Sherman Tank

Discussion in 'Warfare / Military' started by Panzerkampfwagen, Aug 23, 2012.

  1. Panzerkampfwagen

    Panzerkampfwagen New Member

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    [video=youtube;Ns6l7sCoWX4]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ns6l7sCoWX4[/video]

    Unlike more recent History Channel shows which try and pretend that the Sherman Tank was the American version of the King Tiger, this vid shows what it was like. Really pinpoints how much of a disadvantage Sherman crews had.
     
  2. Bluespade

    Bluespade Banned

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    The Sherman had certain advantages over the Tiger, but it wasn't armament or armor.

    It was more mobile and faster.

    It was easier to repair or salvage.

    And, Im not sure what the production ratio was for the Sherman versus the Tiger, but I wouldn't be surprised if was 100/1. and, in a war of attrition, numbers matter.

    That being said, there were some major design flaws with the Sherman, using a gas engine being the most tragic.
     
  3. Jason Bourne

    Jason Bourne Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Just my opinion, the T-34 was the best all around tank of WW2. The T-34 had everything you would want in a MBT. It had mobility, good firepower, good protection. It also had the most important feature in a weapons system that so many "experts" miss, it could be upgraded to meet increasing threats on the battlefield.
     
  4. Panzerkampfwagen

    Panzerkampfwagen New Member

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    Yeah, once it got the 3 man turret it was quite deadly for a medium tank.
     
  5. Akula

    Akula Banned

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    The history channel has never been a very reliable source. They have an agenda.
     
  6. waltky

    waltky Well-Known Member

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    Hey Sherman...

    ... tanks fer postin'.
    ;-)
     
  7. Herkdriver

    Herkdriver New Member

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    50,000 Sherman tanks in one variation or another were produced during WWII.

    1,500 Tiger tanks were produced.

    'nuf said.

    When Shermans first entered service, it was superior to the German tanks it faced in North Africa and remained at least
    on par with the medium Panzer IV series throughout the war.

    Not enough Tiger tanks were ever produced to make a decided difference in the war...besides being fuel hogs, they were unreliable.

    Shermans could be dangerous, and weren't a perfect tank, but they were reliable in the field and could be mass produced quicker than anything the
    Axis put out there.
     
  8. Panzerkampfwagen

    Panzerkampfwagen New Member

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    The Sherman arrived in NA in 1942. That's the same year the Tiger arrived in NA I believe.

    But that being said, until the Tiger came out eveyone had better tanks than the Germans.
     
  9. Herkdriver

    Herkdriver New Member

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    Anyone with an interest in tank battles, research the Battle of 73 Easting which took place in Feb. '91, British and American forces against the Iraqis.
    It's one of the most studied tank battles in modern history.
     
  10. SFJEFF

    SFJEFF New Member

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    And then they produced the Panther.

    Very good point though- Germans never won armor battles because their tanks were superior- they did it because they used their armor smarter and with combined arms better than their competition- and by the time the Tigers and Panthers came along, they really weren't 'winning armor' battles so much as delaying the inevitable.

    The Tiger really wasnt' a very good design- it just was finally a tank that had enough armor and a big enough gun for the battles. Unreliable- no sloping armor- not very good mobility- but the armor that it had was thick enough and the gun was good enough.

    Do they mention the Firefly version of the Sherman?
     
  11. Panzerkampfwagen

    Panzerkampfwagen New Member

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    You'd have to be smart to win battles in the PzII with its 2cm gun.
     
  12. bobgnote

    bobgnote New Member

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    The T-34 had sloped armor, all around, and its 85 mm upgrade allowed the North Koreans to raise hell, during the Summer of 1950. The Easy-8 Sherman was like the Firefly, and it just shot tennis balls, off T-34s, a LOT. The Americans also deployed light tanks, which were ineffective, by themselves, against the T-34. But hey, napalm worked great.

    You think Americans could look at Civil War ironclads, put some design features together, and come up with some kind of T-34 lookalike, by WWI. But nooooo.

    The Sherman did have a great, radial engine, which put out all kinds of power, but it ran on gasoline, and that feature, combined with poor armor allowed the various nicknames to accrue, like "Ronson," or "Tommy-killer," etc.

