shermans

[Wolfcub]

im wondering that well as u know shermans tend to turn into fire balls but [iv only seen this in demo as full copy aint arrivded ]but the shermans to seem to burn up much less any ideas why?

[109 Gustav]

The early sherms are much more likely to burn than the Ws. (ie M4A3W 76) This is because later sherms had Wet storage for the ammo, which reduced the risk of fires.

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The Last Defense- Made any scenarios? Send them here!

Well my skiff's a twenty dollar boat, And I hope to God she stays afloat.

But if somehow my skiff goes down, I'll freeze to death before I drown.

And pray my body will be found, Alaska salmon fishing, boys, Alaska salmon fishing.

[This message has been edited by 109 Gustav (edited 03-31-2001).]

[LimShady]

The short list:

Thin armor (compared to most of everything in the German arsenal).

Dry ammo storage (alleviated somewhat by the introduction of wet storage which are designated by a W in the model name (ex. M4A3(76)W).

Ran on gasoline instead of diesel.

LimShady

[Sabu]

Sorry if this is a dumb question, but did german tanks have wet storage? I cant get over the fact that the US seemed to have such industrial power, but the army continued to churn out inferior sherman tanks. At the rate aircraft advanced, It blows my mind that US tanks didt improve at a very fast rate.

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Don't critisize someone until you have walked a mile in their shoes, that way you will be a mile away, and you have thier shoes.

[LimShady]

Originally posted by Sabu:

At the rate aircraft advanced, It blows my mind that US tanks didt improve at a very fast rate.

It wasn't so much a problem of developing the tank, but getting it in production. For a good read on the topic pick up Death Traps by Belton Cooper. Lt. Cooper was a maitainance officer in the 3rd Armored Division and in one of the chapters, he says that at a pre-D Day demonstration of weaponry, there was a newsreel of the M26 Pershing that was just coming off development. The decision was made to low prioritize the Pershing, which Cooper attributes to the "arrogance of certain high-ranking officers" and keep the Sherman in mass production.

LimShady

[BloodyBucket]

Think of German tanks as power hitters on a baseball team. Not a whole lot of them, but they are spectacular and get all the press.

Now think of Shermans as your utility players. Not great players, but you got a whole bunch. The other team has Sammy Sousa, but the rest of his players aren't great, and most of 'em are injured.

Now, your pitching is your artillery and airpower, and it is a great bullpen. The other team has squat for pitching, because it used up it's bullpen in a big game out east.

Now, this may not answer your question, but it does point out that it is almost baseball season.

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"Roll on"

[This message has been edited by BloodyBucket (edited 03-31-2001).]

[Crank_GS]

BB that is a truly hilarious response.

You get the Truly Hilarious Response of the Week Award!

Wolf, I recommend that you read up a bit on the historical period portrayed by CMBO. You will learn a lot. The "Sherman Issue" is one of the most debated topics there are about that war.

In a nutshell, the US decided that it would keep a very reliable, reasonably nimble, easy (read:cheap) to produce, extremely effective infantry-supporting tank that they already had massive tooling set up for (read: produce a s**tload of the a month) instead of developing a tank (from scratch, mind you) that would have superior armor, hitting power and floatation. Many think this decision was mis-guided, like that of leaving the tank fighting to Tank Destroyers. In the end, of course, the war was won. Who is to say we would have won it sooner with an earlier Pershing? Certainly the Sherman crews would have preferred it that way ( I happen to agree, to a point).

I think the development and deployment of the M-1, M-1A1 and M-1A2 Abrams shows that the US Army took a lesson away from that whole mess. What do you think that was?

If you desire a lot more answer for your buck, and do not have any books close at hand, try a search, and you will see that there will be many threads titled something like "Why the Heck do ALL of my Shermans Explode Into Flames Every Time a Rock Hits Them??!?"

