In reading the history of armored warfare, it seems that the US and British Armies were taken by surprise, by the German “Tiger” panzers.
According to what I read, the Tiger’s 88 MM gun could pick off the American Sherman tanks at ranges up to 3600 yards. Also, the Sherman’s smaller gun could not penetrate the Tiger’s frontal armor, unless at extremely close ranges (800 yards).
The British also found that their “Cromwell” and “Churchill” tanks were no match for the Tigers as well.
My question: since the rssians had been fighting the germans since 1941, they knew all about german tank capabilities-why didn’t they advise the weatern allies about the new german tanks? The Sherman (and the British tanks) cold have been fitted with a larger gun (as they eventually were), and thicker armor.
Instead of sending their men into battle with inferior weapons, why wasn’t info from the russians allowed back, so as to have tanks that were more equal to the german’s?
I think you’ve got your timelines confused. The Tiger I was rushed into produciton after the Germans encountered the Soviets T34 and KV1 tanks and realised their tanks were inferior. The Tiger I was first used on the Eastern front in September 1942, and in North Africa a little later. So the Soviets didn’t know about the Tiger much before the US and British encountered them.
As for the British and American responses; the wikipedia Tigerpage seems to answer this too:
Maybe because Stalin wasn’t much in the “trust department”.
Do you have a cite that shows that the US was “surprised”?
Just to note: it takes several years to go from drawing board to production for machines like tanks and aircraft. In other words, even if the Soviets gave us blue prints of a Mk VI at the end of '41, it wouldn’t have changed much. In '42, we fought the Germans and Japanese with the tools we had, not the tools we wished we had. 
That came later.
Off topic: The F4F Wildcat and the P-40 Warhawk get the short shrift, IMO. They held the line against the Japanese, and fought them to a stand still. Yet the Corsair and the Hellcat get the glory. Heh.
Pretty lengthy explanation here, it was more a disagreement over priorities and strategy than ‘surprise’. Ie:
‘there can be no basis for the T26 tank other than the conception of a tank versus tank duel—which is believed unsound and unnecessary’
and more importantly:
“There is no indication that the 76mm antitank gun is inadequate against the German Mark VI (Tiger) tank.”
Ie they got it wrong, rather than didnt consider the possibility at all.
Otara
Yes. Do you have $8 to spend for a book?
If you are trying to win a war, you don’t want the best tank. The Germans had the best tanks and lost.
The Russians and U.S. both had produceable tanks. Sure it took four Shermans to kill one Tiger, but the U.S. could make 10 Shermans for every 1 Tiger. In one on one combat it sucked to be in a Sherman, but in the overall scheme of things, if you need a 4:1 ratio to have an even match and you’ve got a 10:1 ratio instead, you’re going to win.
Some Shermans ended up being fitted with bigger guns to try and even out the odds a bit, but in a war, you don’t just fight your tanks against theirs. You fight your army, with all of its artillery, infantry, etc. against their artillery, infantry, etc. so if your tanks are out-gunned, you try not to fight one on one tank battles and use other tactics. And that’s what they did. The combination of tactics that worked plus the rarity of Tigers meant that in the grand scheme of things, the superiority of the Tigers wasn’t all that significant on the battlefield. The Germans simply couldn’t make enough of them.
Of course, this wasn’t of much comfort to the American tank crews who occasionally had to fight those lopsided battles. There’s a reason the Shermans were nicknamed “Ronsons” (Ronson was a cigarette lighter brand whose advertising slogan at the time was “lights the first time, every time”).
The Russians defeated the Germans the same way. The Russian T-34 was a bit more rugged than the Sherman, but it was also outgunned by the Tiger. The Russians got a bit of a reputation for simply ramming the Tigers out of frustration (the T-34 may have been outgunned but it was rugged enough that this usually worked) but the Russians really won by sending wave after wave after wave of T-34’s across the border.
As Stalin once said, “quantity has a quality all its own.”
Germany produced 1,347 Tiger I’s and 492 Tiger II’s during World War II.
The United States produced 49,234 M4 Shermans and the Soviet Union produced 84,070 T-34’s.
The Sherman was possibly the best tool for the job. Tigers were huge and heavy, and had atrocious fuel consumption. The US could never have transported enough heavy tanks overseas, or provided the fuel to run them. So, they used greater quantities of smaller, lighter tanks, and as the outcome has shown, that was the best decision.
A very good friend of mine has written several excellent books on the subject.
if you mean bombers and torpedo planes shot down, perhaps. but people should stop trying to raise the p-40 and wildcat to having performed at par with the zero. it’s simply not true. and during the zero’s heyday when it’s pilots were still the elite pre-pearl harbor trained corp, they had no equal.
most every army in ww2 had heavy tanks that can match the tiger’s firepower and armor. but the question is how many and how decisive could those tanks be? we have the germans to thank. they showed us, “not very.”
It wasn’t really a shock. The M-36 tank destroyer started development before the Tiger had even been encountered.
I think that the main reason for producing inferior tanks in larger numbers was down to the present technology that the allies already had in use.
I think that they would have had to retool all of their production lines, which would have taken time that they didn’t have.
Its better to have an actual, if not so good tank, ready for use; rather then a potential tank of excellent quality at some time in the future.
That was there thinking at the time but I’m not sure that I would always agree to it.
