“The Battle of the Bulge exposed deficiencies in the M4 so glaringly obvious, what became known as the Sherman Tank Scandal would be splashed across front pages all over the Allied world.”
By Christian M. DeJohn
THE SHERMAN TANK — who hasn’t cheered it in Hollywood epics like A Bridge Too Far, Band of Brothers, or The Pacific? Just when all hope seemed lost, a column of Shermans arrives in the nick of time to save embattled American soldiers. Great cinematic moments like these are spot on, aren’t they? The Sherman was the tank that won the war, right?
Well, not exactly.
According to British historian Sir Max Hastings, “no single Allied failure had more important consequences on the European battlefield than the lack of tanks with adequate punch and protection.” The Sherman, he added, was one of the Allies’ “greatest failures.”
How could American and British industries produce a host of superb aircraft, an astonishing variety of radar equipment, the proximity fuse, the DUKW, the jeep, yet still ask their armies to join battle against the Wehrmacht equipped with a range of tanks utterly inferior in armour and killing power?
The distinguished American historian Dr. Russell Weigley* made a similar argument.
“Perhaps the most questionable element in American ground fighting power was the American tank,” he wrote. “[The Sherman] was inferior to the German Panther as well as to the heavier Tiger in always every respect save endurance, including armament and defensive armour.”
The U.S., Dr. Weigley noted, went all through the Second World War refusing “to develop, until too late to do much good, heavier tanks comparable to the German Tigers and Panthers, let alone the Royal Tiger or the Russian Stalin.”
After debacles like Sidi-bou-Zid, Kasserine Pass and El Guettar, General Dwight Eisenhower admitted in a private February 1943 letter to U.S. Army Chief of Staff General George Marshall, that “we don’t yet know exactly how to handle the Mark VI [Tiger] tank.”
But the doctrinal muddle over the role of tanks, unresolved for decades within the U.S. Army, continued. Were tanks to focus on “soft” targets in the enemy’s rear, like trucks and light armor, using hit and run tactics? Were they slow rolling pillboxes, used to support infantry assaults? Or should American tanks go looking for a fight, boldly seeking out the enemy’s heavy armour to slug it out one-on-one?
In November 1943, even after disasters in North Africa and Tunisia, Chief of Army Ground Forces, General Leslie McNair insisted that the Sherman would deliver victory.
“I see no reason to alter our previous stand…that we should defeat Germany by use of the M4 series of medium tanks,” he wrote. “There have been no factual developments overseas, so far as I know, to challenge the superiority of the M4 Sherman.”
But tank crews actually fighting in the Sherman knew better.
The Battle of the Bulge exposed deficiencies in the M4 so glaringly obvious, what became known as the Sherman Tank Scandal would be splashed across front pages all over the Allied world.
“Whoever was responsible for supplying the army with tanks is guilty of supplying material inferior to its enemy counterpart for at least two years or more,” one an angry armoured cavalry lieutenant told the New York Times in March 1945. “How anyone can escape punishment for neglecting such a vital weapon of war is beyond me.”
The young officer didn’t stop there.
I am a tank platoon leader, at present recovering from wounds received during the Battle of the Bulge. Since I have spent three years in a tank platoon doing everything, and at one time or another held every position and have read everything on armour I could get my hands on during this time, I would like to get this off my chest. No statement, claim, or promise made by any part of the Army can justify thousands of dead and wounded tank men, or thousands of others who depended on the tank for support.
To Corporal Francis Vierling of the U.S. Second Armored Division, “the Sherman’s greatest deficiency lies in its firepower, which is most conspicuous by its absence.” He continued:
Lack of a principal gun with sufficient penetrating ability to knock out the German opponent has cost us more tanks, and skilled men to man more tanks, than any failure of our crews- not to mention the heartbreak and sense of defeat I and other men have felt when we see twenty-five or even many more of our rounds fired, and they ricochet off the enemy attackers. To be finally hit, once, and we climb from and leave a burning, blackened, and now useless pile of scrap iron. It would yet have been a tank, had it mounted a gun.
Yet for top Allied commanders, the official position was that the M4 Sherman was the right tank at the right time. It seemed that at the highest political and military levels, the fix was in.
“We have nothing to fear from Tiger and Panther tanks,” insisted British general Bernard Montgomery, even as Allied troops in the summer of 1944 were stricken by the “Tiger Terror” in Normandy. “We have had no difficulty in dealing with German armour.”
Later, when the Ardennes Offensive led by German Panzers forced the Sherman Tank Scandal onto the front pages of the nation’s newspapers, the U.S. Army’s Chief of Ordnance, General Lewin Campbell, doubled down on the whitewash.
“We need not only have no apology for any item of American ordnance in comparison with that of the enemy,” he stated in February 1945, “but we’re leading them all the way.”
At Aberdeen Proving Ground, Colonel George Jarrett, one of the U.S. Army’s most respected ordnance experts, was often in “hot water” for his refusal to “toe the line” and lie to the civilian press about how American tanks stacked up against the enemy’s. Privately, he damned the army bureaucracy’s “refusal to realistically face tank facts…our blind refusal to face the truth of the situation,” in spite of what he called an ongoing “sales program” of propaganda.
“We are little better off than at El Alamein,” he wrote in early 1945.
While German tank technology had advanced as the war progressed, to Colonel Jarrett, the U.S. effort was “always the same story.”
“I’ve seen this day by day,” he fumed. “We never beat Jerry, but catch up to last year’s model, next year.”
Certainly, the Sherman was a decent design, simple to build in large numbers and maintain, easily transported, adaptable to multiple roles and mechanically reliable. But in the three most basic requirements of a decent tank — firepower, armour protection, and mobility — it fell down in two out of three.
But the sanitized legacy we have is of the Sherman as a war-winner, a triumph of Allied technology. Although thousands of soldiers — both tank crewmen and the infantry who depended on the Sherman tank for support — were killed and wounded as a result of the M4’s shortcomings.
Yet surprisingly, the Sherman emerged from the war with a veritable halo – a case of quantity trumping quality.
“We were never able to build a tank as good as the German tank,” recalled General Lucius Clay, “But we made so many of them, it really didn’t matter.”
James Jones was only too happy to dispel the myth of the mighty Sherman.
An army sergeant who survived the Pearl Harbor attack and Guadalcanal, would go on to write two of the greatest novels about the war, From Here to Eternity and Whistle.
Far from your typical ivory-tower historian or academic, as far back as the 1970s Jones predicted (and condemned) today’s sugarcoated cult of “the Greatest Generation.” He considered it an insult to the sacrifices of veterans by whitewashing the obstacles they overcame. But we all like to cheer the cavalry charging to the rescue in the Hollywood epics; it’s safer than asking embarrassing questions about the wartime Allied political and military leadership. As Jones observed:
The truth is, the years have glossed it all over, and given World War Two a polish and a glow that it did not have at the time. The process of history makes me think of the way the Navajos polish their turquoise. They put the raw chunks in a barrel half filled with birdshot, and then turn the barrel, and keep turning until the rough edges are all taken off, and the nuggets come out smooth and shining. Time, I think, does the same thing with history, and especially with wars.
Christian M. DeJohn, a United States Cavalry veteran of service in Bosnia-Herzegovina, is a former Abrams tank gunner and the author of For Want Of A Gun: The Sherman Tank Scandal of World War Two. He has a masters degree in military and American history.
* Historian Dr. Russell Weigley was a mentor of this author and encouraged him to write For Want Of A Gun.
As sad as it was, both of the prominent applauders of the tank, Patton and McNair, died soon after the war and during Operation Cobra in ’44. Perhaps karma had something to do with it?
KLD, you know what effected me in researching and writing the book? That GEN Marshall- who tried to address the problem but too little, too late, lost his son in a Sherman tank- it’s like a Greek tragedy! Best, Christian
It was actually his stepson (Allen Tupper Brown), not his son, and he was shot by a sniper whilst standing up out of the turret hatch. Hardly a sign of the Sherman’s alleged deficiencies.
Dom, thanks for your input! The book is 400-plus pages and has over 1300 footnotes, yet the subject of the Sherman’s nicknames has attracted the most attention and debate.
Notice I said nicknames for US tanks, not the Sherman specifically! I’ve heard the argument that “Ronson didn’t use that slogan until the 1970s,” but readers of the book have sent me advertisements dating back to the 1920s. I think the earliest was in the Saturday Evening Post in 1928 or so…
Armchair experts and nitpickers can argue over the precise nicknames and their provenance; the fact is, in 15 years of research for the book, I found firsthand testimony from US, British, Canadian, Russian, and German troops on the Sherman’s tendency to catch fire quickly when hit.
