Greetings.
As one of the more enthusiastic discussions on the web precipitated by my talk, I thought I'd register and drop in.
With regards to the Ronson name: Shortly after the video was uploaded, I was pointed to the 1927 advertisement. I then uploaded an annotation to the video that the "Lights First Time" slogan existed. However, do note that I make distinctions between statements of fact (eg you were far more likely to survive the war as a tanker than as an infantryman) and statements of observation, such as the verbiage used on the video: "Ronson is questioned." Which it is. See, for example,
http://tankandafvnews.com/2015/04/28/from-the-editor-lights-first-every-time/ , which also questions the common thinking even while knowing about the 1927 advert. I know better than to make statements of flat out nature like 'it never happened', as one discovers that on occasion, it did. After all, proving a negative is very difficult.
That Zaloga's book quotes the "Ronson" thing isn't in itself authoritative. I point out in the beginning of the talk that even reputable authors will take things at face value. Case in point: Zaloga's M36 book decries the name "Jackson." In the panel I hosted in 2012, he does it again. See 9:20 into this video.
. Zaloga said it never happened. Everyone on the panel, including myself, agreed with him. Then imagine my surprise a few months later when I came across the document shown, which said M36 was called "General Jackson," which showed us that what we had thought we had known about the naming of American vehicles for six decades, and was to this point unassailable and in published writing was wrong. If you want an example as to how entrenched people are about this sort of thing, go to the Wikipedia "talk" page for the M36 . Even when faced with the scan of the original document, the Wiki people were unwilling to change the article in the face of Zaloga's book. (That said, I do note that a year later, about a month ago, the main page was actually changed). This is far from saying that Zaloga is unreliable, on the contrary, he's one of the best out there. But I haven't seen a document, neither is one cited, from time period in question, which shows 'Ronson' as a commonly used name, at least by the Americans.
The thing about the Tigers meeting US tankers only thrice in Western Europe is Zaloga's research. See this interview with him:
http://tankandafvnews.com/2015/01/27/zaloga_interview/
"So I found three verifiable instances of Tigers encountering, or having skirmishes with US troops in 1944-45. So it was very uncommon. It definitely could have happened, there are certainly lots of gaps in the historical record both on the German side and the US side. I think the idea that the US encountered a lot of Tigers during WW2 is simply due to the tendency of the US troops to call all German tanks Tigers. It’s the same thing on the artillery side. Every time US troops are fired upon, it’s an 88, whether it’s a 75mm Pak 40 anti-tank gun, a real 88, a 105mm field howitzer, they were all called 88’s." The quote itself is a damning indictment of relying on oral recollections too much.
I do note that the focus on the "ronson" thing does seem to have come at the cost of addressing any of the other issues in the talk, be it Sherman's crew survivability or Pershing's development. Which is, in the face of it, far more important than what anyone nicknamed the tank. If the worst you can say is that you disagree with my questioning the validity of the 'ronson' appelation, I think it's safe to say I've achieved my intent of redressing the significant misapprehensions. If you do have issue, such as the question of doctrine, I'll be happy to engage you. I will note, however, that I was forced to condense the talk into only one hour and could not deep dive for the video. Before doing starting such a discussion on doctrine, however, I recommend reading at least FM 18-5 (both the 1942 and 1944 variants) and FM 17-10 (1942) in order to ensure that we're at a common startpoint for the discussion.
