Apparently the Sherman tank was a good tank

[Beagá]

Well the moment you put a turret I don't think they still are that cheap. How expensive was the Hellcat or Wolverine compared to Sherman, which ended up with bettet cost-efficiency and kill ratios?

Keynes the question was a quite direct one: If Sherman was so good then why bother with TD? And if making 76mm Sherman the standard wouldn't be better choice fron the start.

 

[redflag]

So expert marksmen consider hitting a stationary target a 1 mile away ( 2.2 kilometers) something to brag about but a tiger tank can hit a moving Sherman tank at over a kilometer away with ease? This is the difference between theory and reality.

Edit look around the 1 (stars at 50 seconds) minute mark when the you see just how far a target 1 mile away is. Anyone who thinks that is an easy shot is not being intellectually honest. 400 meters is hard enough in a real world combat situation anything over that is a lucky shot.

 

[Perist]

Well the moment you put a turret I don't think they still are that cheap. How expensive was the Hellcat or Wolverine compared to Sherman, which ended up with bettet cost-efficiency and kill ratios?

Keynes the question was a quite direct one: If Sherman was so good then why bother with TD? And if making 76mm Sherman the standard wouldn't be better choice fron the start.

The only TD better than a 76mm Sherman was the Jackson, and that was simply because it had a 90mm gun. But that doesn't answer your question. The reason that the US continued to build "inferior" tanks is simple: doctrine.

The US army believed that TDs should be used defensively, preferably using ambush tactics. What else do these tank destroyers have in addition to their turrets? They were open. Open turrets give you a much wider field of view, which is invaluable in an ambush. The TDs would setup behind bushes, buildings, berms, bungalows, and any other kind of cover until they spotted advancing German armor. The TDs with their open turrets had a much greater chance of spotting the enemy first and because they fired from cover they could be very difficult to spot. In theory each TD could get a shot or two off on the enemies before getting spotted, and once they were spotted they would retreat and allow the Germans to advance into the next ambush or set the second ambush themselves further behind. This ability to spot first and get five or ten shots from a platoon before the enemy could return fire was devastating if properly implemented, but as the allies were always on the offensive or didn't have TD units this was never the case.

It should be noted that while a 76mm could perform in this role its periscope for every crewman shtick still wasn't as good as an open turret. Also many, many officers felt that TDs were useless because they were never used in their intended role so were infact inferior to even 75mm Shermans. IIRC in one of the Chieftains articles an officer refers to the Wolverine as a seventy thousand dollar foxhole.

 

[LostAlone]

That isn't really an answer. I understand Td had uses (better being in one than on a Stuart I guess) the question is if having 76mm Sherman as standard right from june 1944 would mean TD were pointless and make logistics easier.

With the benefit of hindsight I believe that yes, the tank destroyer idea wasn't an especially good one. That's just my opinion and I'm sure someone will disagree but whichever way you think about it, it's through the lens of the modern world and the MBT philosophy. In WW2 there isn't really an idea of a tank that fills every battlefield role from assault gun to tank destroyer to infantry support. That wouldn't become a dominant idea in tank design for a very long time.

The thing is (again, my opinion) that the upside that the designers believed they had in a tank destroyer didn't really make as much of a difference as they hoped in practice. The added speed was certainly welcome but with much less armor they became less useful in every other role of a tank, particularly supporting infantry in a battlefield full of panzafausts (just FYI, my browser thinks that panzafausts should in fact be spelled 'pantywaist' and that makes me giggle). As we see across Europe, having specific tank-killer formations that are supposed to go forth and kill tanks when they show up leads to tank destroyers never really being where you want them. US tank destroyer doctrine didn't use them well at all, but when you start thinking about it in more depth you start to wonder 'Well, how else could you use them?'

If you put TDs out into the main fighting then they are certainly going to die in larger numbers than true tanks because they lack armor and while they have a real killer gun it's not so much killier even than an original 75mm of 17pdr that it makes up for their weaknesses. There are very few situations where you could reasonably say 'We would won if we'd have TDs instead of Shermans'.

