GUIZE >Opens hatches You don't realize that the Sherman

>>32770520
well it was

>>32770520
also this meme that they were death traps needs to go, by the time the war ended it had fairly robust armor, not to mention an upgraded gun that could punch a hole through most tanks

Sheeeeeit considering that the Jeep was literally shipped out in crates and could be assembled in 10 minutes it's no surprise the same company pushed out shermans faster than they could dig a grave for he crew

better to be lost in action fighting other tanks and supporting the infantry than to be destroyed from the air or abandoned or just not used due to lack of fuel and spare parts

>>32770532
They were also easy to get out of after you'd been hit compared to most tanks at the time

>>32770520
Destroyed easily when the Limeys loaded the crew compartments up from the bottom to the top with ammo, which they weren't supposed to do.
Just fine otherwise.

"My radiator exploded when I put gasoline in it rather than water! Toyotas are shit!!"

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>>32770543
>lol german tanks always break do-

>>32770532
>by the time the war ended it had fairly robust armor
Which still wasn't enough to effectively protect against anything thrown at it.
>not to mention an upgraded gun that could punch a hole through most tanks
Which weren't found on anywhere near all Shermans. The tank should have been fitted with the long 75 from the start.

>>32770559
The whole tommycooker thing was based on the British practice of storing ammo and fuel in the crew compartment. In retrospect, obviously and absurdly stupid.

Funny how nobody rags on the T-34 for being a goddamn death trap, despite being nearly impossible to bail out of if hit.

>>32770564

everything broke down 1940s technology, just that we could fix our tanks

>>32770574
>Funny how nobody rags on the T-34 for being a goddamn death trap, despite being nearly impossible to bail out of if hit.
Because nobody expects the T-34 to be anything else. Yanks are supposed to be better than Russians.

>>32770572
It never had a long "75".

>>32770572
Sherman protection was fine, comparable favorably to other tanks in it's class.

>Long 75 from the start.

Yes, but that's real easy to be a Monday-morning quarterback about after seeing that tank destroyers/infantry support tank divide was difficult to implement in the field.

>>32770591
76, yeah. I completely misremembered the British 17 pounder / 77 thing.

>>32770520
shoo cooper shoo

>>32770591
I assume he means the 76mm M1, a weapon that wasn't available in 41, so I suppose he thinks the Lee should have remained America's tank for an extra year and a half.

it was a shit tank, but it worked out well

It was much better than most of our (UK) tanks for most of the war

>>32770602
>Sherman protection was fine, comparable favorably to other tanks in it's class.
Considering that Panthers are in its class, not quite.

>>32770621
Panthers are not in its class they are almost 10 tons heavier and in the same class as the M26.

>>32770630
Both were medium tanks, used in the same roles, on opposite sides of the conflict.

>>32770632
No that was the M4 and the Pz4, 3, and stug the panther never had the numbers to be the main tank.

>>32770645
>and stug
Is an assault gun. You have no idea what you're talking about. Fact is, the Panther was a German medium tank, thus performing the same role as the Sherman did for the US, only it was statistically a far superior tank. Naturally in reality it was a faulty, unreliable heap of junk, but still.

>>32770520
So fucking mad wehraboos are.

>>32770650
Statistically most german armor was Pz4s, 3s, or stugs and other assault guns and TDs, which was what the M4 went up against most of the time. Not a tank that was 10 tons heavier and years newer the actual tank the Panther should be compared to is the M26.

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>>32770669
>which was what the M4 went up against most of the time
Yeah and when it'd go against Panthers and heavy tanks it would underperform severely, because retarded doctrine of
>when enemy armour comes we'll just drive these tank destroyers there :^)

>>32770620
Id take a Cromwell or Comet over a Sherman any day.

>>32770632
>Used in the same roles.

>>32770645
He's got the right of it about Panthers.

Six thousand Panthers vs fifty thousand Shermans. Unless you think each Panther can handle two goddamn platoons of Shermans, it's a poor match.

>>32770708
>Six thousand Panthers vs fifty thousand Shermans. Unless you think each Panther can handle two goddamn platoons of Shermans, it's a poor match.
>six thousand
432 on the Western Front.

>>32770669
>>32770675
>>32770708

You can compare the Panther to an Easy Eight M4.

If you get confused in the comparison, the Panther is the one on fire and exploded because the Easy shot though it's glacas armor at a thousand yards.

>>32770718
So why is >>32770675 acting like its the main tank of the germans?

>>32770725
I'm not.

>>32770718

And 4,100 some Shermans on the Eastern Front means it's a place where, at least for numbers, they were much closer to even.

>>32770728
Than why are you comparing it to the main tank of the americans and not the uncommon new medium tank they also have the M26.

