Picture of a Sherman withstanding a clean hit of a pak40 or better

Discussions on the vehicles used by the Axis forces. Hosted by Christian Ankerstjerne
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Michael Kenny
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Re: Picture of a Sherman withstanding a clean hit of a pak40 or better

#46

Post by Michael Kenny » 22 Feb 2019, 20:22

Christianmunich wrote:
22 Feb 2019, 19:58

I think I know what the word strategic means. I believe Sherman failure actually prolonged the war..................
Yep Dunning–Kruger writ large.

Are you sure you are not Christian DeJohn?
It just struck me how you 'both' go into meltdown at the slightest criticism, share the same obsession and have a vastly inflated opinion of yourself.
Last edited by Michael Kenny on 22 Feb 2019, 20:27, edited 2 times in total.

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Re: Picture of a Sherman withstanding a clean hit of a pak40 or better

#47

Post by Christianmunich » 22 Feb 2019, 20:24

Now show a picture of the autumn of 1944, when 10k Allied tanks were trying to get stuff done against remants of the Wehrmacht in the last year of the war.

I make myself clear, the armour sheme of the M4 was most certainly a failure of epic proportions, the Sherman was very heavy for a medium and offered no protection. Period. If you believe beating the Wehrmacht with 20k tanks in 1944 is an accomplishment that speaks of the quality of the tanks then I believe your arguments lack quality.

Just some numbers for you, the Allied had to unload nearly 10k tanks to achieve the breakout of Normandy, their loss rates until operation cobra were nearly 3:1. THe actual breakout was only possible with now force ratios exceeding 10:1. The Allied didn't win the war because of the Sherman they won it despite it.

They could have won the war by riding on donkey, the Red Army would have ended the war without the Allies ever breaking out of Normandy. Saying they "won the war therefore the Sherman was good" is just an extremely bad argument. Maybe take a look at Totalize and Tractable when literal 100s of Shermans were attempting to overran tiny enemy forces and lost hundreds of Shermans in the process. They would have won earlier and with fewer casualties if a single person would have thought about making the front armour withstand pak 40 hits.


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Re: Picture of a Sherman withstanding a clean hit of a pak40 or better

#48

Post by Duncan_M » 22 Feb 2019, 20:26

Michael Kenny wrote:
22 Feb 2019, 20:22

Yep Dunning–Kruger writ large.

Are you sure you are not Christian DeJohn?
Me?

I think the M4 had some issues, no tank is perfect, but overall I rate it as probably the best tank of the war and a major cause for success in most theaters of war. In a world where the rule is "better a diamond with a flaw than a pebble without", it was extremely useful. Definitely wasn't a strategic failure, that's insane to call it that.

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Re: Picture of a Sherman withstanding a clean hit of a pak40 or better

#49

Post by Yoozername » 22 Feb 2019, 20:29

Troggs? I always thought you were a Hollies groupie....Here's your song since you sit inside all day!


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Re: Picture of a Sherman withstanding a clean hit of a pak40 or better

#50

Post by Michael Kenny » 22 Feb 2019, 20:43

Carrie Ann (actually Marianne) was much better.

Michael Kenny wrote:
22 Feb 2019, 20:19
I believe this tank was used as a Panzerfaust test-target by US soldiers after it was knocked out. I could be wrong but I am sure I saw a series of photos that show the glacis before and after the HC hits.
Got that wrong. Had a quick shufti through my unrivalled collection of pretty pictures and discovered these:
Screenggbn shot_2.jpg
Screenshot_2.jnnm pg.jpg

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Re: Picture of a Sherman withstanding a clean hit of a pak40 or better

#51

Post by MarkF617 » 23 Feb 2019, 11:47

Hello,

Christian Munich said:
they were aware of the pak40 and derivates long enough, they did nothing in response and let their tanks be total victims to the already standard issue AT weapon of the enemy.
The Germans were well aware of the 17 pounder in service in 1942 and the standard issue AT weapon of the British army in 1944 yet the only response from the Germans was to churn out a few hundred King Tigers. They just kept on making Panzer IV, Panthers Stugs etc even though they knew these would be "total victims to the already standard AT weapon of the enemy." IIRC the Americans made just as many Jumbo's as there were King Tigers so the Americans reacted just as much as the Germans did. Do you believe that the battle for NW Europe should have been contested by King Tigers and Sherman Jumbo's?

Thanks

Mark.
You know you're British when you drive your German car to an Irish pub for a pint of Belgian beer before having an Indian meal. When you get home you sit on your Sweedish sofa and watch American programs on your Japanese TV.

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Re: Picture of a Sherman withstanding a clean hit of a pak40 or better

#52

Post by critical mass » 23 Feb 2019, 12:11

Michael Kenny wrote:
22 Feb 2019, 20:43
Carrie Ann (actually Marianne) was much better.

