Myths and facts about M4 Sherman and T-34

Keith, you have The Donald down pat ! I can see him saying just that in WW2. Truly funny! He must have the most limited vocabulary of any presidential candidate ever to have run.

Gaines

 

Optics and vision seemed to be a weak spot of the T-34, at least of the early versions. German veterans stated that T-34s always noticed their enemies late and never hit with the first shots. Something i never heard about the M4.

 

Also a 2 man turret/ slower rate of fire.

Bottom line no perfect tank was ever made in WWII

 

I've also seen other "ergonomic" issues sighted. Lack of a turret basket for one. Does anyone know if the Red Army Shermans had the stabilizers? if they did were they used?

 

I do believe the US strategy from the beginning was that their tank will not be made for one-on-one combat. So no surprise there if one Sherman faced a Tiger.

I think I read that in Leningrad the fastest time to build a T-34 was 24 hrs. Just think how long it took to make a Tiger tank.

 

The T-34 was designed before the war, and it evolved from earlier types like the BT series. Intangibles like crew accommodations had low priority in Russian designs whether or not there was an invasion ongoing at the time.

Although the United States was not under threat of invasion, the Sherman was designed during WWII, and it also inherited some features from its predecessors. All tanks are designed for war. Differences between them reflect the design philosophies of their nations and armies.

Sloped armor was widely used in the 1930s, on tanks like the BTs and Christie's designs, and also on lighter vehicles like armored cars and halftracks. It seems to have been considered an alternative to heavy armor; few of the main battle tanks made much use of it (some had sloped frontal armor). The T-34 seems to have been the first tank of its size to take full advantage of sloped armor.

Did von Reichenau not think the T-34 had come from an assembly line?? In any case his prophecy indeed came true.

 

The T-34 was designed around the US Christie suspension. The Sherman still employed sloped armor though, in the front at least. Too bad we didn't use our own successful design on our tanks. The Sherman looks a lot like a French tank used during the Blitzkrieg in 1940 that fought Germany.

 

The Sherman could still take on and defeat enemy tanks, and the upgrades it received throughout the war made it more formidable against the bigger tanks. We had to transport it across the ocean so we had more to think about in tank design. We didn't have convenience of being right and the front line with factories at the point. Imagine if we did, the tanks we could have rolled out.

 

I'm guessing he was speaking of mass production....

As you said tho, his prophecy came true.

 

Whatever, T34 wasn't a perfect tank but it helped substantially to win a war against the Nazis. That's what counts. The same goes for Sherman - it helped to crush the Nazis. Therefore, Sherman was an extraordinary tank and all crews that served in Shermans were great guys who defeated the Nazis.

 

Lots of stuff covered, except for perhaps one area that is very important but isn't a part of the tank itself: training and doctrine. Until the last year or so of the war German crew training was second to none and better than most. German crews were trained to get the first shot off and get the first hit. This is of primary importance in tank vs tank fighting. Many German successes can be attributed to their training and doctrine rather than their tanks. Early in the war many of the Allied tanks were superior in armor and armament but lost the battles because of German doctrine, training and flexible tactics.

The only thing I'd take exception to is the importance of turret rotation speed. The only time that would be critical would be in a close quarters situation where there was a surprise meeting engagement. As the range of engagement lengthened, turret rotation speed became increasing less important. For most engagements German tanks had quite adequate turret rotation.

 

Oh yes, the other thing not covered was that not all armor was equal. Besides armor thickness and slope you have differences in armor quality and way it was manufactured. Cast armor (early Shermans and many tank turrets) and face hardened armor (early German tanks) were inferior to rolled homogenous flat plate. Has there ever been any decent studies of the relative quality of German, American, Soviet and British armor?

 

If you want relative armor quality studies check out the naval sources. RHA is not always superior to face hardened either.
There are some articles at:
http://www.navweaps.com/index_tech/index_tech.php
in particular you might want to look at:
http://www.navweaps.com/index_nathan/index_nathan.php

 

Thanks for the sites lwd. To be more clear, I should have stated that face hardened armor was good early in the war against the early solid shot. Later, FHA wasn't as good for resisting more sophisticated projectiles.

