There is hope for the Sherman

[Georgie]

I'm playing "The Crossroads at Monthardrou" and one of my Shermans took a penetrating hit from above and left to the front upper hull. The Sherman didn't explode as in CM1 but instead it rotated left 90 degrees popped smoke and backed out of harms way. What a pleasant surprise. It makes the game much more fun to play. I played hundreds if not thousands of hours of CMBO, CMBB and CMAK and it's taken awhile for me to get into CMBN but I think i'm finally there. Excellent game.

[Broken]

Shermans in CMBN can survive even turret hits from Panthers if the angles are right and the distances are not too short.

[Georgie]

The penetrating hit was a 75mm from a Panther at about 750m.

[MikeyD]

If you're playing WeGo its fun to save the game *between turns* just as something bad is about to happen. So you can restart the game and watch your Sherman blow up... or the shot miss... or the suspension get damaged... or the Sherman shoot first... or the exposed commander gets an AP shot to the head. All from reopening and rerunning the same turn over and over.

[MengJiao]

I'm playing "The Crossroads at Monthardrou" and one of my Shermans took a penetrating hit from above and left to the front upper hull. The Sherman didn't explode as in CM1 but instead it rotated left 90 degrees popped smoke and backed out of harms way. What a pleasant surprise. It makes the game much more fun to play. I played hundreds if not thousands of hours of CMBO, CMBB and CMAK and it's taken awhile for me to get into CMBN but I think i'm finally there. Excellent game.

Having run roughly the same scenario a half-dozen times against a score of Panthers, I don't have much confidence in the Sherman's ability to slug it out with Panthers. The M10 seems to do much better. I tend to hold the M10s back under cover and send the Shermans as far around to one side as possible. Only a cross-fire seems to guarantee a satisfactory number of Panther kills. Of course, up close, in town even a 57mm has a chance at a Panther kill, but I've stopped the AI from letting the Panthers drive all the way in to the town/objective.

[Broken]

If you're playing WeGo its fun to save the game *between turns* just as something bad is about to happen. So you can restart the game and watch your Sherman blow up... or the shot miss... or the suspension get damaged... or the Sherman shoot first... or the exposed commander gets an AP shot to the head. All from reopening and rerunning the same turn over and over.

The number of radically different outcomes to the exact same situation is amazing.

[Broken]

Having run roughly the same scenario a half-dozen times against a score of Panthers, I don't have much confidence in the Sherman's ability to slug it out with Panthers. The M10 seems to do much better. I tend to hold the M10s back under cover and send the Shermans as far around to one side as possible. Only a cross-fire seems to guarantee a satisfactory number of Panther kills. Of course, up close, in town even a 57mm has a chance at a Panther kill, but I've stopped the AI from letting the Panthers drive all the way in to the town/objective.

Yes, it doesn't pay to concentrate your Shermans against Panthers. Spread them out to increase the chance of flank shots. Take quick shots against the German infantry and duck back under cover. Make the Panthers play whack-a-mole. Smoke is your friend.

On the other hand, against PZ IVs, concentrating your Shermans is good.

[womble]

Having run roughly the same scenario a half-dozen times against a score of Panthers, I don't have much confidence in the Sherman's ability to slug it out with Panthers.

Which is as it should be. Head-to-head, open field showdowns between less-than-Firefly Shermans at anything but the closest (tank-scale) ranges should, in general, go to the kitty.

[Bigduke6]

I've been playing a quick battle where MkIV are slugging it out with Shermans at 1,000 - 1,500 meters, the German shells are not nearly successfully penetrating all the time, and pretty much always it's taken several hits to take out the Shermans. None of this one-hit Ronco lighter stuff.

The Shermans of course can't do jack and pretty much can't even score a hit, and if you give the Germans a Tiger or a Panther then the Sherman is a lot less survivable. But we knew that already.

But all in all, I agree, the Sherman seems to take a lot more punishment in CM2. It's not ueber but you don't have to treat it like an eggshell.

[MengJiao]

I've been playing a quick battle where MkIV are slugging it out with Shermans at 1,000 - 1,500 meters, the German shells are not nearly successfully penetrating all the time, and pretty much always it's taken several hits to take out the Shermans. None of this one-hit Ronco lighter stuff.

The Shermans of course can't do jack and pretty much can't even score a hit, and if you give the Germans a Tiger or a Panther then the Sherman is a lot less survivable. But we knew that already.

But all in all, I agree, the Sherman seems to take a lot more punishment in CM2. It's not ueber but you don't have to treat it like an eggshell.

Ronco? You mean Ronson? I think the Ronco lighter is the one that also is a desert topping heater and a mosquito repellant.