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Capt. Byron Crank, US Army

[CombinedArms]

Originally posted by Sabu:

I cant get over the fact that the US seemed to have such industrial power, but the army continued to churn out inferior sherman tanks. At the rate aircraft advanced, It blows my mind that US tanks didt improve at a very fast rate.

One thing to keep in mind is that tank models take a long time to develop and tank development had to be very rapid in the context of a war that, for the US, lasted only a little more than 3 1/2 years. The early war tanks of most armies, including the German's were light, fast vehicles with 37mm guns--in just a few years, they'd become something very different--upgunned and uparmored to an almost fantastic degree.

The US didn't have the benefit of firsthand battle experience, and they had lagged behind in tank development in the 30's. Still, by late '42, they'd come up with the M4 Sherman, which was a pretty good tank for that moment in time--better than anything the British had, and better than the German PzIII and early model PzIV then common in North Africa, though about to be outclassed by the Tiger and Panther.

The American decision that now seems questionable was to try to win the war with this 1942 design. And even that would have worked out a lot better if they'd adopted a more open-minded, innovative approach to working with improving this design to respond to the changing battlefield. They uparmored the Sherman, producing the very-hard-to-kill Jumbo, but produced very few of them--because they didn't think they were necessary. The developed the 76 mm, a big improvement as a tank-killer over the standard 75, again were slow to produce them in quantities. There were very few Jumbo 76s, which would have been a very effective tank if produced in significant numbers. They flatly refused the superb British 17-pounder gun, which went into the powerfully gunned but lightly armored Brit Firefly. They never tried to combine an uparmored Sherman with the 17 pounder (a new, enlarged turret might have turned the trick). This would have been a very formidable weapon's system for its time. And they didn't push the development of the Pershing with any enthusiasm, even though it was vastly more powerful than the Sherman.

I think the main source of resistence to these innovations was doctrinal. Tanks were supposed to support infantry. Tank destroyers were supposed to kill enemy tanks. The guys making the decisions back home (esp. I think Gen Leslie McNair) didn't seem to get the fact that all tanks needed to be able to perform both roles to be really effective, and they actively resisted any effort to produce tanks that could perform both roles. They also seemed to resist taking ideas or equipment (such as the 17-pounder) from the British.

This is in stark contrast to the US aircraft designers, who were highly innovative and created some great warplanes. The best land-based prop fighter of the war, the P-51 Mustang, was a product of such innovative thinking--an American plane built to British specs and made effective by a British engine (the Rolls-Royce Merlin) that was further enhanced in range of flight by successful efforts to stuff more and more gasoline into the plane. In general, US aircraft design was generally extremely good and tank design was...well, they built a lot of those Shermans and they managed to win with them, but it might have been easier if they'd had tanks as good as their planes.

All in all, I think the main problem was a lack of realistic and innovative thinking by key decision makers.

[Jeff Duquette]

Just an interesting side note on brew-ups. British Operational studies conducted during the war actually reveal the PzKw MkIV was somewhat more prone to brew-up than the Sherman. The study basically brakes down British Operational Group examinations of numerous KO’d Shermans, MkIV’s, MkV’s etc. in Normandy, Jun – Aug 44. The numbers indicate (From: No. 2 ORS Report No. 17)

Average Number of Penetrations Received for Brew-Up of a Tank

Sherman M4___1.9 penetrations

PzKw Mk.IV___1.5 penetrations

PzKw Mk.V____3.2 penetrations

PzKw Mk.VI___3.2 penetrations*

(*Only a small sample of MkVI's in study)

[Sabu]

Thanks for the responces, but I am still wondering if any of the German tanks used wet storage for amo. If not, what was the reason for the better safty of the german tanks, was it just thicker armor, or was the German amo more likely to lite up the enemy.

Sidenote: The Israelies used the sherman well after WWII. I have not been able to find much info on the Super Shermans, but they were a fairly effective tank. Was the army reluctant to modify its shermans? Seems to me that they could have been welding more armor on those suckers, at leas on the front. If allowed, wouldnt tank crews have been attaching every piece of plate steel to thier machines that they could lay hands on?