So looking back I certainly think TDs were wasted resources compared to more mainline tanks. But the Allies had a huge range of armored vehicles available to them. If they had all just agreed that they'd only use Shermans then they'd have made much more efficient use of resources too. The existence of other vehicles doesn't reflect on the Sherman itself, it's simply the way that armies at the time worked. It was accepted that there were light tanks and medium tanks and cruisers and tank destroyers and assault guns that all needed a specialized vehicle. And they were wrong. If you have one good, solid tank design you can make it do duty as all of them but they didn't know that. Just like the generals in 1915 thought that artillery barrages would allow their forces to simply walk across no mans land. They were wrong, but that doesn't mean they were stupid. These were all new things that no-one had tried in practice enough to trial different strategies. They just did the best they could with what they had. It was only by having this nightmare of a supply chain that the world learned that it would be better to just have a few core vehicles that can fill every role.

 

[Secret Master]

Well, to be fair in the other direction, German armour wasn't really of a uniform quality either. Tiger probably avoided a lot of that by going out of production though.

For some reason, I find that amusing.

"Great Leader, we have trouble getting the right alloys to make good armor!"

"I will have you flogged if this causes production problems with the Tiger tank."

"Of course not, Great Leader."

"And how many did we produce today?"

"Zero."

"And it better jolly well stay at that level!"

If Sherman was so good, was building turreted tank destroyers a dumb choice?

I think it was in the long run. But I'm of the opinion that if you were already producing 40000 Shermans, you might as well just produce another 20000 of them and not waste time with specialized tank destroyers and the like, even if some parts are shared.

I don't think the US doctrine of tank destroyers makes for good strategy in WWII, although in the post-war anti-tank missile era, there is a place for it (because AFVs with anti-tank missiles are cheaper than tanks with large main guns).

 

[LostAlone]

I think it was in the long run. But I'm of the opinion that if you were already producing 40000 Shermans, you might as well just produce another 20000 of them and not waste time with specialized tank destroyers and the like, even if some parts are shared.

I don't think the US doctrine of tank destroyers makes for good strategy in WWII, although in the post-war anti-tank missile era, there is a place for it (because AFVs with anti-tank missiles are cheaper than tanks with large main guns).

This. Except he said it so much more concisely than I did.

 

[Jorgen_CAB]

Why are we still arguing about the Sherman and their relatively weak canon. The 75mm cannon was perfectly good for what it was suppose to do and it was by evidence very weak against Panther and Tiger tanks... this does not mean they could not get the job done which they could. While supported by other weapon platforms and at the end of the war having better crew and tactics could defeat both Tigers and Panthers with Sherman formations.

The 75mm canon had more ammunition and a better HE round than the 76mm which actually would matter more to the Sherman and the main reason for not up gunning the Sherman was more logistics and not its lethality against tanks.

I also have read somewhere that the average tank on tank combat distance was somewhere between 600-800m from 1944 to 1945 on the western front... although I can sadly not quote a source for it so take that with a grain of salt. At this distance the M4 Sherman 75mm gun was a pretty poor choice for engaging Panthers, Tigers and JagdPzIV tanks.


Also... Most American TD designs was used more as infantry support rather than as tank destroyers which shows in what ammunition they usually carried.

I would also argue that most allied tank crews on the western front worried more about German Stug and JagdPz rather than Panthers and Tigers.

 

[Denkt]

Their is two types of Stug III, one is the assult gun version and the other is the tank destoyer version.

Their is a big difference between turretless tank destoyers such as Stug III and one with a turret such as Hellcat, the turretless tank destoyer is generally much cheaper then a similar tank. Generally a tank destoyer have come to mean a turretless tank.

Stug III was maybe the most effective tank killer of the war if all factors are included.

 

[Mjarr]

If Sherman was so good, was building turreted tank destroyers a dumb choice?