A lot of general readers may not be aware, as the book notes, this problem was partially caused by GIs unofficially storing loose ammo on the floor of the Sherman interior, outside of the stowage bins/racks, and against the regs, thus causing secondary explosions when hit.
Ironically, the Panther tank had similar problems with catching fire when hit, due in part to crews stowing ammo against the regs, outside the official bins/racks- yet the Panther doesn’t have the reputation of a firetrap!
Thanks for your feedback, Dom! Best, Christian
I hate to be that guy. But the US specifically tested the ammo fire issues during the war… AP ammo caught fire more often then HE due to its lower flash point in the powder. That being said the M4 was originally designed with safer armored ammo stowage bins but this were dropped although I have yet to figure out when. As to it being a fire hazard… it was no worse then any other tank.
Hey Christian, was the fire issue with the M4 due more to the ammo storage or to the use of gas instead of diesel? I’ve always heard that the low flashpoint of the gasoline played the biggest part.
You’re very welcome, Christian. I’m as interested in getting to the truth about the capabilities of World War Two belligerents and their equipment as you are. We already know that German capabilities were vastly exaggerated during and after the War, in so much as every German tank encountered in Normandy was a Tiger and a Tiger was worth X Allied tanks, etc.
We also need to avoid the bad habit of comparing the limited numbers of German heavy tanks and Panther mediums with the Sherman. We might compare the Firefly with the Panther and get a favourable result for the former, or we might imagine what would have happened had 76mm HVAP been issued more widely to US tankers. Actually we don’t even need to imagine – a look at the success of M10 tank destroyers illustrates the minimum that could have been achieved with the better armed and armoured Shermans. https://medium.com/war-is-boring/the-u-s-armys-tank-destroyers-weren-t-the-failure-history-has-made-them-out-to-be-ec595d8a433e
I haven’t come here to knock the book you’ve written, or to be an apologist for counter-revisionist historians, but I do take issue with the accounts of such authors as Belton Cooper, who besides peddling untruths and inaccuracies throughout his book, had a limited view of the big picture and was exposed to some grim scenes that surely clouded his judgement. I wonder if during your research you saw this article? http://knowledgeglue.com/dispelling-myths-surrounding-m4-sherman/
Or this one?
http://www.theshermantank.com/sherman/how-the-sherman-compare-to-its-contemporaries/
Lastly, although I share your opinion of McNair and the Tank Destroyer Doctrine, it has to be admitted that the primary enemy in Europe after 1943 was the dug-in German infantryman, not the panzer. An enemy for which the Sherman with 75mm gun was a perfectly adequate solution. Once US units had had some combat experience, their ability to handle the Sherman and best their enemies improved vastly. It was poor doctrine and poor tactics that gained the Sherman an early bad rep, which stuck with it, despite being unwarranted for the remainder of the war. If the damn things were good enough for the Israeli Army in1973, I can’t see how they could have been anything like as bad as they’re being made out to be in 1944!
Christian, I believe the Ronson ad you’re referring to says “A Ronson lights every time”, which is not the same quote as that attributed to the Sherman (“A Ronson lights first time, every time”) which is almost certainly a post-war slogan. If you have pictures you can share that will put the doubt to rest, please share them. It might seem trivial and nit-picky, but on such careful foundations are truths established, while careless words create myths.
There’s now even a myth that suggests M1A1 Abrams tanks were under-armoured and unfit for use in Iraqi towns and cities. It’s all in the telling.
I’ve read some excerpts from “Deathtrap”. I found the comments on the book pretty clueless.
I think that it is very valuable observations of an army that is running out of people due to bad planning.
People think that the water jacket were instantly fitted to the Shermans from the very moment they started to fit them. They don’t realize that 1. it takes time to get the tank to the front line and 2. the introduction to the production did not happen at the same time for all models. 3. Tank crews store ammunition everywhere they can.
The Sherman was continuously improved as the war progressed, and the final variant, the M4A3E8, with its 76mm gun transformed through M319 HVAP ammunition, was not declared obsolete until 1957.
The Sherman’s propensity to burn was traced to ammunition fires and curbed with “wet stowage” of ammunition.
The Sherman was quite amenable to uparmoring, and this in fact was done in the field in 1945 with improvised applique armor fashioned from the hulks of knocked-out tanks. The M4A3E2 variant of the Sherman came from the factory well-armored, and 200 of the 250 produced survived the war, despite their use in the assault role. And for what it’s worth, the Sherman’s Driver Front Plate (or glacis) was determined to be proof against the Tiger’s KwK 36 APBC projectile at point blank range when striking at an angle of 30 degrees (per 1944 German firing tests conducted against captured Shermans). In contrast, all plates of the T34 were vulnerable to the Tiger out to very long ranges.
The Sherman gun was improved with the 76mm, but the machines available at the time of Normandy stayed behind in England, because there was no demand for them. If the ETO had asked for them in quantity, they could have been available in quantity. Yes, the same ETO that turned down the Sherman-based M36 tank destroyer when told it was available. The 76mm, even with M62 APCBC ammunition, was superior in anti-armor performance to the Soviet 85mm, and, per German firing tests, defeat all plates of the Tiger (not Tiger II).
Meanwhile, shortly after Normandy, APCR (or HVAP in U.S. Army parlance) began to be available; HVAP radically improved the 76mm’s anti-armor performance, and in fact postwar 76mm M319 HVAP outperformed the Tiger (not Tiger II) and Panther guns when those guns were used with the standard APBC. A major problem was that it took time to ramp up the production of HVAP and get it to the ETO; by the time the ETO was howling for better firepower, after the Ardennes offensive, the German tank threat all but disappeared in the West.
In retrospective, the problems experienced with the Sherman stemmed from the U.S. Army’s too-reactive doctrine of “battle-need” for new weapons. As it was, the T71 (M36) GMC and T26 (M26) tank programs were controversial, and the adapted 90mm anti-aircraft gun they mounted had been developed on Ordnance’s, not the ETO’s, initiative. All were pushed through over the objections of the using arms. And as it turns out, the M26 evolved into the M46/M47/M48/M60 main battle tanks, and the M3 90mm gun and the M36 and M41 improvements of it equipped the M46/M47/M48.
Except post battle studies of knocked out tanks, Show that the Early M4 was no more prone to fires than any German or Soviet tank. Later models had one of the lowest burn rates. For the Soviet view read “Commanding the Red Army’s Emchas” by Dmitry Loza. there is an image of his M4 in Vienna at the end of the war. The Soviets that were equipped with the M4 liked the tanks very much.
As to the term Ronson ot appears nowhere in any documentation until he 1950s.
Dom, you’re correct, it was his stepson. I know this because I did research at GEN Marshall’s home. One word for you….height! That is the deficiency in question. Think about a tank commander having to expose himself to the enemy by having to stand up in the hatch of a tall tank…and how a tank with less height would hopefully expose the crew to less danger…take a look at a Sherman next to a Stuart, T-34, etc…you tracking?
This is why as an Abrams tanker, I was taught to only stand in the hatch at “dog-tag defilade,” i.e., chest height. Same old risk of snipers. The Sherman’s height was a problem that led to TCs getting hit.
Dom, thanks for your interest in the book! May I suggest a novel way to learn what’s in it, and what sources have been used…to actually read it? It’s the result of over 15 years of research in archives, museums, Presidential libraries, etc., with over 1300 footnotes- many single chapters in this book have more references and footnotes than appear in entire books. One example, you mention GEN Marshall’s stepson Allen. As well as using tons of original documents, books, letters, etc, from GEN Marshall, I went to his house in VA, which is very moving. He had an oil painting of Allen that he had to walk past, to and from his bedroom.
As to some sources, I agree with you that Cooper, among my 500-plus sources used in the book, should be taken with a grain of salt. When he writes something like he was the first Allied soldier to see a V-1 or Me 262 overhead, something unverifiable, you take it with a grain of salt. But some of his fundamental points- that the Sherman was under gunned and under-armored, have been substantiated by many other first-hand sources, so to dismiss his book and opinions out of hand would be a mistake.
My book uses something like 500-plus sources, and is the product of over 15 years of research. I went out of my way to try to find contrary views rather than cherry-pick as many do, because I think the truth lies somewhere in the middle.
I used many actual first hand documents in dusty files, during some 15 years of research. The book even has some documents discovered at Carlisle Barracks, that have never appeared in print before, by a US COL at the heart of the Sherman Tank Scandal, who kept a notebook on it. It also shows secret cables between Ike and GEN Marshall basically saying, we have a problem with the Sherman tank…even as politicians were insisting all was well.
