Harry Yeide

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Rommel22: Thanx, I have one question: I am at work right now, so I wanted to show people my site. So I tried showing them on a mac, Imac and a G4 to be more specific. I opened the site using IE (I think IE 5). Well the Picture on the homepage doesn't show up. The big "Panzer" picture doesn't show up on these macs. So i tried a PC and it works fine. Anyone know what the problem is? Thanx in advance! p.s. any one alse care to comment?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Your pictures show up fine on my Mac. Perhaps you should petition Big Brother ("Bill," to his friend, if he has one) to permit you to see graphics on another platform. Cheers

Go here, young man: http://www.army.mil/cmh-pg/documents/eto-ob/90ID-ETO.htm

Don't know, mein Freund. I just clicked it and it works fine. Were you trying to target it by mistake?

Dimensions are per Peter Chamberlain and Chris Ellis, Tanks of the World 1915-45 (Stackpole Books). They list the Panzer IV at 8.9', Panther at 9.8', the Tiger at 9.5', the King Tiger at 10.26', the M4 at 9' even, and the various M4 models w/ 76mm gun turrets at 9' 9". I myself possess two feet, although I'm not sure that proves anything really. I assume the decimel point measurements for the German models are the result of conversions from the metric originals. Cheers.

In brief (har har har): Standardized in 1941, the Sherman represented the cutting edge in tank technology of its day. Critics argue, however, the by 1944 the Sherman was effectively obsolete when compared to the tanks being fielded in Western Europe by the Germans. Others argue that the M4 was a remarkably versatile and reliable tank well suited to the US combined-arms approach to war. The extensive literature on the Sherman tends to emphasize the quotes from tankers who were frustrated with the shortcomings of their vehicles, but tankers saw both sides of the argument. The tank battalions landing in Normandy were initially equipped mostly with M4 or M4A1 Shermans, the difference between the two being that the former had a welded hull and the latter a cast hull with rounded contours. The 34-ton vehicle had a crew of five (commander, gunner, cannoneer/loader, driver, and assistant driver/bow gunner). Its main armament consisted of a 75mm gun in a fully traversing turret, supplemented by a coaxial 30 caliber machine gun, a second 30 caliber mounted in the hull at the assistant driver’s position, and a 50 caliber machine gun mounted outside the commander’s hatch on the turret. The front plate (glacis) of the Sherman had 2 inches of armor (later increased to 2-1/2 inches), while the sides and rear were 1.5 inches thick; the front of the turret was 3.5 inches at its thickest. The powerplant was a Wright Whirlwind aircraft engine that could push the vehicle close to 30 miles per hour under optimal conditions; M4A3’s using a Ford engine entered the battalions as well, and the records of some units indicate that they became the preferred alternative. The Sherman was undeniably a compromise to the realities of US production capabilities and shipping capacity--a compromise that arguably lasted longer than it had to. The Sherman, for example, inherited the chassis and engine of its predecessor, the M3 (referred to as both the Mae West--informally--and General Lee in US service and the General Grant in British service)--which itself had been a massive compromise, mounting its main gun in a side sponson with limited traverse. Army regulations, moreover, prohibited vehicles wider than 124 inches because of shipping constraints. These restrictions affected how wide the turret could be--which in turn limited the size of the main gun--and how wide the tracks could be--which in turn helped determine the vehicles “flotation” or ability to spread its weight out for maximum maneuverability on soft surfaces such as mud. The need to mount the Wright Whirlwind engine forced a relatively tall design in relationship to the vehicle’s other dimensions. The Sherman also initially fell victim to official US Army doctrine, which saw the roles of the tank as infantry support and fast, deep penetrations of the enemy’s rear once the infantry had cracked the main line of resistance. Tank destroyers--not tanks--were supposed to deal with enemy tanks. The Army gave little emphasis to giving the Sherman the kind of armament it needed to kill the latest generation of German tanks until it became clear that, in the real world, US tanks were running into German tanks with some regularity. And often with unhappy results. The Sherman as Impotent Deathtrap US tankers had been assured by the Army that they had the finest tank in the world, but it took only a few encounters--particularly with German Panther and Tiger tanks--in Normandy for them to realize they had problems. The Sherman’s 75mm gun could deal effectively with the still widely used Panzerkampfwagen IV (always referred to by tankers as the “Mark IV”), but it could not penetrate the glacis of the Panther (the