SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
Sometimes a “good enough” military technology can achieve victory over better military technologies. Such a fact probably gave very little comfort to the five-man crews of U.S. Sherman tanks who faced an uphill battle against more powerful German tanks during World War II. British tank crews gave Sherman tanks the unflattering nickname “Ronson” — a grim reference to the Ronson cigarette lighter’s ad slogan “lights first every time” and the unfortunate fact that Sherman tanks often burned after taking just one hit. But that did not stop the U.S. from supplying tens of thousands of Sherman tanks to U.S., British, Canadian and other Allied forces, tipping the scales against the smaller numbers of elite German tanks on World War II battlefields.
The armchair historian debate over the Sherman’s war legacy could blaze up once more with the new war film “Fury”, starring actor Brad Pitt as a U.S. tank commander leading a five-man Sherman crew deep within Germany in the closing days of World War II. Some historians and military history enthusiasts still scoff at the capabilities of Sherman tanks when compared with the German Panther and Tiger tanks that carried both more armor and more firepower. But the U.S. strategy of mass-producing a reliable tank in large numbers should not be underestimated, according to the book “Armored Thunderbolt: The U.S. Army Sherman in World War II” by Steven Zaloga, a military historian and senior analyst at the Teal Group Corporation. The tale of the Sherman tank’s road to victory represents a history lesson with implications for the future of warfare.
“In battle, quantity has a quality all its own,” Zaloga writes. “Warfare in the industrial age requires a careful balance between quality and quantity.”
“Overwhelming adversaries through greater numbers is a viable strategy for technology competition, and was used successfully by the United States in World War II,” writes Paul Scharre, a fellow at CNAS, in a preview for the new report titled “Robotics on the Battlefield Part II: The Coming Swarm.” ( http://www.cnas.org/sites/default/files/publications-pdf/CNAS_TheComingSwarm_Scharre.pdf )
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/lovesick-cyborg/2014/10/16/good-enough-us-tanks-won-wwii/#5465
(Score: 2) by Hairyfeet on Thursday November 13 2014, @10:45PM
DaFuq? If you consider losing a dozen Shermans to take down a single Tiger a "success" I'm sure fucking glad your ass is just an armchair general! The Germans nicknamed the Sherman the "Ronson" because it would erupt in a fireball on the first hit. And you can't seriously be bringing up the hellcat, can you? The TD that the military brass fought like hell to NOT deploy and which were always in such short supply as to be a non issue? Look up "Killer Tanks The Sherman" or frankly any other major documentary on allied tanks of the western front and you'll find the brass did NOT want to field anything but the Sherman which was getting bitchslapped by the Tiger because they had cranked out so many of the things that the Stalin quote applied!
I'll never forget a quote in killer tanks from a PAK-88 commander in Italy who had set up a perfect killbox on a hill where the Shermans had to go single file. It was perfect, he could hit them, they couldn't hit him, and the road was so narrow they had nowhere to dodge, it was a slaughter ...he ended up having to retreat, why? "I ran out of rounds before the Americans ran out of Shermans" simple as that. Like it or not the Americans won because the Germans couldn't affect our manufacturing, we could crank out 25 to 1 and most of our parts were interchangeable while nearly everything they had was incompatible, but as far as quality and firepower on the ground? The Americans blew ass, a Sherman would have difficulty taking out a STUG or Panzer 4 from 42, much less anything they were fielding by 44. The western front if it proved anything was that control of the air trumps everything as even our grasshoppers had bazooka mounts and could take out tanks while BF109 and FW190s were getting eaten alive by the Thunderbolts and the Mustangs. If you would have taken airpower out of the equation? You probably would have had a different story on BOTH fronts, which is why Stalin threatened to have the ones making the IL2 shot for falling behind.
ACs are never seen so don't bother. Always ready to show SJWs for the racists they are.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 14 2014, @03:18AM
If you consider losing a dozen Shermans to take down a single Tiger a "success" I'm sure fucking glad your ass is just an armchair general!
