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

[Walter_Sobchak]

I'm sure that somehow a SS tank unit added these submerged shermans to their kill claims total.  

[Jeeps_Guns_Tanks]

Yeah, Wittmann was on leave, and took a submarine ride, doing a cruise as a torpedo aimer.  He laughed manically as the ship sunk. 

[Meplat]

I'm sure that somehow a SS tank unit added these submerged shermans to their kill claims total.  

Twice even, once as "Soviet armor" and once as "U.S. Armor". Occasionally three times if the need to pad Commonwealth kills is felt.

[Jeeps_Guns_Tanks]

Coming soon, a dedicated engine section, and expanded myths section, an expanded Marine use section. A new British use section. Also more details on the M4A4 and the countries that got stuck with it.  Probably tomorrow. I've gone through the whole thing again correcting the never ending stream of minor detail changes and errors in spelling or grammar.

 

edit: Oh also a table when specifications for the guns used on the Sherman taken from Hunnicutt's Sherman book. As was all the engine data. 

 

Edit II: Oh, I'm also going to add this sweet radio exchange from a Marine tank company on Okinowa. 

 

27,144 words now.

 

It's just about 2:30am and I'm still pretty awake... I need to fix that or monday is going to be bad.   

Edited October 18, 2015 by Jeeps_Guns_Tanks

[Jeeps_Guns_Tanks]

New sections!

 

 

The Radios: I don’t know much about tank radios, but I will when done with this section.

 

   The Sherman tank came with a SCR 508, 528 or 538 radio set. Command tanks had an additional SCR 506 mounted in the right front sponson. This let the tank listen on the net for the HQ he answered to while still talking to his own unit. The main radio set also had the tank intercom built into it. This intercom allowed the crew to talk to each other, but not transmit on the radio, only the commander could do that.

 

   Here is a fascinating transcript of a Marine tank company radio chatter, taken by a US destroyer off shore. You can find this on page 64 of Michael Greens M4 Sherman at War.

 

“This is Red Two, Red One, heartburn says that he is ready to start shooting at those pillboxes”

“Tell Heartburn I can’t receive him. You will have to relay. Tell him to give us a signal and well spot for him”

“Red Two wilco”

“Heartburn, raise your fire. You’re firing right into us”

“That’s not Heartburn, Red Two, That’s a that’s a high velocity gun from our left rear. I heard it whistle. Red One out.”

“Red Three, this is Red One. Can you see that gun that’s shooting into us?”

“Red One, I think that’s our own gunfire.”

“Goddamnit, it’s not, I tell you. It’s a high velocity gun and not a howitzer. Investigate or there on your left. But watch out for infantry; they’re right in there somewhere”

“Red Two, tell Heartburn down fifty, left fifty”

“Red Two wilco”

“Red Three, what are you doing? Go south west!”

“I’m heading south west Red One.”

“For Christ sake, get oriented. I can see you, Red Three. You are heading are heading northwest.Fox Love with hard left brake. Cross the road and go back up behind that house”

“But”

I don’t know why I bother with you, Red Three. Yellow One, take charge of Red Three and get him squared away. And get that gun; it’s too close.”

“Red One from Red Two, Heartburn wants to know if we are the front lines”

“Christ yes we’re plenty front right now”

“This is Red Two, artillery on the way”

“Red one wilco”

“Red One from Yellow One. I can see some Japs setting up a machine gun about 100 yards to my right”

“Those are our troops Yellow One, don’t shoot in there”

“The man at my telephone -  I think he’s an Officer, - says we have no troops in there.”

“Yellow Two, go over there and investigate. Don’t shoot at them; that man at the telephone probably doesn’t know where the troops are. If they’re Japs, run them over.”

“Yellow One, wilco.”

“Go ahead, Yellow Two. What in God’s name are you waiting for?”

“I’m up as far as I can go and still depress my  machine guns.”

“The hell with your machine guns! I told you to run over them! Run over them, Goddamnit; obey your orders!”

“Yellow Two, wilco”

“Yellow One, what have you to report on that machine gun?”

“Red One, a Jap stood up and threw a grenade at us so I gave him a squirt.”

“Did you run over that gun like I told you?”

“No. Red One, we put an HE into it and wrecked it.”

“Christ, won’t you people ever learn to conserve your ammunition…”

“Red One from Green Two, I’m stuck between two trees.”

“Green Three stand by him. After the infantry has cleared up around there, get your assistant driver out and tow him clear.”

“Green Three, wilco”

“While you’re waiting, Green three, keep an eye out on that house on your right. I see troops coming out of there with bottles in their shirts.”

“Can I send my assistant driver over to investigate?”

“Stay in your tank”

“Yellow One, from Red Three, where are you going?”

“Red One from Green Four. I am moving out to take out a pillbox the infantry pointed out I will I will take care of it and let them catch up.”

“Where is it, Green Four?”

“In that clump of bushes to my right.”

“Can you see it? It is all right to fire? Wait Green four”

“Green Four wilco”

“Green Four, you better not fire. The 4^th Marines are over there somewhere.”

“Run up on the box and turn around on it”

“It’s one of those coconut log things. It looks like it my be to strong to squash. Is it all right if I fire into the slit?”

“Affirmative, but be careful, wilco”

“Red One, this is Hairless. We’ve got some Japs bottled up in two caves in Target Area Four Baker. We’d like you to leave two tanks to watch them.”

“You know damn well that’s infantry work. We’re a mobile outfit, not watchdogs. Put your saki drinkers in there.”

“Ok Harry, Red One out.”

“All tanks start ‘em up. Move out now. Guide right and form a shallow right echelon. As soon as we hit the flat ground around the airfield, spread out to one hundred and fifty yard interval. Al right, move out, move out

 

 

 

This section is just a major update with a chart, and a bit of a test to see how the chart will transfer. 

 

Guns: Things That Go Boom and Ratta-Tat-Tat

 

   The M3 75mm gun was a great tank gun for the time, and was based on a well-liked WWI French field gun. When introduced it could punch through any German tank it faced, from just about any angle. It’s a myth the Sherman was designed to only support infantry, though it’s primary role was not anti-armor, it was still designed to face other tanks.  The gun worked well in the infantry support role as well, with an effective HE and WP smoke round, and a canister round. This gun had a very high rate of fire in the Sherman (20rpm) and was mated with a basic stabilization system. This system did not allow shooting on the move accurately, but did allow the sights and gun to be put on the target faster when the tank came to a stop to shoot. No world war two tanks could shoot on the move with a real chance to hit even a stationary tank sized target. With a twenty round a minute rate of fire, the Sherman could pump out a lot of HE in support of the infantry, and it was not unheard of for the tanks to be used as artillery. The Sherman tank was equipped with all the gear to act as artillery if needed and was a regular occurrence in the MTO.

 

   Tanks with the 75mm gun carried between 104 and 97 rounds of main gun ammo.

 

   Much of the later large hull tanks were produced with a larger turret to accommodate the M1 family of 76mm guns. This gun had some issues. The M1 and M1A1 often came without muzzle brakes. When firing during dusty conditions the view of the target would be obscured by dust stirred up from the guns blast, the fix for this was for the commander or another crewman to stand away from the tank and talk to the crew over the intercom, via a long wire, and correct the shots onto target. Not a great fix...The final fix was muzzle brakes; it took a little while for supply to catch up with demand but they were showing up on Shermans in Europe by late 44.

 

    Another problem was the gun was not a huge improvement over the M3 75mm as a tank killer, and was not as good as an HE thrower. As mentioned before, several tank divisions didn’t want the improved Shermans at first. The penetration problem would be partially solved with HVAP ammunition, but by the time it was common, German tanks to use it on were not.   Post war, ammunition would be further improved and there would be no shortage of HVAP ammo in Korea.

 

   The M1 series of guns were also stabilized, but it was the same system used with the 75mm gun, offering limited advantages. The Nazi Germans never fielded a stabilization system of any kind on their tanks. Tanks with the M1, and M1A1 guns carried 71 main gun rounds in wet storage racks in the floor, with a armored 6 round ready rack on the turret floor.

