your pride.
when the video cites "Death traps" you've got a problem
T Major it was a bbq for panthers and tigers can’t deny that.
@@russianfirepower5338 Well no crap, the germans had stationary positions, the stationary army is going to do more damage than an advancing army.
T Major yes I’m aware of that, but that’s not my point, the German panthers were superior in nearly every way (not going to bring up the tiger anymore since the western front saw more panthers then tigers, plus it isn’t really correct to compare heavy tanks to medium ones)
@@russianfirepower5338 Their guns and some armor was superior, they didn't have the same range, break down rate, crew survivability, turret rotation, repair ability, or pretty much anything else. The tiger and pather were bigger but bulkier, not to mention not that many were made compared to the sherman. If the sherman was on the defensive it would have the same success shooting tigers as tigers did shooting shermans. The point being, tigers were able to shoot shermans when they wanted to since they were on the defensive and would have better cover, while the shermans would be more open to attack because they were the ones advancing.
@@russianfirepower5338 Calling the Panther a medium tank is a joke. The thing weighed as much as a heavy tank, suffered from all the same mechanical issues of German heavy tanks, and was specifically made for killing tanks. And the Panther wasn’t “superior” to the Sherman. I’d rather be in a Sherman than a Panther 10 times out of 10 because it was the far more practical vehicle. That stumpy barrel that the Sherman has is there for a reason: infantry. The Sherman is supposed to be rolling up with a screen of infantry and its primary purpose most of the time was to bust open defensive positions and act as cover for the troops. If by chance a Sherman did encounter a tank it would have statistically been most likely to bump into a STuG or Pz IV which it was more than capable of engaging effectively. People label the Sherman as a bad tank because of *extremely* specific circumstances in which it would be absolutely trashed (Big open fields, entrenched big cat, ambush, etc) because the big kitties were indeed made to be tank killers, especially the Panther. If you stick a Panther in an urban environment then it’s at a severe disadvantage using a high velocity anti tank gun to try and take out infantry and machine gun nests while also being confined to such an enclosed area that if it were to bump into a Sherman the winner would be whoever could acquire the target first; which would usually be the Sherman. America had the luxury of sticking extremely high quality parts on to a rather cheap and mass produced vehicle which lead to it having fun little quirks like a gyroscopic stabilization to allow it to shoot accurately on the move, the ability to move the gun both vertically and horizontally at the same time, and a rather fast turret traverse rate. If you’re wondering, none of the German tanks had this kind of tech in it. But you know what? You are right. If a Sherman and a Panther were stuck staring directly at each other without any cover or support the Panther would always win because it would be in its element. Unfortunately for the Panther its happy place rarely occurred in reality and more often than not the Sherman was the superior tank in that it was a jack of all trades and able to succeed in situations that the Panther is just completely unsuited for. The metric of a good tank isn’t if it is able to kill more tanks and take more hits than its competitors; the metric of a good tank is whether or not it continually succeeds in the role which it was designed to fulfill and emerges victorious time after time across a wide variety of situations.
What i find strange in this report or in others... you only hear about panther, tigers. The Backbone of the German Army were the (Assaultguns) Stug, or the Panzer III, IV. The Tigers and Panthers did not have the Numbers, to be mentioned so often. Also, most of the Tanks in the Blitzkrieg Time (Early in the War) were Panzer IIs oder IIIs.
@Private Account not true. Once wet storage was introduced the casualty rate dropped dramatically. See "the Chieftan" on RUclips
@Private Account ok wehraboo
True, would be nice to see some pz IV and III 's
The Panther was actually nore prevalent than the Panzer IV after Normandy, and next to no Panzer IIIs were in front line service after 1943.
A historian did some digging a few years ago and out of all the actual times that Tigers were claimed to have been encountered in the war in Europe by US forces, Tigers were only actually ever encountered 3 times
The first time the Shermans won
The second time the Pershing lost
and the third the tigers were being loaded onto trains so it was a one sided battle
I feel like this documentary doesn’t appreciate the logistics involved with the design of the tank. The German tanks had to work well in Europe, and later in the war they had to defend Germany, and had a limited pool to draw crews from compared to United States having to have a tank that could fight in multiple theatres that spend different continents, climates, and biomes, while also being able to be easily transferred. Maybe it wasn’t a Tiger and was a Goliath on the battlefield in the European theatre, but in that, we had many many more davids that could sling a rock. Also, they were decades ahead of the Japanese Tanks in development. It was the perfect tank for any one situation, but it was the perfect tank for us to take into many situations at the time.
The "documentary" is absolute bullcrap like the other bullcrap you see on TV
Zaprozhan you are correct. The Germans in that war spent a lot of time trying to achieve perfections, instead of trying to win it. Let’s talk about the the work they put into showing propaganda, and making they’re military seem like a mechanized power house causing the allies to ramp up production of tanks only to discover that most of their supply lines rely on actual horse drawn carriages. I’m pretty sure Patton made some kind of statement about it when he saw them retreating using horse drawn wagons to move the wounded.
@@MrZpeppers Ok, your take isn't much better :D. You can't say they spent a lot of time trying to maintain perfection when their heavy tank destroyer Elephant would get set on fire every time it tried climbing a hill
Nyan Arthur 😂😂😂😂 what I was getting at was they were wasting their resources on trying to make a tank they couldn’t make instead of making something that would work.
@@MrZpeppers Well, they did what they could. Because of limited resources, they couldn't just build thousands of T-34's equivalents like russians did. When they built their vehicle, they had to make it count, so they built many heavier vehicles like Tiger/ Panther (they built 6+ thousand Panthers) Heavier vehicles bring all kinds of reliability issues and the Germans never had time to resolve those problems, because they rushed their tanks into the battle as quickly as they could, often with poorly trained crew. They were in a desperate situation and had to work with that they had.
The footage at the end is amazing. You almost never get to actually see both sides fighting each other with bullets and shells from one side impacting the other. It’s always just people in a trench or behind a tree shooting at something we can’t see.
Most of the footage is from areas where it's a bit safer to operate a camera, I would guess.
Watching impacts up close on your side, or poking your head out to watch their side seems like a dangerous proposition
It was the Battle of Cologne Cathedral
@@gamedo4269 seemed to be the ruhr pocket to me
So much of the combat was over distances of 1km or so . You really didn't know what you shot. Til you saw smoke.
That's the famous battle with a Panther tank in Cologne.
I live near Cologne, you can clearly see the cathedral, called "Kölner Dom".
As an armchair military expert, I'm obliged to point out the grievous error at 0:55 That's General Omar Bradley, not General Patton.
The truth means nothing to the "History channel".
Fred Kruse thanks for pointing that out!
I stopped the video exactly then. I refuse to watch pablum.
...details.
Wow i didn't catch that
"Best job I ever had"
Romie All for a dollar a day. Can’t beat that right boys? (My apologies to Brad if I misquoted him.)
I HAD THE BEST TANK DRIVER NOW I HAVE YOU. "THE MACHINE"
... but no mention of the Firefly?
Remembered me of Fury
@@jrs89lxzamora88 "Fighting, fking, drinking Machine!"
I also have a friend whose dad was with the Canadian 1st Armored division ~ Ontario Tanks, and he drove a Sherman throughout the Italian campaign. He told us that during the Battle of the Liri Valley, one of the Shermans he drove got hit in the turret by what they thought was a PaK 88 mm anti-tank gun and the only thing that saved him and the gunner was that the PaK 88 (that's 8.8 cm) was so close, rather than turning the tank into the usual "fireball", it ripped the turret off their tank and threw it about 50 feet. He was still able to drive it so he just took it as far as he could and he and the gunner got out. When he looked at what was left, all he found of the rest of his crew was the bottom half of their bodies. The other half of the three killed crew were never found and were likely vaporized by the power of the PaK anti-tank 88 mm. He was back in another Sherman two days later and said he never stopped moving unless he absolutely had to. When he finally returned home, it was almost 12 years before he could even sleep in a bed.
If an anti-tank gun could do that to a Sherman, can you even imagine what a Tiger would do?
Holy shit that is a terrifying thing to experience, can't imagine the fear.
Holy shit. That’s pure insanity... I couldn’t even begin to imagine what went through his mind trying to process that
Same gun - an 88 mm.
Tiger actually had a less powerful gun than the Pak or earlier flak versions. Not saying that would have worked out any better for them. War is cruel.
Mike Preston-Engel
All Kwk 'panzer cannons' [or should I say, 'Kampf wagon Kanone'] usually had rounds with less charge to drive the AP missile.
Eg, the PzIVH/J were fitted with L48 Kwk40 75mm cannons but the towed Pak40 [Panzer Abwehr Kanone] was slightly shorter at L46 calibres yet had a much longer range. The reason for this was that panzer crews rarely spotted [well, realistically 'engaged'] enemies at distances over 600m from inside a panzer so it was much more efficient to make 75mm rounds with LESS charge, thus, a shorter cartridge so that the Kwk40 rounds didn't take up as much space INSIDE a panzer.
Most panzers were expected to carry about 112 rounds - 60-70 AP rounds and a few tungsten or specialised variants and about 40-50 HE rounds.
Since the standard Pak40 75mm round was quite long, the Kwk40 round was designed to keep weight down and volume of ammunition high for the panzer crews. This did not affect the efficiency of the panzers or crews in any way and allowed them to engage enemies for longer periods without the constant need for an already extended logistics train. Now while the same argument can be made for the towed Pak40, it has to be considered that Paks were not as mobile as panzers so the longer round for the Paks could be stored in situ and since the rounds had more charge they could and were often used as support artillery [the Soviet towed 76mm cannons were also used in this dual manner] due to the added range. Even though the Pak40 had L46 calibres compared to the Kwk40's L48 on the PzIVH/J, Hetzer and Stug, the added length of the 75mm round was longer than the Kwk40's and so this gave them an added 'punch' when used in an Anti-tank role or as supplementary artillery.
Tiger Ace Michael Wittmann once asked whether it would not be fair for a panzer crew to mark an enemy Anti-Tank gun destroyed as 2 'kills' on their panzer's gun barrels as they were certainly a more deadly threat with their ability to ambush armour in almost any conditions due to their almost non-existent 'silhouette' and the added difficulty in destroying an A-Tk gun AND its crew. A single A-Tk gun crew could STILL be effective with a single injured crewman [there are MANY instances of Axis and Allied A-Tk gun crews with a single remaining crewman managing to destroy as many as 4-5 tanks alone... eg, Sgt Baskerfield of the Brit 1.Airborne Div. at Oosterbeek, with a broken arm and the entire gun crew dead, managed to manhandle a 57mm A-Tk gun and destroying/disabling 4 PzIVJs before being killed - note: the gun may have been a 17 pounder as the Brit Airborne DID drop them with the Airborne troops].