    American-idiot tacticians tried to use the Sherman, in frontal attacks, against Germans, with typical lack of success, any time air superiority and artillery support were neglected. The Sherman was one way we could tell a lot of Americans are really dented-can types. MacArthur and other US generals are another way.

    You think Americans would get a decent ring-gear and a big old gun, anyway, so Americans could at least win a tank battle, without having to luck out, at Hellcat and Firefly deployment, in WWII.

    But the Americans didn't get with the Brits, until the M1-A1, so all that nice gear turned up, with a turbine engine, and the Abrams is fast. It shoots on the run, has the Brit armor, etc.
     
  13. Mushroom

    Mushroom Well-Known Member

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    And this is why the Sherman ruled in WWII.

    German tanks were generally made like Swiss Watches. Very tough, very powerfull, but very complex and hard to keep running and hard to repair.

    Shermans were cheap, easy to fix, and were cranked out at a rate of 50 to 1.

    There are many cases of Sherman's being almost destroyed on the battlefield. Then some repairs done on the battlefield, a new crew assigned and the same tank being sent out again (with the new crew still able to smell the cooked remains of the original crew). Many of the later German tanks were undoubtedly among the finest ever built of the era. But being the best is of no use when you are outnumbered that heavily. And when the tanks spend as much time in the repair depot as it does in the front lines.

    This goes back to another discussion we have had here, as to if Germany could have won the war. Hitler was obsessed with having the Biggest and Best equipment in the war. This is seen in things like the Bizmark, the Paris Gun, then later the almost insane Neubaufahrzeug, then the even more insane E-100 (140 tons), the grossly insane Panzer VIII Maus (188 tons), then the ultimate insanity of the the 1,700 ton the P-1500.

    German designs were to say the least, out of control. Their leader and the entire arms design and construction industry was absolutely insane, with this almost phallic obsession with building the "biggest ever". Having the biggest gun does you no good at all if the enemy can send 50-500 tanks after your one "ultimate tank".

    Sermans may have been among the worst tanks of the war (next to the Japanes tanks). But they were produced in such overwhelming numbers, along with the crews to man them, that they still effectively owned the field in Europe.
     
  14. SpaceCricket79

    SpaceCricket79 New Member Past Donor

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    I've always heard that the Sherman tank was an inferior piece of equipment, this is nothing new.
     
  15. Mushroom

    Mushroom Well-Known Member

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    The problem with pretty much every military in the world except the Germans, is that they did not have a Heinz Guderian.

    Even during and after WWI, most commanders had no idea how to really use Tanks. Most militaries used tanks more or less as Mobile Pillboxes, and many armies had actual orders to not place them to close together, so they would not be destroyed. They did not understand that these were not mobile batteries, but rather a modern version of Calvalry.

    Generaloberst Guderian was among the first to really understand the future of Tanks, and how to structure militaries of the future around them (halftracks, trucks, and the concept of "Mechanized Infantry".

    And none of these were any kind of "State Secrets". Her Generaloberst Guderian write often and publically about the future of warfare, but other then a few professionals his writings were ignored. For example, in the US we say budget cut after budget cut until the tank corps were working with pick-up trucks with TANK written on them participating in maneuvers, because to few actual tanks existed. So while Germany was fielding the formidable Tiger II, the best the US could come up with was the Sherman. That was how far behind the US was in research and design.
     
  16. SiliconMagician

    SiliconMagician Banned

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    If liberals and libertarians get their way with budget cuts, we'll be right back to that again. Tossing bags of flour for hand grenade practice and such. In the end, that is what isolationists and social safety netters want at all costs. The USA to have nothing but an army on paper.
     
  17. Mushroom

    Mushroom Well-Known Member

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    No kidding.

    I love how they hide what they are really doing.

    "Downsizing" has such a nice ring to it. "We are downsizing the military by 300,000", and Liberals applaud. Notice the hiding of reality.

    I wonder what many would say if they said the truth: "We are laying off 300,000 members of the military, with no benefits and no job".

    Well, since the military does not belong to a Union, many would probably applaud the firing of the "scabs".
     
  18. SiliconMagician

    SiliconMagician Banned

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    All we have to do is the same thing Russia and China do. Arm our soldiers with rocks and sticks and a backpack of beef jerky. No more medevacs, no more high tech weapons systems, nothing but garbage. That'll be cheap.
     
