Posted on 06/06/2015 10:07:55 AM PDT by PROCON
That's such hogwash. The German soldiers spanned the full spectrum of martial effectiveness, just like the Americans. It's just that the winners/survivors write history.
WTF are you talking about?
Thanks for the kind words about my father..he recently had to move into a nursing home because of mobility issues, but his mind remains very sharp; it’s a blessing to have a parent enjoy the long, full life that he has enjoyed.
You are spot-on in your observations about the Germans; they have always produced some of the finest armored vehicles in the world, a trend that continued through the Leopard II MBT. But the German Army of World War II was not prepared for a war of attrition and logistics. The combat value of a Panther or even a Tiger was greatly reduced when a mechanical breakdown or moderate combat damage could take them out of the fight for good.
By comparison, some of the most heavily-damaged Shermans were repaired and sent back to the front. My Dad told me one of the first jobs in restoring a damaged M4 was cleaning up the crew compartment and giving it a new coat of paint. The bodies of dead or wounded crew members were usually gone by the time my father (and other retriever crews) arrived on the scene, but there was often a lot of dried blood and other body parts left inside. So, the crew compartment had to be hosed out and given a fresh coat of white paint, which also covered the smell from Shermans that had burned.
Sad, isn’t it? That America, the world leader in the automotive industry at the time, could only produce a tank that for the few pluses it did have overall was not a very good armored vehicle in the final analysis.
The Sherman M-4 tank was called the 'Ronson lighter' because would light up every time it was hit.
Actually, the fire danger was overstated; the biggest reason some Shermans caught fire was that most were powered by gas engines. Gas ignites much more easily than diesel, but most tanks during WWII (on all sides) utilized gasoline engines.
Many of the Sherman fires were caused by ammunition that ignited and exploded in the crew compartment. The early models had a poorly-designed system for storing ammo. Later variants put ammunition into a more protected location and surrounded by a “water bath, reducing the possibility of explosion and fire.
In 1940, the year German Panzers rolled across the low countries and France, the entire tank development budget for the U.S. Army was only $90,000. Given that level of parsimony, it’s amazing we were able to develop the Sherman. Don’t forget, our “first” medium tank of the war, the Grant, had a side-mounted main gun, because we didn’t have the capability to mount a larger gun in a revolving turret.
I learned to shoot in the scouts, taught by men who all had CIBs. i was taught to swim by a navy frogman who did pre invasion demo in the pacific.
They were serious men who knew their sh!t.
Today’s boy scouts are led by women.
Your steaming insight.
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