Yeah, it's always amazed me that we lost so many on DDay....they should've just floated across to the beach.

I bet it was pretty pricey back then too.

Oscar Mike Gulf

King Tigers were at the bulge. Tigers were a waste of some serious resources.

492 tigers produced, 50,000 sherman

You are correct about air power, and weather. 150 tanks in that battle according to wiki, so wouldn't that have settled which tank was better?

Thats not how it works.

Try riding along with a friend in the passenger seat of a car, cover one eye and look through a rifle scope at 3x.

The gunner had a narrow field of view.  It was the TC who was expected to keep his head out of the hatch and see the target and help the gunner slew the turret.  With SP guns he had the driver slew the vehicle on.

A good tank commander back then used binoculars, but you cant see much through them when tooling around over broken ground at 20mph.

So you have to bound, as moving tanks back then were pretty much blind.

You misunderstood the post.

The Navy was concerned landing craft would get hit enroute, so DDs prevented a catastrophich hit to an LCT enroute to the beach.

The 741st tank battalion droppedtheir tanks in the water and they sank.

The 743rd orderedthe landing craft in, and got there just fine, and put the tanks ashore normally.  The landing craft were more survivable then anticipated. However after the 743rd landed they too 50-70% losses in teh tank companies.

The Brits used funnies and AVRE tanks, based on teh churchill, with heavy front armor., They didnt monkey around with DDs. They offfered some to the US, who declined.

As a side note, one veteran wrote that in 11 months in combat, the 743rd lost 91 tanks, 100K, and 300 WIA.  About 200% losses in tanks and 100% in personnel.

So you’re saying bigger, heavier tanks would have made it to the beach when M4’s couldn’t?

I’ve quite litterally spent my life looking one direction while driving in another, across ‘broken ground’. I never had a spotter or second & third sets of eyes though...

Sorry, was on vacation in Ireland.

Addressing a few different items here...

Interestingly, I have not seen an actual definition for "casualty" as in a line of text saying "When we say casualty, we mean...". However, reading between the lines of the reports, it seems to mean a tank which has taken sufficient damage caused by enemy action (to include mine strikes) to require repair.

I have written a number of articles on the nature of perception, and how folks are usually much more worried about how well anyone can kill them as opposed to how easily they can kill anyone else. After all, you don't particularly care very much about Heinrich or Hans, but you do care if someone gets a crack at you.
And, yes, I do take the official Army reports as gospel, or at least, as being as accurate as we can get. There was no reason for them to create false internal reporting. For example, if the Surgeon General's report claimed that burn victims were between 3-5% of tank crew casualties (Of which one third or so came from mishandling of gasoline), I must assume that there is some statistical evidence upon which they relied to come to that conclusion. It may or may not be correct, but unless anyone else can come up with better statistics, I must thus assume that 3-5% of US tank crew casualties suffered burns, despite all the "Ronson"/"Tommycooker" etc claims going around.

The Swedish video was posted earlier. What the video does not show is that in the overall final report, it was concluded that the M4 was most likely to get to where it was going fastest in tactical exercises. If there happened to be, for example, a vertical obstacle which the M4 could not cross, they simply found another route. (It is also of note that the tests were conducted with narrow-track VVSS M4s).

Not a definitive example, as the 75 would have done just as well. The 90mm punched through the side armor, which wouldn't stop a 75mm either. (Not saying that the 90mm wasn't a better AT gun in most respects, just saying it's not a good example)

It was the position of Ordnance and AGF that if you put sufficient armor onto the front of an M4 to make a practicable difference against things coming at you (i.e, not just add X-more mm of steel, but add sufficient to prevent penetration by a 7.5/70 or whatever) that you would destroy enough of the tank's other advantages so as to make it not worthwhile. This is why only 250 E2 assault tanks were made. Much like Tiger, it was intended as a specific tool for a specific task, not as a general purpose tank.

I guess I'll have to point out that this statement has no basis in fact? The US Army's M4 production line had converted entirely to 76mm tanks by six months before D-Day. The 90mm tank (M26) was not yet acceptable for service. Ordnance made a major error in presuming that the 76mm was suited to task (that deficiency -should- have been well known, but apparently was not), and in not creating the HVAP round sooner than it did.

I have addressed this in a number of my articles. If (and it's a significant if) McNair delayed the deployment of the M26 tank, it was by some 6 weeks., not a major amount of time in the big scheme of things.  If you can track down Charles' Bailey's book "Faint Praise" (He was the Armor Branch historian in the 1980s), he comes to a similar conclusion on the lack of any delaying by McNair. As an aside, much is made of the  fact that McNair was an artillery officer. It is to be observed that Devers was one too, but few people seem to hold that against him.

Why does this myth still persist? Of course it was intended for tank-on-tank combat. It's the reason the 75mm gun was put on M3 in the first place, the evidence from France was that the 37mm gun on the M2 was quite simply not going to cut it. That it was a pretty handy HE gun also helped dramatically. For a tank which entered combat in 1942, its gun was as good at killing tanks as pretty much any other tank gun at the time.

