A group of American soldiers hitch a ride into battle on an M4 Sherman tank covered with sandbags for extra protection. National Archives
Patton did stop his troops from adding ad-hoc armour to their tanks as he had been told it reduced mobility and over stresed the engines and drive trains so reducing reliability.
Later on though he authorised add on armour made from plate removed from German armoured vehicles. A little bit of a turn round.
The Sherman was a good tank but taks a very low 3rd place behine the Panther and T34/76 and T34/85. When engaging Tigers 1 on 1 it was a loser most of the time.