Was the Sherman tank an "engineering disaster"?

[UrbanRedneck]

I saw this video on Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gEeQPUp5VTY

It basically says the Sherman tank was a disaster and no match for the heavy armor and guns of the Tigers and Panthers. That it was under armored, undergunned (before the 75 mm upgrade at least), and had a tendacy to burn easily.

What do you all think?

I feel as part of an overall military arm that included heavier gunned tank destroyers and air supremacy that the previous issues were not as important and the fact that the Sherman was easy to maintain, had a long range on a tank of gas, had good speed, and the fact we had 40,000 of them (give or take) makes up for the problems.

A German once said "One Tiger can kill 10 of your Shermans, however you always had 11".

What do you all think?

 

[Readman]

I don't think it was so bad, I mean you have to figure at least from a production standpoint you need something that is mass-producible (did I just invent a word?) for supplying everyone, and though I could be wrong on this I thought the relative ease of maintainence on the Sherman was one of it's strong points? IIRC it also had much to do with American Tank Doctrine that developed so that tanks weren't "supposed" to fight other tanks though of course we all know how that went when they went against Tigers at Kasserine

Also, another thing on the Sherman: LCT's were critical for deployment of them, so, any engineering changes mean these would need to be changed as well, resulting in many more bottlenecks in design and production.

 

[abc123]

What do you all think?

Tommykocher?

 

[tehShifty]

http://www.ww2f.com/sacred-cows-dead-horses/28455-those-poor-old-shermans-took-5-kill-tiger.html

 

[DaleCoz]

The Sherman had its issues, but the biggest problem was the refusal to upgun it on a timely basis. There were prototypes of Shermans with the same 90mm gun that was on the Pershing. The 90mm Shermans had some issues, but not insurmountable ones and could have been deployed by D-Day. There was also a project (canceled unfortunately) to develop a higher velocity 75mm gun comparable to the one on the Panther.

The big problem is that for a variety of reasons, elements of the army didn't want tanks with guns larger than 75mm, with a sprinkling of 76mm. As a matter of fact, when the prototype T20-series that led to the Pershing got close to production, one element of the army said, "Great! Now can you get rid of the 90mm gun and give us this tank with a mix of 75mm and 76mm."
Fortunately, the answer was on the order of "Are you out of your @#$&* minds?"

 

[PhilKearny]

A study, according to a summary by board member Andras, suggests that the Sherman actually dominated German armor. This was just posted yesterday, so I am somewhat surprised to see yet another Sherman bashing thread rather than an addition to this prior thread.

On average, one crewman was killed when a Sherman was knocked out.*

In 1954, the US Army's Ballistics Research Laboratory conducted a study of tank vs tank engagements fought by the 3rd and 4th Armored Divisions from August to December 1944.

98 engagements were identified, including 33 from the Ardennes fighting. The typical engagement involved 9 US Shermans against 4 German AFVs. Only 1/3 of the total involved more then 3 German AFVs. The average range Shermans inflicted kills on the panzers was 893yds, and the panzers averaged kills at 946yds.

The study concluded that the most important factor was spotting and shooting first. Defenders fired first 84% of all engagement, inflicting 4.3 times more casualties on the attackers then suffered. When the attackers fired first, they inflicted 3.6 times as many casualties on the defenders compared to own losses.

29 engagements involved Panthers and Shermans. The Shermans had an average numerical advantage of 1.2:1. The data showed the Panther had a 10% advantage over the attacking Sherman when the Panther defended, but the Sherman was a whopping 8.4 times more effective then attacking Panthers when the Sherman defended. Overall, the Sherman was 3.6 times as effective as the Panther in all engagements. German A/T guns however, were by far the most effective anti-Sherman weapon they had.

From the study itself:
Data on World War II
Tank Engagements
Involving the U.S.
Third and Fourth Armored Divisions

According to Table II, the most common type of engagement was Shermans defending against Panthers, and the Shermans fired first. In 19 engagements, involving 104 Shermans and 93 Panthers, 5 Shermans were destroyed compared to 57 Panthers.

