Welcome, TA!

I think timeliness is also an issue here. I'm not sure about the date when the Sherman was designed, but I would imagine that the US had not yet really heard about the successes of the T-34. Shermans first appeared in 1941, having only been designed in 1939. Thus, by the time the T-34 was earning it's reputation on the eastern front, the sherman was already in production.

I think part of this is also the isolationism of the US. Before WW2, the US did not have a great army, and not too much was put into tank design. An interesting (and unfortunate) coincidence came from this. One American inventor, Walter Christie, was unable to sell the plans for tank suspension and design he had to the US army. Christie finally found an interested buyer- in the Russians. The american-designed Christie suspension was the basis for the T-34.
Defnetely too bad that the US army ignored Christie...

[ 17 October 2002, 01:53 PM: Message edited by: CrazyD88 ]

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