Is the Sherman a tank?

[Polar]

Originally posted by Slapdragon:

The French have a 105 armed AC that they have used for projection forces for a while. In combat, it needs to be teamed with an AC armed with an autocannon, but its main armament is good against an MBT.

Why do the French need tanks I wonder?

The (to quote Grounds Keeper Willy) buncha Cheeze-eatin'-surrender-monkeys.

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"I had no shoes and I cried, then I met a man who had no socks." - Fred Mertz

[Jeff Heidman]

Originally posted by Big Time Software:

Jeff Heidman wrote:

I think *most* people agree. The US industry is well known for its "can do" attitude, when it is instructed to "do"[/i

Precisely my point. We didn't because some people (McNair) did not wish to, and that is the only *real* reason.

Yeah, in the end we won. But at a cost greater than necessary.

The funny thing is that the Army had more than one example of this. Their refusal to let go of the BAR is another. Frankly I am amazed that the Garand ever got to the troops.

I can see why the Army Air Force disassociated itself with the Army so quickly after the war. Can you imagine if these guys would have been in charge of Air Force weapons procurement? "No, cancel design of the P-51, it is the job of B-17s to shoot down enemy fighters, give them some more guns..."

Jeff Heidman

[Stephen Smith]

I have a question on the timing of the Sherman's use being discussed. I don't know, so I'm not necessarily disagreeing (I am just asking) but is it actually the case that the Sherman was fielded in 1941? I can believe that it was DESIGNED in 1941, but my own limited knowledge of U.S. tank use was that there may have been some lendlease tanks provided to Britain before we were involved (December, 1941), but that those tanks were intially M5 Stuarts (or Honeys) and M3 Grants. Because those two tanks weren't up to snuff, the M4 Sherman came later.

Furthermore, were there really M4's in the Louisiana maneuvers? Again, I thought those maneuvers occurred really before the U.S. buildup began, so that the maneuvers would have had more trucks and light tanks or armored cars than Shermans.

Thus, I would have thought that 1940/41 may have had limited American lendlease equipment in Africa, but primarily M5, M3. After Pearl Harbor, it would have taken quite a while to gear up, so that substantial Shermans wouldn't have arrived in either British or American inventories until summer, 1942.

Am I wrong?

steve

[Slapdragon]

Originally posted by Stephen Smith:

I have a question on the timing of the Sherman's use being discussed. I don't know, so I'm not necessarily disagreeing (I am just asking) but is it actually the case that the Sherman was fielded in 1941? I can believe that it was DESIGNED in 1941, but my own limited knowledge of U.S. tank use was that there may have been some lendlease tanks provided to Britain before we were involved (December, 1941), but that those tanks were intially M5 Stuarts (or Honeys) and M3 Grants. Because those two tanks weren't up to snuff, the M4 Sherman came later.

Furthermore, were there really M4's in the Louisiana maneuvers? Again, I thought those maneuvers occurred really before the U.S. buildup began, so that the maneuvers would have had more trucks and light tanks or armored cars than Shermans.

Thus, I would have thought that 1940/41 may have had limited American lendlease equipment in Africa, but primarily M5, M3. After Pearl Harbor, it would have taken quite a while to gear up, so that substantial Shermans wouldn't have arrived in either British or American inventories until summer, 1942.

Am I wrong?

steve

There were no M4s in the Lousiana manuevers, no one said there were. The concepts of strategy which led to the M4 were developed from the 1940 Lousiana manuevers, put into practice in 1941, and the army was reorganized in 1942. The Lousiana manuevers saw the M2A4 and the M2 Medium in use -- the M2 Medium's morphing quickly into the M3 Grant / Lee which led to the M4 Sherman of 1942 onward.