Mark V) or Tiger (Mark VI) from any range. All of the tanks common in German service, meanwhile, could penetrate the thickest armor of the Sherman at all ordinary combat ranges and had superior optics, allowing accurate gunnery at longer ranges; indeed, the literature is rife with tales of rounds from the Panther’s long-barreled, high velocity 75mm cannon and the Tiger’s fiercesome 88 mm gun penetrating Shermans and exiting the other side of the tank. Major Welborn G. Dolvin, CO of the 191st, summarized the situation from the tanker’s point of view in August 1944: "The Sherman tank, equipped with the 75mm gun, is no match for either the German Mark IV, V or VI. On numerous occasions, hits were obtained on German tanks with no noticable results. On the other hand, German high velocity tank guns never failed to penetrate the Sherman tank. This situation has a tremendous effect on the morale of the tank crews. This was evidenced by reluctance of crews to fire on German tanks, feeling that it would do no good and would result in their being promptly knocked out. Crews soon became ultra-cautious where German tanks were in the vicinity." The Sherman also had a nasty tendency to catch fire and burn out completely when hit, which conditioned crews to abandon tank at the first sign of trouble. The 743rd Tank Battalion, for example, lost 96 medium tanks from 6 June to 8 May 1945, 65 of which burned. Crews believed that the use of a gasoline powered engine--vice diesel--was the reason for this, but investigation by the Army concluded that burning ammunition propellent from rounds in the Sherman itself was the main cause. US tankers generally thought that German tanks, with their wide tracks on models subsequent to the Mark IV, had better mobility than they did in mud or snow. Tests showed that the Panther, meanwhile, was capable of speeds similar to that of the Sherman on surfaced roads. The Sherman had some irritating mechanical peculiarities, as well. In order to prevent hydrostatic lock in tanks with the Whirlwind power plant, for example, a crewman had to handcrank the engine about 50 turns (which actually turned the engine over five times) before starting up. The engine also needed to be operated at above 1200 rpm to avoid fouling its 18 spark plugs; with advances in the hedgerows measured in yards, there was much engine idling and many fouled plugs. Nonetheless, particularly as compared with German tank engines, the Sherman’s engine variants were all reliable workhorses. Sherman crews complained of one more characteristic--the Sherman’s high sillouette, which they said was inferior to that of the German tanks--but this gripe, at least, stands up poorly to examination. The Sherman was tall relative to its other dimensions--but not as compared with German tanks. The Sherman was 9 feet tall, while the Panther was 9 feet 8 inches high and the Tiger 9 feet 5 inches. Perhaps tankers should have actually been grateful that they presented relatively less target area in the other two dimensions than did their foes. The Sherman as Effective War Machine The Army was more than a little defensive about the qualities of the Sherman. Let us stipulate: the Sherman was not capable of going toe-to-toe with Panthers or Tigers on equal terms, particularly at long ranges. Yet, although this problem loomed large in the minds of tankers, doing so was not the typical daily activity of the infantry-supporting tank, and the Sherman would arguably have been no better at its other missions had it been a Panther. Moreover, the historical record shows that the Sherman was hardly helpless against German armor. The Army offered a strategic-level defense of the Sherman that probably struck many tankers as a massive rationalization. Nonetheless, wars are won or lost in the big picture. General Patton offered the following observations in a 19 March 1945 letter to The Army and Navy Journal, published on 31 March: "Since 1 August 1944, when the Third Army became operational, our total tank casualties have amounted to 1136 tanks. During the same period we have accounted for 2287 German tanks, of which 808 were the Tiger or Panther variety, and 851 on our side were the M4. These figures of themselves refute any inferiority of our tanks, but let me add that the Third Army has always attacked, and therefore better than 70 percent of our tank casualties have occured from dug-in antitank guns and not enemy tanks, whereas a majority of the enemy tanks have been put out by our tanks. In the current operation, had the 4th Armored Division been equipped with Tiger and Panther tanks and been required to make the move from Saarguemines to Arlon, then through to Bastogne, from Bastogen to the Rhine, and now to Mainz, it would have been necessary to re-armor it twice; and furthermore, it would have had serious if not insurmountable difficulty in crossing rivers. Finally, we must remember that all our tanks have to be transported on steamers and the difference between 40 tons and 70 tons is very marked. The 70-ton tank could never have been brought