>>32770740
Because only 20 of them took part in the conflict.

>>32770749
And only 432 where deployed against them.

>>32770757
>only

>>32770759
Compared to everything else thats a drop especially when they keep loosing them.

>>32770766
Yeah, because of attrition. The US voluntarily built shit, underpowered tanks.

>>32770564

>my_sides.jpg

>>32770772
In 1941 when it was better than any medium tank they knew of.

>>32770788
Then proceeded to not upgrade it in time because of retardation and muh TD doctrine.

>>32770794
Because it was believed the panther and tigger2 where not as produced as they where and most would be sent to fight the russians(this part was right).

>>32770802
No, because they thought they could build fast TDs that would somehow drive around the front countering German armour everywhere, until reality smacked them in the face and Shermans proved wholly overmatched by contemporary German tanks.

>>32770772
>>32770794

The M4 was a good tank and was upgraded throughout the war. They also had overwhelming, crushing numerical superiority over any armor that would be considered comparable. As was pointed out above on the western front each Panther would have had to kill a full company of Sherman, alone, in order to balance the scales.

Combine this with the tremendous difficulties operating armor offensively at all in the face of allies air superiority, the story was one of one defeat after another. The best German offensive on the western front occurred because the weather took allied air cover off the table.

>>32770816
What the flying fuck are you talking about retard, US TD doctrine was by far the best, and it didn't matter if they were outmatched 1:1 when they were usually at 5:1 you dull cunt
You dumb wehraboo fuck, try picking up a book once in a while rather than watching shitty meme history channel ww2 documentaries, you might fucking learn something

Reminder that Hitler thought like shitskins today and got massive boners at the idea of barely mobile pillboxes
US and Russians did it right (besides Russian armor, welds and tank layouts lmao)

>>32770828
>was upgraded throughout the war
Yes, after tankers in the field found out they're driving inferior tanks and the brass finally had to admit they need to improve them.
>each Panther would have had to kill a full company of Sherman, alone, in order to balance the scales.
Yeah, in the long term that applies, but not in actual operations. An American combat command with armour could very well be overmatched by German armour, even if they were numerically inferior, because the 75mm Sherman are not capable of effectively engaging Panthers and Tigers.
>Combine this with the tremendous difficulties operating armor offensively at all in the face of allies air superiority, the story was one of one defeat after another. The best German offensive on the western front occurred because the weather took allied air cover off the table.
We're talking tanks, not general warfare here.

>>32770834
>US TD doctrine was by far the best
>let's ignore our medium tanks' capabilities and instead rely on mobile TD units that will conveniently be where ever the enemy armour is at any given time
lol

>>32770846
Hmm, it's almost like 75mm Sherman's were infantry support tanks that spent most of their time blasting Huns to pieces with HE
Learn about the fucking tanks before you open your mouth you stupid cunt

>>32770846
Oh and by the way, why don't you take a gander at what German tanks the M4 may have had to deal with when it entered service and was in North Africa
Because it certainly wasn't tigers and panthers my main man
Do you even know what year it entered service?

>>32770855
Hmm, it's almost like 75mm Shermans were mixed with 76mm ones and there were more of the short gunned ones. It's almost like you don't get to choose your enemies in battle like it's a duel or something as well.

>>32770893
You also don't get to stop planes from killing the trucks with all your replacement parts/ammo/fuel.

>>32770889
Why are you trying to support my argument of the Sherman being an inferior tank to many of its opponents?

>>32770893
No shit you stupid cunt, so why the fuck did you start comparing 75mm Sherman's by themselves to panthers and tigers
Do you even know how many tigers the US faced? It weren't many my man, even the fucking Bongs fought more, shocker they got by too because in reality German tanks aren't the invincible shit you dream up in your autistic head
Also, what the fuck is air support you dumb fuck, what is combined arms, you clearly don't have a firm grasp of history or tactics, why don't you save yourself any more embarrassment, save me the stupid ass post to read, and just shut the fuck up?

>>32770903
Many? Try a small handfull when most that it went up against where worse than it.

>>32770901
Yeah and we still aren't talking about the war in general, but Shermans.

>>32770909
Oh boy did those goalposts fly back and oh boy did you get angry. Take a chill pill, man.

>>32770903
>Smashed the shit out of Nazis in North Africa when it was introduced
>Ez as fuck to mass produce, use and even bail out of
>Inferior
No, shitty obese tanks that are borderline impossible to maintain and supply logistically are shit tanks

>>32770834
fucking christ the US armored doctrine stated that the tank platoon size at the time is 5 tanks

>>32770917
Yeah, it was good when introduced, but weak during Overlord, because USMil leadership were convinced their doctrines and plans were perfect and then a reality check occured and they went ahead and upgraded them and started designing the Pershing, because the Sherman was overmatched by everything contemporary and American units proved completely unable to defeat even the massively attritioned German forces when air support wasn't available.