Because there's tons of TDs sitting around before 76 Shermans got around in large numbers and there was still the living assumption of super mechanised metal Panzer death machine going on by the time the idea behind TD doctrine was put into use. Why use old Woodland BDUs when there's new digicamos out there? Maybe because the poor national guard was dumped with old army stocks and they replaced the old stocks of M1941 and M1943 uniforms and some Vietnam vintage with BDUs they got in the last dump and the prior dump prior to that and so on.

Why use P-47s when P-51 just rolled around? Maybe because there were still plenty of units using P-47 before they started converting to 51 and all those aircraft sitting in warehouses are better used than scrapped immediately. Why use Maxims when there's DP\DT around or make a better GMG like our neighbour? I suppose because the sheer number of Maxims in the Soviet and Finnish arsenals which cannot be replaced overnight or the higher ups never saw a reason to do so immediately due the sheer value of it. Why not replace every musket out there with more accurate rifles we've been making for a while? There's shitload of muskets to replace for starters and then again we can make a reasonable point about it being usable general service weapon. Why use molotov cocktails and arguably other obsolete infantry AT in 1945? Maybe because the Soviets had such insane stock on them. Why use RKG-3s and other old Soviet era in modern day Middle-East against [insert whoever is applicable here]? I suppose because they are in decent supply due dumping grounds first from Soviets to other Eastern Blocs to Middle-East and whatnot.

 

[keynes2.0]

You dont have stocks of molotov cocktails. You have undrunk alchohol.

 

[Opanashc]

TD/SPs originally came from the fact, that tank turrets were small, expensive, and could not house big enough/powerful enough guns to destroy enemy tanks/structured at large. Thus, you take a tank chassis, put a good gun on it, and build a casement around it. You can place bigger guns on same chassis. T-34 housed 76-85 mm gun, but TDs based on T-34 could mount up to 122 mm guns.

 

[Chepicoro]

Before the end of 1945 the american tank destroyer units were disbanded... maybe a tank with a capable gun, like the Pershing was better option.

 

[Zinegata]

If Sherman was so good, was building turreted tank destroyers a dumb choice?

Under the context of individual tank destroyer battalion performances, no. The Tank Destroyer battalions earned their keep and actually performed very well.

Under the context of grand strategy and logistics however? Yes, it was a bad choice. By late 1944 the Tank Destroyer battalion was in fact essentially interchangeable with a tank battalion in pretty much all respects.

 

[Zinegata]

Funny some disagreed with my opinion about the German's Tiger, cant really knock them out unless you get behind them. It is possible on the sides, but head on is almost impossible to take out unless you have much bigger gun compare the 88s. You wont find anything like these models and accurate real life datas in HoI IV, HoI IV is going to be almost balance through out the game that is based on how you customize your units through techs.

So don't pick out this or that models because it better than X, its based on many things and many possibilities to carry out the engagements.

You do realize the first Tigers encountered by the British in North Africa were knocked out by 57mm 6 pounder guns frontally, yes?

This fact has been badly obscured because most people claim that Tiger 131 (one of the Tigers knocked out then captured in the engagement) supposedly only suffered a lucky hit to the hatch, but a recent restoration found that large bits of the tank had actually been replaced and that the original damage was more extensive, with at least one crewman (the driver) wounded or killed. All using 57mm guns with non-special AP ammo.

Indeed there is an awful lot of "dog ate my homework" excuse-making when it comes to Tiger tanks that were knocked out. The first ones the Soviets encountered around Leningrad were utterly massacred with 5+ vehicles left rotting in a swamp; yet the Germans decided not to report them as "lost" until one year later.

 

[Mitsugi]

I think it was in the long run. But I'm of the opinion that if you were already producing 40000 Shermans, you might as well just produce another 20000 of them and not waste time with specialized tank destroyers and the like, even if some parts are shared.

Particularly given the R&D required to produce the M10, M18, M36, and all the failed TD programs. I still think that what the US Army really needed was a squad-level light machine gun, but sure, a quicker replacement to the Sherman wouldn't have been a bad idea.

I don't think the US doctrine of tank destroyers makes for good strategy in WWII, although in the post-war anti-tank missile era, there is a place for it (because AFVs with anti-tank missiles are cheaper than tanks with large main guns).

