Patton or Rommel -- Who would you want on your side?

Woah, there. That’s way, way oversimplifying things.

This is a the predominant view of the armor battle of the western front, but it’s based in large part on misperceptions and Wermacht Penis Envy. For some reason, everyone loves to believe that the germans were the finest warriors, man per man, ever - and that every vehicle they produced was a flawless feat of superior engineering, and only the raw masses of allies stopped them.

First off, the king tiger was actually the panzer VIb - which is kind of a fluke in the german naming scheme. When you refer to a panzer VI, it’s assumed you’d be refering to a tiger.

The tiger was, by far, one of the least seen vehicles in ww2. Due to Wermacht Penis Envy ™, we tend to think Germans used predominantly big ass, heavy tank killing monsters. In reality, the mediocre-at-best panzer 4s, the capable stug III, and assorted tank destroyers (marder 3s, etc.) were the bulk of the german armor force. Later, the panther (PzV) became more common, and it was - the later versions - quite an excellent tank - but not an unstoppable hulk.

The armor doctrines of the respective countries were completely different by that phase of the war. The US primarily designed exploitation tanks - and the Sherman, for a 1942-designed tank, was excellent, if not exceptional, in that role. If you compare it to it’s contemporaries, it’s fantastic. Good, well shaped armor, excellent reliability, good mobility, and a capable gun (with a good HE shell).

People with a casual knowledge of the war tend to romanticize battles into the idea that rare german heavy tanks commonly battled ‘inferior’ masses of Shermans, which wasn’t the case at all. Tanks fighting tanks was a relatively uncommon thing in world war 2. Tanks were used primarily as assault weapons - and so it was typical for only one side to have them in any given armor battle. The tank’s worst enemy was the anti-tank gun - which the sherman, with it’s decent armor, and good HE launching gun was capable of handling - and the tanks primary purpose was to be a hammer to smash through enemy infantry positions with and exploit - not to fight other tanks. With that in mind, with it’s good speed, good anti-infantry gun, fair armor, and great reliability - it served a far more useful role in allied doctrine than any tiger ever would. Because they were at a disadvantage when fighting german heavy tanks specifically designed to destroy them is no reason to condemn them wholesale. One must look at the purpose and use of the tank - and given that, the sherman was an excellent tank for what it did, and doesn’t deserve the bad reputation it gets among people with a casual knowledge of ww2.

This is somewhat accurate, but it suggests the allies were throwing out crap that they knew was utter crap because it was easy to produce. That’s not true. The sherman was designed with ease of production in mind, but that doesn’t mean it was a piece of junk. As explained earlier, it was good at what it did - and the fact that it could be produced in large numbers meant that it could be used widespread in it’s intended purpose: Giving an armored fist to the attacker.

And they weren’t light tanks - they were medium tanks. There’s a big difference between design and use between medium and light tanks.

I thought Shermans were noted for their tendency to ‘brew-up’ when only light (relatively) damage had been absorbed. Weren’t the fuel tanks mounted on the outside? I also heard (don’t know if it is true) that the Sherman could easily take damage sufficent to kill the crew without being put out of commission itself. Apparently they would literally hose out the tank, patch the hole and send it back into the field. While that’s fine as far as making the most use of your eauipment goes I don’t think it was overly reassuring to the tank crews.

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Early Shermans did have a reputation for this, but I’m not sure how you’re thinking of “light damage”. The ammo storage compartments in early shermans were unprotected from heat and such and the ammo had a tendency to cook off and explode. This was later corrected with “wet storage”, which would protect the ammunition from heat, and if the compartment was hit directly, pour water into the loose powder.

If the damage was significant enough to cause ammo cook off, then it was significant enough to take the tank out of combat. So it wasn’t ‘light damage’, it was a kill either way - but it was important because it could mean the difference between a bailed crew and a dead crew.

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No.

That’s hard to say. Tank damage is an odd thing - and ‘knocking out’ a tank can range from anything to putting a hole in the side of the turret and scaring out the crew (and not causing any real damage), to succesfully stopping armor piercing rounds, but having the pressure cause internal armor flaking (called spalling) which could injure and kill the crew without any actual penetrations. In this regard, there wasn’t really anything special about the Sherman as to crew lethality.

David No offense taken whatsoever. A large part of why I enjoyed that book so much is that it doesn’t come with a lot of sugar coating. It shows the strengths and failures of both sides, rather than just “them” against the infallible U.S. Army, and brings to light just how unprepared we actually were for the war in Europe, and how slowly we adapted. Sometimes it’s amazing how we did as well as we did.