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>>32770520
Fuck you, Sherman a cute!

CUTE!

>>32770700
oh of course, but they were late war tanks, you take what you can get before those and Shermans were very good tanks mid-war for us

>>32770931
>A 1941 infantry support tank was outclassed by heavy tanks from 1943/4
Wow really anon, please continue to regale me with this knowledge that we haven't already gone over

>>32770931
>Yeah, it was good when introduced, but weak during Overlord, because USMil leadership were convinced their doctrines and plans were perfect and then a reality check occured and they went ahead and upgraded them and started designing the Pershing, because the Sherman was overmatched by everything contemporary and American units proved completely unable to defeat even the massively attritioned German forces when air support wasn't available.

Battle of Arracourt Reeeeee. Panthers got fucking smashed by 75mm Shermans, because memes about 5:1 are just memes. Also the Germans lost more tanks to break downs than to enemy fire because memes about German tank reliability *aren't* just memes.

>>32770952
That's because panthers were fucking shit despite what this retard seems to think

>>32770952
the fucking 5:1 meme came about because the smallest unit in US doctrine of dedicated armored units is 5 tanks. If a commander gets a report that there's enemy armored vehicles in the field he sends a platoon. StuG? 5 tanks sent to deal with it. Panver IV? 5 tanks sent. Panther? 5 tanks sent. Tiger? 5 tanks sent. They switched it from "the Germans were losing so badly that they got immediately swamped 5-to-1 every time they poked out their nose" to "the Germans were so super-special-awesome that it took five tanks to face them every time they showed up"

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>>32770950
Please tell all the butthurt anons to accept it then, because that's all I've been saying, yet all these ass-ravaged cunts keep spamming bullshit.

>>32770952
>Battle of Arracourt
>fucking smashed by 75mm Shermans
>Late 1944 CCA
>no 76mm shermans
proofs
>TDs involved
>Air support did half the work

>>32770960
Logistically utter shit, in engagements less so. Naturally wars aren't fought on paper, but in direct engagements a Panther is superior to a Sherman.

>>32770980
Logistics win wars you stupid fucking cunt, off yourself, also panthers were fucking dogshit, they broke down like fuck, they weren't heavy tanks, they weren't medium tanks, and it doesn't matter if they can 1v1 quickscope a 75mm Sherman's before they break down because that's not how wars work or are won you fucking spastic

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>>32771000

>>32771000
And for the nth time, this thread is talking about the Sherman tank itself, not about the war in general and its logistical functions.

>>32770909
3 the Americans encountered 3 tiger 1s in france.

>>32770980
Wars are not fought in engagements but by logistics and bean counters.

>>32771023
That's the thing, unreliability is generally more of a strategic thing than a tactical one, but in the Panther it was so extreme it actually BECAME a tactical problem, it's final drives were so bad that they would lose a very significant proportion on their tank force over the course of a single battle.

And it had problems beyond that, shitty gunners sight with no field of view is pretty crippling if you';re doing anything other than serving a pillbox.

>>32771023
Which Sherman you faggot? It seems to be mostly tigers and panthers vs 75mm Sherman's which is fucking retarded, how about the 76mm m4a3 against a Panzer III, that's a way better comparison, wow the Sherman's were so much better, Nazis btfo

>>32771030
Wars are fought in engagements enabled by logistics.

>>32771044
Shermans in general. US armoured units had a mix of the different variants.

>>32771047
So Jumbo's, all the 76s, and even god damn fireflies were all inferior to your shitty tank that broke down fucking everywhere and anywhere?

>>32771023
And the sherman 75 was better than 80% of all armor they faced and the 76 was better than everything that was not a panther or tiger 2 which is less than 600 tanks deployed against them.

>>32771053
Fireflies are British tanks.

>if I take away all the positives from their side and all the negatives from my side my choice seems better
This Nazi shill needs to kill himself tee hee haych

>>32771055
No they're not, they're Shermans with a British gun jammed into it
Russians tweaked the Shermans they got, didn't make them Russian tanks

>>32771055
They are also shermans.

>>32770520
Actually, although a Sherman only had 51mm of frontal armour, it was sloped, thus making the actual horizontal penetration thickness around 70mm.
Furthermore, once the US utilised wet ammo storage, Shermans only burned 5-15% of the time, as opposed to 80% of time for Shermans in Africa or Italy that didnt have wet ammo storage.

>>32771066
I'm repeating myself but being easy to bail out of a much enjoyed feature too

>>32771066
They bumped it to 64mm with the a3 and that makes it ~90mm of armor when accounting for the slope.