There's a bit more to it than that. An assessment of British casualties indicated that of 85 knocked out British tanks where they knew what the tank was doing at the time, only 3 of them were actively trying to engage whatever it was that killed them. Frontal duels just didn't happen much. A tank was ten times more likely to be killed before it knew it was under attack than after it knew. Presuming that similar issues apply for other armies, it explains rather well how the Allies were managing to knock out German tanks. One sherman knocked out five Panthers with six shots. I see no way it could have done that had it not conducted an excellent ambush without being spotted. (Fortunately, the M4 has good ambushing sights in the roof of the turret, that stabiliser to get the first shot off quickly, and excellent ergonomics for rapid reload). The other minor detail is that though the average range of engagement is often quoted as being in excess of 700m, the -typical- range is under 350m. (One or two odd cases, including a single instance at 2,000m manages to skew the averages a bit). See https://worldoftanks.com/en/news/chieftain/The_Chieftains_Hatch_Range_Maths/ and https://worldoftanks.com/en/news/chieftain/The_Chieftains_Hatch_Turret_Maths/ ,

I'm a little disappointed it too 13 pages to get that link onto this thread. He succinctly puts more food for thought on the table than just the 'tanker-level' one we often talk about.

I bring up some related items in this video. The one in the OP covers the 'effect at the pointy end', this one covers 'design decisions'


I've always thought that to be a silly argument. It's what the Germans did routinely in North Africa against the British, I wouldn't be surprised if Armored Force were paying attention. I am unaware of any doctrine anywhere which says "If you are faced with something with more firepower and protection than you, go ahead and attack anyway". I mean, realistically, if a US rifle squad with their BAR came up against a dug-in German squad with their MG-42, would they ordinarily attack, or would they fall back and ask for a bit of help dealing with the problem? Fortunately for the US rifle squad, because there were all those M4s rolling around with good reliability and operational mobility, they were quite likely to get a bit of tank support, more so than their German opposition.

Interestingly, nobody wanted M36. Not even Tank Destroyer Branch, which felt that there was no demonstrated need for the vehicle, and that the 90mm was too heavy and thus M36 (Back then, T71) was too slow. However, like many other pieces of equipment, to include the T26 tank, development was allowed to proceed so that it could be placed into production in the future if it turned out to be necessary or if someone changed their mind. Considering the expense to be incurred in the speculative development of a vehicle, it further begs the question of just why it was that HVAP was not developed ahead of the requests, even when the stated policy of Ordnance was that higher velocity would be the intended solution to a need for greater armor penetration. On a related note, there was some debate as towards putting 90mm guns onto M18s. The conclusion was that the M18 with the 76mm seemed to be doing fine enough as it was, and there seemed little benefit to taking them out of deployment to upgrade the gun.

There are two points I'd like to make in addition.
1) I mention this I think in the video I link above, but I have certainly mentioned it elsewhere. Each military builds their equipment to fit specific requirements ranging from doctrinal to logistic. Since few nations have identical logistical, training, personnel, resource, doctrinal requirements, what is 'best tank' for one country is not necessarily going to be 'best tank' for another. It is the height of foolishness to play 'top trumps' with pieces of equipment and divorce it from all the other factors going around. If you're going to say that the "US Tank M4 isn't as good a tank as the Panther", the immediate question is "by what criteria?". The M4 met, in very large part, pretty much all the US criteria, certainly pretty much better than any other tank the US could have produced (witness the various T2x series disasters)
2) Someone above made reference to the series of design compromises. Normally, this tends to be incorporated into the Holy Trinity (Armor, firepower, mobility), but can also include reliability, transportability, ease of manufacture, ease of use, and so on. I mean, if the Army is going down to discussing just how many flatcars on the US railway system can handle an M26 tank, there's obviously a lot more to the matter than we usually will consider.

@Manic_Moran Very nice reply. Thank you for taking the time to do all that. Much appreciated

Now that Manic_Moran has posted, I wonder what his thoughts are on the Sherman's possible advantages over it's competitors that just made it a good general purpose tank.  It seems to have had a decent layout that would aid in the ability of the TC to control the crew (is "crew unity" a term?).  They all had comms capability to talk to each other through the IC system.  A fairly quick turret traverse capability.  A stabilizer, that while not up to modern standards, did appear to allow the gunner to lay onto targets quicker than other tanks.   He has sat in a lot of tanks and has real world experience in fighting from the Abrams.

On the subject of up gunning the Sherman, it appears that they experimented with mounting the T-26 turret on the Sherman as they shared the same turret ring diameter.  The development was stopped as it caused concern that it would slow the deployment of the T-26 down.  It's interesting that in some applications they crammed bigger guns in the Sherman's turret as an answer to up gunning the tank (like the British Firefly) when they could have put a purposely designed gun and turret combination onto a Sherman hull and at least had the known performance of the drivetrain and lower systems with a new turret and gun design.

The bottom line with the idea of putting the T26 turret onto the M4 hull was that it wasn't considered to be any faster than just building proper T26s.  The bottleneck (Per Ordnance, during a discussion in May of 1944) was the production of 90mm tubes. It was also considered that the reduction in mobility caused by the extra weight of the larger turret and gun was unacceptable in a medium tank.

Another major concern was the ammunition capacity. ETO didn't want anything less than 70 rounds of ammunition in a tank, and they similarly refused to give up the bow gunner such as the British did to get 77 rounds into Firefly. This meant that a number of design compromises needed to be made to the T26 to get the capacity up to the required: The original design of T26E1 only had 42 rounds, and "all other matters had to be subordinated" (including some crew ergonomics) in order for the T26E3 to get the 71 it did. Ordnance claimed it was possible to fit some 70 rounds of 90mm into an M4 with a 90mm gun, but one must wonder what it would cost in capability in order to manage it.