 

   One gun that I have not covered so far is the US 105mm M2/M4 howitzer, the versions of the Sherman with this gun were developed to replace the M7 Priest, but never fully did so during WWII.  They were used in the same role, or in limited direct support roles. These tanks did not have a stabilized gun or wet ammo racks, but did have the large hatch hull. All 105 Sherman tanks, either M4 (105)s or M4A3 (105)s were produced exclusively by Chrysler. 105 tanks carried 66 rounds of main gun ammo, in dry ammo racks.

 

Gun specs:

 

  The vast majority of Sherman tanks came with two M1919A4 Browning .30 caliber machine guns.  Some very early versions came with four. This machine gun was a solid, proven, design and served well in the fixed coax mount or ball mounts on the Sherman. These guns were the same type issued to the infantry, and the tanks were even issued a whole tripod kit for use with the tanks machine guns. They carried almost 6500 rounds of .30 caliber ammunition. I won’t spend to much time on this gun, it did its job well, and large books on the subject are already out there. See Collectors Grade Publications book on the subject.

 

   The Shermans all came with an M2 .50 caliber machine gun mounted on the turret roof. On early tanks the mount was in an awkward place and hard for the commander to use from inside the tank. This was not improved until the T23 76mm turret and later production 75mm turrets went into production. Most of the time this machine gun was used by the infantry riding along with the tank to protect it. The gun was well liked, but the mount was not, and the tanks carried little ammo for this gun, only 600 rounds.  The M2 heavy machine gun was an excellent anti material and personnel weapon, but not much of an AA gun. Most crews under the rare air attack would rather take their chances buttoned up behind the armor than trying to shoot the plane down.  It was well liked for shooting up anything that might hide a German anti-tank gun as well, since it could be used at pretty long range.

 

   Some tankers would move the M2’s mount so the loader could fire it, and then mounted a smaller M1919A4 for the commander. This was a popular modification late war on tanks with the T23 turret.

 

   The tanks also had a dozen hand grenades, 16 rounds for the two inch smoke grenade launcher, and 900 rounds in magazines for their M3 SMGs. Each crew member was issued one. On early tanks it was a Thompson issued instead of the M3.     

 

Another new section

 

 

The motors: Why so many, and why the weird ones?

 

   The Sherman had four different motors that made it into production tanks. The R975 radial, The GM 6046 ‘twin’ diesel, the A57 multibank, and the Ford GAA V8.  There was also a Caterpillar motor they were playing with I’ll cover at some point.

 

   There are several reasons the US went with the radial aircraft engine instead of a dedicated power plant, and this was mostly due to lack if money to develop tanks and there drive trains between wars. When the US got serious about tank motors, there was a limited number of choices and the R975 was the best one. Then they turned to the US auto industry for other motor ideas.

   

   GM came up with their twin bus motor 6046 and it was well liked right from the beginning. Then Chrysler came out with the nutty but fantastic A57. The US Army didn’t like either, and didn’t want to even use them for training. If the British hadn’t been willing take the A57 versions, the Army would have regulated them to training use only. It wouldn’t be until Ford figured out the bugs in the GAA v8 that the army would make the switch from the R975.

 

The Continental R975 C1/C4:

Type: 9 cylinder, 4 cycle, radial

Cooling system: Air Ignition: Magneto

Displacement: 973 ci Bore and stroke: 5x5.5 inches Compression Ratio: 5.7:1

Net Horsepower:C1/C4 350/400 hp Gross Horsepower: C1/C4 400/460 hp

Net Torque: C1/C4 800/ft-lb/940/ft-lb Gross Torque: C1/C4 890ft-lb/1025ft-lb

Weight: 1212lbs dry Fuel: 80 Octane gasoline Engine Oil Capacity: 36 quarts

This motor was a license built version of the Wright R-975 built by Continental for tank use. It had been around nearly ten years and used in civil aviation before the army started putting it in tanks, starting with the M2 medium in 1939 and would go on to produce more R-975s than Wright ever would, 53,000 motors. The military version put out more horsepower than the civil version as well.  This was a solid and reliable tank motor, but not ideal. It was a little underpowered, and had to be revved up a lot to get the tank moving. The Army considered this a superior choice over the 6046 diesel and A57 motors.  This motor would be swapped into M4A4 hulls by the French post war.

(image courtesy of the Sherman Minutia site.)

 

The General Motors 6046:

Type: 12 cylinder, 2cycle, twin in-line diesel

Cooling system: Liquid Ignition: compression

Displacement: 850 ci Bore and stroke: 4.25x5 inches Compression Ratio: 16:1

Net Horsepower: 375 Gross Horsepower: 410

Net Torque: 1000ft-lbs Gross Torque: 885-lb

Weight: 5110 lbs. dry Fuel: 40 cetane diesel oil Engine Oil Capacity: 28 quarts

First used in the M3A3 and M3A5 and then in the M4A2. This motor tied two GM super charged truck diesels together on a common crank case. The motors could be run independently, so if one was damaged the other could be used to get the tank back to a repair depot, or to keep fighting. The engine weighed more than the R975, but had better torque characteristics, and the tanks with this motor handled low speed operation better because of the superior torque. 

This version was ruled out for use by the Army because they didn’t want to complicate the tank supply chain by adding another fuel to it. This motor was well liked by its users, and the only version of the Sherman the Soviet Union would take via lend lease were the ones powered by this motor.  The Army testing of this motor found it was as reliable or more so than the R975.

(image courtesy of the Sherman Minutia site.)

 

The Chrysler A57 multibank:

Type: 30 cylinder, 4 cycle, multibank

Cooling system: Liquid Ignition: Battery

Displacement: 1253 ci Bore and stroke: 4.37x4.5 inches Compression Ratio: 6.2:1

Net Horsepower: 370 Gross Horsepower: 425

Net Torque: 1020ft-lbs Gross Torque: 1060ft-lbs

Weight: 5400 lbs. dry Fuel: 80 octane gasoline Engine Oil Capacity: 32 quarts

This motor was a bit of an orphan in US Service. It powered the M3A4 and M4A4. The Army used the motor for training, and tried to pawn a few off on the Marines. That lasted about two months at the Marine Tank School. The ever growing need for tanks by the British ultimately solved what to do with the tanks that ended up with this motor. They would end up taking over 8000 of them Chrysler sent tech reps to England with these tanks and showed the maintenance crews how to keep them running.  This worked well and the engines served their purpose well. Often powering the best pure AT version of the Sherman, the Sherman VC firefly.  This motor saw a lot of use, during the war, and after with many countries being given Firefly Shermans to help out their recovery military. Some even ended up in South America, but I’m not sure what versions. This is my favorite Sherman motor, because it so absurdly complicated, it’s almost German, but actually worked, so not German at all.

(image courtesy of the Sherman Minutia site.)

 

The Ford GAA:

Type: 8 cylinders, 4 cycle, 60 degree V8

Cooling system: Liquid Ignition: Magneto

Displacement: 1100 ci Bore and stroke: 5.4 x 6 inches Compression Ratio: 7.5:1

Net Horsepower: 450 Gross Horsepower: 500

Net Torque: 950ft-lbs Gross Torque: 1040ft-lbs

Weight: 1560 lbs. dry Fuel: 80 octane gasoline Engine Oil Capacity: 32 quarts

The Ford GAA only made it into one Lee as a test bed. But it powered a lot of Shermans, both large and small hatch. It would go on to be the motor of choice for the US Army for the rest of the war, and in the next tank, the M26. Just look at the numbers above and compare them to the rest of the motors. The GAA is really a much better motor for a tank in the Shermans weight range. This tank was not lend leased to the other allies in large numbers if at all. The USSR may have gotten one to evaluate, the UK too, but the Army wanted to switch over to this and stop using R975 powered tanks. After the war, the only Shermans they kept were M4A3 76 w tanks, and over time they converted as many of these to HVSS suspension as possible. They went as far as swapping T23 turrets from M4A1 76 W tanks onto M4A3 75 hulls. The army would produce several other gas powered tank engines, but none would really shine like this one did in the Sherman. 

(image courtesy of the Sherman Minutia site.)

 

Another updated section!