Nevertheless, the Germans found the shorter Kwk rounds for panzers to not suffer any loss of destructive power due to the lesser amount of 'charge' propelling the AP missile
“The Sherman is a death trap”
Sherman:
Stares in 2nd highest survival rate of the war
@@shelloriser2400 *laughs in crew still survives*
@@shelloriser2400 *laughts in 37mm gun of M8 that destroyed Tiger II,*
@@gabrielborawski6739 do you that never happended that is british propaganda
@@traktori2888 im sure
@@gabrielborawski6739 the 37mm gun can't pen the rear of the tiger 2
My uncle was a TC in WWII. During the Huertgen Forest battle his tank was shot out from under him (I think it was a M24 or other light tank). He then found and got in a knocked out Sherman and found a US armor officer hiding inside. He yelled at him to get out and my uncle was able to then traverse the turret, load a round and take out the German tank that got his tank and crew. He said if you want to take out a German tank, you had to hit it in the idler. There was no other way. He was MIA for 8 days in the Huertgen and found nearly dead frozen in the snow. This is the only story he ever shared with me. His experience was not good and left him reluctant to talk about the war or the military. I went on to become a TC for 20 plus years (M60s and various M1s).
US tankers were instructed to shoot low at the tracks and road wheels to disabled the German tanks because their crews were trained to abandon a tank once it couldn't move.
It's not uncommon for soldiers to feel like they are losing even while they are winning. My Grandpa would tell stories about the war and you would swear he was describing a war we lost. Battles we lost...Clearly there weren't enough of these superior German tanks to make a difference anyway. It was a good decision because it worked.
+Joe Bussa
How were they superior to begin with?
Well it's a myth that US soldiers were better fighters than the Germans who were a lot more battle hardened. Numbers on both fronts won the war.
+Phillipe Som
What?
Borka Dump Roughly speaking, Germans were winning with quality, western Allies with quantity.
+DDelete013
Based on what?
*finishes video and scrolls down to the comments grabbing my popcorn
This has to be one of the sources to blame for the Sherman's undeserving bad reputation! This tank was no disaster, but one of the greatest machines to be produced in history, and served American and its allies well throughout all theaters of war. It's crazy to read the positive light cast on the Sherman in actual reports from the front in contrast to this tragedy of a video.
Yes, it probably was the best tank of the war. There were some shortcomings with early variants and the gun was inadequate at Overlord, but it had a huge survivability, good maneuverability, ergonomics, reliability, fought in every theater, had a huge number of variants and was modernized and used until much after ww2 by Israel.
I ain't no Disaster but it also ain't the greatest either but yea calling it disaster is a Exaggeration
My point on the Sherman after arguing in the comments for way too long because this is the boring thing I do.
The Sherman was a good tank for all round fighting capable vehicle.
When it first saw service in Africa, it was a very capable tank, it out matched everythink it came across. It has better Amour than any German medium tank of the time, a decent M3 cannon with an excellent HE round and ok AP and APHE and was manoverable enough to get around quick enough. Now yes a Panzer could pen it, as could Tigers, Panthers and other TDs but it could kill Panzer 4s and most TDs and I'll get to the heavier tanks in a moment. And by 1943 to increase survivability spring hatches were fitted to increase crew surviveablity and their engines were changed to decrease the chance of it catching alight, as well as wet ammo storage to decrease the chance of an ammunition fire (let alone the ammunition would often spark and crackle before detonating giving the crew more time to escape).
Next the fact that Sherman's were fielded EVERYWHERE including (during and post war) Russia, Africa, France, Germany, Italy, the Islands of Japan and the Pacific, the Jungles of South East Asia, the middle East and Eastern Europe. No vehicle has served on this many fronts, the closest would be the Matlida 2(another excellent design).
Now the fun bit, the Tiger, Panthers and TDs.
Yes by 1944 when the Sherman's came across Panthers and Tigers the regular M3 75mm gun was out matched, however Britain had equipped 1/4 of its Sherman's with 17 pounders, a great gun. And America had equipped themselves with long barreled 76mm guns also capable if killing Panthers and Tigers, so now they could kill each other just Sherman's were more reliable, lighter, easier to escape and more numerous. So Sherman's weren't bad tanks, they performed well everywhere and could kill everythink with upgrades (except King Tigers but nothing could except Russian D25T 122mm guns) and they had the highest crew survivablility and 80%of all damaged Shermans were returned to combat where as a Tiger or Panther would have to be abandoned.
Also the "perfect tank" dream is a trap. The germans spent so much time and resources researching and producing the perfect tank. And they did manage to build tanks that were objectively the most powerful. But they couldn't be mass produced because of their complexity, they were slow, prone to failure and could be destroyed just like anynother tank by mines, artillery, planes etc. The Americans and the Russians realised that the truly superior tanks were the "good enough" tanks that had advantages in manufacturing and transportation.
Im literally In that exact situation on the tank poor subbreddit and I'm trying to say what you just said but it's 3 in the god damn morning
Help me lol
The point is that prior to the invasion of This many the Allies KNEW about the Tiger and Panther and even the long gunned Panzer 4. From their experiences in North Africa and Italy. Despite this, they elected not to push production on the longer gunned Sherman with better penetrating power and when they did go to it, they cut off a foot from its barrel length. This reduced its penetrating power from 104mm to 93 mm....still not enough to take a Tiger or Panther on head on. The only saving grace was the production of the HVAP round which increased penetrating power on the long gunned Sherman to 153mm. Unfortunately, only a few thousand rounds were ever made and the M126 Pershing wss placed in service far too late to have any impact on the war.
The failure of the Sherman was one of the factors that led to the development the M1 tank. The experience of WWII caused tank officers involved in its development to neveyo be ubdergunned or underarmored again.
Top Bloke exactly u see in my opinion each class of tank and upgrade versions of those tanks have there own personalities there are things there good at and other things not so much
the Sherman is a good example of this it was great for speed, light weight transportation, easy to fix, easy to escape , and later versions a powerful gun like stated here they had shit for armor, extremely flammable gas, and early versions had a weak gun
know take the tiger for example
fantastic armor, fantastic gun, non extreme flammable gas, and powerful engine BUT the transmission broke alot, where slow, harder to fix, only 1,347 where built, and more harder to transport
@@williamridenour4845 They dealt with tigers in Italy with the Sherman and didn't have much problems. They had problems in Normandy because it was very good terrain for tanks. Hell even after the war they tallied up panther and Sherman engagements and saw that in 2/3s of engagement, these being the Shermans on the defensive, the panther had a kill to loss ratio of 1:5 and not the 5:1 that many non historians claim. Also you do not need to penetrate a tank to destroy it. In Italy the 75mm Sherman clubbed tiger tanks to death with HE. Metal spallings are not a fun thing to take through the head. Do also consider what wins wars. WW2 was not a war of tanks, it was won and fought with logistics and men, not tanks. German had to lose 2 world wars to get a clue on that one.
Unreasonably hard on the Sherman which was designed for efficient production in numbers, reliability and versatility. An invaluable swiss army knife pushing forward in numbers, doing all manner of work knocking out the usual defenses infantry get slaughtered by, from machine gun nests, dug in units and buildings with snipers.
Tons of these Sherman tanks were available, and joe bloggs infantryman would by relieved vs having to attack unacompanied. The Sherman was like arming 20 people with swiss army knives. The tiger and panthers were like arming 1 guy with a great sword, and the other 19 with nothing. The 20 men with swiss army knives lose a few to the great sword then mince their way through the remaining 19 Germans.
I don't feel there was a misrepresentation about the positive traits the Sherman brought into play. But the main point here made was "it was the right tank for the wrong battle" pointing out the Sherman disadvantages in fighting German armor over flat distant terrain that apparantely happened more often in the European theatre. Here the Sherman was in a disadvantage, where no reliability and versatilitiy could win but only through sheer numbers. And this the Sherman did but at the cost of many crews, which was also pointed out. But Americans also had much more favourable tanks as well. One was the mentioned Pershing but also the eisy eight.
@@tiktok000VS000ushi about 1400 us tankers (that includes deaths outside of the tanks) died out of about 5000 us tanks (mostly shermans) destroyed, calling the shermans death traps is hardly justified. First 30 min of'Chieftain about tanks from poland to iraq' on youtube for more info. a bit rambly but has several good points for why the sherman is much better than it's reputation
the link to casualty report
apps.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a438106 DOT pdf
or search for 'adjutant generals report of battle casualties 1941 to 1946
the shermans that fought in the jungle of the pacific, in the snow in russia (lend lease to ussr), in the north african desert and in terrains in europe where all pretty much the same build (there were ofcourse different models that were general changes but not specialized changes for the theatre of war). the us did have to cross an ocean after all, a problem which the germans did not have and the shermans could use the standard bridges of the pioneers which the pershing couldn't use.
And they had upgunned and uparmored versions as well. The Jumbo, Firefly. Very effective. Better than the German stuff that broke down.
@@tiktok000VS000ushi The problem with that belief is that Shermans didn't really have a disadvantage against the majority of German armor. They had no problem destroying Panzer III's or IV's which made up the majority of the German armor. Panthers and Tigers were a rare sight and didn't show up until mid-1944. On top of that the 75mm Shermans could defeat Panther's (most common heavy tank) at side angles just fine. The 76mm Shermans could penetrate Panther's at all angles and Tiger's at side angles unless HVAP was available in which case all angles.
The point being is that the Sherman was one of the best tanks in the European theater as is it was good at speed, reliability, and firepower. Only the Panther had better mobility with it's slightly wider tracks and torque. But even those like the Tiger broke down regularly. PzIV's did the brunt of the fighting and those were easily destroyed.
@@sonny2499 The sherman was very much an American tank. Speed , reliability, mass produced, assembly line, cheap and good enough.
1:03
Of course he Selected the Sherman. We didn’t have any practical heavy tanks developed by 1942 and the Sherman is vastly superior to the M3 Lee.
The heavy tank is an impractical choice for war in Europe. Poor reliability isn’t good when your fighting a war on the opposite side of the globe.
Not to mention a tank over 40 tons couldn’t be easily shipped since cranes at the time typically had a max weight of 40 tons.
I mean we managed to get a couple Pershings to Europe.
The Sherman was an infantry support weapon. It wasn't intended as an anti tank weapon. Its performance against the likes of the German Tiger is irrelevant from an overall perspective. The Tiger was a very rare machine, produced in comparatively small quantities. Most Shermans were unlikely to encounter one.
+phlodel Finally a voice of reason and fact!
