[ireload2]

At least one account indicates that the .HV 76mm M4 EASY 8 was preferred over the Pershing in Korea. The Pershings were not as reliable. What I read said the M4s killed more T-34s than did the Pershings.

Your dad's opinion was just one man's opinion.
General George Marshal's 1946 Victory Report indicated that after operation Torch they had a large surplus of armored crew personnel because US casualties of armored units were much lower than planned. These extra personnel had to be retrained as infantry.
Regardless of what your dad knew or thought it appears that US planners expected to kill a lot of armored personnel as a cheaper and more efficient way to win. Your dad didn"t like it? So what? He was not charged with the responsibility of saving the country. US leaders were in it to win it even if they had to eventually fly B-36s from the US mainland to nuke Germany.

 

[John A. Larsen]

What a bunch of drivel! America's leaders at the start of WWII had not been a major war for 23 years, and who had an Armor experience? Patton had served in tanks in WWI but the use and tactics of tanks in WWI had no relationship to what was happening in WWII. Whatever the estimates made by US leaders about possible causalities was based on educated guess work, as we as a nation had never fought an armored war before. As far as the M4E8 Sherman in Korea, you are absolutely correct, better ground mobility, and reliability than the Pershing, making it able to get to the tops of those steep hills in Korea, and armed with the High Velocity 76mm cannon the cannon Shermans should have had in WWII. It was not just his father's opinion of the Sherman, but British, Canadian soldiers too. When this link started I went to You Tube and watched ever film I could find of US, British and Canadian tankers talking about their experiences fighting Panthers and God Forbid Tigers in Europe and they all spoke with dread about being shot at and being hit by a Panther, too include being on one side of a French farm house and having a Panther shoot thru two walls and still knock out the Sherman. John

 

[AmmoSgt In Memoriam]

M4A3E8 or M4A3(76)W HVSS .. the ones used in Korea, were the same ones used in Europe, available Mar 44. In fact it was about the most produced variant.

In fact if you look at all the variants on the basic theme.. Sherman's were constantly upgraded and improved .. over very short handful of years.. better armor, better gun, better sights and radios, better suspension , wider tracks, better ammo, wet storage, a wide variety of engines, some more popular than others ..

turns out a good solid hit with 105mm HE or HE-AT M67 could pretty reliably take out almost any Panzer from most angles regardless of range.. almost 5000 Sherman's were made with 105's, far more common than Tigers , of which only about 1400 mere made... Brits made over 2000 Fireflys .. so no shortage of Sherman's with bigger guns if that is what your preferred.

A lot of the legendary problems that some folks use to damn the Sherman were fixed or corrected or improved early on, some later than others... But the same Tank that was preferred in Korea was most likely the most common Sherman available in Europe after D-day.

I still say Sherman's with the Ma Deuce was the secret war winning version. , well that, and the ability to actually use almost all the bridges in Europe.

 

[John A. Larsen]

AmmoSgt, Thanks for the input, you are absolutely correct. I went and looked up the 76mm Shermans, and according to what I found they were available in July 1944, so that is very close to the March 1944 you quoted. A total of 49,234 Shermans reportedly were built (including pro types) and 19,247 were issued to the U.S. Army, another 1,114 to the USMC. Britain got 17,184 (also issued to Canadians and Free Poles) 4,102 to Russia, and 812 to China. By the end of WWII in Europe about 1/2 the Shermans were armed with the a 76mm cannon, but not sure if the British Firely with the 17 pounder cannon is in that figure. Pretty sure no Shermans with 76 mm cannon went to the Pacific theater as the 75mm equipped Sherman was much superior to any tank the Japanese had. The figure I came up with for total production of 76mm cannon equipped Shermans was 10,883. Like all statistics there are some errors as if you add up all the numbers listed above as to what countries the Shermans went to, there is about 7,000 unaccounted for. Still about half the Shermans still in combat in 1945 were the 75mm equipped ones. must have been nice to have some of those Shermans supporting you MLR in Korea, what with the cannon, the .50 and two .30 MG's added a lot of firepower to you defensive position. We had a M48 limp into our A-Camp at Buon Blech and the TC asked if he and his crew and tank could stay in the camp until they sent someone down to repair their tank's engine? So we now had a M48 with a 90mm cannon and its MG's to add in the camp defensive, and were sorry to see them leave. John

