Revealed: The astonishing D-Day tanks found at the bottom of the English Channel

Daily Mail ^ | 05th August 2008 | DEBRA KILLALEA

[martin_fierro]

Mangled Generals Ping.

[Billthedrill]

Panzer food. I know it wasn't supposed to go toe-to-toe with a mk V Panther but even so it wasn't always a bad thing to be an infantryman.

[papasmurf]

Geez, this makes me feel old. I remember when our Battalion replaced our Shermans with M60’s.

[Centurion2000]

Two tons lighter than a Sherman, does it qualify as a medium or heavy main battle tank.

Recently I did a lot of study on WWII tanks, (hobby) and actually the British used a different systm altogether designating tanks as infantry or cavalry style.

Infantry tanks were expected to keep up with the infantry and were not designed for hardcore mobile warfare. They were also heavier and better armored.

Cavalry tanks were designed for scouting and mobile warfare at speeds that infantry or slower tanks could not match.

[Tallguy]

The pre-War US Army had a similar system. Tanks specifications were issued by branch, either Infantry or (mechanized) Cavalry.

Excepted from THE EVOLUTION OF THE TANK IN THE U.S. ARMY

"In 1919, an economy-minded Congress considered the postwar organization of the US Army. General Pershing the AEF commander, accompanied by his aide Colonel George C. Marshall (the World War II Army Chief of Staff), testified that tanks should remain a supporting arm of the infantry. As a result the 1920 National Defense Act disestablished the Tank Corps, directed that tanks be assigned to the infantry, and denied the establishment of a tank branch. This legislative restriction was not lifted until the 1950 Army Reorganization Act established the Armor Branch.4"

[Repeal The 17th]

“The crews didn’t get out. They went down with their tanks.”
- - -
VR, why would you just throw something like that out
not knowing if it was true or not?
It hurts your credibility.
see post # 24:
“All the Royal Marines and crew aboard were rescued but the tanks, along with two armoured bulldozers and a field gun plunged to the sea floor.”

[Tatze]

There was a show on the Discovery Channel or the History Channel or maybe TLC a few years ago about US duplex drive Sherman tanks outfitted to float and motor up to the beaches. Most capsized and sank in the rough seas.

[FreedomPoster]

Free Republic Treadhead Ping

[colorado tanker]

Tank crews are expected to do a lot of their own maintenance.

My least favorite part of tanking. :-))

[An Old Man]

In the late 1950's we formed a Battalion of these. Each had a crew of three, and 6, count them, 106mm Recoilless Rifles. You can consider it "The Worlds Biggest Shotgun".

Semper Fi
An Old Man

[colorado tanker]

Looks like it would be in the league of the older German Marks. Certainly not the Panther!

[FreedomPoster]

I’d hate to have been the loader for one of those.

[SunkenCiv]

It took a lot of brass to post that one. ;’)

[Virginia Ridgerunner]

It was an honest mistake. I work with this type of stuff through my job, and everything I've read so far about D-Day (which was a lot) indicates that all the tank crews drowned when their DD tanks went under during the D-Day assault. This one was an exception, and is new history.

Chill out!

[Virginia Ridgerunner]

DD Tanks:

[indcons]

Thanks for the ping, abb.

Milhist ping

[Rebelbase]

from your link:

“The Ontos carried the beehive round that sent out a hundred darts per firing to clean out a jungle of its enemy. There was no other weapon that could clear a jungle for a depth of a ¼ mile like the 106mm recoilless rifle using the beehive round. “

[tanknetter]

Perhaps so, but it is a long tradition of the sea that shipwrecks on the bottom where crew went down are considered graves.

Having personally seen the recovered CSS Hunley, (twice - the first time shortly after she was put into the desalinization tank at the old Charlestown Naval Base with the vessel still containing the remains of the crew) it seems to be an inexact tradition.

[PzLdr]

The U.S developed a heavy tank at the end of WW II, but never fielded it. I saw one at Knox in ‘68. It was huge. The first Pershing [?] tanks, with 90mm cannon appeared at the end of the war in Europe. It was the ONLY American tank capable of a one on one with a Tiger or a Panther. Shermans, while mechanically reliable, and massed produced, were junk.

[Tallguy]

The U.S developed a heavy tank at the end of WW II, but never fielded it. I saw one at Knox in ‘68. It was huge.

That's entirely possible. My paternal grandfather was a supervisor at The Budd Company in Philadelphia. During the war he worked at "The Tank Plant" which was a new facility to construct... Tanks. In peacetime The Budd Company stamped metal components that went into car bodies for Chrysler, AMC & Ford Motors. They also had a division that made railcars.

Eventually they were bought-out by Thyssen Steel in the late '70's, early '80's time frame.

I think there's only 1 documented engagement that I've seen between an M26 Pershing and a Panther right at the end of WW2.

The Sherman was a pretty good tank when stacked up against the Mark III & Mark IV Panzers -- these were its true developmental contemporaries. Mass production decisions pretty much precluded a better design entering the pipeline until late-'44. As you say, it didn't show well against the Tigers or Panthers.