The second most common engagement was US Tank destroyers defending against Panthers, with the TDs firing first. In 11 engagements, involving 61 TDs and 19 Panthers, 1 TD was lost compared to all 19 Panthers.

The most successful enemy weapon was antitank guns defending. In 9 engagements (3rd most common), 19 a/t guns inflicted 25 casualties on 104 total attacking Shermans, losing 3 guns in exchange.

The 4th most common engagement was Shermans attacking Panthers, and the Shermans fired first. In 5 actions a total of 41 Shermans fought 17 Panthers, losing 2 and taking 12 Panthers in return.

In 40 actions in which the US forces were attacking, they had 437 weapons and lost 100 (23%). The Germans had 135 and lost 45 (33%). In 37 actions in which the Germans were attacking, the US had 205 weapons, losing 14 (7%), and the Germans lost 83 of 138 (60%).

* For comparison, when a T-34 was knocked out, on average, one crewman survived.

I've reviewed the study for Tiger engagements. There's only 3 engagements with positively identified Tigers.

Unknown str "Bn" M4s, defending vs an unknown number of Tigers, killed one to no loss.

5 M4s engaged 1 Tiger and 2 PzIVs that, withdrawing from another fight, strayed in front of the M4s. All 3 enemy tanks were killed to no loss.

1 Tiger engaged 1 M5 and 1 M10, killing both for no loss.


There were instances of lopsided losses taken by the US forces also. One engagement saw 3 Panthers kill 9 Shermans: "Two platoons of Allied attempting to take Sterpigry. Reached town and were then destroyed by the Panthers “just like a milk run—one at each house.”

On the other hand, you have 5 M4s and armored infantry killing 7 Panthers for no Sherman losses as well: "A classic engagement. Allied artillery pinned down enemy tanks, when Allied tanks within 200 yards of enemy tanks, artillery lifted, tanks opened up from flanks. Bazookas knocked out two Mk. Vs."

The biggest engagement was 50 M4s against a mixed bag of 30 Panzer IVs and a/t guns, taking 5 losses (3 from ATGs) and inflicting 15 kills on the Panzers over a period of 3 hours in discrete actions.

 

[CalBear]

The Sherman was actually an excellent vehicle for its mission. Complaining that it was not up to fighting Tigers one on one is akin to condemning a light cruiser for not being able to do the same against a battleship.

People who complain about the Sherman simply do not understand the U.S. Army's doctrine in WW II and, in general, don't care about it. They want a tank to be a land battle-wagon for slugging it out with other heavies. If that means your infantry gets slaughtered, who cares?

As you might be able winnow out, I find most of these folks to be morons.

edit: BTW the folks who bad mouth the Sherman might want to talk to the Israelis. They used upgunned versions of the same chassis until the mid-1970s.

 

[aktarian]

The Sherman was actually an excellent vehicle for its mission. Complaining that it was not up to fighting Tigers one on one is akin to condemning a light cruiser for not being able to do the same against a battleship.

People who complain about the Sherman simply do not understand the U.S. Army's doctrine in WW II and, in general, don't care about it. They want a tank to be a land battle-wagon for slugging it out with other heavies. If that means your infantry gets slaughtered, who cares?

As you might be able winnow out, I find most of these folks to be morons.

I agree.Sherman as such was a product of US situation as it were. Unlike other nations US had to deal with the fact that they'll have to haul everything across Atlantic so for them having several different tanks doing practically same job was not an option. Sure mistakes were made but that can't be blamed on Sherman itself but rather US doctrine and position.

edit: BTW the folks who bad mouth the Sherman might want to talk to the Israelis. They used upgunned versions of the same chassis until the mid-1970s.

Though they weren't using it as frontline MBT all that time. Also upgunning them ment removing one of the problems Shermans had and Israelis are reluctant to remove anything from use that still has some use left in it.

 

[Hyperbolus]

I'm no AfV expert, but think it says something that when W. Germany developed the leopard 1, its first postwar tank, they opted for one fairly light, maneuverable and easier to maintain.

