In depth analysis of M4 weaknesses

Goblin · Post by **Goblin** » Sat Apr 26, 2003 6:08 pm

LMAO!! That would take all freakin' day!! LOL!

Goblin:D :p

:p

sztartur2 · Post by **sztartur2** » Sat Apr 26, 2003 7:55 pm

Are there any?:)

Artur.

Belisarius · Post by **Belisarius** » Sat Apr 26, 2003 7:57 pm

Analyses, artur? Not that I know of. :p

Weaknesses? As Gobbo said.....

Irinami · Post by **Irinami** » Sat Apr 26, 2003 8:31 pm

1.) Remember the M4 is:
--a.) A medium tank--not a heavy.
--b.) An infantry support tank--not an armor-buster.

That will cover most of peoples' problems. Armour too light to fight Katz? Well duh. It's not meant to; that's what the ATG's are for. Gun doesn't penetrate enough armour? Again, duh. It's not meant to.

2.) Huge sillhouette. Not horizontally as much as vertically, which makes it stand out against a true horizon or any sub-horizons all the easier. I understand some of the reasons for this tall tank, but it's still a problem.

Hm... that's all I know.

Goblin · Post by **Goblin** » Sat Apr 26, 2003 11:16 pm

What Irinami is trying to say is that it blows. (blows up too

)

Goblin:D

Orzel Bialy · Post by **Orzel Bialy** » Sun Apr 27, 2003 5:54 am

Hmmm....so it was a badly designed (big / thin armor / poor gun)tank brought into being by an outdated concept(infantry tanks)?

Yeah...I would definitely put it in the "Blows" category!

WhiteRook · Post by **WhiteRook** » Sun Apr 27, 2003 6:15 am

Ok guys lets remember that the M4 helped win the war no matter what faults it had! You can thank your lucky stars for it, other wise you would be goose stepping!

Belisarius · Post by **Belisarius** » Sun Apr 27, 2003 6:33 am

Originally posted by Irinami
[B
--b.) An infantry support tank--not an armor-buster.
[/B]

*cough cough* ....yeaaa riiiiight... too bad there wasn't better tanks around for armor-busting until the M26 came along

Stopgap measure anyone?

stevemk1a · Post by **stevemk1a** » Sun Apr 27, 2003 6:44 am

Hey, the M4's biggest advantages IMHO were that it was hella reliable and there were LOTS of them ... a King Tiger is pretty scary on paper, but if the transmission fails on the way to battle (fairly common occurence) it's useless!

The biggest strike IMHO against the M4 is the inexcusable delay in the introduction of the 76mm armament ...

Belisarius · Post by **Belisarius** » Sun Apr 27, 2003 6:53 am

reliance in numbers, that's what Shermans are all about

And some sturdiness on that... my my ...

as for the Katz, transmission was a problem. In about 6 months or so. :rolleyes: Tigers sorted out almost all of their powertrain problems in the first months of field use. After that, they became pretty reliable machines. Panthers are another matter....took alot longer to straighten out the bends and quirks of the suspension/transmission but they, too, came to be reliable machines. A bit demanding in maintenance, but reliable.

Irinami · Post by **Irinami** » Sun Apr 27, 2003 6:55 am

Nobody said the concept of the infantry support tank was a good one. Kind of like the concept of the Bradley. Have you SEEN the organization for a Bradley Platoon? It'll give you a freaking headache just reading it! You have half of 2 squads in 4 different bloody vehicles! (Well, almost.)

Belisarius · Post by **Belisarius** » Sun Apr 27, 2003 6:57 am

OK, suddenly I can't edit my text?

All I get is a blank field with all text in the grey background areas.

Agh.. first "on" should be a "to".....

Second row, first "in" shoud be a "for".... then I'll get my point acroess I think :p

I'll lay off the beer for now...

stevemk1a · Post by **stevemk1a** » Sun Apr 27, 2003 7:27 am

I guess it usually takes about 500 or so vehicles to iron out all the bugs ... only problem is that less than 500 Koeningstigers were made, and about 1500 Tiger I's, and about 5000 Panthers (as well as less than 400 Jagdpanthers). All of them were undeniably sexy (to those of us that love tanks ...