ashore in landing boats as many of our medium tanks were. Nor could they have marched from the Cotentin Peninsula to the Rhine as practically all of our tanks have been required to do." [We might also all pause for a moment and try to picture a DD Tiger tank.] The experiences of at least one independent tank battalion--which kept unusually good aggregate records--seem to support aspects of Patton’s case. The 743rd, while losing 96 medium tanks during the European campaign (many to antitank guns or bazookas) reported 41 Mark IV, 26 Mark V, 4 Mark VI, and 10 self-propelled guns (81 total) positively destroyed. The battalion also destroyed approximately 100 pill boxes and machine gun nests, 36 antitank guns, nine field pieces, four armored cars, and circa 125 miscellaneous wheeled vehicles--the targets expected of the infantry-support tank. Moreover, tank loss rates suggest that one of the Sherman’s main weaknesses was inexperienced crews. Units tended to suffer a substantial portion of their total losses for the war in their first few days of combat, whereafter the tankers who survived evidently learned how to fight their tanks more effectively. For example: -- The 16 tanks lost by the 743rd on D-day alone accounted for 17 percent of its total Sherman losses for the war. -- The 737th, attached to the 35th Infantry Division, entered combat on 14 July. It lost 23 Shermans in its first three days of fighting, 35 percent of its total losses for the war. -- The 750th, attached to 104th “Timberwolf” Infantry Division near Aachen, endured its first real combat 16 November 1944. Companies A and C supported the 414th Infantry Regiment in attacks on pillboxes for three days. 17 tanks were knocked out, about 30 percent of the battalion’s total medium tank losses. [A sidebar follows:] "[On 17 December at 1450 hours] Lt. Miller reported that enemy tanks were approaching the positions where his tank and one other Co C were located. A fire fight developed between tanks and very soon thereafter, a report was received to the effect that Lt. Miller’s tank had been knocked out. S/Sgt. Crisler then assumed command of the remainder of the platoon and upon moving to the vicinity of the position that had been held by Lt. Miller, discovered the other tank with him had also been knocked out. He noted further that two enemy Tigers had been destroyed in the action... [On 18 December at 0920 hours] Tiger tanks began to move into the town of ROCHERATH, on a street approximately 150 yds from the Bn CP. Two deadlined Co B tanks that had been placed in a lane just East of the CP for anti-tank defense opened fire on the Tigers’ flanks with devestating effect. When the smoke of battle had cleared these two “disabled tanks” had destroyed five of the Tigers in short order.These tanks were commanded by Sgt. Neidrich and Cpl. Hall. One enemy tank of the original group continued through town on the road to BILLINGEN and its destruction was caused in part by Sgt. Angelletti of Co. B. Sgt. Padgett of Co. B whose tank was located on a bank street carefully maneuvered up behind one of the Tigers and destroyed same... In the fierce three-day action at ROCHERATH, tankers of the 741st Tank Battalion proved themselves adept at the art of way-laying and killing “TIGERS”. From well camouflaged positions, by expert maneuvering and stalking, tank after tank of the enemy forces were detroyed by flank and tail shots of the Bn’s gunners. Recapitulation at the end of the encounter showed the Bn as having knocked out twenty-seven (27) enemy tanks, (mostly Mark VI’s), one SP gun, two armored cars, two half-tracks and two trucks. In contrast to the number of enemy vehicles destroyed, our tank losses were comparitively small. A total of eight (8) tanks were lost to enemy action. [After Action Report, 741st Tank Battalion. The battalion at this time had not yet received its first Shermans with 76mm guns, nor did it have air cover during these initial days of the Battle of the Bulge. The by now battle-savvy crews fought base Shermans against Tigers and won.]" [End sidebar.] The tankers nonetheless made it clear that they wanted more armor, better maneuverability, and a more lethal main gun. The Army was working on it, which makes it difficult to compare “the Sherman” to a Tiger or Panther. The M4 of D-day was far outclassed in tank-to-tank terms. Late production Shermans offer a more ambiguous comparison. Moreover, the production of the improved models began before or slightly after D-day; it was a problem of deploying equipment in the pipeline rather than a failure to respond to the challenges posed by German tanks that accounted to a large extent for the fact that seemingly outmoded Shermans were left duking it out with Panthers, Tigers, King Tigers, and other deadly foes until the war’s end. Protection. Where the Sherman initially offered 2 inches of steel up front, the Panther sported 80 mm (a bit more than 3 inches) of better-sloped armor and the Tiger 100mm or about 4 inches. Matching German armor would not have been a cure-all