Myths of American Armor. TankFest Northwest 2015

[Dogbert1953]

 

I found these very interesting.

 

Mike.

[Jaws2002]

This guy is well known "sherman won the war" propagandist. I know this video since it was released, few years ago and i laugh now, like i laughed then.

 

I'm not saying the Sherman was a bad tank.  When it was introduced it was one of the the best all arounders in the world.

But trying to cherrypick battles and data, to tell people it outclassed the German tanks, in late 1944 and 1945, on the western front is a pretty hard BS to support. 

  Virtually all the veteran tankers that fought in the Serman or against it, considered it inferior to the German tanks...

 

I'm not saying it didn't have good things going for it. I'm just saying that it's shortcomings in protection and firepower, when compared to the opposition, can't be completely brushed aside, like this guy is trying to do.

 

 

 

  

 

Edited February 19, 2019 by Jaws2002

[Legioneod]

The Sherman was on par if not better than the majority of tanks it fought against (panzer IV, Stug, etc.) Against a Tiger or Panther it was inferior of course but so was nearly every other allied tank in the war. Statistics show that the Sherman was one of, if not the safest tank of the war when it comes to crew survivability.

 

As far as the gun I agree it was a problem for quite a while during the war, 76mm helped with this problem and HVAP though very rare improved the performance considerably.

 

Armor protection was no worse than other medium tanks if the period and when angled the 88 (and 75) had a very hard time penetrating the front glacis.

 

As for being the best tank of the war well that all depends on how you classify it.

Panthers and Tigers may have been better overall in actual armor/firepower but they made no difference to the war effort.

[Jaws2002]

43 minutes ago, Legioneod said:

Panthers and Tigers may have been better overall in actual armor/firepower but they made no difference to the war effort.

 

They did make a difference, and there were  also tank destroyers made with that kind of firepower, but they could have never offset the sheer production capacity of the first three world powers.

 The Germans fought the three strongest empires, in the same time, so no wonder weapon could have saved them, but some of the things the Germans produced were clearly better than their adversaries. 

Edited February 19, 2019 by Jaws2002

[LukeFF]

"Better" is highly subjective, when the transmissions of your tanks spontaneously catch fire on the battlefield, require special railcars for transport, cannot keep up on road marches, and are built with increasingly brittle steel. 

[Dogbert1953]

Good discussion boys, i have no axe to grind either way.

 

I watched both videos and found them interesting.

 

The only reason for posting the links.

 

Mike.

[Jaws2002]

The second one is quite a good insight in the military procurement back in ww2. 

[Legioneod]

5 hours ago, LukeFF said:

"Better" is highly subjective, when the transmissions of your tanks spontaneously catch fire on the battlefield, require special railcars for transport, cannot keep up on road marches, and are built with increasingly brittle steel. 

Like I said it all depends on how you classify "better" on paper the Panther and Tiger were better sure, but in the grand scheme of things they were insignificant and their quality deteriorated as war progressed.

 

Overall the Sherman was one of the best tanks of the war despite it's deficiencies.

 

There's alot more to being better than just armor and firepower.

[Jaws2002]

20 hours ago, LukeFF said:

"Better" is highly subjective, when the transmissions of your tanks spontaneously catch fire on the battlefield, require special railcars for transport, cannot keep up on road marches, and are built with increasingly brittle steel. 

 

 

 The tiger 1 was ok for what it was designed, the tiger 2 was obviously way too heavy, the panther, while it had issues early on, it became as reliable as anything out there by the end of the war. And the brittle metal was not a design fault. They just built them with what they had. I think they did amazing with the severe lack of raw material in Germany.

  US, Britain and USSR had vast empires to cherry pick the best raw materials.

You can't blame the designers for that. 

[=362nd_FS=Hiromachi]

31 minutes ago, Jaws2002 said:

They just built them with what they had. I think they did amazing with the severe lack of raw material in Germany.

3rd Reich up until mid 1944 had at its disposal resources from almost an entire Europe. And its production capacity. 

 

32 minutes ago, Jaws2002 said:

US, Britain and USSR had vast empires to cherry pick the best raw materials.

Yeah, especially Britain and USSR ... desperately seeking U.S. help past 1942.

 

34 minutes ago, Jaws2002 said:

You can't blame the designers for that. 

Yes you can. For designing vehicles their country had no resources for and their industry had no means to produce in sufficient quantity.