The big change in the 50s is that steel armor was rendered largely obsolete by newer HEAT ammo. At the point where an infantry-portable AT weapon like a Super Bazooka or a Carl Gustav can punch through 250mm-350mm of armor plate (i.e. through the thickest part of the heaviest tanks), steel plate is only good at protecting you from obsolete weapons, small arms, and artillery fragments. And those are, A) from ~1950 and B) can be carried by two guys. A 1950s tank destroyer to do the job imagined in US WW2 doctrine was a 106mm recoilless rifle mounted on a jeep.

 

[Chepicoro]

You do realize the first Tigers encountered by the British in North Africa were knocked out by 57mm 6 pounder guns frontally, yes?

This fact has been badly obscured because most people claim that Tiger 131 (one of the Tigers knocked out then captured in the engagement) supposedly only suffered a lucky hit to the hatch, but a recent restoration found that large bits of the tank had actually been replaced and that the original damage was more extensive, with at least one crewman (the driver) wounded or killed. All using 57mm guns with non-special AP ammo.

You have a source because for that fantastic claim?? in the british study "Tiger: The Tiger Tank a British View" a study made mostly with the Tiger 131, there is nothing about it.

 

[Zinegata]

Particularly given the R&D required to produce the M10, M18, M36, and all the failed TD programs. I still think that what the US Army really needed was a squad-level light machine gun, but sure, a quicker replacement to the Sherman wouldn't have been a bad idea.

The Sherman chassis was capable of mounting 105mm guns. It wasn't really a chassis problem. In fact it's almost totally forgotten but the Pershing was still working out bugs in Korea one whole decade later. The 45-ton tank was simply much more technically demanding than the 30 ton tank.

Also, the M18 is apparently terribly underrated, but in practice was an extremely good tank killer because of various other features (excellent turret turning + sights integration) that are perpetually ignored in favor of just looking at its gunpower and armor.

 

[Mitsugi]

The Sherman chassis was capable of mounting 105mm guns. It wasn't really a chassis problem. In fact it's almost totally forgotten but the Pershing was still working out bugs in Korea one whole decade later. The 45-ton tank was simply much more technically demanding than the 30 ton tank.

I agree completely, which is why I said "a replacement for the Sherman", not "Pershing". Particularly given that 500hp was the best plausible engine, a 30-35 ton tank was the way to go. Which also means not having to develop recovery vehicles, military bridges, tank transporters, and landing craft for a 45 ton tank.

All I'm saying is that more could have been achieved on a 30-35 ton budget than the Sherman did. Rear drive would have made for a noticeably smaller tank. The T20E3 and T25E1 show that you could get M4A3E8 performance for a couple of tons less, or add on a 90mm gun for 1.5 tons more. I mean, if I could miracle Ordnance into it, I'd have forced them to drop the bow gunner, but one can't have everything. Maybe produce uparmoring kits + duckbills for the tanks for the independent battalions attached to the infantry divisions and call it a day, or make a M4A3E2-equivalent.

And again, I don't think it should have been priority #1. Demonstrably, the Sherman was good enough. Likewise, it would have been better to replace the .50s in US fighters with 20mm cannon, but it clearly wasn't needed. Where the US Army found itself most lacking AFAICT was in winter gear and a squad LMG. Better boots and trenchfoot discipline would have saved a couple orders of magnitude more casualties than better tanks.

Also, the M18 is apparently terribly underrated, but in practice was an extremely good tank killer because of various other features (excellent turret turning + sights integration) that are perpetually ignored in favor of just looking at its gunpower and armor.

Well, the combat history of the TDs showed that they all did pretty well. But as I understand it, we are agreed that the whole branch was an unnecessary diversion that could have been avoided in favor of a little more anti-tank training for the tankers and earlier adoption of a higher-penetrating weapon on US tanks.