solution, however. Although tank crews would have preferred to be invulnerable, even some tankers acknowledged that this would be impossible against superb German weaponry. Tankers knew that German antitank rounds could punch through even 10 inches of armor in the corner where the Sherman’s turret was at its thickest. Moreover, consider two major threats to the US tanker: -- The 88mm main gun used in the Tiger and several other tanks and self-propelled guns could penetrate the thick frontal armor of the Tiger--which weighed 55 tons--out to about 2000 yards. -- Tests performed by the 17th Armored Engineer Battalion showed that the 81mm German bazooka reliably penetrated the front armor of the Panther--which weighed nearly 46 tons--at ranges up to 200 yards. Tankers and the Army nevertheless had every incentive to take measures to reduce the danger of penetration. The Army welded on 1-inch thick steel plates to add protection to vulnerable ammunition storage bins and shot traps in front of the driver’s and bog gunner’s hatches on early model Shermans even before the invasion of France. The crews acted next, turning to field solutions in hope of adding protection at least against Panzerfausts and light antitank weapons. The first expedient was sandbagging. The bags were initially held on with chickenwire or some other quick fix, but later service companies welded brackets intended for the purpose onto many tanks. The 743rd Tank Battalion, for example, sandbagged all of its tanks between 18 and 22 July 1944, and its records show the unit resandbagging old tanks and thus outfitting newly received tanks during down times for much of the rest of the war. There is considerable debate as to whether sandbagging was all that effective. Some fields tests suggested not. But some showed promising results; a day after test-firing a German bazooka and antitank grenade against a sandbagged Sherman on 28 July in the 3rd Armored Group, trucks started back to the beach to collect sand for bags for the tanks. Later in the war, some units actually tried pouring concrete on the front plates of their Shermans. The 750th Tank Battalion, for example, at the end of hostilities had to use jackhammers to remove six inches of reinforced concrete it had added during combat. The Army, meanwhile, produced 1-inch kits to be welded onto the front of mid-production Shermans with a 47-degree glacis, which had been introduced in 1943 to correct the shot trap caused by protruding hatches. Ordnance also in March 1944--even before the hard lessons of Normandy--ordered a limited production run of M4A3E2 assault tanks, nicknamed “Jumbos.” These tanks began reaching independant tank battalions in November 1944. The Jumbo carried about 6 inches of armor up front and, combining armor and the gun mantlet, 13 inches of protection on the turret front. The extra armor reduced the top speed slightly to 22 miles per hour. The records of the independent tank battalions demonstrate a certain futility in this armor race: although the Jumbos clearly took more punishment than stock Shermans, they regularly fell prey to guns of 75mm and higher, bazookas, and mines. The Army also introduced “wet” storage for ammunition--racks surrounded by water--into newer models of the Sherman in order to reduce the probability of burning. A study conducted in 1945 showed that only 10-15 percent of Shermans so equipped burned when penetrated, as compared with 60-80 percent of those with the original stowage system. Wet storage was not a cure-all in part because of the tankers’ practice of carrying more ammunition than the official combat load (97 rounds for a 75mm Sherman with a welded hull type), with the excess often stacked on the floor. Maneuverability. The tank battalions saw the first Army effort to improve mobility during the winter, when grouser kits--also known as “duck bills”--became available. The duck bills were attached to the edge of the tracks, making them wider and better distributing the weight. This expedient proved only somewhat successful, however, because the grousers were prone to snap off or bend. The main step forward was the production of the M4A3E8, which began in August 1944. The final production model of the Sherman, the “Easy 8” had an improved horizontal volute suspension and wider tracks. General Isaac D. White, commanding general of the 2nd Armored Division, said of this vehicle, “The M4A3E8 has comparable speed and maneuverability to any German tank.” Unfortunately, the Easy 8 did not begin to reach the independent tank battalions--and then only in very small numbers--until early 1945. Lethality. For the infantry support tank, machine guns were usually the most important weapon in the vehicle (indeed, the very first Shermans had two additional forward pointing fixed 30 caliber machine guns in the hull). Tankers were happy enough with their 30 calibers, which fired more slowly than the German counterpart but were more accurate. The 740th Tank Battalion went into combat with 50,000 rounds of 30 caliber ammunition per day--and spent them. The