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  1. Blacksmith11

    Blacksmith11 Member

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    Sherman Tank Myths that keep popping up

    Discussion in 'Research' started by Blacksmith11, Aug 17, 2018.

    Its a given that if you read WW2 Fiction and go to WW2 boards, someone will mouth off the following myths:

    The Sherman was nicknamed a Ronson because its gasoline tank kept blowing up: This is a myth, the majority of Shermans that caught fire did so from ammunition fires and required the Tank to be repeatably fired upon to heat the interior enough that the ammo would cook off, by then the crew would have already bailed out and sheltered underneath the hull which would have protected them from the flames and ordinance as they cooked off and vented out the hatches they escaped from. Often times, the pick up crew would extract gasoline from the intact fuel cells of burned out Shermans which were then patched up and returned to the fight.

    5 Shermans to kill a Panther: It was the other way around. The M61 APCBC allowed Sherman 75s to easily kill Panthers at normal combat ranges. Even without it, the Shermans had far superior FCS system with a padded gunner's sight that allowed him to remain on the sight while the tank moved, a 1-plane horizontal stabilizer that allowed a gunner to keep the barrel of the cannon on a target as the tank moved, a powerful hydroelectric turret drive system, and all of which a Panther gunner lacked. This meant a Sherman Crew could see a Panther first, and fire first, enabling them to easily destroy Panthers before they could see them. As the Germans were no longer face-hardening their armor in 44, the Panther's Armor easily cracked or caught fire from HE rounds and WP rounds caused the Panther Crews to abandon the tank swiftly. Sherman 76s had only 5% greater penetration with inferior HE capabilities and took up more space on transports and was a waste of time and money spent on it.

    Shermans had poor terrain crossing capabilities: Partially true on some terrain, and fixed with Duckbills in the field and HVSS suspension on late model productions which gave them better terrain crossing capabilities than German Tanks.

    Overall, WW2 Tank combat between German Panzers and Shermans ended one way: A lopsided Sherman Victory due to far superior FCS, Ammo, and better crew training.
     
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  2. big soft moose

    big soft moose An Admoostrator Admin Staff Supporter Contributor Community Volunteer

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    are you writing a book about WW2 tank combat ? If so what did you want to know ? If not what's the point of this thread ?
     
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  3. Blacksmith11

    Blacksmith11 Member

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    The point is to put out common mistakes that show up all too often in WW2 fiction that destroy believability about WW2 Tank combat.

    Now a scene where a Panther hides in a good ambush spot and plinks away a few Shermans before pulling back from the inevitable mortar and artillery strikes on their position is believable. A Panther in broad daylight tanking hits and blowing Shermans away is not, as the Panther would have been spotted by aerial recon and strafed, rattling the crew and artillery and mortar strikes zeroed in on it followed by a combined arms attack with WP and HE rounds blinding the Panther and causing it to catch fire and cracking the hull as the Germans were no longer face hardening their armor.
     
  4. Cave Troll

    Cave Troll It's Coffee O'clock everywhere. Contributor

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    "Rommel doesn't stand a chance against my mighty reinforced cardboardium armor divisions." :p
    Cat in Tank.jpg
     
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  5. Blacksmith11

    Blacksmith11 Member

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    Well he was defeated by Sherman Tanks. While he did gain a small tactical victory at Kasserine Pass by hitting the widely spread out 1st Armored Division with a concentrated Panzerkorps, they quickly recovered and retook the lost ground and defeated his offensive once they sacked a few idiots and quit listening to the British.

    From then on out, the Americans went from victory to victory, meeting the Germans on a near 1-to-1 basis in manpower and winning. This was due to better artillery, a more robust communications net with radios at platoon level while Germany only had radios at battalion level outside of their very few panzer divisions, more trucks, a tank battalion in each Infantry Division which had as many tanks in it as most German Panzer Divisions usually had operational, and ample air support.
     
