Panzer IV vs M4

Oh...my...god! Who thought of that?

I got 2 things to say to that:

1) Has anyone tried doing a manual traverse. I got the rare opportunity to sit in a T-64 one day and just out of curiousity, I decided to try the manual traverse (anyone seen "The Beast"? well its identical to that) basically in the gunner's position is a wheel about 5-6 inches in diameter, this wheel has a little handle which you crank to turn the ? ton turret. It took me 3 minutes to turn the b*gger 90 degrees to the right, and this was in a tank made 20 years AFTER the PzIV!!

2) If they were going to be used only for defence (god knows that's the only reason I can think of for removing the motor that powers the turret) why didn't they concentrate on Stugs or Jagdpanthers? I would've thought they were far simpler to construct.

 

I can tell you from the first hand experience what pain is to manually traverse. During the war in Croatia at one point I was forced on some drill in T-55. I was in infantry but due to shortage of trained tank men we were occasionally training with tank crews, just in case to jump in. Among other things, we were forced to manually traverse turret. Believe me, you DO NOT want to do that, specially during combat. First of all, it is a hard job. You must rotate wheel at enormus pace to rotate the damn thing. We didn't measure time for full rotate but it took an eternity. Furthermore, after that you are so exhausted that any other action is impossible. And I wasn't at that time out of shape, trust me At that point I thought what would be like if during battle electric system went out. Conclusion: you are dead.
Anyway, if the German crews during the war had any similar problems and managed to get alive...I consider it a miracle.

 

Totally agree Srdo, nice to see someone who "felt the pain" as well

Now try doing that with about a hundred Churchills and British infantry coming at you on Hill 112...wave after wave....

 

I can imagine a lot more than that, trust me...to be precise, not on that scale but all horrors are there and when I read some first-hand experience from war I always sleep bad and shivers are running up and down my skin.
Back to Sherman vs. PzIV. Almost everything was said but I must add something I think that German crews in Pz IV felt more comfortable. PzIV interior was, as compared to many other tanks, quite luxurious

 

We are comming to the conclussion that technically ON PAPER, the M-4 Sherman was better than the Panzer IV.

Does anyone have combat figures of these two? Because I think that a low-silhoutte and better crews made a huge difference during combat.

Besides, no one has mentioned a very important aspect of Pz IV; reliability. Shermans were far more reliable, that is clear, but the Pz IV was the most reliable German tank, since it was a tank which had a long time to be tested and proved in combat. So, in comparisson to other German tanks, it was the better suited to fight Shermans at close range and in equal conditions.

 

Friedrich, you are absolutely right, Pz IV was, for German panzer standards, extremly reliable and loved by the crew.
What kind of combat figures are you looking for?

 

Combat statistics of how Shermans and Pz IVs ACTUALLY performed againts each other, if any.

 

Hm, nothing doesn't cross my mind now but I'll try and look for data.
Anyhow, one thing must be taken in the account and we all know it- performance, training and capabilites of the crew. If you combine those factors with tank characteristics, supply problems, microcosmos of the battlefield and lady luck, you might get the picture.

 

May I ask why you say this?

The driver and radio operator had access through hull hatches I had trouble slipping through 13 years ago, when I was a small, lean guy. Now I'm a small fat guy and I wouldn't even try. If the turret rotated the wrong way, at least on of these hatches would be blocked and emergency exit would be made by reclining the seat backs, through the legs of a possibly dead gunner after a lot of contortions and collision with lots of sharp edges. Also I wonder how the driver managed to drive anything, either trying to keep his head glued to the periscope through all the bumps, or trying to peer through a narrow vision slit 2 feet away from his eyes...

To be fair, I didn´t even try to get though a Comet driver hatch, those were made for midgets!

The gunner and loader would be rather well off, being immediately close to decent size hatches on the turret sides - that is, unless you don't see them as large weak spots in the turret armour integrity!

I pity the poor loader, having to dig his rounds while the turret basket rotated (after the ready rounds wer spent), while having to manoeuvre and load them in an incredibly cramped space. As I said, I'm a short guy and I had trouble moving in the turret. But this problem was common to all tanks.

The tank commander? A fine sight in his heroical pose protruding halfway up the cupola. But his feet are on a 8" round wooden seat in line with the main gun axis, so when he comes down to sit on it, first his head will fit inside a cupola full of pointy things (I wonder what would have happened to the spinal column of a tall fellow), he'll have to really bend to be able to look down to see what his crew is doing, and also, now I know why those German tank commanders look so damned fit on their pretty black uniforms! They had to be that way because it was the only way to keep alive when the main gun fired, because the gun breech with the recoil would be inches away from his belly! A ration too many at lunch would invite disaster! All this while sitting on a 20cm diameter wooden disk.

If the PzIV was a comfortable tank to be in, I wonder how the others were

 

The short version: If this is true then why did the Germans lose all but a handful of the significant tactical tank on tank actions in the West from D-Day to VE Day?

