Shermans in Action
- Thread starter Bootie
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A belic icon, no doubt .-
2
2054172
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Well done if your a Sherman fan...thank God we never went to war against the Russians ...they would of had a lot of American scrap metal to but more of their superior tanks. The only reason it [The Sherman tank] is held in any esteem is because we bombed the snot out of the German industry...if they could of produced at full capacity tanks of the quality they had ... we would not be talking about this right now. Just my opinion. 
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No doubt there were better machines .-
But we must recognize that it is a symbol .-
But we must recognize that it is a symbol .-
B
Bert Blitzkrieg
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Well done if your a Sherman fan...thank God we never went to war against the Russians ...they would of had a lot of American scrap metal to but more of their superior tanks. The only reason it [The Sherman tank] is held in any esteem is because we bombed the snot out of the German industry...if they could of produced at full capacity tanks of the quality they had ... we would not be talking about this right now. Just my opinion.
The Israeli's did very well with the Sherman against all types of Russian tanks in their wars against Syria and Egypt.... The latest versions of the Sherman really weren't as bad as some might want us to believe: "we had crappy tanks and despite that fact we still managed to beat the Germans with their mighty and superior weapons"
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2054172
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That may be so...but I don't know which tanks the russians gave the arabs..Isreal has always taken US equipment and improve it ...from what i have seen the arabs don't do that as often.
We had numbers that is what won the day...It was common knowledge that it took five Shermans to battle one Panther...if one does not care about the loss of one's troops then so be...it is not exceptable.
B
Bert Blitzkrieg
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T54/55's among others. The Usraeli's did upgun the Sherman later on with the 105mm gun. But that was in the 1960's. Fact is that the later models were quite good tanks: reliable, good optics, good mobility and a good enough gun.
If you were a tanker in a Sherman in WW2 would you attack a Panther thinking "well, maybe he'll kill me but I've got 5 or 6 other tanks around me, so we'll win the day!" I think not. Common practice was to to call in artillery or airstrike or the tankdestroyers when encountering German armour. American doctrine did cionsider the ordinary tanks (Shermans) to be more of an infantry support weapon than an anti-tank weapon. That's why the majority still got the 75 mm gun which was a better support gun then the 76mm gun.
Besides, only in Normandy, the Ardennes and the Lorraine the allied encountered German armour in large(r) numbers. And in Lorraine the German armour was easily beaten by the American armour.
The Panther was indeed a formidable tank, but there were more Panzers IV and SP guns then there were Panthers.
Also not forget that by the Lorraine and Ardennes battles, the skills of Panzer crews and units was a weak shadow of the professialism of the panzer force earlier in the war ... with exception of a few hardened veterans, tank crew training was completely inadequate.
(for that matter, tank crew quality was pretty shocking by the end of 1944 in US tank formations as well due to heavy losses and lack of properly trained replacements)