The idea of taking a proven hull and slapping a new turret onto it for increased combat capability is certainly not unique. Witness the creation of the M47 tank, given that they really wanted to get a better turret onto the field, but the T42's hull and power train just wasn't ready for prime-time yet, so they just basically slapped the T42 turret onto the M46 hull. Something similar happened with Tiger I, with the turrets being built, and then having to be modified to fit onto a working hull when Porsche's didn't get out of the starting gate on time.

Mainly, they didn't try to do anything fancy. They had a reliable, easy-to-produce, easy-to-maintain vehicle which meant that if the Army needed a tank somewhere, the chances were, they could have a tank there. They gave a lot of thought to ergonomics, making it a very easy vehicle to operate effectively, and, although I don't know how much of a design feature it was, it proved fairly modular. The original TC's cupola was not ideal, but could easily be replaced by the vision cupola. Instant upgrade without having to re-do the turret roof. Changing bogie types was easy. Sure, it was a bit bigger than it really needed to be courtesy of the requirement to have a prop shaft under the turret basket, but anything 'fancy' which was added such as the stabiliser were very simply modules which didn't affect the fundamental capabilities of the vehicle. American industrial capability in terms of doing things like making good gearboxes or precision turret control equipment merely added to the tank as a 'national bonus'.

If you thought this thread was entertaining you should read some of the battleship Yamato threads.

Thanks for the reply.  In my layman's reading the true mass production standards that the US used to make sure spare parts worked on the correct model of the tank was interesting when you look at the Germans making multiple production changes while tanks were still on the production line.  It appears that spare parts may have been an issue and required much more fitting in the field if the parts were even compatible.

It seems one of the reuccuring critisisms of the Sherman in some material is the narrow width of the track in soft terrain.

As a tanker and historian, if you were assigned to be the TC of Sherman and sent to Europe, is there a different tank you would want to be in if you were put in Italy in 43 or France in 44 and told you would be operating that tank and fighting until the European conflict ended?  I say this as someone who has heard you mention on some of your posts that it's not just fighting in the tank, it's getting the tank there, maintaining it and living with it.

If the 75mm on the M3 was seen as being necessary for AT work, do you have an explanation for why they decided to keep the 37mm gun as well? I always assumed that (at least in the design stage) the 37mm was considered the AT weapon while the 75mm was an HE gun and replaced the sponson machine guns on the M2.

They generally were hitting targets going more or less straight, as they were ambush killers

iirc (from the video he did on the M3, which is worth seeing if only for how damn big the inside is) the 37mm was retained because it was safer to use in close support of friendly infantry. Less HE fragmentation, a good canister round, etc. but not for anti-tank use.

It was probably easy to retain as the M3 is based on an M2 (which had the same 37mm gun) with a 75mm shoved in the side. Considering most of a medium tank's job involves shooting things that machinegun and 37mm fire is sufficient for, it makes a lot of sense to retain it and save the 75mm for when it was needed.

For those saying they trust the vets before reports, this article is relevant.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/09/magazine/grandfather-wwii-kakazu-ridge.html

Vets mis-remember, embellish, or occasionally lie about their experiences, sometimes out of guilt from what they did, or didn't do.

Victor Davis Hansen said it took 10 maintenance hours for ever 1 hour of operation for the Panther. And it was almost a complete reverse for the M4 Sherman. 1 hour of maintenance for 10 hours of operation.

The German tanks were better in a purely 1v1 perspective. But they knew exactly what conditions the tanks would need to fighting in.

But the M4 Sherman had to fight on every corner of the Globe. It was in jungles, deserts, woodland, etc ect. If it was unreliable as a Tiger, Panther or any other heavy tank. It would have been a disaster for the US military in WW2.

According to Barnes' monograph after the war, Ordnance had proposed simply making a turretless tank with only the 75mm. Infantry branch (which was still the controlling arm in 1940) insisted on the retention of the 37mm, but he does not say why. The only reason I can think of is that they were worried about close-in defense for which the 75mm in the hull was not suited, particularly against infantry assault. Of course, another option may well just be institutional inertia: Our previous tank had a turret gun, so this one should as well.

What's interesting is a casual observer like myself reads the information in this thread, reads other source material, then watches the videos that MM has put out (the panel interview he hosted was fascinating) which leads to other good videos (the Tank Museum has great ones) and it is obvious the time a lot of people have spent researching information not just from authors but digging in the archives.  There is a lot of stuff out there thanks to the hard work of a lot of folks digging for it.  MM:  Thanks for giving us a glimpse of that and access to others who have as well.

I find it fascinating that the Germans are looked at as building formable machines on the surface, but for all their big thinking they also were behind in a lot of the capability, capacity, materials or technology to truly execute these designs to their potential.  They lacked the stabilized gun, the ability to cast large components, access to the quantity of alloys needed for armor and so on.

Do you have a citation for that?  I have never heard any claim that 1:10 maintenance is realistic. Never heard of any WWII tank with that relationship.

The logical fallacy is that if the Panther was unreliable as a heavy tank, then heavy tanks are unreliable.  There isnt a linkage.

The Panther, for example, used poor alloys and an unreliable gear system, that failed every 150km, put it behind the front armor, where it was hard to repair, then, due to lack of fuel, used poorly trained drivers that tended to strip the gears.

Some of those issues (lack of gas for training, poor alloys) were far and away independent of any tank design.  None had any linkage to gunnery.  
There are no indications that tanks with heavier armor (Sherman M4A3E2, Churchill Mark VII) or guns (firefly, Sherman M4A3E8) had mobility reliability issues similar to a panther.

