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The M-4 Sherman Tank Was Hell on Wheels — And a Death Trap
War is Boring ^ | October 23, 2014 | Paul Richard Huard

Posted on 10/23/2014 8:09:23 AM PDT by C19fan

The M-4 Sherman was the workhorse medium tank of the U.S. Army and Marine Corps during World War II. It fought in every theater of operation—North Africa, the Pacific and Europe.

The Sherman was renown for its mechanical reliability, owing to its standardized parts and quality construction on the assembly line. It was roomy, easily repaired, easy to drive. It should have been the ideal tank.

But the Sherman was also a death trap.


TOPICS: History; Military/Veterans
KEYWORDS: sherman; tanks; war; warisboring
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Gasoline was not helpful but also early models of Shermans had bad ammunition storage resulting in catastrophic explosion when the tank was penetrated.
1 posted on 10/23/2014 8:09:23 AM PDT by C19fan
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To: C19fan
I saw the movie FURY the other day. Pretty much demonstrates the frailties of the Sherman.

Basically our troops "swarmed" the German tanks and put one up their tailpipe.

2 posted on 10/23/2014 8:19:28 AM PDT by donozark (I may not have always saw the Phantoms. But I sure as hell heard their bombs!)
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To: C19fan

The Sherman aks a ‘Ronson’ - they work everytime.


3 posted on 10/23/2014 8:19:30 AM PDT by PIF (They came for me and mine ... now it is your turn ...)
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To: C19fan

the photo of the Super Sherman in the article immediately brought to mind the T-1 of Terminator fame.


4 posted on 10/23/2014 8:20:58 AM PDT by NonValueAdded (Pointing out dereliction of duty is NOT fear mongering, especially in a panDEMic)
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To: C19fan

The best Sherman tank movie was the one where the guy put the transmission in backwards so it had one speed forward and four speeds in reverse. Kelly’s Heroes?


5 posted on 10/23/2014 8:21:22 AM PDT by webheart (We are all pretty much living in a fiction.)
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To: C19fan

Sherman M4’s were jokingly referred to by British soldiers as “Ronsons”, a brand of lighter whose slogan was “Lights up the first time, every time!”[iv] Polish soldiers referred to them simply as “The Burning Grave”.

However to quote Comrade Stalin
‘Quantity has a quality all its own.’
There were A LOT of Shermans...


6 posted on 10/23/2014 8:21:37 AM PDT by Kozak ("It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal" Henry Kissinger)
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To: webheart

The best Sherman tank movie was the one where the guy put the transmission in backwards so it had one speed forward and four speeds in reverse.

I think that was standard in all Italian tanks in WW2...


7 posted on 10/23/2014 8:22:52 AM PDT by Kozak ("It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal" Henry Kissinger)
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To: donozark; C19fan

Remember reading that it took half a dozen Shermans to take down a Tiger (Panzerkampfwagon Mark VI).

Not good if you’re the guys in the first five Shermans.

The Brits upgunned it with a “17pounder” (90mm) and called it the Firefly. Better gun, but still underarmored compared to the some of the beasts the Germans were using. But at least the bigger gun gave it a fighting chance against the thicker armor on the Tigers and Panthers (Mark V) and the bigger King Tigers (Mark VIB).

My old man was WWII Airborne. He had a healthy respect for German armor... saw a lot of in the Ardennes. Too much.


8 posted on 10/23/2014 8:24:13 AM PDT by NFHale (The Second Amendment - By Any Means Necessary.)
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To: C19fan

A good friend of my family was a tank driver in the 4th Armored Division. He had three Sherman tanks shot out under him.


9 posted on 10/23/2014 8:24:49 AM PDT by pleasenotcalifornia
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To: C19fan
Probably an interesting read but... "every theater of operations" is usually meant as Europe, the Pacific, and CBI or China Burma India theaters. (Flying Tigers, right?)

I've always understood North Africa to be considered an ancillary or prologue to the European Theater.

10 posted on 10/23/2014 8:25:15 AM PDT by OKSooner (Hospice in place and await further instructions.)
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To: C19fan

Also, the word is renowned.