) but also high maintenance and expensive (suprise, suprise

) 40, 000 or so M4's were built ... and, (small comfort to the M4 crews) as Stalin said: "quantity has a quality of it's own" :p

Irinami · Post by **Irinami** » Sun Apr 27, 2003 8:13 am

Originally posted by willy
All of <KATZ> were undeniably sexy (to those of us that love tanks ... ) but also high maintenance and expensive (suprise, suprise )

o/~ Kat-scratch fe-ver, deer-deer, daow!

WhiteRook · Post by **WhiteRook** » Mon Apr 28, 2003 6:11 am

Whew, boy am I glad you said that Willy, I was worried that I was the only one that thought that the "Panther" was the sexest armor on the battlefield....

Goblin · Post by **Goblin** » Mon Apr 28, 2003 6:17 am

It really is sexy! Oh... Oh... OH... OHHHHH!!!!:eek:

:p

Goblin

WhiteRook · Post by **WhiteRook** » Mon Apr 28, 2003 10:06 am

LTIP!

Frank W. · Post by **Frank W.** » Mon Apr 28, 2003 4:24 pm

M4 was better than jagdtiger or kingtiger.

take a value for money thinking !!

how long does it take to build one of
the german heavies ?

how much probs they had w/ breakdowns ??

how often they couldn´t go on time to front
because they were stuck or had engine probs ?

which tank had a better escape change ( speed and
agility ? ).

i agree the normal tiger ( though this one was classed as a heavy tank so not directly comparable ) and panther were better
than any M4 variant ( with the later HVSS 76mm gun
variants were better than any Pz. IV ! ).

do you know that the sherman could turn it´s turret
double as fast as a tiger 1 ?

okay, the turning rate of the M4 tracks was not that good...

Frank W. · Post by **Frank W.** » Mon Apr 28, 2003 4:25 pm

Originally posted by Irinami
Nobody said the concept of the infantry support tank was a good one. Kind of like the concept of the Bradley. Have you SEEN the organization for a Bradley Platoon? It'll give you a freaking headache just reading it! You have half of 2 squads in 4 different bloody vehicles! (Well, almost.)

who cares ?

with iraq and such enemies it seems to work....

Voriax · Post by **Voriax** » Mon Apr 28, 2003 4:46 pm

Originally posted by Frank W.
M4 was better than jagdtiger or kingtiger.

take a value for money thinking !!

how long does it take to build one of
the german heavies ?

I dunno. Longer than it takes to build the 5 Shermans needed to knock one German heavy out????

how much probs they had w/ breakdowns ??

After the initial prototypes and early production runs? Not that much actually. And many of their problems come from the fact that Germans had to build their tanks with limited supplies and under bombing raids, a thing US tank builders didn't have to deal with.

how often they couldn´t go on time to front
because they were stuck or had engine probs ?

See previous. Oh and it would be the Sherman that 'd be more likely to stuck, after all even though German tanks were heavier they did have rather small ground pressure due to wide tracks.

which tank had a better escape change ( speed and
agility ? ).

Shermans speed was pretty much the same as German tanks, 40-45 km/h road speed. Until the HVSS shermans the German tanks were probably more agile, at least some US tankers seemed to think so.

do you know that the sherman could turn it´s turret
double as fast as a tiger 1 ?

True, but as long as the Tiger isn't surrounded this isn't an issue. A sherman would have to drive across Tiger's line of sight at max speed and at the distance of about 200 meters before the gun isn't able to track fast enough.

Voriax

In depth analysis of M4 weaknesses

In depth analysis of M4 weaknesses

Not In-Depth, but...

Re: Not In-Depth, but...

What the?

Re: Not In-Depth, but...

yep

maintenance and reliability...

Re: maintenance and reliability...

Whew!