[MengJiao]

Which is as it should be. Head-to-head, open field showdowns between less-than-Firefly Shermans at anything but the closest (tank-scale) ranges should, in general, go to the kitty.

Well, I'm looking forward to seeing the Firefly and the Achilles and the towed 17-pdr in the game sooner or later.

[Vark]

Is any of this backed up by combat records? From the vague distant past I seem to read lots of accounts of PzIV's/Stugs?Pak 40's getting one shot one kills on M4's, sigh, guess all those wargames rules were biased afterall!

[MengJiao]

Is any of this backed up by combat records? From the vague distant past I seem to read lots of accounts of PzIV's/Stugs?Pak 40's getting one shot one kills on M4's, sigh, guess all those wargames rules were biased afterall!

There probably has been some over-estimating of Germanic weaponry in war games. In my family, I traditionally played the Allies or the UK or the Russians or the Chinese or the Persians or the Punic Forces against my father or brothers who always had the superior side (they weren't as interested in the games and demanded to be the Germans or the Japs or or the Romans or Alexander the Great etc. etc. or they would not play). I was traditionally the better player, but I can tell you from decades of experience, Persian or Punic or Chinese or US Army gear has been shockingly under-rated for a long time.

The turning point might have been in about 1979 when I gave Alexander the Great a fatal reception at Granicus or it might have been in one of those many games of the 1980s where German tactical flexibility was supposed to save them from 3 times as many Russians with twice the armor and firepower. Ooops. Or maybe not.

Anyway, its still refreshing that the Allies still have some stereotypes to blast apart with the incredible ability of the Sherman to take a few hits.

[Chek]

Is any of this backed up by combat records? From the vague distant past I seem to read lots of accounts of PzIV's/Stugs?Pak 40's getting one shot one kills on M4's, sigh, guess all those wargames rules were biased afterall!

Don't worry that still happens.

[Stitch]

Last night, doing a little Barkmann's Corner, I observed a Sherman taking 3 hits from the Panther at about 100m before being knocked out. Although not destroyed after the first hit, the Sherman was pretty much rendered useless at that point.

[MikeyD]

Just yesterday I read a (real world) account of a 75mm Sherman platoon commander in Normandy being told to go get a German tank that was in the roadway between hedgerows causing mischief. He inspected the tracks in the dirt, concluded it was a Tiger and simply said no he wouldn't. No threats of court martial would convince him otherwise. It and 2 other accompanying Tigers were later chased off by artillery. He wouldn't have had a chance.

[gunnergoz]

Shermans with wet stowage burned much lest often than did Shermans without. The exposed ammunition stowage in older Shermans was the primary reason they brewed up so quickly and catastrophically.

Shermans were never designed to mix it up with the likes of Panthers and Tigers but if you must, be sure to maneuver because that is your best hope at a flank or rear shot.

Vark: Yes BFC does its homework on combat records too. This game is based on their 12 years of cumulative research on this and other WW2 technical and operational subjects, which I doubt any other game design firm can approach.

[dieseltaylor]

A genearl rule for the British Army SHermans I thought was if you get hit bail immediately as the next one is very very likely to hit you aswell. Churchills were good for two hits. Perhaps crews attachment to their tanks is too strong. I will try and find the source for the information.

[YankeeDog]

Just yesterday I read a (real world) account of a 75mm Sherman platoon commander in Normandy being told to go get a German tank that was in the roadway between hedgerows causing mischief. He inspected the tracks in the dirt, concluded it was a Tiger and simply said no he wouldn't. No threats of court martial would convince him otherwise. It and 2 other accompanying Tigers were later chased off by artillery. He wouldn't have had a chance.

Not sure I blame the Plt. Co, but it is worth that if this incident actually did take place in the Normandy hedgerows, and not post-COBRA during the closing of the Falaise pocket, then those 2 tanks almost certainly were not Tigers. Statistically, there is a good chance that they could have been Panthers (which would be about as dangerous), but unless German deployment records are wrong, Tigers is highly unlikely. (And American post-conflict analysis support the German records on this).

[Rocky Balboa]

Is any of this backed up by combat records? From the vague distant past I seem to read lots of accounts of PzIV's/Stugs?Pak 40's getting one shot one kills on M4's, sigh, guess all those wargames rules were biased afterall!

Backing it up with combat records isn't useful because of the way the armor is modeled and that's why its a simulation.

Each tank is model according to its real world armor thickness/slope and armor quality at every point. Each AP round is modeled according to its engineered capabilities. Flight ballistics are modeled as the round is fired and travels to target. If all of these things are accurate then you should have a very close approximation of the real world capabilities of these tanks not someones recollection or opinion on how they behaved. IMO this makes CMBN much more realistic than any game I've seen or played.

