How would the RAM Canadian tank fair agianst the germans?

A pair of Kittens:
Kätzchen, prototype APC vehicle

Cheers,
Adam.

 

Rather an old thread, but I saw this and had to jump in. Sorry, I think you are incorrect stating "The Ram has roughly equal armor to a Sherman", as the early shermans had about 63mm armour, while the Ram had 87mm, a good bit tougher.

(The tougher Sherman M4A3 "Easy Eight" didn't see combat until Dec 1944)

And while the 6pdr HE round was inferior to the Sherman 75mm round, the AP performance was ~10% - 20% better.
(Info from battlefront.com & wwIIvehicles.com)

The L/43 6 pdr was used in the early part of the war, but switched to the longer version after Aug 1942.

Frankly, it could have had a HUGE impact, if the Ram mark II (from Jan/Feb 1942) had been shipped over right away, and used at Gazala.
Considering the excellent performance vs German Armour of the 6 pdr anti-tank guns that were first used by the British at Gazala, and the fact that the Ram tank didn't have the major flaws of the Grant tank, it could even have turned the battle from a loss into a win.

Flaws of the Grant vs the Ram

1.) Limited traverse for the main gun
2.) Hull mounted 75mm made defilade firing very difficult. (if at all)
3.) Ram had a thicker 87 mm cast hull vs the 51mm riveted Grant hull.
4.) Poor performance of the short 75mm mounted in the Grant (inferior to the Sherman's)

 

Frankly, I'd rather have the Tortoise....

Perhaps. There is also the old canard dragged out that the Ram was unsuitable & dropped because the smaller 60 inch turret ring couldn't accept a 75mm gun. - Which is belied by the fact that the Sentinal could mount a 17 pdr, yet only had a 54 inch turret ring.

 

Did someone call me?

You can see the twin-25pdr in my avatar. I believe the experimental 25pdr and 17pdr models were both successful, and would have served well as infantry support and anti-armour respectively - though as noted, the Sentinel wasn't as heavily armoured as some other Allied tanks.

In its original intended role against the Japanese, I think it would have worked quite well. Few Japanese tanks could have taken on the later versions of the Sentinel, and most would have been vulnerable even to the 2pdr. I don't know what sort of anti-tank weapons the Japanese army had, but considering the lightness of their own tanks, they probably didn't have very many AT guns capable of penetrating 65mm armour.