+Pelican1984 Apparently, many commenters get their information from a video game that pits tank against tank. A tank combines a field artillery piece, light and heavy machine guns in a mobile emplacement. This is a tremendous asset to an infantry unit. It is also capable of carrying a significant amount of ammunition for all these guns. Heavier anti tank guns use larger rounds and reduce the number that can be carried in the tank.
+phlodel When you are tired hungry, looking through a tiny slit and taking fire, EVERY tank looks like a tiger, and the tiger and pz iv do actually look similar.
+phlodel instead they encountered PaKs and still died like flies.
+phlodel
Ummm, The US Army armored force field manual contradicts what you just said. The Field Manual gives instructions and tactics on engaging enemy tanks.
My grandfather was a Sherman tank driver/gunner after D-day. He was in a Firefly (the up gunned Commonwealth version of the Jumbo with the British QF 17 lb gun) and said that he could take out German heavy tanks at 1000 yards. That said, the German 88 mounted on the Tiger I/II could take a Sherman out at 2000. The Sherman was never designed to take on heavy tanks, that was the role of the "tank destroyer" in US military doctrine. Also, when the Sherman was first introduced in North Africa in late '42, it could easily take out the Panzer III and IV which was what the German Army was equipped with at the time. The Panther didn't make its debut until the Battle of Kursk in '43, and there were less than 2000 Tigers built over the course of the war.
IIRC, the average tank engagement range in Western Europe was 750 yards or less, making the German heavy tanks' standoff range irrelevant most of the time.
At these ranges and fighting medium tanks, a Pak 40 would suffice and this is essentially what the Sherman's 76mm gun was.
The logistics just weren't there to field a tank with protection against the bigger German guns. In fact, I'd say that it was simply beyond the state of the art at that time. Any tank heavy enough to shrug off those hits (not to mention panzerfausts) would have been a barely mobile pillbox, unsuited for a march to Germany.
I think we could have had better guns sooner though. Improved mountings of the 17pdr. More 90mms with good ammo. We were caught off guard when meeting the Panther on its terms. Woulda, coulda, shoulda...it's easy in hindsight.
It was about 500 yards but that was better than the point-blank fail of the early Sherman 75mm.
Re: "IIRC, the average tank engagement range in Western Europe was 750 yards or less, making the German heavy tanks' standoff range irrelevant most of the time." That's incorrect and I think you'll see why: standoff distance would have been irrelevant if the penetration power of the Sherman's main gun was as potent as that of the German 75mm and 88mm guns, but it wasn't. The early variants of Sherman with the short-barreled M2 gun could fire at point-blank range into a Tiger I's or Panther's frontal armor and not get a penetration. In that context, 750 yards of additional range in favor of the German tank is an enormous advantage. In essence, the Tiger or Panther (or Mk. IV Special with its high-velocity 75mm gun) could obtain penetrations at all practical combat ranges, whereas the Shermans often could not even at point-blank range. Bear in mind that for the optic and gunnery technology of the day, 750 yards was a pretty sizeable distance. In the open country of North Africa and the Russian steppes, German 88mm and 75mm gun crews had attained killed over well over a kilometer, but those conditions were atypical in western Europe. There, a 750-1000 meter shot was a long one. Allied tankers and their leaders learned quickly, though, how to exploit their advantages and the disadvantages of the enemy. Self-propelled guns were mixed with advancing tanks and TDs to provide plunging fire onto German armor. The GIs quickly learned that German tankers hated being under heavy artillery and/or heavy bombing. Not hard to see why.... a nearby 500- or 1000-lb. bomb could literally overturn a tank or send it - or its turret - flying through the air. That was one of the lessons of the Falaise Gap rout. Allied gun crews also learned that German crews could sometimes be induced to bail out of their tank by using WP rounds - white phosphorus incendiaries. Hits near the ventilation system would cause the interior of the crew compartment to be flooded with smoke, and the crew would sometimes abandon the tank. Shermans and TDs were equipped with field telephones for enabling the infantry to speak to the commander of a buttoned-up tank from the safety of shelter behind the tank (the phone was installed at the rear of the tank or TD). USAAF tactical air forces were netted into the armored forces radio net, so men on the ground could call in air strikes when needed. few Panzertruppen wanted to face rocket-armed 'Jabos (fighter-bombers) so many would retreat when those showed up. Turns out there are a lot of ways to knock out a tank - and the Allied forces knew them all by war's end.
"The early variants of Sherman with the short-barreled M2 gun..."
Too bad Allied guns never progressed beyond these earliest versions... People seem to forget that when the Sherman hit the battlefield there were no Tigers or Panthers. The U.S. would not encounter them in any significant way until about 2 YEARS later.
"...could fire at point-blank range into a Tiger I's or Panther's frontal armor and not get a penetration."
And too bad they were only allowed to shoot German heavy tanks in the frontal armor. That is a big part of the advantage of closer ranges and greater numbers. The ability to flank the opposition and shoot him in the side.
See Tiger 221 for example. Penetrated and destroyed by an early M4A1 75mm tank.
For that matter, the fixation with armor penetration really misses the fact that many tanks are knocked out without ever being penetrated.
"...(or Mk. IV Special with its high-velocity 75mm gun) could obtain penetrations at all practical combat ranges, whereas the Shermans often could not even at point-blank range."
No Pz IV was ever invulnerable to the Sherman. When the Sherman entered combat, there were about two dozen Mk IV Specials in N. Africa. That's what made them special.
No one is saying that the Sherman became equal in every way to the Tiger and Panther but it is undeniable that their superiority is much increased at longer ranges. For all its frontal armor, the Panther had sides armored only slightly better than a Sherman and numerically, the Panther is the only German heavy tank which could be considered a viable main force tank.
My understanding is that tactical air strikes were not statistically effective against heavy tanks themselves, but generally tore up their support trains rendering them useless.
There's one thing about the Firefly which I remember reading somewhere.
After adding the 17pounder gun, the boom it caused was so loud and the gun smoke from the barrel so thick, that the British decided to attach just a single Firefly to any tank battalion. Firefly firing would scare the shit out of friendly crews, obscure their vision and provoke shit-ton of return fire.
The Sherman was undoubtedly the right tank for the Americans during World War 2.
Nobody ever thought of shermans as invincible. But they excelled in most aspects, including the ones mentioned.
Reliability is extremely important when you're sending 50000 tanks to two wildly different theatres on opposite sides of the world.
Also US tank crews had some of the best survival rates of the war. Half their tank crews casualties were men shot while outside their vehicles.
I cant believe people call the sherman a death trap just because it couldnt magically deflect every shell fired at it
Muh tiger best tonk
A driving tin can. Will you drive in it?
Where did they get this nonsense about General Patton decided that the "Sherman" was going to be the tank of US Forces? General Patton was only a two star general at the time the British received the first 800 "Shermans" for the battle of El Alemein. Two star generals in the field aren't the men making decisions about what tanks to use. Those decisions were made by 3 or 4 star generals stateside.
Ike covered for him. He would have been sacked if he hadn't been the best pursuit general the US had. He was kept for the endgame and to some extend his "disgrace" was part of a disinformation operation. Germans expected him to lead the main force on D-Day and his phantom army was poised for a landing at Calais.
THERE WERENT 3 OR 4 STAR GENERALS AT THE BEGINNING OF THE WAR,,,THEY WERE PROMOTED AFTER BATTLES
@@mikecimerian6913 ?
The War Department and Ordnance made the decisions over final tank designs that were to be produced. Both did listen to the opinions of the armor commanders and tankers over what was desired and what wasn't.
They'd have you believe that they were flat out toe to toe with Tigers from dawn till dusk. They weren't.
Are you kidding.
Over 85% of the US Army tanks in the Second World War were M4 tanks.
Sunny Island yes, but more often that not they were fighting infantry. Tank on tank combat made up for a small amount of armoured conflict in WW2.
@@infinitydott
When those tank versus tank encounters did occur, all that is in this documentary reveals holds true.
And so also does everything I reiterated, having paid attention what the documentary explains.
Sunny Island The sherman 75mm was perfectly adequate to take on the Panzer IV, and the 76mm could knock out a Tiger I from the front.
American Tankers, "Tigers? Those aren't real. German propaganda."
Some facts for the discussion...
German WW2 Tanks
Light tanks
Panzer I (3,970)Panzer II (3,996)Panzer 35(t) (Czechoslovakian design, 722 annexed + 219 produced)
Medium tanks
Panzer 38(t) (Czechoslovakian design, 1,168 total)Panzer III (5,774)Panzer IV (8,800)Panzer V "Panther" (5,984)
Heavy tanks (Less than 2000 total heavy tanks produced)
Tiger I (1,355)Tiger II a.k.a. "King Tiger" or "Royal Tiger" (490)
Soviet WW2 Tanks
Light tanks
T-26 (11,218 pre-war)T-50 (65)T-60 (5,839)T-70 (8,226)T-80 (75)BT-7 (8,060 pre-war)
Medium tanks
T-28 (503 pre-war)T-34 (1,225 pre-war)
T-34-76 (33,805)T-34-85 (21,048)
T-44 (965)
Heavy tanks
T-35 (61 pre-war)SMK (experimental)KV (Kliment Voroshilov) (508 pre-war)
KV-1 (Kliment Voroshilov 1) (3,015)KV-1S (Kliment Voroshilov 1S) (1,232)KV-85 (Kliment Voroshilov 85) (130)KV-2 (Kliment Voroshilov 2) (334)
U.S. WW2 Tanks
Light tanks
Light Tank M2
M2A1 (10)M2A2 (239)M2A3 (72)M2A4 (375)
Light Tank M3/M5 (22,743) (General Stuart and unofficially Honey in British service)Light Tank M22 (830) (Locust in British service, name adopted by America)Light Tank M24 (4,731) (General Chaffee in British service, name adopted by America)
Medium tanks
Medium Tank M3 (7,533) (General Lee American tanks purchased by the British under lend-lease.Medium Tank M4 (58,000) (General Sherman bought by British from U.S. under lend lease)Medium Tank M2 (112, used for training only)
Heavy tanks
Heavy Tank M26 Pershing (1,436)
Largest Tank Battle: Kursk between soviet union and germany involved roughly 6,000 tanks.
The footage of the panther being killed is of tank gunner Clarence Smoyer destroying the panther in the city of Cologne. You can read about this famous tank battle and his amazing story in a book called Spearhead by Adam Makos it is my favorite book ever, last year I actually met this man and it was an amazing experience he is truly a hero and even destroyed other German tanks as well
This is all very one sided. There is no doubt that a Sherman was crap compared to a Panther or Tiger but the Germans had only a handful of Panthers and Tigers and the vast majority of those were used against the Soviets. By the end of the war their most common tank was the Panzer IV which (depending on the model) was about comparable with the Sherman. Also, the way the Americans dealt with killing tanks was primarily via anti-tank guns and aircraft fighter bombers. Read about the Battle of Kursk. The Germans had all this amazing on paper superior technology like the Tiger, Elephant, and Panther but in reality they broke down due to engine problems, could never keep enough fuel, and other logistics problems.
