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.
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.