tanks had stowage space for only 15,000 rounds, and the tankers carried the rest in boxes fastened to the bustle and stacked on the floor. Tankers had more mixed feelings regarding the 50 caliber mounted on the turret top: German soldiers were afraid of it, but a tank could carry only 500 or 600 rounds of ammunition. The main point of contention was the cannon. The Army began testing a 76mm tank gun with a much higher muzzle velocity than the 75mm in August 1942, and the results were so good that the weapon was standardized and accepted into inventory as the 76mm gun M1 in September 1942. The project languished until a new turret was developed in 1943, during which year the Army Ground Forces ordered production of 1,000 Shermans with the new weapon. Serial production began in January 1944 and expanded in May of that year. A few 76mm Shermans made it to England in time for D-day, but commanders were not enthused until stung my the bad experiences of tankers in France. Like many equipment upgrades, the appearance of 76mm Shermans in the independent tank battalions varied tremendously. At one extreme, the 774th Tank Battalion entered combat in August fully equipped with 76mm-armed Shermans. The 737th on 19 October 1944 received a single tank with a 76mm gun, which it decided to use as an assault gun attached to Headquarters Company and shuttled among the line units as needed. The 741st drew its first 76mm Shermans on 1 January 1945, and the 743rd received its first five M4s with 76mm guns on 2 January. The 3rd Armored Group noted on 7 January 1945, “The issue of M4 medium tanks mounting 76mm cannon... was noteworthy only in the sense of promise, for separate tank battalions [have been] issued only a few of them.” It was not until February 1945 that the independent tank battalions moved to the front of the line ahead of armored divisions for allocation of 76mm tanks arriving in Theater. Although better against armor than the 75mm, the 76mm gun was not the solution tankers had hoped for. It, too, proved to be generally ineffective against the front armor of the Panther and Tiger except at close ranges, thanks to a botched assessment of the gun’s penetration ability by the Ordnance Department during development. The gun proved ineffective, that is, until the introduction of tungsten-core High Velocity Armor Piercing (HVAP) rounds, with which the Sherman finally gained the ability to kill the Panther and Tiger from the front at more typical combat distances. Once again, deployment of equipment in the pipeline caused the Sherman to remain weaker than it had to be. HVAP rounds began to reach independent tank battalions by September 1944 at the latest, but the “souped-up” ammunition remained extremely scarce for the entire war. When the 9th US Army in late March 1945 notified the 3rd Armored Group that HVAP would henceforth be available as a standard issue, it indicated that 1/2 round per tube per month could be drawn. Nevertheless, as Lt. Col Fries of the 747th Tank Battalion observed in a “Battle Lessons” report on 1 January 1945, “The 76mm gun firing H.V.A.P. ammunition is a good step forward toward battlefield parity with the heaviest German armor.” A drawback to the 76mm gun was that it fired a far less effective high explosive round than did the 75mm. For infantry support tanks, this was a major drawback. At least some infantry commanders seemed to want to keep a preponderance of 75mm guns around. The 76mm gun also produced a muzzle blast so large that crews had trouble tracking the rounds in order to correct their aim. It was not until the Easy 8 was delivered that a muzzle brake corrected the problem (although one tank battalion cut muzzle brakes off German guns and welded them on to Sherman 76mm cannons with good effect). The Sherman had one key advantage over German tanks when mounting either the 75mm or 76mm cannon: a faster turret rotation speed. This factor could determine who got off the first shot. Some observers have lamented that the Sherman was not provided with a 90mm gun. Lt. Col. George Rubel described his view on the subject, which he shared with the War Department in March 1945: "My personal opinion is that tanks must fight tanks, and must be able to knock them out with their fire-power. Our 90mm gun could not do this for the reason that it lacked sufficient velocity. I would much rather have a 75mm tank gun with an extremely high velosity projectile than a 90mm or larger gun for several reasons: First, very few rounds of 90mm ammo can be caried in a tank; second, it lacked penetrating power; third, that the great weight of the gun prevented fast traverse; and fourth, that the extreme length of the barrel made it impossible to traverse to the side in narrow streets or on roads lined with trees or telephone poles. The present M26 tank has accumulated all of these disadvantages and is worthless in street fighting, fighting in woods, or in fact anywhere except wide open spaces." Drawn from a first cut of a history I am writing on the independent tank battalions in the ETO. Cheers.