 

[AmmoSgt In Memoriam]

AmmoSgt, Thanks for the input, you are absolutely correct. I went and looked up the 76mm Shermans, and according to what I found they were available in July 1944, so that is very close to the March 1944 you quoted. A total of 49,234 Shermans reportedly were built (including pro types) and 19,247 were issued to the U.S. Army, another 1,114 to the USMC. Britain got 17,184 (also issued to Canadians and Free Poles) 4,102 to Russia, and 812 to China. By the end of WWII in Europe about 1/2 the Shermans were armed with the a 76mm cannon, but not sure if the British Firely with the 17 pounder cannon is in that figure. Pretty sure no Shermans with 76 mm cannon went to the Pacific theater as the 75mm equipped Sherman was much superior to any tank the Japanese had. The figure I came up with for total production of 76mm cannon equipped Shermans was 10,883. Like all statistics there are some errors as if you add up all the numbers listed above as to what countries the Shermans went to, there is about 7,000 unaccounted for. Still about half the Shermans still in combat in 1945 were the 75mm equipped ones. must have been nice to have some of those Shermans supporting you MLR in Korea, what with the cannon, the .50 and two .30 MG's added a lot of firepower to you defensive position. We had a M48 limp into our A-Camp at Buon Blech and the TC asked if he and his crew and tank could stay in the camp until they sent someone down to repair their tank's engine? So we now had a M48 with a 90mm cannon and its MG's to add in the camp defensive, and were sorry to see them leave. John

Yeah.. we used to get 4 Gepards to help defend the NASP ( think ASP but for tactical nukes) warm fuzzies

They kept the 75mm around because of the ammo... the 75 HE had half again as much bursting charge as the 76mm ( exceptional amount of explosive for the bore of the gun) and only the 75mm had willie pete ( 70-75% of all ammo actually used was HE ), you give up a lot of HE advantage for that 76mm AP advantage, and you lose all your fatal WP and have to get by on good ol' fashion smoke and that's another 10% of rounds actually fired.

The thing about Marines and Japanese Tanks... the Japanese had far more bunkers than tanks.. at least in the Pacific Islands .. The Marines favored the 105mm Sherman paired up with a Flame Sherman .. but if a 105 wasn't handy, the exceptional HE round for the 75 was something they could work with. They used a lot of WP first couple of months after D-Day.

 

[ireload2]

No one else had significant up to date experience either.
All those enlisted men can cry but the war planners don't have time to wet nurse them. The war has to be fought and a lot of men get sent to their deaths to reach military objectives. The same Germans in the limited number of Panthers had to deal with large numbers of more reliable M4 that usually had plenty of fuel.

What a bunch of drivel! America's leaders at the start of WWII had not been a major war for 23 years, and who had an Armor experience? Patton had served in tanks in WWI but the use and tactics of tanks in WWI had no relationship to what was happening in WWII. Whatever the estimates made by US leaders about possible causalities was based on educated guess work, as we as a nation had never fought an armored war before. As far as the M4E8 Sherman in Korea, you are absolutely correct, better ground mobility, and reliability than the Pershing, making it able to get to the tops of those steep hills in Korea, and armed with the High Velocity 76mm cannon the cannon Shermans should have had in WWII. It was not just his father's opinion of the Sherman, but British, Canadian soldiers too. When this link started I went to You Tube and watched ever film I could find of US, British and Canadian tankers talking about their experiences fighting Panthers and God Forbid Tigers in Europe and they all spoke with dread about being shot at and being hit by a Panther, too include being on one side of a French farm house and having a Panther shoot thru two walls and still knock out the Sherman. John