>>32771066
Meanwhile other tanks never got wet ammo storage so they always burned 80% of the time.

>>32770766
This. The german war machine was pretty inefficient in R&D terms due to the political infighting and that showed in the reliability and quantity of these projects. For example, when 42 Elefant heavy tank destroyers were deployed on the Eastern Front, 28 were disabled due to maintenance problems after the first week, by the second week 37 were disabled due to maintenance problems. They knocked out more of their own 'superior' tanks than the Russians did purely down to reliability.

>>32771091
Like the panther.

>>32771096
the only tank to light itself of fire is the panther.

>>32771095
Naw spending thousands of hours making a few overly heavy, impossible to maintain shitboxes that just love to break down is way better than the silly US or Russian idea of making lots and lots of tanks and parts for said tanks

>>32770722
>Easy shot though it's glacas armor at a thousand yards.
wrong
the only tanks on the western front that could do that were the pershing with HVAP and 17LBer with APDS

>>32771121
76 did have hvap and could do it just not from that range.

>>32771127
76mm HVAP likes to shatter on angles
so it would be hit-or-miss even at close range

>>32771121
The british 17 pndr actually wasnt a great gun when mounted in the Firefly, if you look at army tests it performed only marginally better than the 76mm (17 pndr = 76.2mm) and was pretty inaccurate past 500 yards, hence why the americans were never too keen on adopting it, and just kept with the 76 instead. Also, because they had to turn the gun sideways to fit in the turret, that meant removing a man from the turret, thus the commander had to load, man the radio and spot enemy tanks (if my memory is correct).

>>32771131
Any proof of it shattering on angles? Because I've never heard of any such problem.

>>32771143
pls dont make me go dig through hunicutt at 8am :(

>>32771143
Mate I still havent gone to sleep yet because of this shit go dig up hunicutt so I can go to sleep because the only things I can remember was that it can kill it from a few hundred yards.

>>32771157
and I missed>>32771149

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>>32770520
>Guise, I want to be edgy, so here's a pic of a beta tank the sherman that was blown up by the germans in WWII b/c shermans are shit... because da internetz sez so... also in an hour I will post about how the M16 jams all the time cuz itz shit, but dam am I edgy!!

Meanwhile notanks posts a pic of:
>early production M4A1
>with extended side fenders
>2nd gen copula
>E9 double duckbill upgrade
>Implying that a tank with tons of post war upgrades was a WWII KO and not being used as a target on a range in the 1950s or 60's

wew

OP has a severe case of dunning kruger

>>32771423
>OP has a severe case of retard
FTFY

>>32770577
>mfw T 34 track pins are not even fixed. They just had guide plates on the outside of the hull pushing them back in.

>>32771611
>TFW it actually worked

>>32771324
>main gun removed
>Late pointed transmission cover
I concur.

>>32771611
If it's a stupid idea and it works, it isn't a stupid idea.

>>32771810
No, it's a pretty stupid idea as it doesn't prevent track pins from coming out in the first place, it just pushes some loose ones back in. If one falls out before it gets to that point it's still fucked

>>32771836
Do you know how long it takes for a track pin to wiggle out?
Protip: it's more than 1 full cycle around the hull.

>>32771864
Protip: Terrain matters you dumb shit

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>>32770520

>Based anon using my pasta

Feelsgoodman

>>32771810
The Tigers and Panthers had them too, but it was a backup in case the cotter pin failed. The fact that the T34 has no retained pin is a flawed design as even with the push block the pins can still wiggle free on some terrain, also after a while the block wears down and is not as effective as it was when new. This however takes many years of running for this to occur.

The russians knew this but didn't care though as the tank and crew were not supposed to have that long of a service life, the tank's chances of surviving a battle were not very high, and if destroyed there were plenty more where they came from, along with crews. So in that regard it works and is arguable efficient, but as a engineering design standpoint it's a flaw

>>32771979
Protip: the solution was good enough to be used up to the T-62. Because in real life even over the roughest terrain, track pins are under sufficient load to not walk very far at all. And constantly being whacked back into place worked for those that got too far.
They did not unduly suffer from spontaneous track disintegration.

>>32770520
The M3/M5 were actually closer in performance to German medium tanks like the Pz III while the M4 Sherman with the 76mm gun was the equal of the Tiger I.

The Sherman has better literally everything except frontal armor and gun. And I do mean everything. Sights, radios, engine, crew layout, fire control, everything. The M4's contemporary was the Pz4, which it was 100% capable of buttfucking. Its principle enemy was the StuG by numbers and how reality played out. E8 Sherman's were on par with the Panther entirely, capable of engaging them from the front, at range, and their superior commanders sight and commander-gunner comms meant they usually got the first shot, especially if the Panther was on an incline and had to contend with its garbage turret traverse drive motor.