The map has no traditional scale on it. Each grid square is 1000 yards on a side. Cheers.

Thanks to the generosity and skills of Martin Cracauer, 1:2,500 invasion maps of the 1st Infantry Division's sector on Omaha Beach, showing the German defenses, are available at: http://www2.cons.org:8000/history/maps1/ Cheers.

Normally, infantry divisions had one company of Shermans attached to each battalion of infantry. How many tanks that might actually represent depends heavily on the timing of your scenario. After the long race across France, for example, some independent (i.e., infantry support) tank battalions were down to as few as three operational tanks at a time. The suggestion of ten in above message is probably not a bad average number. The issue of 76mm guns is more complicated than indicated above. The battalions that actually landed on D-day by and large did not receive their first 76mm Shermans until January 1945! Here is a partial list of the first use of 76mm tanks by the independent tank battalions: Aug 44: 746th, 749th, 774th Sept 44: 735th Oct 44: 70th, 737th Nov 44: 191st, 753rd Dec 44: 745th, 740th Jan 45: 709th, 741st, 743rd, 747th Feb 45: 736th Cheers.

Uh, sorry. Those maps will be 1:2500, not 1:10,000. Cheers.

Member Martin Cracauer is currently putting together a web page that will have 1:10,000 invasion maps that I scanned of the 1st Division's sector of Omaha Beach, complete with all defenses known to Allied intelligence before the landings. Cheers.

See "Churchill and Sherman Specials" (Chamberlain and Ellis, Profile Publications) for poop on the four Sherman crocodiles, which were ultimately fielded by the 739th Tank Battalion (Special) (Mine Exploder). Many battalions fielded a less effective flamethrower, beginning with the 70th and 741st in September 1944. This model replaced the bow machine gun with the nozzle, and the fuel and compressed air tanks were mounted in the vehicle behind the assistant driver. Jensen, in "Strike Swiftly!", suggests that tankers in the 70th thought the hardware was fairly effective. The After Action Report of the 741st for September, however, complains that you had to get the flamethrower tank within 20 yards of a pillbox before it could do much of anything, and that the effects were unsatisfactory in any event. There was a fascinating exchange in early 1945 between the 3rd Armored Group Hq and higher authority that strongly suggested that the tank battalions found the things to be fairly useless. Cheers.

