Posted on 09/08/2014 12:08:25 PM PDT by C19fan
I’m guessing he mention folks from Georgia because the Sherman tank was named after General Sherman who is famous for his “march to the sea” in which he stated he would make Georgia howl.
You read my mind. The M1A was a giant leap.
but bigger
Agreed. Game changer in the Fulda Gap just by being there. From how well it shot on the move, to what is shot, to how it was armoured, how it was propelled, how quiet it was, and how they networked on the battlefield.
No one wanted to face them. And the crews could practice remarkably aggressive tactics.
Look also at how they fared in the two Gulf wars. AFAIK there were fewer than 10 total hull losses, not counting stoopid driver tricks. And HOW MANY kills did they have in the sand box?
I caught a ride inot one when it came to Columbia a while back.
Fun but tiring ride. 30 minutes was enough. 6 foot 3 inch me had a time crawling around in it with a camera.
Shermans huge advantage was it's reliability. It would start and go when you needed it to.
The Israelis fixed it's biggest fault, a lousy gun, with fitting a larger one in the Super Sherman. They last saw limited service in Lebanon in the early 80's.
A two star movie at best.
My first thought too.
I’m no tank expert - in fact I know very little about them - except the Abrams tank is very well known.
I believe the tank was named for Civil War General William Tecumseh Sherman famous for his vicious march through Georgia to the sea.
I read where one of the Germans' big mistakes was handing out tank orders to companies who built locomotives and dockyard cranes. They were used to a much slower rate of production and didn't have the mindset to ramp things up.
We, on the other hand, went to the automobile manufacturers, who were used to high production runs.
Aka “Ronsons”.
Yes, it was. I had relatives who fought for the Confederacy and one died during the march.
The M-4 Sherman should not be on that list. And the Czech Panzer 38 should be on there in place of the German Mark II.
terrible design and layout for a tank factory
That may be true.
The Tiger Tank, however, was an enormously complicated Tank. It was fit with a huge gun originally designed as an anti-aircraft gun. Like the Panther, it was extremely engineered, too complex, and difficult to repair. The Germans have always been noted for their engineering capability and these two tanks were excessively over engineered, the Russian T-34 and the American Sherman were relatively simple in comparison. Hitler micromanaged weapons development in the Third Reich, and was obsessed with size. He wanted the biggest and most powerful tank on the battlefield. And he got it. Problem was he couldn’t mass produce enough of them and he was running out of fuel. German troops ended up destroying many of their Tigers and Panthers rather letting them be captured by the Allies. After the war, the US later incorporated many of the features of the Panther and the Tiger into our tank design
14 days to produce one doesn’t sound too bad now a days but I have a feeling the Sherman was being produced a lot more quickly
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