The panther was a thick box with a big gun and every other part of it was shit. And the box got weaker and more brittle every year. A 1945 Panther could be engaged handily by a 1945 Sherman.

>>32770932
Film?

>>32772255
did the '45 Shermans still have speed governors?

Not really an implied criticism, I would just find it odd if after all those modifications and improvements and the deployment of hellafast shit like the hellcat the US army thought those stupid speed governors should keep the tank at ~25mph

>>32770525
First post worst post

>>32770537
Fucking kek

>>32772287
Literally "Tank" (1984).

If you ever wanted to know what a pussy communist is, you should watch it.

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>>32770520
>wehraboos are THIS triggered

>>32772486
Likely, it's not something I have come across as being removed.

>>32770520
If homosexuality was a clean power source, OP would have prevented climate-change single-handedly.

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>>32770537

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>>32772486
Probably did, However unlike the german tanks it's not because of the fragility of the drivetrain or engine,

https://youtu.be/uVwFN1Tap7k

Not sure if it's the stock engine, but still shows how durable the transmission / suspension is, as you literally can't do this with a german tank,

>TFW no M4A1 w/ naked woman painted on side to burn down the highway with while listening to Queen
>TFW not blowing the doors off of riced out civics with a sherman
>TFW you will never be this awesome

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>>32770537

>>32773176
>Try that in a Panther.
>Hit ant carrying a seed across the road.
>the slight change in elevation cause the engine to explode into flames.
Best tanks guys, best tank.

>>32770537
I think your confusing the Sherman with the T34 again desu

>>32772486
Yes, or at the very least with radial engines.


See, it turns out that when you're in combat the driver most likely has two modes: floor it, brake it. The problem with a radial is that they have a tendency to dramatically over rev if you're not careful with the gas pedal, which usually ended with a dead engine. Speed governors were a modernization. Germans were doing the same thing with their own tanks, though unlike with the Americans, it had more to do with the fact that as the war dragged on German tank transmissions were becoming ridiculously complex to operate, and the German army had fewer and fewer resources to train new crews with.


>>32770931
Post D-Day most of the problems associated with the Sherman came back to fuckery on the part of war planners.


The 75mm gun had a specialized round developed for it- CBC or just ballistic capped, forget which- that dramatically improved it's AP performance. This round was never issued to American tankers.


The 76mm gun had dramatically improved armor penetration. This gun, prior to Europe, was rarely used on the M4 Sherman, and was specifically restricted to dedicated tank hunting units which were also another piece of shit thanks to war planners who were planning exclusively to fight a kind of warfare the US would be on the receiving end of exactly once the entire war.


>because the Sherman was overmatched by everything contemporary


The M4 Sherman was more than a match for the bulk of the German army. What it may have been out gunned for- Tiger 1's and 2's and some other niche designs- were often a completely unacceptable match in terms of resources invested both in production, and long term costs.


>American units proved completely unable to defeat even the massively attritioned German forces when air support wasn't available.


Factually untrue. American- and Commonwealth- air power in Europe accounted for very little in the way of tactical advantages.

>>32770520

All tanks of WW2 could be holed, and all tankers can be turned to cinder or blown apart.

Sherman wasn't any worst than most medium tanks, and it outfought the Panther simply due to better ease of use.

>>32770980
>>Air support did half the work
>WW2 CAS actually doing anything
oh wait you're serious

>>32770520
Best crew survival rate too. Only 18%.

75% for T-34.

>>32770613
It was available, just not on Shermans.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bNjp_4jY8pY

relevant to this thread

>>32770520
Wow sounds like you're looking at several different knocked-out Shermans. That's a lot of effort.

If you wanted all of those casualties in one place, you could have saved yourself some time and found a knocked out T-34

>>32770893
Good thing the 75mm armed Shermans mauled factory-fresh Panther divisions when they fought

>>32775945

Panthers really suck for anything other than open terrain long range fights, where they're excellent there.

>>32775889
So much this!

This thread makes me miss Shermanator

Sherman a Cute!

>>32770650
>statistically

Statistically, we're all dead Chinese women.

>>32770846

The Sherman was intended to receive a long anti-armor gun from the start it just happened to be the 76mm M1.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bNjp_4jY8pY

This should shed some light.

>>32775889
bout time someone posted this

>>32770952
I read that a unit of panthers got fucked by American AT guns because the crews were fresh out of the training school. Meanwhile, older tank units are using Pz Iv's and trying not to die

>>32772255
Nice triple dubs

>>32770520
A tank sill works as long as the hull is not completely destroyed.

>>32778518
The tank in OP's pic is post WWII and is a range target

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>>32772955

>Muh 50 years of innovations

>>32779673

Only 1 tank got it right. M1.