See "Churchill and Sherman Specials" (Chamberlain and Ellis, Profile Publications) for poop on the four Sherman crocodiles, which were ultimately fielded by the 739th Tank Battalion (Special) (Mine Exploder). Many battalions fielded a less effective flamethrower, beginning with the 70th and 741st in September 1944. This model replaced the bow machine gun with the nozzle, and the fuel and compressed air tanks were mounted in the vehicle behind the assistant driver. Jensen, in "Strike Swiftly!", suggests that tankers in the 70th thought the hardware was fairly effective. The After Action Report of the 741st for September, however, complains that you had to get the flamethrower tank within 20 yards of a pillbox before it could do much of anything, and that the effects were unsatisfactory in any event. There was a fascinating exchange in early 1945 between the 3rd Armored Group Hq and higher authority that strongly suggested that the tank battalions found the things to be fairly useless. Cheers.

From AAR's, I'll tell you what worked against them most often: minefields! Cheers.

********* You've got me, man. I find the AI to be a mysterious beasty on the attack. I also find that if you try too many tricks to get it to do a particular thing, that affects the flow across the board. The AI, though, is good at one thing when attacking: I find that if I run the same scenario a bunch of times, it will behave differently. If you play again, those four trucks may come barreling down the road. Cheers.

Working on it! I'm just back from a trip and I've e-mailed Martin. Cross your fingers. Cheers.

The composite and each section (6 per map) average about 400k each, so it adds up quickly (2.5MB for sheet 1, for example). There is also a legend, the pieces of which total almost 900k. Of course, one could shrink the image size or resolution, but there is a real price in terms of legibility because these are scans of large-size photocopies of WWII vintage original maps. They look good now but will give you a headache with many corners cut. Cheers.

I still have available if anyone is willing to host them the 1:2500 maps for the Omaha Beach sector in the 1st Infantry Divisions zone. They show all of the German defenses as best worked out by Allied intel prior to the invasion. I sent Ed at Battle Depot some samples (thanks for the suggestion, whoever made it), but I guess he is taking a pass, having never responded at all. I also have a 1:10,000 map of the Hill 192 area in Normandy, which shows every hedgerow, sunken road, sunken path, gate, etc. Cheers.

You could write a book (in fact, I am) on the complexities of tank-infantry cooperation in the US Army in the ETO. The Army never really evolved a set answer to how the two arms should work together. Pre-invasion doctrine got tossed out the window under pressure from the pitiless crowbar of events. Infantry divisions and independent tank battalions tended to experiment on their own and come up with their own fixes. Some experiences were shared among units, often via the good offices of the Armored Group headquarters, and various corps distributed pamplets with the local variant of the answer. Tank Battalion commanders complained that if their outfit was shifted to support another division after working with one for a long time, battlefield performance went to hell because the two units had worked out different solutions to the same problems. Moreover, as new units entered the field or battle-wise commanders became casualties, old lessons had to be re-learned time and again. From D-day until the end of the war, one can safely say that sometimes cooperation was great and sometimes it sucked. Whether infantry or armor led an attack varied based on a host of variables, including terrain, the nature of the foe, the experience and spine of the outfits in question, the weather, the amount of light, and the level of human folly, just to name a few. There is no rule that says in Normandy, the infantry led because... One tank battalion, for example, created the technique of the "sortie," in which a bunch of Rhino-equipped Shermans would line up and then charge the enemy under a barage of artillery air bursts. After raising hell for a few hundred yards, they would go back and collect the infantry to mop up the gibbering survivors of the sortie. The two arms experimented a lot with comms. The field telephone wired into the tank's intercomm system was the first real fix, but the doughs still had to expose themselves under fire to use it. Moreover, the records show that there were shortages of the field telephones. Some battalions tried loaning 509 tank radios to the infantry, but the doughs didn't like lugging the things around under fire. Eventually, the Army settled on installing, beginning in November 1944, ANVRC-3 radios--which were interoperable with the SCR-300 walkie-talkie--in tanks. (The 191st, when it landed in southern France as part of ANVIL in August, had VRC-3's installed already; the battalion may have been a test-bed for the concept.) According to the records of the 3rd Armored Group, policy was to equip 28 tanks per battalion with the radios, but there were shortages. This solution was not perfect either because of interference generated by the tank's engine and the difficulty of hearing the thing in combat, but the fix seems to have been the main one for the rest of the war. Cheers.