 

Sherman use by the United States Marines:  “The enemy’s power lies in his tanks.” Lieutenant General Mitsuru Ushijima, Okinawa.

 

   Most people have the idea the Marines used the M4A2, and only the M4A2, and list things like it was a diesel like Navy landing craft used as the reason the marines chose the tank.  The real reason they got A2, was that’s what was available when they asked, there wasn't much choice involved, and they should feel lucky the army didn't dump M3 Lee’s on them. At various times the Marines also used M4A1s, and M4A3, all with the 75mm gun.

 

   By the end of the war the Marines would be experts in employing the tank, Infantry team. The marines, like their European counterparts used, Yankee ingenuity to modify their Shermans to help them survive combat their designers had no idea they would see. These modifications included improvised water proofing and deep wading kits. They also included improvised add on armor made of wood and concrete, and the use of spikes and screens over the hatches to help prevent the Japanese from using explosives directly on the periscope ports.

   

   The Marines had toyed around with tanks in the 20 and 30s but never had the budget to buy many. The ones they did buy were all light tanks that wouldn’t see combat use. The first tank they would use in combat in WWII was the M3 light, using it on in all major campaigns until 1943 when the Sherman entered the scene. The first combat for the Sherman would be Tarawa, were they used a battalion of tank that was mixed, two companies of lights and one of mediums. After Tarawa, the use of lights would not be fully suspended, but the Sherman would be the tank of choice for the rest of the war.

 

   The marines ultimately ended up with six tank battalions and a training school at Camp Eliot California. The first two battalions formed, the 1^st and 2cd formed and deployed without training at the tank school. Most of the Marines tankers went through the school from that point on and the school trained almost all the new NCOs and officers.  When the war ended, all but the 1^st and 2cd were disbanded, and the they have remained active since the beginning, and are still in operation today.

 

  When the fighting was over on Okinawa, Major-General Lemuel Shepard, the Marine ground commander had this to say: “If any one supporting arm can be singled out as having contributed more than any others during the progress of the campaign, the tank would certainly be selected.”

 

Another updated section!

[Belesarius]

All out of upvotes Jeeps, but that Dialogue was awesome. 

[Jeeps_Guns_Tanks]

Another updated section!

 

How It Compared To Its Contemporaries:  How Did American Tank Design Stand up?   It Did Just Fine.

 

   The Sherman compared well to the other tanks in its weight class. It even fared well against vehicles much larger. The US spent a lot of money lavishly equipping these tanks, even the lend lease tanks shipped with sub machine guns for the crew and vinyl covered, sprung, padded seats, a full tool set, basically all the same things a Sherman issued to the US Army would come with. The Sherman was not designed to be comfortable for its crew, but due to way it was designed and built, it was fairly comfortable as tanks of the time go. They were not cheaply built, and had finely fitted hulls, with beveled armor and a lot of attention to detail, that was not dropped in favor of production speed in many cases until very late in the production run. Quality control at all Sherman factories and sub-contractors was tightly controlled. Parts were not modified to fit if they did not match the specifications and didn’t fit, they were discarded, if to many parts had to be discarded, the contractor was dropped. Sub-assemblies as big as turrets a4nd hulls or whole tanks needing overhaul were shipped between factories and no parts had problems interchanging between factory models. One factory could rebuild another factories tank using its own parts with no problems at all.

 

German Tank three or PIII:

 

   This tank fought from the first days of the war, and the Sherman, all models, had a big advantage over it. The Sherman had better armor, firepower, and similar mobility. Even with its most potent gun, a long 50mm, the PIII had trouble with the Grant and Lee, let alone a M4. This chassis was at the end of its life and larger guns or more armor could not be fitted to this tank. It was a good tank, but nowhere near as good as a Sherman, but to be fair, it was at the end of its development life and the M4 was just beginning its long, long life with many countries around the globe.

 

   In many ways this was the best tank Germany produced during the war. This was one of the tanks used the short time the Germans really did things in the war, this is the tank that took them to the outskirts of Moscow. And it was a great little tank; its turret ring was just too small to fit a real gun. They solved this with the StuG, but I’ll cover that later. They produced 5774 of them.

 

  This tank continued to be used throughout the war, and was up gunned to a short 75mm howitzer for infantry support. This tank also suffered a long period of teething problems at the start of the war, but when they were worked out the vehicle was fairly reliable.

 

German Tank four or PIV:

 

   The PIV was a closer match to the Sherman, but still inferior in most important ways. It had weaker, un-sloped armor. Its suspension used leaf springs and was inferior to the Shermans VVSS suspension. It had weak enough side armor, without the use of skirts, the tank could be penetrated by Russian anti-tank rifles. It started off with a low power 75mm gun that had no chance of hurting a Lee or Sherman, and was later up gunned with a 75mm similar to the one mounted on the Sherman, but slightly better. At this point the PIV became a threat to the Sherman, but the Sherman still held all the cards with better overall armor, mobility, reliability, spotting, getting off the first shot and crew comfort. The Sherman also had room to grow and would take a whole new turret and a whole slew of larger guns. The PIV was at the limits of what the hull could handle, and its turret ring was too small to accept more powerful guns. The final version of this tank, the J was a simplified version that lacked a power turret drive or skirts, it was not an improvement in combat ability, it was done to speed up production because the Germans were desperate. Nazi Germany produced 8569 of these tanks, from 1937 to 1945.

 

  This tank allowed the Germans to use maneuver warfare, and it wasn’t tied to the rail system, because it was much more reliable than the Panther or Tiger. One argument ‘wehraboos’, (for those not in the know, a wehraboos is a German WWII Armor fanatic, who believes anything and everything German was the best in WWII. You can find these people trying to push the often mythical abilities of Nazi war machines, while ignoring any evidence to the contrary these chaps often have deep seated pro-Nazi feelings, and in some cases of the worst offenders, are out and out neo Nazis. They can often be found on game forums for any WWII game, talking about how the 262 was the best  fighter of the war and the King Tiger could penetrate an M1 Abrams, often misspelling the names like this Aberhams.) like to make is, Nazi Germany couldn’t really have produced more Panzer IVs and StuGs because they didn’t have the manpower to crew them.

 

  The counter to point to that argument is, if the Germans had not produced the two ridiculous heavy tanks. Tiger 1&2, the huge maintenance tail these vehicles required could be broken up; a Tiger Company had the same number of mechanics and maintenance personal and their transport, as a full Battalion of PIV or III tanks.  You could take all these men, and put them into units that didn’t bleed resources, when Nazi Germany had few to spare. They could also fire and send to these units, all the fools who designed them, though they would probably make poor soldiers, they could probably turn wrenches without screwing that up much.

 

   They also could have manned these new units with all the men they put in the many captured tanks they used. They used large numbers of T-34 and M4A2 Shermans captured from the USSR. They should have stuck with the tanks they considered producing that were closer to these, the VK3001 (d) was almost a direct copy, Germanized to make it much harder to build and work on.  This tank looked a lot like the T-34 that inspired it, but apparently fears of friendly fire losses because it looked to much like a T-34 and a lack of aluminum to make the copy of the diesel the T-34 used, were probably the real reasons this tank didn’t get produced.

 

   At any rate, they didn’t do this; they produced a pair of heavy tanks that wasted far more resources than ever could be justified by the tanks propaganda inflated war records. They probably best served in a propaganda role since they had truly fearsome reputations, but once they were met in combat a few times that wore off and the American and British tankers found ways to beat them, like just making them drive around a bit until they broke down or ran out of fuel.

 

 

German Tank VI Tiger:

 

   This tank had a big weight ‘advantage’ over the Sherman, it being a heavy tank and all, but for the most part, was so rare it had almost no impact on the war. In fact most of the SS units that used this tank lied so much about its prowess there are some doubts it got even 1/3 of its actual kills its Nazi crews claimed. It also had to be moved by train giving it limited useable mobility, and these tanks sucked up the maintenance resources of a much larger unit. The US Army faced very few of these tanks. When they did face them, they didn’t prove to be much of a problem.