Panther was not a heavy tank.

You are incorrect on two significant areas.

In the book, "United States vs German Equipment" commissioned by MG Isaac D. White, CG of 2AD, there were many, many comparisons with German and US tankers.  US tankers did not ask for increased protection, as it was well understood that the armor to protect a US tank against 88mms and 75mm L70 would be prohibitively heavy.

There was a great deal of commentary rrgarding the demoralizing effects of rounds bouncing of German tanks.  US gunners asked for 'souped up' guns, HVAP ammunition, and firepower. They did not ask for protection as they understood in practice they would have a better chance of survival with firepower, not penetration.

Regarding tank vs tank combat, the writings of McNair and Patton in particular, as well as Chaffee, indicated that many senior leaders did not want tanks to primarily fight tanks, but exploit in enemies rear areas.  This was a continuation of the cavalry mission, which was the prewar background of US generals in armor branch.  The gun put in the tank was less of a factor then the guidance and documentation regarding what senior leaders told their troops.

Additionally, one could look at the German advance to the Channel in May 1940, where they did not seek to fight engagements with any French/British armor formations.
You could also look at the training of cavalry officers in the prewar US ARmy to consider how they were trained.  Cavalry could attack and fight other cavalry while exploiting in the enemy rear, and while they were prepared to do so, they did not desire to do so.  Tank v tank attrition did not contribute to any sorts of operational effect that an exploitation was attempting to produce.

If you choose to look at "War as I Knew It," by George S. Patton, on Letter of Instruction #2, 3 April 1944, he explicitly states, in par 4a:

"The primary purpose of armored units is the attacking of enemy infantry and artillery.  The enemy's rear is the happy hunting ground for armor. Use every means to get it there."

A top down examination of what senior army leaders were directing armored divisions to do is both consistent and clear that the primary purpose was not to fight German tanks.

Additionally,

Wat ordnance actually did and said was:

"on 17th December 1943, the General Motors Proving Ground was directed to test an M4A3 with additional loading to a weight of 82,600 lbs (37466 kg). After 500 miles, it was found that “no abnormal failures were encountered. It, therefore, appears feasible to convert a medium tank to an assault tank with a weight of 82,600 lbs."

Adding protection to "prevent protection bu a 7.5/70 or whatever"  is a strawman argument.  As you well know.  The 7/5/70 was probably the second most effective gun on the western front, behind an 88mm L71.  We can concede the point that hat would have been extradinarily heavy, up to seven inches plus, while acknowledging that the overwhelming proportion of German weapons, such as 75/48s, and PAK40s, could be stopped by much less.

The "M3" refers to the 75mm gun, not the M3 Lee/Grant tank

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/75_mm_Gun_M2/M3/M6

This I have no quarrel with, and I never said otherwise. It is also the official position dating back at least as far as 1942, with Devers' rejection of the M6 saying that the bigger gun was not worth the problems of the extra weight of armor which came along with it. Further, the archive documents are very consistent in showing that they perpetually tried to put the best gun they could into a tank, and that the level of armor which could be added on afterwards was a secondary priority.

That said, that tankers in the field still wanted more armor (whether legitimate or otherwise) can be easily demonstrated by the large number of field additions from US and Commonwealth service. (Though now I mention it, I can't recall any field-added armor on Soviet shermans off the top of my head) After all, it doesn't take a higher-velocity cannon to take out a guy with a Panzerfaust or manning a PaK40, which resulted in more kills than enemy heavy armor. Hence the creation of the assault tank to meet that specific need.

I have a number of issues with this line of argument.
Firstly, it conflates an operational level task with a tactical requirement. What you say above is absolutely true for basically every major power of the war, exception of France (And, in practice, Japan, regardless of what Japanese doctrine officially said on the matter). Yet if you look at what the British or German medium tanks were equipped with, you will note that they found it more important to put an anti-tank gun on their tanks than a HE-chucker. The British didn't even have HE for their tanks for the first couple of years. Whatever the operational requirement is, as you are doing the marauding around the enemy's rear areas, you have the possibility of encountering something such as a tank. No nation, and this includes the US, was so stupid as to consider that it would be possible to entirely avoid enemy armor. There were certainly arguments over just what percentage of tanks should be equipped with a tank-killing gun to the detriment of high explosive, and they varied from "Divisions of nothing but 76mm guns with a few 105s" to "One 76mm per five 75s". However, given that ASF and AGF concluded that production should be only 76mm, and implemented that conclusion, I think we can see where the end result of that line of thinking was headed, eventually limited by production caps.
Secondly, whatever the primary purpose of an armored division, there are secondary purposes for which it is considered suitable. As quoted earlier in this thread, this secondary purpose includes defending against hostile armored formations. Indeed, even the Tank Destroyer manual (FM 18-5, 1944) observes that an armored division is capable of doing the job without TD assistance.
Thirdly, the focus on the armored division ignores completely the role of the independent tank battalion, which is equipped with exactly the same tank. That unit is intended to be right in the thick of the front line of the battlefield.
It may also be worth observing that the guy in charge of Armored Force, and whose decision it was as to what tank would be in the field in 1944 and who was also the chap in charge of armored doctrine after Chaffee, was not a cavalryman, he was an artilleryman.

You don't think it's a little presumptuous to be telling me what I've read in the Archives?


