Skirts on Sherman's?

[lcm1947]

I was just looking at some of the German tanks and wondered why the American's didn't use them. Any X-tankers out there or anybody that knows? I would be interested in hearing why if you have a minute. :confused:

[Simon Fox]

The British installed mesh type protection against infantry AT weapons on a number of their tanks in late 44/early 45. I don't know how common it was but for example I think most of the 8th armoured brigade had them. This was probably in response to the rise in the proportion of tank losses due to these weapons at around that time.

[lcm1947]

Thanks for the reply Simon. That's interesting. You'd thought that if it worked so well or even a little that the Allied's would have used them too. I wonder if due to the poor power of our bazooka's that the skirts worked for them but wouldn't for us because the German AT weapons were so much more powerful and wouldn;t have helped us that much? I would like to do some reading on the subject but wouldn't even know where to start so I'll just assume that this was probably the reason. Again, thanks for your info Simon.

[MikeyD]

My guess is there may have been two reasons. One was there was no threat (like AT rifles) that skirts would be needed to defend against. This is assuming that skirts would have had limited effect against the panzerfaust HEAT.

Another might be transport issues. The Sherman and especially the Pershing were tightly constrained by the need to ship the tanks across the ocean. stand-off skirts on a Pershing would have made it even more difficult to ship.

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The Churchill's front fenders were very stout and were meant to protect the tracks. you could say these had a 'skirt' purpose.

[offtaskagain]

I've seen in at least one book that the Americans did develop skirts for Shermans, but decided they looked too similar to the German kind. Apparently they were afraid of friendly fire incidents.

[Smaragdadler]

http://www.geocities.com/Augusta/8172/panzerfaust1.htm#spaced

[sturmtiger101]

The GI tankers didn't use metal skirts but they did (at least in some units) field modify thier Shermans and Stuarts, etc, with metal racks that held layers/rows of sandbags along the hull sides and sometimes hull front and turret sides. this was a reaction to the hollow carge weapons like the panzerfaust, that took an increasing toll of allied armour as the fighting moved into the built up areas of Germany in '45. This was not officially sanctioned and in fact was contraindicated by the USA Ordinance Dept due to the extra strain it placed on the chassis. But from photos of the period it was not uncommon. This practice also resurfaced in Vietnam when the crews of the M-48 Pattons used sandbagging to protect against rpgs. This might be a pretty cool mod for someone so inclined?

Also the Soviet tankers began using liberated box springs in a similar manner, welding them to the hull and turret sides of thier afvs as protection against panzerfuasts. This was around the time of the final assault across the Oder river and the street fighting in Berlin, spring 1945.

Cheers,

Eric