Your comments on the M1 Abrams are ironic, as that’s the subject of my second book- I’m an old M1 Abrams tanker.
Thanks for your your interest and may I suggest, a novel method to learn what’s in a book, what sources were used in it, is to actually read it! Best, Christian
Christian, it will please you to know that I’ve ordered your book. In the meantime, you raise the death of Lt. Tupper Brown as an indication that the Sherman’s high silhouette was a deficiency that directly contributed to his being sniped:
“Think about a tank commander having to expose himself to the enemy by having to stand up in the hatch of a tall tank…and how a tank with less height would hopefully expose the crew to less danger…take a look at a Sherman next to a Stuart, T-34, etc…you tracking?”
You must know that this is a straw-man argument. Although the Sherman was tall, commanders were often shot in the hatches of lower height German and Russian tanks too. If you can see the enemy, he can see you. Folks were being shot in WW1 just poking their heads over a trench, for crying out loud. High silhouettes had little to do with it, but a need for tactical awareness (and official encouragement to fight unbuttoned) bore responsibility.
An extract from Ed Gilbert’s “US Marine Corps Tank Crewman 1965-70: Vietnam” reveals that even in the close country of S E Asia, commanders stood up in the open turret hatches: “In Vietnam the tank commander almost always rode unbuttoned, which of course gave you the greater advantage of visibility, to see what was going on and be able to direct your gunner where to shoot. The disadvantage is that if you’ve got a sniper in the area, he can pot you right there in the turret” (page 24). You could of course use that as evidence in a book called ‘The Patton Tank Scandal of Vietnam’ about how the M48 had a dangerously high silhouette. I for one wouldn’t buy it though.
I couldn’t disagree more. The Sherman was produced in numbers over 50k while the tiger around 1300 and Panther around 6000. Most of these Tigers and Panthers were destined for the Russian front. Of those German tanks maybe 800 were operational at one time.
Of all the tank battles faced by the Anglo American forces there was three documented encounters with tigers and of those three two tigers were destroyed by Sherman’s and the third a Pershing lost. Most tank battles took place between Shermans and Panzer mark IVs which the Sherman was more then a match for. The Sherman was easy to build, easy to drive, easy to maintain, and easy to repair, whereas the Tiger and Panther were a nightmare. For instance damage an inner bogey wheel on a Tiger or Panther one would have to disassemble the complete undercarriage.
If a Tiger or Panther was broken down most were scuttled. They were junk and insanely expensive to build. The Sherman on the other hand were well suited for their task at hand, which was be shipped half way around the world, drive like a tractor so a farm boy from Iowa could jump in and go, easy to escape from, easy to load, drive more then a few hundred miles, and win a war. Which it did.
The Germans didn’t called a Ronco for nothing
Jim, some of the unflattering nicknames that I found for US tanks while researching the book are “Tommy Cooker” (British), “Coffin for Six Brothers” (Russian), and “Ronson” (German), after a lighter that “lights the first time every time!” Best, Christian
Christian, I think you have your nicknames and their provenances muddled up!
It was the Germans who apparently called ANY British tank ‘Tommy Cookers’ (not the Brits referring to US tanks).
It was the M3 Lee/Grant tanks that the Russians branded as ‘coffins for SEVEN brothers’ (and with their high silhouettes; low mounted, limited traverse main gun and thin armour, it’s no surprise).
The Ronson moniker was an American one (how many German, or for that matter, British conscripts even knew what a Ronson was? They were far more familiar with the continental IMCO trademark), and the slogan “lights the first time every time!” has been proven to be anachronistically apocryphal, and only found in post-war adverts.
Dom, a reader of my book was nice enough to send me a Ronson cigarette lighter ad from Saturday Evening Post with the slogan “Lights Every Time.” The date it ran? May 1929.
Oh yes, because that specific ad that definitely won’t get forgotten would be used by all these American soldiers – and despite of the fact that (a) Zippos were vastly more popular for the 1940s American soldier, and (b) Ronson wouldn’t use that as a main catchphrase until 1954.
The Ronson Company made a flamethrower attachment that could be installed in any Sherman. These flame throwing tanks were often called “Ronson Shermans”.
The Soviets used the Coffin for 6 /7 brothers only in reference to the M3 Lee/Grant.
Soviet tankers that were equipped with the M4 like the tanks. They felt the tank had too high a center of gravity but found the quality of the armor superior to that of the t-34 and really like the ergonomics.
The US Ordonance Department tried to replace the M4 in 1943, but was rebuffed.
That’s because the M7, its replacement, was not that much better.
No. They wanted the M27 which was a T23E3 which had torsion bar suspension. It reduced ground pressure by 20% compared to the T23.
They also wanted the T20E3 as the M27B1.
The problem is that development on the T20 program started in 1942, which just wouldn’t leave enough time for the T20-series tanks to be properly tested, produced, and shipped in time for them to see any meaningful use in the ETO.
Keep in mind, you don’t just draw up a tank design, build it, and send it out to the front- the initial design has to be revised, prototyped, the prototype tested to find the faults, before the design is further refined and tested. (The Sherman due to its large number of similarities with the previous Lee and M2 Medium tanks, meant that there was far less to test, as the engine, drivetrain, and basic chasis layout had already been proven.)
After that it needs to be built, which requires the retooling of factories causing a stoppage or slowing of production. One of the advantages of the early models of the M4 Sherman is that it had a large commonality with previous M2 Mediums and M3 Lees that were already being built, namely the engine (Continental R975), suspension system (VVSS) and chasis. causing a stoppage or slowing of production.
Finally, the crews need to be re-trained on the new tank, new doctrine written to make best use of the new tank’s unique advantages and disadvantages over previous tanks, and finally the new tanks need to be transported to the theatre of operations.
The initial designs requirements for the M4 were submitted in August 1940, the T6 prototype assembled in September of 1941, and production beginning in February of 1942, with Shermans first seeing combat in September of 1942. This meant it took two years from concept to combat for a tank that already had huge portions of commonality with tanks that were already in production at that time. Additionally, the large majority of this development time was during pre-bellum peacetime, which has the advantage of increase military budgets without the constraints of wartime economies.
Now look at the T20 series; it was a radical departure from previous designs, using a new engine, new hull design and chasis, new transmission and suspension systems- it was an entirely new tank from the ground up. The project was started in the middle of the war, which meant that it was competing with other projects as well as improvements on existing designs. Everything needed to be tested and approved far more rigorously because of this- there would have been absolutely no way to get these tanks into the fight before 1945 *and* have them tested sufficiently to work out the major bugs and kinks.
If you want a good example of a tank rushed into combat production with insufficient testing, just look at the German Panther. In its first combat action as Kursk, two Panthers were lost to engine fires just getting off the trains. Over the course of a week, a force of more than 180 Panthers was reduced to 38 functional tanks, and that was *after* a number of them had received automotive repairs after breakdown and were returned to service.
This did not improve much over the course of the war- Panthers needed to be shipped around Germany on trains, not for convenience but because the drive train’s reliability fell off drastically after 100km, and the engine itself had a lifespan of around 1000km.
The American version of this story was the M26, which suffered numerous automotive reliability problems when they were sent to Europe in late 1944 as part of the Zebra Mission. These issues continued to plague it well into the Korean War- in fact the M26 was eventually replaced in most units by E8 Shermans and small numbers of M46 Pattons, which were what the Pershing probably would have been with sufficient testing and proper manufacture.
So yeah, while its feasible that they could’ve gotten T20-series tanks into action for WWII, its unlikely that they could have done so without running into massive difficulties related to insufficient testing, slowing production, and shipping issues, all of which are things you want to avoid in an offensive war.
That’s because the AGF determined the T23’s novel electric drive transmission had too high of a maintenance burden and added nearly two tons of weight.
Great article! Thank you. My interest in tank warfare comes from the game World of Tanks. I know the designers and programmers try to keep true to the realities of each tank. Of course reality must have shown the problems with the Sherman as history has shown and the game does justice to this. No way can a single M4 hold its own against a Tiger if both tanks are full health. What I did not know was the cover up. So many good men died in tank battles.
Sherman naysayers would do well to watch Nick Moran’s very good presentation on the M4. It’s hard to hold the negative opinion of it, if you do.
As for “No way can a single M4 hold its own against a Tiger if both tanks are full health.”, hardly ever was a Tiger actually in “full health” and hardly ever was it the case that there’d be one on with, Tiger v. Sherman, or for that matter, one v. one with any German tank and a M4, as German tanks were frequently inoperable.
