Sherman Vs. Panzer

I suspect this one comes up very regulalry but I only found this forum last week I am not bored of it yet so here is my ten cents. I assume we are talking circa late 1943/mid 44 models here.


Pz IV H
Cromwell (75mm NOT the up-armoured models)
T34/43
M4 75mm


ARMOUR
Well they are already in order as regard the thickness of armour HOWEVER if you want them in order of effectiveness of front armour then put the T34 followed by the M4 in spots one and two but really there was little to chooe between them particulalry when you consider that all these angle calculation always assume the shell hits at a perfectly horizontal angle which they do not.

WEAPON AND TURRET LAYOUT/kit etc
The Pz IV has a considerably better gun than the others and an efficient turret layout. The M4 & Cromwell have a similar weapon and both have an efficient turret layout but the weapon is less effective than the German weapon. The T34 weapon is a fair match with The M4 and Cromwell but the turret layout is abysmal since there is no loader requiring the CO to do the loading reducing the effect of the weapon to put it firmly in last place. The T34 also has poor vision kit which reduced the weapons practical range and was still occasionally missing a radio (about 15% in 1944)

MOBILITY
Well the T34 and Cromwell win this one easily with not much to seperate either while the M4 and PzIV are equally less mobile.

This is the only period in the whole of WWII when the major protagonists have as their main Tank vehicles of very similar capability.

OTHER ISSUES
M4's 'brew up' very easily until the wet stowage system is universall.

I would put the T34 last in this list: I appreciate that is is one of the fastest and most effectively armoured but the poor turret layout and other deficiencies make it harder to aim, less accurate and reduce the rate of fire and this is a far greater disadvantage than it's maginal advantages elsewhere. There is little to chose between the Cromwell and M4; I think the Cromwell is marginally better since it is quicker and a better shape HOWEVER a Cromwell battalion was NOT better since there is no cromwell 76mm/17pdr which meant they had to deployed with Firefly's those firefly's were very obvious targets as a result. In any event only 7thAD and the recon battalions used them.

So that leaves us with the Pz IV which is the clear winner IMHO. True it is slower than a T34 or Cromwell and it's effective armour slightly less than a T34 but it has a good profile, good turret layout and the best weapon of the lot and this far outweighs it's relatively minor disadvantages.

 

Rep given!

Ps-Thanks for not calling the Sherman and Cromwell useless, I wish more people where like that!

 

No worries; I think The magnificent 4 above demonstrate the relationship between Tactical considerations and Strategic one's.

First of all In pure financial terms a Tiger cost (In Reichsmarks) just over two and a half times the cost of a late War Panzer IV; it also took a lot longer to build, used a large proprtion of rare materials and guzzled fuel. Furthermore they were notoriously unreliable, difficult to transport (strategically); and actually less effective in an anti-tank role than the lighter (and cheaper) Panther Tank.

Germany would have had a lot more servicable Tanks had they churned out Panzer IV's in the same manner as the US and Soviets churned out M4's and T34's. Tactically the Tiger (when it worked) was a nice toy but Strategically it was a pain in the rump. I have read of at least one German Panzer General (somewhere in Buckley's Normandy book I think) who prefers Panzer IV's in the Bocage area because the gun doesn't hang over the rest of the vehicle which makes them less obvious and as the fighting is such close range they can both penetrate whatever they meet (even Churchills) so what's the need of a dirty great 88?

I have the cost of a Sherman somewhere (about $50,000/unit I recall) but I have no idea what the exchange rate was However although the M4, T34, Cromwell were not tactically perfect they were the perfect strategic solution and we know this because we all don't HAVE to speak German

 

Joe,

Sorry to sound daft but what does 'rep given' mean?

 

The subject of armor is a tough one. There are alot of considerations here. The Pz IV has good frontal protection against the weapons it faces on this list. Its 80mm armor is sufficent to stop all but close range penetrations by any of the other tank's weapons. Of the four, the Pz IV has the weakest side and rear armor by far. But, this is relative as all four are vulnerable to the side and rear to most common AT weapons.
The T34 is also more vulnerable than it at first appears. While the armor with slope included is good the basis (typically 47mm) is relatively thin. This means overmatched rounds will often crush in the armor regardless of its theoretical sloped thickness. The Sherman suffers from this to a slightly lesser degree.
The Pz IV also has slightly better armor quality than the other tanks too.