 

[Zinegata]

All I'm saying is that more could have been achieved on a 30-35 ton budget than the Sherman did. Rear drive would have made for a noticeably smaller tank. The T20E3 and T25E1 show that you could get M4A3E8 performance for a couple of tons less, or add on a 90mm gun for 1.5 tons more. I mean, if I could miracle Ordnance into it, I'd have forced them to drop the bow gunner, but one can't have everything. Maybe produce uparmoring kits + duckbills for the tanks for the independent battalions attached to the infantry divisions and call it a day, or make a M4A3E2-equivalent.

Well, as Chieftain's video showed there was in fact a couple of 30 ton Sherman "replacements" that were explored. The M7 even had a factory built for it. But most turned out to have problems and adding a big gun always made the turret too cramped.

Well, the combat history of the TDs showed that they all did pretty well. But as I understand it, we are agreed that the whole branch was an unnecessary diversion that could have been avoided in favor of a little more anti-tank training for the tankers and earlier adoption of a higher-penetrating weapon on US tanks.

More anti-tank training would have probably helped - a big problem in Normandy is so many tankers were going into action for the first time on the US Army and British side - but the TDs themselves had a number of good and oft-ignored features that made them much better at anti-tank warfare than the normal tanks; that keeps getting ignored because people are too focused on the gun and armor.

 

[keynes2.0]

I agree completely, which is why I said "a replacement for the Sherman", not "Pershing". Particularly given that 500hp was the best plausible engine, a 30-35 ton tank was the way to go. Which also means not having to develop recovery vehicles, military bridges, tank transporters, and landing craft for a 45 ton tank.

All I'm saying is that more could have been achieved on a 30-35 ton budget than the Sherman did. Rear drive would have made for a noticeably smaller tank. The T20E3 and T25E1 show that you could get M4A3E8 performance for a couple of tons less, or add on a 90mm gun for 1.5 tons more. I mean, if I could miracle Ordnance into it, I'd have forced them to drop the bow gunner, but one can't have everything. Maybe produce uparmoring kits + duckbills for the tanks for the independent battalions attached to the infantry divisions and call it a day, or make a M4A3E2-equivalent.

And again, I don't think it should have been priority #1. Demonstrably, the Sherman was good enough. Likewise, it would have been better to replace the .50s in US fighters with 20mm cannon, but it clearly wasn't needed. Where the US Army found itself most lacking AFAICT was in winter gear and a squad LMG. Better boots and trenchfoot discipline would have saved a couple orders of magnitude more casualties than better tanks.

Well, the combat history of the TDs showed that they all did pretty well. But as I understand it, we are agreed that the whole branch was an unnecessary diversion that could have been avoided in favor of a little more anti-tank training for the tankers and earlier adoption of a higher-penetrating weapon on US tanks.

So you slap a couple extra tons of armor on a tank. How much good is that going to do? The Sherman already offered really good protection. You start messing around with a well designed machine and who knows what you are actually going to get.

The US lost 100k GIs in Europe and lost 1k tankers. If you think that slapping another 10mm of armor on a tank or giving it more anti-tank capability is a priority you have it backwards. You need a more formidable platform up to a certain point and the M4 is a pretty good assessment of where that point lay. I'd even say the M4(76) was slight overkill. The M4E2 was a specialized vehicle with severe limitations (overloading the suspension basically) that was customized for a specific role (leading road convoys and assaulting stationary fortifications) and in no way appropriate as a general vehicle. The question needs to be what do the GIs need. The GIs need a tank that can traverse terrain. They need a tank that will spot it's target (not necessarily a tank) and start shooting quickly so the guys outside the tank aren't taking fire. And the GIs absolutely need a tank that will make it onto the battlefield.

This talk about slap on some more armor, give it a bigger gun then up the horsepower to compensate is exactly what led to the Panther being such a dud on the battlefield. Sure it looks great on paper! But the tank that existed on paper never existed. The Sherman on the other hand was the same tank in real life as it was on paper. It actually went cross country like it was supposed to. Trained gunners could find and attack targets as was envisioned. You start messing with that design and hey maybe you save a few dozen tankers but you kill a few hundred GIs or more who are left without the tank support that could have protected them. Or maybe you mangle the design by fixing what isn't broken and you kill more tankers and more GIs.