  19. alskdwq

    alskdwq New Member

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    Sherman was designed to fight infantries than tanks, and Tank Destroyers will fight any tanks appeared, just because of this ridiculous theory made by a senior general, this theory has greatly delayed the development of M26 Pershing, and IMO if M26 can be deployed in 1944, the war wouldn't take another year
     
  20. bobgnote

    bobgnote New Member

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    Maybe you haven't noticed all the crusading, popo, and petroleum magic, around the world, since the US started a drug war, which is never finished! Heard of BUDGETS and CORRUPTION and COST-OVERRUNS?

    Hey, we gottum! Got starting WARS, for PROFITEERS? We have that brand of corruption, yessir!

    The drug war and Prohibition were really special interest socialist projects, to deflect ethanol, from fuel media, to contraband. By the time a hemp-processor was invented, in the 1930s, Popular Science reported hemp would become the number one cash crop, in the US (world)!

    But as a Schedule I CS, hemp is contraband, and it won't yield 25,000 market leading products, while fields get ruined, with too much corn, or the corn dies, in the drought, since the US isn't planning for climate change, and pubs are trying to cut CIA and Navy climate change budgets.

    Pubs won't let sea-level rise be so characterized, in Virginia and North Carolina. And when D-rats get at this, they propose carbon trading scams, like a load of bath-house owners, offering coupons, when the price of admission to at-risk holes gets raised.

    And then there are the frackers, who are like meth dealers, with their "clean" sequestered CO2 media, as if their crank won't spread the HIV, given a pest-hole.

    FYI: Every time CO2 rose, partly as fast as it is rising today, the Earth suffered one of five mass extinction events. Our Mass Extinction Event 6 will challenge, for top killer, of all time. We aren't just in climate change AND budget troubles, dudes. Humans are doing the FAIL dance.

    Some people make Forrest Gump look smart, you know? Planning just ain't going on. But when that Arctic ice melts, every summer, and GHGs are even more off the hook, we enter Phase II, of runaway global warming and climate change. By then, fish will not only be endangered, oceanic acidification will be causing desirable species to fail, with the food web.

    So if you haven't had a lot of double-entry accounting, consider how the Libertarian Gary Johnson has had more administrative experience, than any of the Obamneys, and when the US bubble economy topples over, into a mudhole, like a top-heavy Sherman, trying not to get smoked, but something else predictable happens to it, since profiteers designed and built Shermans, consider some Libertarian may be who to turn to.

    As for that other L-word, all they do is try to be 2nd team pubs. They do costly dirt ops, including false-flag ops, more than pubs do, since the 20th Century started. No major party will divest Israel or AIPAC, and the dementia of warring, under false flags, while Zionists invade Palestine has bred up a type of American, who hasn't heard of Ike, yet claims "conservatism."

    Ain't no such neo-person in any accounting classes I was in. And the current trend in US wars is all derived, from CIA dirt, done to privatize Iran's or Iraq's oil, while the CIA overflew China, from Tibet and Taiwan, to incite anything China or North Korea did, since WWII.

    Get a clue, about Bad Company. Their riffs are all stolen and overproduced. Any questions?

    The US economy is dirt, piled on inflation and corruption BUBBLES. That's right! Crazy bubbles! So don't get all weird, if some LIBERTARIAN starts coming around. Bubbles pop; Shermans tip over. What didn't we know? NONE OF THE ABOVE. So who won't learn?

    All kinds of people won't learn! Smoking causes cancer, the Earth is not flat, if CO2 goes up, too fast, most of the Earth's creatures can die out! What's more, when the money runs out, when real productivity including manufacturing are stressed, hey now! Bubbles can pop!

    If you think we can fund inflation on the price of dirt, after smoking brown ciggies and heaping dirt, on anti-value bubbles, for another generation, I have a clue, for YOU: 2013!
     
  21. bobgnote

    bobgnote New Member

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    Some American generals were wicked nuts. We can get into this, if you want to.

    One Navy Captain actually invented and was allowed to fake testing, for his defective Mk.14 torpedo, which was a magnetic torpedo, which did not compensate, for the Earth's magnetic field!

