dumbo Posted August 9, 2000 Share Posted August 9, 2000 Hey all, I have just finished reading "Commanding the Red Army's Sherman Tanks : The World War II Memoirs of Hero of the Soviet Union Dmitriy Loza ". First of all its a great read and I reccomend it. Secondly the author makes several observations repeatedly which I have some difficulty swallowing and would like some extra facts from you gents if possible. 1.) The sherman is a better mud tank than the T34. This one floored me but the author keeps on making reference to the Shermans low ground pressure which enabled it to cross muddy areas impassable to German tanks and the T34. This is in direct contradiction to my standard wargaming view that the T34 was THE medium class cross country tank of the war. 2.) Crushing enemy troops beneath treads was a used combat tactic. The author makes repeated reference (not just one occasion) to his commander giving the order to "use treads only" to save ammo by overrunning enemy infantry. He also gives graphic descriptions of the infantry being crushed beneath. Now I have no reason to doubt the author at all and the book is published by a respectable enough university. However what credibility should we give to these claims? Anyone have any other first hand accounts of the Shermans cross country ability vs german tanks and the "squishing" infantry tactics in the war? Thanks in advance. _dumbo Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fionn Posted August 9, 2000 Share Posted August 9, 2000 Squishing definitely occured. Not so sure I'd agree with the ground pressure/flotation statements though. Remember he's a vet who was probably fond of the Sherman and "talked it up" in interviews. By rights the Sherman should come in far behind the Panther and T34 in terms of flotation. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dumbo Posted August 9, 2000 Author Share Posted August 9, 2000 Hmm thanks Fionn, I think he maybe attributing characteristics to the sherman that lucky terrain or good driving were causing. The best stats I could find are as follows Sherman M4A3 30300Kg Ground Pressure 13.7 psi T-34-76 Model 1942 30000 kg Ground Pressure 10.4 psi Seems to me the T34 comes out way ahead here. Still the guy is insistent in the book and certainly knows his stuff, possibly he drove some "bad" T34's before he got his shermans 8) _dumbo Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
:USERNAME: Posted August 9, 2000 Share Posted August 9, 2000 A russian cant tell you the time of day without exagerating or throwing in some folklore. I sped read that book standing in a library and wondered about what he was saying. The sherman was a great road tank. Tracks were mostly rubber and narrow for its weight. I (cant believe I am saying this) agree (:CHOKE with Fionn. The author is right about its narrow/tall propensity to fall over on its side though. Ive seen lots of shermans stuck in ditches. I recently struck up a conversation with a falling down loser drunk moron. He claimed his father was a Polish tanker that fought for the russians after they had attacked poland. I got this brain damaged idiots phone number cause I wanted to interview his father but I lost the number. He said his father was still sharp and had lots of stories. Claimed the russians would only give each tank a head of cabbage each day to eat. If they needed more food they had to get it from the germans. Lewis Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mark IV Posted August 9, 2000 Share Posted August 9, 2000 What a deal- 2 heads of cabbage. Couldn't some of the alleged mud ability of the Sherman over the T-34 be attributed to superior suspension and/or shifting ability? Dunno, just thinking of what else could make a difference besides ground pressure. Russki driver controls weren't noted for user-friendliness. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dan Weaver Posted August 9, 2000 Share Posted August 9, 2000 Valera Potapov's Russian Military Zone, my main source on WW2 Russian armor, cites the T-34-76 as massing 30 900 kg, but that's just a nitpick. I thought the T-34-76 might have had a less powerful engine than the M4A3 but it turns out that they both had a 500 hp engine. One thing that I can think of is that the T-34 had less ground clearance than the M4A3 and therefore might have had a tendency to slog its belly into the mud. Another thing is that the Sherman has a higher center of gravity than the T-34 and might not settle as easily into the mud. A third thing is that the T-34's tracks seem vertically shorter than those of the Sherman, and maybe they were more easily submerged. Dan Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Big Time Software Posted August 9, 2000 Share Posted August 9, 2000 About Shermans being better mud tanks - maybe the guy is thinking of the late-war HVSS Shermans, with the wide tracks? But even with them, the ground pressure rating isn't better than the T-34. At best it's equal, so I'm not sure how he backs up his statements. Charles Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PzKpfw 1 Posted August 9, 2000 Share Posted August 9, 2000 Interesting. The M4A2 76mm Sherman was prefered by Soviet crews over the T-34-85 as it was: 1. More mechanichly reliable. 2. Had a faster turret traverse. 3. Better optics. 4. Ammo stowage protection. 5. The 76mm had superior AT performance then the 85mm. The main negative comments about the M4A2 was its performance in rough/soft terrain, where the T-34-85, was superior. The M4A2 Sherman was critized heavily in the Manchurian Operation Ie, Shermans couldn't keep up with the rate of advance when rough/soft terrain was encountered & the T-34-85 equipped brigades pulled ahead by a good margin. Here Loza contradicts the Soviet internal reports on the M4A2, and the US reports concerning the mobility of the Panther & Tiger1 & Tiger II being better on soft terrain then the Sherman. The Panther had the best all round performance characteristics of all the Mediums deployed in WW2. Regards, John Waters ------------------ People who can smile when things go wrong have found someone else to blame. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