 

   The Sherman had an advantage in being able to spot the huge Tiger first in most cases, it could out maneuver the bigger tank, and its guns could take it out from the sides and back, or if it got lucky, even the front. The Sherman did face this tank in British hands, but we will cover that later.

 

   The tiger ultimately did the Allies a favor by making it into production. It just wasted men and resources that could have been turned into more PIVs and STUGs. It was more of a propaganda tool, used to prop up the home front by lying about the prowess of the tank and their Aryan crews, like Michael Whitman, who was not nearly as good as the Nazi histories would have you believe, and in fact he got himself and his crew killed by trundling off by himself.

 

   Living, well, recently living, tank aces like Otto Carius have admitted many of their “kills” were added for pure propaganda reasons. SS unit kill claims were often discounted by half by the regular German Army and even that was probably being generous since there was no effort to confirm the kills. Most authors who write books about German tanks take these kill claims at face value. When someone bothers to compare the kill claims to the units they faced on the Soviet, American or UK records, more often than not, they were not even facing the claimed unit, and often it was not even in the same area. When they did get the unit right, the losses rarely come close to matching up.

 

   Another thing to note is these tanks were essentially hand built.  Some people assume that means painstakingly hand crafted, and it’s sort of true. The Germans wasted a lot of time on finish items to make the tanks look nicer. I’m not sure if this was some need for the Germans to have nearly ‘perfect’ weapons, at least appearance wise, or if it was a way for the German tank industry to charge more for the tanks and make more money off the Nazi regime. On a Sherman, it’s just like your car, you need a spare part, you put in an order and quartermaster corps sends one to you through the supply system if one wasn’t in stock at a spares depot. When the part came, in most cases it would fit, and only if damaged caused a problem would hand fitting be needed. This was not the case for the Tiger, or any other German tank. For the Germans, most parts would need adapting to the individual tank, making field repairs a difficult job.   

 

   Only 1347 of these tanks were even built. Numbers were not needed to kill these silly tanks, but they were nice to have anyway.

 

   For another view on the Tiger, check out:

 

German Tank V Panther:

 

   Much has been said about this tank, and most of the positive stuff is just, well, there’s no way to say it other than this, it’s BS. The panther was a medium tank as big and heavy as any heavy tank of the time. What kept it from being a heavy was its pathetic lack of armor for a tank of its size. The side armor was so weak Russian anti-tank rifles could and did score kills on these tanks through it. This is why later models had side skirts covering the thin side armor above the road wheels.

 

   Here is a list of the top of my head the Panthers problems: It liked to catch fire due to a fuel system that leaked in more than one way. The hull didn’t let the fuel drain, making the fire problem worse. The motor had a tendency to back fire or blow up and cause fires as well. The cooling system was very complicated, a damaged fan or clogged duct could cause a fire. Tilting the hull to much could cause a fire because pooled gas would hit exhaust pipes, since the fuel system was leaky. It was found the radiators were vulnerable to damage, so plates were added above them on the engine deck. All these add-ons just pile more weight on an overstress automotive system.   

 

    Let’s move away from the fire problems and move onto the turret problems. To rotate the turret, you had to rev the engine up. The engines were fragile. You want full traverse speed; you needed to be redlining the engine. This is because they used a power take off system and tied the turret drive to the engine. This was a really bad way to design a turret drive. If you want a good laugh, go find a diagram of the Tiger or Panthers turret drive system and marvel that it worked at all. It didn’t work if the tank was on even a mild slope. The drive was so weak in these cases it couldn’t even hold the gun in place.  I’m sure if you took a electric driven hydraulic or just strait electric system it would weigh a lot less than all the parts they had to use to make the PTO system work, and not well.

 

    While we’re covering the turret, let’s talk about the gun, gunner, and commander. One of the commander’s jobs is to find targets for the gunner and get him onto them. He has pretty good all-around views from the turret with his nice cupola. The gunner is stuck with just his telescopic sight. He would need up to several minutes in some cases to find the target the commander was trying to get him on due to him not having a wider view scope and the commander having no turret override. The gun was a good AT gun, but not a great HE thrower, since the HE charge was smaller to accommodate thicker shell walls to keep the shell from breaking up at the higher velocities. It’s HE was far from useless though. The turret was very cramped for these men as well. And the Turret sides and rear had very thin armor. The Shermans 75 would punch right through it at very long ranges.

 

   Some more tidbits on the Panther, its automotive systems were terrible. They were designed for a 30 ton tank, and even for that, they were not that robust. The motor and tranny would get at best, 1500 kilometers before needing to be replaced. The tracks, 1000, the suspension would start to break down around 800 or less with lots of off road use. The front dual torsion bars breaking first, and then the extra stress kept killing them. The true Achilles heel of the automotive parts was the final drives, and their housings. The housings were weak and flexed under load, allowing the already weak gear train to bind and then destroy itself. The best they ever got these final drives to last, on the G models of the tank, was 150 kilometers on average. Replacing them was a major chore that would keep the tank down at least a day. This was confirmed in a report on post use by the French, using captured and new production tanks. You can find it here.

 

   We haven’t even talked about the ridiculous road wheel system that only insane people would put on a combat vehicle.  A late war British report on a captured early model Panther said at higher speeds the suspension was terrible and essentially became solid, making for a awful off road ride. You can find the report here. The report is very interesting, if not very flattering to the Panther.

 

   It is a total myth that you needed five or more Shermans to take out one Panther or Tiger. If a Panther makes it to the fight, it’s a formidable tank, and in particular when set up as a long range anti-tank pill box they could be deadly. When called upon to be part of a mobile tank force, they failed, and they failed hard. In many cases they would lose three or more Panthers to one Sherman.

 

   By the time the Sherman crews of the US Army started to see Panthers in bigger numbers, they were the elite tankers and the Germans the newb clowns. It showed in just about every battle. The Sherman handled these supposedly better tanks just fine. While the poorly trained, green, German crews struggled with their tanks, a tank a bad driver could cause to break down almost instantly. It makes you wonder how many Panther crews did just that to avoid fighting.  

 

   In all the ways you need a tank to be good, the Sherman tank was better than the Panther.

 

  For another view on why the Panther was just not a good tank for anything other than looking at, this post. Some of this is based on my readings of Germany’s Panther Tank by Jentz. If you get past looking at all the pretty pictures, it has a pretty damning combat recorded in that book.

 

   The Germans managed to build around 6000 of these mechanical nightmares. The final production version of this tank the G version only solved the final drive housing issues, the weak gears were never solved, and this is why the post war French report was so damning. They were not even operating them under combat conditions.   

 

StuG III:  Short, Stubby and Underrated

 

   This armored fighting vehicle more than just about any other was a real threat to the Sherman. The Germans built a lot of these vehicles. Since it was just about the most common AFV, the Sherman ran into it much more often than tanks like the Tiger and Panther.

 

   The StuG was not as good of a vehicle as the PIV from a combat perspective, since it lacked a turret, but it was very good for what it was used for and a much cheaper vehicle to make. It was very popular, and when it was time to cease production, German generals threw a fit and kept it in production. They didn’t say a word when the Tiger I production was stopped.  Speilberger has a good book on this tank, it covers the PIII tank and its variants including the StuG. The book is titled, Panzer III and its variants.

 

    The StuG, was up gunned with the same gun as the Panzer IV and was good at AT work and infantry support. Its low profile helped it stay hidden and it was mobile enough to be able re-locate and get to trouble spots. It had ok armor and well-liked by its crews. Cheaper, easier to build, and very effective for the price, it’s no wonder it doesn’t get much attention.

 

 

Tiger II: Fat, Stupid, and Overrated

 

   The Tiger II, was not a very good tank. Only 492 were built, and its impact on the war was less than marginal. Everything said about the Tiger I applies to this tank, just more so. It weighed more at 68 tons but used the same engine. So it was a huge, under powered, waste of resources. The US Air Force bombing campaign actually had an effect on this tanks production. The factory was heavily damaged and about half the total production in tanks was lost as well, in a bombing raid.

 

   This tank was a non-factor in the war and the first ones lost on the eastern front were knocked out by a handful of T-34-85s they never even spotted. The US Army ran into a few as well, and dispatched them without much trouble. They were so slow, ungainly and problem prone, during the Battle of the bulge, they were left at the rear of all the column’s, and barely made it into any of the fights.

