Did the M4 Sherman really have bad defence?

Any objections?

 

None at all, I'm just sayin'!! LOL!!

 

Thank you, you actually read up on the subject. I have been thrown out in the snow:snowstorm: The problem is and I have seen this in another website that I have looked at they think because it was american tank, now don"t think i"m anti american everything, I love our infantry weapons. THAT IT WAS A GOOD TANK TO ME IT"S THE MOST OVERATED TANK AROUND. Here are some reasons, fire prone, bad armor that could be pierced easily, At the time I can't think of anything else I"m sure I will by tommorow. I wonder if ther is a most overated tank of the war thread I"d say it was the Sherman.:green::fuse::sherman:anther:

 

SMLE.

Have you ignored everything that has been said about the Sherman in this & other threads?

 

Wow, apparently everything everybody else wrote is invisible Joe!

 

Hi five SMLE.

 

Shermans were a nice all around tank that did its thing well in mos fields but it was weak armoured compared to that it could easily be pierced by the Pz4's rounds if it was hit on the lower side area or in the rear. While the Pz4 wasnt every mans dream but most off the killshots on it were in the front areas of the tracks or on the rear.

But the Shermans were lucky though, if what I remember is correct: sometimes if a German round peirced and and didnt explode they would go right through leaving the tank intact as the Sherman didnt have many highly "sensitive" components in the middle section.

 

Sherman wasn't the best tank of the war but it sure as hell had the Pz IV beat! The Pz IV had less effective LOS armor than either the Sherman or the T-34. In the case of the Sherman tank, the M3 75-mm gun was effective in any battle range to penetrate the thickest part of its frontal armor.

On average the M4 knocked out German panzers at a range of almost 900 yards, while the Germans destroyed Sherman tanks with a range superiority of only 100 yards. The long-barreled Pz. IV's most important advantage was not the penetration of its gun but its accuracy and flatter trajectory which gave it longer effective range. If the M4 managed to get hits on the Pz IV at even 1,000 yards I bet my money that the Pz. IV would be hors de combat.

I don't know where the "M4 had weak armor" myth originated. According to Army Ordnance's reports made after the Roer Battle what the armored troops wanted most in a tank was above all firepower enough to kill Mark Vs, mobility over rough terrain especially mud, and what armored protection that they could afford without compromising power and speed.

The tankers were convinced that they could rely on speed for armor but if they were hit no armor was thick enough. They were right in their prognosis; in the Euroepan battlefield at 1944-45, you could not make a survivable tank that had the minimum mobility to conduct offensive warfare. The Panther penetrated 168-mm of armor at 500 yards. The Panzerfaust could penetarte more than 200-mm of armor. There was no way you could mount that kind of protection on a maneuovering tank.

M4 was servicible, and better than any of the workhorse tanks. I'd also say that the M26 Pershing project as the way it was handled was waste of precious resources and time because they could have focused on incremental and timely solutions like installing the 90-mm gun turret on M4s which could be done easily.

 

I believe you mean the 76 here, the 75 capability against the 80mm plates was limited, of course if you can manage a hit against the turret front it's a different story.

I'm ready to believe this is what actually happened under battlefield conditions but I wonder how anyone could manage to compile that sort of statistiìcs as for a test field a 76 vs Pz IV would give very different results than a 75 vs Pz V .

I agree with you if you are thinking of a 30tonn tank, I have mixed reports on the Jumbo but most say it was overloaded, if you go to 40+ tonns (Panther, JS II) you will be able to carry enough armour to defeat any AT gun light enough to be manhandled and that's the way most armies went after 1945.

Have you any details on the 90mm ? I believe the 90mm mounted on Israeli shermans is a low recoil design quite different from anything available in 1945.

Sherman and T34 were the war winners, this meas good enough not necessarily best, the Pz II had about the same numeerical importance in 39/40 as the Sherman had in allied armies in 43/45 and was good enough for the panzers to win some spectacular victories but I think nobody would call it "best tank of 1939".

 

Getting long-range kills with 75-mm did't seem to be much trouble. I also confirmed that 75-mm could punch through 80-mm plate with Harry Yeides (author of Tank Killers and The Longest Battle).

Basically, the Tiger's turret side 80-mm was an exception because of armor quality and welding. Lower side hull was vulnerable.