Michael Kenny wrote:
22 Feb 2019, 20:19
I believe this tank was used as a Panzerfaust test-target by US soldiers after it was knocked out. I could be wrong but I am sure I saw a series of photos that show the glacis before and after the HC hits.
Got that wrong. Had a quick shufti through my unrivalled collection of pretty pictures and discovered these:

Screenggbn shot_2.jpgScreenshot_2.jnnm pg.jpg
What exactly do we see here? The hit on the drivers hatch is small calibre (20mm/37mm?), and it´s not APCR. The frontal housing hit is definetely larger (50-75mm?) than the aforementioned one but it has a pronounced bloom around it, indicating not a pure APC strike but some sort of high explosive action associated with descaling of the metals oxyd surface layer. That could be either a low order HE strike (breaking up on impact rather than detonating), a Pzgr with premature fuse action (detonating before affecting penetration), or a HEAT strike with interrupted jet formation. That all seems too vague to me. Is there more information from the associated sources?
Last edited by critical mass on 23 Feb 2019, 12:42, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: Picture of a Sherman withstanding a clean hit of a pak40 or better

#53

Post by critical mass » 23 Feb 2019, 12:20

Yoozername wrote:
22 Feb 2019, 18:15
Nice sized hit on cast armor of the sherman. Without range/velocity, it is just a picture. The tank would be knocked out, and fixing all those broken bolts would be a pain.

Image
That´s a KE hit (ricochet) by full calibre Pzgr projectile (?50-88mm?). One should be careful attributing discrete sizes to scoops, because the imprint resolution is dependent on the plasiticity of the steel matrix, the ability of the projectile to stay intact and the depth of penetration in relation to cal before affecting ricochet.

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Re: Picture of a Sherman withstanding a clean hit of a pak40 or better

#54

Post by Richard Anderson » 23 Feb 2019, 19:03

MarkF617 wrote:
23 Feb 2019, 11:47
The Germans were well aware of the 17 pounder in service in 1942 and the standard issue AT weapon of the British army in 1944 yet the only response from the Germans was to churn out a few hundred King Tigers. They just kept on making Panzer IV, Panthers Stugs etc even though they knew these would be "total victims to the already standard AT weapon of the enemy."
Don't bother attempting to demonstrate logic to the troll, it lives in a fantasyland all its own.
IIRC the Americans made just as many Jumbo's as there were King Tigers so the Americans reacted just as much as the Germans did. Do you believe that the battle for NW Europe should have been contested by King Tigers and Sherman Jumbo's?
Only 254 M4A3E2 were manufactured and 250 shipped to the ETO September-November 1944. Another 200-odd "Ersatz" versions were manufactured by Third Army Ordnance in Europe using scrapped tanks. Henschel manufactured c. 489 Tiger II, so similar numbers. However, the M4A3E2 was not a "reaction" to German antitank weapons or tanks, it was a reaction to the ETOUSA request for an "assault tank" suitable for NEPTUNE. ETOUSA specifically was thinking of the T26 then in development, but given it was known that would not be available until November 1944 at earliest, the M4A3E2 was intended as a substitute, but of course it did not make it in time either. As an "assault tank" M4A3E2 was intended for the separate tank battalions to support infantry divisions in attacking field and fixed fortifications rather than as a primary anti-armor weapon, which is why the 75mm was used in a turret and mount intended for the 76mm (and also why it was so easy to later convert the M4A3E2 to 76mm).
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Re: Picture of a Sherman withstanding a clean hit of a pak40 or better

#55

Post by EKB » 24 Feb 2019, 08:51

Richard Anderson wrote:
23 Feb 2019, 19:03
As an "assault tank" M4A3E2 was intended for the separate tank battalions to support infantry divisions in attacking field and fixed fortifications rather than as a primary anti-armor weapon, which is why the 75mm was used in a turret and mount intended for the 76mm (and also why it was so easy to later convert the M4A3E2 to 76mm).
Wouldn't it make more sense for the army to fit 105mm tubes for HE and hollow charge effect?

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Re: Picture of a Sherman withstanding a clean hit of a pak40 or better

#56

Post by Richard Anderson » 24 Feb 2019, 17:43

EKB wrote:
24 Feb 2019, 08:51
Wouldn't it make more sense for the army to fit 105mm tubes for HE and hollow charge effect?
Good question. I suspect the answer is that the standard Medium Tank M4 105mm was just beginning manufacture after a development just slightly less troubled than the 76mm. So initial production of the 105mm howitzer was limited and probably prioritized to standard production. The other possibility is production of the howitzer mounting was limited, so diverting them was again considered a non-starter. After all, neither the M4A3E2 or the M4 (105mm) made it to the ETOUSA in time for 6 June 1944.