The long version:

By late 1943 this is patently untrue. German tank crews on average were far less well trained than their US or British counterparts. This gap continued to widen right through the end of the war.
By early 1944 there were really two types of crew available to the Germans: The first were the handful of expert crews and commanders like Michael Whitmann, Ernst Barkmann, Otto Carius or, Albert Ernst. The rest were relatively green with limited training time and experiance.
This situation occured for several reasons. First, there was a shortage of material, fuel, ammunition and, just about everything else to train with. Drivers had to learn on a handful of obsolete or obsolesent tank chassis running on coal gas or wood gas generators due to lack of fuel.
Many units in training received their vehicles piecemeal. Often a battalion had just a handful of the proper vehicle on hand to train with until shortly before being shipped into action. Likewise, manpower was often sketchy with many replacements not present for the full training cycle.
Maintenance and spares were usually in limited supply meaning that a breakdown or equipment problem often went unrepaired for extended periods leaving the unit with even less equipment to train on.
Ammunition was also in short supply limiting gunnery practice. By mid-44 many units in training didn't even get enough ammunition to accurately calibrate their guns and sights prior to being sent into action.
Lack of space and time usually precluded units larger than battalions practicing together. Even then, due to lack of fuel such practice maneuvers were rarely done.
This meant that many crews had the barest familiarization with the tank they were to take into combat. Larger units like, for instance, the Panzer Brigades rushed to the West following the Allied breakout in Normandy had never operated their componet units together. In combat they were literally shot to pieces by their far better trained and organized opponets.
Essentially, the German panzer force was in a similar position to that of the Jädgwaffe arm of the Luftwaffe in ability.....A handful of deadly experts with the bulk of the troops being little more than cannon fodder (Erich should easily recognize this parallel).
The US (I can't speak as readily for the British) by 1944 had taken to heart their earlier experiances in combat. Tank crews had almost always trained together for a minimum of 52 weeks prior to going into combat. Many crews had been together for over 2 years. All had participated in multiple battle maneuvers on a divisional / corps scale in training. Many of these battle problems involved using live ammunition (like the 1943 and 1944 Tennessee maneuvers) on a realistic target.
True, the Sherman was in many ways inferior to the heavier German tanks like the Panther and Tiger. But, the Sherman crews (not to mention Tank Destroyer crews) more often than not outfought their German counterparts due to superior training, organization and, unit cohesion. When you add in the vastly superior maintenance and logistic trains of the Western Allies their advantage over the German Panzers was overwhelming.
With the rare tactical level exception (usually because one or more of those rare tank aces the Germans had was present) the panzers were out fought in the West from the end of 1943 right up to the end of the war.
Had the US possessed a superior, or even equal, tank to the Panther in late 1943 this imbalance in favor of the Allies would have been appallingly apparent. Let me add as a final note, that it was not usually a case of overwhelming numbers either. Even when the odds were even the Allies usually came out ahead.

 

Za Rodina, as I said, compared to other tanks, PzIV was very comfortable
Everything you said is true and you can only imagine what was like in some other tanks. Hey, have you ever seen a tall guy in the tank? Small guys were prefered just because of that, they were small I am over six feet and during the war in Croatia had many troubles getting inside the T-55 and I bet you I would never get a job as a Panzer crewman in Germany, let alone elsewhere just because og my height

 

I chose the Sherman over the Panzer IV, due to its greater reliability, ease in upgunning, and superior frontal armor layout.

BTW, I consider the Firefly to be a Sherman, even if our cousins made it.

Yours,
Paul

 

Damn right! I'm 1.63m short, and I already felt cramped inside a PzIV. In a T-26, standing on the tank floor, my head protruded outside the commander's hatch! Is it possible those Aryan giants would have their legs amputated to come into the Panzerwaffe?

What the heck were you doing inside a T-55 (OT)

Cheers,

 

T. A. ... afaik, due to Allies air superiority, there were only a fistful of tactical tank on tank actions in the West, and the Germans won quite a good part of them. Where does the statistics come from that you need 6 Shermans to defeat a Panther?

 

Third Army losses during the Battle of the Bulge:

Light Tanks 72
Medium Tanks 264
Guns 28

German Losses to Third Army

Medium Tanks 322
Panthers and Tigers 226
Guns 310

How much of these losses on either side were a result of artillery or air strike is not mentioned but the weather was not generally conducive to air support missions.

If these numbers can speak for themselves, it appears that the Sherman manned by an American crew was more than adequate.

 

And one has to remember that by the time of the Battle of the Bulge, the average American tank crew was better trained than its German counterparts, thanks to the German fuel shortage. Even veteran crews need refresher training in order to practice coordinating their movements and actions with the green crews (and similarly, the green crews needed that same kind of operational training).

Yours,
Paul

 

Za Rodina,

as I mentioned in one previous post during the war in Croatia I was in infantry and occasionaly had drills and training with tank teams, just in case. I mean, there were not much of trained tank crews during early war years and if someone of the tank crew got killed, well...there was no time to wait for trained men and we would serve as interim solution. I am glad to say that I never had to jump in for someone
So, you are about 25 cm shorter than I am and you can imagine my horror inside the tank with three more guys I can't imagine how was in combat and, frankly, I didn't want to know. I have gone way off topic now...
If we really want to know the outcome of Sherman vs Pz IV then we must find some documents of German tank crew's experience with captured Shermans.

 

Why not the other way round?

 

Not in the beginning, but later in the battle Allied air strikes were decisive.

 

Why not the other way round? </font>[/QUOTE]Nice one I was thinking about combat experience and I know that Germans used captured Sherman tanks much more often then Americans using captured Pz IVs. Or am I wrong?