They did, indeed. and it showed that you could drive an overloaded M4A3 around 500 miles. It's a proof of concept, not saying that there are no liabilities inherent in it. After all, in testing, T28 accumulated 541 miles, though it "took considerable time because of the slow operating speed." But, hey, it was a 100-ton assault tank, speed was less important than the simple ability to get to where it was needed for an assault.

I would direct you to the final report on the M4A3E2 of October 1944, which, I would remind you, had been modified with new gearing ratios in the final drives to better deal with the heavier weight than the M4A3 of December '43.

The performance of the Medium Tank M4A3E2 is satisfactory for reduced-speed infantry support missions except as follows:
1) Emergency operation in reverse where the maximum speed is only 2.9mph.
2) "slick" muddy slopes where poor traction and increased side slippage occurs.
3) Deep mud or soft ground where the ground pressure, including extended end connectors, is excessive.

The "known" overloaded suspension provides satisfactory reliability for limited operation at slow speeds. (The underlining is in the original report, not my emphasis)

It concluded with
The Armored Board recommends  that the Medium Tank, M4A3E2, be considered satisfactory with respect to performance and general combat efficiency for its intended purpose (limited operation at slow speeds for infantry support missions), provided the limitations of overloaded suspension and relatively poor mud operation are recognised

This is before one considers matters such as an extra 25% of fuel consumption over a standard M4A3, slower maximum speed,  17% increase in time on the hill course, and the fact that on the slope test, the power train "exploded" (again, report's quote, not mine) under the strain.

It really is not as simple as saying that just because you can drive an overloaded tank around, you should drive an overloaded tank around routinely.

Go to 59:00 and you will hear a reference to a 3:1 maintenance hour to operating hour for the T23 which is declared "absolutely unacceptable".

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TwIlrAosYiM

Yes, but there's a hell of a difference between "3 hours of maintenance to one hour of operation" and "1 hour of maintenance to ten hours of operation." Acceptable and feasible likely lies somewhere in between. For example, a figure I have off the top of my head for Dracula...


If we arbitrarily assume an average speed of 12mph for the run, that's 1,165 hours of driving for the Shermans (Plus, presumably some idle time) divided by 420, about 1:3 operating/maintenance. The 420 man-hours is of "specialist" man-hours, i.e., the mechanics, not crew maintenance like tensioning track or filling the oil. Presumably a couple of mechanics would work on a tank at once, so "actual" hours vs "Man-hours" would be lower, but there is going to be a good number of crew man-hours missing from the relationship.

I would need to dig into things in order to try to track down anything I may have on overall maintenance hours for the M4.

Another thing to consider - Allied air power bombed out:

A.  A mine in Norway that was the major source for Nazi  supply of molybdenum.
B.  Maybach engine factory.
C. Petroleum production and refining.
D.  Ball bearing production.

The molybdenum shortage was crippling and led directly to the inferior cracking and spalling performance of late German armor.

The Maybach factory limited production of engines and spare parts for Panther and Tiger chassis.

The petroleum shortage curtailed driver training, which exacerbated the driveline failures of the Panther.

ALL German  production was far too dependent upon "frictionless" bearings.

SO take That everyone who says the bombing campaign wasn't worth it ...

Part in blue would be interesting to read.....when you have the time.

I put up the link to the video as I had it running on another screen and your comment came up just as I was reading the post I quoted.   Posted for interesting information only.  I should have clarified that.

The bombing campaign destroyed the Luftwaffe in the air and killed most of the trained pilots that could not be replaced. It may have been an expensive way to do it but it worked.

It also tied up a lot of 88mm guns in air defense instead of anti tank roles.

The US Army did not intend for its tanks to fight enemy tanks as their
primary mission.

The primary doctrinal manual of the US Army in WWII was FM 100-5, “Field Service Regulations.” They
were the base manual of the Army and published in 1941, and 1944. Below is the 1944 version. All
interested are invited to reference the part in capital letters.

link

FM100-5 also referenced tank battalions, but did not delienate between tank battalons in armored divisions, or infantry divisions:

In contrast, consider the mission of the tank destroyer force:

Some people have cited a specific paragraph of FM 17-30 "Armored Force Field Manual, Tank Platoon."

I should point out that that is not THE
declarative doctrinal manual of the Army; FM 100-5 is. Moreover, it is a 170 page manual, and the “tank
vs tank section is one half of one page. That is one third of one percent of the manual for the “tank
platoon” is devoted to tanks fighting tanks.

Having read this manual cover to cover, the majority of discussions with gunner, crew training, and employment are
against empacmenets, bunkers, and AT guns.  It would be charitable to say 5% of teh manual at best disucsses tank vs
tank combat

See for yourself, here:

link

The below passage is from “Seek, Strike, and Destroy: U.S. Army Tank Destroyer Doctrine in
World War II” by Dr. Christopher R. Gabel. Feel free to take a look at the guidance from LTG
McNair, commanding general of Army Ground Forces, which is capitalized.

