Research Request - Sherman Variants Used by Division

[Ithikial_AU]

A question I've asked in some different places in the past but am still hunting for some hard evidence. One for the tank grogs.

Does anyone have any sources that talk about deployment patterns for the different Sherman variants as they moved from the North American factories to the US Armored Divisions and independent Tank Battalions? For example, (fictional example) the US 2nd Armored were provided and used M4A1's until around August 1944 when replacements meant the division were primarily armed with the M4A3. Most sources say a formation had Shermans and leave it at that. (A handful do however mention the take up of 76mm over the 75mm).

This partly revolves around information for the Arracourt pack of scenarios a group of us are working on (sorry for those following, it's progressing slowly given RL), but also it would be good to have a handy reference for some future projects I have in  mind. For Arracourt we're pretty clear on the 4th Armored Divsision's ToE as of mid September 1944 but this is mostly from the array of photographs taken from the time and varying second hand accounts rather than a written primary source.

Any help appreciated.

[Sgt.Squarehead]

This would involve some serious detective work, I believe it's doable but it would take quite a while and the results would, I suspect, be largely theoretical.....Might it not be better to continue to approach this from the other direction, finding photos that are confirmed to be of a certain unit at a certain date and seeing what they actually had?

I've got a pretty good reference library (I'm also soon to be running a Sherman GB, with 50+ very knowledgeable participants, over on BM), so if you have a specific question I'd be happy to try to help if I can, just ping me a PM.

[General Jack Ripper]

 Hunnicutt's Sherman book does talk about a few batches of Shermans being shipped, and what types and to where, but it's not a very detailed breakdown. Unfortunately, that's the best source I have my hands on. You'd probably be best served by searching the national archives: https://www.archives.gov/

Or, maybe a Unit Battle History could work.

[Sgt Joch]

From what I have been able to find out, there was no clear pattern. Shermans were sent to depots and from there sent to combat units based on their needs.

For example, when researching the battle of Chaumont scenario, I found out Patton's 4th armored division in December 44 was equipped with a mix of six month old tanks, tanks at the end of their service life and tanks in need of repairs, as well as new replacements. Of course, at this point, the 4th armored had been in pretty much continuous action since august. I have a list of the exact types present on dec. 23, 44, I will see if I can find it.

Edited November 16, 2017 by Sgt Joch

[Lethaface]

There's quite a lot of info in Steve Zaloga's 'Armored Thunderbolt, The U.S. Army Sherman in World War II', but not sure if it will satisfy your needs.  Made a picture of one of the appendixes, but that's mainly covering 75/76mm ratio's among divisions. There are appendices about production numbers of the different variants, strength and losses of various formations, but not really about deployments of specific variants (apart from the M4A3E8 deliveries to 12th Army Group). In the book itself there is a lot of attention on the replacements progress/process chronologically thr ough the war, but not sure if that provides more info compared to what you already have. I can recommend the book if your into Shermans

[Ithikial_AU]

On 17/11/2017 at 8:08 AM, Lethaface said:

There's quite a lot of info in Steve Zaloga's 'Armored Thunderbolt, The U.S. Army Sherman in World War II', but not sure if it will satisfy your needs.  Made a picture of one of the appendixes, but that's mainly covering 75/76mm ratio's among divisions. There are appendices about production numbers of the different variants, strength and losses of various formations, but not really about deployments of specific variants (apart from the M4A3E8 deliveries to 12th Army Group). In the book itself there is a lot of attention on the replacements progress/process chronologically thr ough the war, but not sure if that provides more info compared to what you already have. I can recommend the book if your into Shermans

Thanks. Yeah similar tables appear in his Battle of Arrcourt book he released last year. A big help but as mentioned in the OP it only focuses on the calibre of the gun rather than variants.

Thanks for everyone for chipping in. At least I know I'm not going nuts trying to find a golden source when there probably isn't one.

[CMFDR]

On British Shermans : 21st Army Group Tanks by Peter Brown

[Duckman]

On 11/16/2017 at 6:27 AM, Ithikial_AU said:

For Arracourt we're pretty clear on the 4th Armored Divsision's ToE as of mid September 1944 but this is mostly from the array of photographs taken from the time and varying second hand accounts rather than a written primary source.

Zaloga in Armored Thunderbolt says the 4th AD at the time of Arracourt was "equipped with mostly older M4 tanks built in late 1942 and early 1943, but which had undergone the blitz upgrade in the summer of 1943 with the new M34A1 gun mount with telescopic sight and applique armor over their ammo racks". He says they were offered some 76 mm Shermans but turned them down.

[RockinHarry]

unless stumbling upon hard facts I´d assume every available Sherman type would´ve been used until the very end, including even some the types with the bocage cutter device. From my own research I´d only consider number of 76mm Shermans, as well as the Jumbo types, which I think make more of a difference than other variations within the Sherman family. Otherwise it´s really one the hardest things to find exact compositions for the armored BN´s, not just for US.

[Ithikial_AU]

Talking about digging up a thread from the grave. This one is for the somewhat dormant Arracourt collection of scenarios that are being worked on over at the FGM. We spent many posts/PM's discussing what variants of Shermans to put into the scenarios for Abrams' 37th Tank Battalion.

We ended up settling with mostly your bog standard M4's across the board with the exception of 2x M4A1(76) in A company since there were a number of sources that said this company took in two of the 76's in time for Arracourt. A total of 20x 76mm Shermans were scattered across the 4th Armored following the Normandy campaign. We surmised the 37th TB didn't have many since Abrams was one of the tank officers in the US Army against the introduction of the 76mm at the time and from the unit history leading up to Arracourt showed little sign the 37th taking excessive vehicle losses prior to this point. Backing this line of thinking up was all the photos we found that supported the 37th TB with standard M4's.

[MikeyD]

Its rare that you find pictures like this. The famous pict of 752nd Tank Battalion in Plaza Emanuel, Bologna with M18 Hellcats from 701st Tank Destroyer Battalion, May 1945 I think.

You can pick out individual vehicle types. Mostly 76mm M4A3 (76mm), early narrow mantlet M4A1 (75mm) sprinkled in. I also spot a single M4A3(?) 105mm howitzer tank. Plus one flail tank at the back (borrowed from the Brits?), two M3-based recovery vehicles and one M4-based recovery vehicle (I forget their names).

Edited January 22, 2019 by MikeyD

[CMFDR]

Great pic MikeyD, thanks for sharing.

It seems that digging through NARA could bring in some answers, for example :

Quote

The document above shows the mix of tanks fielded by the Battalion's medium tank companies in early February 1945. Many of the tanks in the battalion were 76mm versions of the M4A1 and M4A3 tanks. The M4A1E6 is just a M4A1 (76mm) Sherman - the nomenclature was changed during the war. (...)  The unit also had a couple of 75mm armed M4A1 tanks. At this point the Battalion unusually received several M4A4 tanks as replacements (...)

Quote

Published roughly a month later, the document above shows how rapidly the Battalion's inventory could change, and it includes details about the Battalion HQ and Company D inventories as well. The M4A4 tanks are gone at this point, and some M4A3 75mm tanks are now spread across the platoons. (...) Each company is also equipped with a couple of M4A3E8 76mm "Easy Eight" Shermans and one or two M4A3E2 "Jumbo" tanks, though it appears that all of the Jumbo's fielded by the 761st were of the 75mm variety - at least based on available data.(...)

By Michael "Fingolfen" McSwiney on http://miniordnancerev.blogspot.com/2017/12/flames-of-war-vehicles-of-761st-tank.html

I assume it would take a trip there to go through the archives and actually find such reports.

Edited January 22, 2019 by CMFDR