OT: Between the Sherman and the Mk 14 torpedo

[rockmedic109]

The U.S. Army should've moved it's Armor school to Kodiak Island. Have the U.S. tanks battle the local bear population. They'd learn how to fight out-gunned, out-armored, out-maneuvered, and out-powered.

But the M4, as earlier stated, was very dependable and got the job done. Numbers have their own quality.

[JocMeister]

ORIGINAL: jmalter

'Death Traps' was a good read.

+1!

Very good read. A lot different the "usual" books.

[JockJimmy]

Well the British were grateful to have a tank of the Sherman's quality... Often the drawbacks of enemy armour are unseen, reliabilty issues, fuel consumption, huge variety of spare parts, whilst its qualities, guns and armour, are only too obvious.

During the war the Britsih knew their armour was inadequet but could never afford to take the factories out of commision to replace machine tools etc. and start to produce good designs. (As an aside after the war the Britsih were determined that they would never be outgunned and out-armoured again see the Centurion, Chieftan et al - all heavy designs for their time.) I imagine once the design of the Sherman had been settled on (1940?)it would have been a huge task to re-orientate production, even when its faults became obvious.

One final point:- the German policy of incremental design improvement was, I think, almost as bad. The best example I can think of is the battle of Kursk where the Germans operated how many types, and sub-types, of tank, assault gun and tank-hunter? The supply arrangements must have been a nightmare. In comparison the Soviets were able to operate a few more-or-less settled designs.

[Terminus]

Patton was right about the Sherman, given what the Army knew at the time.

When the time came to go into Italy, France and Germany, the circumstances changed. By that time, and to the sorrow of the men who had to take the Sherman into combat, the senior leadership had too much "face" invested in it to admit that the Sherman was inadequate in stand-up combat against German tanks.

Let's not forget, BTW (which the film conveniently glosses over), that fighting tanks in the US Army doctrine was the job of tank destroyers. The Sherman was made for infantry support.

[Terminus]

BTW, a History Channel film is maybe not the most reliable source of information on a historical subject (ironically).

It's sensationalist bullhonkey.

Precisely where am I shown the Pershing hitting the Panther?

EDIT: NM, I looked it up. The film is obviously shot in Cologne, where there are records of this incident.

EDIT: The Pershing's combat record vs. German AFV's shows a kill/disabled ratio of 9 to 2. Not really enough to say much about their usefulness against German tanks.

[Gunner98]

This discussion reminds me of a film - The Pentagon Wars - while the movie has its faults it a black comedy about bringing the Bradley IFV into production, and its apparently not too far from the truth. Military wants, stakeholder investment and bureaucratic inertia combine to crate a bow wave of problems which become insurmountable - end result is a faulty product.

[Terminus]

Ah yes, The Pentagon Wars... It was a WEIRD film...

[wdolson]

ORIGINAL: Terminus

Patton was right about the Sherman, given what the Army knew at the time.

When the time came to go into Italy, France and Germany, the circumstances changed. By that time, and to the sorrow of the men who had to take the Sherman into combat, the senior leadership had too much "face" invested in it to admit that the Sherman was inadequate in stand-up combat against German tanks.

Let's not forget, BTW (which the film conveniently glosses over), that fighting tanks in the US Army doctrine was the job of tank destroyers. The Sherman was made for infantry support.

When the decisions were made to settle on the Sherman, nobody in the west could really foresee how radically armor was going to change by the time the US was facing the Germans in force. The evolution of armor driven by the arms race on the Eastern Front is one of the fastest evolving arms type of the war. Only one tank type that fought in the European war stayed in production throughout the war, the Panzer IV and it went through a dramatic evolution. They only stayed in production because more advanced models had teething problems as well as production problems and the Panzer IV could take a lot of updating without becoming overloaded. It was sort of overbuilt and under gunned for its size for the battles of 1940.

When the Sherman entered combat with the 8th Army, it swept the battlefield of mostly Panzer IIIs. The only gun the Afrika Korps had that could easily knock it out at range was the stationary 88mm AA gun. As far as early combat reports went, it sounded like the Sherman was a war winner.

The western Allies weren't fully aware of what was happening on the Eastern Front. There were some information coming from the Russians and some film footage, but nobody really believed the Russians were telling the truth. The western Allies certainly knew about the T-34, but I don't believe anybody got their hands on one until some German captured T-34s were captured by the Western Allies.

The late 1941 into 1942 Afrika Korps was getting the obsolete cast offs no longer useful on the Eastern Front while most of upgunned tanks were sent East. I believe the Germans were working on the Tiger and Panther before the war began, but those projects got high priority when the Germans started encountering T-34s and KV-1s. Tank destroyers got massively upgunned in a short period too. The first German tank destroyer was based on the Panzer I chassis and had a 47mm gun. By 1943 they were fielding tank destroyers with 88mm and they had some with 128mm by the end of the war (though none ever went into full production).