One of the fundamental assumptions underlying the tank destroyer concept
as it emerged in 1942 was the idea that stopping the tank had become
a special problem that demanded a specialized response above and beyond
general defensive measures. To General McNair, the solution to this problem
was clear:

THE TANK WAS INTRODUCED TO PROTECT AGAINST AUTOMATIC SMALL ARMS FIRE,
WHICH WAS DEVELOPED SO GREATLY DURING AND SINCE THE [FIRST] WORLD WAR.
ITS ANSWER IS FIRE AGAINST WHICH THE TANK DOES NOT PROTECT-THE ANTITANK
GUN. THAT THIS ANSWER FAILED [AGAINST THE GERMANS IN 1940] WAS DUE
PRIMARILY TO THE PITIFULLY INADEQUATE NUMBER AND POWER OF FRENCH AND
BRITISH ANTITANK GUNS, AS WELLAS THEIR INCORRECT ORGANIZATION.
McNair emphatically believed that the antidote to the tank was not one’s
own tanks:
“CERTAINLY IT IS POOR ECONOMY TO USE A $35,000 MEDIUM TANK TO
DESTROY ANOTHER TANK WHEN THE JOB CAN BE DONE BY A GUN COSTING A
FRACTION AS MUCH. THUS THE FRIENDLY ARMORED FORCE IS FREED TO ATTACK A
MORE PROPER TARGET, THE OPPOSING FORCE AS A WHOLE . . . . “
Can’t make it any more clear then that. You can also consider my previous post, with the
guidance from GEN Patton toward the 3rd Army, and see that his guidance was entirely within
Army doctrine.

You could argue that the Sherman was a good exploitation or cavalry tank.  The designers did an excellent job of giving
the Army what they were asked for.  However the army did not ask for a tank capable of fighting other tanks, because
doctrinally they thought that requirement unnecessary.  It was a job for TDs...a cheaper, more asymmertic solution according to
McNair.

Who has said this was their primary mission?

You used a lot of words to argue with ........ your own straw man.

I am not being presumptuous at all.

What you read in the archives was incorrect. If you’d like to cite it, that’s fine.  It’s still incorrect. Refuting it is not hard.

The front glacis plate of a Sherman was 63mm at 47 degrees, and a manlet 91mm thick.

The jumbo, as an example, had an additional 38 mm (1.5 in) plate welded to the glacis, giving a total thickness of 101.6 mm (4.00 in), which resulted in a glacis of 148.97 mm (5.865 in) line-of-sight thickness, and over 180 mm. in effective thickness.
The turret was based on the T23 76 mm turret with a similar internal layout and a full basket, but the pistol port was eliminated. The thickness was approx 6” (152 mm) all around but it did reduce to 2 ½” (63mm) at the rear below the bulge

So lets remember those numbers. 63mm and 91mm for one, 152mm and 180mm for the other.

On to the Germans:
A Panther’s 75mm KWK42 firing APCR could penetrate 234mm at 500 meters and 199mm at 1000.
A Tigers 88mm KWK36 firing APCR could penetrate 200mm at 500m, and 179mm at 1000.
A 75mm PaK 40 could penetrate 120mm at 500 meters, and 97mm at 1000 meters.
A panzer IV or Stug was firing a comparable weapon to a PAK40. A 75mm L48.

(By the way, for the group, a 75mm L48 means the barrel is 3600mm in length. The Panther’s L70 was 5250mm, which aided in muzzle velocity and penetration)

In 1944 (Wikipedia) the Germans built 18,956 armored vehicles. In 1945 they built 4406. They also built 23,000 PAK40s throughout the war.

Approximately 5500 of those were tigers and panthers.  

One could assert that if a US tank met a German armored vehicle or AT Gun, there was a 1:9 chance (5500/46000) chance it would be a tiger or panther with a 75mmL70 or 88L56 or better type of gun.  

A jumbo would have had excellent protection in the frontal arc against a PAK40/ 75MML48 type weapon, and would have fared pretty well as far as survivability at 1000 meters or further against a Tiger I
Your quote:

What you are saying is incorrect. The ordnance officer you quoted is incorrect.  The Sherman's armor was very close to stopping 75mmL48, and needed only a small increase for a great leap in effectiveness at combat ranges.
A base Sherman could be penetrated by 75mm L48s, and above. Basically everything.
A jumbo Sherman would be protected in the frontal arc from 75mmL48s, probably 88mm L56 at 100 meters.
Increasing a Sherman from base model to the M4A3E2 armor package goes from being able to withstand a hit against nothing, to over 85% of the possible AT threats. That’s a huge jump.  The fact that an ordnance officer analyzed the situation poorly doesn’t justify quoting it. There is no “false sense of security.”  It is a real and profound sense of security given the amount of armor to increase the threshold of protection over that of almost all the threats.  Not 100%.  But close.

What are your sources? If you can call someone on what sources they use. Then you better put up or shut up.

Don't just make bullshit statements about what can penetrate what. What amount of armor, this or that. Tell us your sources.

I want to see you refute this raw hard data the US govt took. With something to back it up.

How many M4’s, pre A3, in the ETA, suffered penetrating hits to the front glacis plate?

I don’t mean hits to the transmission/final drive. Those, I think, were the same all through production

One does not need to guess("assert") as the information was being collected, assembled, reports generated and  distributed.  Most(all?) can be found in archives.  You should visit some and get back to us.

What was the median distance for tank vs tank and tank vs anti-tank guns on the western front in WWII?
Hint:  Much closer than any of the penetration data you have posted.

You may argue the merit or accuracy of the opinions of Ordnance or AGF, but I submit you are in no position to dictate to me what I've seen in the documentation. If you believe what I have seen is not representative, feel free to quote other archival documents which support the contention of what you believe the parties were thinking.