I should have noted that Moran’s presentation is on C-Span.
https://www.c-span.org/video/?433629-2/design-history-m4-sherman-tank-world-war-ii
Link
Yeah, the “Chieftain.” His arguments fall flat from the first to the last. It’s like he’s on a crusade that cannot accept that ANY American weapons were inferior. P51, great plane. .50 Cal Machinegun, great gun, still in use. M4 Medium “Sherman,” mediocre to bad. Sorry Pat H and Moran, you can’t have ALL the toys in your toy box. You have to accept reality at some point.
Mr Moran has spent time in the US archives perusing the original source documents while doing research for his employer. So I will take his opinion of the subject.
Nicholas Moran served in the Irish Army as infantry and in the US Army as an M1 tank commander. What he has done os not look at American weapons from the eyes of aging men who survived the brutal encounters of war with nothing but memories of fear, cold and exhaustion but looked at the raw hard data collected .
Tanker crews in WW2 often got killed by BAD TACTICS- tanks of the U.S., British and Russian forces were more often than not AMBUSHED by anti tank guns of the German army than tanks ( driving through open fields or stuck in the French hedgerow country with poor ability to observe or scout area will do that!)
Other than the desert campaign in 1941-42 , where again the British used the markedly OUTDATED M3 lee/ grant tank to beat down the Germans in tank battle, and the Russian open field fights like Kursk where the crude T-34s took on Panthers and Tigers , tank on tank battles were rarely deciding factors in combat. Even in the Pacific the Sherman was the top dog and the Japanese often only knocked them out with heavy land mines or by use of heavy artillery or land placed naval guns.
After action reports speak volumes – 75mm Sherman’s had numerous mobility kills on Panthers and Panzer III/IVs and the 76.2 mm armored US Sherman routinely knocked out Panthers and STUGs ( avg kill distance was 700-800 yds vs Panthers 800-900 yds!) very few after action reports from BOTH sides detail driving in wide open terrain and sitting there engaging each other 1v1 ; even so called Mazi Tank ace Michael Wittman (sp?) had a running gun battle in a small town where he used the towns buildings to knock out British tanks- that is until later that day when British and Canadians caught him outside of town and shot his platoon of TIGERS to bits , with the Canadians KILLING Wittman and blowing the top off his Tiger I with their “ inferior” Sherman’s.
Comparing German panther and armor “ success” in the thinly defended Ardenne region or during the battle of the bulge is also a foolish narrative- the Germans FAILED when actual American and British forces pushed in matching and better supplied armor and personnel ( a Tiger or Panther ain’t crap when they get caught out of gas, or fixed and bashed to bits by British 17-22 per cannon or US 90mm and 105mm artillery) one of the biggest jokes was a 37mm grey hound armored scout vehicle catching a Panther tank on the road and blasting it in the rear during the battle of the bulge !
Even before that a Canadian 75mm armed platoon of Sherman’s caught and killed a company of German Panthers and panzer IVs in the open in Italy in 1944 and totally annihilated that company without a single loss on their side!
And then there is Arracourt- despite all the wehraboos and arm chair doubters , Sherman’s WON that tank on tank fight ! The Germans tried to smash through well em placed US tanks with their superior panthers and STUGs and got creamed ( no, it wasn’t superior air cover that won that fight as Arracourt happened during a particularly nasty bit of weather with heavy fog and rain)
There is a town called La Glaize in Belgium with a “ King Tiger” sits as a war memorial ; that King Tiger tank is still where it was beaten into a wreck by lowly American 75mm armed Sherman’s that spotted it there in 1945.
Tank on tank combat in the ETO was so rare that units of the US 2nd armored didn’t even want to give up their 75mm Sherman’s for up armed 76.2 mm ones cause they felt knocking out German gun emplacements, buildings and German trucks, troops and armored vehicles was more important than looking for a tank on tank fight that was growing to be less and LESS of a reality.
Even the filmed clash of a Pershing tank versus a Panther in Cologne in 1945 proves the point – the Panther was well hidden in a train station entrance and ambushed a Sherman tank that did not see it, killing the driver of the Sherman and mortally wounding the tanks commander ( the other three crew men got out alive) when that Panther pulled out into the open street looking for Targets it also FAILED to see the Pershing tank and got knocked out on the first shot then sent burning on the second ! People will say that’s cause of the 90mm gun but the truth is a 76mm Sherman would have done the same thing.
Nicholas Moran has shown this time and time again; if the naysayers even bothered to look at FACTS and no re-spun repetition of Belton Coopers NON combat stories , they’d see that even the Russians favored the 75 and 76 mm Sherman’s they got over their own T-34s!( the irony is that in the Korean War 76.2mm Sherman’s often beat T-34/85 tanks used by the North Koreans and Chinese!)
Wow, so we have a bunch of armchair apologists for the Sherman saying that a person who was an ex-tanker has no idea what he’s talking about. Good to know.
Nicholas Moran says it and he’s an ex-tanker too – who happens to have looked up his information from the original sources. The fact that somebody was a tanker in an M60 or an M1 does not make him an expert on WW2 tanks.
Let’s talk about casualties among the American tankers.
Perhaps the greatest M4 Sherman myth of the 21st century has to go with the moniker “Death Traps!” No guesses where that name came from. Some places claim that up to 60,000 Americans became casualties because of the M4 Sherman!
But was the M4 Sherman really a “death trap?” Let’s break this into three parts: The actual casualty numbers, some caveats, and the reason for these numbers.
The American Office of the Adjutant General (basically the military chief administrative) tallied up the total casualties of World War II. In their report, out of a total of 49,516 Armored Force personnel deployed overseas, 6,827 became casualties, and of that 1,581 were KIA. In comparison, of the 757,712 infantry sent overseas, 661,059 became casualties and 142,962 were KIA. The chances of becoming a casualty in the infantry was around 87%, while a tanker would be around 13.7%. Another factor to take is the number of casualties able to return to duty, 3,082 Armored personnel returned for duty and 290,177 infantry the same. Here’s another interesting figure, in the Mediterranean Theater, only 310 Armored Force personnel were casualties, of which only 80 were KIA.[1]
So here are some caveats to those numbers, 1) these numbers did not cover any officers for armored force as they were considered part of the Infantry or Cavalry. 2) The tanker numbers did not take into consideration that the tankers may be out of their tank like doing track maintenance or even walking a dog when they became a casualty. In Italy, a study of the 300 casualties aforementioned shows that 64% of the casualties happened when the individuals were outside their tank.[2]
Whoa there, so why the low numbers? Well, there are two main reasons that contributed to these relatively low casualties.
Firstly, the casualties per tank knocked out. It is averaged by a US report that for every tank knocked out, that one member will be killed and another wounded, and this is mostly due to the point of penetration where the incoming shell will hit one poor soul. A crew member who was not killed, wounded, or knocked unconscious are able to escape a tank even when it is on fire. It also concluded in other cases of death, it is when all the crew members are engulfed in flash ammunition fires, a wounded is unable to evacuate, or exits are blocked by wounded crew members.[3] The British expressed similar casualty rates in their own Sherman crew members at about 1 killed, 1 wounded per knocked out tank[4], even the Russians expressed similar numbers. Dimitriy Loza, a battalion commander of M4A2 Shermans, says about one to two crew members became casualties “depending where the shell struck.” [5]. This feature was an all-around thing for the M4 Sherman in all theaters.
Secondly, the ease of escaping a tank. The M4 Sherman is so nice to provide a hatch for almost every crew member in the tank (The loader got his in Oct 1943). These were straight up above crew positions and the hatches were spring loaded to ease the weight of the hatch. Once the hatch was open, it was a simple case of lifting oneself up and out the hole. This was a luxury not many other tankers could enjoy and greatly facilitated the escape from a vehicle even when under fire. Another way out is through the belly hatch under the assistant driver, so even if the top was saturated with gun fire, the belly hatch is also a large open way out of the tank to safety.[6]
So this meant that there were often a surviving crew after a tank was knocked out, and their ease of escape is such so that the survivors are able to escape a burning tank quick enough before further casualties are made. With only an average of 1 tanker killed per knocked out, taking away extraordinary chances when none are killed, using the figure that 4,295 American M4 Shermans were lost in the Western front, we’d still only have 4,295 KIA Americans, which is obviously not the case as only 1,581 became KIA.[1]
So where did this 60,000 figure I mentioned earlier come from?