[Lacky]

CavScout, glad to hear the your outfit is equipped with the older Abram's. The M60A3 is still lingering around in few national guard armories. A few years back someone broke into an armory in California and took an M-60A3 on a death ride

Slapdragon, good points! I'm a little mystified why the barrels off the older tanks cannot be re-used or cannibalized. It is the same barrel, correct? The re-boring/milling of barrels is done extensively in the Navy. Nevertheless, it's good to see the US army adopting the commonality doctrine. The WW2 Soviet's showed how important it was to keep a "common" weapon in their arsenal; this being the 7.62cm round. The US contractors, Army supply chain, and ammo requirements are all "in the loop" when speaking about the 105mm. Too much diversity generally leads to supply problems. (i.e. Germany WW2). The Rifled 105mm was outdated by the development of the Soviet T-80, which didn't see mass production nor exportation to foreign governments. I confess not knowing the details of the T-80 and whether it lives up to expectations of lethalness, armor protection, and maneuverability.

BTW, this is my last post about the LAV. Unfortunately it's quasi-off topic for this thread.

[This message has been edited by Lacky (edited 01-24-2001).]

[jshandorf]

Originally posted by Stephen Smith:

I have a question on the timing of the Sherman's use being discussed. I don't know, so I'm not necessarily disagreeing (I am just asking) but is it actually the case that the Sherman was fielded in 1941? I can believe that it was DESIGNED in 1941, but my own limited knowledge of U.S. tank use was that there may have been some lendlease tanks provided to Britain before we were involved (December, 1941), but that those tanks were intially M5 Stuarts (or Honeys) and M3 Grants. Because those two tanks weren't up to snuff, the M4 Sherman came later.

Furthermore, were there really M4's in the Louisiana maneuvers? Again, I thought those maneuvers occurred really before the U.S. buildup began, so that the maneuvers would have had more trucks and light tanks or armored cars than Shermans.

Thus, I would have thought that 1940/41 may have had limited American lendlease equipment in Africa, but primarily M5, M3. After Pearl Harbor, it would have taken quite a while to gear up, so that substantial Shermans wouldn't have arrived in either British or American inventories until summer, 1942.

Am I wrong?

steve

My fault on that one. The First Shermans in combat were the M4A1 in roughly Feb/Mar in North Africa.

The MkIV F2 was deployed in N. Africa a couple months later.

I find it hard to believe that it is just "coincidence" that the main armament and armor of a M4 & M4A1 matches up pretty good against the MkIV that was in action during it's development.

The designers just had to be thinking "They might go up against this tank so we should do this.. etc etc etc". Unfortunately the Germans moved past that design shortly after the Sherman hit the ground.

Jeff

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First of all, David, you stupid sot, if names were meant to be descriptive, everyone would have the, culturally appropriate, name of, "Ugly little purple person that cries and wets itself." -Meeks.

[Slapdragon]

Originally posted by jshandorf:

My fault on that one. The First Shermans in combat were the M4A1 in roughly Feb/Mar in North Africa.

The MkIV F2 was deployed in N. Africa a couple months later.

I find it hard to believe that it is just "coincidence" that the main armament and armor of a M4 & M4A1 matches up pretty good against the MkIV that was in action during it's development.

The designers just had to be thinking "They might go up against this tank so we should do this.. etc etc etc". Unfortunately the Germans moved past that design shortly after the Sherman hit the ground.

Jeff

Actually it is coincidence. The 75 of the M3/M4 was based on the French 75 of World War One, mostly because there was just nothing else to grab quickly (the 76mm is based on the 3 inch gun).

On the 105 issue off topic. The 105 L7 gun weighs something like 7 times what the light 105 of the LAV does, which is why it is good for a thousand or so shots before reboring. You would need a full size AFV to take the L7

[jasoncawley@ameritech.net]

What all of the learned discussion on this thread is missing, is who won which parts of the war.

Slapdragon said "Patton believed that strength should fight weakness. TDs fight tanks, tanks exploit and avoid fighting tanks. Exploitation is the art of striking at weakness, not attacking strength. This was taken directly from German doctrine"

That is entirely correct. By the way, it was not just TDs but towed anti-tank guns as well that were expected to play this role. This was a technique the Germans raised into an art form by as early as 1941, called the "PaK front" - a concentration of dedicated AT assets, towed or self-propelled, in position and not moving. They then used their main battle tanks as bait to lure enemy tanks into ambushes set by their PaK front. They used this technique to defeat more heavily armored Allied tanks, British Matildas and Russian T-34s for example.

