If heavy tanks were used properly they could have given the Germans serious problems.
The Germans were facing a tank shortage in 1944, altering the tank loss raito even slightly would have serious consequences for the Germans.
World War 2 was still a infantry war, a few Shermans not being destroyed would be a few more Shermans to pound on infantry, which the Sherman excelled at.
 
Obergruppenführer Smith,



Dude, seriously? This is supposed to be a forum about alternate history speculation - not a platform for SJW denouncements. Noting the relative educational levels of the Soviet Union versus the US is hardly a racist thing. And the Soviet tactical doctrine did base itself on an expenditure of manpower that no Western nation would've accepted. That's why Red Army divisions were always larger than their equivalent Western military formations - the Soviets needed those extra warm bodies as they planned on consuming them at a faster and more frequent rate than the Western armies would. A look at how the Red Army ran its penal battalions would also make this clear. For the Soviets, the role of the penal battalions was to lead the way in any attack and thus cause the enemy to reveal its defensive positions so that the rest of the army could then concentrate on those. So, yes, the Soviets did tend to view their troops as simple bullet magnets.
The Germans did the same thing with their own penal battalions and yet nobody ever insists the Germans had a horde mentality and were a bunch of simplistic brutes.
 
The Germans did the same thing with their own penal battalions and yet nobody ever insists the Germans had a horde mentality and were a bunch of simplistic brutes.
People also forget that Pavlov's House was basically a turkey shoot with no semblance of tactics whatsoever. But no, fuckin "HYOOMAN WEHVES" for anything that isn't the Wehrmacht or SS. Arracourt would make the Wehraboo community's heads explode.
 
Also, for example, the M26 used 4x as much gas as the Sherman to cover the same distance. You will never have the same speed of advance, will never get the big breakthroughs, and will have to fight all the way across France, instead of racing across in weeks.
 
If heavy tanks were used properly they could have given the Germans serious problems.
The Germans were facing a tank shortage in 1944, altering the tank loss raito even slightly would have serious consequences for the Germans.
World War 2 was still a infantry war, a few Shermans not being destroyed would be a few more Shermans to pound on infantry, which the Sherman excelled at.
The problem with this is that each heavy tank unit would mean multiple Sherman units that do not show up, because the heavy tank costs more to produce, takes up more room in transports, requires more supplies and requires special transport provisions, and diverting resources from Shermans reduce their economies of scale. Plus if I remember correctly, tanks were only the 4th greatest killer of Shermans, after AT mines, infantry AT weapons and AT guns, certainly heavier tanks will do nothing about the mine problem, and probably nothing about the Infantry AT weapon or AT guns
 
Also, for example, the M26 used 4x as much gas as the Sherman to cover the same distance. You will never have the same speed of advance, will never get the big breakthroughs, and will have to fight all the way across France, instead of racing across in weeks.
That's what happens when you use the same drivetrain one a 30-ton and a 45-ton tank. You think they would have at least used the original V12 version of the Ford GAA couple with an automatic transmission with more than 4 speeds.
 
I'm lost, what's racist about the comment? Or ignorant?

I think it's been asked and answered earlier in thread, and largely justified the opinion.

But seriously, the Sherman was a good tank for a variety of reasons and actually performed rather well, though that probably has a lot to do with American crew training. The advantages of getting a different, perhaps better, tank would be outweighed by the problems of replacing a thing that works.
 

SsgtC

Banned
The problem with this is that each heavy tank unit would mean multiple Sherman units that do not show up, because the heavy tank costs more to produce, takes up more room in transports, requires more supplies and requires special transport provisions, and diverting resources from Shermans reduce their economies of scale. Plus if I remember correctly, tanks were only the 4th greatest killer of Shermans, after AT mines, infantry AT weapons and AT guns, certainly heavier tanks will do nothing about the mine problem, and probably nothing about the Infantry AT weapon or AT guns

I would agree with this, if you're talking about any nation other than the USA and the USSR. Those two nations produced tanks in such massive numbers, they both could have produced a large number of heavy tanks and the transport for them with no problems.
 

thorr97

Banned
SsgtC,

I would agree with this, if you're talking about any nation other than the USA and the USSR. Those two nations produced tanks in such massive numbers, they both could have produced a large number of heavy tanks and the transport for them with no problems.

Would that this were so. However, the real world keeps intruding and causing problems even for the industrial powerhouse that is the USA. The Sherman was classified as a "medium" tank and weighed in around forty tons. The US Army was pretty fixated on that 40 ton limit due to logistics. Most pierside cranes in the world at that time maxed out at about 40 tons. So, fielding anything heavier than that would drastically complicate its being deployable. Oh, it could be done - but it would take longer and require a lot more effort to get the heavier machine overseas and then into the field. That meant there was a scaling effect. While those extra resources are being expended moving ONE heavy tank around they are not thus available for moving more Shermans around. And it wouldn't have been a one for one thing.

So, not only are you now producing fewer Shermans to begin with, you also not going to be able to field as many as quickly either. All of which makes it a lot worse for the infantry out at the front who needed all the armor support they could get.
 
