American main Battle Tank

I have a two part question. Why didn't the Americans produce a tank that combined the best parts of the T-34 and the Tiger?, and if they had this tank at Normandy how long before they reach Germany? If this topic as been raised before i apolagize.

 

1. Shipping capacity/track size. Anyway, the Sherman was a pretty good medium tank.

2. US intelligence implied that the German enemy would be composed of mostly Panzer IVs supported by small numbers of Tiger Is.

Unfortunately, the Germans equipped their Panzer formations with mixed Panzer IV/Panther regiments.

 

1 - Pershing has been described as "Essentially a more agile tiger"... so in many ways they did.

2 - Errr... 4 weeks, 3 days, 1.5 hours... or maybe a couple of years... or somewhere in between... is as sensible an answer as is possible .

~A

 

And armed with the British 17 Pdr gun the Sherman Firefly was more than a match for the Tiger, in fire & stopping power at least. It was the armour that let the Sherman down.

 

At least the guy isn't saying the Sherman was utter crap.

The Sherman was a good tank. It could take on the PzKpfw IV (Germany's standard medium tank) on equal terms, and it's superior manoeuvrability, mechanical reliability and many other factors trumped the Panther's better gun and thicker Frontal armour.
The Tiger was completely out of it's league anyway, and the Allies built the Pershing and the Comet which where on equal terms with the Tiger, however very late in the war.

 

It can also be argued that an American army equipped with Pershing prior to D-Day would probably have taken considerably longer to get to Germany.

 

Manly cause,if America copied germany ande russian tank desingnes,it wuolde have showen thee germans thate America can not design there own tecnolghy!
most ememies wuolde rather have there own design winning there battles,than winning thee war weith thee emenies design .

 

I was about to post the same.

 

This is untrue, the Americans and other allies studied the German designs extensively, and were "underwhelmed". The engines, transmissions and final gears were crap, the armor was simply thicker on the German models, and the sloping on the Soviet models was only "revolutionary" in that it was a better application of the French S-35 medium design. The Soviet diesels were crude, but functional, but the American "autopark" was based on gasoline, not diesel. The USN and its armed section the USMC used diesel powered tanks. As the Navy was the service which was diesel not gasoline focused this made supply simpler.

The only time I can think of where "not our design" was a questionable decision in AFVs would be the use of the 17 pounder in the Firefly modification of the Sherman M4. But America had already designed a new turret for its own upgraded cannon, and changing to the British main gun would have slowed down production. So it was a choice of both "not our gun", and production speed saved.

 

Why do you think it would have taken longer with the Pershing?

 

If I recall correctly the Allied or should I say the US tactics (Patton) was that tanks would not fight tanks. Which is why they did not need to produce those T-34/Tiger type of tanks. I recall it was Patton also who decided that Shermans will be produced and will be the main type of tank in 1944 when the Overlord takes place.

 

they´d have to build those tanks first....

 

...and the gear for support, larger landing craft etc.

I would respectfully pick you up on one thing though Kai; Patton did not select the Sherman for production. That decision lay with the Army Board & Technical departments, the great man had comparatively little influence there. By Normandy his influence on procurement had dwindled even further to pretty much nil.

Though I'm sure he'll have said somewhere, at some point, that everything good ever done in the entire army was essentially down to him .

~A

 

I ame affraid yuo reade me wrong!
America and briton are Allies,so of cause they shared desehns! I wase talikng abuot America and briton not designing german tanks,cause thee Yanks and Brits wanted to showe what they had to offer.

 

Ok we're assuming the army has been equipped with them and they've gotten them to Europe so we won't worry about the production or shipping issues at least as far a Britain.

1) Getting them ashore on Normandy. The Pershing is enough heavier than the Sherman that it needs a heavier crane to load and unload with. Many of the ships used had the lighter crane very few the heavier one. So loading in Britain is more of a problem as is off loading in Normandy. This will defintily slow down the build up of tanks in Normandy.

2) I'm pretty sure there wouldn't be any swimming Pershings in time for Normandy which means very little tank support the first few days.

3) In the hedgerows the Pershing may actually be inferior to the Sherman 75. Ranges were short and the opposition was often AT guns and infantry. The faster turret traverse may have made a real difference here.

4) The Pershing was less reliable, less fuel efficient, and had a heavier round. This means a larger logistics burden. Moving stuff ashore was a major issue until Antwerp was functional again. It's also going to slow an advance down if it has to stop for more broken down tanks and refuel more often. Consider that Patton ran out of fuel with Shermans.

5) All of the above mean that there will be fewer tanks to support the infantry probably for months. This also will slow down the advance.

I won't get into other issues such as where the additional resources came from.

 

Well If Im going in to Normandy give me 100 Pershings vs 500 Shermans, You have to think the Allies are racing across France with the Pershing right away, right?

 

what was the reason for the breakdowns?

 

There really wasn't a single reason.
Even though the M26 Pershing had been in development since 1942, as an upgrade to the M4 Sherman, it was an on again off again project. Which is why it wasn't’ until late Feb. of 1945 that the first of them saw combat. Now while people sometimes think they used the same Ford aluminum, double overhead cam engine as the Sherman, it was really a redesigned engine to shrink its overall height while gaining about 50 horsepower. The Pershing had the GAF, while the Sherman had the GAA.

This added to the stress on the heads, and consequently they had a tendency to fail. Also, it was coupled to an automatic three speed transmission, instead of a manual "gear cruncher". So it was a "new" engine, a "new" Torquematic transmission, and riding on a torsion bar suspension. A great many "firsts" for American armor.

Due to its wider tracks, it actually had about the same ground pressure as the Sherman, 12-13 pounds per square inch. But its weight cut its mileage to about 0.5 mpg. That is only slightly less than the Sherman in the final "jumbo" version, but still gas mileage wasn’t a great concern to the Allies and with its larger fuel capacity the range was about the same on identical surfaces.

New engine and power-train designs rarely, if ever, succeed in their first incarnation.

 

In a word, no. You are overlooking the difficulty in deploying an expeditionary force that needed to be trained and equipped in America, shipped over the Atlantic Ocean, docked in England, then transported by rail to South England where they would reassemble and put into ships again to cross the Channel. Imagine all this military and logistic chaos taking place at the same time the very tanks, guns and trucks to be used in the coming battle were under going designing or being qeued for production. To introduce the Pershing tank into the intricate plans would be like performing a heart transplant while the patient is undergoing neuro surgery. In fact, in May 1944, there were ten T26 prototypes in the US Army, and they were all state side, less than one month before the Allied armies start an amphibious strategic offensive. Mind you, amphibious strategic offensive was a type of operation that military strategists pronounced impossible at the 20s-30s because of the failure of Gallipoli. This was to be practiced on the Germans, who had the best army in the world, at the part of Europe that was the best defended real estate in the world. To get any servicable tanks on the beachhead, rapidly and in overwhelming numbers, were of far greater import than what tank they actually would be.

 

The problems of the Pershing should've have been worked out with a significant number ready for the invasion of Europe. The Allies built entire floating harbors for the invasion I doubt building larger cranes to load tanks is an issue.