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  6. big soft moose

    big soft moose An Admoostrator Admin Staff Supporter Contributor Community Volunteer

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    Rommel's main successes however were in the African campaign before the Americans got involved. Also the later allied victories were mostly because the German war machine was being steadily dismantled by allied bombing and was over stretched fighting on too many fronts at once. It also wasn't helped by Hitler executing or imprisoning some of his best generals through increasing paranoia.

    That aside the main problem with your thread is the fiction is not expected to be fact, and war movies are supposed to be gritty and exciting, not the actual reality of war which is 90% boredom 10% terror
     
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  7. big soft moose

    big soft moose An Admoostrator Admin Staff Supporter Contributor Community Volunteer

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    Meh - we laugh in the face of carbordminium and your pussy drivers :D
     
  8. Blacksmith11

    Blacksmith11 Member

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    True, partially for the Generals though. Hitler only arrested and executed Generals who committed treason, otherwise they were dismissed and pensioned off.

    Also it is perfectly possible to represent combat in a realistic way and make it hook readers. Jarhead did this wonderfully, despite the author never firing a shot in anger despite being on the frontlines of Desert Storm as a Scout Sniper. His one chance to get a kill is stolen by a Major who thought it would be more exciting to call in an airstrike on a command post for his birthday at a cost of 2 million dollars rather than expend a single 30 cent bullet.
     
  9. Edward M. Grant

    Edward M. Grant Contributor Contributor

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    German war production kept increasing until very late in the war. From what I remember, the army was scrapping brand-new tanks that arrived at the front lines in the last few months of the war, because they had far more tanks than they had fuel to operate them.

    I suspect the biggest limitation in the middle of the war was the supply of men, not equipment for them to use.

    As for the Sherman, I'm not sure about the Panther, but I've read several times in military history books about Tigers taking numerous hits from the Shermans they were destroying, and continuing to fight until the welds in the hull and turret began to break apart. The problem, as I understand it, was that the Tiger required far more maintenance, so it was harder to keep them in combat than the Shermans.
     
  10. Iain Aschendale

    Iain Aschendale Lying, dog-faced pony Marine Supporter Contributor

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    Jarhead the movie had little to do with the book, and that airstrike was part of the Hollywoodization of the story.
     
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  11. Blacksmith11

    Blacksmith11 Member

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    Tigers were no problem for Sherman's to destroy. Sherman 75mm's with the M61 APCBC could destroy a Panther or Tiger frontally at normal combat ranges. Sherman 76's with HVAP had only 5% more penetration.

    Even that wasn't necessary as shooting WP rounds at German Tanks caused the crews to bail out swiftly before they roasted to death. In 1944 the Germans were no longer face hardening their armor, so HE rounds were cracking their armor and setting their Panzers on fire.

    Since a Sherman had an FCS light years ahead of the Germans, they could see and engage a minimum of 30 seconds faster than the Germans could and if Shermans kept their gun stabilizer working, they could engage a German Tank 1 minute faster than the Germans could as they could keep the gun trained on the Panzer while the Panzer first has to stop and manually rotate its turret while the Sherman has hydroelectric traverse and could engage the moment it stopped or on the move if the gunner and loader were skilled enough.
     
  12. Cave Troll

    Cave Troll It's Coffee O'clock everywhere. Contributor

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  13. Blacksmith11

    Blacksmith11 Member

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    This video again...

    M4 Shermans had 80mm frontal armor going into D-Day vs 100mm for a Tiger and with the Jumbo variant, exceeded a King Tiger in protection.

    Also Operation Goodwood was launched by the British and lost 314 Tanks, not 400, and the majority of those losses were Cromwells, and only 130 were total losses, the rest were repaired and back in action with 72 hours. The Germans lost 100 tanks themselves and all were total losses.

    Operation Cobra launched later saw 40 Shermans destroyed, for 344 Panzers destroyed or captured.

    Battle of Arracourt was a massive Sherman Tank Victory with the entire German Tank Force of 200 annihilated for the loss of 25 Shermans and 7 TDs.

    This video also ignores all the soft factors giving the Sherman an overwhelming edge.
     

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