No other area of arms went through quite such a revolution during the war. The War in the Atlantic might be the only other area that went through a rapid evolution of technologies, but even there most often the older weapons platforms were just updated with new weaponry, they weren't retired and replaced by whole new weapons platforms. PBYs were used throughout the War of the Atlantic, they just got better electronics and better offensive weapons. Same plane, new equipment.

Hindsight is always 20/20. I think any reasonable western leader probably thought armor was going to go through a somewhat slower evolution during the war and the Sherman should be perfectly adequate for most of the roles it was called upon to do.

As others have pointed out, the US tank and tank destroyer doctrine were flawed when it came to the real war. But then again, the only powers that had any recent experience in armored warfare at the start of the war were Germany from their experiences in Spain, and Japan and the USSR from their battles on the Mongolian border. Japan and the USSR took away very different lessons from their experience. Japan learned they could never match a large foreign power in armor quantities, so don't even try. The Russians learned some lessons in mobile warfare they incorporated into their tactics.

The Germans had learned their lessons they best and had the best doctrine in mobile warfare at the start of the war. That gave them a big leg up in the early fighting. The US should have studied the lessons of the Battle of France and improved on their doctrine adopting more of the German's ideas, but they didn't.

A big what if would be what if the US did decide to adopt German armored doctrine after the Battle of France. How would that have affected armor designs. US tank destroyers probably would have gotten a major redesign to look more like StuGs. I don't know how that would have affected the Sherman though. It might have resulted in the 76mm high velocity gunned Sherman becoming standard rather than the 75mm low velocity gun. US tanks were built with a very high profile for tanks of the day which was largely due to the suspension adopted. That made them vulnerable on the battlefield. I'm not sure if that would have been addressed in this scenario.

The same thing happened with fighter tactics. The Germans were the first to incorporate the finger 4 formation and the 2 plane element as the 2 smallest fighting organizations. The finger 4 gave fighter pilots mutual cover of each other's backs and was spread out enough so the wing men weren't spending all their time trying to avoid colliding with the section leader.

It took a while for both the US and the British to learn and adopt this formation tactic as doctrine. Both western powers thought fighters should be concentrated as close together for hitting power, but it really didn't work very well in practice. Douglas Bader in the RAF saw the strength of the German formation early on and tried to get permission to use it, but was denied by highers up who thought they knew better.

Bill

[Terminus]

Don't think US TD doctrine would have been changed because of the StuG's involvement in the Battle of France. Firstly, there weren't that many of them engaged, and secondly, they were not used as anti-tank weapons, but mobile, armoured versions of the infantry's 75mm guns. The StuG's were in the artillery branch, not the tank branch.

[wdolson]

You're right. The Germans didn't really use tank destroyers much until the invasion of Russia. StuGs were pressed into that role quite often because anything with a gun was used to try and neutralize the Russian armor.

Bill

[veji1]

Correctly if I am wrong, but wasn't also the US tank doctrine predicated on air supremacy as well, as in it wasn't the Sherman's job to kill the tanks, it was partly the tank destroyers' job, but really the US amor was to be used as a complement to a dominant airforce, which was the one to decisively decimate the ennemy's armor ?

And in that sense that general doctrine worked pretty well. I mean sure Normandy was a tough campaign, but it was basically the US going on to fight with limited experience (northern Africa and Italy being particular theaters) we an army with 5 years of warfare behind her.

Sure the Sherman could have been better, but the combination sherman+airforce as it was proved pretty good, no ?

[Sardaukar]

British suffered from separation of gun design and tank design. That caused all sorts of trouble, since there was not enough co-operation.

With hindsight, Shermans should all have been in June 1944 at least "Easy 8" standard with longer-barreled 76.2mm cannon, and with 105mm close support tanks in mix. Maybe they could have shoehorned 90mm in too, if not, then could have adopted British 17-pounder cannon.

[Apollo11]

Hi all,

ORIGINAL: Terminus

The film is obviously shot in Cologne, where there are records of this incident.

The film you guys are talking about is famous footage shoot in Cologne (i.e. last days of the war)... it depicts 90mm shells of Pershing penetrating side armor of Panther several times...


More here:

http://www.anicursor.com/colpicwar2.html


Leo "Apollo11"

[Apollo11]

Hi all,

ORIGINAL: Dili

Sherman was much inferior to T-34? I don't think so.

Initial T-34 model with just 2 men inside turret and without radio was most certainly inferior (and Germans used their very developed tactical skills and communications to fight them quite effectively at the beginning of the War in the East) but T-34-85 from 1943/44 was something completely different (3 men turret, radio etc.)... [;)]


Leo "Apollo11"

[Terminus]

ORIGINAL: wdolson

You're right. The Germans didn't really use tank destroyers much until the invasion of Russia. StuGs were pressed into that role quite often because anything with a gun was used to try and neutralize the Russian armor.

