Fortunately, US forces were able to compensate for these shortcomings with clever battlefield tactics. One maneuver involved distracting German tank crews with a frontal infantry assault. These innovations, along with the sheer number of M4s the American military was able to field, ultimately gave the Allies the winning edge they needed to out-do their opponents.
Meanwhile, in the Pacific, the Sherman easily outclassed the smaller and more lightly armed Japanese tanks. By the end of the conflict, M-4s with a high-velocity 76 mm gun and upgraded armor began to replace their battle-weary brethren. After the war, the Sherman continued to see combat in Korea and as part of the newly formed Israeli defense forces.
The Israelis made good use of the Sherman, scoring several victories with it until finally giving it a well-deserved retirement just a few years ago. A solid performer that got the job done, the M4 Sherman tank holds an illustrious place in the history of warfare.
Idiotic car design is leading drivers to cruise around at night with no headlights on. Fighting this has become my crusade. Walmart has been using driverless trucks in the Bentonville area for months now. But when will we see these go national and start replacing human drivers? If you don't want to wait for the Raptor R, a Whipple supercharger kit will soon be available from Ford Performance Parts for the naturally aspirated V Early in its design, the M-4 tank came with a 75mm gun; this gun eventually proved to be ineffective, and as the designed evolved, major changes occurred.
By the end of the war, the tanks came with a 76 mm gun that could fire a pound shell over 2, feet a second. The Shermans also came equipped with a. Sherman tanks could also be equipped with a flame-throwing main gun; these were particularly useful for the United States in the Pacific Theatre when trying to overtake heavily fortified structures. Somewhere between 40, to 50, of these tanks were produced by the United States, with manufacturers of the tank including Ford Motor Company, Detroit Tank Arsenal a subsidiary of Chrysler and Fisher Tank Arsenal in fact, the factory for these tanks would go on to become a body plant for General Motors.
Production began in , and the tank would see its first action in The tanks weighed about 60, pounds each, had a max speed of 30 miles per hour and could travel as far as miles. Originally, the tanks came equipped with a nine cylinder engine capable of producing horsepower.
Towards the end of the war, the tanks would be outfitted with a 30 cylinder engine. It could produce horsepower but unfortunately ran at only 1. As the M4 Sherman was put into wide use the crews manning them soon realized what they were driving into battle was out-classed by almost all other tanks of its age.
The advantages that Patton himself had approved were now its downfall. Most were outfitted with a 75 mm gun that fired high explosive rounds at roughly fps, which sounds quite impressive[3,6]. But when compared to the German tanks with longer barreled guns which fired solid shot at fps the result is evident[3].
This meant the German tanks had two to three times the penetrating power of Sherman. Out gunned and with mere 2. Taking things into their own hands and tired of being sent in with tanks that had patched-over holes from German Tigers, crews starting outfitting their Sherman in some very odd ways that were not standard issue.
Crews of the M4 started strapping pretty much anything to the fronts and sides of their tank to help lower the odds of a shell breaking the hull and becoming a very unwelcome guest[4].
Common things used were sand bags and logs, but some would even go so far as putting crumpled chicken wire on the front plate and then filling it in with cement. These men were quite desperate, which is understandable when you consider that they drove a tank that had to get within roughly meters of a Tiger to be effective. A Tiger could put a shell through the front plate head on of an M4 at 2, meters[2].
It would take a half dozen Shermans to take down a Tiger in a head-on confrontation. A confrontation like this would probably put 4 of the M4s out of service or in need of repair if they could be fixed at all. In the movie, four M4 Shermans, led by tank commander Brad Pitt, are crossing a field when a Tiger ambushes them. This scene is ripe with Hollywood inaccuracy except for the fact that the Tiger is able to drop three of the four Shermans in a single shot, before the one that happened to have Brad Pitt in it managed to flank the Tiger.
The M4 Sherman took five men to operate. There was a driver, located front left where the driver of a normal automotive would sit. Unable to see very much through his primitive viewport, the driver usually relied on the tank commander to give a more reliable description of the surrounding area.
Though frequently outgunned by their German counterparts, Shermans proved easier to maintain—often fixed on the battlefield. No unit markings were discovered when previous coats of paint were removed from the tank. Because the tank was manufactured in , it is almost certain that it was deployed overseas during the war, although no battle damage was discovered.
When the Sherman tank arrived at the Museum in December , its engine was completely rusted and it was painted in a color appropriate to the Korean War era rather than World War II.
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