Guaporense wrote:
The Sherman wasn't a good tank for the American forces, giving the resources that the US had and the enemy that they faced. The Sherman would be a good tank for a long attrition war of numbers versus quality, but the American losses in the western front turned out small enough to make a more expensive and better tank the ideal for the US forces. .
Very ex post facto thinking.
Of the bat the US built a tank from what it could at the time, this produced a Sherman that could fit onto existing shipping assets which determined much of what form the AFV took, as that determined if it could get to where the conflict was. It was good enough for most of the war, as it fitted into a the US methodolgy nicely even when it was outclassed by the latter war panthers and Tigers, most Germans faced an allied tank and during the war, most allied never had to front up a Tiger, and some ID went the whole war without facing a Panther either in NWE.
In 42 iirc the US admitted to itself the Shermans were not fit for purpose, but they did not stop them from defeating Germany with them, as a weapons system is meerly one part of the whole, and the Sherman was good enough, as part of that whole) to crush Germany.
From prior post on this i refered to on this earlier.
I started by looking at relative cost of each as a % of GDP, this would provide a reference to the relative cost of a given tank to a given country, not the absolute cost of a given vehicle. I imagine it is possible for a Sherm to be relatively cheaper for the US to procure than a Pz I to Germany (or a B-17 vis-a-vis a Ju-87), but the point I'm trying to make is that although Everyone-Knows-Shermans-Were-Cheap, the absolute numbers reflect the exact opposite.
The only data point that I have that is relevant from the German side is 1943, since that is the year of the Panther's debut, and economic info for '44 and '45 i dont have.
That year the Germans produced 1,700 Panther Ds & As. The GNP + Other Expenditures was 184 billion Reichmarks.
The US accepted into service 48,000 Shermans during the war, which is not what was built, but was what was paid for, and enterd service with the US army, what was built is not the same thing.
Comes out to:
Amount of 'National Effort' (got to call it something) expended:
Panthers - .00116 for 1,700 vehicles (1943)
Shermans - .0048 for 48,000 vehicles (1942-1945)
Normalizing to 1%:
German 1% 'National Effort' = 14,651 Panthers
US 1% 'National Effort' = 100,000 Shermans
That comes to 6.82 Shermas per Panther per unit of 'National Effort' dedicated to tank production. There is an importan caveat though, in 1943, the US Economy was 6.52 times bigger than the German economy, so the number has to be adjusted to account for that (simply put, the 1% of US GDP was 6.5x times larger than the 1% of German GDP in absolute terms).
The final result is that for equivalent 'national economic effort', the US could build 1.04 Shermans for each Panther the Germans built. IOW, about 4% cheaper than a Panther.
Thats a rough look at it, you can dig as dep as you like, looking at profit margins, US 40% typical, as german 18% typical, labour costs and so on, but what i said is good enough to go with.
Army Service Forces Catalog ORD 5-3-1 dated 9 August 1945.
M4(75)VVSS $49,173
M4(105)VVSS $46,309
M4(105)HVSS/T66 $49,621
M4(105)HVSS/T80 $53,391
M4A1(75)VVSS $47,725
M4A1(76)VVSS $51,509
M4A1(76)HVSS/T66 $54,062
M4A1(76)HVSS/T80 $45,814
M4A2(76)VVSS $45,863
M4A2(76)HVSS/T66 $48,029
M4A2(76)HVSS/T80 $50,928
M4A3(75)dry VVSS $44,556
M4A3(75)dry HVSS/T66 $47,003
M4A3(75)dry HVSS/T80 $49,997
M4A3E2 $56,812
M4A3(105)VVSS $45,776
M4A3(105)HVSS/T66 $49,088
M4A3(105)HVSS/T80 $52,836
M4A3(75)wet VVSS $44,556
M4A3(75)wet HVSS/T66 $47,003
M4A3(75)wet HVSS/T80 $49,997
M4A3(76)wet VVSS $47,754
M4A3(76)wet HVSS/T66 $51,066
M4A3(76)wet HVSS/T80 $54,836
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.