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Don't critisize someone until you have walked a mile in their shoes, that way you will be a mile away, and you have thier shoes.

[LimShady]

Originally posted by Sabu:

Was the army reluctant to modify its shermans? Seems to me that they could have been welding more armor on those suckers, at leas on the front. If allowed, wouldnt tank crews have been attaching every piece of plate steel to thier machines that they could lay hands on?

Yup they did. Just look at the different models of Shermans to see how heavily modified they were. The M4A3E2 Sherman Jumbo Assault Tank had 100mm of armor and could take a frontal hit from a Panther. Some were provided by the factories, or crews just welded steel on the front of the tanks wherever they could get it. The presence of spare tank tracks, roadwheels, sandbags, etc. shows to what lengths the crewed went for better protection.

LimShady

[von Lucke]

The initiial question seems to have been answered rather well. One thing to bear in mind though is that, in 1941, the USA's army was ranked number 10 in size compared to the rest of worlds combatants --- right after Rumania! In 1945 it was ranked as number 1.

Some people think that the Germans would have been better off picking a single model of tank and sticking with it, just like we did with the Sherman. Less supply and replacement problems. The MkIV seems the likeliest choice --- with something mounting an 88L71 as backup in the TD role.

[Guest Andrew Hedges]

For general purposes, though, the Jumbo was an awful tank. It's effective on the CM battlefield; the real-life problem is getting it to the battlefield in the first place. I don't think that Patton could have conducted the breakout the way he did if he had to wait for a bunch of Jumbos to catch up.

It's also not at all clear that having fewer, but better anti-tank tanks, was the best way to win the war. Certainly this would be the preference of tankers. But having fewer tanks (as would happen if the US tried to make a big production change-over in '44) would mean that there would be fewer independent tank battalions to attach to infantry divisions, and fewer tanks around generally. Considering that most tanks were just used against infantry, not having these tanks would certainly have put a crimp in the war effort, and would also have led to more infantry casualties due to the absence of the tanks. I don't think that tank crew casualties should count for more than infantry casualties

One reason that the Sherman was much more reliable than any other tank -- including the tanks made by countries with much more tank-making experience -- was because the people in charge of production in the US (who, incidentally, were very, very good; Albert Speer would have been, at best, deputy undersecretary for road wheel construction if he had been in the US (not that road wheel construction is not important)) took already existing engines and built the Sherm around the engines. They modified an aircraft engine that had been in production already for several years to serve as a tank engine; they found a way to link two bus engines together for the diesel Sherman, and when aircraft production was needed for aircraft, they managed to link 4 V-8 engines together this neatly avoided all the teething problems that, say, the Panther had when it was first introduced.

Making a better armored tank required the production of a new engine, which was time consuming to design, and was even more time consuming to put into production. And you can't fit as many large tanks on a ship as smaller tanks, which means that even if you produced the same number of tanks in the factories, you could bring fewer to Europe to fight -- so you might as well never have produced the excess to begin with.

Note that none of the above argument applies to upgunning some Sherms from 75 to 76. The 76mm guns had already been in production for some time, would not affect the number of tanks produced, and could have relatively easily have been attached to normal Sherms. This is what should have happened earlier.

The Abrams is a good tank, but it was not produced in the middle of a war; it was produced after 35 years of cold war experience. Also, the Germans weren't selling us 120mm tank guns in 1944.

[jasoncawley@ameritech.net]

Other annoying facts for the usual spiel are -

1 - The primary limitation on military equipment the U.S. could field was not production, it was shipping space to get the stuff to the front. A Sherman took a lot less space than a heavier tank.

2 - The Germans were not operating a fleet of uparmored tanks, contrary to the repeated portrayals on this board and elsewhere. 70% of German late-war AFV production were vehicle types that could not stop a 75mm short AP round. Pz IVs, StuGs, and Marders, together outnumbered Panthers, Tigers, and all heavier types, by more than 2:1. In the majority of the German army - the infantry forces - StuGs and Marders were the only AFVs available. Why did they make them when they knew how to make better? Because they needed the numbers, and no, you can't just switch.