   

   The Porsche prototype turrets had a big shot trap and were filled with ready racks, easy to ignite. The production turret got rid of the shot trap but did nothing for how cramped it was. The gun was extremely hard to load when not level.   It was an accurate and deadly gun though. The trouble, like with all the cats, is getting it to the fight.

 

   German armor fans like to talk about influential the Panther and Tiger designs were, but as far as I can tell, they really had zero real impact on future tank design. In fact the Panther and Tiger series were technological dead ends that no one copied and only the French spent any time playing with the engine tech and guns. The thing that stands out for me about German tank design, is they never figured out, like all the other tank making countries, that putting the motor and final drives in the back of the tank, was better than putting the tranny and final drives in the front, and having the motor in the back, and a driveshaft running through the fighting compartment, was a bad design feature. This was a drawback the Sherman shared, but all future medium tank designs dropped this and went to the whole power pack in the rear setup. From the T20 series on, though the T20 tanks never went into production because they were a small improvement over the Sherman, they all had rear motor/tranny/final drives. This tank layout still dominates current tank design. The Nazi design teams seemed unable to come up with a design using this layout, other than their aborted copy of the T-34. 

 

Another new section

 

British Shermans: Is it a Tank or a Teapot?

 

  The British took the Lee and Sherman into combat for the first time and they offered a lot of input into both tanks design. They even had a specific version of the Lee never used by US troops the M3A5 Grant.  The Sherman and Lee design saved their bacon at El Alamien. As we saw in an earlier section of this document, the US produced a lot of Sherman tanks, and the British received more than 17,000 Shermans. It would become the backbone of their tank force and remain so until the end of the war.

 

  They came up with their own naming system for the tank:

M4 = Sherman I

M4A1 = Sherman II

M4A2 = Sherman III

M4A3 = Sherman IV

M4A4 = Sherman V

 

 

  The British had their own set of modifications for the Sherman that  they received through LL.  They added sand skirts, racks for jerry cans and an armored box on the back of the turret in some cases. They installed their own radios as well, the British wireless set no 19, and this went into the armored box in the back of the turret on Firefly’s, or just replaced the US radios in their normal location in regular models. Legend has it they installed some sort of stove to cook tea.  The only Sherman Mk I and Mk IIs they got were because Churchill practically begged Roosevelt for more Shermans just before El Alamien. 

 

  As the war progressed, the US Army put priority on the M4 and M4A1; the British had to settle for M4A2 and the M4A4. They when the Russians refused to take any Shermans but M4A2s, the Brits really had to rely on M4 and M4A4s. From what I’ve read they didn’t want the nightmare that everyone feared the A57 Multibank motor to be, in service it proved to be reliable enough, and more so than its British counterparts. I don’t think they got many M4A3 tanks at all. The M4A4 was by far the most common Sherman type, and the Brits like them enough they took a batch of refurbished M4A4, and would have taken more if production hadn’t been stopped.

 

  This presented a problem for the British, they did not like the M1A1 gun, and the T23 would not take the 17 pounder without major modifications to the gun or turret. The US did end production of 75mm tanks and when stocks of 75mm gun tanks ran low, they were forced to take M4A1 76 tanks these tanks would be designated Sherman IIB. The British sent most of the IIBs to their forces in the MTO, or gave them to the Poles.   

 

 

Another updated section

 

Silly Myths: Things You Don’t Want to Say.

 

The Sherman was gas powered and a fire trap, German tanks had diesels, and they called it a Ronson.

 

   As we know from this document, not all Shermans were gas powered. We also know the Sherman was no more prone to fire than any other tank, including German tanks. We know that the Sherman, when it did burn, the fire was most often caused by an ammunition fire, and not fuel fires. This was solved with wet ammunition racks making the Sherman the least prone  to burn tank of the war. We should also know that all German tanks were gas powered as well, and very prone to ammo rack fires, and in many case gas fires caused by poor designs, and horrid quality control.

  

The Only Shermans to come with HVSS suspension had 76mm M1A1 guns.

 

  As has been mentioned in this very document, HVSS suspension was pretty common on M4A3 75 W tanks produced in 1944. Several hundred if not thousand got HVSS suspension. We also know the M4 105 was produced with HVSS, as was the M4A3 105.  This can all be confirmed through the wonderful Sherman Minutia site.

 

The Sherman was made to be basic, cheap and easy to produce, and not last.

   

   This is not true. The Sherman was an advanced tank for its time. It incorporated a gyro stabilized gun, a full set of radios, and a auxiliary motor for charging the batteries. The design could use either a cast or welded upper hull, without changing the other parts, and that’s pretty amazing considering the tank was designed with slide rulers. 

 

    The design tolerances were so close parts manufactured at any factory would work on any Sherman. That may not sound like a big deal, but at the time it was, and the Germans could not say the same thing. Many of their tanks required hand fitting of parts. The early Shermans were all finely fitted, with beveled edges on the armor plate and all casting finely machined. The interiors included cushions for crew comfort and each crewman had at least one periscope. The radios were cutting edge tech for the time.  The huge castings used to make the upper hull of the M4A1 were a technological feat as well and not reproducible by any of the Axis nations.

   

    The Sherman was certainly not built to be easily worn and replaced. One of the reasons the basic 75mm M3 was chosen, was because it had a 1000 round or more barrel life. All the motors were good for more than 5000 miles.  The transmissions and final drives more than that, and that miles, not kilometers, like the with Panthers 150 kilometer final drives or 1500 kilometer transmission or 2500(lol maybe, I’m being nice) kilometers on the motor.  You could get up to 2500 miles on most of the track models the Sherman used. The road wheels were easily replaced, and the springs in Shermans are holding up fine to this day on most.  The Brits put 2500 miles on M4A4 in a single test if I recall right, 10,000 miles on most of the motors, in the A57 wouldn’t be impossible if no one was blowing the tanks up.

 

  For suck a reliable tank, it was designed with ease of maintenance in mind and it was relatively easy to swap out the motor or transmission/final drive. The suspension units bolted on, so replacing one damaged beyond repair was very easy.

 

  These tanks also took upgrades well, being up gunned to guns up to 122mm, and re engine with more modern motors. The French and Israelis did most of the work in this area and these tanks will be covered in their own section. The point is, no other basic tank chassis lived as long as the Sherman did. 

 

US tank production wasn’t optimized, and their supply system was overburdened by the number of different sub types of tanks they used. With the Sherman in particular using four different power packs.

 

  This myth is absurd. The main reason the United States produced Shermans with four different power packs, was they thought the bottleneck in producing the tank in great numbers would be outstripping of the supply of R975 radial engines. That never really happened, in part because the Army had three other viable engines, and produced them all. They were able to keep this from complicating the supply situation to much by limiting who got what models, with the US Army using version with the R975, the Brits using the diesel and A57 multibank, and the Russians getting M4A2s.

 

  This never hurt tank production speed in any way, and since the continental US was damage free, shipping parts between factories was easy enough. The US had a massive rail system. When the Army started to move to the M4A3 as its primary tank they released more M4 and M4A1 tanks to their allies. The US actually had a tank production surplus, and was able to close down all but the best three tank producers. Hell, they even built a factory to produce the M7 medium tank and then never built it. These are the types of errors you can make when your country is an untouched industrial powerhouse.   

[Jeeps_Guns_Tanks]

All out of upvotes Jeeps, but that Dialogue was awesome. 

 

 

Thanks, looks like I'm going to have to screen shot th chart for the guns and add it as a jpeg. 

 

I was a busy beaver over the weekend. I did that whole SHerman radio dailog post over the last 90 minutes. \

 

 

Edit, update, fixed the chart. It's now a jpeg. 

Edited October 19, 2015 by Jeeps_Guns_Tanks

[Belesarius]

typo in the 5th paragraph about the panther.  extra 4 in there.

[Jeeps_Guns_Tanks]

typo in the 5th paragraph about the panther.  extra 4 in there.

 

Heh thanks, for wot reasons my middle mouse button is 4, I'm going to have to change that lol. 