The successes of the Afrika Korp in north Africa had less to do with Rommels supposed tactical genius and more to do with their 88mm guns being able to take out British tanks at ranges that they could not respond to in an open environment, that favoured engagements at long ranges.
But with the possibility of crushing defeat breathing down your neck, you fight with what you have, not what you’d like to have.
Note that the Sherman was inferior to the Tiger I only for some specific purposes. If you had to travel cross-country, for example, the Sherman was markedly superior. Even for fighting other tanks in set-piece battles, the Sherman is a better choice if those other tanks are lightly-armed – when the Sherman was first used by the British against Rommel’s Mark II and Mark III Panzers, it was regarded as well-armored.
It’s just that the Sherman wasn’t very good for tank vs. tank combat against late-war German tanks like the upgraded Mk IV, Panther, and Tiger. It was excellent for mobile warfare,* and adequate against infantry and bunkers (I’m downgrading it to “adequate” mostly because of the Panzerfaust). It was a fantastic tank to produce and maintain, very durable under conditions which broke down other tanks.
*Interestingly, Patton’s emphasis on always moving played to the strengths of the Sherman and minimized its weaknesses, although he wasn’t basing his strategy on the Sherman’s foibles.
We have this discussion every eight months.
The reason the Allies didn’t put a huge emphasis on building heavy tanks to counter the Tiger is the same reason they didn’t put a huge emphasis on building planes to counter the Me-262; because that wasn’t what they were fighting.
As big and scary as the Tiger was there simply were not very many of them, and what Tigers as did exist usually did not work. The Allies were fighting an enemy that was almost entirely made up of unmechanized infantry - by “unmechanized” I literally mean most German divisions transported their stuff with horses and mules. You don’t see that in the movies, I know, but it’s true, and you do not need an especially large tank gun to kill a mule. What armor the Germans did have was largely light armor. The Sherman was fine for 96% of the combat the Allies were engaged in.
The Germans had excellent soldiers and a very small number of first rate tanks but most of the German army in France in 1944 was, in effect, an army from 1934. They were reliant upon walking and were hopelessly outgunned. As brave and as tenacious as they were, the Allies needed vehicles and weapons that were designed to kill men, not huge tanks, because to a nearest approximation, they were fighting men, not huge tanks. So the Allies put their emphasis on what you need to kill men; fast vehicles, mechanization of their infantry, and lots and lots of artillery.
I’d agree this is a discussion that comes up pretty regularly.
But I’ll also put in my usual 2c on the matter. I don’t buy the whole “we had the strategy right all along” argument when it comes to Allied vs German tanks. Read the first hand accounts of people how actually had to drive allied tanks if you really think this (or service them, like the one Dufus cites above).
Its true that the building the Tiger tank was a terrible idea for the Germans and they’d have been better off building something far simpler and more easily produced, as they didn’t have the production to spare for something as complicated as the Tiger tank. But its also true that the Panther was also far far superior than any allied tank (in fact if the Tiger ISN’T the best tank used in WW2 the only other contender is the Panther). And the 88mm gun used in both was far superior than anything widely used by the allies. The allies (particularly the US) DID have spare manufacturing capacity but still choose to send their troops into battle with inferior equipment. This had terrible consequence for the troops involved.
You cannot rationalize that as the correct strategic decision. It was a mistake plain and simple.
How is this relevant? There are probably quite a few individuals who thought maybe the D-Day landings could also have been planned better.
The point is that the folks in the tanks absolutely did NOT have all the pertinent information, yet we are to take their word over the planners who actually had the best information?
I’ll admit, I would probably feel the same way if I was a member of one of these tank crews. But that would purely be an emotional response and not one based on any real data.
It’s like how many of my co-workers start complaining about traffic problems or construction or something. Their solutions usually involve, “well, they should…”. Who is “they”? Maybe “they” actually are doing a fairly good job within their constraints.
Logistics isn’t all that simple.
Even with production advantages, there were already significant gas and ammunition shortages during the push across France and a limited ability to actually land sufficient equipment and supplies on the European mainland for a couple months.
Spare manufacturing capacity or not, we had limited fuel for the likely less fuel efficient tanks, limited space for them and the ammunition they required, and no real guarantees that the few we interspersed besides the already common Shermans would make a significant difference.
It’s a matter of perspective - the difference between commanding a tank or an armored brigade. If your all-powerful super tanks don’t make it to where they’re needed due to reliability problems or fuel shortages, they’re just draining resources without increasing your unit’s capabilities.
Great book BTW.
But the Panthers had the same problem the Tigers had - there weren’t enough of them. Germany only built about 6000 Panthers. Fifty thousand Shermans are better than six thousand Panthers.
Suppose the Americans had decided to built the best possible tanks. And ran into the production limits the Germans did. So they only built twelve thousand Super-Shermans.
Do you think the guys who complained about having to fight a Tiger with a Sherman would have been happier if they had been among the tankers who were reassigned to the infantry and were fighting a Tiger with a rifle?
RickJay points out the real comparisons. For every fight when a Tiger outclassed a Sherman there were fifty fights where a Sherman outclassed a Wehrmacht infantry squad. The number of Shermans on the line meant that the Americans had superiority in most of the battles that were fought.
The Germans made the mistake of asking themselves “What’s the best tank we can build?” The Americans and the Soviets asked the better question, “What’s the best tank we can build by the tens of thousands?”