 

[John A. Larsen]

ireload2, Your comments are again drivel, and your attitude to "all those enlisted men crying" speaks volumes as to your knowledge of war, and what it is like to see friends killed in action. John

 

[ireload2]

While all the focus is on armor and main gun some of the Shermans had a clearly superior engine. The Ford GAA 1100 cubic inch V8 was derived from a Ford aero engine and was very reliable.
Want to get in position to shoot the enemy you need a good engine. Want to run and avoid getting shot you also need a good engine.

 

[AmmoSgt In Memoriam]

Not that all battle experience isn't valuable .. it all is... but it wasn't about armor combat after France.. it was about combined arms .. and here is the thing .. it was about combined arms up against combined arms.. which almost screams, if not strongly implies, a mutual learning curve... Yes, all Armies of all nations have their own libraries of experience and with different equipment/ different resources , different solutions to similar problems will be found. But if you are still worrying about Armor doctrine in 44/45 when everybody else is trying to develop combined arms, you are way behind the learning curve.

Early " armored doctrine " was crazy effective against armies that had no anti armor doctrine .. were those lessons to keep? turned out not so much.. became suicide tactics against developing anti -armor doctrines ... lots of variables, no two games the same.

When our current adversaries occasionally boast of having secret weapons that can obliterate a Carrier Battle Group my first thought is BS.. you have never tested it against the defense's of a US Carrier Battle Group. We don't really have a anti carrier battle doctrine ourselves , and really can't develop one until we know what an enemy carrier battle group looks like, and our adversaries can't simulate one of ours authentically enough to be actually useful to train against/ test weapons against .

Same thing . Brits figure out how to handle Italian Armor until German Armor showed up, and they had to completely rework Doctrine ( and get bigger tanks and tank guns).

Here we have a situation where the Sherman and the 75L40 or even 75L33 was the preferred tank in 75-80% of all combat.. and because of the other 20%, it is faulted for not having the 76... Think about it, everybody's tanks were so bad at dealing with Infantry that PIAT's and Panzerfausts were very effective. Bazooka's and 'Shrecks, with even greater reach were even better. My God, sticky bombs and pole mines worked .. and some folks are still using Tigers and 88's as the measure of a tank. Not that it isn't a good one, but it sure as heck ain't the only yardstick. The 75 on the Sherman and the 75 ( same gun as the Sherman basically ) and 37 on the Grant both had canister rounds, both highly effective against infantry and AT guns.. but horribly un-photogenic with no big boom when they hit. http://www.defence.gov.au/UXO/_Master/docs/Types/Projectile75mmRev01.pdf

as mentioned in the above link.. the ammo choices for the much demeaned 75mm were so desirable the Brits were boring out the 6 pounders ( considered by many a decent AT gun) to use the 75mm How's ammo .. it was that much more useful /effective in combat.

 

[ireload2]

It makes no difference what you think. You can take orders or be shot.
War means someone has to make the ugly decision to send his own men to their deaths regardless of the existing equipment.
Just remember the Germans had to use K98s against Garand rifles.
I think the largest consumption of 75mm Sherman tank ammo was the HE shot at infantry that had NO TANK AT ALL.

ireload2, Your comments are again drivel, and your attitude to "all those enlisted men crying" speaks volumes as to your knowledge of war, and what it is like to see friends killed in action. John

 

[jeff barnes]

Not that all battle experience isn't valuable .. it all is... but it wasn't about armor combat after France.. it was about combined arms .. and here is the thing .. it was about combined arms up against combined arms.. which almost screams, if not strongly implies, a mutual learning curve... Yes, all Armies of all nations have their own libraries of experience and with different equipment/ different resources , different solutions to similar problems will be found. But if you are still worrying about Armor doctrine in 44/45 when everybody else is trying to develop combined arms, you are way behind the learning curve.