Not sure how that helps. I have just demonstrated that a Sherman with jumbo levels of armor is of unacceptable mobility and reliability to perform the functions of a medium tank. (And, for what it's worth, they weren't overly satisfied with the level of armor the E2 had either, but realised they had to compromise.) Further, since the majority of engagements were at under 600 yards, and a full third were under 300 yards, a reduction in armor sufficient to address the mobility problems likely would not provide the level of protection you are looking to beat in the figures you quote, even if you wanted to rely upon them (After all, the figures say that a 6pr isn't supposed to be able to kill a Tiger, but that's exactly why we have a saved one in Bovington now). And, after all that (though the figures were not available at the time for them to base it on), you would have still affected less than half the tanks as over half the hits were on parts of the tank other than the hull or turret front (Whatever way the terrain was for the Brits where they were fighting, the figures for them were over 2/3 were to the side or rear).

However, this is something of a side argument. We are at least in some agreement that the most important deficiency was not armor, but the gun, though we are evidently at an impasse as to the reason that deficiency resulted.

Let me pose a couple of questions to you.
1) By US doctrine, if you are attacking an enemy position, and the enemy has tanks on the objective, what is the asset which is expected to destroy those tanks? Hint: Doctrine specifically says it is not the tank destroyer.
2) If there were no need for a tank-killing gun for the purposes of what armored units were supposed to do, why was the 76mm M4 approved for production before anyone outside of Germany had seen a Tiger, let alone a Panther?
3) If the 75mm was suited to task, for what purpose did Armored Force in August 1943 request the immediate creation of two trial divisions and two tank groups, with 50% replacements, consisting of only 76mm and 105mm tanks?
4) Why did the US Army order a complete halt to production of 75mm medium tanks for their use in September of 1943 in favour of the 76mm tank? From what you are arguing, there was no need for it because doctrine said they wouldn't meet tanks.

I put it to you that all parties concerned were well aware, from the date of the instruction to try to put a 3" gun M7 into the Sherman in August of 1941 (Before the prototype T6 was completed), that the M4 would be required to defeat enemy tanks, and for that purpose, with the 76mm they were putting the same gun into the M4 as was being put into the tank destroyer.

Indeed, you will note that there is a general parallel that throughout the war, whatever was going onto the tank destroyers was also being (or at least, trying to be) placed onto the tank, starting with the 75mm. It's a lot easier to put a new gun in an open-topped light vehicle, though, which is why, for example, M26 arrived in theater five months after M36, despite the proposal for the 90mm tank being placed only a month after the T71 program was officially started.

This is not the actions of a force which believes that there is no need for a tank to have a tank-killing gun. The mistake was believing that the 76mm with the M62 round (i.e. the standard equipment of the tank destoyers' newest toy) was sufficient to easily kill the tanks it would encounter. (Of course, in practice, the 76mm was still killing tanks, it just took a little work and combined arms effort)

With respect to McNair's influence, it is worth observing that he did not let his personal opinions get in the way of trusting his subordinates. For a case in point, look at the tank destroyer force. As you quote, McNair most certainly believed the correct way of dealing with enemy tanks was the anti-tank gun. But his appointee to head TD Branch, Bruce, disagreed. McNair backed up the man he appointed to do the job, as any good leader should, and as a result, TD branch entered the war as a 100% self-propelled entity despite this being entirely not what McNair had in mind. There are ample other examples with regards to his relationship with Armored Force as well. Indeed, the 6-week delay between when he denied mass production of M26 and when he approved it was because of the two commanders overseas, the one who wanted it (Devers) was sitting in England not fighting anyone, and the one actively fighting the Germans in the Med (Eisenhower) didn't want it. McNair decided to go with the man actually doing the work.

@Manic_Moran

I really want to see an inside the hatch on a Stug III

And a Panzer IV.  I know we got a 3, but I really want to see the 4.

A IV has been recorded, it's a little different because I went over it with Hilary Doyle.

StuG has not been recorded. Unfortunately, the entire series has been place on hold for now, to include not releasing the seven vehicles already recorded. We are looking to change the structure so that we can restart it, but for now, it's not seen as a high priority.

That’s too bad. The Inside the Hatch videos are great, I really enjoy them and have learned a lot.

Manic_Moran,

Love watching your videos.

Keeps me sane on night shifts....

I dont bullshit about anything.
Was I called out? cool.

You can look up the tank pen data on wikipedia, if you like. Likewise if you want to look at tank production numbers.

German tank production was here:
link
Author cites: Steven Zaloga. "Armored Champion: The Top Tanks of World War II". Stackpole Books, May 15, 2015. Appendix 2: German AFV Production.
I have that book. It is correct.

For pen data, as an example, the KwK 42 is here
link

author cites: Bird, Lorrin Rexford; Livingston, Robert D. (2001). WWII Ballistics: Armor and Gunnery. Overmatch Press. p. 61.

If you dont like that,

Armored Champion, by Steven Zaloga, 2015, has all sorts of data on tank production numbers.
Tank Tactics, by Roman Jarymowycz, will discuss head to head penetration data on page 258.
I am partial to "Fast Tanks and Heavy Bombers" by David E. Johnson, 1998, who has a nice penetration table on page 198.

The osprey duel series has relative pen data,
"Sherman Firefly vs Tiger" Stephen A Hart
"Panther vs T34"  Robert Forczyk
"Panther vs Sherman" Zaloga
"MK IV vs Sherman" also Zaloga

The source you really want is "ORO-T-117 Survey of Allied Tank Casualties in WW2"  The US government published that in 1951.  Cycle on down to page 46, if you dare, and you can see the charts with German penetration data, and allied penetration data, as compiled by 3rd US Army on 8 April 1945.