 

Just updated with pictures. 

[Jeeps_Guns_Tanks]

Ok one last update. 

 

I'll be updating the main post tomorrow, and it's now just 70 words short of 30k.

[Belesarius]

Sturgeon, we gotta find an appropriate reward for this man. Upvotes just don't do this magnificence justice.

[Donward]

The dialog was epic and - were it not life and death - reminds me of a few WoT matches I've been in with da pubbies.

[Belesarius]

Hey Marsh, you work for Osprey...

 

I'd buy it.  Just sayin'.

[Jeeps_Guns_Tanks]

Ok damnit. the part I section is up to date, kinda, it got to big again, then when it overflowed into part II, I messed thing up and its to big there too. I'm just going to have to take it all down and put it back up in four parts, but I don't have the time tonight. 

 

Oh well. 

[Jeeps_Guns_Tanks]

Hey Sturg,

 

 Any chance you can edit this thread and move like 5 or 6 of my posts into the spots under the first two so I could have a continues string?

 

Thanks!

[LeuCeaMia]

They should have stuck with the tanks they considered producing that were closer to these, the VK3001 (d) was almost a direct copy, Germanized to make it much harder to build and work on.  This tank looked a lot like the T-34 that inspired it, but apparently fears of friendly fire losses because it looked to much like a T-34 and a lack of aluminum to make the copy of the diesel the T-34 used, were probably the real reasons this tank didn’t get produced.

 

Forczyk says the main reason was that the MAN Panther could be put into production earlier "this decision was a disaster for the Panther tank development program since it meant that getting the best tank possible to German tankers was set aside in favor of merely fielding a new design as rapidly as possible" and that the MAN being advertised as more Germanic while the Benz too Russian was a ploy by Kniepkamp, who used to be a MAN employee, and Oberst Fichtner, who prefers torsion bars, with some industrial espionage thrown in.

 

In Jentz's "Germany's Panther Tank" it states that Hitler recognized that the "decisive factor was the possibility of quickly getting the tank into production" despite his preferring the Daimler Benz.

[Jeeps_Guns_Tanks]

Forczyk says the main reason was that the MAN Panther could be put into production earlier "this decision was a disaster for the Panther tank development program since it meant that getting the best tank possible to German tankers was set aside in favor of merely fielding a new design as rapidly as possible" and that the MAN being advertised as more Germanic while the Benz too Russian was a ploy by Kniepkamp, who used to be a MAN employee, and Oberst Fichtner, who prefers torsion bars, with some industrial espionage thrown in.

 

In Jentz's "Germany's Panther Tank" it states that Hitler recognized that the "decisive factor was the possibility of quickly getting the tank into production" despite his preferring the Daimler Benz.

 

 

Thanks for the info, I'll read through it, and then incorporate it in the next revision!

 

 

Also, the main post is updated, and now four posts, you have to scroll down a bit to get to IV. If a kind mod wants to put all four posts in a row, I would be grateful. 

 

 

Just about the whole thing has been updated in some way.  The word doc is now at 29,983 words. 

[Jeeps_Guns_Tanks]

Update section and new section. 

 

British Shermans: Is it a Tank or a Teapot?

   The British took the Lee and Sherman into combat for the first time and they offered a lot of input into both tanks design. They even had a specific version of the Lee never used by US troops the M3A5 Grant.  The Sherman and Lee design saved their bacon at El Alamien. As we saw in an earlier section of this document, the US produced a lot of Sherman tanks, and the British received more than 17,000 Shermans. It would become the backbone of their tank force and remain so until the end of the war.

   They came up with their own naming system for the tank:

   The M4 was named the Sherman I in Commonwealth use, if it had 105mm gun it was an Ib, if it also had HVSS it was a Iby. The British received 2096 75mm Sherman Is, and an additional 593 105 armed Ib tanks, or M4 105 tanks. These numbers are not broken down further to sub models, so all the Ic Firefly tanks produced came from the 2096 they received, and this number would include the composite hulls too. This version was the preferred US Army version, and many of the one the Brits received came as replacements stripped from US Tank Divisions before the battle of El Alamein.  

   The M4A1 was named the Sherman II and in most cases just that. It wasn’t until late in the war the Brits took some M4A1s with 76mm guns, and these they gave to the poles or other commonwealth allies. A M4A1 76 would be called a Sherman IIa, or a IIay for a M4A1 76 HVSS tank. These M4A1 76 HVSS tanks made it to depots in Europe during or just after the war ended, but none saw combat. The M4A1 was also the US Army’s preferred version because it was basically the same tank as the M4, and the Brits only received 942 75mm Shermans. Something I found a bit of a surprise, the British received more M4A1 76 w tanks thank 75mm tanks, 1330 total.

   M4A2 was named the Sherman III and this was their second most common Sherman type. They received 5041 M4A2 75mm Sherman IIIs, far more than the Soviets got. They also received 5 M4A2 76 W or Sherman IIIa tanks as well, yes, that’s not a typo, five tanks. I wonder if the M4A2 76 HVSS, or Sherman IIIay, tank used in Fury was one of them?

   M4A3 was named the Sherman IV in British use, but they only received 7 seventy five millimeter tanks, and no 76mm tanks of this type. This became the US Army’s preferred model, and once they got it in numbers, they probably started sending more M4 and M4A1s to the Brits after this tank became common.

   M4A4 was named the Sherman V in British use, and was by far the most common British Sherman, they received 7167 M4A4s, or Sherman Vs, almost the whole production run . Chrysler really went to bat for this version of the tank and sent tech reps to Europe with the tanks to help manage the complicated, but less trouble than anyone could have expected, motors. There were no sub types of the Sherman IV other than the firefly, since it was never produced with a 76mm gun or HVSS suspension. The Sherman Vc was the most common version of the 17 pounder Shermans, and a wide variety were probably converted to fireflies, and many of the A4s they got later in the war had been through a remanufacturing process, that made sure the tanks had turrets updated with all the late improvements, and all the hull upgrades lake armored ammo racks and raised arm rollers and improved skids, along with a travel lock, on the front plate, for the gun.

. . .

 

   The British had their own set of modifications for the Sherman that they received through LL.  They added sand skirts, racks for jerry cans and an armored box on the back of the turret in some cases. They installed their own radios as well, the British wireless set no 19, and this went into the armored box in the back of the turret on Firefly’s, or just replaced the US radios in their normal location in regular models. Legend has it they installed some sort of stove to cook tea.  The only Sherman Mk I and Mk IIs they got were because Churchill practically begged Roosevelt for more Shermans just before El Alamien. 

   As the war progressed, the US Army put priority on the M4 and M4A1; the British had to settle for M4A2 and the M4A4. They when the Russians refused to take any Shermans but M4A2s, the Brits really had to rely on M4 and M4A4s. From what I’ve read they didn’t want the nightmare that everyone feared the A57 Multibank motor to be, in service it proved to be reliable enough, and more so than its British counterparts. I don’t think they got many M4A3 tanks at all. The M4A4 was by far the most common Sherman type, and the Brits like them enough they took a batch of refurbished M4A4, and would have taken more if production hadn’t been stopped.

   This presented a problem for the British, they did not like the M1A1 gun, and the T23 would not take the 17 pounder without major modifications to the gun or turret. The US did end production of 75mm tanks and when stocks of 75mm gun tanks ran low, they were forced to take M4A1 76 tanks these tanks would be designated Sherman IIB. The British sent most of the IIBs to their forces in the MTO, or gave them to the Poles.   

 

The Firefly:  The Teapot with Teeth.

   The Sherman Firefly is often touted as the best version of the Sherman. This is a very shallow view of the tank; a tank is not just about AT performance alone. Let’s talk about the name, the Firefly was just a nickname, some say given by American testers because there was so much flash at the breach of the gun on firing, some claim it was just based on muzzle flash. Much like the Sherman naming mystery, it doesn’t really matter, it’s the commonly used name now, and if you just called them the Sherman IC, Sherman IC Hybrid, and Sherman Vc, no one but a total Sherman geek would know what the hell you were talking about. But everyone with a little Sherman history or WWII history under their belt should have heard of them called a Firefly so that’s what we will do here, while explaining the nomenclature and how to identify the various models.