Please cite the after action reports where such a thing happened? You won't because you can't because that never happened. Tigers were always too few and too mechanically unreliable to be anything more than an inconvenience.
http://forum.worldoftanks.com/index.php?/topic/91572-us-guns-german-armor-pt-2/ [worldoftanks.com]
The Germans nicknamed the Sherman the "Ronson" because it would erupt in a fireball on the first hit.
Wrong again. Early dry ammo Shermans that stored ammo in the sponsons burned about 80% of the time when penetrated. German tanks like the PzIII and PzIV burned about...80% of the time when penetrated, exactly the same.
Once wet storage was introduced the chance of fire when hit went down to 10-15%. A wet ammo rack Sherman was the least likely tank of WWII to burn. Also, it was common practice to shoot a knocked out tank until it caught fire, since a burned out tank could not be repaired. Another issue that caused a large number of fires was British crews stuffing main gun and machinegun ammunition anywhere and everywhere it would fit in the interior of the tank. Once this stopped the number of fires went down considerably.
References to "Ronson" don't appear until well after the war. The "Zippo" was a flamethrower variant of the Sherman so there were lighter references during the war in regards to those tanks.
Stop watching History/Discovery/TLC documentaries. Their primary function is to protect the commercials from smacking into each other.
I'll never forget a quote in killer tanks from a PAK-88 commander in Italy who had set up a perfect killbox on a hill where the Shermans had to go single file. It was perfect, he could hit them, they couldn't hit him, and the road was so narrow they had nowhere to dodge, it was a slaughter ...he ended up having to retreat, why? "I ran out of rounds before the Americans ran out of Shermans" simple as that.
No, he ran out of rounds because US air power had cut off resupply in Italy by bombing bridges and anything that moved on the roads. Airpower in WWII was VERY ineffective at taking out frontline troops. Taking out trucks, trains and the like, it was VERY effective. Also, he had probably been spotted and withdrew before the Americans had ranged in sent him a 75mm or 105mm shell to the face. AP looses effectiveness with range, HE does not. Even a near miss with a 75mm shell is enough to take out a PAK
ANYTHING well into the 50s could be penetrated by the Pak 43. It wouldn't have mattered what the tank crews were driving. Italy was very tank unfriendly country.
The Americans blew ass, a Sherman would have difficulty taking out a STUG or Panzer 4 from 42, much less anything they were fielding by 44.
Seriously, STOP WATCHING HISTORY CHANNEL. The Sherman was more than a match for a Stug or a PzIV and the Panzers and Tigers were too rare and too mechanically unreliable to be significant. Hell, the Germans were terrified of the M3 Lee, a stopgap design, when it first appeared in 1942. Its armor was invulnerable to German shells at ranges where the M3s 75mm could easily kill German tanks and AT guns, thanks to it firing both a good AP and HE shell.
There is more to tank design than a big gun and thick armor. The biggest thing that determined who won a tank engagement, which were rare in the first place as 75% of the rounds fired by Shermans were HE for dealing with infantry, was who got off the first shot and got the first hit. The Sherman outclassed EVERYTHING the Germans fielded in this regard. The gunner had both a wide angle search periscope as well as his magnified scope, meaning the gunner had great situational awareness and could quickly bring the gun to bear on target. The gunner in the Panther by contrast had to be walked onto the target by the commander as he only had the magnified sight. The Panther gunner didn't even have a brow pad so couldn't even begin to aim the gun until the tank had come to a stop. The Sherman had a brow pad for the gunner so the gun could be roughly laid in before the tank had even stopped. Also, what is the only WWII tank that came with a vertical stabilizer as STANDARD equipment? The Sherman. Granted it didn't allow for firing on the move, didn't always work well, and was more for allowing the gunner to get the gun roughly aimed while still moving, but it still had one and it was a technological marvel for its day.
You know less than nothing when it comes to tank design and how they were used and performed in WWII.