Hi Dave: I have thought that a great book would be why the US never developed a tank to take on the German armor during WWII. The same is true of the development of the torpedo. Any comments more than what you have posted?Hi Guys,
Sorry for entering the discussion so late in the game but I have been reading and following it closely! Great points about the Panzer IV I am a major fan of this weapon system however we are not discussing them right and should focus on the M4. Also I have to give you credit Chris for coming up with a very interesting discussion point. The Sherman Tank as the first MBT. That’s an interesting concept and with some serious caveats I would nominally agree to some of the points made but I don’t think that we really see a true MBT until a bit later on down the road of Tank Development. We'll get there a little later on as well.
Now some points were made regarding the Sherman and its performance by late 1944 that are valid and I wont attempt to rationalize what the HQ’s were thinking by not going with a 90 mm Gun in 1943/44 because it was considered. But that really has no bearing on what I want to focus on. We need to look back to 1939-1940 to discuss something that hasn’t been touched on yet. That point is the really poor quality of the Tanks the British had developed up to this point and the fact that they were having a terrible time with the German Mk IVs they had encountered. Sorry guys and don’t get me wrong here its merely a statement of fact that the 3 main tanks in production for the UK were the Valentine, Matildas I (II’s were a great tank in 1940) and the horrid Covenanters. These tanks did their best but it wasn’t nearly good enough. In fact it’s really amazing that there was nearly no attempts in Britain to develop a tank that was armed with a dual purpose large caliber gun like the Panzer IV. What we see is the development of close support cruiser and infantry tanks armed with 76.2mm howitzers which were a very limited purpose weapon with zero armor piercing capability and were in no way comparable to the guns in use in German Tanks.
Enter the Americans in the form of the Grant/Lee. The Grant/Lee needs to be looked at briefly here because it was developed quickly from a design in the 1930s of the Experimental T5E2 but the kicker was the need to have a 75mm gun to match up with the biggest Gun the Germans were fielding at the time (1940) in the Mk IV so the British ordered them in Sept 41 and were fielded them in 42 Libya. Stunningly fast from back board to out the door of the factory and field use. As good as this weapons system was it was really only a stop gap put into action to gain time for the M4 to enter the fray. The reason they were able to get this tank into production so quickly was they mechanically quite similar and this was key to getting the m out the doors so quickly. The factory didn’t need to shut down IOT retool a lot of the line. As these were produced they because the principle weapon system for the US, British and French forces and we even sent a bunch to the Russians, which is funny when you consider they made a few more T34s that we did Sherman’s. I still find it strange that we never made any improvements to the armament of this vehicle until after Normandy and the 75 mm gun was really shown as obsolete. But this complacency about the armament as well as the armor of the M4 in the US Army High Command was due to the misguided thought process that Tanks don’t fight Tanks and that the primary role of the Armored Forces was to exploit breakouts and pursue enemy forces. Quite similar to the primary Tank Theory in play in the UK at that time. This very flawed thought process also lead to the development of a separate formation of Tank Destroyers and to the division of effort that could well have put a 90mm on the M4 in 1943. Now another interesting note here has to be the US Army wasn’t in the fight yet. They only had a total of 464 Tanks on Active Duty and these were light years behind in development due to the basic disbanding of the US Tank Corps after WWI but that’s a discussion for another time. So in 1940/41 on a pre war production footing with out the massive tank works that would be built starting in the spring of 42 and completed in record time the M4 was developed and brought into production with fielding in 1942. But these factors don’t make the Sherman an MBT as we know it today, in fact they make me believe that the first real MBT is not going to show up until the XM1 is developed. (See Chris I managed to get a plug in for our Abrams!
Thanks to Chris for the great topic.
Dave
Cheers mate!!
Regarding fire for effect capabilities with US arty teams- did that exist as well for British fire teams as well in WW2 at any point in time? I have heard/read several times that was a major plus for us.