Now, most people discussing these things on this thread understand all of that. Most understand that the Sherman was designed with the doctrinal role of the Pz III in mind. Some tend to overlook that the German tanks were noticably lighter in armor - and against the Russians in main armament too - for the first half of the war.

What everyone is missing is how true that doctrine was. The Germans conquered Europe in Pz IIIs. They lost it again in Panthers. The U.S. beat the Germans in Shermans. The Russians beat them in T-34s, which the Panther was specifically designed to outclass in tank-to-tank fighting. The idea that heavier tanks designed to defeat enemy tanks would work better, was not borne out by the strategic results.

And it is not true that Germany was "still on the offensive" when it designed and fielded the Panther. The design process began when they were still on the offensive, to be sure. But they were already on the defensive by the time it was fielded. They had one large-scale attack with them, Kursk, when first fielded (and suffering teething problems). In case anybody forgot, they lost that battle decisively, against a Russian version of a PaK front backed up by a reserve of T-34s. So badly, in fact, that the Russian offensive immediately following almost destroyed Army Group South, went all the way to Kiev and beyond, etc. Also in case anybody didn't notice, that Russian offensive used T-34s against the flanks of the German attack, held by infantry formations, aka hitting weakness not strength as per the original, not the revised, German doctrine.

Jeff is right that when the Sherman was designed, it was a first-line tank in every respect. It equalled or exceeded the German stable at the time. This was particularly evident in North Africa, where a shipment of Shermans re-equipped British units in the 8th Army before El Alamein. Which again, the Germans lost, in case anybody forgot. The Germans had a modest number of Pz IV Fs at El Alamein, but the bulk of DAK armor was still Pz IIIs, while the Italians provided 1/4 to 1/3 of the Axis AFVs, all of them obsolete against the Sherman.

Jeff is also right that during the war, the Germans shifted their doctrine to emphasize tank dueling. This was indeed a result of their experiences in Russia, and their shock from the T-34 in particular. The first reaction to the T-34 was upgunned Pz IIIs with longer 50mm guns, and since a larger gun would not fit the turret, revising the CS role of the Pz IV to that previously performed by the Pz III, and upgunning it to match the T-34s main armament. The longer-range measure was designing the Panther.

Neither the Americans nor the British encountered the Panther before D-Day, or in trivial numbers. There were some run-ins with Tigers earlier, notably in Italy. The Germans developed heavier tank-dueling tanks to meet one threat already experienced, the T-34. The Americans upgunned their Shermans to 76mm to meet the Panther. The Russians upgunned the T-34/C to the T-34/85 for the same reason.

But tank dueling abilities were never decisive throughout the entire war. You cannot name a campaign in which the winning side, won because it had superior tank-dueling abilities for its fielded main battle tanks, with the trivial exception of defeats of unaided minor powers like Poland or Yugoslavia. Maybe one or two short periods of changeover of types and initiative, are the only expection.

1. France, 1940, the Germans had Pz IIIs, while the French tanks were poorly designed but more heavily armed and armored, and the British had Maltidas. The Germans won.

2. Africa, 1940, the Italians had M13/40s against old British "Cruiser" tanks that made the Crusader look modern by comparison, with only a few Crusaders that matched the M13/40 in gun and armor terms. The Brits beat them.

3. Russia, 1941, the Germans still had Pz IIIs while the Russians had T-34s. The Germans romped.

4. Africa, 1941, the Germans arrived with Pz IIIs, while the British improved to modern Crusaders, Grants, and Maltidas. The Germans romped.

5. Russia, 1942, the Germans still had Pz IIIs now with long 50mm, and some upgunned Pz IVs. The Russians had T-34s. Down through the winter the Germans romped, changing over their force to Pz IVs with long 75s in the meantime.

6. North Africa and Sicily, 1942-3, the U.S. and Brits fielded Shermans, the Germans PZ IVs. The Allies won handily.

7. Russian, 1943, Kursk and its aftermath, the Russians fielded T-34s and the Germans fielded the Panther for the first time, along with their greatest concentration of heavy tanks and up-armored TDs to date. The Russians won handily.