[dieseltaylor]

Bailing when hit. Tank Men page329

"Crew learned to clear the tank on first strike." Stephen Dyson Churchill tanker.

An examination of 1600 tanks showed that only 30% of hits failed to penetrate a Sherman whereas 50% failed against the Churchill. Fire resulted from 35% of hits to the turret and 60% from hits to the hull.

Chapter 14 page 367. The survey was Military Operational Research Study no.6, A Survey of Tank Casualties, March 1947

[dieseltaylor]

Rocky- the Shermans armour pre-1944 apparently varied hugely in quality so any model that picks a designed thickness figure for the armour is going to be at odds with what really happened. Unless of course it is sophisticated enough to give a random factor when calculating for hits on pre-1944 Shermans.

I therefore think combat records are therefore a more reliable guide as to what happened, A mathematical model can be very limited. Also search for items on crews bailing after the first hit. The enemy was then under no danger of retaliatory fire and could finish off the tank.

By no means all crews would bail at first strike. If there was a chance to respond - but basically the tank that fired first would win the huge majority of the duels. Given that the figures [on one of the threads here] I have seen have not been broken down to the reasons why the tank to fire second did actually win one is left with the melancholy thought that these tanks were probably German!

However being fired at by a kitty beyond your effective range would mean staying in the tank to fight would seem stupid. The US Army Board issued disgrams in January 1945 showing how effective US guns would be at ranges to the Tigers . Effectively no chance with any US gun against a Tiger II head-on. And you needed a 76mm to attack a Tiger I front but you could apparently penetrate at 1200-1600 metres. though why I should feel doubtful I don't know. Possibly its because it was reckoned you needed 13 shots to hit a tank at 1500 metres, and the Tiger was more likely to nail you at that range anyway.

Close and dirty from behind or the side! Thats how I like to use Shermans against German tanks.

[Rocky Balboa]

I'm not discounting completely the combat accounts but I can assure you that those combat accounts varied probably more so than the quality of armor from tank to tank coming off the assembly line.

Human recollection is a feeble thing to depend on. I'm sure you've heard the big fish story that got larger and more elaborate every time it was told.

The truth is probably somewhere in the middle but closer to the mathematical side of things because numbers don't lie and I think BFC has got it nailed pretty tight unless someone can prove they have the numbers wrong as was done recently with the Tiger oblique firing angle.

[Vark]

Tis a sad day indeed when accounts of those who actually fought in a conflict are dismissed in favour of theoretical combat models, which are themselves idealised capabilities. Not every shell travelled at a standard velocity as propellant technology was not a perfect science, especially quality control, not every piece of steel plate had standard properties etc. British WWII research stated that there were so many factors influencing penetration of armour that any performance figures for guns was an approximation at best.

DT have Tank Men but need to get time to read it, any good, most people seem to think it is ok but could have been better, the proverbial curates egg (modern usage not the original from Punch)

[Battlefront.com]

Tis a sad day indeed when accounts of those who actually fought in a conflict are dismissed in favour of theoretical combat models, which are themselves idealised capabilities.

Unfortunately, Human recollection can be really bad. At least when it comes to details. It's why eye witness testimony is seen as being unreliable. Even when corroborated by other eye witnesses. Do some net searches on this and you'll find some really stunning studies done on the topic. Especially for/by law enforcement.

Should we dismiss anecdotal and personal combat results completely? No, absolutely not. They are often extremely important. But they are also extremely unreliable on the whole without other evidence to back them up. They are also useless from a statistical standpoint.

British WWII research stated that there were so many factors influencing penetration of armour that any performance figures for guns was an approximation at best.

Incorrect. Ballistic performance is pretty close to an exact science. There can be a HUGE range of results, of course, but they can be mathematically explained. On the other hand, the "soft factors" (Human factors) that go into a particular shot and hit are wildly varied and with a healthy dose of randomness. This is something that is semi-scientific, but ultimately judged by outcomes. CM excels at this sort of modeling.

One of the very, very frustrating things about official reports (the Brits did a great one right after Normandy) is that they tend to treat all Shermans as if they were identical. As the game shows, there are HUGE differences between the models. The Brits, for example, used a lot of older models that the Americans did not use. And those were quite a bit more vulnerable to 75mm fire by comparison. So those stories of 1 hit kills of Shermans could definitely be accurate in the right context (i.e. North Africa, Italy, and British equipped forces in France). The Brits also didn't start out in France with many Wet Stowage tanks, so they had more problems with burnouts than did the Americans. etc. etc.

Steve