3 - The western Allies produced 4 upgunned tanks or TDs - 76mm Sherman, Firefly, 76mm TD, 17-lb TD, or 90mm TD - for every uparmored German AFV produced. Such upgunned vehicles comprised 40% of their fleets. And most of those German AFVs were facing the Russians.

4 - The U.S. may have refused the 17-lber before Normandy, but after it they requested 10,000 of them. The Brits couldn't meet their own needs and said no.

5 - The U.S. was slow to get 76mm Shermans to the troops at the front, and that was indeed because of pig-headedness by the brass. They were still about 3 times as common as a Panther was on the western front.

6 - The U.S. faced heavy tanks (Panther and above) in quantity for 3 out of 11 months of combat on the western front - in Normandy, and in the Bulge. The rest of the time, German armor in action was quite scarce. On both occasions, the better German tanks certainly helped them, but did not change the operational course of the battles, which were decided by numbers and attrition.

7 - The causalties in U.S. armor units in WW II ran 1/3rd the rate of infantry units, and the same rate as other arms like TDs, cavalry, and combat engineers. Of combat forces, only artillery and AAA had lower loss rates. The primary reason is that armor was proof against the #1 cause of casualties, artillery shrapnel.

Was it dumb of the U.S. not to upgun to 76mm sooner? Certainly. Was wet storage of ammunition an improvement? Certainly. Did U.S. tankers deserve better than ~60% of the fleet 75mm Shermans? Yes. Was the Sherman "a failure"? Hardly. Were the TDs a failure? Hardly. Were the Germans all in Panthers facing 75mm Shermans? Wrong genre - that is fantasy roleplaying.

[Sabu]

I am still wondering if any of the German tanks used wet storage for amo. If not, what was the reason for the better safty of the german tanks, was it just thicker armor, or was the German amo more likely to lite up the enemy.

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Don't critisize someone until you have walked a mile in their shoes, that way you will be a mile away, and you have thier shoes.

[109 Gustav]

Originally posted by jasoncawley@ameritech.net:

4 - The U.S. may have refused the 17-lber before Normandy, but after it they requested 10,000 of them. The Brits couldn't meet their own needs and said no.

Was there a reason not to build the 17lbr under license? That's what we did with the Merlin engine for the P-51. A gun can't be too much more complicated to build then an engine, right?

Of course, if airplanes were tanks, we would have fought the entire war with the P-40, because it was reliable, rugged, and cheap. A quarter of them would have been upgunned with 20mm cannon to shoot down the handful of German airplanes they met, while the rest would have been equipped with .30 cal MGs, because they were so good for strafing.

------------------

The Last Defense- Made any scenarios? Send them here!

Well my skiff's a twenty dollar boat, And I hope to God she stays afloat.

But if somehow my skiff goes down, I'll freeze to death before I drown.

And pray my body will be found, Alaska salmon fishing, boys, Alaska salmon fishing.

[This message has been edited by 109 Gustav (edited 03-31-2001).]

[Jeff Duquette]

Jason Said: 4 - The U.S. may have refused the 17-lber before Normandy, but after it they requested 10,000 of them. The Brits couldn't meet their own needs and said no.

Jason, where did you come across your point #4? Can you point me to a reference on US ARMY post-Normandy request for the 17-pdr?

The 17-pdr was considered for installation in theater by utilizing UK production of the gun, and US tanks. Either Eisenhower or Bradley or both originally made this request in response to in theater complaints as to the inadequacy of the 75mm, sometime in July-August 44, when it became apparent that the 76mm was going to be delayed in delivery in any case (given the realities of the production lags of the 76mm, it appears likely that US-produced 17-pdrs would have been delivered in July...of 1946).