The overall best tank of WWII was probably the Soviet T-34. It had many of the advantages of the Sherman: easy to mass produce, fairly reliable, easy to maintain, as well as things the Sherman didn't have but should have like a more powerful gun, diesel fuel (so it didn't instantly start burning the way a Sherman would), and sloped armor so that even without very thick armor many shots would bounce off. The ironic thing is that the T-34 was greatly influenced by an American named Walter Christie who tried to sell his ideas to the US Army but they weren't interested but the Soviets bought a couple of Christie's tanks and re-engineered the ideas to build the BT-7 and then the T-34.
What are you rambling on about?
Panzer Mk. Iv often mistaken for t-34,similar profile from far away..
@@jeffreywang9605 No it wasn't.
@@peterson7082 what he says is true. One of many times the establishment didn't recognize the genius of American invention, and someone else took the idea and made it successful.
I'm no expert, but when I play War Thunder the number of time any of my tanks from any country are destroyed by a Soviet T-34 leads me to believe this is completely true. Powerful gun good at long range, sloped armor.
My Grandad copped the shrapnel from an exploding tank and was sent home.
He became a civilian postman in London. Nan used to wear a long slim fitting red coat like a post box and Grandad would say “be careful bending over in front of me coz I might post something” 😂😂😂
What a character lol, he must have 'posted' something at one time or you couldnt have written this
Brilliant, love it.
😂😂😂
🤣
Well mate,you know "the mail Must get threw"
50K tanks produced, shipped by rail to ports, loaded on ships, sailed to UK then unloaded and the whole process done again to bring them to mainland. All the gas, the shells... This is an engineering and logistical masterpiece.
Hey a tank got shot ! Wow. Guys died in their tanks. Yeah thats war.
My father said this particular tank burned for 3 days but he thought all the crew got out.He said the M-26 could go up against any German tank and the shells would just ricochet off , said it made a terrible sound as it did. But said the M-26 was only good on solid ground. Very heavy. He also said the Sherman had no business there. There were also Helcats and TD's in the area that could have done the job.
copperheadmarine i don't see what you are saying - are you saying that the 8.8cm shells and 7.5cm shells would just "bounce off" of the m26 Pershing? or are you saying that the 3.7 inch gun used on the Pershing fired less powerful shot and couldn't penetrate the German tank armour? i guess the whopping 20 Pershings that saw combat could have made a real impression just like the few Maus models right?
The German shells bounced off the Pershing.
copperheadmarine
sorry but someone is pulling your leg - the 8.8cm L56 not to mention the L71 could penetrate over 16cm of solid steel from distance, and the 7.5cm L70 and even the L48 could penetrate that armour quite easily.
Bradley Campbell
i am not a nazi but my grandfather as well as my family fought in the World War, we are from Jugoslavije - i am talking about fact... L71 could penetrate over 10cm armour plate at over 2.500m sloped at 50 grad.... so what do you say when the facts do not lend to the ... story? history?
Kristjen Štjuprić
Your right, Pershings where knocked by german armor, it could by no means go up against all german tanks, the long 8.8cm L71 and 12.8cm L55 wpould tear right through t.
The US even held test with captured Jagdtiger and had it fire on a M26, they learned much to their horror that the main gun would penetrate the M26 without effort at 2100m.
It seems that some people would rather just pick the little fantasies instead of reality.
This documentary was full of the usual myths. Let us look a few unmentioned facts:
1. The Sherman was not perfect but it was never sold as invincible
2. Cooper's perspective was full of confirmation bias as he dealt with knocked out tanks.
3. 4 out of 5 tank engagements are won by the tank that shoots first and the allies were on the advance which meant they frequently rolled into ambushes (as you see in the film).
4.When the M4 was designed it was fine but the Germans had invested in heavier tanks so the Sherman was up-gunned. This was only an issue after the Normandy invasion.
5. There was no tank, including the vaunted Tiger, could survive a hit from the German 88mm or high velocity 76mm.
6. The Sherman had to be sent overseas which was a logistical nightmare for a heavy tank. The Germans need only put them on trains.
7. There were only a few times Shermans faced Tigers, it was usually MkIVs or Panthers or assault guns/anti tank guns.
8. On several occasions the Panthers were bested by Shermans, usually when the Shermans shot first (see item 3).
9, The Sherman was an even match for the main German tank, the MkIV panzer.
10. It was usually the dry ammo storage that burned so quickly, not the gasoline. Wet storage brought those number down in the late war.
11. The Germans only made 1347 Tiger Is and 492 Tiger IIs and 6,000+ Panthers to 49,000+ M4 Shermans (4,399 were lost)
12. 20 percent of the M4s were lost to land mines and many more to Panzerfausts and ant-tank guns. Nothing could survive those weapons
13. The M4 had a high crew survival rate compared to other tanks.
Point 6 . Yes heavy tanks is a nightmare logistic. BUT They could have built a lower profile tank with rolled homogeneous steel armor with more aggressive angles on the plating with better guns and better shells at same weight. They had the man power , engineering and a lot of money to engineer something way more superior to the Sherman.The statistic request by the US high brass for Europe tank casualties was 10 / 1 German tank yet they preferred it that way. They built and sent 10 Shermans for each German tank in Europe and didn;t care for 40-50 crew US burning to death, or their heads being chopped off.
Rolled homogeneous armor takes more time to be manufactured ( some Americans working 10-12 h shifts, which they did anyway, would had been fast enough) but is way better than the cast iron which Shermans had. Cast iron is brittle and u lose 10 % of the effective thickness because of the manufacturer process in cooling it down.
Point 10 yes the dry ammo blew up and guess what ignite the high octane fuel used by Sherman engine. With the position of ammo rack in early shermans they should have used diesel engines really just to avoid BBQ their own crew at the first stupid spark. But they didn;t give a rat ass on those crew did they?
My Dad was a Sherman tanker...he said what he feared most was the 88. If they spotted a panther or tiger they would back off and call in artillery
He probably never saw a Tiger tank during the entire war. Only about 125 of them existed along the entire Western Front. I think there's only maybe 3 confirmed engagements between American Shermans and Tigers and Shermans won all 3 times.
@@lochnessmonster5149 THen why was everyone afraid of them?
@@donaldhysa4836 Maybe information from the eastern front caused rumors about it
@@donaldhysa4836 because of myths surrounding the tigers and german heavy tanks.
@@SenkaBandit Myth surrounding the Tiger tanks? In 1942-1944? As soon as the Tiger wet into service it became a myth?
...always with the negative waves man ...
yeah, the truth has a bite doesn't it....
@@spottydog4477 ?
yeh, for a 'tank expert' he's pretty slow on the uptake eh?
Lol! Oddball from Kelly's Heroes!
Oddball!
4:26, that right there is an M4A2 Sherman tank. That barrel can easily penetrate the frontal armor of a Tiger. Sure, the Tiger could kill at farther distances, but that really it’s only advantage. In close-quarters combat, the Sherman was just as good a tank as anything the Germans had. And, in most cases, shells from the Pz. III or Pz. IV bounced right off the Sherman’s frontal armor. There’s this common misconception that the Tiger and Panther tanks had really thick armor that could not be penetrated by any gun the allies had. The truth is, the side armor of both the Tiger and Panther was paper thin. The Tiger’s frontal armor was 102 mm thick, and was a flat-faced piece of steel. M4A2’s, M10’s, M4AE3’s, and Sherman Firefly’s could easily punch through that. On top of that, the Tigers and Panthers were incredibly unreliable, breaking down more often then engaging enemy tanks, plus they were hard to repair. The tanks were underpowered and had a slow turret traverse, making them vulnerable to flanking attacks. Sherman’s on the other hand were very reliable, and easy to repair. They were fast, and had quick turret traverse times.
The tiger was not make for cqb
But you are right but it is just german enginering and plus that we got bombed all day
thanks for the info. but that right there isn't an m4a2. that's an m4a1 just with the 76mm gun turret.
there is no misconception. yes, the 76mm could penetrate the tiger's frontal hull armor if faced 0 degrees head on from a reasonable distance which almost never happened, and you would've had to be very precise with your shot. that 102mm becomes hell of alot more effective from even the slightest angle.
tiger and panther could just aim center mass from 2km and punch right through pretty much any part of the sherman unless it's a jumbo.
@@wisidiefin1329 true
My Grandfather was member of one of the rare Wirbelwind's. He sayed that they used theyr guns more against rangers, army infantery and shermans then aircraft.
it must have been terrifying to be walking and suddenly 4 20mm's open up on you from a wirbelwind.
Looks like war thunder is realistic after all😂😂
Most tanks of that time would have faired little better than the Sherman (manned by inexperienced crews) against the Panther and/or Tiger, the best tanks in the world at that time, manned by battle-hardened crews.
yeah, people forget in what kind of Situations the Germans have been between 1939 and 42, when they had actually to engange monsters like the Char B, Matildas in the desert and the T34 in the eastfront, with Tanks that little to no firepower. The Panzer 2 was still used in large numbers even after poland. The number of Panzer III and Panzer IV tanks in France was pretty low. Yet the Germans managed very often to simply outmanouver the enemy because the enemy used WW1 tactics and outdated ideas. Superior firepower is a good thing, but it does not winn battles alone. Only the confidence of the soldiers, the quality of their equipment and the training of the forces can actually make a difference.
Yes, compared to the Eastern Front fighting the western democracies must have been something of a relief. At the very least, surrendering to British or American forces didn't equate to a death sentence. Also, although not noted in the video, Allied forces eventually did become very proficient after some costly "on the job" training. For the Allies this learning curve cost thousands of lives, for the Russians the cost was measured in millions. All in all, considering the almost criminal neglect US and UK forces suffered before the war, they did a damn fine job. They won.
Mark Twain A key factor in all of this is air power. By the time the Western allies hit the continent the US and British air forces had pretty much defeated the Luftwaffe and allied planes were swarming the skies. You hear it in the memoirs of Germans on the Western front. Their armor couldn't maneuver in daylight and there was no "relief" being in France as their positions were often carpet-bombed before the American infantry rolled up on them.
The one time when a German army really fell apart and ran for it was on the Western front.