Bill

Plus, the 75mm gun was big enough to support a hollow-charge shell, which gave the short-barrelled Pz IV and StuG III a bit of a chance against the T-34. Of course, it also helped that many Russian tank crews were so badly trained that they would abandon their tanks very quickly if something hit them.

Same thing happened with badly trained Panzer crews on the Western front in 44-45. There are records of Shermans hitting Panthers with WP shells, making the German crews abandon their vehicle.

[Terminus]

ORIGINAL: Apollo11

Hi all,

ORIGINAL: Dili

Sherman was much inferior to T-34? I don't think so.

Initial T-34 model with just 2 men inside turret and without radio was most certainly inferior (and Germans used their very developed tactical skills and communications to fight them quite effectively at the beginning of the War in the East) but T-34-85 from 1943/44 was something completely different (3 men turret, radio etc.)... [;)]


Leo "Apollo11"

The Red Army never really got a good radio set for their tanks. It was the province of unit commanders.

[Terminus]

ORIGINAL: veji1

Correctly if I am wrong, but wasn't also the US tank doctrine predicated on air supremacy as well, as in it wasn't the Sherman's job to kill the tanks, it was partly the tank destroyers' job, but really the US amor was to be used as a complement to a dominant airforce, which was the one to decisively decimate the ennemy's armor ?

And in that sense that general doctrine worked pretty well. I mean sure Normandy was a tough campaign, but it was basically the US going on to fight with limited experience (northern Africa and Italy being particular theaters) we an army with 5 years of warfare behind her.

Sure the Sherman could have been better, but the combination sherman+airforce as it was proved pretty good, no ?

The number of aircraft kills against tanks was miniscule. However, their effect on the logistics of tank units was devastating, and a tank without fuel and ammunition is just as good as one that's been hit by an aircraft bomb.

[wdolson]

ORIGINAL: Sardaukar

British suffered from separation of gun design and tank design. That caused all sorts of trouble, since there was not enough co-operation.

With hindsight, Shermans should all have been in June 1944 at least "Easy 8" standard with longer-barreled 76.2mm cannon, and with 105mm close support tanks in mix. Maybe they could have shoehorned 90mm in too, if not, then could have adopted British 17-pounder cannon.

The Israelis upgunned the Sherman, though I think the US 90mm was too large for the Sherman to handle. British 17 pounders were in short supply right up to the end of the war. There were never enough for British forces.

The Lee/Grant had the gun arrangement it did because US industry couldn't quite make a turret ring capable of handling a 75mm turret. While the metallurgical issues were being worked out the compromise Lee/Grant design went into production. It probably took some further turret ring advancements to mount a 90mm gun in the Pershing.

The eventual development of the Patton was really the pinnacle of mid-20th century US tank design. Its long service life is testament to its good all around design. It came from a lot of lessons learned as well as analysis of captured foreign tanks.

Bill

[Terminus]

The Israelis managed to put a French 105mm F1 gun on their Super Sherman M51. The M50 variant carried a French 75mm gun.

[wdolson]

ORIGINAL: veji1

Correctly if I am wrong, but wasn't also the US tank doctrine predicated on air supremacy as well, as in it wasn't the Sherman's job to kill the tanks, it was partly the tank destroyers' job, but really the US amor was to be used as a complement to a dominant airforce, which was the one to decisively decimate the ennemy's armor ?

And in that sense that general doctrine worked pretty well. I mean sure Normandy was a tough campaign, but it was basically the US going on to fight with limited experience (northern Africa and Italy being particular theaters) we an army with 5 years of warfare behind her.

Sure the Sherman could have been better, but the combination sherman+airforce as it was proved pretty good, no ?

US Army Air Force doctrine pre-war was a 50/50 mix of unescorted heavy bombers flying coastal defense and the rest of the air units in tactical support of the ground forces. The Alison was roughly equivalent in performance to the Merlin at low altitudes, but the Merlin was designed from the ground up for high altitude performance and that is where it came into its own element. Fighting at high altitude was not in USAAC/USAAF doctrine except for limited numbers of interceptors (P-38s) which had turbo superchargers.

However the overall air dominance that did become the hallmark of American fighting was slow to develop over the course of the war and attacking armor from the air was never strongly considered as part of US air doctrine. If it was, the P-47 could probably have been adapted to carry a pair of the 37mm from the P-39, one in each wing. The wing was large enough to partially enclose the gun within the wing. The P-39 was originally conceived as an interceptor too, but the plane was too heavy with the super charger and it was removed which left it a plane without a clearly defined mission.

It did well in New Guinea as a ground attack plane, but only the Russians liked them. The Russians were also willing to take staggering losses.

Bill