Well, if you tally EVERY SINGLE CASUALTY in the ENTIRETY of the armored divisions, including the infantry, artillerymen, cooks, etc. You would get around 62,334, of which 13,143 were KIA. This included every single armored division and every single person that were assigned in the armored division, even if they may never have touched a tank in his service of World War II.[1]
Let’s talk about casualties among the American tankers.
Perhaps the greatest M4 Sherman myth of the 21st century has to go with the moniker “Death Traps!” No guesses where that name came from. Some places claim that up to 60,000 Americans became casualties because of the M4 Sherman!
But was the M4 Sherman really a “death trap?” Let’s break this into three parts: The actual casualty numbers, some caveats, and the reason for these numbers.
The American Office of the Adjutant General (basically the military chief administrative) tallied up the total casualties of World War II. In their report, out of a total of 49,516 Armored Force personnel deployed overseas, 6,827 became casualties, and of that 1,581 were KIA. In comparison, of the 757,712 infantry sent overseas, 661,059 became casualties and 142,962 were KIA. The chances of becoming a casualty in the infantry was around 87%, while a tanker would be around 13.7%. Another factor to take is the number of casualties able to return to duty, 3,082 Armored personnel returned for duty and 290,177 infantry the same. Here’s another interesting figure, in the Mediterranean Theater, only 310 Armored Force personnel were casualties, of which only 80 were KIA.[1]
So here are some caveats to those numbers, 1) these numbers did not cover any officers for armored force as they were considered part of the Infantry or Cavalry. 2) The tanker numbers did not take into consideration that the tankers may be out of their tank like doing track maintenance or even walking a dog when they became a casualty. In Italy, a study of the 300 casualties aforementioned shows that 64% of the casualties happened when the individuals were outside their tank.[2]
Whoa there, so why the low numbers? Well, there are two main reasons that contributed to these relatively low casualties.
Firstly, the casualties per tank knocked out. It is averaged by a US report that for every tank knocked out, that one member will be killed and another wounded, and this is mostly due to the point of penetration where the incoming shell will hit one poor soul. A crew member who was not killed, wounded, or knocked unconscious are able to escape a tank even when it is on fire. It also concluded in other cases of death, it is when all the crew members are engulfed in flash ammunition fires, a wounded is unable to evacuate, or exits are blocked by wounded crew members.[3] The British expressed similar casualty rates in their own Sherman crew members at about 1 killed, 1 wounded per knocked out tank[4], even the Russians expressed similar numbers. Dimitriy Loza, a battalion commander of M4A2 Shermans, says about one to two crew members became casualties “depending where the shell struck.” [5]. This feature was an all-around thing for the M4 Sherman in all theaters.
Secondly, the ease of escaping a tank. The M4 Sherman is so nice to provide a hatch for almost every crew member in the tank (The loader got his in Oct 1943). These were straight up above crew positions and the hatches were spring loaded to ease the weight of the hatch. Once the hatch was open, it was a simple case of lifting oneself up and out the hole. This was a luxury not many other tankers could enjoy and greatly facilitated the escape from a vehicle even when under fire. Another way out is through the belly hatch under the assistant driver, so even if the top was saturated with gun fire, the belly hatch is also a large open way out of the tank to safety.[6]
So this meant that there were often a surviving crew after a tank was knocked out, and their ease of escape is such so that the survivors are able to escape a burning tank quick enough before further casualties are made. With only an average of 1 tanker killed per knocked out, taking away extraordinary chances when none are killed, using the figure that 4,295 American M4 Shermans were lost in the Western front, we’d still only have 4,295 KIA Americans, which is obviously not the case as only 1,581 became KIA.[1]
So where did this 60,000 figure I mentioned earlier come from?
Well, if you tally EVERY SINGLE CASUALTY in the ENTIRETY of the armored divisions, including the infantry, artillerymen, cooks, etc. You would get around 62,334, of which 13,143 were KIA. This included every single armored division and every single person that were assigned in the armored division, even if they may never have touched a tank in his service of World War II.[1]
To close us off, we can make another comparison between an infantry and tank unit, the 70th Tank Battalion and 133rd Infantry regiment, both of which saw extensive combat from Tunisia to the end of the war, and the 70th also has the title of having suffered the most casualties for a tank unit. The 70th, with its manpower of 725 suffered 696 casualties of which 166 KIA/MIA, suffering a loss of 96% of its original strength (discounting incoming replacements and returning casualties).[7] Comparatively, the 133rd with a manpower of 3,207 suffered 5,760 casualties with 1,512 KIA/MIA, suffering a loss of 179% of its original strength [8]
As an Irish man once said, “If you want a death trap, carry an M1 Garand.”[4]
#Inceptor57
Sources:
[1] “Army Battle Casualties and Nonbattle Deaths in World War II Final Report, 7 December 1941-31 December 1946” by Adjutant General
[2] “Survey of Allied Tank Casualties in World War II” by Alvin D. Coox and L. Van Loan Naisawald
[3] “Armored Thunderbolt” by Steven Zaloga
[4] “Myth of American Armor” By Nicholas Moran
[5] “Commanding the Red Army’s Sherman Tanks” by Dimitriy Loza
[6] “Inside the Chieftain’s Hatch: M4A1 Sherman part 2” By Nicholas Moran
[7] “Panther vs. Sherman: Battle of the Bulge 1944” By Steven Zaloga
[8] “The American Infantryman in World War II” by Robert RushTo close us off, we can make another comparison between an infantry and tank unit, the 70th Tank Battalion and 133rd Infantry regiment, both of which saw extensive combat from Tunisia to the end of the war, and the 70th also has the title of having suffered the most casualties for a tank unit. The 70th, with its manpower of 725 suffered 696 casualties of which 166 KIA/MIA, suffering a loss of 96% of its original strength (discounting incoming replacements and returning casualties).[7] Comparatively, the 133rd with a manpower of 3,207 suffered 5,760 casualties with 1,512 KIA/MIA, suffering a loss of 179% of its original strength [8]
As an Irish man once said, “If you want a death trap, carry an M1 Garand.”[4]
#Inceptor57
Sources:
[1] “Army Battle Casualties and Nonbattle Deaths in World War II Final Report, 7 December 1941-31 December 1946” by Adjutant General
[2] “Survey of Allied Tank Casualties in World War II” by Alvin D. Coox and L. Van Loan Naisawald
[3] “Armored Thunderbolt” by Steven Zaloga
[4] “Myth of American Armor” By Nicholas Moran
[5] “Commanding the Red Army’s Sherman Tanks” by Dimitriy Loza
[6] “Inside the Chieftain’s Hatch: M4A1 Sherman part 2” By Nicholas Moran
[7] “Panther vs. Sherman: Battle of the Bulge 1944” By Steven Zaloga
[8] “The American Infantryman in World War II” by Robert Rush
http://cdm16635.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/ref/collection/p16635coll14/id/56035
A sampling of First Army shows ~1300 dead, from a sample and states each knocked out tank averaged 2.5 causalities of which one died. It notes 12000+ Tanks destroyed and doesn’t record those knocked out but repairable. Do the math.
60,000 causalities is indeed accurate as it includes everyone thrown into Tanks.
Did you even bother to read the Survey or did you hope no one would actually bother to read it?
Except the 1st Army losses aren’t the whole ETO and are never intended to reflect such, nor does it specify if they were killed inside or outside the tank.
Thank you for posting actual facts and figures, something it seems is missing from every critical account of M4 performance I’ve read, including this article above.
I was never a fan of the Sherman but until very recently I admit that I just listened to the myths, opinions, and conjecture that so-called experts spew out. When one takes the time and effort to read and research in such a way as to more scientifically assess the capabilities of the M4 we see that it was actually quite good at a number of roles and as survivable if not more-so than most of it’s contemporaries.
Did the Sherman have some deficiencies? Hell yes, but so did every other tank on the battlefield. I don’t find the M4’s deficits to be any greater than any other WII armor especially when we remember that the M4 was a medium tank.
In the end I’m shocked by the casualty numbers. I’m shocked they are so low after hearing for all my life what a terrible tank it was. Lies and conjecture.
The Sherman may have been the best tank in WW2 given that it was so reliable and so maintainable, and had a decent gun and armor. It also was pretty compact, making it efficient to carry in ships. It is, however, one of the least threating looking tanks, the Grant of course being worse. This does have the advantage in that now I can tell people how often what people think is true in history is not.
You fail to mention that the vast Majority of German tanks that the M4 met were equel or inferior to the M4. The Panzer IV was comparable, the Panzer III outclassed, the Stug and Hetzer were defensive only, the marder series were outclassed. This article is a poorly researched piece that ignores facts and the conclusions of 90%, to infer what 10% think.
