Until August 1944, the Panzerkampfwagen VI "Tiger", could achieve more than 500 kills of enemy tanks on the western front, despite being only deployed in small detachments. What was the biggest flaw of the Sherman tank in WW2?
>>65484058Lack of 76 guns
>>65484058>500 killsnow control for being on the defence vs attacking: antitank guns and tanks of all types, all sides, recorded 3:1 or even 4:1 KDRs when they were on the defensive
>>65484058That you weren't around to get killed by one.
>>65484058Frontal armor was on the weak side. They made a variant that addressed this though.
>>65484058IIRC Dmitri Loza's main complaint of the Sherman was the higher center of gravity, although he also noted that this inadvertantly saved his life once: his tank tipped over on rough ground, and while it was disabled the others proceeded to drive straight into a German ambush
>>65484210With the slope, that frontal armor was the equivalent thickness of a Tiger I's 100mm frontal hull armor. And is equivalent thicker than the 80mm front hull armor of the later Pz.IV variants as well.
>>65484230British tank crews who had crewed both Shermans and Cromwells said the Cromwell's lower profile and higher acceleration allowed them to dash from cover to cover in France, whereas the Sherman was more likely to be hit by German antitank guns
German heavy tank battalions were transported constantly to and from the most severe sectors of the lines, that's how German units often attained such high kill streaks, whereas the western allies didn't intentionally wear out the same units repeatedly the way the Germans did. Same applied to their fighter pilots
>>65484241Yes, but they were facing guns capable of penetrating more armor. The sherman would have been amazing facing cromwells and T-34s but it wasn't.
>>65484390Korea had a mishmash of Late-WW2/Early Cold War West-vs-USSR matchups; were there any recorded tussles between Shermans and T-34s? If so, who came out on top?>inb4 just ask slopGPTI trust the autism of a /k/ user far far more than some LLM
>>65484058Ironically the very thing the Sherman was made for: the 75mm short gun. Up-gunned post-war, Shermans were routinely splitting T-55s apart like they were from the 30s instead of the better part of 20 years more advanced.
>>65484397Shermans in Korea fucking destroyed T-34s. Obviously crew training matters, but objectively speaking the T-34 was a pile of shit up against any peer tank.
>>65484416>>65484411Thank you. Also, checked
>>65484416According to Halberstam in "The coldest Winter", American tank crews in Korea absolutely sucked. They got the worst of the interwar period, there's a reason America performed so terribly in the first years.
>>65484058> What was the biggest flaw of the Sherman tank in WW2?That it had to be shipped across an ocean.
>>65484058>What was the biggest flaw of the Sherman tank in WW2?I heard that the U.S. Ordnance Department was aware of the Sherman being a 'Tommy Cooker', and attempted to implement various measures to address this issue. The design team was led by Sheldon Rosenstein, a convicted child-beater, arsonist, and avid necrophiliac. Sheldon was reportedly pen-pals with Shiro Ishii, and Oskar Dirlewanger. When questioned about these letters outgoing to hostile countries, Sheldon replied that he was merely exchanging 'tips and tricks'. Sheldon's team designed a mechanism that would lock the crew hatches shut, thus trapping the crew, when smoke was detected inside the sherman after being penetrated and set alight. Not only that, but apparently there was also a following feature that was a re-take on the Brazen Bull. When the crew was burning to death, their screams would be amplified by speakers that projected outside the tank. The U.S. Ordnance Department justified these features by proclaiming that the Germans would be frightened by the hellish screams of the sherman crews being incinerated, and allied soldiers would be more motivated to fight hard, lest the same fate befall them. Sheldon also later devised a system that had a 1 in 59 chance of setting off an explosive charge in the ammunition storage every time the Sherman's engine was turned on. Supposedly, this was to 'test the crew's luck before battle'. This innovation was well-received by the U.S. Army, but was rejected for budgetary reasons. Upon receiving news of the Army's rejection, Sheldon bludgeoned his manservant to death with a fire iron in a fit of unstoppable rage. Years after the war, Sheldon tragically died in a fire, which he had started in a New York orphanage.