8. France 1944, the U.S. and Brits fielded mostly Shermans and the Germans fielded mixed Panthers and Pz IVs. The Allies won handily.

9. Russia 1944, the Russians started fielding heavier tanks in numbers (the KVs had been scarce), which the Germans fought with Panthers and an increasing portion of upgunned TDs (like late Jadgpanzer IVs). The Russians romped.

10. Germany 1945, the Germans are wiped equally by half-up-gunned Shermans and but fleets of T-34/85s with heavier tanks added - vastly overdetermined.

In other words, the guy with the smaller, lighter armed main battle tanks usually won rather than lost. Does this mean that smaller, more lightly armed main battle tanks are preferable? No, certainly not, when other factors are equal or nearly so. But they often are not. But it does mean that heavier main battle tanks were not in any way a decisive issue in the war.

There is probably a sense in which heavier tank-dueling tanks are a defender's expedient. If the attacker is using correct doctrine, as invented by the Germans and understood and explained by Patton in the quote above, then the attacker hits weakness not strength. But the defender tries to match his strength to the attacker's strength to prevent this from working, and that necessarily means a greater emphasis on tank-dueling ability. Attackers compensate by upgunning, making minor changes to existing and proven vehicles (Pz III, Pz IV, T-34, Sherman), with fine operational records and reliability, etc. Uparmoring is a rarer thing and usually found on the side of the defender, or the side about to be the defender.

It remains the case that proper use of combined arms, and proper attacking doctrine of hitting weakness rather than strength, and mechanically reliable, simpler, and relatively lighter tanks made all of the difference in the victories, and better front armor plates made practically none.

I agree with Jeff that the Sherman was designed to do everything a tank is supposed to do. But he is wrong that it failed. It did not fail. It worked, for exactly the reasons Patton stated. He was being pompous and pig-headed in opposing upgunning it, and upgunning it was the right response to the Panther. But the U.S. would have won even without it being upgunned, and Patton knew that, and that is what his attitude reflected. He knew that employing them correctly, against weakness and in combined arms teams, was a much more important and decisive matter, than the technical capabilites of the main gun. (He was still wrong, simply because there was no real trade-off involved. Having both correct doctrine and the better gun was obviously better, and was an available choice).

Technology simply was not determining, tank-dueling was not the primary purpose of main battle tanks, operational reliability, speed, manueverability, and numbers were in fact more important than modern tactical armor grognards and CM players think. The design decisions involved in the Pz III, T-34, and Sherman were not mistakes, and none of them was an operational failure, although the Pz III was too small to take a late-war main-gun so the Pz IV substituted. The Germans were not dumb to keep making Pz IVs until the end of the war, either.

Because exactly as Jeff says, each of these types could do the work of a tank, and do it successfully enough in practice. Including the Sherman and the Pz IV. "But their main armaments can penetrate their front armor". Yes. The primary purpose of the armor on a main battle tank is not to defeat AT rounds from other tanks, but to defeat artillery fire and lighter AT weapons, thus restricting the "danger" set to a modest number of dedicated enemy AT weapons (or to ones with very limited range, in the case of the common infantry AT weapons).

CM players get an exaggerated sense of the importance of front armor because they are fighting very small battles between a handful of tanks, and an underrated sense of the importance of reliability because these occur over very short periods of time.

It is much easier to keep the front armor pointed at 1 enemy tank than at 50 of them. Even with 2, or 5, it is getting difficult, and CM can show how teams tackle heavier tanks because of it. But 50 is another matter.

Total weight, horsepower to weight, and reliability don't matter very much or very often with a handful of tanks over half an hour. But run 50 tanks across uneven terrain off-road for 24-48 hours, in less than perfect weather, and only fight with the portion you have running at the end of it, and bog issues will weigh much more heavily on your mind.

One man's opinion...

[Hiram Sedai]

Perhaps you big-brained people need some help from us intellectually impaired:

A Sherman is a tank.

There, you can all go home happy now.