The British & Commonwealth artillery Regt in WW2 were the best at fire support with there twenty five pounder guns , I think more soldier were killed by artillery by none in WW2
Great information Dave. One thing I don't quite get is the odd gun layout of the Grant/Lee. Was that simply a compromise based on some existing design or was there some theory behind not putting the main gun in the turret and having two versus one cannon?Hi Guys,
Sorry for entering the discussion so late in the game but I have been reading and following it closely! Great points about the Panzer IV I am a major fan of this weapon system however we are not discussing them right and should focus on the M4. Also I have to give you credit Chris for coming up with a very interesting discussion point. The Sherman Tank as the first MBT. That’s an interesting concept and with some serious caveats I would nominally agree to some of the points made but I don’t think that we really see a true MBT until a bit later on down the road of Tank Development. We'll get there a little later on as well.
Now some points were made regarding the Sherman and its performance by late 1944 that are valid and I wont attempt to rationalize what the HQ’s were thinking by not going with a 90 mm Gun in 1943/44 because it was considered. But that really has no bearing on what I want to focus on. We need to look back to 1939-1940 to discuss something that hasn’t been touched on yet. That point is the really poor quality of the Tanks the British had developed up to this point and the fact that they were having a terrible time with the German Mk IVs they had encountered. Sorry guys and don’t get me wrong here its merely a statement of fact that the 3 main tanks in production for the UK were the Valentine, Matildas I (II’s were a great tank in 1940) and the horrid Covenanters. These tanks did their best but it wasn’t nearly good enough. In fact it’s really amazing that there was nearly no attempts in Britain to develop a tank that was armed with a dual purpose large caliber gun like the Panzer IV. What we see is the development of close support cruiser and infantry tanks armed with 76.2mm howitzers which were a very limited purpose weapon with zero armor piercing capability and were in no way comparable to the guns in use in German Tanks.
Enter the Americans in the form of the Grant/Lee. The Grant/Lee needs to be looked at briefly here because it was developed quickly from a design in the 1930s of the Experimental T5E2 but the kicker was the need to have a 75mm gun to match up with the biggest Gun the Germans were fielding at the time (1940) in the Mk IV so the British ordered them in Sept 41 and were fielded them in 42 Libya. Stunningly fast from back board to out the door of the factory and field use. As good as this weapons system was it was really only a stop gap put into action to gain time for the M4 to enter the fray. The reason they were able to get this tank into production so quickly was they mechanically quite similar and this was key to getting the m out the doors so quickly. The factory didn’t need to shut down IOT retool a lot of the line. As these were produced they because the principle weapon system for the US, British and French forces and we even sent a bunch to the Russians, which is funny when you consider they made a few more T34s that we did Sherman’s. I still find it strange that we never made any improvements to the armament of this vehicle until after Normandy and the 75 mm gun was really shown as obsolete. But this complacency about the armament as well as the armor of the M4 in the US Army High Command was due to the misguided thought process that Tanks don’t fight Tanks and that the primary role of the Armored Forces was to exploit breakouts and pursue enemy forces. Quite similar to the primary Tank Theory in play in the UK at that time. This very flawed thought process also lead to the development of a separate formation of Tank Destroyers and to the division of effort that could well have put a 90mm on the M4 in 1943. Now another interesting note here has to be the US Army wasn’t in the fight yet. They only had a total of 464 Tanks on Active Duty and these were light years behind in development due to the basic disbanding of the US Tank Corps after WWI but that’s a discussion for another time. So in 1940/41 on a pre war production footing with out the massive tank works that would be built starting in the spring of 42 and completed in record time the M4 was developed and brought into production with fielding in 1942. But these factors don’t make the Sherman an MBT as we know it today, in fact they make me believe that the first real MBT is not going to show up until the XM1 is developed. (See Chris I managed to get a plug in for our Abrams!
Thanks to Chris for the great topic.
Dave
Cheers mate!!
Regarding fire for effect capabilities with US arty teams- did that exist as well for British fire teams as well in WW2 at any point in time? I have heard/read several times that was a major plus for us.
The British & Commonwealth artillery Regt in WW2 were the best at fire support with there twenty five pounder guns , I think more soldier were killed by artillery by none in WW2
My reference is more to the actual control and communication/fire for effect model- "time on target" etc- not really concerned with the arty piece per se, more with the ability to put rounds downrage with accuracy.
Also, I believe WWW1 was the most brutal "Friendly fire" incidents. I know I have heard and read several accounts of 75,000 French soldiers losing their lives in WW1 because of this.