Of the bunch, the Sherman is laid out far better than the other vehicles, particularly with the cuploa added for the vehicle commander. The Pz IV is not bad but a bit more cramped than the Sherman. The Cromwell is cramped internally but not badly. The T34/76 is by comparison very poor.
Some examples, the Sherman has a full turret basket with some rounds on the basket making for easy access. It also has the fastest and smoothest turret rotation of the bunch. The gyro stabilizer feature also helps in fast laying of the gun in engagments. And, yes, it actually does work. The Sherman is also the only vehicle set up to act as indirect fire artillery a role used more than occasionally in Europe and Italy.
The Pz IV is not bad except in the J model which lacked powered turret rotation. It has good visibility and can generally engage targets fairly quickly (except the J). It is also the only one of the bunch that can make good use of the hull machinegunner. His gun has a telescopic sight and is relatively stable in use. The rest just have blind bullet hoses in this position.
The T34 is just bad. The two man turret means the commander is also the gunner in this case. The loader has only three ready service rounds after which he must begin pulling up the floor of the fighting compartment (no turret basket) and retrieve rounds loaded in three round 'suitcases' from under the floor. There are few vision devices in the turret and those available have very limited fields of vision. Basically, a T34 on the offensive is little more than an assault gun; if targets are not right in front of it, they probably will never be seen.
The lack of an intercom system also henders the coordination of the vehicle.
The Cromwell is cramped and the loader is really a bit restricted in getting rounds in the gun. Otherwise, the vehicle is about equal to the Sherman except it is much slower in getting laid on target. One other mistake was the use of the shoulder friction brake on the gun like the previous 2pdr used. This means re-laying the gun after every shot slowing the effective rate of fire.

While the T34 and Cromwell are faster than the Sherman and Pz IV their tactical mobility is really little better. The use of a Christie style suspension gives a rather bouncy ride making for difficultlies in doing anything at speed. The T34 is definitely the 'mudder' of the bunch having outstanding soft ground mobility. Detracting from this is the fact that the T34 also has the worst track system frequently shedding tracks at high speed, in turns, and having a very short running life.
The Sherman's rubber bushed system is by far the best for high speed road travel. At speeds of around 20mph and better this system actually lowers rolling resistance and gives better milage and performance than the steel tracks on the other vehicles. The Sherman is also by miles the most reliable and easiest of the bunch to maintain.
One nice feature on the Sherman was a small 'donkey' motor in the turret compartment. This allowed the crew to charge the batteries, get a bit of warmth in cold weather and not have to idle the main engine.

With the Sherman the "brew up" issue was over wrought. Yes, early models did burn slightly more often than other tanks. This led to the applicae armor and eventually the wet storage system that rectified this problem.

At the battalion level, the Soviets were the worst off by far. Their battalion was small and inefficent at best. Cromwell units did get a 17 pdr equivalent; the Challenger. This was a lenghtened Cromwell (one extra road wheel) with a monsterous slab-sided turret dumped onto the original turret ring. It was cramped, poorly thought out and definitely a good target not to mention more than a bit unstable.....Think KV II with a 17pdr.

Both the Sherman and Cromwell battalion had a few howitzer tanks attached too. The Cromwell with 95mm howitzer and the Sherman with a 105mm gun were welcome additions giving both battalions a bit of artillery support. The 105 Sherman also proved a decent anti-tank weapon at closer ranges.
A couple of unique US battalion advantages were the inclusion of several bulldozer tanks that proved of inestimable value and the ability of the battalion to act as artillery. 51 Shermans firing as artillery is nothing to dismiss lightly.

While the Pz IV battalion was about equal in size to the British and US ones, it really does not have any advantages to speak over the other ones.

 

But TA,

While having some advantages over the T-34 and Panzer, it seems that the Sherman's disadvantages out weighted its advantages....

 

TA, good comments.

Sorry I don't know how to add bits of a quote to this post (yet) but.....

I agree with your armor comments: Soviet tests on the 'original' 45mm plate of the earlier T34's showed it to be the equivalent of 70-75mm of flat plate IF hit perfectly horizontally which would not usually be the case and the longer combat ranges in the East (In some cases) could mean plunging shot and so on which would give the Panzer IV the edge but in Normandy it is a moot point as all the vehicles involved there could penetrate each other at the very short combat ranges typically encountered. I wasn't aware of the metalurgical value differences but it is good to know and comes as no surprise.