There are some glaring inaccuracies in your piece so here’s my add.
Tanks – and the M4 included – were called Tommy Cookers from their service in the deserts of N Africa. Being inside one would literally cook the troops inside, and heat exhaustion was a constant problem. Hatches were left open as much as possible to keep the crew alive and alert. But British crews loved the Sherman when it arrived – it was a major improvement for them.
Montgomery said he had no problems with the German Tigers and Panthers because he had over 1200 Sherman Firefly tanks deployed – tanks armed with a high velocity 17 pdr gun able to kill all known German tanks. Wittman, the Tiger Ace, was killed by a British Sherman Firefly. Even the Tiger II could be killed by a Firefly head on. Plus the Sherman was more manoeverable and able to cross all bridges.
Also during the Normandy landings 76mm armed M4 were available for combat but the unit commanders turned them down feeling that they had a good enough M4, and not wishing to complicate their logistics. Plus the British/Canadians/Poles were tying down the German Tiger units around Caen whilst American forces dealt with the bocage on the way to Cherbourg. Only when American tanks started coming face to face with serious opposition were complaints voiced, and the 76mm tanks rushed over from southern England.
The Germans loved captured Shermans – they were well built, more reliable and safer for the crews and made excellent armoured recovery vehicles. The were a panzer drivers dream machine.
The Russian tankers liked it too – with over 4000 deployed on the Eastern Front – it was much loved by the crews who used it.
American doctrine was that the M4 needed to be an all purpose vehicle, both infantry support as well as anti-tank. In its 75mm variant it couldnt kill Tigers or Panthers, but there were many of them around; there were far more Panzer IV and Stugs III/IV that the Sherman could kill or disable. The concept of the tank destroyer – based on a M4 hull – evolved to provide specialist mobile anti tank units to take on the much vaunted Panzers.
There’s also a vaunted myth of it taking 5x M4 to kill a German tank. the basic army unit of a troop of 5 tanks was always sent to kill a target, so off 5 went to get the job done.
The Sherman also had the highest survival rate for its crew especially with the front hatch allowing the driver the exit quickly. In addition many knocked out Shermans were recovered and put back into service, more than could be said for the unrelaible German tanks. Hydro6104 has this well explained.
If you’re going to bitch about a tank – come armed with all the facts instead of sound bites please.
1. Of course they liked it as they were facing Panzer IIIJs and Panzer IVF1s with only a handful of Panzer IVF2s and Tigers in what was a sideshow. On top of which Italian Tanks made up half the Axis numbers.
2. The Firefly had only one successful engagement, the Wittman Ambush when he rushed ahead of his support and opened himself to flank shots. All other occasions, the Firefly was being taken out and unable to penetrate the frontal armor of German Panzers, even when they had the high ground and fired first. The 17 pounder was inadequate for the job. It was 90mm or bust. Even Ike blew his top when he found out the 76mm couldn’t kill Panzers frontally and they got destroyed easily.
3. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O-cFP4S7bc4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mwiy1bdqMfQ
The Sherman had poor mobility off road. It was a crap design developed by disregarding all reports from everyone basically. Also, seriously, the German Cats had no problems crossing bridges as they has lower ground pressure which spread their weight over a wider surface. If the bridge was wide enough, they could cross it.
4. The Americans faced two understrength PDs and knew well in advance what the Bocage was due to similar terrain in parts of Britain, and screwed up in planning. The British at least had specialized vehicles to make rapid breaches…
This should tell us just how piss poor US Planners were at their jobs. If McNair hadn’t been killed, he likely would have been court martialed to prevent a mutiny.
5. The Germans considered the Sherman a terrible design and used captured Shermans due to lack of replacements for their own tanks.
6. Russians loved them because you were able to survive if hit unlike with a T-34 where the fuel cells were next to the ammo…
7. Cats made up a third of the German Tank force, half if we exclude Stugs. The 75mm was too weak and bounced off even the armor of the Panzer IVH/Js it faced from 44 to 45. The rounds also lacked velocity to puncture concrete positions and the fragmentation of the HE rounds while capable of killing infantry, was terrible at shredding gun tubes unless they scored a direct hit.
And tank battles were common as the Germans used their PDs as fire brigades to punch out any Allied attempt to perform a Schwerpunkt. Hence the decision to utilize a broad front, since the Allies were incapable of pocketing the Germans till they were well into Germany.
8. Five to 1 is not a myth and was the average. Nor did it originate with Cooper, but with The G.I. Journal of Sergeant Giles, by Henry Giles a Sherman Tank Commander a full 33 years before Death Traps was written. It was an unofficial Army Rule in WW2 because that was what was happening in combat.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EA0BkXYPO5s&t=954s
At 13:26, a veteran recounts a clash with a Panzer IV which knocked out 6 of 10 Shermans in his unit.
9. Tank Casualties Survey, NWE 1945 is a British study of their Tanks survivability. The Sherman had the worse survivability.
Finally: http://cdm16635.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/ref/collection/p16635coll14/id/56035
From sampling First Army alone, some ~1300 Tank Crewmen were killed in action in Shermans… Remember this when Nicolas Moran spouts nonsense.
Firefly had only 1 successful engagement? 17 Pounder was inadequate and unable to take out Panzers even when firing first? This is how I absolutely know you have 0 clue what you are talking about. The 17 pounder had better ballistic performance than the excellent 75 L70 gun on the Panther and had 0 problems penetrating the Tiger’s 100-120mm armor.
You’re going to have to elaborate on a lot of that.
Interesting analysis, in Normandy 80% of the job required fighting with targets with HE 20% was armour engagement. The Commonwealth Forces had the magical 17 pounder and understood they need to put it into a tank. They also understood Sherman was what they had to use, until comet and the ultimate tank Centurion. So Firefly was developed, to support the 75mm Sherman and Cromwell. Churchill with thicker armour than tiger had 6 pounder Churchill’s along. However, the 75mm Sherman if handled well could defeat Panther and Tiger. The Commonwealth crews in Normandy achieve this against Tiger, and the American crews likewise after Normandy.
Technical Report ARMET-TR-17002 has recently tested the 76mm performance using modern analysis. Taken from the conclusion
“Unencumbered by tactical doctrine and special constraints, the British fit the 17-pounder to the Sherman tank well before the U.S. Army considered the 76-mm for a tank armament. The British had sufficient numbers of “Firefly” variant Sherman tanks for the real-world tank versus tank combat in Normandy, France. American tankers were struggling with the inadequacy of their 75-mm gun in the meantime. The decision to cut barrel length of the M1 instead of rebalancing the M18 turret reduced the capability that would have ensured successful performance against heavier German armor. The muzzle velocity reflecting the recommendations of the Ballistic Research Laboratory report on sub caliber penetrators would have put the M1 76-mm closer to the 17-pounder in performance and given the U.S. tanks a chance of defeating the Panther from the front at close range.”
https://apps.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/1045347.pd
“[The Sherman] was inferior to the German Panther as well as to the heavier Tiger in always every respect save endurance, including armament and defensive armour.”
“…yet still ask their armies to join battle against the Wehrmacht equipped with a range of tanks utterly inferior in armour and killing power?”
The persuasiveness of this article is seriously undermined when it starts by regurgitating such misinformation by historians who should know better. I won’t rehash all the detailed counter-arguments available in well-documented resources such as Armored Thunderbolt by S. Zaloga, http://www.theshermantank.com, and Nicholas Moran’s YouTube lectures on WWII armor.
Just a few observations:
1) No WWII tank was perfect—they were closer in technology to the WWI Mark 1 than a 21st century M1A2. ALL WWII tanks had a bad habit of blowing up when the ammunition and fuel caught fire, not just M4s. In fact, the M4 was probably the most survivable tank of the war.
2) WWII tanks did not face off against each other like a medieval joust or World of Tanks video duel. That “armament” and “armour” trumps all other factors of tank design (like “endurance”) is a stupid thing to say, as anyone would know who studied the design flaws of the Panther and Tiger. The M4 Sherman was a marvel of American industrial ingenuity that the Germans (and British and Russians and Japanese) could only envy, as attested by the Israeli army using upgraded versions well into the 1960s. The French army tried using leftover Panthers after WWII and rejected them as utterly unusable.
3) The muddy, slogging European war of late 1944/1945 was perfectly suited to the few defensive advantages of Pz5s and Pz6s; no attacking WWII tank would have fared well against such conditions. That is not a legitimate indictment against the M4.
