Myth buster threads: comments

Some interesting comments gleaned from wiki (Not the best of sources I know, nevertheless...):

The article here seems to indicate that the problems affected early machines, and that later machines were either field remedied fairly easily or solved on the production line, not that the problem was necessarily endemic to Shermans as a whole. I draw your attention in particular to the bold type (My emphasis). Yet the Sherman as a whole earns the bad reputation, seems unfair somehow...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M4_Sherman

Me too, 29 in April.

 

Sherman did secure his place in the history and from what I know at this point I don,t think that he was so bad like some people say.But like i said before it did have some flaws like every other tank that fought in WW2.

 

Indeed, and to reiterate; I don't think anyone was claiming it was either perfect (no tank was) or even the best of the war, just that the Sherman was nowhere near as poor a tank as popular history suggests.

 

That does not logically follow.

It was a flaw of all tanks that they tended to burn out when their ammunition was hit; the Sherman was the only tank during WW2 which had this problem rectified. In the book by Chamberlain and Ellis it is specified that this problem had no other cause than the thickness of the armour, which was not unique to the Sherman.

 

Yes but for some reason he would start to burn more often than the others and if I am not wrong M3 Lee tanks had simular problem,so it seems that some american tank models had some problem with fire.

 

Do you have a source for that claim?

 

do you think it has anything to do with the opposing guns? By 44 most shermans were being targeted by 88's and the 75 of the panther which performed better against Shermans than the standard Allied 75's performed against the german armour?

But I have to say that I am not convinced of the flamable sherman arguement and have not read any contempary or first hand accounts of it.

FNG

 

Most Shermans were likely targeted by 75mm L/48 guns, since these were the most common in the German AT arsenal. 88mm-armed vehicles were a rarity, especially in the West, and Panther numbers could certainly not compete with Panzer IVs and StuGIIIs combined.

 

For what claim?People who fought and died in those two were the ones who were complaining about them.

Shermans were nicknamed "Ronsons" and M3Lee were know like "Coffin for Seven Brothers" .I wonder why?

 

The whole point of this thread and the Mythbuster threads has been to dispell the myth that these terms were ever applicable to the Sherman in fact. When you're saying that "people called them that" without providing a source for the claim that they did, you're not making a very strong case against the fact that there was nothing about the Sherman that made it more susceptible to internal ammunition fires than any other tank, and in fact later on in the war there was a system installed that made it less vulnerable to this than every other tank (including German ones) in service at the time.

 

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I've said it before and I'll say it again, 'the Sherman was the tank that won the war,' not because it was the best but, so many of them and readily supplied, easy to work on and with the 17pounder, a killer.
British Regimental war diaries always comment when they received a couple of 'Fireflies' as back up to sabre troops.

 

Well how many tank models fought in WWII, why didn,t they complain about fire hazards.We say that Tigers and Panthers would brake a lot, maybe a reason for that was that they were not geting destroyed in every corner.Now there are people who say that people never landed on Moon ,you can find conspiracy in every story but that doesn,t mean that you are right.

 

Re: post subject

And how did Sherman won the war,did Sherman stop Germans at Moscow,Stalingrad or Kursk.

 

to you!

And a Merry Christmas to you ilija!
(what country do you live in?)

 

Re: to you!

It is little to early for (me) Christmas ,but Merry Christmas from my side.I live in Macedonia,crazy old Balkan .

 

post subject

My regiment spent Christmas 45 there, fighting 'rebels'.

 

Re: post subject

So your regiment was in Yugoslavia in 1945,i never knew that there were British soldiers in this region(Macedonian part).

 

post subject

There is a bit of confusion here, my regiment was in Greece in 44 (sorry NOT 45) against the rebels, and I spent Christmas 1946 on the 'Morgan Line' , Jugland as we called it when Mr TITO was in charge!

 

Which was your regiment merlin?


To ilija; Macedonian part? :-? :roll:

 

Yo do know that Yugoslavia was consisted from six republics,one of them is Macedonia.