I didn't include the Challenger because they were not issued until later in the campaign and were only issued to the armored recon battalions anyway in very small numbers; the Cromwell equipped armoured battalions still had Firefly's. I considered the Pz IV 'H' rather than the 'J' as this model only went into production in June '44 so not a major model until a while after this time frame.

I like the extra information on the Sherman; Vet's from 7th AD commented that they missed their roomy M4A2's and I was not aware of the Donkey motor but that would be a godsend to a tank crew I suspect.

There is no doubt Sherman's were reliable but I don't know that 'miles more reliable' is a balanced view. The Cromwell was regarded as very reliable too (At last a highly reliable cruiser was the view) and the Pz IV did not recieve the criticism the big cats got either while the T34 was famously 'rugged'. If the Sherman was better it can't have been by miles. Also the most common M4 is UK service in Normandy was the M4A4 (Almost all the Freifly's were on this chassis too) with the multibank engine and that was a pig to maintain in comparison to the US M4A3's V8's.

I also ought to mention that M4's were hard work on the driver certainly in comparison to the Cromwell's (don't know about the Mk IV) and the T34's were even worse with the drivers frequently changing gear with the help of a mallet!

On the subject of brewing up: studies in the first few weeks following Overlord in the British Army showed 64% of Shermans knocked out by direct fire penetration 'brewed up' (Although there is no data as to how many times they were hit!). There are also individual figures for specific Regiments too and the US figures were similar (Which puts paid to the myth that it was down to petrol leaks; cordite was responsible apparently) so I respectfully challenge that the issue was over wrought. Also the additional (comically thin) side plates were shown after the event to have no advantage other than a morale boost to the crew and may have actually helped German crews to aim at the correct spot. Which brings us back to 'wet stowage' which certainly improved things.

I didn't think the Sherman 105's were about mid '44??? I think the US used M8's. Cromwell (& Churchill's) certainly deployed 95mm howitzers and they had a fair HEAT round too.

T34 Battalions were tiny by this stage of the War but if you change the scale a bit for the Soviet kit and treat the Battalions as companies/squadrons the Brigades as Battalions and therefore the Corps as Divisions they are from a certain perspective large units. A Soviet Tank Corps was really just a western Tank division.

 

I'm a bit partial to the Panzer IV. A good matchup would be the M-26 Pershing(I don't know if I spelled it right) vs. the Panther.

 

There was a massive thread on this a while back...

http://www.ww2f.com/weapons-wwii/12399-panzer-iv-vs-m4.html

The M4 won.

 

The Sherman was an excellent tank in 1942, easily the equal to (better, actually) any PzIII or IV. To expect it to still be excellent two years later with very little modification is/was madness.

 

That's at the least a debatable statement. The Px IV may have had a better AT gun but the M4 had a better HE round and if you look at what killed M4s and I suspect PzIVs other tanks weren't at the top of the list. As a matter of fact I believe that for most of the war at least some of the M4's had equivalent or better AT performance.

 

Penetration of RHA at 1,000 yards/30 degrees:

M4 75mm: 62mm

M4 76mm: 89mm

Pz IV 75mm L/43: 72mm

Pz IV 75mm L/48: 79mm

The M4 with 76mm gun was very much in the minority until late in the war, whereas the L/48 gun became standard on the Pz IV. So in most engagements, the Pz IV would have had the most effective armour-piercer.

 

Can we reduce the complexities of tank-on-tank engagement to frontal face-offs on a featureless plain with robotic crews? This type of discussion would be anathema in Tank-Net

 

Which brings us neatly back to the point that M4's PzIV's & Cromwells are sufficiently similar to be considered the same.

 

Add T-34's to the list as well. All have their pluses and minuses.

 

I'd still say that If you have a group of Shermans and a group of whatever type of Panzers you'd have a pretty hellish time getting out.

 

Phear the Panzer II !

 

I prefer the T-34 with the 85 mm. And the the Sherman is two big and tall and it is easy to hit it and it burns more easily than the russian tank. And for urban warfare, the T-34 is better, soldiers can be post on the tank.

 

IIRC the Height difference between them is about a foot. And the length and width of the M4 is smaller then the T-34. The burning problem was decreased later in the war with the addition of "Wet Storage" and other improvements. And as regards to your statement that the M4 is easy to hit what do you mean? Any AFV the size of the M4 and T-34 are easy to hit LOL