 

[KillerT]

Sherman was an engineering success in spite of :
Having a petrol engine
Siting the ammo next to the fuel
Having such a high superstructure
Poor main gun
So why a success? As several could be made in place of one Panther and it could be upgunned a la Firefly or adapted quite easily for specialist tasks eg BARV, DD etc.

 

[CalBear]

Sherman was an engineering success in spite of :
Having a petrol engine
Siting the ammo next to the fuel
Having such a high superstructure
Poor main gun
So why a success? As several could be made in place of one Panther and it could be upgunned a la Firefly or adapted quite easily for specialist tasks eg BARV, DD etc.

Exactly how many German tanks were diesels?
Where, exactly, did the Tiger and Panther store their ammo?
What, exactly was the height of the Panther? Tiger? Pz IV?

BTW: There were only two countries that biuld AND fielded diesel tanks in any number in WW II. The Soviet Union was one of them.

 

[aktarian]

I'm no AfV expert, but think it says something that when W. Germany developed the leopard 1, its first postwar tank, they opted for one fairly light, maneuverable and easier to maintain.

When building up your infrastructure and army going for simple solutions as first step does seem like a good idea.

 

[Markus]

The M4 was a 1941-tank designed to be equal to German 1940-tanks. Thanks to the USA´s lack of knowledge about actual german tanks from 1940 the M4 turned out to be superior! Tigers and Panthers were 42/43-tanks designed to be superior to tanks like the T-34. Which was a 30 ton vehicle with a 75mm medium velocity gun ... just like the M4.

And last but not least, the M4s with the 76mm gun had the firepower to hold their ground against Tigers and Panthers.

IMO a pretty good tank with plenty of potential.

 

[tallwingedgoat]

The M4 was fine for what it was supposed to do. But the Army screwed up not deploying at least a small number of M26 tanks by the Normandy campaign. This was possible if they placed high priority on it and would have been useful against the Panthers and Tigers the invasion faced.

One Panther commander said the German tankers dreaded what kind of tank the Americans would build. They thought the Sherman was an interim solution. After all America was the great industrial power and had years to observe tank trends on the sidelines. They expected a new tank during the fight for Italy, and were flabergasted the Sherman was still the frontline tank in the invasion of France.

 

[UrbanRedneck]

So I think I can safely say we all disagree with the video and that the Sherman was far from being an "engineering disaster"?

I think for what we needed it for and with all the other weapons we had it was a decent choice.

 

[MacCaulay]

edit: BTW the folks who bad mouth the Sherman might want to talk to the Israelis. They used upgunned versions of the same chassis until the mid-1970s.

Damn! Ninja'd by CalBear! I'll make up for it with a pic or two:


Who's got a 105mm gun?

YOU DO!!!

This might be the most badass Sherman in the history of ever.

 

[tallwingedgoat]

So it took 20 years of technological advancement to finally fix the Sherman's problems?

 

[LeX]

Shermans may be butt-ugly but they apparently did the job well. I'm reminded of the Red Alert games where you have a few light tanks going against a Mammoth and the light tanks win because they can just surround the larger one.

 

[mattep74]

Shermans may be butt-ugly but they apparently did the job well. I'm reminded of the Red Alert games where you have a few light tanks going against a Mammoth and the light tanks win because they can just surround the larger one.

The same game were one tank can get killed by 10 pillboxes firering at it at the same time, right?

And in Civilisation spearmen can defeat a tankunit

 

[Cockroach]

What do you all think?

Engineering disaster? Apart from the failure to keep the main armament competitive (and that's more a doctrinal problem than an engineering issue), hell no. I mean it provided the allies with a reliable and mass produced tank and variants remained in service until this decade!

Sure, the German heavy tanks (well, okay the Panther is technically a medium, but it's still much heavier than other medium tanks of the era) offered a serious problem for the Sherman, but they also offered a serious problem for just about every other allied medium tank, even the late model T-34-85s.

Against other medium tanks it remained potent well into the 1950s (during the Korean war 76mm gunned Shermans more than held their own against T-34-85s).