From what I’ve read there were only a small number used, and this was only on a ad hoc basis, in that a unit would make use of any that was captured in a reasonable condition until it either broke down, or suffered battle damage, at which point it would be discarded.
I have not heard of any modifications, but if there were it would have had to have been done at a local level.
In German service the M4 series was known as the Pz Kpfw M4 748(a)
A photo of german sherman, captured British Sherman VC “Firefly” (armed with 17 pounder gun) in Normandy, 1944.
A German Sherman. I never heard about one of those.
Weren’t most tanks, including all German tanks, powered by gasoline/petrol engines? That would seem to be a ‘problem’ with tank design in general, and not a disadvantage owned by the Sherman specifically. If a tank’s propensity to brew-up is exacerbated by having a gasoline engine, a Tiger would be, and was, just as vulnerable as an M4 in this regard.
Various articles, History Channel shows and what not, will usually point to the Sherman’s engine when the “Ronson” issue is discussed (along with armor and stowage), yet they never take any points away from the Panther on account of its equally fire-prone gasoline/petrol engine. I wonder why the petrol=brew-ups stigma is so often only attached to the Sherman. Seems unfair because, with the wet stowage improvement, the Sherman was actually the only tank of the era (gasoline powered or otherwise) to employ a measure designed specifically to protect itself from brew-ups.
the russian T-34 had diesel engines and if you watch fotos or film-sequenzes of hit T-34, you will see that they also brew up in most cases. again, I personally think that the sort of engine is not so important to answer the question if a tank brews up easily or not. if hit properly by the right device, any tank (even modern ones) will catch fire fire and burn like hell. it is intersting because you might think that such a machine only consists of steel. maybe it is a factor how the whole wiring is done in the engine compartment, and so this area will easily catch fire (cooling slots!) if hit by a molotov cocktail or flamethrower.
jens
That’s incorrect other tanks did have measures to deal with the problem, the Panther for example, had protected stowage bins for its ammo.
Well then, scratch my last.
In what manner was the Panther ammo protected? Did the bins just have extra armor? Was it standard on all models, or was it added later in production?
the russian T-34 had diesel engines and if you watch fotos or film-sequenzes of hit T-34, you will see that they also brew up in most cases.
Well, If a hollow charge round (like the one in Panzerfaust, RPzB54, etc) hit a T-34 fuel tank it ignited no matters if diesel because it unleah a fire jet with 4000 degrees celcius …so in that aspect there was no much difference.
But yes the T-34 was much less prone to cath fire and explode that The Sherman.
Seems unfair because, with the wet stowage improvement, the Sherman was actually the only tank of the era (gasoline powered or otherwise) to employ a measure designed specifically to protect itself from brew-ups.
Teorically yes, some Shermans had a thing called “Wet magazine” wich was a water deposit wich broke up in impact and showered the ammo, but I dont know how effective it was.
It worth to note that The M4a2 had disel engines, 1 x Grey Marine 6-71 Model 6046 (375 HP)
Ultimately it comes down to supply issues in Normandy. Due to the situation (lack of a suitable port and major logistics problems) tank crews carried far more ammunition than the tank was designed to, usually having it just lying loose around the tank. When hit, they brewed up every time. When they broke out and the supply situation was normalised, they stopped doing this and reverted to the wet stowage. The problem with it brewing up when hit went away, but the tank’s reputation never recovered.
A great deal of the later production Shermans, including all of the 76mm armed tanks, used the wet stowage system. There’s lots of claims out there that state it was plenty effective, but they tend to lack any hard facts and figures. I assume the wet stowage was well recieved by the tankers. Various sources say things from “less likely to brew up” and “reduced casualties” to “drastically reduced instances of brewing up” (I’ve read at least one claim where a percentage of improvement was given and it was very high.)…But I’ve never read any extensive official studies of the system specifically.
Like the USMC M4A2s, the Shermans lend-leased to the Russians also used diesel engines. It would be interesting to find out if they were more, equally, or less likey to brew up when compared to the T34s they were serving along side of.
I’d imagine they were more likely to brew up since the M-4s armor was less effective than the T-34s. That coupled with the fact that the Shermans were employed in an exposed offensive role against concealed German armor and infantry in hedgerows with anti-tank weapons during Normady, there’s no question that the Sherman was at a disadvantage.