You can recover an M1 that has its magazine go up as long as the engine doesn't catch on fire or shit gets in the open hatches. You can then repair it.

When shit blows off inside the hull, it burns the lot out, which means you have a useless turret and hull in most instances. I know sometimes they've put new turrets on T-55s and T-72s that have popped their tops, but most times it'll be a total loss.

>>32770520

in all ways except physical, I am a Tiger

*throws tracks*

*catches fire*

>>32780090

I'm a trans-Patton

*hits corner too fast*

*rolls*

*catches fire*

>>32770588
Then explain the constant circlejerking about muh sloped armor.

>>32770893
>you don't get to choose your enemy

Choosing where and when to fight is the basic purpose of all military planning. You dumb cunt.

>>32775572
Air support in world war 2 was less CAS and more blowing the shit out of fuel, ammo and transport convoys moving equipment to the front.

This effectively crippled the ability of Germany to move equipment forward or to supply a real offensive.

>>32780256
This. Allied CAS was sometimes invaluable, but usually against infantry positions. Interdiction was the real secret sauce of the air effort--with the technology of the day, it was a lot easier to detect and kill trucks and horse-drawn carts on roads than camouflaged panzers in fighting positions. And the former tended to run the latter out of fuel and spare parts.

The British army used to nickname the sherman 'the ronson'.
Lights first time every time.

I really don't understand this debate at all.

>>32780379
Except that is revisionism, Ronson only introduced that slogan in the 50's.

>>32780379
The British named their best tank the Churchill, because it was old and dumpy.

>>32780383
Wehraboos are butthurt because the Americans managed to create a good, war-winning tank. So to feel better about themselves, they try to denigrate it.

>>32770520
OP thinks appeals to emotion mean fuck all

>>32780431

Yep.

Comet was better, though. 77mm APDS BTFO of Panthers from the front.

>>32780448
Comet was based on the Cromwell, and therefore suffered from poor reliability and armor.
The 77 was great though, in a Sherman it'd have been a more flexible, useful and comfortable Firefly.

Discussions of whether the Sherman was/was not a good tank in relation to other tanks misses the entire point of having armored vehicles to begin with- and consequently fail to address why even the atrociously high attrition rates of T-34s during 1942- mechanical and combat-related, are acceptable. From a different angle, this binary understanding also fails to account for why tanks like the T-70 and Valentine were manufactured alongside vehicles that rendered them seemingly obsolete.

Ultimately a tank is needed for leading assaults into occupied territory. That's its role. To this point, even the most rudimentary tanks have both armor to resist small arms, and at the most basic level machine guns to suppress infantry, but more often carrying guns capable of firing HE to destroy hardened positions more offensively.

In contrast, without a tank, even minor, low-investment defensive networks consisting of entrenched machine guns become potential bloodbaths for unsupported infantry. Even the worlds shittiest tank is a far safer place to be in the middle of a firefight than being man with rifle, and even despite the myths about how this or that tank was a deathtrap, it was always a safer place to be.

While the temptation is to look at armored combat in a tank vs. tank matchups, the disparity in tank production between the Allies and Axis manifested far more often in scenarios of infantry being able to assault fortifications with armored support that would vastly reduce infantry casualties. More tanks = fewer infantry casualties in costly pushes into overlapping fields of MG fire.

>>32780159
The sloped armor was done by the russians to speed up production and it also uses less material then the standard box. It was not necessarily done for tank to take hits... kinda like when rifling was invented to prevent carbon build up but was found to make the bullet spin and people where like huh!

It's funny though how vatniks are like
>T34 slopes!!!!
>glorious unstoppable machine like a Tula AK!!!

Sherman has sloped frontal armor. Also the cast turrets and rounded cast hulls hull offer a slope at many angles
>Shit box death trap w/ no slopez

Also slopes in general were mostly a meme which died out after WWII, look at post war designs

>Mostly Cast parts
>rounded shapes

modern tank designs
>Boxy
>lots of squared off edges
>The fucking germans had to add a sloped armor kit to the Leo 2

>>32770915
>We're talking about tanks, ignoring the different roles of tanks, ignoring the numerical superiority of one of the tank, ignoring the logistics of transporting tanks en mass across the ocean, ignoring the fact that the outnumbered tank you want to compare it to was nearly a quarter larger, ignoring the shit maintenance of the Nazi tanks, ignoring total allied air superiority.
Gee I wonder why when you ignore relevant information you think your opinion is unquestionably right.

>>32770980
>Naturally wars aren't fought on paper, but in direct engagements
Ask us how we know you're clueless

>>32781482
Sloped armor had the effect of neutralizing rounds fired from tanks like the Panzer 3, but that shit ended when the Nazis but longer barreled 75mm guns on the Panzer 4.

