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M-26 Pershing..Super Pershing ??


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Nah, he was right, the original was blocked for hot-linking, as were about a hundred other copies of it, took me ages to find the same picture in a linkable format.

As I said, I blame WOT/WT/Other Game fanboys, they've made researching AFVs online a thoroughly miserable process.

Edited by Sgt.Squarehead
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4 minutes ago, Sgt.Squarehead said:

Nah, he was right, the original was blocked for hot-linking, as were about a hundred other copies of it, took me ages to find the same picture in a linkable format.

As I said, I blame WOT/WT/Other Game fanboys, they've made researching AFVs online a thoroughly miserable process.

Ah ok. I was starting to wonder if it was some Photoshop pic based on a game screenshot maybe.. but I just kept looking at it and could find no giveaways :)

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  • 4 weeks later...
On ‎1‎/‎12‎/‎2018 at 8:14 PM, c3k said:

Edited to add: the pix do a nice job of showing the applique glacis armor.

I hope we see an up-armored Sherman variant as well.
According to 'Armored Thunderbolt' Patton hated the "sandbags and concrete" versions of up-armoring, so he had his maintenance guys cut armor plates from disabled tanks and weld it to the front of his Shermans.
They were around in a "one or two per company" ratio, or used to lead columns whenever the E2 Assault Shermans were not available.

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Steve was about to put uparmored Shermans into the CMFB basegame but I located hard data on the conversion program. It not only detailed how and how many, but also WHEN. So we were obliged to wait until the timeline got expanded to war's end. They were portioned out as substitute Jumbos in platoons. So roughly one per platoon.

Edited by MikeyD
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So the guys in the field made these modifications because the panther tank was kicking their asses   Or they could try the Tiger Sherman circle jerk in that movie "Fury"...that was very weird indeed...Hollyweird.  Sandbags were a big help as well.. I guess back then it made you feel better if you were a driver or asst driver.

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18 hours ago, MikeyD said:

So roughly one per platoon.

That would be a reasonable estimation IMHO, perhaps more towards the final months of the war (they certainly become increasingly common in photos).

 

22 minutes ago, markus544 said:

So the guys in the field made these modifications because the panther tank was kicking their asses

 To be fair I'd have said it was more about PAK-40s & Panzerfausts than Panthers.

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I haven't seen the whole thing (seen most of it in clips by now though).....Not my cup of tea really, but it put some money in Bovingon's coffers as I understand it, so overall I have to approve. 

It's also brought a lot of people into scale modelling (my other indoor hobby) which is cool, even if it does mean that we get to spend a lot of time explaining to newcomers that they can't build both 'Fury' and an accurate WWII US Sherman in the same model.  ;)

Edited by Sgt.Squarehead
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The stories about uparmored Sherman's sides armor being cut from Panthers may be an 'urban legend', or more precisely an eyeball guesstimate from a Steve Zaloga book 28 years ago. I read (somewhere) that the extra-thick side layer was actually soft steel procured locally.

The US contracted with a French firm to do the uparmor modification work and also contracted with a French steel manufacturer to produce prefab sheets of armored steel. These Sherman mods weren't local depot stuff, they were conducted assembly line-style at Army level, Here's a very late war photo of Shermans with the prefab French armor plate which included welding the gun lock to the pates.

Shermans prefab plate.jpg

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16 hours ago, MikeyD said:

The stories about uparmored Sherman's sides armor being cut from Panthers may be an 'urban legend', or more precisely an eyeball guesstimate from a Steve Zaloga book 28 years ago. I read (somewhere) that the extra-thick side layer was actually soft steel procured locally.

The US contracted with a French firm to do the uparmor modification work and also contracted with a French steel manufacturer to produce prefab sheets of armored steel. These Sherman mods weren't local depot stuff, they were conducted assembly line-style at Army level, Here's a very late war photo of Shermans with the prefab French armor plate which included welding the gun lock to the pates.

Shermans prefab plate.jpg

^^^

Good stuff. (The one Super Pershing did, however, have the Panther chunk stuck in front of the mantlet. I'll try to find a citation. For the most part, welding face-hardened armor is difficult and not likely to be a field modification.)

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That mass produced armour is very interesting indeed, but it's far from the only up-armouring done to the Sherman.....As the picture I posted shows, there was a lot of improvisation.

36 minutes ago, c3k said:

The one Super Pershing did, however, have the Panther chunk stuck in front of the mantlet. I'll try to find a citation. For the most part, welding face-hardened armor is difficult and not likely to be a field modification.

I'll check Hunnicutt & report back.

EDIT: Hunnicutt confirms the mantlet armour was taken from a Panther:

Quote

A piece of armour was flame cut from the 80mm glacis plate of a captured Panther and welded to the front of the gun shield.

Hunnicutt, 'Pershing - A History of The Medium Tank T-20 Series', pp.28.

 

Edited by Sgt.Squarehead
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