The Firefly came about because the British wanted to get a 17pounder into a tank, and they homegrown ones planned to have it, were having issues.  The 17 pounder, a 76mm anti-tank gun, had to be extensively redesigned to work in the turret, the AT gun version recoil system was to long to work in a 75mm gun turret. They redesigned it, putting the recoil mechanism on both sides of the gun instead of the top. The gun was also rotated so it could be loaded from the left.  The firefly version of the 17 pounder gun was specific to the Sherman gun mount and could not be used on an AT gun or vice versa.  

They also had to cut a hole into the back of turret, to mount the radios, in a new armored box, because the gun still had to recoil into the radio bustle at the back of the turret. The armored box also worked as a counter weight for the longer barrel. They also eliminated the co drivers position, and put a cast armored plug over the gun port. The space was filled with ammo, since the 17 pounder ammo was longer than the 75mm ammo.  They also had to eliminate the gun stabilizer to fit the gun.

The 17 pounder gun had excellent armor penetration, in particular with APDS rounds, standing for armor piercing discarding sabot, but these rounds had very inconsistent accuracy. The problem that caused it was not worked out until after the war. At the combat ranges in the ETO and MTO, the APDS, worked ok, but the closer the better. The gun also lacked a decent HE round until after WWII ended when they came up with a system that used a smaller propellant charge for the HE rounds, and a new set of marks on the tanks site for the lower velocity rounds.

The Firefly in a generic sense is easy to identify, you look for a 75mm gun turret, with a much longer gun with a ball shaped muzzle brake. The turret will also have a loaders hatch and an armored box on the rear. The ball gun in the front will be covered by a big hunk of armor.  From there, you have to look at the details, but it’s easy enough.

 

 

Sherman Ic Firefly:

 This is the Firefly based on the Sherman I, or the M4. The lower case C after the Roman numeral designates the tank is armed with a 17 pounder. An M4 is a welded hull tank powered by an R975, so you look for the grate free engine deck, with the big armored flap covering an air intake. Or, if the tank is welded, and does not have large spaces between the bogie assemblies, then it’s an Ic Firefly.

 

Sherman IC composite hull firefly:

This version is based on the M4 composite hull; the version had a cast front hull, and a welded rear hull. It looks almost like an M4A1, but the rear and sides of the tank are all flat surfaces, just like a regular M4, the other difference is these tanks had the improved large hatch hull.  They would be the most comfortable version of the Firefly for the driver. These tanks were probably the last firefly’s built as well, since the composite hull tanks were some of the last 75mm Shermans produced. The British were not given any of the 75mm M4A3 tanks so none were converted.  One final advantage to this version from an ease of conversion point of view, is the composite hull tanks came with a loaders hatch already built in, so it saved time because they didn’t have to cut and fit one. Some of these tanks also had all around vision cupolas, so it’s possible a few made it onto fireflies.

 

Sherman Vc Firefly:

This version was based on the M4A4. These tanks are the “long hull” Shermans with the wide gaps between the bogie assemblies, and it has the distinctive bulges to the engine deck and lower hull. These hull features, with a firefly turret and gun is more than enough to identify it as Vc.  This Firefly type was powered by the mighty A57 multibank.  The Wiki on the Firefly is trash; don’t go crawling around trying to see if the lower hull has rivets, when most of the M4A4 production run had welded lower hulls. This may have only been a dubious way to identify a M3A4, you know, if you missed it being almost a foot longer with huge gaps between the wheel sets.

This was the most common version of the Firefly, since it was the Brits most numerous lend lease Sherman.  They got refurbished training A4s from the US, and took as many of these them as they could because production of 75mm Shermans had been drastically cut back and production of the M4A4 had been suspended.  

. . .

 

   Demand for the Firefly dropped off late in the war. They had produced enough that just about all the commonwealth nations the British supported received them. The Brits were able to put two Fireflies into most of their tank platoons, just as German armor became so scarce they didn’t really need them. By the end months of the war, the Firefly may have been more of a liability, than useful.

   If you compare the Firefly to the upgraded M4A1 76w, you will see it really isn’t the best Sherman by any measure but raw gun penetration. We’ll use the composite hull Ic in the comparison, since the same motor powered these tanks, and the composite hull had a very large casting for its front hull, making this as close to a second gen Sherman as the Firefly could get. Yet the composite hull tanks were produced early enough, they did not get wet ammo racks. They did get the armored ammo racks, but they really only offered protection against fragments lighting the ammo off.  

   This fix did not work nearly as well as the wet ammo racks on the M4A1 76, and other fully second gen Sherman tanks got. The main advantage was having the ammo lower in the tank, below the bottom of the sponsons, and encasing it in water jackets. It was found the most benefit came from the change in location, and the liquid part was discontinued post war.  The wet ammo rack second gen Shermans were amongst the safest WWII tanks to be a crewman on.

   Now on to the turrets, the M4A1 76 tank has the improved T23 turret. These turrets came with the all-around vision cupola, a loaders hatch, and the 76 M1A1 gun, with a 30cal co-ax. The turret was designed around the gun, and was nice and roomy, offering relative comfort and ease of movement to the crew.  It had better armor than the 75mm turret.  The fireflies all used a modified 75mm gun turret, and even after redesigning the gun, the 17 pounder took up a lot of space, and recoiled into the bustle, where the radio used to be. This made for a cramped turret, and a slower reload time.  The T23 turret is better, and it’s a shame the Brits would have had to redesign the 17 pounder gun again to fit one into it.

   At first glance, most people when they compare the M1A1 gun and the 17 pounder conclude the 17 pounder is ‘better’ based on its armor pen.  This doesn’t take into account the other factors that make a good tank gun. In WWII, tanks faced other threats far more often than tanks. For the forces facing the United States in particular, tanks were never overly common, and got rarer as the war went on. What Shermans faced most often, and what killed them most often was AT guns and infantry with AT sticks.  The 17 pounders lack of HE round during the war, along with its lack of a bow machine gun, really hindered the Firefly in the infantry support role.  The M1A1 didn’t have the best HE performance, but it was still adequate. It had enough AT performance to handle the PIV, Stugs and various TDs it would face. Including the cats, the M1A1 did not have the best balance of AT/HE performance, but it would get the job done, and as the war came to a close HVAP ammo, that really helped the guns AT performance, become increasingly available. The M1A1 also had a very big performance lead in rate of fire; double that of the 17 pounder.

   When you take all these factors, it is clear the 76mm T23 turreted second gen M4A1, A2 and 3s were all better tanks than the Firefly, of any model. The reasons for this are the second gen Shermans all had wet ammo racks, and along with all the other minor improvements that came with the second gen Shermans. The 17 pounder gun would eventually get a good HE round, but not during the war,  so the dual purpose us M1A1 gun is clearly a better choice for a general use medium tank.

   I won’t go so far as to say the British should not have produced them. Since the Brits faced the majority of the German heavy armor in Normandy, a pure AT tank was more useful for them, and that’s why they built them. I’ve read in more than one place that the Germans always tried to kill off the fireflies first, and the firefly units used a cool paint scheme on the gun barrel to make it seem shorter to help hide the fireflies, but I’ve never seen it confirmed from the German side.  These tanks were potent enough, killing the famous Nazi tank “Ace” Michael, the Nazi punk, Whittmann, when he foolishly trundled by himself into their guns.

   I find it amusing the most mechanically complicated Sherman was turned into the best pure AT Sherman by the Brits, and was still more reliable than any Nazi tank.  It may be a tad overrated, but it did exactly what it was designed to do, without compromising the reliability of its base platform. That makes it a smashing success and it gave the Brits a capability their American cousins lacked until much later in the war. It did so well, the Brits offered to convert some, and there was an abortive program the petered out because army ordinance thought the M1 gun would be good enough.  During bulge hoopla, the program was revived.  

[Jeeps_Guns_Tanks]

Coming next, and expanded M32 Armored recovery vehicle section. Who knew there were almost as many versions of this TRV?!

 

[Jeeps_Guns_Tanks]

I updated the other things that used the Sherman Chassis section, including the ARV section. 