Early " armored doctrine " was crazy effective against armies that had no anti armor doctrine .. were those lessons to keep? turned out not so much.. became suicide tactics against developing anti -armor doctrines ... lots of variables, no two games the same.

When our current adversaries occasionally boast of having secret weapons that can obliterate a Carrier Battle Group my first thought is BS.. you have never tested it against the defense's of a US Carrier Battle Group. We don't really have a anti carrier battle doctrine ourselves , and really can't develop one until we know what an enemy carrier battle group looks like, and our adversaries can't simulate one of ours authentically enough to be actually useful to train against/ test weapons against .

Same thing . Brits figure out how to handle Italian Armor until German Armor showed up, and they had to completely rework Doctrine ( and get bigger tanks and tank guns).

Here we have a situation where the Sherman and the 75L40 or even 75L33 was the preferred tank in 75-80% of all combat.. and because of the other 20%, it is faulted for not having the 76... Think about it, everybody's tanks were so bad at dealing with Infantry that PIAT's and Panzerfausts were very effective. Bazooka's and 'Shrecks, with even greater reach were even better. My God, sticky bombs and pole mines worked .. and some folks are still using Tigers and 88's as the measure of a tank. Not that it isn't a good one, but it sure as heck ain't the only yardstick. The 75 on the Sherman and the 75 ( same gun as the Sherman basically ) and 37 on the Grant both had canister rounds, both highly effective against infantry and AT guns.. but horribly un-photogenic with no big boom when they hit. http://www.defence.gov.au/UXO/_Master/docs/Types/Projectile75mmRev01.pdf

as mentioned in the above link.. the ammo choices for the much demeaned 75mm were so desirable the Brits were boring out the 6 pounders ( considered by many a decent AT gun) to use the 75mm How's ammo .. it was that much more useful /effective in combat.

My father mentioned how effective the cannister round was in the 37mm cannon his M8 armored car was armed with.
And, I dont recall him being too upset about being in an armored car in a world of tanks...in fact I think he preferred it.

 

[ireload2]

There is one account of a Greyhound running up behind a Tiger on a sunken road in France. They shot the Tiger in the back end and knocked it out.

Another data point for the 37mm. My dad was a USMC towed 37mm gunner in the Pacific. His favorite round was the canister shot. But I am sure he would have been happier with an M4.

My father mentioned how effective the cannister round was in the 37mm cannon his M8 armored car was armed with.

 

[AmmoSgt In Memoriam]

Ballistics say the 37mm is good against Panthers from the side or rear up to about 300 yards ( I am assuming they are assuming nigh on 90 degree horizontal to the armor shot).. not that I would make a habit of it... You have to remember .. in the case of the Panther.. the turret has a very slow rotation rate.. you get close enough in an M8 or M3/M5 and you can outrun the Panthers turret.. and over a 15 degree slope and it is very hard to get the turret to point uphill on the slope.. that long barrel is heavy and works against the little motor trying to turn the turret. Panther crews know this.. they take care to minimize this weakness.. but you can't always park or fight from ideal ground. Also the Panther is longer and wider so it kind of gives away narrow town and city roads and small town bridges.. to say nothing about the "Kelly's Heroes" meme.

The bottom line here is.. if you can survive to get inside the penetration distance for YOUR gun on the American tank against a Panther.. you have advantages the Panther doesn't. Even with a 37mm. Fighting distances are often shorter, in real life, compared to the Gunnery Training Ranges at tank school. Germans are looking for the long game, Allies for the short game, and all too often happenstance picks the stadium, or somebody has a hellava home field advantage .