Paul Treslove Treatment of captured SS troopers by Allied forces, which was generally humane, was admittedly mercurial. SS units, even the Hitler Youth Div., had a marked tendency to fight tenuously, even against long odds when “professional” soldiers would have surrendered in an effort to spare further needless bloodshed. This perhaps tended to create a certain resentment. Also the Waffen SS were “political” troops, closely identified with Hitler's regime and its crimes. But I'm sure what created the greatest resentment among Allied soldiers toward the SS was the SS's practice, imported from the Eastern Front where it was common practice, of shooting Allied POWs. There are many examples of this practice but two instances have become infamous: 1. The Ardenne Abbey Massacre in 1944, during the Battle of Normandy, where the elements of the 12th SS Panzer Div. murdered (shot in the back of the head) 20 Canadian POWs. 2. The Malmedy Massacre, during the Battle of the Bulge, where the SS murdered some 84 American POWs. Both of these incidents generated a great deal of anger and in the case of Malmedy, lead directly to American retaliation: “Shoot on sight” orders were given for SS soldiers afterward and some 60 SS POWs were shot during the Chenogne Massacre, January 1, 1945.
Joachim Piper was NOT found innocent or exonerated of various war crimes. Indeed, he accepted command responsibility for the unlawful actions of his troops (a de facto admission of guilt) and was sentenced to death This sentence was later commuted for extra-judicial and political reasons and he served 11 years in prison. He was later himself murdered, apparently by French Communists or Resistance. He was 61. I don't share your outrage over his demise. I fail to see the romantic attraction some have for him. He was an active participant in one of the greatest obscenities in human history. I won't say he “had it coming” but neither will I mourn his death. (The same holds true for the eye plucking, etc. If they weren't invading another country in a “campaign of extermination,” they would not have had those problems to deal with.)
Sherman tanks were reliable & showed their worth during break outs as they were intended.
Reliable as long as nobody fired at them with anything larger than a rifle. Because then they weren't
@@SkyForceOne2 lmao wut?
@@SkyForceOne2 You do reliase that M4 frontal armour was almost as thick as Tiger's one?
@@oumajgad6805 It really isn't. If a Sherman's frontal armor is as almost as thick as a Tiger, it would be too heavy to move at such speed.
@@JasonGracePJO You might need to read about something called sloped armour. Effective thickness of M4 frontal armour was ~94mm. Tiger - 100mm. And then, there's Sherman Jumbo...
I can see the thought patterns of the side doing the "invasion" and the need to quickly move lighter, faster tanks as opposed to a dug in force trying to prevent it. It's always sad whenever I have to remember this war. It's been a long time ago.
So glad to see that it is not just iPhone video takers who lose the subject during a shaky video, but an old school 8mm videographer.
when people tell me america defeated germany, i tell them america got a big head start, and russia won ww2.
What the British empire? In North Africa for a start. And what about the US and British bombing campaign over germany (which made a colossal dent in germanys war effort), the russians never contributed. But hang on, russia was involved in the war well before the US was.
It was collaboration that made it possible.
britan and russia were the 2 big players, america did its part by building the machines necessary. but as far as combat performance goes america got its ass kicked. they were lucky they fought an ill equipped enemy facing huge resource shortages..
And cost them 30 million Russians.
rhyso oberding
The americans fought better in NW europe, in terms of percentages they took far fewer losses when going against equal size german units.
Russians always required to have 3 to 4 times the size of the german units they faced and even then their losses were still higher than the germans losses.
Semper Fi It's just nonsense all around. It's fashionable to sneer at America so "Russia and Britain defeated Germany." But saying it doesn't change what happened. It's just ridiculous to point to a powerful alliance that defeated another powerful alliance and claim certain members and not others were responsible for victory. People are just selecting certain facts and ignoring others to paint the picture they want to see because they have a chip on their shoulder about America.
I was not expecting that at the end but that was well explained and I like the piece by piece arrows
The Sherman was designed in 1940 to fight the existing German tanks, Panzer III and Panzer IV
The Panther and Tiger Tanks were designed and built later in 1943-1944.
And we only saw the tigers once, it involved flatbed train cars.
+SPS Again, a big ol' lie
Fuсking retаrds
+carabela125 and still failed terribly...
+SPS Three times actually, when it was a tank to tank encounter. A bit more when it was not.
actually the sherman's armor wasn't bad for the type of tank it was, the problem was that the German cannons were very powerful
@i hate anime What I mean and it seems that you did not understand, is that to be a medium tank it had very good armor, to not be in such disadvantages they should have used a heavy tank, with a better barrel
One thing I wanna mention is that big cats( tiger, panther)were so rare that the British and the Americans from Normandy to the Rhine only encountered 3 tigers and that the sherman had the exact same frontal armor thickness as a tiger because the M4 had it slopped
Desert Shark this is false
@@m22gang65
ruclips.net/video/bNjp_4jY8pY/видео.html
Desert Shark The british had to fight all the heavy tank battalions in Normandy, mainly when they were trying to take Caen. They faced much more than 3 tigers, they had faced roughly 59 until the Germans withdrew.
The Sherman’s Armour only had 88mm of effective sloping thickness, it was nowhere near the thickness of the tiger.
@@m22gang65 sorry I accidentally put British in the comment but the majority of german armor in western Europe were Pz3 and Pz4 and Tigers and Panthers were rare because most of them were fighting the soviets
Using the same fuel for most of the Army's equipment simplified logistics.
My grandfather was a machine gunner on a Sherman for the Royal Armored Core in the British Army...He never talked about it until one day he just goes on for like 10 hours straight about what it was like in North Africa and Sicily....He said they would go 5 to one with a panzer and spread out like fingers on a hand..Keep in mind this was open desert and not much cover...The expected losses were 3-4 Sherman’s to every tiger kill. Also recounted a story where he said US tank busters strafed their convoy by mistake and took out a few tanks from friendly fire and then trying to cross the channel from Sicily to Italy and getting shelled the whole way...A few years later I saw a documentary about the channel crossing and how horrible it was..He only talked about it that one day and never again.
+Ryan Hampson
> *_"The expected losses were 3-4 Sherman’s to every tiger kill."_*
No they weren't.
Just going off from what someone who was there experienced but hey whateve’s
+John Cornell
In what engagement did that occur?
You are right Ryan. Losses were around 3 Shermans. Many good stories from veterans out there about this topic.
+John Cornell
May I ask, can you post a citation for those figures?
Does this acount for their claims? Or is this allied losses to all enemy forces?
Wrong war?
And can roam across all fronts lmao
Doesn't break and is easy to fix
Armour is not the best against heavy tanks or long guns
It wasn’t designed to fight heavy tanks, it had a 75mm howitzer which had ridiculous HE potential so it was perfect for infantry support. Tanks rarely fought other tanks.
@@walrus1457
Yeah Its the perfect tank for me it served its purpose in all fronts and a good infantry the only reason Sherman loses allot of tanks because if they encounter anti tank or 88
In defensive positions
It was a barn door
@@walrus1457 M4 Shermans (76 not included) werent using 75mm Howitzer mate,its a 75mm Cannon with APCBC rounds,while not designed to kill tanks it had the power to destroy Pz IVs and IIIs
@@walrus1457 uhhh sorry but i think its 105mm howitzer
More than 70% of the armored German forces were composed by panzer 3 and 2s. Tigers were produced in smaller numbers and introduced later on the war, panters were an unfinished projet were more than half were destroyed in the Easter front against Russia, the other half were abandoned because got stuck somewhere (it was super heavy and couldn't cross bridges or muddy terrain) . YES Sherman's were light but still perfect for the scenario.
@@enochvarga7570 Except that Shermans had the best survival ratings of any tank in the war. Also with the Allied air supremacy providing air support probably killed more German tank crews then German tanks killed Allied crews.
Dreamer King since you like numbers, not all battles were fought by Sherman’s X tigers,,, Sherman was never a tool to fight other tanks alone, it was fast, agile, medium weight perfect for European bridges, narrow streets and irregular terrain.
Also of ALL battles only a few were fought against tigers, Sherman’s were not alone, more often than not there were other ranks and troops to support.
Sherman was perfect in the way that IT MATCHED THE TERRAIN, CONDITIONS AND THE FACT THAT MORE THAN 75% of the German armoured vehicles were panzers 3 and 4, which falls into the same specs as the Sherman. A tank is evaluated considering its applications, and the Sherman was not intended to hint other tanks... THEREFORE, it was indeed perfect for the European theatre.
Dreamer King yes it was, for the whole purpose. Sherman was deigned to knock out panzers 3 and 4. Those cars represented 3/4 of the German armoured vehicles. Tigers, Panthers were introduced later on the war, at a time when Sherman’s were already being mass produced and shipped to Europe LONG before the US declared war. It was intended to be agile, light weight, fast, able to cross every single small bridge in Europe, cross country and fight in narrow streets.
Tigers had a powerful cannon, but a horrible transmission, too heavy for more than half of the European bridges, more often than not the crew had to abandon the panzer an run away because they couldn’t repair it on the battlefield. Panthers and tigers 2 were even worse, hundred were captured by the allies.
Sherman’s fought in the freezing Russian, scorched North Africa and wet Europe flawlessly. As soon as more powerful thanks were made available by the Germans, UK redesigned the cannon and created the firefly with enough power to knock out any tiger. So considering ALL purposes of the Sherman it was in deed PERFECT for the European theatre, and undefeated in the pacific.
Dreamer King I suggest you to read it again. Somethings you should focus on when analyzing historical data.. first put yourself in the time of history you are evaluating.... analyzing the Sherman with today’s mentality leads to a biased opinion. Second a tank is measured but its purpose and meeting the purpose on the battlefield.
Therefore.
Yes the Sherman met the purpose it was created for in the battlefields of Europe, weak bridges, narrows streets, fast and agile. Able to face 2/3 of Germans armour vehicles, easy to fix on the battlefield, cheap to manufacture and tested at least for 2 years prior to US entering the war...
I mentioned before, German army were composed of panzers 3 and 4. Tigers panthers tigers 2 were flawed projects, powerful cannons, but too heavy, too slow and constantly broken. Historically the panther were introduced before the final testings in the final years of war.
Sherman was developed and introduced to face what the enemy had at that time. No one knew that Germans were producing other vehicles, that was the nature of the WW2. An arms race. Aviation technology jumped from radial engines to online to jet engines in just 3 years...
But the Sherman project purpose itself and the current European battlefield specifications were met. Reason why the Sherman was indeed perfect for the war. Most of people think of Sherman being introduce only when Americans entered the war. But they were applied years before in Africa and by other countries, it was a tested and battlefield proved car.
Yes there were other tanks better than Sherman, but that doesn’t mean it was not perfect, it just mean that the other were even more perfect.. the same analogy applies to race cars, even though some race cars, some are produced to meet current standards, others are developed to overcome some problems, but the old ones are still capable of winning the race.