11 posted on 10/23/2014 8:25:19 AM PDT by webheart (We are all pretty much living in a fiction.)
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To: C19fan; PIF
We had quite an extensive discussion of this topic, in which you may be interested, several days ago on Homer_J_Simpson's excellent 70-years-ago series on WW2.

The final US Army mortality rate for Sherman crewmen in destructive disablements was just 0.3 fatalities per incident (sadly, I don't have the link handy, but you can research it, too). In other words, most got out, contrary to the Ronson stigma.

12 posted on 10/23/2014 8:27:29 AM PDT by Hebrews 11:6 (Do you REALLY believe that (1) God IS, and (2) God IS GOOD?)
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To: C19fan

I recall that the Israeli Defense Forces were effectively using up-gunned Shermans as late as the Yom Kippur War (1973).


13 posted on 10/23/2014 8:28:07 AM PDT by bagman
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To: NFHale

Yep...and don’t forget, along with heavy armor and big guns, the Germans had two (2) other critical pieces of force multipliers: Veteran crews and Zeiss optics. The Germans could see farther and better than the Americans. Once the US got Air superiority and/or ANGLECO Radio operator on line, the heavy german tanks days were numbered.


14 posted on 10/23/2014 8:29:27 AM PDT by DCBryan1 (No realli, moose bytes can be quite nasti!!)
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To: C19fan
The M4A3 “Jumbo” Sherman's started using the 76mm higher velocity guns that could penetrate Panther and Tiger Armor at point blank ranges, but not at distance where the panther and tiger could kill a Sherman from 800 yards out. The M4A3 also had the V8 “Easy Eight” ford engines and were fast. The 76mm gun had a longer chamber for the armor piercing high velocity rounds but fired a smaller high explosive round than the 75mm gun for anti personal work. In Fury they are in an M4A3 that began to see action in 1944 and the other Sherman's were A1’s and or A2’s.
15 posted on 10/23/2014 8:39:48 AM PDT by Mat_Helm
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To: C19fan

The Sherman was a great tank for what it was designed to do.....suppress enemy machine guns. American military leaders in the 1920s and 1930s saw tanks as being a support weapon for the Infantry. They did not envision huge armored thrusts knifing into the rear of the enemy. The tank would be a mobile machine gun in the defense and a protected machine gun to suppress the enemy machine guns in the offense.
Tankers like to talk about the tank-on-tank battles. Tanks are most useful when they are shooting up the enemy communications vans and driving through their chow halls. That’s when they really break and run.


16 posted on 10/23/2014 8:46:18 AM PDT by blueunicorn6 ("A crack shot and a good dancer")
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To: Mat_Helm

In 1969 when I joined 58 Engr Co at Fulda FRG our tracks were all M113 with gas engines. Had the Russians come we would have been riding a ‘Ronson’.. The conversion to diesel wasn’t complete until the 70’s.


17 posted on 10/23/2014 8:46:37 AM PDT by RitchieAprile
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To: Kozak
We built 11,000 tanks in WW II---not all Shermans, of course, but the armor and technology had a lot to do with why we could field so many tanks. You could change the tread of a Sherman in 15 min---six bolts. A Panther took at least an hour. You could, with a winch, replace a Sherman turret in about an hour. Tigers had to be towed from the front---they couldn't be repaired there.

In Lima, OH, they were turning out a tank ever 4.5 HOURS. You simply can't beat that with high tech.

18 posted on 10/23/2014 8:47:29 AM PDT by LS ('Castles made of sand, fall in the sea . . . eventually.' Hendrix)
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To: DCBryan1

“...Once the US got Air superiority ...”

True that...

Falaise Pocket.... ‘nuff said... the 1944 version of the Basra Road (out of Kuwait)...


19 posted on 10/23/2014 8:48:40 AM PDT by NFHale (The Second Amendment - By Any Means Necessary.)
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To: C19fan

Contrary to what people may think, all the German tanks ran on gasoline too. Maybach tank engines, including the HL230 engine in the Tiger I and other heavy tanks, were gasoline engines, not diesel.


20 posted on 10/23/2014 8:49:07 AM PDT by Rinnwald
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