>>32776769
i didn't know shermanator was a /k/ommando
did he abandon /k/ to make youtube videos or something

>>32770572
Are you retarded? By the time the M4A3 entered service, the frontal armor was a hair under 94mm thick when accounting for slope, and the generallly higher quality steel and welds meant that actual effectiveness was even greater.

>>32770588
The Sherman WAS better than the T-34. Soviet tankers who crewed both T-34s and Lend Lease Shermans have said that the T-34 burned up even faster than the Sherman did.

http://iremember.ru/en/memoirs/tankers/dmitriy-loza/

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>>32770621
It's funny that you would hold up the Panther as evidence of the Sherman's failings, considering an outnumbered US force made up of mostly Shermans with no real artillery or air cover stomped a German force comprised mainly of Panthers at Arracourt.

>>32770840
Actually, post-war US analysis of the T-34-85 showed that the Russians actually used fairly high quality alloys and extremely strong welds in the T-34's armor. The problem was that there was an overall lack of quality control, meaning that one tank's armor might be excellent, but a tank built in another factory might be much less impressive.

You're right about the shit ergonomics though.

>>32770855
I remember reading somewhere that only 20% of a Sherman crew's time was spent engaging other tanks. Their work was mainly infantry support, and the Sherman's reliability and ease of repair ensured that tanks would almost always be present when the infantry needed them, unlike the unlucky Germans whose leaders waste time and money trying to build super tanks rather than improving existing tanks and unfucking their logistics so the tanks will actually be there when they're needed.

>>32780379
Didn't the British nickname the M4 Sherman?

>>32781482
The armor of the t34 used to spall and kill the crew on non penetrating hits too

>>32782165
Yeah I've seen plenty of welds that were most certainly not well done
Did the ruskies provide the US with the T-34s to examine by any chance?

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>>32781482
>It was not necessarily done for tank to take hits... kinda like when rifling was invented to prevent carbon build up but was found to make the bullet spin and people where like huh!
It was exactly for taking hits. If they wanted fast productions they would not change the armor thickness to 45mm but still have it at 32mm as the early production models and they knew the advantage of sloped armor ever since world war 1. The time after world war 1 spawned many different designs based on different concepts and ideas of tanks and their role. The T-34 was not even the first one to use sloped armor in the soviet tank industry or the world, that honour goes to the french or the british.

>Also slopes in general were mostly a meme which died out after WWII, look at post war designs
And they all used sloped armor. Almost all american tanks, british, german, french and Soviet and even japanese use sloped armor especially for the upper glacis of the hull or the design of the mantlet on the turret. The M60A1 turret is less rounded but more angled to deflect russian 100mm APCBC rounds even better.
>Mostly cast
Yes, the american tanks like the M47, M48 and M60 pattons used cast the most. And works well especially at a angle. Look at their upper hull glacis and try convince me that it is actually flat. Even the rounded shapes work because of angles which gives it greater line of sight material thickness from the front in the same way that sloped armor works with the added benefit of deflection of enemy shells.

>modern tank designs
Still using sloped armor. Look at the Leopards 2, challenger 1 and 2 upper glacis. The M1 abrams still use sloped armor. It is only that modern designs use it at extreme angles for maximum protection against modern threats.

>>32782229
They did not actually. I believe the analysis in question was performed on two tanks captured during the Korean War.

>>32782245
Well I'll be
I guess as you say it just came down to a tank by tank (or factory by factory) basis

>>32770532
The M4A3, arguably the best variant of the Sherman produced in any significant numbers, had frontal armor with a line of sight thickness of 93.84mm. Frontal turret armor had a line of sight thickness of 86mm, further reinforced by an 89mm gun mantlet. That adds up to nearly 180mm of frontal armor on the turret alone. These numbers are absurd for a tank that was produced by the tens of thousands and had to be built under a certain weight so as to be transportable by ship.

Combine this with the fact that US tanks benefitted from high quality steel and welds, and the fact that high levels of quality control ensured that EVERY Sherman experienced that benefit. Wet ammo stowage and conveniently located, large, spring loaded hatches just put the icing on the cake. And if the tank were to be knockec out, and it wasn't completely destroyed, it would be recovered, repaired, and back in service inside of a month.

>>32782259
It certainly did, but as you probably know, even a well made T-34 had a number of significant shortcomings that were inherent in the design. Quality control can't help that.

>>32782317
>Ywn be crammed into your tank like a sardine
>Ywn be torn apart by shards of metal when a shell bounces of the tank
>Ywn be scraped out of your sardine can by comrade Ivan
Feels bad

>>32782344
Fuck man, forget about combat. I'd hate to be the poor bastard tasked with repairing the thing. To even get at anything, first you'd have to remove a bunch of bolts. Accessing all the suspension units required removing the entire turret. The transmission was primitive and unreliable, not to mention a nightmare to operate. The traverse motor was underpowered and overloaded. On and on and on.

