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The M4 Sherman Tank Epic Information Thread.. (work in progress)


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17 minutes ago, Jeeps_Guns_Tanks said:

Yeah, the GAA was one bad ass mill, it had forged rods, with full floating wrist pins, I can't find a source on if the pistons were cast or forged, but I'd bet forged, since everything else was so heavy duty. 

 

I'm really curious why the Army didn't try and get a little more power out of it. 

Because, "durabilty"/  Low stress means long life.

 

Walt could tell you, ever seen the mill for a M48 or M60 tank?  Holy shit.  a rodders dream. Absurdly overbuilt, massive cooling, gigantic valves. 

Any of the "Patton"mills in WW2 would have been stuffed in bombers,  just because of their power to weight ratios. 

 

A  late M60 tank in WW2  would have stunned the Germans.  Superb armor, immensely reliable, and the running gear. 

Like nothing they have seen.  A tiny automatic trans  coupled to a huge  air cooled V-12.

 

 

Great fun to imagine.

 

 

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1 minute ago, Meplat said:

Because, "durabilty"/  Low stress means long life.

 

Walt could tell you, ever seen the mill for a M48 or M60 tank?  Holy shit.  a rodders dream. Absurdly overbuilt, massive cooling, gigantic valves. 

Any of the "Patton"mills in WW2 would have been stuffed in bombers,  just because of their power to weight ratios. 

 

A  late M60 tank in WW2  would have stunned the Germans.  Superb armor, immensely reliable, and the running gear. 

Like nothing they have seen.  A tiny automatic trans  coupled to a huge  air cooled V-12.

 

 

Great fun to imagine.

 

 

 

 

 

I always like to imagine what their reaction to Willow Run or the Fisher or Chrysler Tank Arsenals. They really had nothing comparable. 

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Here are the latest images I have fixed. I'm getting much better at fixing bad sections of the image, and I found a way to blur the pixilated scanned as black and white or worse, run through a photocopier, to actually make the shading, that the scanning process destroyed, looking pretty good again. 

 

This, 

f19-1-TURRET-AND-BASKET-SIDE-VIEW-IMPROV

 

Can look like this:

 

f19-1-TURRET-AND-BASKET-SIDE-VIEW-IMPROV

 

This level of improvement requires a lot more time. 

 

Some others.  This is what I've been doing, with a game or two of Warthunder thrown in. The M46 Tiger is rad. 

 

F394-Telescope-M70F-from-9-7018-improved

M4SERIESGUNNERSPERILATEMODEL-F19-14-FLAT

F414-Periscope-mount-M68-and-adapter-M4A

 

 

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4 hours ago, EnsignExpendable said:

It's T8E1 in all the other places, must have been a typo. That makes sense, since the forged muzzle brake can't be easier to produce than cast.

 

Also there's a turret basket on the T23 turret? I thought the turret basket was eliminated on 76 mm Shermans.

Early t23 turrets had full baskets but as they improved it, the basket got smaller and smaller to the point it covered leas than half the floor.

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That's an interesting topic as, like with the Valentine, nobody appears to know where the name originated. In his book on the Firefly, Hayward gives a bit of background:

 

Quote

One point that needs to be made early is that the name Firefly is not included in any War Office or Ministry of Supply technical or policy files. Nor was it used by ministers, generals or senior officials in any filed correspondence that the author has seen whilst researching at the Public Records Office (PRO). Typically, it is referred to as Sherman 17-pdr (with many variations) or the official designation of 17-pdr armament C as used in the Sherman IC or VC for the M4 17-pdr and M4A4 17-pdr respectively.

 

The name was used at Brigade and Regimental level in Twenty-First Army Group unit war diaries from March, April and May 1944...These are mentioned as early as March and at the time of the first issues, so it does not seem to have had time to develop within units as a nickname...It is also worth noting that only some units used the name. Most of the units from the sample of war diaries examined still referred to their vehicles as Sherman 17-pdrs or Sherman VCs, not Fireflies...One other comment by Jeff Plowman was that he had not found any mention of the name Firefly by New Zealand units in Italy, where 17-pdr Sherman was used.

 

The issue of the name is further confused by the 24th Lancers use in a report from July in Normandy of the names 'Mayfly' and 'Mayflies' (WO171/849, 24th Lancers War Diary) . Sergeant Jack Moat, whom the author has interviewed, took Fireflies into action and had three shot out from under him...stated that he picked up his first example before D-Day in 1944 and always knew the 17-pdr armed Sherman as a Firefly...The name Firefly seems also to have been used for rearmed US Motor Gun Carriage [sic] M10Cs (commonly called Achilles, although in the files variations on M10 17-pdr is more usual). A 1944 caption at the Imperial War Museum for an M10 17-pdr refers to it as a Firefly.

 

What's the date on that Canadian document?

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2 hours ago, EnsignExpendable said:

Turns out the Firefly wasn't really the Firefly

 

EAUWZ1g.png

 

To make things a bit more legible

Quote

For some reason, the origin of which is not clear, the Sherman mounting 17-Pdr gun has been named "Firefly". In point(?) of that this name has already been allocated to an entirely different equipment and will NOT be named for this 17-Pdr Sherman, which should be referred to as the 'Sherman V.C.".

 

The system of nomenclature(?) to be adopted in relation to Shermans carrying other than the 75 mm gun is as follows:

-"A" after the mark of tank indicates the 76 mm gun, e.g., SHERMAN IIA

-"B" after the mark of tank indicates the 105 mm How., e.g. SHERMAN IVB

-"C" after the mark of tank indicates the 17-Pdr gun, e.g. SHERMAN V.C.

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14 minutes ago, Jeeps_Guns_Tanks said:

Very nice, I bet that's not it's original gun mount!

Yes, very unlikely.  Those direct vision slits mark this is a very early production vehicle.  I couldn't get up high enough to see if it had the loaders hatch.  I'm going to guess the one piece final drive assembly is not original. They ran this vehicle during the re-enactment of a Marine assault on a bunker.  It fired some blanks and motored about while the Marines fired and advanced until they could use the flame thrower.  It was pretty cool.

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