The last strong possibility is that U.S. Army Ordnance collectively was not thinking too clearly or logically.
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critical mass
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Re: Picture of a Sherman withstanding a clean hit of a pak40 or better

#57

Post by critical mass » 24 Feb 2019, 19:16

M67 HEAT in the timeframe under consideration may not have been ideally suited to deal with highly sloped frontal plates of TIGER, PANTHER and some of the armoured SPG (JP4, Jagdpanther, Jagdtiger).
Penetration was 5.0 to 5.5in against vertical homogenious plate and less against a plate referenced to normal 30° impact. However, it prooved effective against Panther glacis and mantlet when fired from direct line ahead.
Apparently, M67 lost ability to reliable fuse gradually under more acute impact angles, which may constitute a severe undercut of effectivity against heavily sloped armored targets in correlation to likely target angles.
More significant was a general issue associated with HEAT fired from howitzers in a reduced probability to hit downrange (longer time of flight, more arced trajectory, smaller danger space behind target and larger dispersion pattern).
In this regard, HEAT was clearly inferior to medium and high velocity anti tank guns, particularely with HVAP beeing introduced recently (flatter trajectory, higher penetration.

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Re: Picture of a Sherman withstanding a clean hit of a pak40 or better

#58

Post by Christianmunich » 24 Feb 2019, 20:30

MarkF617 wrote:
23 Feb 2019, 11:47
Hello,

Christian Munich said:
they were aware of the pak40 and derivates long enough, they did nothing in response and let their tanks be total victims to the already standard issue AT weapon of the enemy.
The Germans were well aware of the 17 pounder in service in 1942 and the standard issue AT weapon of the British army in 1944 yet the only response from the Germans was to churn out a few hundred King Tigers. They just kept on making Panzer IV, Panthers Stugs etc even though they knew these would be "total victims to the already standard AT weapon of the enemy." IIRC the Americans made just as many Jumbo's as there were King Tigers so the Americans reacted just as much as the Germans did. Do you believe that the battle for NW Europe should have been contested by King Tigers and Sherman Jumbo's?

Thanks

Mark.
No reaction was needed the 17pdr was inadequate against properly manufactured Panthers. The Germans already had the counter to the 17pdr. They also build Jagdpanzer IVs. The German "reaction" was actually well suited to the 17pdr. To my knowledge, the only nation to decide to full produce non protection tanks was the US. Keep in mind we have still not found a picture of a regular Sherman withstanding a proper hits. Panthers and other vehicles were perfectly capable to withstand 17pdrs frontally. In this scenario the 17pdr and 76mm were comparable failures to the Sherman frontal armour, both those weapons were the "new thing" and already didn't get the job done that was not getting done by the 75mm before. The actual impact of the 76mm was for example far smaller than people think, it did close to nothing against the Panther glacis and in general had comparable threat profiles like the 75mm, one of the biggest differences it the Tiger, the 76mm was far better against the Tiger I which quite funnily was irrelevant due to Tiger I and 76mm Shermans likely never meeting.

Also remember the 17pdr was only a small share of the tubes faces, compare that to the pak40 and derivates that was pretty much the smallet AP weapon you could expect to meet from 1943 onwards.

Check the isgniy tests out a properly manufactured Panther defeated the 17pdr, so the Germans in terms of frontal armour were well situated at the Western Front.

I believe even the Hetzer was ok protected against the 76mm from the top of my head.

Here Isigny test firings:
17pdr test firing.jpg
17pdr test firing2.jpg
There is the argument of issues with German manufacturing which resulted in different performing armour but as you can see the best Panther plate was easily able to deal with the 17pdr and we can assume the best plate was the closest do actual specifications. From a strategic perspective the Panther armour was a very good choice if we stick to your argument. Failing to properly manufacture those tanks in obviously an enitrely different topic. In terms of specifications, the Panther was defeating the "new weapons" of the Western Allies. Again, the Western Allies were not good at planning this stuff, their main tank weighted a whopping 32 tonnes and protected against nothing and their new main guns were exactly good enough to not defeat the fronts of Panthers Jagdpanzer IV, Hetzers et cetera. Looks sometimes like they planned for maximum downside with minimum upside. A 32 medium tanked that was penned by everything that hit it looks like a quite spectacular failure especially if just some tonnes more would have alleviated the problem.

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Re: Picture of a Sherman withstanding a clean hit of a pak40 or better

#59

Post by critical mass » 24 Feb 2019, 21:21

Penetration isnt everything. It is a major asset but far from the most important it is not irreplaceable, either. Tank warfare is a combined arms execerise if it to be employed tactically.

I studied armor and projectile dynamics and its importance is kind of blown out of proportion now.

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Re: Picture of a Sherman withstanding a clean hit of a pak40 or better

#60

Post by Christianmunich » 24 Feb 2019, 21:24

critical mass wrote:
24 Feb 2019, 21:21
Penetration isnt everything. It is a major asset but far from the most important it is not irreplaceable, either. Tank warfare is a combined arms execerise if it to be employed tactically.

I studied armor and projectile dynamics and its importance is kind of blown out of proportion now.
Withstanding a hit is certainly better than not withstanding a hit.

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