One little thing I never see mentioned. In the crew compartment of the T-34-85, the turret ring actually overhangs the driver's position by several inches. Meaning that unless he wants the gunner's boots or various components inside the turret whacking him in the back of the head when the turret traverses (which it did very quickly I might add), he has to be leaning forward at all times. This in addition to having to deal with his knees being in his face and having to operate that godawful clutch and shift lever.

>>32782245
https://www.scribd.com/document/230672358/ENGINEERING-ANALYSIS-OF-THE-RUSSIAN-T34-85-TANK

The analysis in question, for anybody who may be interested

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>>32782229
>>32782245
They provided a T-34 and KV-1 somewhere at 1942-43 to the US. The brittbongs also got some.

They found out that some parts where good while others were faulty. Generally they were roughly made but were exceptionally well made at critical parts of the tank. Driving was a bitch since and IIRC it was related to the transmission design and gearbox since originally the T-34 was ment to weight less but gained some weight and those two things was derived from the BT-7 which was easy to drive because it was light as feather compared to the T-34. The air filter for the engine could have been better and was considered to be pretty bad.

These things gave the T-34 not so good reliability.

But they liked the gunsight, the radio placement and actually how the ammo was all located at the bottom of the tank but did not like the lack of turret floor. The gun was okayish and the tracks were pretty wide and good. They did not like the tiny turret hatch nor how small it was.

They liked the T-34 more then the KV-1 overall and most of these problems were fixed as well as the soviets could
>Gearbox got improved so the driver had easier to drive
>Turret got larger with the T-34 1943 mod and T-34/85 which made life easy for the crew
>Airfilters got improved and thanks to the IS-1 and 2 design team since they designed them.
>Overall quality got better but still rough but still better and got it's best after 1944.

Sad thing is that the soviets knew of these problems and planned to build the so called "T-34M" which was going to fix all of these problems but the war broke out before any mayor retooling of factory was done so they had to roll with the T-34 as we know it and decided to only fix parts that would make production go faster.

>>32782444
Eh Nicholas got kinda long legs. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nem_Zc51ksg

>>32770574
In addition to being impossible to bail out of, the T-34 also had fuel tanks right there in the crew compartment. This in addition to the problems earlier models had with armor spalling.

>>32770620
>shit tank

>ergonomic
>comfortable
>armor equal or superior to contemporary medium tanks
>armor on late war models nearly equal to heavy tanks that outweighed it by 30 tons or more
>extremely accurate and reliable guns with wide variety of ammunition
>HVAP and APCBC rounds capable of defeating all enemy tanks from at least one aspect
>better radios
>quality optics for all crew members
>better, more powerful engines
>well placed, spring loaded hatches made bailing out in a hurry actually possible
>transmission was as easy to operate as a Ford sedan's
>bogie suspension made repairs a breeze
>general ease of repair and maintenance
>superior mechanical reliability
>US logistics ensured that the tank would actually fucking be there when it was needed

You mean to tell me that a technologically advanced tank that managed to balance reliability, armor, firepower, mobility, and ease of use, and was STILL produced in massive numbers, was somehow a shit tank?

>>32782518
>Eh Nicholas got kinda long legs

Ah, I was wondering if somebody would guess what I was thinking of there. Yeah, he's a bit tall for a tanker, but still, it doesn't look to be the most comfortable position to be in for hours on end.

>>32782518
You're thinking of the Aberdeen analysis of the T-34-76. I was thinking of an analysis done post-war. US forces captured two T-34-85s in Korea and sent them back for a look see.

Reading the two reports back to back does give you a good idea of the level of improvement Soviet armor underwent throughout the war.

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>>32782642
Being soviet is pure suffering even when under armor protection. Unless you are 1.5 meters which is roughly slightly below 5 feet

>>32782664
Yes that is correct.


Also Cheiftan posted a video of the m4 sherman

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=udnEpV160zU

>>32782700
>slightly below 5 feet
*slightly above 5 feet

>>32782700
Already seen it, and eagerly awaiting part two.

>>32770537
my grandfather was in the service during the late 50's, and said that his Sgt's call the tanks "rolling coffins".

we were talking about it last night.

>>32772737
god, my grandfather wore out 5 different vhs tapes of that movie when i was a kid.

I would love to buy him an old sherman just to see him go full on kill the commies.

>>32782833
During the 50s its foe was the t34-85 that it had no problems dealing with in korea.

>>32782961
His SGT's were older guys that fought in Europe in WW2, and his basic was in Ft. Hood in 1955.