 

It worked both ways. In a study of 30 M4 versus Panther engagements it was found in 24 of them the Americans fired first.With a total of 155 M4 engaged versus 110 Panthers in those 24 engagements, 7 M4 and 69 Panthers were lost. In the 6 engagements where the Germans fired first, a total of 43 M4 faced 37 Panthers and the result was 14 M4 lost to 3 Panthers.

 

Of course it worked both ways! I suspect that the battles referred to in the study you quote were in late 1944 or early '45; perhaps Arracourt. The figures you quoted illustrate the problems the Germans had with crew quality in latter stages of the war. There simply wasn't enough gas, practice ammo or time to do the training properly. This really showed in these late battles. These figures show that the Germans were deficient in tactics, marksmanship and (probably) leadership. Had good, experienced crews been manning those Panthers the results wouldn't have been so one-sided. No weapon is better than the people manning it!

 

Actually, of the total 98 engagements (only 30 were M4 versus Panther), 54 were 3d AD, 5 from 15-17 August (Fromentel), 9 from 15-22 September (Stolberg), 23 from 20 December 1944-15 January 1945 (Bulge), and 17 from 26 February-6 March 1945 (Roer/Rhine), and 44 were 4th AD, 13 from 19-25 September (Arracourt), 21 from 9 November-6 December (Sarre), and 10 from 22-30 December (Bastogne). So Arracourt was a small part. The thing is of course, the other engagements include many other match-ups - TD's versus Panthers, M4 versus AT Guns/StuG/JgPz/Pz-IV, and so on. And all strongly correlate first-shots with a strong exchange-ratio advantage, regardless of whether attacker or defender, American or German, or combination of weapons systems.

It may be German training was deficient then compared to before, but that is an inference, not a fact. As far as I know, the specialist training for the Panzertruppen didn't really change during the war, other than to adapt to changing tactical realities and weapons systems. It may also be that American tank training was inferior, but I don't see how that is shown by the data? The 3d AD and 4th AD went through similar training, had a similar length of service, and had limited combat experience compared to German divisions.

Overall though, I agree with you that too much attention is paid to esoterica like turret traverse speeds, sighting reticles, fields of vision, and engagement ranges than in the tactical realities of training, morale, cohesion, leadership, and so on.

 

Training may not have changed significantly throughout the war, but experience. At the end of the war, unexperienced crews were put in the newest and best tanks and the old horses stayed in their Mk IVs.
Just to save time, only one crew has to learn how to operate the vehicle.
Maybe to help the young crews to survive their first battles too, i don't know.

 

Again, no that doesn't appear to be what was done as a rule. For example, the first two Panther battalions. Panzer-Abteilung 51. and 52. were created from II./Panzer-Regiment 33. from 9. Panzer Division and the Truppenübungsplatz Grafenwöhr, respectively. Both were comprised of experienced troops as cadre with less experienced fillers.

The regular method for forming new Panther battalions was by consolidating excess personnel in a Panzer regiment at the front into a field service battalion with remaining equipment and sending the excess personnel home to Grafenwöhr and Mailly-en-Camp, for re-equipping with new equipment. Many may not realize that during the Normandy battles over a hundred Panthers cycled through Mailly, where ten battalions were training for commitment with divisions in both the East and West

The creation of the Panzer-Brigaden of late 1944 were unusual in that they were mostly comprised of newly trained recruits with a very small cadre of experienced men. However, the real problem wasn't really individual training, but simple lack of cohesion and unit training. Most were committed almsot immediately after formation and equipment issue. For example, Panzer-Brigade 111. was organized 2 September at Sennelager and was committed to Lorraine on 10 September, then was engaged there from 16-24 September and was almost entirely used up. On 1 October it was disbanded and the remnants incorporated into 11. Panzer-Division.