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Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction. - Blaise Pascal

[CavScout]

Originally posted by Lacky:

CavScout, glad to hear the your outfit is equipped with the older Abram's. The M60A3 is still lingering around in few national guard armories. A few years back someone broke into an armory in California and took an M-60A3 on a death ride

Ayep, from our armoury no less! We have traded in those M60s for M1s though since then. Not to mention, the tanks are kept at Ft. Irwin now.

[Guest Big Time Software]

Jason,

While I agree with much of what you said, you didn't touch on one important issue -> numbers.

The Germans were at a numerical disadvantage from Poland on. The won their early battles against larger numbers partly because of superior tank designs (bigger guns and thicker armor are only part of a successful design) but more importantly because of better doctrine. When they moved East they fought large numbers of AFVs again. But like in France, the majority were outclassed by German vehicles and the few that weren't were dealt with using superior doctrine. This was then repeated in North Africa against vastly superior numbers of AFVs. So by the end of 1942 the Germans could safely say they kicked some serious ass.

Then things changed...

The Soviets started fielding larger numbers of AFVs that were on a par, and in some cases superior, to the ones the Germans used. More importantly, the Soviets started to use German docrtrine. They also became more battle tested, which is another advantage the Germans had in France and Barbarossa. Now the Germans saw their three greatest strengths (four if you include operational surprise) checked and in some cases countered.

To regain their standing vs. the Soviets, the Germans decided to push their technology advantage into the clear lead again. Since it was much harder to come up with a new, revolutionary doctrine like they used in 1939-1942, operational surprise was gone, and you can't wave a magic wand to make your troops more experienced, this made sense. It was the only viable option. And it sorta worked. The problem was that the Soviets kept improving, both technically and operationally. And they did so in ever growing numbers.

At the same time the number of operational, 1st rate AFVs on the German side was declining and being spread thinner and thinner as the war wore on. German industry, partly because of some moronic production decisions, could not keep up with the pace of losses. Why, for example, was German still producing MkIVs for almost a year after they decided to cancel it? Why wasn't the production switched over to the obviously superior Panther? This is a discussion in and of itself, so for now let us just keep in mind that this did happen.

Enter the Western Allies into France. Superior numbers and ever improving doctrine. And like the Soviets of 1943 and 1944, with an ever increasing cadre of experienced units. And their industrial capacity was cranked up to "11" Not only that, but they bested the Germans in the air and with far superior artillery. German strengths now lay almost solely on their technological edge. All other advantages were on the decline or were gone altogether.

So what is the lesson to be learned here? The Allies managed to come close to meeting, or in fact beating, the Germans at a very fundamental level in pretty much every way that matters on the battlefield. But the one place they had a tough time besting the Germans was technology, AFVs in particular. But this was overcome by superior numbers of at least adequate vehicle designs. The Germans just couldn't match that, for a variety of reasons (Hitler being one of them). And that is why they lost in spite of generally superior AFVs and other "wonder weapons".

Steve

[jshandorf]

Originally posted by jasoncawley@ameritech.net:

Jeff is right that when the Sherman was designed, it was a first-line tank in every respect. It equalled or exceeded the German stable at the time. This was particularly evident in North Africa, where a shipment of Shermans re-equipped British units in the 8th Army before El Alamein. Which again, the Germans lost, in case anybody forgot. The Germans had a modest number of Pz IV Fs at El Alamein, but the bulk of DAK armor was still Pz IIIs, while the Italians provided 1/4 to 1/3 of the Axis AFVs, all of them obsolete against the Sherman.

That was all I was trying to say. Regardless of doctrine the Sherman, when first designed and built, was suppose to be an all around main line battle tank. Thus you can compare it to any further design for it's time. I.E. Panther. That was all my point was.

Though I enjoyed the interesting discussion on doctrine.

Jeff

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First of all, David, you stupid sot, if names were meant to be descriptive, everyone would have the, culturally appropriate, name of, "Ugly little purple person that cries and wets itself." -Meeks.

[Jarmo]

Much of the exellent postings can be butchered to suggest that:

Tactically superb tank is not necessarily superb also strategically.

