Best Tank in Normandy

Actualy allys does not had any matching weapon for T1 in africa ,same as Russian on eastern front in time when tiger start to produce.

As matther of ronson name for sherman i sow it on more then one place,and explanation for that name.

 

So what? At the risk of repetition I've read and heard about how WWII pilots and groundcrews called the P-47 the "Jug" short for Juggernaut on many occasions, even though this was only applied retrospectively postwar and it wasn't called that at the time.

Just because something is repeated however many times it doesn't make it a fact and as I said on the other thread (Where Ricky requested this discussion take place :roll: ), despite the number of times this has been brought up on here no-one has yet produced a reference to a contemporary source on this, despite this common nickname and the thousands upon thousands of men and women who fought in, alongside, against or worked on the Sherman not one of them appears to have actually committed this widespread nickname to any form of record at the time.

Not one reference has yet been produced to an article, diary entry, letter or broadcast whether official or unofficial, whether from Axis or Allies within the timeframe of Sherman use in WWII.

The only evidence so far is that people have read it in books or seen it on TV so it must be true.

 

No, not very good tank country (ask about the mud), but lots of open spaces without much cover. Which is what counts when your opposition has guns that can kill you from long ranges.

 

Well if these tables are anything to go by then I'd say that the T1's 88 was still very good-


Also, the type of ammo used was important the guns performance. The T1's were being replaced with T2's so there was no need to develop new ammunition the the T1's 88 but the 75mm was becoming the mainstay of the german army so better ammo was being developed for it up until the end of the war.

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/trail/wars_conflict/weapons/field_gun_to_tank_10.shtml


About the author

Richard Holmes is professor of military and security studies at Cranfield University. His books include The Little Field Marshal: Sir John French and Riding the Retreat, and he is general editor of The Oxford Companion to Military History. He enlisted into the Territorial Army in 1965 and rose to the rank of brigadier. He was the first reservist to hold the post of Director of Reserve Forces and Cadets in the Ministry of Defence, until he retired in 2000.

Strong enought ?

 

Well, not really. Note that his military career started 20 years after the war ended so it is impossible that he himself served in Shermans and unlikely that he met any veterans while in service.

Being an eminent professor does not mean that you don't simply regurgitate 'known' facts from time to time . No references means it is not a source we can verify. Also, note that the extract he quotes from an actual veteran's account does not use these phrases.

 

Nope, Richard Holmes is writing after the event and never served during WW2.

He doesn't quote any contempory sources about the nicknames that the Sherman has picked up since the war.

As such all he is doing is copying the myth of the names without any actual evidence supporting their usage during the war.

FNG

 

sinissa (and others) - on a personal note, can I say a heart-felt thanks for all your hard work in trying to prove these nicknames. I am wanting to try to solve the puzzle one way or the other (I think that I have no bias either way as to the outcome!), but as a negative cannot be proved, I want someting really very firm for positive proof.

Ah, and could you please post in the other topic on this subject...

 

Np ricky il do that if i find some stronger proofs.It is hard to get that from "alive WWII sherman crewman, coz as we said it was refered to early sherman models.

 

even reports that can be dated to the war would suffice, the problem is that all these names seem to have arisen after the war and then been circulated in various books citing them as nick names used by the crew at the time, despite reporting no evidence of this.

FNG

 

Tank

The 'ARRSE' web site Forum have an 'Army Myths' thread, perhaps we should start one because the last few posts have little to do with Commandos original question re, the roughest,toughest whatever tank in Normandy, as I've posted before, the tank that won the war was the Sherman in it's many forms.
Unless we're sticking to Commando's question move on to the Ronson thread!!

 

True...

I had a thought - wouldn't intelligence reports be likely to contain such things? For example, The British might have a report stating that the Germans are calling our new tanks 'Tommy Cookers', or that our own troops are calling them 'Ronsons' which is bad for morale, etc etc.

 

I agree with merlin. We should move to the "Ronsons" thread.

 

But hey! We can keep talking about the "Best tank in Normandy", if there is anything more to say.

 

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Why? it's already been decided it was the Tiger(in Normandy) but lets face it, the tank that won was the Sherman, supply, maintanence, just so many of em.

 

Tiger? I personally reckon it's the Panther.

Better gun (I feel the Panthers 75mm was better than the Tigers 88m), better front armour (less than the tiger but sloped for greater affect) and better speed and mobility.

Plus there would have been more Panthers in the area than the Tiger.

FNG

 

But the Panther did have weaker side armour...

Overall I reckon it was the better tank, but it was the Tiger that was feared.

 

A note on casualties. It was found that US tankers where, on the whole, safer in their tanks than outside them. It would appear from the data that more were killed/injured OUTSIDE their tanks than inside them.
Another tank in Normandy showed it burned easily when penetrated - the Panther.

 

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The original question was........which was the biggest, toughest most powerful tank in Normandy, was it British, American or German,? and it has to be the Tiger, which I am sure answers the questions on all three counts!
Oh yes, it was German I think!

 

Merlin needs a 'second' to his motion.
AYE!

The Shermans/Fireflies overwhelmed the best the Germans had. The Tiger had a main-gun that was legendary for long-range accuracy, but my understanding is there were pitifully few of them... compared to the sheer numbers of Shermans/Fireflies they faced.
Superior supply, logistics and numbers tipped the scales, irregardless of the quality of the German armor the Allied forces faced at Normandy. Ultimately, the lowly Sherman and all it's variants whipped the best the Germans had.
In the hedgerow country, I expect the Panzerfaust was a bigger worry and threat to tank-crews than actually meeting a Tiger.

Tim