...and the Germans had several Kampfgruppen entirely equipped with captured T-34s.
Posted on 11/10/2014 8:06:00 AM PST by C19fan
American tanks in World War II were generally inferior to their German counterparts. German tanks boasted better armor protection and more firepower.
But armor and lethality don’t tell the whole story. The same American tanks were superior to their rivals in other important ways. The M-4 Sherman, in particular, helped the U.S. Army win the war—even though, in battle, German tanks destroyed them en masse.
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Reminds me of a story one from my childhood friends fathers, a WWII vet who was part of the push through Italy (I don’t remember the details of which part, I was a kid when he told it).
A German officer, who spoke good English, had been captured, and one of the GIs guarding him (I don’t recall whether it was my friend’s father or someone else in his unit) asked him, “So, if you’re the ‘master race’, how come we’re guarding you, instead of the other way ‘round?”
The German replied, “I was in command of an anti-tank battery, and was ordered to destroy every tank that came up a certain road. We destroyed every tank that came up the road. We ran out of ammunition, you Americans did not run out of tanks.”
Think about the Army with their manual, split trail 155 MM Howitzers and the "TOT" time on target which allowed multiple guns to fire , using different angles, different times, and hit the targets at the same time, giving no warning to the bad guys...WITHOUT COMPUTERS.
I was a pill roller attached to the arty guys, and I can tell you that the shooters took real pride in doing it right.
With today's computers and GPS systems, it is almost impossible to not get a "TOT" correct.
The Sherman was even more reliable than the T-34. The Red Army used their Lend-Lease Shermans to equip their mechanized corps (divisions), instead of T-34’s, because their mech units were used in deep-penetration missions where maintenance and recovery/repair services were scarce. This maximized the utility of the Sherman’s superior reliability.
And to think Christy basically invented the T-34 the Russians used to such great affect and we passed on it for the Ronson Lighter.
I look at all the areas in which US weapons excelled over those of Germany and the only 2 areas where the US was clearly inferior was artillery with the German 88mm cannon and the main battle tank. Yes, we had greater numbers of tanks but we had much greater losses of tanks too.
I am still furious at George Patton for saying that we didn’t need a heavier tank because tanks are not supposed to engage tanks. Well, maybe they weren’t supposed to General, but they sure did! And when they did, the US took heavy losses in their relatively lighter Shermans.
Beyond that, I am given to believe that a lot of German tanks were taken out by artillery shells dropping in from above on their thin top armor, or from aerial bombing. To the extent that there is no defense for a tank from an artillery barrage, I guess our general strategy of having more tanks worked out, even if more vulnerable.
Still and all, if we had something like the T-34 with a high velocity 75mm gun, our tanker losses would have been lessened, probably significantly. Letting the Russians have the tank based on Christy’s design was just criminal.
There was politics in the military even back then. That has never changed.
I went to The Armor Ball at Fort Knox, KY one year, and the guest speaker was a WWII Tanker. It came time for him to speak, and the place was totally quiet. We all waited to hear his experience and wisdom.
“The Russians bought the Christie tank and it was better than what we had. Thank-you.”
And he sat down.
One of the best speeches I ever heard.
T-34 was crappy? You are joking.
The T-34 was so effective, the Germans designed the Panther tank to counter it. Hence the sloped armor of the Panther compared to the Panzer III and Panzer IV.
...and the Germans had several Kampfgruppen entirely equipped with captured T-34s.
I can almost excuse the too little armor part. That would take a major upgrade and a degradation in speed and fuel economy.
But I CANNOT forgive the too little gun part. The British Firefly proved that the US could have fielded a high velocity 75mm gun to take on the Panthers and Tigers. There is absolutely no reason that the Sherman crews had to suffer poor armament for the entire war. No reason at all.
In his autobiography the Panzer General Guderian wrote about taking a group of Soviet tank officers on a tour of the plants producing the Panzer III and Panzer IVs in early 1941. As a party to the Nazi-Soviet Pact of 1939, Hitler had agreed to share tank technology with the Soviets. Hitler order that that part of the treaty be strictly complied with, so a very reluctant Guderian showed off Germany's latest tanks to the Soviets. (Guderian did not know at the time that Hitler planned to invade and destroy the USSR before it had a chance to use the technology he was giving it).
When the tour was over the Soviet officers rudely accused Guderian of acting in bad faith, and demanded to be shown Germany's latest and best tanks. After listening to Guderian's truthful protestations that these were Germany's latest and best tanks, the unconvinced Soviet officers stormed off.
Guderian discussed the meaning of the incident with his fellow panzer officers and they decided that if the roles were reversed the Soviets would hide their best tanks, and the Soviet officers had simply assumed that Germany was doing so. Guderian said he was left with a nagging feeling that persisted until his men encountered the T-34 and he understood why the Soviets had assumed that the Panzer IIIs and IVs could not be Germany's best tanks.
The brilliance of the T-34 was in combining the Christie chassis with sloped side armor.
Transferred to Infantry, he suffered from his football knees as well as a commanding officer who insisted his company perform duckwalks to stay in shape on the ship headed for North Africa.
Two swollen knees that prevented his even walking led to his admittance to sick bay for the landing.
Every man in his division was either killed or captured at Kasserine Pass.
A serious war today would involve unheard of munitions that spread disease amongst the populated areas the way rainfall sweeps across a field. Billions will die and for what? So somebody can say, “We won.” Indeed, that’s a worthy goal. Or is it?
Saying the Sherman was the best tank of the war due to its ultimate effectiveness is like saying the Russian soldier was the best soldier of the war due to their ultimate effectiveness.
The point is, man for man, the German and American soldier was a better soldier one on one than the Russian. The Russian’s effectiveness came from the mead grinder mentality of throwing millions of them at the Germans. You can only kill so many people so fast and if they just keep coming, you eventually run out of ammo or get overrun. That is the effectiveness of the inferior Russian soldier.
That is basically what you are saying — that the Sherman tank is individually a better tank than the myriad German tanks just because we flooded battlefields with Shermans,
Tell that to all the tank crews who rode to their deaths in the Ronson Lighters or the Burning Graves. The strategy ultimately proved to be effective but tank for tank, the Sherman was quite mediocre stacked up against the body of German tanks.
I have no doubt that if the T-34 had been designed and produced by America, all of its key weaknesses like poor reliability, soft armor and water leaks would all have been eliminated by American design and workmanship.
An American produced T-34 would have been better than an American produced Sherman.
Interesting. I didn’t know that.
I did know that a lot of T-34 tank casualties on the easter front came not from tanks knocked out by shells, but break downs, running out of fuel or simply crew abandonment. So I did know the Germans captured a lot of intact T-34s, just never realized they then utilized them. Makes sense.
M-4s AND Merkavas scrapped at the same time. Who would have imagined the Sherman lasting that long!
Another reason for Shermans being the primary tank was that you could ship 3 Shermans per flat car. You could only fit 1 or 2 Pershings on the flat car. This, in part, led to the Army sticking with the Sherman even when we finally had a better tank ready to go into production.
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