 

[ireload2]

Tanks are seldom going to be fair fight one on one jousts. Someone will try to ambush you and binoculars may be your best weapon.
I would bet 50% of the US M4s never shot at another tank. The Germans had little fuel and their tanks were not all that reliable and they were badly outnumbered.
The Brits brag about the Firefly but my understanding is the 17 pounder was only marginally more powerful than the HV 76mm in the E8. I have read that it was not very accurate with HVAP ammo. The Brits preferred the 17 pounder because they already had a supply chain for the ammo used in the towed version. The US 76MM would have been another ammo type for the Brits to supply.

 

[AmmoSgt In Memoriam]

Yeah.. the 17 pounder was problematic in several ways and APDS did have accuracy problems out past a certain point.. don't remember the specifics had an even weaker HE round than the 76.. like 0.7kg bursting charge ( compare to US76 .83 Kg US75 1.6 Kg).. main thing though is the gun and breech are huge. barely room to move in the turret and getting ammo up to the loading position was a PITA. HV76 was very potent against armor if it had the right ammo.. quantities of the really good stuff were limited and TD's had priority.. but there was a more common and lesser effective.. still decent, AT round. can't get to the spec's right now.

As to finding German armor to shoot at.. it was luck of the draw.. one of the side effects of concentrated armor formations.. lack of armor elsewhere .. at one point I stumbled across a Unit History of a towed AT battalion 76mm .. I was amazed at how little armored anything they ran across.. when they first found a German AFV it was a 231 and they did half a page in the unit history taking out that monster.. mostly did artillery work and recon type missions, covering the flanks.
found the specs US76 APC 4.1 in, HVAP 7 inches @ 1000 yards US 3 inch just a skoosh more despite a much larger chamber and case capacity

 

[jjk308 In Memoriam RIP]

ireload2, Your comments are again drivel, and your attitude to "all those enlisted men crying" speaks volumes as to your knowledge of war, and what it is like to see friends killed in action. John

The command perspective is different. A WWII vet, an Army brigadier general who served in the invasion of Germany, told me he never formed friendships with anyone under his command, officers and men both, kept them at a distance because he had to order them into combat situations that might get them killed.

 

[Clyde]

Actually the GAA wasn't, exactly, a Ford aero engine. Though Ford WANTED it to be. Wound up becoming (like the R-R Meteor tank engine that was essentially a Merlin with no supercharger)r

While all the focus is on armor and . There were others in the series. Packard built Merlins because Ford tried and claimed they couldn't 9some suspect that Ford didn't WANT to build Merlins, wanted to build their own).

main gun some of the Shermans had a clearly superior engine. The Ford GAA 1100 cubic inch V8 was derived from a Ford aero engine and was very reliable.
Want to get in position to shoot the enemy you need a good engine. Want to run and avoid getting shot you also need a good engine.

 

[Clyde]

Eastern Europe (Ost Front) with a LOT of Soviet Beasts in T-34s and KVs - want and need the long guns. Panthers with the 7.5 L/71 and the various 8.8s. In Western Europe, things were different and most shooting at lesser ranges. And LOTS of Shermans to swarm the "more capable' Panthers and Tigers.

Ballistics say the 37mm is good against Panthers from the side or rear up to about 300 yards ( I am assuming they are assuming nigh on 90 degree horizontal to the armor shot).. not that I would make a habit of it... You have to remember .. in the case of the Panther.. the turret has a very slow rotation rate.. you get close enough in an M8 or M3/M5 and you can outrun the Panthers turret.. and over a 15 degree slope and it is very hard to get the turret to point uphill on the slope.. that long barrel is heavy and works against the little motor trying to turn the turret. Panther crews know this.. they take care to minimize this weakness.. but you can't always park or fight from ideal ground. Also the Panther is longer and wider so it kind of gives away narrow town and city roads and small town bridges.. to say nothing about the "Kelly's Heroes" meme.