@@enochvarga7570 That is a complete myth. There is no record of any 5:1 kill ratios for Tigers against Shermans. The Sherman was well capable of taking on the Tiger in 1:1 ratios. The myth comes from the fact that the smallest unit size for tanks in WWII was the platoon, which was five tanks. So you wanted to have five American tanks for every German tank, if the numbers were available. Also encounters with Tigers and Panthers were rare, especially Tigers, and it also depended on which version of the Sherman. A Sherman with the 76 mm gun was a lot more dangerous to a Tiger than a Sherman with the 75 mm. And a Sherman with the 76 mm armed with the HVAP (High Velocity Armor Piercing) ammunition was really dangerous.
History channel werhaboos confirmed
My grandfather was a gunner of an 88mm...he knocked out many Sherman's and always wore his Iron Cross with pride
Badass
Bet he didnt kill many crew members.
@@bluefoxy6478 "Oberleutnant Wood! Ze transmission broke!"
@@marthaindahouse1010 zero?
@@bluefoxy6478 oh auto correct changed "ze" to "zero" lmao
This has got to be where many folks got their wrong ideas about the Sherman from.
Wow, the battle footage was just surreal to see... the carnage was quite powerful and really demonstrated the lack of armor and firepower the Sherman really had.
Too bad the _"History Channel"_ isn't interested in producing real historical and interesting programming anymore.
Read more.
This clip is based off a book by a man in this clip. Your lack of amour and firepower comment shows you are using clips from RUclips that are not factual. I will start with the amour, the Sherman had almost the same frontal amour as a tiger 1 and the same side amour as a panther so I guess they didn't have any amour right? Now firepower the 75mm would kill anything panzer 4 and smaller with no problem and they still killed tigers and Panthers with it. The 76mm sherman would go right through the front of a tiger. So I guess they didn't have any firepower at all right? The sherman was designed a certain way for a reason but yet no one wants to look at it that way including Belton Cooper. So please read armoured thunder bolt not death traps to get a real look at the Sherman and please watch some of the cheftains videos on here.
@@chadjustice8560 And your claim that the Sherman has almost the same frontal armor of a Tiger I shows highlights your own very ignorance and that all you can do is repeat what another person on youtube says. Shame that Moran made a false claim and ignored to mention to very important matters that highlight why the Sherman does NOT have almost the same frontal armro as a Tiger I and that is a softer type of armor plate and suffering far more from overmatching.
Read actual books instead of doing your dumb copy pasting.
The Sherman's armor was fine for a medium tank. In terms of logistics, production, ergonomics, crew survivability, combat effectiveness against soft targets, and versatility the Sherman was amazing. The major issue with it in the European theatre (besides the high profile) was it's inability to reliable pierce Panthers, Tigers, and similarly armoured AFVs. That's not a death sentence as people would believe. Not being able to perforate a common tank is an issue. However, the Americans weren't stupid. Tanks don't exist in a vacuum. They're supported by infantry, tank destroyers, artillery, aircraft, and the auxiliary units such as engineers, SPGs, ect... many of which can destroy what the tanks cannot.
An important thing to note is the Americans found the tank which fired first in an engagement won the engagement the majority of the time. This study includes Panthers and Tigers. There's a quote (I forget by who) that goes, "combat ability is a measure of firepower and maneuverability." Being able obtain tactical advantages, such as proximal superiority and unassailable terrain, can be more important than the hardware itself. This is why results from the Battle of Arracourt exist. A numerically inferior American division engaged two Panzer brigades. Despite the perceived superiority of the Panther, the Germans lost 86 AFVs (mostly Panthers), while the Americans lost 25 Shermans. The Americans used the terrain, mobility, and combined arms of their forces to defeat a force that was superior in both number and technology, on paper.
So yeah, the documentary above isn't accurate in my opinion.
@@Pan_Z
And yet what the docu says is again what actual tankers who served on the tanks themselves have said, we can read this from David Render in 'Tank Action' and Clarence Smoyer in 'Spearhead', both of these men were tankers who served onmthe Sherman and mr. Smoyer would later get to serve on a Pershing.
Not being able to penetrate a common enemy tank is indeed an issue and here comes the problem as the Panther was a common tank. They were the second most common fully tracked AFV the Germans had in Normandy.
What happened at Arracourt was in a lot of ways the result of the circumstances that preceded the actual fight. The victory against the two Panzerbrigades is not a surprise as these units were fresh creations, fresh crews with virtually no battle experience and insufficient training. The organisation of the actual units themselves did not help either, lacking organic components that are vital in the combiend arms warfare that was the defacto nature of warfare by 1944.
8:38 'Mayback'
* Freddie Mercury Ultra-High-Angle Reversed Facepalm *
Note: In the battle sequence, the Sherman commander whose left leg was shot off died within 15-minutes of escaping the tank. Shock and loss of blood.
That is the sort of footage that should be shown to all warmongers. The grisly reality of it.
@@ballhawk387 Absolutely. Odd, isn't it, that most hawks are non-veterans who have never seen the face of war. Those of us who have been there know very differently.
What makes anyone think Patton, THE tank expert, didn't know about the vulnerability of the Sherman Tanks vis a vis the German Panther and Tiger tanks? If overwhelming numbers, and mobility were paramount to Patton, essential for winning the ground war in Europe as quickly as possible; then that made the Sherman tank crews expendable. Patton: Old "'Blood and Guts'. Our Blood, His Guts".
Man this video uses a lot of historical opinions that are factually wrong.
big facts
This video kinda misses the point. Most tanks fought in an infantry support role, tank on tank engagements were rather rare. High explosive shells were 90% of what these tanks fired. Moreover being able to repair easily and move quickly gives you an incredible operational range. There's other advantages but it's probably better to say the sherman wasn't the best tank in the war but making them out as deathtraps is poor form.
Also think about what would have happened if the tank hadn't been as good as it was. Imagine if it had been using dodgy engines or genuinely poor guns. Before the war the US had a tiny army and basically no tanks. The M3 Lee was a stopgap that the British had to use because they simply lacked tank numbers. For a relatively early effort in regards to tank design the sherman was better than it had any right to be.
....and being the tanks were in a supporting role meant they would encounter panther and tiger class tanks, as they would roll up on them while the Sherman's were defending a position or troops. Hats off to our soldiers for finding a way to use the weapons they had to defeat the enemy.
This is incorrect; inaccurate.
The documentary make it's point exactly and precisely.
The documentary exposes and reveals that the Sherman tank was a compromise that hinged on numbers (massed groups) rather than either armor nor main gun (neither!) performance.
The M4, as a tank, was easily destroyed by enemy anti-tank gun, opposing tank cannon, wehrmacht bazooka, or mine detonation. It detonated easily, being gasoline engined (not diesel), and burned inside like a torch oven.
You are only stating a bygone conclusion and stating the obvious in that a tank is a war machine to support infantry. Of course. This is saying nothing.
The Sherman tank was primarily a mass attack tank, moving in coordination by the dozen or so, acting mainly as a machine gun carriage that would withstand small arms fire, a rolling steel shield for the infantry to sometimes follow into a battle situation, and as self-propelled artillery. The 75mm cannon it was equipped with could also destroy buildings or emplacements.
It was however, a compromise that made it expendable as a tactical tool.
This means high lethality rate and ratio of tank crews.
As a tank, it was easily destroyed.
Typically killing the crew in it.
The documentary, and the Captain's book, reveals this WW2 sobering matter.
@@SunnyIlha The Sherman crewman had among the highest survival rates of the war. Yes the sherman wasn't as heavily armoured as some tanks but at the time it was designed most anti-tank gums wouldn't kill it and even later it was still tough enough to get the job done. The Sherman was an effective medium tank, sure it was outclassed by far far heavier and less reliable German tanks but the crew usually survived to recrew another tank the next day.
@@SunnyIlha Also the 76mm gun was great, it had shitty HE and that's why they didn't like it because most of the time they fires HE in support of infantry.
@@mikewithers299 That's what anti-tank guns are for. The Sherman is a shitty tank to be on the defensive with being as it's a maneuverable medium tank. Moreover the Panther was closer in weight to the Tiger than it was to the Sherman and the number of Tigers they actually managed to deploy in Western Europe would be negligible. More to the point it was actually pretty rare to have tank on tank engagement in WW2 the majority of their fighting was supporting infantry in assaulting while firing HE and not AP
I'm glad I experienced world of tanks it has HP to keep me alive for awhile very helpful
I play Warthunder and when I ammo rack some someone I have a"BLAST"
Viewers will be better served by watching youtuber The_Chieftain's analysis of this.
Not really
@@TheBest-sv2oj Sherman's had the highest crew survival rate of any tank in the war. The Sherman outclassed nearly every German tank for the majority of the war. The history channel leaves these facts out to make their documentaries more dramatic.
@@judahboyd2107 The "History" channel was never a reliable source of information. They've always exaggerated facts or outright lied for the sake of dramatic tension. The HC treated their viewers like idiots.
Ever heard about Michael Wittman, one of many german tank aces. He’s record from the invading Sherman tanks in France is incredible. He blow them like sitting ducks on line….
There's a documentary about him on youtube.
There Sherman tank was actually a fairly good tank with the best survivability rate of any tank made during WW2. Its hatches were the easiest out of any tank to open from 1943 onwards as they added a spring mechanism to assist in opening.
@ZDProletariat Straight from the wiki:
When engaging targets, Tiger crews were encouraged to angle the hull position 45 degrees to the Mahlzeit Stellung of 10 ½ or 1 ½ o'clock. This would maximize the effective front hull armour to 180mm and side hull to 140mm, making the Tiger impervious to any Allied gun up to 152 mm.
Deathtrap... For the enemy
Ok :D
I really do not want to get into 'anorak' arguments about the pro's and cons of various tanks... Its the poor unfortunate crews that get my attention... I get nervous driving in rush hour! and I therefore simply cannot comprehend the courage (or fear of court martial) that drove tank crews to act in such a manner, I, for one, would willingly face a Dawn firing squad, rather than cook in a tank! I salute their courage, but they were the last of breed... be assured, if a Patton type clown tried the same trick today...The collective roaring of 'FCUK OFF' would ricochet off the moon
john price And well it should.
I love it how people talk about the Shermans being vulnerable and that the German tanks were ALL superior. NO! The majority of the German tanks were Panzer IVs with at most 80mm of armor on the front. A Sherman could penetrate and destroy a Panzer IV at 1000 meters. Second, the fire problem was NOT fuel related. It was the ammunition storage, and this was fixed with the M4A3 onwards. Of course the Panther and the Tiger were superior. THEY WERE DESIGNED TO BE SUPERIOR AND OUTCLASS ALLIED TANKS. But the majority of the tanks the Sherman met, it could make short work of, and it's frontal glacis plate offered superb protection from even an 88mm Kwk36, when angled 30 degrees to the enemy tank.
