I mostly meant dreadful movies like Battle of the Bulge
I highly recommend "Death Traps: The Survival of an American Armored Division in World War II" by Belton Y. Cooper. Cooper's job was to recover, clean out and cobble together tanks destroyed in combat.
I am familiar with Mr. Cooper. In all respects to Mr. Cooper, he was in a recovery unit and all he did day in and day out was deal with the aftermath of knocked out tanks. His story is deeply personal but somewhat analogous to members of a Graves Registration unit. All either did was deal with the failing part of a winning war. Understandably given such role, Mr. Cooper's account makes it sound as if the Germans won the war.
When a knocked out tank came to Mr. Cooper's unit, they didn't know the details of it's destruction. From their damage assessment they could surmise the type of munition(s) used against it. That was about it.
All they knew was that their unit had another knocked out tank to get back into service and all too often an awful mess to clean out of the inside.
Those 3rd Army armored divisions took well over 100% casualties in a matter of less than one year.
And IIRC, 3rd Army armor achieved over a 2:1 kill rate versus German armor during that same period. So whose tanks were death traps?
Shots through the front glaxis were probably the most common.
Yes, many Shermans were holed through the glaxis but one cannot make a sweeping statement from that. In western Europe, tank combat often took place at point blank range. In the Bocage, hedgerows are about 100 yards apart meaning, ALL tank combat took place at point blank range until a breakout could be achieved.
As I noted above the shorter barrel low velocity guns were to fulfill the requirement that the gun could fire 1,000 rounds without burning out the rifling.
And at the time of it's design, that short barreled gun was capable of dealing with the Mk-III and Mk-IVs which is all designers knew about. It isn't as if the Sherman was never up-gunned and up armoured. Further more, M61 APCBC rounds for the 75mm short barreled gun were capable of taking out a Tiger from head on at 500 yards.
Finally, if the Sherman was such a death trap, why were so many used in Korea?
Because the Sherman was cheap and easy to produce.
You do realize the British troops called the Sherman tank the Ronson Lighter “Lights the first time every time”?
Ugh. One of the worst war movies ever made. OK, maybe the worst.