:USERNAME: Posted August 9, 2000 Share Posted August 9, 2000 If I remember right from that russian book, the author says the shermans slid all over the place and they put barbed wire around the tracks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jarmo Posted August 9, 2000 Share Posted August 9, 2000 Mark IV might be on to something. Ground pressure isn't everything. A Toyota Land Cruiser has a lot more ground pressure than my Honda Civic, but I bet it still has better cross country performance. Not that I'd actually believe the Sherman was superior... ------------------ Now, would this brilliant plan involve us climbing out of our trenches and walking slowly towards the enemy sir? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tss Posted August 9, 2000 Share Posted August 9, 2000 Not strictly topical to this thread but I managed to find a 1945 booklet ("Their Name is Legion") that contained English translations of Soviet hero-stories that had been published in newspapers during the war. Nowadays it is very difficult to say how much truth remains in the stories. I got interested in one particular story. According to it Sergeant Major Alexander Nikolaev rammed a Tiger with his burning T-34 and both tanks exploded. The interesting thing in this story was its date. The newspaper story was published in March 5 1943 and the event allegedly happened in the South Ukrainian Front. Did Germans have Tigers there that early? I thought that at the time there were Tigers only with Army Group North. - Tommi Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
virtualfreak Posted August 9, 2000 Share Posted August 9, 2000 Though the Soviet t-34 is considered to be the best tank made during world war 2 the sherman was a supirior tank in many ways. It was cheap and easy to manufacture. The sherman was very reliable and if it broke down could be fixed easily. The sherman was a good all around infantry support weapeon. However I would perfer to be in a t-34 than in a sherman in a tank versus tank battle! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dittohead Posted August 9, 2000 Share Posted August 9, 2000 Not me. The T-34/76 had a two man turret and very poor optics and turrent traverse. Its speed and cross country performance would be good for one purpose, escaping. Run Away. The T-34's were only effective if used in mass or against no AT defenses. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PzKpfw 1 Posted August 9, 2000 Share Posted August 9, 2000 <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by virtualfreak: Though the Soviet t-34 is considered to be the best tank made during world war 2 <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Don't go their do NOT say 'best' tank it sparks the endless uber best tank thread ......... Regards, John Waters Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hakko Ichiu Posted August 9, 2000 Share Posted August 9, 2000 <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by PzKpfw 1: Don't go their do NOT say 'best' tank it sparks the endless uber best tank thread ......... <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> No worries, John. Everyone on this board knows that the laurel goes to the Hotchkiss. ------------------ Ethan ----------- Das also war des Pudels Kern! -- Goethe Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ncounio Posted August 9, 2000 Share Posted August 9, 2000 As the founder of the un-official H39 Hotchkiss support group , I am proud to admit within our ranks Ethan...Please let us all give him a big round of applauses ------------------ Nicolas http://perso.infonie.fr/nicolas.counio/combat_mission1.html "Deux intellectuels assis vont moins loin qu'une brute qui marche" Un Taxi Pour Tobrouk Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dumbo Posted August 9, 2000 Author Share Posted August 9, 2000 Hmm I just moved so I cant check on whether or not he had the HVSS (book is now boxed) but I will this weekend. Username is correct about the barbed wire but that should make no appreciable difference to the performance (I dont think). By the way one interesting side note, the American manufacturers (according to the author) got into the habit of hiding various "goodies" in the tank for the crews to find. This included chocolate but also a nice bottle of Whiskey tucked away in the gun barrel (jammed between the travel packing). The author says a new batch of shermans was greeted with great glee from the russian tank crews as they removed all the travelling packing and enjoyed a nice swig of dram 8) _dumbo Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gregory Deych Posted August 9, 2000 Share Posted August 9, 2000 Amongst the other goodies, the tanks usually included small arms for crews, tankers leather jackets etc. Usually, those were taken off for use by "superior" officers. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
:USERNAME: Posted August 9, 2000 Share Posted August 9, 2000 read also Ralph Zumbro's "The Iron Cavalry" he claims shermans advantage in russia as: extremely low gearing m4a2s wider suspension than other shermans Shermans, compared to sov or german tanks, would have been great in russia just due to the large land mass and room for manuvere. You could drive a sherman for considerable distances that a t34 or panzer would never think of (tracks would wear out). It came into its own as the exploitation tank it was designed to beperhaps. These are my guesses though. Lewis Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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