“Overall, armor was rated as good, and front armor especially good. It was also following that famous Rommelian defeat that the vaunted combat vehicle received its first close reexamination. Noted one source, “The Sherman proved far superior to both of these types and-although the enemy was aware of the Sherman before Alamein, and knew the British had some-they completely underestimated the Sherman’s potential, and the results of their poor judgment proved disastrous.”įollowing their victory over the Germans, the ecstatic British claimed that the Sherman was “The best in the world, and it was also they who gave it its name-General Sherman, ala the earlier General Grant-but soon shortened by the Tommy tankers to Sherman alone.
Tank M4A1 the cast hull model, and with both models entering quantity mass production by the early summer of 1942.Īt the epochal Battle of El Alamein against German Field Marshal Erwin Rommel’s famed Afrika Korps, the British 8th Army deployed 400 Shermans and 650 other tanks, versus the enemy’s 200 Mark IV-Fs and 200 Mark IIIs. The Medium Tank M4 was the designated hull version, with the Medium Pilot production on the Sherman tank began in November 1941, just before the US entered World War II, and the very next month the official design was approved. The enemy tanks could be attacked only indirectly…For the rest of the war, the Allied soldiers had to face the terrifying sight of a Panther bearing down on them inexorably, knowing that-except in special circumstances-it would be likely to have its deadly way with them.” I have seen a Jerry gun fire through two buildings, penetrate an M4 tank, and go through another building.’” “’The people who build tanks I don’t think know the power of the Jerry gun. ‘I think we don’t have enough gun,’ he said. Danforth…a gunner with nine months, who had had two tanks shot out from under him. “A tank commander with nine month’s experience added his voice: ‘Jerry armament will knock out an M4 as far as they can see it.’ Then there was Pvt. “’I have,’ wrote Rose, ‘personally observed on a number of occasions the projectiles fired by our 75 and 76 mm guns bouncing off the front plate of Mark V tanks at ranges of about 600 yards.’… The inferiority was outweighed only by better American artillery, air support, and maneuvering, and by better American gunnery. “Maurice Rose, who would take over in August as commander of the experienced 3rd Armored Division, confirmed to Eisenhower that the American M4 and M4A3 tanks were inferior to the Mark V and Panther. “…There was no doubt that, in Normandy-as at Anzio-the Americans were finding that their weapons were inferior…For the Americans, too, however, the most serious headache was the superiority of the Panther… “…Montgomery acted identically when similar unrest began almost simultaneously in the British sector” of the various D-Day beaches in June 1944 “…Sir James Griggs telephoned…to say that he anticipated trouble in the Guards Armored Division regarding ‘the inadequacy of our tanks compared with the Germans.’ Jacob Devers-the American theater commander in Italy-ordered it against correspondent Sulzberger.
“Instead of demanding instant corrective action by the American ordnance authorities, Gen.
Sulzberger of the New York Times had tried to expose the scandal: that the Sherman tank’s armor was inferior to the Tiger tank’s, that its gun was outranged by the guns of the Mark IV special and the Tiger, and that the new German anti-tank gun had twice the velocity of the best American weapon. It had been reported by tank crews on the Anzio beachheads. Stated noted British World War II revisionist author David Irving in his 1981 work The War Between the Generals: Inside the Allied High Command, “The superiority of the Nazi tanks was nothing new to the Allied commanders.
0 kommentar(er)