 

WWII Variants: Things Built Using the Great M4 Chassis

 

Tank Destroyers: They did Great things but the whole idea was bad.

(M10 in Italy)

M10:

    The M10 was a tank destroyer mounting a 3 inch anti-tank gun. It used the M4A2 chassis and the GM 6046 to power it. These tanks only had a M2 .50 caliber machine gun other than their main gun. The turret lacked power traverse. It had a five man crew and was generally liked by its crew. The American TD force was deemed a failure, but not because the men or vehicles performed badly, it was the doctrine that failed to pan out. It was used until the end of the war, and many TD battalions preferred it over the faster M18.  The TDs lacked a co-ax machine gun, this and their open top made them more vulnerable to infantry than a tank. Even so, these units were often given tank missions.

   The M10A1 version of this vehicle had a Ford GAA motor. There was no difference other than and minor improvements between an M10 and M10A1. Crews added this armored rooves to their turrets, often all hinged so they could open up to really see what was going on. It was not uncommon for TD units to be used as fixed artillery for several days.

   The M10 and M10A1 had all the gear aboard to be used at artillery. A few TD battalions spent almost as much time as artillery as they did in their TD role. This capability was used often in Italy because the 30 inch gun on the M10 didn’t tear up the vital roads as much as the larger guns did. I would be surprised to find out the M36 didn’t have the same gear. They built 4993 M10s and 1713 M10A1s.

 

(a funky M36)

M36:

   Another tank destroyer based on the Sherman chassis, basically an M10A1 with a new turret mounting a bigger gun. These tanks mounted the 90mm M3 gun. Often this tanks turret was fitted to otherwise stock M4A3 hulls due to a shortage of M10 hulls. These TDs had full power traverse. These TDs were well liked because the M3 worked well on both armor and soft targets, since the M3 had a nice HE shell.

   This TD suffered all the same problems dealing with infantry the M10 did, except in the M36 B1, since it was built on an M4A3 hull, it had a bow machine gun. It was also upgraded in a lot of units with some form of roof armor.

   There was a diesel powered version based on the base M10 chassis powered by the GM 6046. There were 1413 M36s, 187 M36B1s, and 724 M36B2s.  

 

. . .

 

Artillery: they have big guns, and their crews are usually deaf.

 

105 Howitzer motor Carriage M7& M7B1: 4316 produced

155 Gun Motor Carriage M12: 100 produced

155 Gun Motor Carriage M40: 418 produced

8 inch Howitzer Motor Carriage M43: 48 produced

 

. . .

 

M30 and M74 series of armored recovery vehicles:

   The M31, M32 and M74 armored recovery vehicles based off the M3 Lee and M4 tanks and almost all the chassis types seem to have been used in the conversions as well.

(M31ARV)   

Based on the Lee:

   M31: based on the Lee, and there were sub types based on other Lee hull types. 509 Lees were converted. This version was powered by the R975.

   M31B1: was based on the M3A3 and 296 were converted. This version was powered by the 6046.

   M31B2: Was based on the M3A5. I am unsure how many of this version was made.  This version was also powered by the 6046.

   There were other Lee based conversion, but ‘A history of the American Medium tank’ doesn’t have production numbers for them. On the Lee conversions, the 75mm gun mount was replace with a door, that had a dummy 75mm gun, and the back of the 37mm turret had a fake 37mm gun, and the front had a winch.  The idea was to make it look like an armed Lee. A crane was installed in place of the gun and mount, and it had a 10,000 capacity.  With boom jacks it could carry 30,000 pounds. It was also equipped with a 60,000 pound winch. The M31s had a single .30 caliber machine gun.

(M32B1)

Based on the Sherman hull:

   M32: Was a tank recovery vehicle based on the M4 Sherman hull, 163 converted.

   M32B1:  Was a TRV made from an M4A1 hull. There were 1055 M4A1 tanks converted

   M32A1B1: This version received an update, to A1 status, that meant improvements to the recovery capability and HVSS. There were only 37 of these converted.

   M32B2:  TRV based on the M4A2 hull. There were 26 of these conversions.

   M32B3:  TRV based on the M4A3 hull.  There were 318 of these tanks converted.

   M32B4:   TRV based on the M4A4 hull. One pilot model made, not approved for production.

   T14E1: was a M32B3 with HVSS made for the Marines at in the last half of 45. They produced 80 of these.

   The M32 series had a 60,000 pound winch, powered by powered take off, or PTO, from the drive shaft. The winch was mounted behind the driver and its drum mounted to the vehicle centerline outside. It had a crane mounted on the front of the hull, and the crane was moveable, folding back over the TRV for storage. It had an A-frame used for towing mounted on the rear hull.  It had stabilizers in the suspension that locked it in place when using the boom. If an M32 was equipped with HVSS suspension it was designated as with an A1.

   The M32 was armed with an M2 .50 caliber machine gun, mounted on the top of the vehicle, on the main hatch. They also retained the bow mounted thirty caliber machine gun. The early version were also equipped with an 81mm mortar to put out a smoke screen, it had 30 smoke rounds available. All these weapons were purely defensive, and the last thing an ARV crew wanted to do was get shot at.

 

   

(M74)

The M74 ARV: In early 1954, Bowen McLaughlin-York Inc. began production on the M74, converting M4A3 tanks to this configuration. Rock Island Arsenal conversions around this time and continued at late at 1958 but no total number on the conversions is known.  

   These ARVs had a 90,000 pound winch and a hydraulically raised boom. It also had a space on the front to help stabilize the vehicle when the boom was being used. The spade was hydraulic and could be used for light dozing work. These updates allowed the vehicles to retrieve heavier medium tanks like the M26 and M46 and were only replaced in service by the M88.

   The M74 had an M2 .50 caliber machine gun mounted on it’s all around vision cupola. It also retained the bow machine gun.

 

. . .

 

   Tanks when in combat and when not in combat break down, get stuck in mud, sand, or a tree stump. A pair of tree to close together could hang a tank like a Sherman up. Mines blew off tracks and damage the suspension. It was not unheard of for a tank to fall into a basement, or cause a bridge to collapse. Sometimes they tip over or lose a track or have a major mechanical problem and won’t run; it’s nice to have an ARV around and for some of the above cases like recovering a tank from a stream after a bridge collapsed, the boom and rigging on an ARV is essential.

   ARV’s were assigned to tank battalions; usually a pair of them would be assigned to the Battalion HQ Company with a dozer tank. I will need to dig up a tank battalion TO&E to confirm this. I’m sure the units that went out and salvaged knocked out tanks and repaired them would have these vehicles as well, though I’m pretty sure I read they used M26 Dragon Wagon trucks. If you needed help with pulling a turret, final drive and tranny housing, changing a motor, or repairing mine damage an ARV crew would be useful to have around.    

   These vehicles would be assigned one per Tank Company in as well in the independent tank battalions or when they were part of an armored division. I have not read any accounts of what a ARV crew charged in WWII or Korea, but, I read having to be pulled out of a rice paddy in Vietnam would cost the crew several cases of beer. I wonder how it worked in Korea and WWII.

[Jeeps_Guns_Tanks]

So, while searching around on the internets for pics of Sherman's being recovered, I was looking for sherman tanks stuck in the mud etc, I found more sunk by Uboats. They are M4A2 76w tanks, probably produced right before the HVSS suspension was introduced. 4

 

Link to story. 

 

[Jeeps_Guns_Tanks]

Here's a British Sherman being recovered. They had their own ARVs based on the Sherman and Lee chassis, but I'll cover those in the Brit Sherman section.  No way to tell what the Sherman is, could be the bit of the engine deck you can see suggests an M4A2 though. 

 

Here's a Sherman being pulled onto a M26 Dragon Wagons Trailer.  The tank is an M4A1 75 small hatch mid production tank. 

Another cool pic. Sherman left in the surf on Saipan. 

[Jeeps_Guns_Tanks]

Donward will like this one, it came from his area. 

 

Sherman made at PACCAR

[Donward]

I didn't know that PACCAR made Sherman tanks but I guess it totally makes sense. TIL