4) The most effective German armored vehicles against M4s were StuG IIIs and Panzer IVs, not Panthers and Tigers. Had the Germans built more of the latter and fewer of the former, the war would’ve ended sooner.
The ultimate issue is this: The US needed an ocean-transportable armored vehicle it could use and lend to allies that was able to fight in all climates effectively in order to win a world war. What other tank would’ve done better than the M4 Sherman? Let’s suppose, for sake of argument, that the tanks and all the accompanying industrial apparatus were reversed between United States and Germany, and that your historians above were in charge of which tanks to transport. So while the American factories were shipping hand-made Tigers and Panthers overseas, the Germans were manufacturing M4s. Do you really think the American allies and US armies would’ve been pleased with their tanks’ superior “armour and killing power” while the German M4s’ ONLY advantage was “endurance”? I’m confident the war would’ve lasted much, much longer.
Keith:
1. There is no study showing that. The only study was done by the British and the Sherman had the worse survivability compared to British Tanks. Springloaded hatches didn’t confer any advantage as the armor was tissue paper compared to the guns it faced. Tank Casualties Survey, NWE 1945 is a British study of their Tanks survivability. Google it, its publicly available.
2. Tank battles were common and the Cats made up a third of the German Tank Force, half if we exclude Stugs. The British who faced the bulk of German Panzers around Caen got their teeth punched out repeatably trying to break through.
US forces faced just two under-strength Panzer Divisions and were getting nowhere till they did a massive air bombardment and could bring their five to 1 tank advantage to bear and 12 to 1 artillery advantage to bear, and their 17 to one air power advantage to bear.
Luckily for the Allies, 11th PD was stuck in Southern France facing Dragoon and the bulk of the Panzerwaffe was on the East Front slugging it out. Magically eliminate the Soviets from the war and the Germans now have 5800 more AFVs of all types to throw into the fray in France along with 140 more divisions…
Finally: “The frontline reports said service life of the tank’s engine had increased up from 700 to 1,000km [435 to 621 miles]. Plus, the same Panther tank-equipped units reported that failures regarding final drive, transmission and steering gears were within a suitable range.” Panther: Germany’s Quest for Combat Dominance” by Michael and Gladys Green 2012, pp.50
“This kept in mind, the battalion reported PzKpfw V Chassis No. 154338, Engine No. 8322046 reading 1,878km with driver Obergrefeiter Gablewski, 4.Kp/PzRgt 2. The vehicle was still totally operational. All items were in great condition but the tracks. The consumption of the engine has been 10ltr per 100km. The vehicle was still operating with its first engine and transmission.” Panther by Thomas Anderson 2017, pp. 175-177
“Unteroffizier Krause of a Panther workshop platoon has driven his Panther recovery tank – Chassis No. 212132 – 4,200km until 3 May 1944 without any needing to replace any parts. About 1,000km of this was made towing another Panther tank. The vehicle and engine are still in great condition and operational.” Panther by Thomas Anderson 2017, pp. 55
The final drive while still a problem, has been overblown and all its remaining issues fixed in September of 44 while Shermans were breaking down left and right from spark plug fouling and other mechanical issues.
3. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O-cFP4S7bc4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mwiy1bdqMfQ
Good thing the Allies had a 12 to 1 artillery advantage and 17 to 1 Airpower advantage. The Sherman was a tactical liability.
4. The Germans didn’t have the steel or fuel to make 50,000+ Shermans. Well they could, but then they would not have had steel to build APCs, SPGs, trucks, and locomotives. Also the Sherman would not have coped out on the Ost Front and its inferior CHA compared to FHA and RHA used by the Germans would have gotten it wrecked pretty quickly. Tigers had the armor to take repeated blasts, mine hits, and artillery strikes and slug it out in the AT Defenses the Soviets threw up. Panthers just no selled the bulk of Allied Weapons on the Front Armor.
Finally, the 75mm guns used by the Germans despite higher muzzle velocity had the same explosive filling as the Sherman 75mm gun and delivered bigger fragments which could shred artillery tubes. US Engineers couldn’t figure out how to make a 76mm High Velocity Shell that could carry the same amount of explosive as a Sherman 75mm…
Finally:
http://cdm16635.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/ref/collection/p16635coll14/id/56035
The Reason the Panthers durability was within in acceptable was because the Germans put in place restrictions on how the crews were allowed to operate the Panthers, restrictions which nullified many of its advantage.
Further if the M4 was such a death trap then why did the US suffer a total of 1605 KIA Armored force personnel for the duration of the war. The M4 had one of the best survival rates of any tank when penetrated. Further American crewed M4s all variants in direct tank on tank engagements versus Panthers in Northwest Europe from 6.6.44 to 8.5.45 lost 1.9 M4s for every 3 Panther they destroyed.
Which German 75mm? the 75mm L24 75mm L43/48 the 75mm L70??
M4 were not breaking down left and right.
Funny think was the Americans Achieve a favorable rate of exchange against German armor in direct tank on tank actions even though they were on the offensive 90% of the time.
As to the M4 being inferior to the panther, Explain how inferior American M4s manage to lose 1.9 M4s for every 3 Panthers they killed in tank on tank engagements. Explain how inferior M4s manage to fire first 65% of the time in engagements when the Panther sighted the M4s first.
Call me an amateur Sherman enthusiast.
I’ve seen the negative analysis of the Sherman. Read the book Death Trap and others. The mocking reference to Ronsin. I don’t believe the Sherman on the whole was anything but a rousing success.
All tanks are death traps. All crewman would want the most armor and most powerful guns. Fact is the tank had to be transportable, able to pass over bridges, be fast, reliable and good gas mileage. Most importantly it had to be manufactured fast in overwhelming numbers. It was all those things and by the end of the war with the numerous improvements it was by no means an ineffective death trap.
Mistakes were made obviously but were the US to have diddled putting numerous tank designs into production fewer in number would have been produced and harder to repair in the field.
True the Germans had superior tanks by far. Hitler wanted the over designed, complicated King Tiger, he go it. They built too few, transporting them was a nightmare, crossing bridges impossible, repairing them complicated and they were made poorly toward the end.
The promise of a tank, that of invincibility can never be realized. The Sherman wasn’t the best tank but it was the right tank at the right time.
Few ever believed the Sherman was mighty in and of itself. The part that was mighty was the imagery of the Shermans penetrating deep into enemy territory in large numbers and the skill of the crew tactics that helped offset the German tank advantages.
M4 was not a weapon of tank v tank battle. For some reason, everybody and his dog is compering Sherman to the Tiger. Why? The biggest enemy of Allied tanks were concealed Pak40, and panzerfausts in close encounters.
Cannot see any reason, to spread this type of info, you’re doing. It’s silly
This is a really odd article. It seems like the only defining qualities of a tank must be how big its gun is and how thick its armor is. Sure, you can talk all you want about how the Sherman wasn’t the heaviest tank, but at least the Sherman DID something in the war. Thats not something you can say about the Tiger. The Tiger was a resource sink that accomplished nothing at all for the Germans throughout the entire war. The Sherman also had one of the lowest crew mortality rates of the war. The interior was spacious, the hatches opened quickly and with ease, the tank was smooth to ride on. It had teething problems in North Africa but those were sorted out by D-Day. Ever care to wonder how many lives the Sherman saved by using its HE shells on machine gun emplacements, or how many lives it saved being used as an infantry support vehicle? The Sherman was unrivaled throughout the whole war in its ability to support infantry, whereas on the otherhand for Germans, the infantry supported the tanks. And its rather odd because those tanks still didn’t do fuck all despite extensive infantry support and logistical priority. The Americans only encountered Tigers a handful of times anyways, remember that less than 1500 were produced the entire war. The Sherman had one of the best tank radios of the entire war, was EASILY the most logistically friendly tank of the war (You could fit two Shermans at once on a traincar, the whole thing was easily accessible and quick to repair, it was easy to maintain and incredibly durable, etc), it had a varied gun and was easily modifiable (The Jumbo had better armor than a Tiger), and it was overall loved by troops. It was loved so much that when the 76mm variant was shipped to Europe, tankers wouldn’t take it because the 75mm Sherman had served them so well. I mean throw out all the snarky quotes you want, the Sherman made advances while the Tiger was still fixing its transmission.
Gotta love Yanks. They’re the most lavishly equipped in the world and still managed to bitch and moan.
Well, to put it mildly, the Sherman was a capable tank. Yes, it was outclassed, but how would the Americans ship a tank like a Tiger 1 to the front? Potential history made a good video on it debunking a lot of the myths. It simply wasn’t designed for tank fighting.
