Best Tank of WW2??????

Ok, ok, you sold me on it. Just have it delivered to my Gettysburg Address....

 

Ok the USPS won't deliver anything that big so how about UPS or FedEx?????

 

How about Lend-Lease in reverse. They make it, deliver it, and forget about it....

 

Note that the Shermans used by the Marines and Soviets had diesel engines. Also the Sherman in US service had a tendency to be overloaded with extra ammo by the crews thus making it more flamable.

According to the wiki articles at:
M4 Sherman - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
and
T-34 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The height difference is 1 foot. Not really a huge difference

In some terreigns not in others.

Some sources PLS. Then there's the question of how significant this was. IE how often was it used?

Was it? Where are you getting your cost figures and what are they?

 

Where did you get your numbers? What percentage of Soviet and German tanks "brewed up" when hit?

The numbers I've seen for crew fatalities per tank KO'd were pretty much identical for German and US vehicles and a lot worse for Soviet ones. This suggest that the above "fatal flaw" wasn't.

Got any more info on these? did they really work?

Constantly moving them? Why would they do that? What size were the factories? Oh and how many of them were there?

 

I tell you what, when Pz. Mk. IVs started to prowl at '43 , I'd prefer Shermans on my team rather than T-34-76s. The Sherman's gun was capable of penetrating the thickest part of Pz. Mk. IV front hull armor at ranges up to 1100 meters, the Soviet 76.2mm was only able to do so at ranges of about 500 meters due to the inferiority of Russian ammunition and lower muzzle velocity. The T-34 does enjoy better flank protection but that is utterly moot when 75s are concerned. The T-34-76 suffered horrible SA in combat, since the gunner-commander is forced to button-up to man the gun. Generation for generation, the Sherman was actually a slightly better tank.

The T-34-85's firepower superiority was marginal. The Yugoslav Army trials posted by Bojan on tank-net showed that with regular AP ammo the 76 could kill a T-34-85 from 900-1200m range, the T-34-85 could return the favor at 1300 or so (IIRC, of course). Not a big difference there, but the E8's ground pressure, engine horse power and armor had all been significantly improved, where as the T-34-85 saw no augmentation in engine power even though flank armor and gun are heavier resulting in degraded mobility all around. All generations of M4s had significantly better operational mobility. The Sherman was simply a better built and more durable machine designed with the ease of maintenance in mind, whereas the Christie was a b*tch to fix. Compare 64mm of decent sloped, good quality RHA on late A3s against 45mm of very-well sloped cast armor of dubious quality on the T-34, I would take the former. Supposedly the gyro-stab on the E8 was much better than its predecessor, and for overall SA the Sherman still had more vision devices than the T-34.

Accuracy wise, I suspect the American 76 should be better than the Ruski 85 as the former was a much higher velocity round with less flight time. The Sherman also had amenities such as navigational compass.

Interestingly Loza, a LL M4 commander, stated that Sherman's ground pressure was lower than T-34s. Maybe there's some truth to the assertion that the Americans simply over loaded their tanks with ammo (over 100 was common). He didn't have a favorable opinion of the T-34s survivability; he attribute this to the combustible casing of Russian shells though I suspect that's really the diesel tanks going kaboom. An interesting fact was that the Russians thought the Sherman much quieter than the T-34 and used the Shermans in night combat for great effect, sometimes literally overrunning German positions by crushing them with the tread.

The only reason the T-34 got a better rep, though an important reason, was that the Soviets mass-produced T-34-85s by May because they anticipated fighting more Panthers in the future whereas the Americans dicked around for awhile before deciding that the 76 was the way to go after all.

 

Terry,

Sherman's side armor was 38mm discounting applique, though. T-34's side armor was40mm at 45 degrees and later models 45mm. At what range could a 50mm L42 knock out a T-34 from the flank?

 

First off, only the USSR and the USMC used diesel engines in their tanks. The German, British, French, Czech, Italian, Japanese (with one exception), and Americans all used GASOLINE in their main engines. It was ammo storage that "brewed up" the Shermans to start with, but that was solved with the wet storage (W) versions after 1942.

The Sherman's armor shouldn't be considered as a flaw, since it wasn't designed to fight "tank to tank" anyway but it's protection was equal to or superior to the PzKpfW IV it was designed to confront. When the G model of the IV appeared it was outclassed in the main gun. However the M4 was a infantry protection/support design with enemy tanks to be confronted by the tank destroyers, not the M4.

Also you are seriously misinformed if you think the M4 Sherman only had one hatch. It had three topside, and one in the floor. A total of four exits, not one. (see first attachment photo with hatches open topside)

There was the main turret hatch for the commander, gunner, and loader in the turret. Each driver/co-driver had his own above his head just in front of the turret. If the maingun was in an unfortunate position, it might hinder one of those hatches but not both, and never the one in the floor.

And what is this "constantly moving" their factories? The USSR moved one time and one time only in a major fashion to Tankograd, and that was to a factory pre-set to produce the model, while still producing the tanks it was designed for. The US on the other hand built one single factory to produce tanks (Detroit Arsenal), but converted other heavy machine factories (Baldwin, Alco) to produce tanks. And America put out nearly the same number of Shermans in three years as the Soviets did T-34s in four. And BTW the first years of the T-34 lacked a turret basket so the commander and gunner had to fold up their seats and walk around on the floor with the turret as it traversed! Bogus, clumsy, but cheap.

The Shermans could be modified for other applications better than the T-34, but that is neither here nor there, as the Soviet medium was probably the best medium MBT of the war years.

 

About 1200 to 1300 meters. The penetration of the 50/42 is about 45mm at that range. I'd say for a good chance of a kill you'd have to be under 1000.