>>65484058when they upgraded the gun they did not upgrade the magnification for the optics to match the effective range of the new gun and ammoit's very talland it did not have armor to match german anti tank weaponsstill by far the best tank of the war
>>65485115sadists who don't have the balls to confront their parents are the most destructive people on the planetmarx was one such individual
>>65484058>What was the biggest flaw of the Sherman tank in WW2?Nothing, it was perfect for what it was designed for, easy to produce, easy to learn, easy to maintain and replace....it's the perfect zerg rush vehicle, just like the T34, except the T34 had somewhat better armor.it was not designed to fight duels with Tigers and Panthers head on...
>>65484058>more than 500 kills of enemy tankswhere are the bomes
>>65485115sensible_chuckle.gif
>>65486197>T-34 had somewhat better armorOn paper...In practice, the chances of a T-34 actually living up to its specifications was akin to betting on horse races. The early model T-34-76s generally had better quality control, but were stuck with their underpowered punt guns, while the T-34-85 was practically trading protection for firepower since those welds would not hold up to repeat fire.
>>65485115>This innovation was well-received by the U.S. Army, but was rejected for budgetary reasons.Funniest line in the whole thing
>>65487210I remember reading in a museum that a incredible number of t-34 didn't even manage basic operation. Contaminated lines and machines. Tolerances made while 7 glasses into the second bottles of the shift. So many had bending and hammer traces and bad Welds causing leaks and splits and a kinds of failures. And getting replacement parts from a different factory ment they would not fit. On paper it was Great though
>>65484058The biggest flaw for the Sherman and the biggest benefit for everything else is that we have 2 fuckhuge oceans as our borders. When you have to load everything on a boat or plane, it sucks, takes more time, and makes everything logistically dumber. Now dont get me wrong, the US military in WWII was the pinnacle of human logistics and I dont think anything will ever top it sadly. But our takes were good, very good even. We had good supplies and our guys could repair lots in the field. But its always gonna be easier to send a metric fucking shitload of planes anywhere instead of tanks.
>>65484390It should have been. Truman was just too much of a pussy to avoid the Cold War.
>>65484058>Until August 1944, the Panzerkampfwagen VI "Tiger"Tigers are not in any way comparable to a Sherman, comparing kill counts between the two is like comparing an IS-2 against a PzKpfw 3
>>65487418This. (and mostly >>65486188 this, checked) Also to OP's skewed ill-considered premise, the Sherman was a successful design. I'm not trying to get into the M4-booster or typical Sherman arguments here, but quantity has a quality all its own. Yes as a combat tank there were technical - design issues with its armor (especially after 1942 when Germany upgunned its AT weapons and AFV main armaments) and also the internal fires, ammunition stow problems. But aside from that, and the various armament installations that were sequentially tried/upgraded it was a good effective battle tank 1-on-1, head to head against most of what Germany had, except for the heaviest Tigers. Germany's problem not just in tanks, but in the entire Europe - Eastern front war by 1943 was sheer logistics: they'd bit off more than they could chew. And all German armor and Wehrmacht itself was simply getting outnumbered. The Sherman design had probably the best WWII tank crew ergonomics and efficient, comfortable interior operating space for troop morale and battle effectiveness, that's a big deal for armor soldiers (no matter what its various technical or engineering shortcoming may have been). The tank's physical profile was slightly tall, so you could hold that against the M4. Also the various engines and automotive drive installations (perhaps ? the best or most optimal would have been the late war HVSS with diesel powerplant, but all the U.S. tanks besides Sherman were being shoved out to the battlefront with whatever engine was available for mass production at the moment)Sherman was produced in vast overwhelming numbers no matter the engineering/armament/armor configuration and that's why the Allies won in Europe.
>>65485115>a jew being pen pals with the most notorious SS officer to exist >for the sole purpose of burning people aliveMost realistic thing.
>>65487418Tigers are comparable to the T-54 though, and those matched more evenly with the M4 in spite of being a decade more advanced.