Easily the worst recent book I have read. Utterly inaccurate. .
Read this mess and it smelled like a re-hash of what that CLOWN Belton ( “never in direct combat”) Cooper wrote in his FLAWED book, ” Death traps”.
My great uncle was a Sgt in the segregated 761st Tank unit; they NEVER feared German tanks because with the exception of early on in the war, they RARELY saw them, except the ones buring from P-47 ground bombings! What did American tankers ( and I assume the British, free Fench , Canadians et al) were camouflaged high velocity German anti tank cannons and the StuG anti armor vehicles- hard to see and easy to hide for ambushes Sherman tanks!
Glad people like Nicholas “the chief” Moran is around to do REAL research. German tanks were potent – WHEN they actually WORKED and that wasn’t often. And when the US and UK and allies used BEYG tactics? They usually WON with those lowly Sherman’s.
The fact that the RUSSIANS loved the Sherman’s they got over their own T-34s and that thr majority of the 2nd Armored Division even hung on to their 75mm cannon armed Sherman’s instead of upgrading to the more powerful 76.2mm cannon Sherman’s speaks volumes.
One on one against a Pamther or Tiger tank? Yeah the Sherman was probably gonna get beat- but that’s not reality and there are plenty of stories of Sherman’s beating down or mobility killing Panthers and a few tigers- a King Tiger got bashed out of combat by a platoon of 75mm armed Sherman’s in a small town in Belgium and that King Tiger STILL sits where it got hammered to this day as war monument.
The mindset if ” the other guy has better” will always be there in war – I saw it first deployment to Afghanistan- my platoon would come across dead or wounded Talib fighters with rusty AKMs/ and Chicom type 56s and think these guys were raining bullets down on us – reality was that it was insurgent using bolt action 100 yr old Lee Enfields and Mosin Nagant rifles – half the AKs we collected or confiscated were barely operational and had ” minute of wall” accuracy.
Have any of you ever been deer hunting from a tree stand? It is basically laying in ambush for a deer to cross your path. And this was what the Germans were doing. They were, for the most part, fighting defensively and laying in ambush for advancing allied forces. Being hidden they had an advantage and were able to get off the first shot. Consequently Shermans, and for that matter all other allied tanks, took serious losses. Sherman tanks get an awful lot of grief pilled on them, but was there anything else better? Did Shermans burn? Yes, but so did other tanks.
The Sherman tanks have achieved a mythic status. That status is being terrible. I’ve done some digging, and I’ve heard that Shermans were never actually called “Ronsons”. If they were hit they would burn. But if you managed to penetrate a Panther’s armor it would burn too. There’s this Panther Commander, I forgot his name, but his gun and tracks were disabled by American phosphorous grenades. The German rule was, as stated by the veteran “you can’t get out unless it burns”. Eventually they got out because the phosphorous set the tank on fire. There are multiple stages of tank enthusiasm. Stage 1: loving your countries tank Stage 2: hating your countries tank Stage 3: realizing tanks were designed with a reason in mind and that they all had their purposes. The Sherman gets an unfair amount of hate. Meanwhile, people stare at the T-34, their jaws on the floor. Here’s what somebody said on the internet: The T-34 has sloped armor so a shot from a tiger would bounce. No, this person was not being sarcastic. If you ask a veteran about their experience in the war, of course they’ll say it was bad(except maybe the Abrams crews that fought at 73 easting). American heavy tanks were developed, but never replaced the Sherman. Why? Because they were simply too expensive and hard to ship. German tanks, like the tiger, frequently got stuck in soft ground. The suspension was complex and hard to fix. Sometimes they were lost from running wheels getting knocked out of alignment. TL;DR: the Sherman was fine. Other tanks are the ones surrounded in myths. P.S The Sherman had a super high crew survival rate. That meaning if they were hit most of the crew would get out. Meanwhile, German and Soviet tanks had horrific crew survival rates. Sorry for the rant, but I hate it when people shame America and glorify the Nazis and Soviets.
One German was impressed with the Sherman; none other than Erwin Rommel in late 1942, early 1943.
Contrary to this article, the Sherman tank was indeed one of the best tanks of the war. Some of the big cat fetishists will never accept it, but I will explain for those who are open to another viewpoint.
Let’s start with common sense. The Americans had arguably the best small aircraft in the war (P-51 and P-47 – not saying better than Spitfire, Fw-190, etc., just saying they have an argument), they had arguably the best bombers (B-24, B-17), they had arguably the best small arms (Garand, M-2 .50 cal), the best non-armored vehicles (Jeep, 2.5 Ton Truck), the best artillery gun (M1 155m howitzer), best aircraft carriers, Iowa-class battleships, on and on and on…yet they were willing to just keep an underperforming tank for the whole war?
(My British, German, and other international friends – I want to reiterate, I’m not saying these American weapons were the best. I’m just saying American weapons were among the best in every single category, but somehow people think the American leadership somehow was satisfied with a grossly unsatisfactory tank. It isn’t true.)
The American leadership LIKED the Sherman!
The quotes in your article are from soldiers, who famously like to gripe. It’s a soldier’s god-given right to complain. About food, about equipment, whatever. I’m sure when you’re a Sherman tanker in Normandy, and you hop out and see a knocked out Panther, you feel very jealous of that armor and gun. But you know what? You’re going to be seeing a lot of those knocked out Panthers. You know why?
The Sherman had a 3.6 to 1 kill ratio over the Panther.
GASP! How can this be? The armor! The giant gun!
It’s because armor and guns don’t matter when you’re 500m away, which is the distance most tank engagements happen. Huge guns and massive armor are great for the wide open steppes of Russia, but western Europe ain’t Russia.
Think of it this way. If you and I are fighting in a small room, would you rather have heavy body armor (that isn’t pistol proof) and a sniper rifle, or street clothes and a pistol?
Here’s the problem. At 500m, even a 75mm Sherman can penetrate a Panther frontally with ease, and a 76mm Sherman can penetrate a Tiger’s front armor from even further than that. A 75mm Sherman with an M61 armor piercing shell could penetrate a Tiger at 500m. So when these tanks faced off, whoever shot first usually won. So obviously being a very easy to make, easy to maintain, and quick-to-the-battlefield tank made the Sherman great for this type of war: it’s easy to get the first shot off when you outnumber the enemy 5:1.
Let me give you some other advantages the Sherman had in this type of war. When the Sherman’s commander saw the enemy, he could override the turret control and swing the turret and aim it directly at the enemy tank so the gunner could see it. German tanks did not have this ability. Can you imagine being a German tank commander in the bocage, screaming down to your gunner “No no! More to the left! He’s between the taller tree and the bush! Not that bush!” And you know what’s worse? The Zeiss 2.5x zoom scope is an excellent optic. But the German gunner can’t switch out of it. So he’s trying to find the close range tank while zoomed in. All while being swarmed by 5 tanks, who can easily penetrate him, and whose commanders are swinging the turrets into place. The American gunner not only can click between wide view and zoom, his gun also has a gyroscope to help the gun stay level on the move.
All of these things are MUCH more important than the stats “fanboys” will post about penetration, muzzle velocity, etc.
In summation, the Sherman would not have been a good tank on the Russian steppes. But for western Europe, it was the perfect tank for the job. It may have been scary being inside one, and people with a narrow view of the war might not have seen the big picture. But the big picture was of a David more than capable of killing Goliath, over and over, on his own terms.
Thank God for the Sherman!
The fact that you call a Panzer IV a Tiger shows how much you actually know about WW2 tanks (nothing). HAHAHA.
The ‘greatest myth’ in fact is that it gained a moniker of being a “Death Trap” (despite having one of the highest survivability rates for any allied tank during the war.) Or the “Ronson”, because it “lights first time, everytime.” – in spite of the fact that (a) Zippos were vastly more popular for the 1940s American soldier, and (b) Ronson wouldn’t use that catchphrase until 1954.
And that they were “inferior”? “It took 5 Shermans to knock out a Tiger”? Ohhh boy, where did I last hear that? Oh right, Nazis referring to the Soviets as “hordes of subhumans” whenever they attacked. In reality the M4 had decent armor, 93~ mm worth of protection from its sloped frontal glacis, just 10 mm shy of the Tiger 1’s 100 mm plate. It was unkillable by Panzer IIIs and IVs from a distance during its debut in Africa. And the 75 mm could adequately kill thinly Panzer IVs and IIIs which formed majority of German armor. Only 3 times in fact did American tankers encounter Tigers in numbers. And it had a 3.6:1 kill ratio over the Panther. And do you even Battle of Arracourt, man?