True. The often forgotten, overlooked Battle of Arracourt is a prime example of where trained, experienced Sherman crews, mostly operating the inferior 75mm gun editions, (along with M18 Hellcat tank destroyers) pawned a hastily thrown together unit of conscripts operating mighty Panthers…
A pretty good blog article on the Sherman tank:
http://anonymous-generaltopics.blogspot.com/2008/05/m4-sherman.html
Does anyone know if Gen Patton made any direct comments about the Sherman? I did read in this thread about him forbidding “add on armor” at first. Are there any accounts as to how effective the various articles the tankers used to supplement their armor on the Sherman or any other tanks of WW2?
The Sherman had some advantages over German Tanks in that they were more mechanically reliable, and less complicated to maintain. The Germans had problems with keeping all of the their tanks operational. They tended to break down easily. But everyone knows the Shermans were undergunned and caught fire too easily. The shots from a Sherman would bounce off Tiger armor.
Actually, if you read through the thread you’ll find the Sherman’s “catching fire too easily” was an initial design flaw in the handling of ammunition that was mitigated with the introduction of water-jackets or “wet stowage.” And a Firefly Sherman’s 17-pdr. didn’t always just “bounce off” a Tiger.
The PzKpfw III and IV were pretty reliable and were the workhorses of the Panzer forces Pz III at the beginning and the Pz IV from the middle to the end. The early Pz V (ausf D) was unreliable but by the time the Ausf A entered service most faults had been rectified. The Tiger’s however (no matter the model or variant) were expensive and unreliable beasts. The biggest problem was lack of spares and since they were mostly retreating they lost a large number of vehicles that were pretty much serviceable due to losing control of the battle field.
The Sherman’s had some very complicated engine arrangements in different models (A57 being a point) and a variety of configurations of hull and suspension which could make repairs problematical (they did not have the spares problems the Germans had though). They were fairly reliable though but were under gunned for AT work with the 75mm (the 76 mm was a better AT weapon but worse at HE, same as the British 17 pdr).
British 6 pdr’s (57mm) knocked out Tigers (Bovingtons Tiger I no 131 was a tactical kill after being hit by a round from a Churchill 6 pdr on the gun barrel the ricocheted into the turret ring) and Panthers.
Reading the whole thread would have helped you to understand before posting.