To test this, go create a huge and muddy rural map. What kind of tanks do you want now?

[Spook]

Take note that the Israelis seemed to think that the M4 Sherman was viable enough as a "tank" to still be fielded in the '73 war, mounting a French long 105mm gun. And these M4's, while certainly obsolete, killed their share of Syrian tanks in the Golan battles.

A further aside, I also recall, was that the Israeli M4-105 had to be shifted in neutral before firing so that the tank could absorb the recoil better.

[Jasper]

There's a document called 'Tank versus Tank' that readers of this thread may find interesting. While you're at it you might take a gander at the German article called "The American Sherman Tank" to see what their official war-time opinion of it was.

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Check out http://www.geocities.com/funfacts2001/ for military documents written during WWII

[Vanir]

Jason, you are very correct on how tactical wargames overstate the usefulness of heavy tanks because of their limited scope. That is why I prefer to play CM with random weather. CM doesn't model mechanical reliability, but it does model bogging. It makes you pause to consider before buying that King Tiger.

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You've never heard music until you've heard the bleating of a gut-shot cesspooler. -Mark IV

[Harry Yeide]

The notion that the Sherman sucked or was too obsolete to do its job just does not hold water. The Sherman was part of a SYSTEM. McNair was no idiot. He knew that infantry takes and holds ground, and that combat experience had shown that tanks need infantry around in substantial numbers to survive. That's why he pushed the 1943 reorganization of the armored divisions that cut the organization to three battalions, each matched by a battalion of armored infantry. As many above have pointed out above, the weakness in Army thinking involved the tank/TD dichotomy. The Army figured this out, and modified the Sherman to fight tanks better. The other parts of the system were artillery and air. When used together properly, the Sherman was part of a mechanism that WORKED.

I read a lot of tank battalion After Action reports, and I'm impressed how often the Sherman tankers encountered German armor--even when using 75's--and killed it. Sure, tankers did not like riding around in boxes that could be holed by anything down to a 47mm AT gun. On the other hand, I doubt very much that German tankers enjoyed getting blown up either, but nobody talks much about that. Sure, you had this really cool Panther, but it broke down a lot, and if the Shermans didn't get you, the 155mm might, or the Jabos, or those damn bazookas, or...

The 743rd (I site them frequently because their records are excellent compared to most other battalions) lost 96 medium tanks from 6 June 1944 to 8 May 1945. Many of these were lost to AT fire, Panzerfaust or -shreck, and mines. They positively KILLED 41 Mark IV's, 26 Mark V's, 4 Mark VI's, 10 SP guns, and a Sturmtiger. That's 96 to 82 for the guys on the offensive. I'd take that.

Cheers

[CavScout]

Originally posted by jshandorf:

That was all I was trying to say. Regardless of doctrine the Sherman, when first designed and built, was suppose to be an all around main line battle tank. Thus you can compare it to any further design for it's time. I.E. Panther. That was all my point was.

Doctrine is the key. Doctrine generally dictates what is built before the war is fought, just like the Americans experienced.

Doctine is then, sometimes, decided by the technology on hand once in the fight.

You can "compare" the Panther and Sherman about as much as one would compare the early Mark IV to a Panther. It doesn't work.

The Panther was built to fight the ever powerful Soviet tanks. The Sherman certainly wasn't. To continue to claim the design philosophies were the same is beyond me.

[Guest machineman]

The Sherman that could have been...artwork courtesy of Claus B, comments courtesy of Sargent

Quote:

"It's an M4A3E8 with a T26 turret w/90mm gun. It was proposed by Ordnance as a quick easy upgrade. Since the turret rings were identical, it was just a question of dropping in 90mm ammo racks and the new turret. The proposal was nixed because it might have cut into M26 production. M26 production was

non-existent at the time, IIRC.

The whole M26 program was a balls-up, Hunicutt opines, and I agree, that the tank to go for out of the T20 series was the T25. It was lighter and did not have the mobility and reliability problems of the mechanically overstrained T/M26. It was definitely more mobile.