Unlike the British 6-pdr – US 57mm, I have yet to find any evidence that the 17-pdr was seriously considered for production in the US as the 76mm was tested\developed quickly and could really have been put into production by 1943. In addition, ammunition was for the 76mm could apparently be easily produced. Converting to production of the 17-pdr probably would have resulted in further delays and disruptions in production.

Sabu Said: If not, what was the reason for the better safty of the german tanks, was it just thicker armor, or was the German amo more likely to lite up the enemy.

As I have already indicated the MkIV did not seemingly perform better than the Sherman with respect to Brew-ups. And as Jason has already indicated, contrary to popular belief by flash-bang pseudo-wargamers, the MkIV and the various STUG models represented the lions share of German MBT strength even into 44-45.

Regarding wet-stowage, I haven’t seen any references suggesting German employment of wet stowage (but I may be wrong here).

With respect to ammunition types being a factor…this is probably partly a factor. The BRITISH ARMY did not employ APCBC. The penetrator in APCBC contains a small high explosive charge which would therotically detonate in the interior of a tank following perforation. The detonation would increase the probability of secondary explosions from stowed ammunition exploding within the interior of the targeted tank. The British used only solid shot against armoured targets. I have even seen references suggesting that the Brits removed explosive filler from APCBC supplied to them by the yanks. I think this British policy of solid shot only had something to do with bad experiences with APCBC in North Africa. In contrast the effectiveness and reliability of German HE filled shells was apparently much admired by both the Brits and Americans.

The following is from the rear-end, but with respect to US ARMY employment of APCBC I am guessing that a large percentage of the penetrator must survive perforation through the targeted tank in order for the round to perform its secondary explosion within the targeted tanks interior. So German Armour thickness on Panthers and Tigers may very well have played a part here in cases where penetrating shots may have only been partial penetrations. Perhaps poorly designed American detonators in APCBC may have been partly at fault here as well?

Another opinion derived from my rear-end…American-British tanks moving into the attack would typically carry larger compliments of ammunition than what could be stored in compartmentalized ready racks. So you would typically have increased number of rounds which become potential initiators of Brew-Ups. In addition ammunition in compartmentalized ready-racks have a little bit more protection from low velocity hot splinters.

[This message has been edited by Jeff Duquette (edited 03-31-2001).]

[Tanaka]

Originally posted by von Lucke:

...US army...In 1945 it was ranked as number 1.

Are you sure of that ?

I don't know where I read it, but was under the impression that in 45 the Soviet Army was the number one in size... And because of that, in order to calm down Stalin (He might wanted to stop only in a beach of Portugal) 2 Atom bombs were drooped in Japan.

[This message has been edited by Tanaka (edited 03-31-2001).]

[Guy w/gun]

Well Sabu, I would assume that they did have a wet storage, although Im not sure. One thing that mad German tanks more resistant to brew-ups was thier diesel engines as opposed to gasoline ones.

[gunnergoz]

Originally posted by Tanaka:

Are you sure of that ?

I don't know where I read it, but was under the impression that in 45 the Soviet Army was the number one in size... And because of that, in order to calm down Stalin (He might wanted to stop only in a beach of Portugal) 2 Atom bombs were drooped in Japan.

[This message has been edited by Tanaka (edited 03-31-2001).]

Oh, Boy, here we go with the Those Nasty Yanks Nuked Japan For No Good Reason thread...

Think go I'll have dinner and come back later see what comes of this hot potato

[Forever Babra]

Originally posted by Sabu:

Sidenote: The Israelies used the sherman well after WWII. I have not been able to find much info on the Super Shermans, but they were a fairly effective tank.

The I-Sherman, or "Super-Sherman" was effective offensively, but was not well-received by its crews. Mainly it was due to advances in gun technology, which allowed that monster gun to be crammed in. However, the recoil from its French 105mm was so great, the tank had to be put in neutral to absorb the shock. But when all is said and done, it was still a Sherman -- an eggshell armed with a hammer.

Certain South American countries are still using it. Brazil has even mounted 90mm guns on some of its M3 Stuarts, which shows just how far gun tech has come in fifty years.