If you zip on back to page 42, you can see that in a sample of 650 tank casuaties, in the ETO, the average range of engagemnet is 800 yards.

If you or anyone else likes, you can go to page 46, look at what the average penetration data is of German weapons, cross reference that with Armored Champion, by Zaloga, or anyone, and get an idea of numbers of weapons.

The data for front armor of Allied tanks is no secret, I gave you my sources.

You could then pick average ranges in Western Europe, pen data, numbers of German weapons by type, and pretty much figure out whether what I said is true.

Or, to simplify things, go to page 46 of ORO-T-117, look at "800 meters" or "500 meters" and make an educated guess as to how much armor you need.

here, let me help:

LMGTFY

As far as what Allied commanders thought about these tanks, I like "United States vs. German Equipment: As Prepared for the Supreme Commander, Allied Expeditionary Force"
that is a primary source.  It is on Amazon.

I would agree that a jumbo does not have the mobility of a medium tank.  But that is irrelevant.  All Armies save the US in Europe: Brits, Germans, Russians, built tanks we would characterize as infantry support or heavy.  Calling the Jumbo something other then medium is just words.  Call it a medium if you like.  or a heavy.  I have said previously, and will continue to do so, based on my combat experience, that mechanical reliability is something Im willing to trade for survivability if the numbers and the op research is there.  If, as you quoted, it sufficed as an infantry support tank, good to go.  As you will see below, there is an extraordinarily fine line between "infantry support" and "medium" when you see who was firing what at whom, most of the time.

I dont think you have demonstrated really anything regarding the jumbo. Its heavier. Its less reliable.  We know that.

You would need to look at:
The OR rate of a jumbo vs base sherman
Time to repair and replace broken components such as volute springs.

and then comapre:
The advantage of the armor before and after addition.
which would require to look at German weapons, capabilities, numbers, and then make an assessment of how much of advantage the additional armor would have provided.

I have done number #2, and was happily called out for my sources; providd above.  Other then you saying it was heavier and broken down more, you have not done either.  Recycled some opinions that I have refuted...that's all.

ORO-T-117 indicates your description of gunnery ranges is inaccurate.  At least I would state that the primary documents I have seen indicates 900 meters for North Africa, 350 for Italy, 800 for Europe. That is for "gunfire."  Numbers are far less for hollow charge.  I suppose if you believe tank vs tank gunnery was at 350 meters,then no armor is sufficient and we should just go for bigger guns. But the primary source I have looked at indicates that is not accurate.  As you move the ranges out to 800 meters then the window where a little more armor makes a big deal is being reached.  Feel free to look for yourself.

To this point I have quoted Patton, McNair, 101-5, and the tank casualty study. On previous posts the first hand opinion of the tankers concerned in the White study.  I dont know what youve seen, or claim to have seen, but feel free to look at what I have posted. And post all this data you have, particularly OR rates.

By the way, according to Zaloga, Armored Champion, page 263, Third Army in 1945 experimented with replicating the uparmored variant by using wrecked tanks and pulling the front armor off, and mounting it to operational tanks. According to Zaloga, again, 12th Army Group under Bradley thought this was such a good idea that they recommended this become a standard mod.  So clearly, according to the source I just cited, someone disagrees with your assessment of reliability/mobility vice protection.  Please refute at your convenience, if so inclined.

We are not.  We can agree that in the MG Isaac D. White document, that US tankers that faced German heavier tanks, such as the panther and tiger, wanted guns.  However for other weapons the gun was sufficient and additional armor would have been more useful.

According to Zaloga, page 18, 71% of 75mm ammo expenditure was HE.  73% of 76mm expenditure was HE.  Only 14.2% of the targets of US tanks 1942-45 were other tanks.  69.5% of targets were fortifications, buildings, troops, and AT Guns/artillery.  (This is also page 76 of the ORO study) By Zaloga's math, appendix 2, the Germans built approx 20,000 tanks from 1942-1945 and approx 1/3 of those were panther and tiger chassis.  So now 1/3 of 14.2% or so, give or take a percentage or so, were panthers and tigers.

Well over 90% of the time, the gun was fine.   Well over that, the base sherman tank was up against something that ts front plate would not work against.  So no, you are not correct.  The tank needed more armor.  More often then it needed more gun.

As for your questions,
It is clear you didnt see my earlier post.  I cant help if you ask questions in multiple dfferent ways, that have been answered.

From the regs:

Tanks___

j. ATTACK TO DESTROY ENEMY ARMORED UNITS WHEN FORCED TO DO SO AS A MATTER OF SELF
PRESEVATION OR WHEN HOSTILE TANKS THREATEN SERIOUSLY TO DISRUPT OPERATIONS OF
OTHER TROOPS.

1066 THE PRIMARY MISSION OF TANK DESTROYER UNITS IS THE DESTRUCTION OF HOSTILE TANKS
BY DIRECT GUN FIRE.

The answer to number #1, is in fact the primary mission is the tank destroyer.  The rest can be addressed by line j.

If youd like to pose questions as to why leaders then did things then, it is more useful to look a t the hard dfata of who engaged what with what at what ranges, and look at the science as to wehetehr the tank as used was acceptable.
Of course, right back at you, why did 12th AG recommend teh 3rd Army mod as standard, if you claim that it was demonstrated not to be the case? (Which you have not done)

Crying shame, I love the videos

How many years were you an Armor Office and can you post a link to your video?

Nooooooooo! best thing on the interwebs, and I just got my kid who watches them with me playing WOT.