It had about an inch less armor (M26 was originally an add-on to the T25 pre-production run. Sort of 'let's add an inch of armor all round to the last 10 T25s and see what we get') but both T25 and T26 were resistant to 75mm/L48 and neither did very well against 75/L70 or 88s, so the extra armor wasn't really that valuable.

The US Army could and should have made 90mm turrets like crazy, put them on Sherman hulls until the T20 series tanks were ready, then given priority to fitting turrets to the new tanks.

Instead, they held back waiting for a tank that barely made it to the ETO and had definite problems getting anywhere when it did."

http://www.tanknet.org/ubb/Forum1/HTML/000184.html

[This message has been edited by machineman (edited 01-24-2001).]

[Slapdragon]

Originally posted by Spook:

Take note that the Israelis seemed to think that the M4 Sherman was viable enough as a "tank" to still be fielded in the '73 war, mounting a French long 105mm gun. And these M4's, while certainly obsolete, killed their share of Syrian tanks in the Golan battles.

A further aside, I also recall, was that the Israeli M4-105 had to be shifted in neutral before firing so that the tank could absorb the recoil better.

The tank was actually the M50 Super Sherman.

[Chupacabra]

Originally posted by Harry Yeide:

Sure, you had this really cool Panther, but it broke down a lot, and if the Shermans didn't get you, the 155mm might, or the Jabos, or those damn bazookas, or...

IMO, when discussing the tactical utility of weapons systems in relation to similar weapons systems, it's not practical to introduce other concerns into the equation.

Tactically, the question is: was the Panther better at doing its job than the Sherman was? I'd answer yes.

However, if you ask the same question in a strategic sense, the answer becomes no, for some (among many) of the reasons you cite.

But put me in a Quake-style deathmatch with a Sherman vs. a Panther, and I'll take the Panther, thanks very much.

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Soy super bien soy super super bien soy bien bien super bien bien bien super super

[Guest machineman]

Originally posted by Chupacabra:

However, if you ask the same question in a strategic sense, the answer becomes no, for some (among many) of the reasons you cite.

Keep in mind that much of the reason for whatever unreliability problems the Panther had were not due to the design, but to the lack of raw materials that plagued the Germans at that time, as well as the systematic bombing of the factories. Lack of rubber, lack of alloys, smashed machine tools, etc. Shermans would not have been reliable either built under those conditions.

[Harry Yeide]

Originally posted by Chupacabra:

IMO, when discussing the tactical utility of weapons systems in relation to similar weapons systems, it's not practical to introduce other concerns into the equation.

Tactically, the question is: was the Panther better at doing its job than the Sherman was? I'd answer yes.

However, if you ask the same question in a strategic sense, the answer becomes no, for some (among many) of the reasons you cite.

But put me in a Quake-style deathmatch with a Sherman vs. a Panther, and I'll take the Panther, thanks very much.

Very gamey.

Cheers.

[Spook]

Originally posted by Slapdragon:

The tank was actually the M50 Super Sherman.

Or perhaps the M51 (I can't recall exactly right now), but yes, "Super Sherman" was the more definitive name.

Regardless, the E8 chassis (with "hybrid" hull fronts) of this Israeli tank still defined it as an upwards mod from the WW2 versions. In effect, some more "design growth" came out of the Sherman past WW2.

If the Sherman design could evolve to be used on battlefields in decades past WW2, that kind of settles the question "Is the Sherman a tank?" from my view.

[Bastables]

Originally posted by Harry Yeide:

I read a lot of tank battalion After Action reports, and I'm impressed how often the Sherman tankers encountered German armor--even when using 75's--and killed it. Sure, tankers did not like riding around in boxes that could be holed by anything down to a 47mm AT gun. On the other hand, I doubt very much that German tankers enjoyed getting blown up either, but nobody talks much about that. Sure, you had this really cool Panther, but it broke down a lot, and if the Shermans didn't get you, the 155mm might, or the Jabos, or those damn bazookas, or...

Cheers

Once the intial 'bugs' were worked out Panthers broke down as much as PIII, PIV, StuGs and T-34s.