Picture of the day

True, but the german tanks were way more likely to break down even before they were hit.

After the war, the french used a while Regiment of Panther's and they soon found out that the transmission didn't last that long, even during peace time use.
 
If they're no good, just make more of them!

A German tank commander in France once said that any one of his Panzers could knock out four Shermans during an encounter, but there were often five of them facing him. The U.S. put a lot of those tanks into France, most of them not well armed, and none well armoured, but they were reliable
The Panther was an excellent design, but they were rushed into service by a desperate government. If they had just six months to iron out the bugs and teething problems they would have been even more formidable--but they could never match the numbers churned out by the Americans. And having their factories bombed didn't help matters.
 
I have no expertise in tanks.

I can see the tradeoff of armour for speed, etc. But the Sherman was under gunned in a tank v tank encounter. The large gun was available and not a weight issue.

If I go into combat, I want a chance to defend myself. The pop gun did not do it.
 
The Sherman was to a considerable extent the product of US Army tactical doctrine which held that tanks were to be used in the infantry support and exploitation roles, rather than to fight other tanks. The US Army developed the tank destroyer force for combatting enemy tanks. TD units were issued with a variety of towed and self-propelled anti-tank guns, most of which were built on the basic Sherman chassis with many similar components.

The dual purpose 75mm gun seemed OK in theory for the non-tank fighting idea, but this was overtaken by the reality that tanks did engage other tanks. The TDs were thinly armored with open top turrets and a slightly better gun. They often found themselves employed in infantry support as well as anti-tank combat. Neither the Sherman tank nor the TDs were really satisfactory in either role, but there were lots of them and they were automotively sound.
 
purple said:
An interesting photo of the KO'D Sherman Firefly being examined by a US paratrooper. Its quite likely in Holland where the US Airborne and Brit armoured units were mixed up together in Operation Market Garden.
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My late father fought in "Operation - Market-Garden", he served with 2nd Battalion Welsh Guards , this unit was the Armoured Recce battalion of the Guards Armoured Division , the battalion was equipped with a British tank , the "Cromwell", he wouldn't talk too much about being in the battle except, he mentioned his battalion suffered casualties in knocked out tanks, and crewmen being killed or wounded from German 88 mm, panzerfaust and land mines...he would always say "I'm lucky to have survived "
 
There are a lot of "myths" surrounding the Sherman tank, and all of its variants.

I highly recommend people look up a you tube channel, The Chieftains Hatch, and have a look. He has some excellent and informative videos and presentations that are well researched and presented.

You'd be surprised how little tank V tank action there was on the western front of WW2.

https://www.amazon.com/Death-Traps-Survival-American-Division/dp/0891418148

That book is just about one of the most discredited books written on WW2 and Armour. Don't take it as gospel in anyway.
 
Towed AT guns, and later hand held Panzerfausts, were the major killer of allied tanks on the western front. This was burned into our minds in training with emphasis on using lots of speculative MG fire and smoke on likely AT positions while in the advance and attack. Continous fire support from arty to mask or neutralize suspected enemy AT positions with smoke and HE was/is also important. I remember the early 1960s armored training manual still being illustrated with German-looking AT guns to illustrate various tactical drills like negotiating a blind corner.

When doing a terrain analysis for the advance/attack its pretty easy to ID likely enemy long range AT positions and to incl them in the fire plan.
 
Thanks so much for that youtube channel drop. I have something to do now....cant believe how many videos he has!

grabbers said:
There are a lot of "myths" surrounding the Sherman tank, and all of its variants.

I highly recommend people look up a you tube channel, The Chieftains Hatch, and have a look. He has some excellent and informative videos and presentations that are well researched and presented.

You'd be surprised how little tank V tank action there was on the western front of WW2.

https://www.amazon.com/Death-Traps-Survival-American-Division/dp/0891418148

That book is just about one of the most discredited books written on WW2 and Armour. Don't take it as gospel in anyway.
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To witness a remaining operating Panther in the flesh is humbling. This German Panzer Museum was well worth the visit while visiting my son.

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Even tho the Panther was underrated compared to the Tiger one can not admire the Tiger 1 as it has a well deserved reputation either in books, movies or real life.

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An awesome beast it is and if the Nazis could have built more of their top front line Panzers the allies would have been in a world of hurt.
 
In a very short time the armour went from this....

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To this monster....

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The museum doesn't discuss their SS show pieces but you can notice the division shield on the front plate of this rare tank.

The Sherman's had very little chance against these foremadible tanks.
 
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To anyone interested in operation Market Garden

I just finished reading A Bridge Too Far by Cornelius Ryan.

I thought an excellent book. Day to day (almost hour by hour) description of the battle from planning stage to final outcome and from the perspective of both sides.

Mostly put together from interviews of Allied and German survivors
 
Kampfhamster said:
True, but the german tanks were way more likely to break down even before they were hit.

After the war, the french used a while Regiment of Panther's and they soon found out that the transmission didn't last that long, even during peace time use.
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They were also built, at least partially, by slave labor who would sabotage them at the factory any way they could.
 
.... and the movie by the same name is very true to Ryan's book.

Old Ranger said:
To anyone interested in operation Market Garden

I just finished reading A Bridge Too Far by Cornelius Ryan.

I thought an excellent book. Day to day (almost hour by hour) description of the battle from planning stage to final outcome and from the perspective of both sides.

Mostly put together from interviews of Allied and German survivors
Click to expand...
 
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Old Ranger said:
To anyone interested in operation Market Garden

I just finished reading A Bridge Too Far by Cornelius Ryan.

I thought an excellent book. Day to day (almost hour by hour) description of the battle from planning stage to final outcome and from the perspective of both sides.

Mostly put together from interviews of Allied and German survivors
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Probably the most authentic book and movie ever produced. Damn good watch and read.
 
Dark Alley Dan said:
"Don't worry, men. There's lots more where you came from."

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One has to wonder how bad morale must have gotten. When you're pretty sure you're going to lose your vehicle, and there's a good chance you'll be in it when it's hit, I have to think the pucker factor would be pretty high all the time. Guys can't function at that level of stress indefinitely.

Has anyone done a study on tank crew "exhaustion" in France in 1944?
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Im very curious about the tank with the cavernous open "mouth" in the photo with the wheeled vehicle...never seen one before in that configuration, what was it's purpose. At first glance I thought it was just a regular tank that the hull had been catastrophically separated in the middle but after a second look it appears to have plates installed that hold the top half separated from the bottom and an "elevated track idler configuration. The biggest thing I noticed first that makes the machine an odd duck is the track itself is much longer than needed for a conventional track frame.
 
fingers284 said:
Im very curious about the tank with the cavernous open "mouth" in the photo with the wheeled vehicle...never seen one before in that configuration, what was it's purpose. At first glance I thought it was just a regular tank that the hull had been catastrophically separated in the middle but after a second look it appears to have plates installed that hold the top half separated from the bottom and an "elevated track idler configuration. The biggest thing I noticed first that makes the machine an odd duck is the track itself is much longer than needed for a conventional track frame.
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That's definitely a catastrophic separation. If you look close you can see that the upper body of the tank is being held up in the air by the front section of the tank, front drive included.
 
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