would the t-23 have been any better than the sherman?

[roqf77]

basicly thats it. what were the pro's n cons of the t-23 over the sherman. any info is welcome, but mainly id like to know would of it been a good or a bad thing.

[JasonC]

I don't see the point, no I don't think it would have been an improvement. It didn't have the 90mm gun yet. It didn't have extra armor yet. It has an experimental drive that had maintenance problems, whereas the Shermans were rocks mechanically speaking.

If you are going to switch to a different chassis, you have to get something serious in return. A better gun - the 90mm is adequate - or better armor, as the eventual Pershing had. The T23 had neither, the T25 was the first that could take a 90mm. The Pershing as eventually delivered was underpowered (in the engine sense) in return for those improvements. That was corrected in the Patton series with a much more powerful engine.

On the light tank side, the M24 was much better than the obsolete Stuart, but undergunned. Put a serious 76mm in a light tank that size, though, and you get a very useful vehicle. The Hellcat was a great TD, if supplied with enough APCR, though thin vs arty and light stuff like 20mm. All the strengths of both were combined in the Walker Bulldog, but not until after Korea.

The practical solutions they could have actually done were (1) accept the Brit 17 pdr early (they didn't because they didn't understand shatter-gap behavior and thought the US 76 would be enough), (2) field enough 76mm APCR ammo to make all the US 76s cat killers (3) field uniform "Easy Eights" a year earlier, in time for Normandy, (4) field more Jacksons, (5) field more Sherman 105s with abdundant HEAT (6) factory-make about 10 times as many "Jumbos" as they actually fielded.

There was nothing wrong with the Sherman as a chassis. It won wars for Israel when upgunned. Sure Pattons are better, particularly better protected, but German guns were so good already and guns continued to improve so far, uparmoring was a losing race without serious technological improvements. Which didn't really arrive until the British Challenger, in the 70s.

Imagine the European part of the war fought in Easy Eights with APCR, no short 75 tanks left in the fleet at all. With modest numbers of 76mm Jumbos as heavy tanks, 105mm Shermans as assault guns, and 90mm Jacksons as TDs. Plus fast Hellcats with APCR, say in the cavalry formations. All technologically do-able with what they had, well within production abilities. They could also have fielded 76mm ATGs organic, and developed and fielded 3.5 inch bazookas. The overall AT ability upgrade would have been huge. More than enough.

[John D Salt]

Originally posted by JasonC:

I don't see the point, no I don't think it would have been an improvement. It didn't have the 90mm gun yet. It didn't have extra armor yet. It has an experimental drive that had maintenance problems, whereas the Shermans were rocks mechanically speaking.

The 76mm gun of the T23 was worth having, of course -- and it was the 76mm turret intended for the T23 that was grafted on to the Sherman chassis, initially as the M4E6 in mid-1943 and later on all M4(76)s. Which shows that keeping a common turret-ring diameter is a good idea.

Originally posted by JasonC:

The practical solutions they could have actually done were (1) accept the Brit 17 pdr early (they didn't because they didn't understand shatter-gap behavior and thought the US 76 would be enough), (2) field enough 76mm APCR ammo to make all the US 76s cat killers (3) field uniform "Easy Eights" a year earlier, in time for Normandy, (4) field more Jacksons, (5) field more Sherman 105s with abdundant HEAT (6) factory-make about 10 times as many "Jumbos" as they actually fielded.

...or, intriguingly, as mentioned in Hunnicutt's "Sherman",

(7) Graft the Pershing's 90mm turret on to a Sherman chassis.

Which again shows that keeping a common turret-ring diameter is a good idea.

All the best,

John.

[roqf77]

was faster though. at 35 mph too. all good interesting stuff any more?