The figure I quoted came from Operational Research Office, the data base was consisted of tank engagements fought by the 3d and 4th Armored Division M4s. Probably reconstructed from AARs and battlefield post-mortem. Both units saw heavy tank fighting from 1944-1945 so it should be fairly accurate.

Another bit of Operational Research states that (perhaps) surprisingly, accuracy was more important then sheer power. That was probably because the 76mm was not a quantum leap in power, and it also required flank shots for Panther and Tiger kills. Under those conditions, I expect improved accuracy was 76-mm's most important advantage.

The considered judgement of experts believe that the M4 was slightly superior to the Pz. IV. That is what my books say anyway.

Those were all heavy tanks incapable of operational maneouver. The Panther couldn't get from the Ardennes to the Meuse and the IS-2 was an army level asset reserved for breakthroughs. Exploitation and pursuit forces remained strictly equipped with the T-34 and the M4A2.

The 90-mm armed M36 TD was bascially a Sherman chasis with a 90-mm turret, so much so that the M4A3 could be converted to M36s by swapping turrets.

The Israeli Shermans IIRC packed far more heat. M-50 and M-51 Super Shermans were respectively armed with the high-velocity 75-mm (a French knock off of the German L/70) and a reduced recoil 105-mm gun.

Pz. II was fairly harmless to enemy medium armor. It was widely percieved as inadequate and replaced quickly at 1941. Regardless, it was adequate for shooting up routing infantry without AT weapons. The M4 was more capable comparatively.

 

The problem with the Panther in an offensive wasn't the weight of the tank but more the short life span of some of it's components and the lack of fuel (not comparing it to the Sherman!). I'll even go out on a limb and say that the Panther was the first thing that approached the MBT concept



Cheers...

 

Ok, so it was battlefield results.

I would be surprised if a 1940 30tonn design was not better than a 1937 25tonn design .

But M26 and Centurion were not and both were generally Pak 40 proof from the front.

I believe the M10 and M36 were less well armoured than a sherman though they shared the same turret ring size and many automotive components.
My mistake on the M-51, it is has a 105 not a 90, on the other had the 75 of the M-50 is probably the same as on the AMX-13 and they must have done something to reduce recoil to be able to mount it on such a light chassis. The AMX-13 is also where you will end up if you push the "rely on speed as you will get holed if hit" argument too far, the IDF sold it's AMXs to Singapore and kept the M-50 and M-51.

 

Hi five to you to for agreeing with what I"ve said before. I believe the that some other tanks could brew up. But nothing brew up like the Sherman. I have had to post and post about what I"ve already said protecting myself. It all started in top ten worst tanks, the Sherman was vulnerable at every part of the tank. I am happy to have someone agree with me . The only reason the Sherman was not the worst tank of the war is because of manufacturing numbers.:shootoutduo::shotgun::whip::ak47:istol1:

 

So you are willing to acknowledge at least some aspects of reality. That's a start.

But with a follow up like this not much of one. It has been pointed out that most WWII tanks would brew up. Some even did it on a more frequent occasion than the Sherman. Some of them, not including the Sherman, would do it spontaneously. When you have something other than your opinion to counter the facts I'm sure we will all be willing to listen.

No. You are not posting to protect yourself. No one here has posted anything that threatened you. You have posted pretty much the same thing over and over without any support. If anything this damages at least your reputation more than anything your opponents have posted.

And what tank wasn't?

Sorry but that's complete BS. It was clearly superior in a number of ways to the most common German tank. There is also little rational supporting the proposition that any other tank would have done better or even as well for the US as the Sherman did. True we could have had a better tank but probably the best reasonable tank we could have produced for WWII would have been the Sherman with one of th e90mm turrets. More of the 105mm armed version would probably also have been nice.

 

Well said, LWD, but it's like beating a dead horse here!

 

What?? this subject no one has ever mentioned before??




Cheers...

 

good one!

 

Dunno, but the prosecution are sponsored by MAN.

 

LWD, why worry about looking at facts in the face when one has such strong opinions?

Confucius said: "Opinions are like navels, everyone has at least one."

 

Completely OT but I've got a friend who doesn't. On the otherhand I've usually heard another portion of the anatomy associated with this saying....