 

Also, a mod found on Shermans in the ETO is like this one pictured below. It has about 1" of glacis armor added and many had more than that welded on in addition to the as manufactured armor. In some cases armor from Panther glacis' was added.

 

1. got by numbers from wikipedia (which has a great page on the m4 sherman):

2. They could stop a HEAT round, as can most wires-mesh screens. Here is a picture:


3. THey moved 185 factories almost 1,000 miles eastward.

1. the Sherman has only one hatch in the turret (it has a total of 3 hatches). However, the 1055mm sherman and sherman firefly had a second hatch installed. Compare this to the Panzer III, panzer III, panther, tiger, and king tiger which all had 3 hatches in the turret, and 5 hatches total.

2. the upgraded panzer IV had 80mm of frontal armor. This is thicker than any model of the sherman except for the sherman jumbo.

3. The soviets moved more than 185 factories almost 1,000 miles, and still produced more t-34s.

4. If we both think the t-34 is superior than why are we arguing?

 

Actually, when the slope is factored in Sherman tank frontal armor is thicker than Mark IV H. This is true for both the early 51mm glacis variants and the late war 64mm glacis M4 tanks. After the tank battles of Normandy, the British found that on average, it took 1.6 hits to kill a M4 tank and 1.2 hits to kill a Mark IV H/J. Both early M4 and late war Mark IV models' burn rate is 80% so neither tank was superior to the other in the survivability department. A3 Shermans with wet storage however had both Mark IV H and J beat.

Mesh armor is an iffy protective measure just like the sandbags on Sherman tanks. Mesh would cause an in-coming panzerfaust round to either detonate prematurely providing some type of stand-off range or to cause the fuse to malfunction (two schools of theory on how it works). Sandbag armor and welded plates did its job by absorbing the hit before disintegrating or falling off the tank. Both increase the tanker's odds to survive in a dangerous battle field but both were "percentage" defenses. Effectiveness is a coin toss.

Hatches help you to escape, sort of. Its near the bottom of the list in the combat effectiveness of a tank, though; for example the 2 turret hatches of the T-34 was a major liability because they were a one-piece construction and opened forward like Micky mouse years, which made it impossible for the TC to fight out of the hatch because he had to stand up to see over the hatch fully exposed to enemy fires. Even the American tank commander on a 50 cal had better cover. At least he had to bend over to fire the HMG!

Soviet industrial capacity was very impressive but I have to ask: Did they need to build liberty ships, carriers and destroyers for the Pacific War and produce trucks and jeeps for all of the Allied armies?

 

Really? According to my calculator the LOS thickness for 45mm armor at 45 degrees was almost too much for 50mm gun at 500 meters and I have a few odd diagram that suggest the Germans thought they couldn't kill a T-34 with a 50 until they were about 350 meters, but they were scans without any context to go with it (like which 5 cm gun they are talking about). There isn't much veteran memoirs left about fighting T-34s with short-50 armed Pz IIIs--anyone got some?

 

I happen to have a couple of good pics of the tanks concerned, some of which are quite popular on the internet. Look at and compare the contour of a Mark IV and different models of Sherman tanks.

 

Buy the books and find out for yourself then. Until then you are hardly capable of conducting an informed debate on the issue, n'est-ce pas?

 

The one turret hatch is only true on the M34 (75mm) turret and only on earlier models. Later ones are retrofitted or manufacured with a loader's hatch. The T23 (76mm) turret has two hatches.
The Pz III does not have hatches on the hull for the driver and radio operator. There are small escape hatches between the bogies up through the H (and some retrofitted J) models.
On the Sherman both the driver and assistant have their own hatches and there is a floor hatch as well. These were in fact, enlarged just to make escape easier after the early models were found too tight.

Except for the early M4A1, the Sherman frontal armor is about 100 mm thick over its entirety if you take slope into account. The Pz IV is considerably weaker. Only the lower front hull and upper glacis are 80mm. The transmission access plate (the one that has the two brake ventilation / access hatches and the transmission access plate) between these two plates is just 30mm thick.
Additionally, the upper hull of the Pz IV is bolted (that's right BOLTED) to the lower hull by about a dozen large bolts. That makes the joint between the lower edge of the upper glacis and the transmission plate a considerable weak spot. Then you can add large weak spots in the upper glacis for the driver's vision slot and machinegun ball mount.
The turret is only 55mm thick, considerably less than on a Sherman.

 

The armor on the T34 side is 45mm thick with slope accounted for not 45mm thick then the slope included. If it were 45mm + slope that would be about 65 mm for the basis and the 50/42 would just go through at about 700 yards maximum with about 500 yards for a sure penetration.

 

OK going by wiki (which is a decent to good place to start but hardly defintive) the top speed on the T-34 is 33 mph and the M-4 is listed as 25-30. So especially with the higher estimate for the Sherman not a huge difference. Especially when you consider that corss country speed is limited by terreign and suspension. So the onlly time your going full speed is going to be on a road or test track but I'm pretty sure you aren't going to be drving a a formation of T-34 at anywhere near top speed on a road for very long.

or they can provide additional standoff which makes the WWII era HEAT rounds more effective.

And the US built many/most of it's tank factories from scratch. Note that some of the Soviet movement was also pre war.

Again the fatalities per tank knokced out have bee published for some areas. They do not support your contention that a crew man was less likely to survive the destruction of a M-4 than a T-34.

Because:
1) You got your facts wrong
2) You stated the T-34 was greatly superior to the Sherman
3) Not all of us agree that the T-34 was even superior. Indeed the person who stated that called them both MBTs which is not correct either.

 

Regarding the use of sandbags or tree logs as a means of extra protection, it was somewhat effective against HEAT projectiles, not anywhere near as effective as spaced plates however. But against KE projectiles it was worthless.

 

Either T-34 or Sherman....