Logan Bedenis I wouldn't call the sherman useless. The 76 versions sure got on par to the PzIV. The PzIV on the other hand was also a tank that was in fact quite well designed and still could compete with the hyped T-34 even in it's 85 configuration once it got the 75mm. Yet the "superb protection even from 8.8" argument is hairraising to say the least.
There are two factors:
1) Despite overwhelming numbers and air support the sherman kill/loss ratio still wasn't exactly overwhelming. You can partly blame the inexperience of the crews and the lack of proper training but then again the western german forces were neither the battle hardened veterans either, which were usually sent to the more important eastern front. If the sherman could make "short work" of the PzIV as it's main opponent, then the kill/loss ratio would have been much better and not in contrary to what is reported and we also could hear in this video.
2) The sherman is a massive 30 ton tank. It's main opponents since africa (the Pz III and IV) weight each a whole 10 ton's less and still had the upper hand. Every other nation but the US with it's enormeous production capability would have seen the Sherman therefor as a failure in design and a waste of resources. A tank that is a third heavier than it's opponents should actually be able to dominate them and not struggle to keep up.
Without the british and especially the soviets doing the main work, I see no way the US could have even hoped to successfully battle germany all alone and invade europe, even despite superior production capabilities, if it would have had to rely on the Sherman as the main battle tank.
Logan Bedenis lol did you just make all of this up?
FSCB no, as a matter of fact, source is Tiger I Heavy Tank 1942-45 by Thomas Jentz, pg 19 for the armor invulnerability at 30 degrees. What part would you like to challenge? What sources will you bring up?
Logan Bedenis From your original post and your reply I can see that you are not an engineer or technical person.
1) Let's talk straight. You talk about sources like you are a research master, but truly what sources did you use? Answer: wikipedia. You clearly reworded your argument about the glacis armour from the wikipedia article. The source you then refer to is the one wikipedia itself references when making the same statement about glacis armour.
2) A lot of resources that you would no doubt bring up if you had the chance will be written by historians, hardly any of which are/were engineers. Many historians are not even studied people, they simply have an interest in the subject field. A historian is not qualified to give information regarding engineering, and the specific argument you make about glacis armor is in fact only ESTIMATED by a German engineering report which was later repeated by historians and gullible people such as yourself. Therefore, it is not fact, but conjecture.
3) What you say about the Panzer and the Tiger is "of course they are superior, they were designed to be superior". Well, this argument is clearly applicable to the M4 being designed for early war German tanks such as the Panzer II and III. Hence your argument is hypocritical.
4) Your argument is very one sided as you only discuss the Sherman's ability to penetrate Panzer IVs at 1000m. What you do not mention is that these are the early Panzer IVs. Further you center your argument on the Panzer IV and then use this to justify your grand statement that the Sherman was superior to most German tanks.
However, the Panzer III could penetrate the Sherman, the later Panzer IV could penetrate the Sherman, and of course the Panther and Tiger could do the same. Hence your argument is a logical fallacy.
5) You say "the majority of tanks the Sherman faced were Panzer IVs". However you do not mention which version of the Panzer iV nor when. The Sherman first met Panzer IIIs and the old Panzer IVs in the North African campaign. By this time the Panzer IIIs were already being phased out as they were lighter and the Panzer IV, which was the old one, was numerically inferior to the Panzer III. Hence your argument is incomplete and incorrect.
Summary: Work on your argument skills. The Sherman was a great tank, otherwise it would not be remembered fondly today. But it obviously wasn't a be all and end all, nor was it superior to German tanks in general. On the whole, the Sherman was adequate but not outstanding, especially in the later war years.
And in the period of time where it was clearly superior, ie the early war years, the tanks that it dominated were never designed for tank combat ie Panzer IIIs.
FSCB Mind. Blown. Good job. I is give A+
My uncle was on a tank crew - he never talked about it much. He made it through and back home. Gone now but not forgotten.
Sherman 'speed and mobility'???? Even the fastest Sherman was only slightly faster than a Tiger. By 1944, the only thing the Sherman had going for it was reliability and numbers
+32shumble There is much to be said about reliability considering the horrible track record of the Tiger when it came to up time vs maintenance. We would call them "hanger queens" due to that much maintenance which also led to very few actually being deployed or engaging with enemy tanks.
The number of operational Tiger I’s was about 50% of the batallion’s
strength. So, from a 45 tank unit, only 22-23 were available at any
given time.
The number of operational Tiger II’s was 25-30% of the battalion’s
strength from mid-1944 to late 1944. Only after Dec 1944 the operational
status went above 40%, on average, and did not exceed 50% allmost
never. - Scheider "Tigers in Combat, books 1 & 2"
After having read that, remember that most Tigers were deployed to a location in single battalions strength only and the largest ever deployment was 5 battalions in the defense of France/Rhime at 232 tanks.
+32shumble I dont understand why people keep comparing sherman to tiger. One is a expensive heavy tank, one is the work horse medium tank produced in tens of thousands. When compared to similar tanks Sherman is arguably a lot better than panzer IV. Early sherman was just out right superior than any panzer iv models up to ausf G. The up gunned and up armorer sherman - late A3 and A2 models, are on par to even panther in certain regards.
Everyone seems to also forget that when sherman was first introduced in north africa, it was the king of african desert. Not a single tank in north africa could go even close to what sherman could offer for the time.
+brainplay While yes, there were more Panzer IVs and Stugs than Tigers, if you look at what Tanks the most successful Tank aces of WW2 .... they were largely driving Tigers.
People claim a lot of things about the Tigers, unreliable, heavy, use too much fuel - but their war record says otherwise.
Yes let's look at their record. On the eastern front the did very well against the untrained Russian forces knocking out close to 1400+ tanks. The gun could knock out T34's at 2km and thanks to sparse Russian terrain this was a regular deal. That advantage was lost in the much more dense vegetation on the western side as denoted in Battle of the Bulge excepts.
On the western front I have 1 Tiger ace (Micheal Whittmann) according to the wiki page. His division killed 13-14 tanks, two anti-tank guns and 13-15 transport vehicles with most attributed to Whittmann during a stationary ambush. That would be his only contribution to the western front.
So fighting against Shermans on the western front proved to be a larger challenge as the better trained crews and commanders knew how to exploit the Sherman's traits much better.
+Stephen King Tigers massacred Soviet forces at Kursk. Did nothing?
Playing warthunder with a panzer 3 against a sherman is scary
Sherman’s are way to good in war Thunder and the German tanks way to bad 😂. In the Game a Jumbo can shoot a tiger easily and in real life they would nh 5 tanks to have a chance against one German tank
@@markusez8403 panzer 4s armour is like a piece of plywood but the gun is epic
Hard bass is Bad ass yeah in the game but not in real life. Germany had the best tanks and that’s a fact. We had nh best tank but not enough😂😂. Our war be like. 20 tigers versus 5000 t34 and 5000 Sherman’s
Oohhh noooo a wehraboo
My great grandpa was drafted to drive one..... he died before I was born and he apparently had tons of medals including a Medal of Honor
What was his name would like to look at him on the medal of honor site
Ego Planer thanks to those government slaves as you call them . You have the freedom to be a moron and to make stupid statements.
0:05 , that’s an M10 Wolverine...
Based off the M4 chassis so close enough I guess XD
History channel is known to diss on the M4. it is among the best tank suited for the job. It is durable, it works best for the job. They're not meant to fight tanks until the E8 was brought in
When I grow up I wanna be a 20th century history teacher.
I'll show my students this video and tell them how retarded it is
You got me in the first half not gonna lie
@Private Account no they are not
@Wong San funny
I feel like half the info is crap and the other half is just following the stupid stereotype that the Sherman sucked when in fact it didn’t.
So the word of a tank repair officer is not good enough for you? The Sherman was a piece of shit.
They were called Ronsons. Cause back then they would light up just as a Ronson lighter...
Geebax2 Sherman was not meant to take shells and destroy tanks. It was meant to do what a tank is meant to do, support infantry. Later in the war Sherman’s were fitted with better guns. Even then most German tanks that outmatched Sherman’s were few and far between.
@@Geebax2 He saw no combat. It's insight to the life of an ordnance branch officer, but in concluding the _M4's_ performance its arguably no more relevant than our personal opinions. How was it shit?
@@jonnykidnap4082 The only documented usage of that nickname in reference to tanks were in regards to flamethrower tanks.
One of my brother-in-laws told me a story back in the 60's about his uncle who was a Sherman Tank crew.They were retreating when the loader had to shit so bad he was begging them to stop.The commander (the BIL's uncle) being Jewish and not risking being taken prisoner told him to shit in the helmet and he refused so they gave him a choice of bailing out of the bottom hatch or the helmet.He took the hatch and was never seen again.
My grandfather survived 4 Shermans getting knocked out. Lost some crew/friends, but was basically untouched in all 4 incidents. Some burns and some shrapnel but nothing major. Luckiest man in the regiment.
I can't even imagine going thru that. He never spoke of it, had to learn about it after he died when my grandmother told me.
1 or 2 I would say "just lucky", but 4 times, makes you wonder if something or someone wasn't looking out for him.
On average, about 1 of the 5 crew were killed per knocked out Sherman and another was injured. He was certainly lucky, but actually not that much of an outlier.
That wasn't an uncommon occurrence, according to a neighbor that was a mechanic with a 3rd Army armor recovery unit. He said quite a few M4's were knocked out by 75mm AT guns firing low where the rounds went thru the tranny housing to slam into the huge differential or between two bogies to take out the driveshaft before hitting the other side where some exited or were deflected to rattle about inside until it ran out of energy hitting stuff.
Thank God Chieftain for saving us from this lies.
Biggest dislike of the year goes to this video
And yet everybody harps about how great the t-34 was but far more of those were destroyed than Sherman's and the Sherman had one of the highest crew survivability rates of any tank.
By 1944 the Sherman was under-gunned and under-armored. However, it was generally a very well engineered tank and easily the most reliable on any WW2 battlefield. It wasn't perfect but it wasn't crap either. Heavily modified versions served well into the 70s.
I don't think anyone sitting in that coffin really cared how "well engineered" it was.
No armor to protect you. No gun to properly defend yourself even if you have the first shot.
Highly flammable gas.
This was won by sheer numbers and people dumb or brave enough to waste their lives.
The tank would have been something in 1939/40.
It surely wasn't in 1944.
@@maximumhate666 ruclips.net/video/bNjp_4jY8pY/видео.html
@@maximumhate666 How is ~90mm frontal armor not good enough? That's barely less than the Tiger. Also the gasoline did not burn, that's a common myth.
@@infinitelyexplosive4131 Of course that is bad armor for a tank invading France 1944 and Germany 1945.