Very gamey. Cheers.

The notion that the Sherman sucked or was too obsolete to do its job just does not hold water. The Sherman was part of a SYSTEM. McNair was no idiot. He knew that infantry takes and holds ground, and that combat experience had shown that tanks need infantry around in substantial numbers to survive. That's why he pushed the 1943 reorganization of the armored divisions that cut the organization to three battalions, each matched by a battalion of armored infantry. As many above have pointed out above, the weakness in Army thinking involved the tank/TD dichotomy. The Army figured this out, and modified the Sherman to fight tanks better. The other parts of the system were artillery and air. When used together properly, the Sherman was part of a mechanism that WORKED. I read a lot of tank battalion After Action reports, and I'm impressed how often the Sherman tankers encountered German armor--even when using 75's--and killed it. Sure, tankers did not like riding around in boxes that could be holed by anything down to a 47mm AT gun. On the other hand, I doubt very much that German tankers enjoyed getting blown up either, but nobody talks much about that. Sure, you had this really cool Panther, but it broke down a lot, and if the Shermans didn't get you, the 155mm might, or the Jabos, or those damn bazookas, or... The 743rd (I site them frequently because their records are excellent compared to most other battalions) lost 96 medium tanks from 6 June 1944 to 8 May 1945. Many of these were lost to AT fire, Panzerfaust or -shreck, and mines. They positively KILLED 41 Mark IV's, 26 Mark V's, 4 Mark VI's, 10 SP guns, and a Sturmtiger. That's 96 to 82 for the guys on the offensive. I'd take that. Cheers

Thanks. I sent Ed an e-mail.

Thanks. I sent Ed an e-mail.

Today I was able to make full-sized copies of the 1st Infantry Division 1:2,500 (you read that right) assault maps for Dog White and Dog Green beaches at Omaha. They have all the known German defenses on them. The questions are: 1) Would anybody be interested in these things if I scanned them in sections, and 2) is there anybody with a stable web page that would want to host them for the greater good of mankind and his degenerate offspring, the scenario maker? Cheers. You can call me "junior," though I'm growing tired of it. What the Hell is that, anyway?

Today I was able to make full-sized copies of the 1st Infantry Division 1:2,500 (you read that right) assault maps for Dog White and Dog Green beaches at Omaha. They have all the known German defenses on them. The questions are: 1) Would anybody be interested in these things if I scanned them in sections, and 2) is there anybody with a stable web page that would want to host them for the greater good of mankind and his degenerate offspring, the scenario maker? Cheers. You can call me "junior," though I'm growing tired of it. What the Hell is that, anyway?

At least the pro-sandbag forces in this thread can now point to one documented case of the things working. This is from "M4 Sherman," by Michael Green: "A field-expedient way to beef up the Sherman's thin armor was to find spare tracks, sandbags, wooden logs, planks, chicken wire, and any other materials and secure them to the Sherman. These additional items acted as a standoff from the armor to detonate the warheads of the Panzerfaust before they actually struck the vehicle's armor. It didn't always work that way, but it worked often enough to convince many Sherman crews to load down their vehicles with a wide variety of different materials. An example of the effectiveness of this add-on material is described in a wartime report. 'T/Sgt. Heyd, Maintenace Sergeant of Co. E 67th AR has seen and retrieved all tanks of this company which had been hit by enemy tank and anti-tank guns. Of a total of 19 tanks hit, 17 tanks had been penetrated while only 2 tanks had withstood the force of the enemy high-velocity shells and ricocheted. These ricochets were due to the addeed protection of sand bags and logs used to reinforce the armor plate in front of the tank.'" If you don't like them apples, take it up with T/Sgt. Heyd. Cheers. You can call me "junior." What the Hell is that, anyway?