[This message has been edited by Forever Babra (edited 03-31-2001).]

[jasoncawley@ameritech.net]

I was indeed referring to Eisenhower's request, which was for British built guns. You are right that it was too late to make 17s in the U.S.; that one had already been "blown". Eisenhower took the reports of the inferiority of the Sherman very seriously.

He asked for detailed reports from the tankers themselves, well down the org chart. He heard back that the main complaint was the gun, that the men could get first hits but when those didn't kill a German tank, men and tanks were lost because of it. The tankers said they needed more souped-up ammunition and better guns. He heard that the British 17 did the trick and asked for a boatload of them, but the Brits needed all they could make; they were still in their Firefly upgunning program themselves.

So they made do with the U.S. 76mm as an upgrade gun, and converted more TDs to 90mm. Incidentally, the allocation of the 76mm was bolixed somewhat too, with units in action not getting enough upgrades, while late arriving armor divisions, the 8-14th AD, the 16th, and the 20th, got full load-outs of them (though lost vehicles were often replaced with 75mm).

Saving shipping space is the likely reason for that one. It would obviously have been better to spread the available 76mm guns to all armor units, with those already in action the first priority. But that probably meant a boatload of guns, and a later boat with tanks on it with 75mm when the higher numbered ADs shipped, and they figured, save a boat-trip and put the 76s on the tanks to be sent next. Which didn't help the 2nd-6th AD tankers facing Panthers and Tigers in the Ardennes, with only 1-2 76mm per platoon. (Plus TDs, to be sure).

[jasoncawley@ameritech.net]

To Guy w/gun -

Nope, the brew ups didn't have anything to do with gas vs. diesel, it was the ammo going off, not the fuel. And I have never heard about any wet ammo storage on a German tank.

Part of the problem was that the early Shermans, in addition to "dry", placed some of the ammo at the sides of the turret, instead of the rear and floor. That made side penetrations more likely to cause a brew up. A second cause was probably the high velocity of the German shells, compared to the Sherman's armor. It is a lot easier to cause the ammo to go off, if the round is going to go clean through the back of the turret as well as through the front.

Incidentally, one fellow speculated that maybe the issue was APHE stuff. I hardly think so. The U.S. short 75mm shells would take out Pz IVs and StuGs, but against 110mm at 60 degrees, it is not even close. It was not a matter of shell deficiencies. A gun that weak was just never going to punch through armor that strong.

The front protection on a Panther is better than that on the other common German types, by more than a factor of 2. Better caps and such do-dads might help a 76mm AP against a Tiger I, but 75s weren't going to do anything from the front, and even 76mm tungsten rounds can't reliably get through the Panther front hull (unless they get some down-angle from terrain, or something).

[gunnergoz]

Originally posted by jasoncawley@ameritech.net:

To Guy w/gun -

Nope, the brew ups didn't have anything to do with gas vs. diesel, it was the ammo going off, not the fuel. And I have never heard about any wet ammo storage on a German tank.

.

I have to disagree with you on this one, Jason. My understanding is that the Shermans brewed easily because of the combustibility of the gasoline fuel, the amount of fuel/fumes always present in the bilges, and due to the relative combustibility of the hydraulic fluid, especially in the turret drive.

Given the fact that a fuel-fed fire was marginally slower to consume everything than an ammo fire, the crew had at least a fighting chance to evacuate the tank if they had a fuel-system based fire. Once the ammo blew, however, almost no one got out alive. That's why the Army focused upon wet stowage, so as to increase the time the crew had to evacuate. The Army was committed to their logistic decision to stick with gasoline as a tank fuel, and so could not easily address the basic flammability issues. But they did attempt to give the tankers a chance to get out before the ammo blew.

[von Lucke]

Originally posted by Tanaka:

...I don't know where I read it, but was under the impression that in 45 the Soviet Army was the number one in size...

You're most likely correct about the Red Army being bigger. I think the US overall armed forces were more numerous though.