I would agree with this, if you're talking about any nation other than the USA and the USSR. Those two nations produced tanks in such massive numbers, they both could have produced a large number of heavy tanks and the transport for them with no problems.
USSR did produce fairly decent numbers of Heavy tanks

The US could produce large numbers of heavy tanks, but still a heavy tank would cost far more than a Sherman, more materials, more labor due to greater size, plus lower numbers so less benefit of economies of scale. Then you have transport, the Sherman is sized for easy transport via rail, bridge, ship, and landing craft a heavy tank would need land new landing craft designed and built, be much harder to fit in a ship for a number of reasons, bulk and load balancing frex, and have restricted routes on land. Figure a Battalion of Heavy tanks would be equivalent of 3 battalions of Shermans, minimum, so for getting one battalion as a reaction/heavy spearhead force, 3 infantry divisions lose attached tank support
 
Nicholas Moran is an excellent guy to listen to for more about this.

This particular video lays waste to that whole Tank Destroyer myth as well as many others. Moran pulls his info from original source documentation - US Army Field Manuals from the era, among other resources.


You know, that video actually addressed most of why I created this thread in the first place. I grew up watching WWII documentaries, and part of the reason I wasn't that much of a fan of the WWII-era US Army when I was a kid (even though I considered the WWII-era US to have had the best planes in the world at the time, and the P-51 Mustang was my favorite fighter plane of the war) was because my image of Sherman-versus-Panzer engagements was always one of a Panther or Tiger shrugging off a direct hit from a Sherman and then blowing up said sherman with a single shot (leading to the impression of Allied ground forces having to be rescued by P-47s whenever they had the misfortune of encountering a Tiger). Though the movie Battle of the Bulge is horrendously historically inaccurate (using M24 Chaffees to represent Shermans and M47 Pattons to represent King Tigers), it always gave me the mental image of American 75mm guns being pea-shooters in comparison to the 88mm KwK 43 or even the 75mm KwK 42.

Part of the reason I always liked the Eastern Front more than the Western Front- aside from the obvious fact that it was the largest land war in history- was because not only did the Soviets have a tank armory comparable to the Germans (including the T-34-85 as a counterpart for the Panther and the IS-2 as a counterpart for the King Tiger), but the Soviets were also able to field those big, strong tanks en masse.

In comparison, the M4 Sherman with a 75mm gun seemed more like the Allied equivalent to a Panzer IV, the Shermans with 76mm guns- as well as the Fireflies- were fairly lightly-armored Panther-equivalents (though more comparable to the T-34-85 than the Panther), and the Americans never having substantial numbers of heavy tanks during the war (I blamed the lack of heavy tanks on whoever insisted that they get lightly-armored Tank Destroyers instead). The British tanks seemed to me to be even worse, as I considered WWII-era British Tanks be consistently under-gunned ("Tanks with 2-pounders and 6-pounders while the Germans are building Tigers and Panthers?"), and anything armed with a 17-pounder or bigger was frustratingly rare ("If only the British began building Centurion Mk. Is in early 1944. Sigh...").

I, as a kid, ended up coming to the conclusion that German tanks in WWII were more badass than Allied tanks, and that only the Soviet tanks could rival them in badassery. It happens to be the same train of logic that leads to people becoming Wehraboos (and yes, I admit, I was a bit of a Wehraboo when I was a kid...).

That, and this thread was also partly inspired by me thinking of the King Tiger and the IS-2 and thinking "Why didn't the Allies mass-produce a badass heavy tank like that?"
 

thorr97

Banned
Pennsylvania,

That, and this thread was also partly inspired by me thinking of the King Tiger and the IS-2 and thinking "Why didn't the Allies mass-produce a badass heavy tank like that?"

Moran's presentation was an eye opener alright.

As to mass producing a "badass heavy tank like that," why bother? We were winning the war with what we had. And the way to have kept winning was by producing more - lots more - of what we had rather than slowing that down in favor of anything else. So, we went with what was already working. And we won the war with that.
 

marathag

Banned
Though the movie Battle of the Bulge is horrendously historically inaccurate (using M24 Chaffees to represent Shermans

Well, there were M24s present in the Bulge, having first deployed to ADs in November.

But yeah.
Too bad one of the only accurate parts was the singing of Panzerlied.
 
Well, there were M24s present in the Bulge, having first deployed to ADs in November.

But yeah.
Too bad one of the only accurate parts was the singing of Panzerlied.


And they couldn't even get them to sing it properly, and had to lip-sync it.

At least Robert Shaw was able to sing it. And the uniforms also look good.
 

Riain

Banned
If I may come back for one thing; I wonder about the production issue and how much impact producing the M6 would have on other vehicles if the planned 5000 unit production run was undertaken.
  • The hull and turret of the M6 was about the weight of a Sherman and Stuart combined, so the steel allocation would reduce the number of these vehicles from 49000 and 22000 to 44000 and 17000 respectively.
  • The 5000 37mm guns would come from the same Stuarts and some 5000 76mm guns would come from M10/M18, reducing their numbers from 9000 to 4000.
  • The engine wasn't used in any other vehicle so it wouldn't impact on production and the transmission would be come from those 5000 Shermans or M10/M18s that donated themselves, as would the rest of the mechanical components and things such as turret rings.

Of course in reality the 5000 M6 wouldn't require 15000 donor vehicles, more likely 10000 with Shermans being the biggest donor: I think maybe 4000 Shermans and 3000 each Stuarts and TDs. So to build 5000 heavies total US AFV production will drop from 80,000 to 75,000.

Not really much of a loss.
 
Except you can't unload heavy tanks across a beach, so what are you going to do until you capture a port and repair the docks and cranes?
 
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