Every German gun was able to penetrate the front hull no matter how well angeled the tank was.
You also lack to mention that the 90mm effective armor boils down to 50 mm actual thickness, which is half of what a Tiger comes with.
That did not even matter in the battlefield. As already stated, even in ideal conditions (flat terrain to make use of the armor angle) there was little to no chance the Sherman hull would bounce a German shell.
The tank did well in earlier iterations in Africa. But not against short 88 or high velocity 76mm.
In 1944 facing a German gun, driving a Sherman at point was a death sentence.
The allies had the numbers. That s what mattered.
@@maximumhate666 sloped armor was generally more effective than flat armor of the same thickness from a horizontal perspective. Shells of the period would be deflected by the slope, either forcing them to punch through more armor or bouncing entirely.
I dispute your claim that every German gun could penetrate the M4. The 50mm KwK 38 and 39 guns more or less could not penetrate the front of the M4. The 75mm KwK 40 L/43 had penetration values in the high 80s to mid 90s depending on test, meaning the M4 had an ok chance of bouncing, depending on angle of impact. The L/48 had slightly higher velocities leading to more likely penetration, except on the mantlet.
The 88 would almost always go through the M4, but it was much less produced. Similarly, it seems as though the increased propellant charge of the PaK 40 led to an increased velocity and higher chance to penetrate.
Overall the M4 was obviously not as effective in tank to tank combat as a dedicated breakthrough tank like the Tiger, but it was more usable in other roles due to its significantly better operational and strategic mobility and reliability. Especially considering the weight limitations that the overseas shipping or wartime bridge construction created, it's hard to see how a more effective tank could be effectively fielded.
I mean... This is good and all, but we also have to consider what the Shermans were needed for early war or mid war. German Armor was VERY scarce by then so the demand for more anti tank guns was limited and thought that the Tank Destroyer battalions. Additionally, against PzIV's and PzIII's, the 75 was deascent
What crap. A distortion of the Sherman's value and role in the war. Also an unfair indictment of the decisions that had to be made two years in advance to get a tank into the field in sufficient numbers.
They launched the in France the Sherman based in 40\41 German tanks, and in the Sherman performance in N Afrika, wich was good, against the pz III, few IV's of Rommell, in the final there were a handfull of deadly Tigers as they could put 2 holes in a British tank with one shot..., but were so few that they were not taken in consideration. The Panthers were considered a Tiger tank likely and as eaqual very few were to be expected in 44, the British were better informed and struggle to improve the Sherman to high velocity gun Fireflies, the Americans underestimated the continous sheer effort of the Germans in upgunning and up armouring their afv's what in straight unexperienced frontal attacks cost them dearly , espetially with the Shermans with by 44 outdated 75 mm medium gun and relatively downarmoured tanks.
Anyway dozains of anykind of Shermans could be put in places where the gGermans had none, so...and the Sherman still could be equal or even better to what the germans had most, pz IV, and stugs III
And lets not forget that tanks are just a part of the puzzle, before the landings there were a massive cleansing aerial operation that shattered the German logistics nad some heavy German tank divisions only could move by night for that reason).-!
Can't even imagine the hell these men went through fighting that war, I doubt most people today could do it.
We couldnt yo.
Once you're there I imagine it is captivating. Not many distractions.
You do what you gotta do.
The Panther was knocked out by the first shot, there was no need for the second shot... That was just pure stupidity and cruelty.
When firing at a tank, you probably would put a few extra shots in it, just for good measure.
The reason is that you could get a mobility kill, but not a crew kill. Tanks, like people, can play possum when hit. As one tanker friend of mine said about his service in Desert Storm, "We kept hitting them until they burned. When they burn you KNOW they're dead."
jefferycsm
The Panther actually burned before they shot a 2nd time.
But we shall not start a discussion about moral in WW2... after all nobody of us can imagine what the Pershing Crew went trough.
The view you saw was the cameraman's looking for a higher elevation than perhaps what the gunner saw through his sight. Regardless, it's war. You engage a target until you're absolutely sure it's no longer a threat to you.
Don't have to mention it, I know people love to start discussions about moral etc. here but I wouldn't.
The Nazis only made about 1600 Tiger 1 and a sprinkling of Tiger 2s, maybe 4000 Panthers. Most of which went to the Eastern front. Nothing in the war could stop the 88mm guns on those tanks and other mobile platforms except hitting the gun with a high powered rifle like the 17 pounder or artillery piece. We only lost 1400 Shermans out of 50k? That's pretty good.
::::::::The Chieftan enters the chat::::::::
OH NO THE TANK IS ON FIRE!!!
Oh bugger the tank is on fire
@@autistic_m4a3_76w_hvss But the panther commander had the stupidly complex cupola buttoned up tight, now he is cooked better than aunt ethyl's brisket dinner
@@Doonit_hard_way_since_65 that is true
898 tanks were recorded officially as destroyed, 878 crew were killed (around 20% of all of the men manning those 898 destroyed tanks). Now, the fact that there were 878 killed, means we can surmise that at least 3-5 times that amount were SEVERELY wounded.
What are you on about?
Yes, the shermans were inferior in everyway. Also, ignore nathanboy, he is the resident troll here.
I'm not sure I trust the historic knowledge of a team who cant tell a Lee or a Grant from a Sherman
Your hunch is correct. The video is appallingly bad in terms of factual content. For example from D-Day to the German surrender US tank crews had a 3% casualty rate. And 60% of those casualties occurred outside of the tank.
Well what people are failing to see here is that this isn’t WoT or War Thunder.
Most of what the Sherman faced were infantry, and jt was especially good at killing those. At the uncommon times they faced a German tank, may it be a Panzer III or a King Tiger, the following would happen.
If a German tank platoon was located by forward scouting divisions, this is immediately reported back to command. They then send ground attackers to bomb the enemy tanks. If the enemy still survives, artillery is rained upon them. Then tank destroyers mop up the scraps before the Shermans come.
The only 2 scenarios that German panzers have the advantage is when in a concealed position, not getting spotted by scouts, and ambushing a column of Shermans going on the offensive. The other is in an open engagement, such as during the Battle of the Bulge.
I love how people always make fun of the Sherman for not being able to take on a tiger head on. Like, yeah. No shit. It was never designed to.
The “American death trap” happens to be the most survivable tank of ww2
The school of thought that the Sherman’s were inferior has been randomly deconstructed after the war. First of all they were many many many more sermons that any other tax, over 50,000 in the western Germany and operations. Secondly, Americans did not practice tank on tank warfare. Where this situation arose it has been found that generally speaking the first tank to cite the other tank was the winner regardless of the size of the tank, etc.
Sherman tanks were far more superior in reliability than the German tanks. Towards the end of the war barely half of the German tanks were in running order and they were very difficult to repair. A Sherman tank on the contraryWas built to standardized specifications which allowed the tanks to be repaired very quickly even on the field, when they broke down. However they broke down far far far less then the German tanks. The arrogant British called the sherman a “ronson” ie easily set firr killing on board. The overall mortality rates for shermans was only3%. Also, how bad could it have been if we won the war.
Well put
My dad was American Army Ranger and watched 4 Shermans get blasted to pieces in France . The germans weren't content with disabling an American tank . They shot 3 rounds and disintegrated the Shermans . A panzer tank commander was stupid enough to open the hatch while laughing . A Ranger sniper shot him dead . His tank and another drove over mines and germans were coming out of those tanks like crazy . Not one of them lived .
patton and eisenhower were damned fools .
?
Respect to your Dad, but even if the artillery gun was not serviceable, the tank or panzer crew could still fire machine guns so the majority of tank crews shot to kill the tank, not the men.
@@stuartlawsonbeattie1411 What's odd is that, per the late Richard Hunnicutt over 1/3 of the KIA the U.S. Armored Force suffered were outside the tank at the time of death.
@@peterson7082 No, quite categorically, I do not believe that at all, but I do believe many were already dying of atrocious injuries and they succumbed to their wounds outside the vehicle.
I must say how close in range were they if the panzer tank commander was seen laughing?
Is that not added for dramatic effect?
However when the going gets tough, many do not act rationally in the thick of war, so it is believable to a point.
Respect to your Father, Sir.
Belton Cooper's book "Death Traps" is a must read. It was accidentally (?) discovered that hitting a panzer with a WP round would lead the crew to believe that their tank was on fire and they would often bail out.
M4=death trap
It's a good read, but don't take it as a history on U.S. armor
@@traktori2888 The T-34 was far more of a death trap.
It wasn't by accident. GI's used WP grenades to set buildings and bunkers on fire. Tanks have ventilation fans drawing in air by the hull crew and exhaust fans on the turret roof. Some M4 users figured that a hit of WP on the front of a Panzer turret would provide plenty of burning WP to be drawn in by their ventilation fans to set the crews' clothing and lungs on fire. They tried that out on a Panther which caused it's crew to immediately exit the tank and run away. The news of that got around fast so the M4 users began requesting additional WP rounds since they usually only carried 3-4. The Army refused because WP is very dangerous to keep inside a battle tank so considered the few they did get a bad enough risk as it was.
@@billwilson3609 I have not actually read of this occurring many times though (same with the shots ricocheting off the underside of a Panthers mantlet and then down through the hull).
Both no doubt happened occasionally but it wasn't a major thing.
In defense of the Sherman, American commanders weren't very interested in tanks before WWII. They needed something, and that was the Sherman. The Grant and Lee tanks were worse. We had a lot to learn in a short time.
I served under Oddball all we got was to shoot paint.
Prewar doctrine said tanks like the Sherman were not supposed to fight other tanks. That was the job of anti-tank guns and tank destroyers. The job of the Sherman was to support the infantry and exploit a breakthrough, so a high explosive round was more important than an anti-tank round. That is why it had a main gun that was essentially an artillery piece mounted in a turret. Unfortunately, doctrine did not always match reality, and Shermans often had to deal with other armored vehicles before a tank destroyer with a 76 or 90 mm gun could show up. Another factor to consider is that Shermans were on the offensive most of the time in Europe, so the advantage of getting off the all important first shot was usually with the Germans, especially in Normandy, where that first shot was at close range. The Cologne video is a prime example of doctrine failing in reality. The Sherman was doing what it was supposed to be doing, which was supporting the infantry, when the Panther suddenly appears. The Sherman could not take on the better armed and armored German tank, and there was no time to pull back until the Pershing showed up.
Not the case at all
These men saw hell in it's truest form my great grandfather wasn't in a tank he was on an artillery gun and he took thing to the grave that haunted him I have nothing but respect
Tiger: Hold my beer
tigers fucking sucked
@@anarchistcocktail3455 ha ha..
@@anarchistcocktail3455 Yeah, he clearly sucked 😌👀