The bottom line here is.. if you can survive to get inside the penetration distance for YOUR gun on the American tank against a Panther.. you have advantages the Panther doesn't. Even with a 37mm. Fighting distances are often shorter, in real life, compared to the Gunnery Training Ranges at tank school. Germans are looking for the long game, Allies for the short game, and all too often happenstance picks the stadium, or somebody has a hellava home field advantage .

 

[ireload2]

I said it was derived from an aero engine.
It is the front 8 cylinders of an aluminum V12 1750 engine.
One of the give aways is the 60 degree angle between the cylinder banks.
Sort of the inverse of the Buick 3.8 liter V6 with 90 degrees between cylinder banks.

Actually the GAA wasn't, exactly, a Ford aero engine. Though Ford WANTED it to be. Wound up becoming (like the R-R Meteor tank engine that was essentially a Merlin with no supercharger)r

 

[AmmoSgt In Memoriam]

Eastern Europe (Ost Front) with a LOT of Soviet Beasts in T-34s and KVs - want and need the long guns. Panthers with the 7.5 L/71 and the various 8.8s. In Western Europe, things were different and most shooting at lesser ranges. And LOTS of Shermans to swarm the "more capable' Panthers and Tigers.

The inescapable curse of the assumption Tanks means tanks on tanks combat.

First off tanks are much more needy than infantry..., maybe more than artillery.. but I won't make that claim. The point is tank on tank is probably one of the rarest types of combat.. Everything is trying to find and kill tanks and each in their own way.. one effective and far more common means is to starve the beast to death.. kill it's food before it can eat it.. it wasn't P-47's, Sturmoviks, and Typhoons hunting tanks that killed tanks .. it was the Jabo's hunting their supply columns, train and truck and blowing up the path bridge and tunnel .. heavier tanks and bigger guns eat more than their more middling cousins .. The US had trucks for everything.. and most everything that rolled came ashore towing a trailer, if just to help get the initial bulk ashore .. Germans were actually impacted by the seasons and how much fodder they could grow and transport for over a million and a half horses .. and they turned the old "Eats like a Horse" into the newer "I'm so hungry I could eat a horse" over 1.5 Million Horse.. some tasty, some a bit stringy Logistics is what sets the plan, the mission, the objective, and the time line.. far more than expected resistance, maybe as much as the weather even .. What profit an Army of rampant panzers escorted by some Mech infantry.. speed thru wood and dale.. if all the gas and bullets, food and shelter follow by horse drawn wagon with the majority of Infantry trudging along by foot.. the slower the longer the wagon train the more likely the Indians will attack and steal your horses .

I imagine most tanks die of starvation in a horse drawn army.. steel can't feed on horse flesh. That's not to say the Allies didn't have logistic problems .. everybody does ... but the matter of degree, matters

It is said the Sherman was built to, designed to, accommodate several rather limiting logistical constraints .. the Germans didn't seem to even take their own bridges and narrow village streets into consideration.

The Germans paid a high price .. mostly in production capacity and consumption of limited resources to make too few tanks to equip the size of Army .. especially if you incorporate the needs of force protection as well as offensive efforts .. it took the winning concentration of force at the battle and replaced it with small autonomous battle groups playing fireman.. due to too few tanks .. not every time, but all too often. They paid a high price .. but in the end, they got what they wanted, at the cost of having what they needed.

The simple fact that so many German tanks were found intact, but out of fuel , or down in a ditch sitting atop a broken Bridge.. or sitting on the bank, waiting for a barge that never came.. 20 or 30 tanks knocked out by a long burst of 50 cal into the Steam Engine.. makes the point that while the Germans didn't have enough tanks .. they still had more than they could support. I blame it on the B-24's. ( so does Panzer Lehr )

I have always found it odd and somewhat poetic .. about 10 weeks Invasion of France April 1940 to the French Surrender and D-Day to Falaise about 10 weeks give take a long weekend ...

edit re reading this post this morning, I realized I left out the info on horses in the German Army DUH!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horses_in_World_War_II#Germany