Sherman's w/ Armour Kit

[Mike D]

BTS,

I see you guys have put in the versions of the Sherman already w/ the armour kits. I did receive some photos from a gentleman named George E. Bush showing a Sherman 76 that is at the Rock Island museum here in the US showing such modifications. The tank served in the 4th armoured division and was knocked out during the Battle of the Bulge. They are rather interesting and I was going to post them here, but alas, the new web site doesn't appear to support this capability like the old one did. So, I'm going to e-mail them to you so you can take a look. There are a couple of very thick (appx 2" or better) plates added on the upper and lower front hull. It is also interesting that there are some somewhat thinner plates shown welded on the right front side of the turret. There seemed to be a similar set on the left side which are now missing. So the armour mod's apparently were not just to the frontal hull armour alone in some cases. The added plates on the front hull have taken 3 or 4 very good licks from what appears to be fairly sizable AT rounds which have dished out some major gauges in the plates. So these mod's do appear to be quite effective. The tank was apparently knocked out by a round that just clipped the upper edge of the left turret, possibly just above where it appears the additional plates that are missing on this side were welded on as evidenced by the two vertical weld lines left on the outside of the turret (note: hole appears to be covered with some sort of wire grating similar to that covering all the hatch openings, etc.).

I also have a question. I seem to recall that in the ASL series they included a feature for certain US tanks that were equiped with some type of gun leveling/stabilizing system intended to help in firing accuracy while the tank was moving if my memory serves me correctly. Were such systems used and how prevalent were they in service? Do you plan on modeling this capability in CM? If you guys already covered this in a thread somewhere, my appologies. I don't get to keep up with everything going on here as often as I would like.

Regards,

Mike D.

[Guest Big Time Software]

Mike,

The photos are appreciated. I'll check my mailbox for them.

The gun system you're referring to is called a gyrostabilizer and yes we are including it. Although the system was effective on the testing grounds, in the field it often was not utilized for a variety of reasons, including poorly-trained crews, or even intentional sabotage. Apparently many company commanders wanted to have a gyrostabilizer-equipped tank as the lead vehicle in the column. Knowing that the "point man" is usually the first to take a hit, many tankers happened to "lose" a few key parts to their gyrostabilizers, thus disqualifying themselves from lead-tank duty. "Gosh Lieutenant, I swear the thing was working yesterday. Maybe a magnet fell out of it or something. Too bad we don't have any replacement parts, huh?"

So Combat Mission simulates the gyrostabilizer, but its benefits (added accuracy when firing on the move) are lower than one might expect just by looking at the equipment itself. American tanks will have an advantage when firing on the move, but only a modest one.

(An exception may be made for the M26 Pershing. Our research indicates that the gyros in these babies were used as they should be, and so we may give that tank a more noticeable advantage for firing on the move).

Charles

[Guest Big Time Software]

(whoops that message somehow got entered twice...)

[This message has been edited by Big Time Software (edited 04-04-99).]