This is a good story,it also gives the details on where to hit the tank with what weapons which is kinda cool.
Indeed, a normal 75mm gun Sherman knocking out a Tiger 1…that is something you dont see every day.
Actually it did happen, it only took three to five Shermans being destroyed first, most of the time…
In here you got the penetration tables for U.S tank guns, the normal APC penetrate 64 mm of armor at 400-500m, the side and rear armor in the Tiger H was 80mm so you figure.
http://www.wwiivehicles.com/usa/guns.asp
So what? The US could replace them. What actually happened most of the time was that the Shermans were up against unsupported German infantry. When compared to an infantry shirt, the Sherman is a very heavily armoured beast indeed.
When compared to an infantry shirt, the Sherman is a very heavily armoured beast indeed.
Quite a remarkable statement.
Russian tankers memoires on M4 sherman:
http://www.iremember.ru/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=85&Itemid=19
Dmitriy Fedorovich, on which American tanks did you fight?
- On Shermans. We called them “Emchas”, from M4 [in Russian, em chetyrye]. Initially they had the short main gun, and later they began to arrive with the long gun and muzzle brake. On the front slope armor there was a travel lock for securing the barrel during road marches. The main gun was quite long. Overall, this was a good vehicle but, as with any tank, it had its pluses and minuses. When someone says to me that this was a bad tank, I respond, “Excuse me!” One cannot say that this was a bad tank. Bad as compared to what?
- Dmitriy Fedorovich, did you have just American tanks in your unit?
- Our 6th Guards Tank Army (yes, we had six of them) fought in Ukraine, Romania, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, and Austria. We ended the war for us in Czechoslovakia. Then they rushed us to the Far East and we fought against Japan. I briefly remind you that the army consisted of two corps: 5th Guards Tank Stalingrad Corps on our own T-34s and 5th Mechanized Corps, in which I fought. For the first time this corps had British Matildas, Valentines, and Churchills.
- They delivered the Churchill later.
- Yes, a bit later. After 1943 we largely declined British tanks because they had significant deficiencies. In particular, they had 12-14 h.p. per ton of weight at a time when good tanks had 18-20 h.p. per ton. Of these three British tanks, the best was the Valentine produced in Canada. Its armor was streamlined but more importantly, it featured a long-barreled 57mm main gun. My unit switched over to American Shermans at the end of 1943. After the Kishinev Operation our corps became the 9th Guards Mechanized Corps. I missed to tell you that every corps consisted of four brigades. Our mechanized corps had three mechanized brigades and one tank brigade, in which I fought. A tank corps had three tank brigades and one mechanized brigade. Yes, we had Shermans in our brigade at the end of 1943.
- But the British tanks were not withdrawn from service, so they fought until they were gone. Wasn’t there a period when your corps had a mixture of tanks, both American and British? Were there any problems associated with the presence of such a broad variety of vehicles from different countries? For example, with supply and maintenance?
- Well, there were always problems. In general, the Matilda was an unbelievably worthless tank! I will tell you about one of the Matilda’s deficiencies that caused us a great deal of trouble. Some fool in the General Staff planned an operation and sent our corps to the area of Yelnya, Smolensk, and Roslavl. The terrain there was forested swamp. The Matilda had skirts along the sides. The tank was developed primarily for operations in the desert. These skirts worked well in the desert-the sand passed through the rectangular slots in them. But in the forested swamps of Russia the mud packed into the space between the tracks and these side skirts. The Matilda transmission had a servomechanism for ease of shifting. In our conditions this component was weak, constantly overheated, and then failed. This was fine for the British. By 1943 they had developed a replacement unit that could be installed simply by unscrewing four mounting bolts, pulling out the old unit, and installing the new unit. It did not always work this way for us.
In my battalion we had Senior Sergeant (Starshina) Nesterov, a former kolkhoz tractor driver (Kolkhoz is sort of farm - Valera), in the position of battalion mechanic. In general each of our tank companies had a mechanic and Nesterov was it for the battalion. At our corps level we had a representative (whose name I have forgotten) of the British firm that produced these tanks. At one time I had it written down, but when my tank was hit everything I had in it burned up -photographs, documents, and notebook. We were forbidden to keep notes at the front, but I did it on the sly. Anyway, this British representative constantly interfered with our efforts to repair separate components of the tank. He said, “This has a factory seal. You should not tinker with it!” We were supposed to take out a component and install a new one. Nesterov made a simple repair to all these transmissions. One time the British representative came up to Nesterov and asked him, “At which university did you study?” And Nesterov replied, “At the kolkhoz!”