    This dud would run under targets, and if it hit, directly, it wouldn't detonate. US subs got in a lot of trouble, for a good while, off the top of my head, until well into 1943 because the Navy and War Dept. let this schmuck call shots and fake fixes, to his massively defective device.

    That the Sherman was a burn-down, promoted by some M-26 delaying crook doesn't surprise me, and we can review THAT. Whoever designed and built the lousy Grant sponson design was just copying the French heavy tank tech. The only thing the French did kinda smooth was their curved armor, designed to deflect and save weight, which Americans adopted, for the M-26 and later designs.

    Of course, we are back to angular Chobham media, now. And these are kinda quick, with Land Warrior guys, on board:

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stryker
     
  22. Mushroom

    Mushroom Well-Known Member

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    Chobham, is this any relation to CHOAM, the Combine Honnete Ober Advancer Mercantiles?
     
  23. Panzerkampfwagen

    Panzerkampfwagen New Member

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    Every country using magnetic torps had problems for years into WW2.
     
  24. bobgnote

    bobgnote New Member

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    The problem with the Mark XIV is the Bureau of Ordinance wouldn't admit the torpedo was flawed, all the way, to the end of 1943. The problems were the depth and detonator mechanisms, not the engine, which was designed, by a Commodore, who came out of retirement, to run some tests, so my first post may have been incorrect about the source of the corruption, unless the story I heard, years ago, refers to some OTHER Navy guy, who designed the magnetic detonator.

    Here's what came up, on my search, including the last link, which we can use, to get back on topic:

    http://www.historynet.com/us-torpedo-troubles-during-world-war-ii.htm

    http://www.fleetsubmarine.com/torpedoes.html

    And then, there was the Mk.IV torpedo:

    Once this fix was in, Adm.Lockwood's group found out the Mk.XIV contact detonator was failing, since the Mk.XIV motor made that torpedo a lot faster. They did a fix at Pearl, made from salvaged aluminum, from Japanese planes, downed in the 12/7/41 attack.

    http://www.military.com/Content/MoreContent?file=PRtorpedo

    http://www.freewebs.com/graham7760/magnetictorpedoes.htm

    http://silentseawolvesmsw.devhub.com/blog/463879-torpedo-failures-wwii/

    Japanese torpedoes were shizzlishious. They ran at the depth, to which they were set, they hit what they were aimed at, and they had twice the payload. Darned clever, looked the IJN.

    http://www.ww2pacific.com/torpedo.html

    http://208.84.116.223/forums/index.php?showtopic=33624

    This blog is at Tank Net:

    http://208.84.116.223/forums/

    And so, we can get back to Shermans, which were marginally better, than Grants. I bet we find out some bad guys with Grant connections were responsible, for the fixation, by US procurement, with the French 75 mm howitzer, which had been in service, for a long time, so the Grant had a sponson 75, and the Sherman had a 75, with a short barrel.

    What was worse, foregoing hundreds of kills, by US submarines, or sending Grants and Shermans, to fight Germans? Both tactics resulted, in bad debacles.

    The whole tone for this was set, by FDR, who arranged, with Gen.Marshall, to suppress intel, into Pearl, which resulted, in 2400 killed, right away, and missing battleships, in the Guadalcanal campaign, including at the Battle of Iron Bottom Sound.

    Want to go, to war, for the USA? Don't forget. Some other American has the tactics doped, so you can get dead, during some debacle. Even worse, the whole trend of American conflict is affected, by Roman and then British Imperialism, so modern profiteers can get way over.
     
  25. IgnoranceisBliss

    IgnoranceisBliss Well-Known Member

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    I don't think you understand tank tactics. The Sherman was far from perfect and its original tactical doctrine wasn't implemented very well, but it still more than got the job done. The U.S. realized the shortcomings of the Sherman very early on in the war, began to make replacements, but realized that the current Sherman was sufficient to get the job done. Patton's Army sliced the German army and took manuever warfare to the next level in France. Manuever warfare isn't about having the best tank, it's about having all levels of arms operating together in concert to get the job done. Even the best German tank was vulnerable to anti-tank guns, artillery, mines, aircraft, and infantry. More importantly, the U.S. was able to overcome its weaknesses because it had the best logistic capabilties of any military in the war. While the Germans were dragging their artillery and equipment by horse and foot, the U.S. was flying by in a ridiculous number of trucks.
     

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