>>65487601Two things:The bulk of Shermans still in use by then had been upgunned to either the 76mm or various French guns like their 90 and 105mm models. Only South America was running Shermans stock after the 50s. The T-54s had some downright regressive features like lacking a turret basket, on top of a poorly-conceived ammo storage system which slowed their fire rate down unnecessarily. The main thing they offered versus the tanks that came before them was finally-consistent quality control so you could be certain they wouldn't break down because you hammered the steering funny. That's ignoring the fact M4s were piloted by seasoned crews while the T-54 became the tank of choice for the USSR to hand to its untrained client states who prescribed them to people who could barely drive a car after the Hungarian Revolution exposed it to be vulnerable to certain combinations of common household amenities.
>>65484411Yeah, the 75mm gun would have been amazing if the damn thing actually came out on time, but the delays in getting the Sherman up to mass production (which resulted in the Lee) meant that by the time it hit the field it had gone from being considered a big gun to being very much average. At least the design was modular enough that swapping the gun out for something heftier was a reasonably simple process.It also still did just fine at infantry support, which was its main job anyhow. Remember that the bulk of the German armour in the Normandy campaign were going up against the British, who conveniently happened to have superior AT capability.
>>65488522Oh yeah, a reminder that the Germans were OH SO POWERFUL that the Allies consider it an utter failure that it took them nearly two months to break their defense (and essentially win the war) kek.Maybe the Germans shouldn't focus on hunting Shermans with their stationary fortresses, idk
>>65486197>>65487210>>65487266checked, the T-34 diesel engine was ok but as noted the later production QC and materials of the tank manufacture were bad to abysmalYes on paper it was a great design for its time. Its interior space ergonomics were not good compared to the Sherman. In the final analysis of World War II anyway it's the next step down from the M4 Sherman's 'quantity has a quality all its own'... supposedly Soviet units preferred the Lend-Lease Sherman to T-34s if they were issued.
>>65484058There was no central flaw of the Sherman because there was no Sherman. There were ~40 different significant variations of Shermans over the course of the war. It was a good enough platform. Worst thing you could say is it was too tall but that wasn't always a disadvantage nor was it as big of a disadvantage as it was made out to be. Neither German nor Soviet tanks were the ubertanks that various WWII aficionados argue they were. >>65484397>>65484505The main tank v tank in Korea was Shermans v T-34s. Initial phase of the war saw T-34/85s fuck up some of the older Shermans they had in Korea but later on easy 8s absolutely wrecked them to the point where late-war they were doing indirect fires with them like the Russians did with their T-54s in Ukraine. Overall armor kill ratio was ~3:1 in favor of UN forces.
>>65490662>there was no Sherman>There were ~40 different significant variations of Shermansgood point as well
>>65484390>The sherman would have been amazing facing cromwells and T-34s but it wasn'tThe sherman was mostly engaging infantry
>>65490662>40 different significant variations of Shermans over the course of the warAnd they were all in different ways inferior to the T-34
>>65493438T-34 was a several-years older design that lacked basic shit like a turret basket and stabilizer, and had a comparatively tiny turret ring which is why it never got any bigger gun than the 85, and that was just when it came out of the factory with the intended build quality. Not even the Soviets thought it was better than the M4.
>>65484058youre comparing two totally different types of tanks that were used in totally different rolls, you retard
>>65493637You literally cannot prove me wrong. You may attempt to dissuade me with facts, but no, I know ALL the facts. Perhaps an emotional appeal? NO. I have mastery over all the senses, I am zen itself. Even on the metaphysical level I'm unequalled. Come at me with the best retort your one-dimensional brain can muster, before the insurmountable wall of irrefutable truth that I have benevolently imparted upon you destroys your very comprehension of reality. Make haste. Already, I can feel your cells degenerating as your vessel slowly morphs into that of a water flea as you transition to the astral plane. Do not fight it, but embrace it.
>>65486724In museums.
Would a Tiger have been a good match against the M51-style Super Shermans?
>>65495649yes
>>65484505>They got the worst of the interwar periodYou wont have that problem ever again.
>>65485115I somehow have doubts as to the verisimillitude of this account.
>>65498364why
>>65493637>tanks that were used in totally different rolls, you retard*roles