The Sherman was light years better in this regard. Did you know that one of the designers of the Sherman was a Russian engineer named Timoshenko? He was some shirt tail relative of Marshal S. K. Timoshenko.
The Sherman had its weaknesses, the greatest of which was its high center of gravity. The tank frequently tipped over on its side, like a Matryoshka doll (a wooden stacking doll). But I am alive today thanks to this deficiency. We were fighting in Hungary in December 1944. I was leading the battalion and on a turn my driver-mechanic clipped a curb. My tank went over on its side. We were thrown around, of course, but we survived the experience. Meanwhile the other four of my tanks
went ahead and drove into an ambush. They were all destroyed.
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Dmitriy Fedorovich, the Sherman had a rubber-coated metal track. Some contemporary authors point to this as a deficiency, since in combat the rubber might be set on fire. With the track thus stripped bare, the tank is disabled. What can you say in this regard?
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On the one hand this rubber-coated track was a big plus. In the first place, this track had a service life approximately twice that of steel track. I might be mistaken, but I believe that the service life of the T-34 track was 2500 kilometers. The service life of the Sherman track was in excess of 5000 kilometers. Secondly, The Sherman drove like a car on hard surfaces, and our T-34 made so much noise that only the devil knows how many kilometers away it could be heard. What was the bad side of the Sherman track? In my book, Commanding the Red Army’s Sherman Tanks, there is a chapter entitled “Barefooted”. There I wrote about an incident that occurred in August 1944 in Romania, during the Jassy-Kishinev Operation. The heat was fearsome, somewhere around 30° C. We had driven approximately 100 km along a highway in a single day. The rubber linings on our support rollers got so hot that the rubber separated and peeled off in long pieces. Our corps paused not far from Bucharest. The rubber was flying around, the rollers had begun to jam up, the noise was terrible, and in the end we had been stopped. This was immediately reported to Moscow. Was this some kind of joke, an entire corps had halted? To our surprise, they brought new support rollers to us quickly and we spent three days installing them. I still don’t know where they found so many support rollers in such a short time. There was yet another minus of rubber track. Even on a slightly icy surface the tank slid around like a fat cow. When this happened we had to tie barbed wire around the track or make grousers out of chains or bolts, anything to give us traction. But this was with the first shipment of tanks. Having seen this, the American representative reported to his company and the next shipment of tanks was accompanied by additional track blocks with grousers and spikes.
If I recall, there were up to seven blocks for each track, for a total of fourteen per tank. We carried them in our parts bin. In general the American representative worked efficiently. Any deficiency that he observed and reported was quickly and effectively corrected.
One more shortcoming of the Sherman was the construction of the driver’s hatch. The hatch on the first shipment of Shermans was located in the roof of the hull and simply opened upward. Frequently the driver-mechanic opened it and raised his head in order to see better. There were several occasions when during the rotation of the turret the main gun struck this hatch and knocked it into the driver’s head. We had this happen once or twice in my own unit. Later the Americans corrected this deficiency. Now the hatch rose up and simply moved to the side, like on modern tanks.
Still one great plus of the Sherman was in the charging of its batteries. On our T-34 it was necessary to run the engine, all 500 horsepower of it, in order to charge batteries. In the crew compartment of the Sherman was an auxiliary gasoline engine, small like a motorcycle’s one. Start it up and it charged the batteries. This was a big deal to us!
For a long time after the war I sought an answer to one question. If a T-34 started burning, we tried to get as far away from it as possible, even though this was forbidden. The on-board ammunition exploded. For a brief period of time, perhaps six weeks, I fought on a T-34 around Smolensk. The commander of one of our companies was hit in his tank. The crew jumped out of the tank but were unable to run away from it because the Germans were pinning them down with machine gun fire. They lay there in the wheat field as the tank burned and blew up. By evening, when the battle had waned, we went to them. I found the company commander lying on the ground with a large piece of armor sticking out of his head. When a Sherman burned, the main gun ammunition did not explode. Why was this?