76mm Shermans in the Battle of the Bulge

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Re: 76mm Shermans in the Battle of the Bulge

#16

Post by LineDoggie » 07 Jul 2019, 21:35

Richard Anderson wrote:
07 Jul 2019, 20:39


2. Medium Tank M4 production began in January 1944.
Ummm no
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Re: 76mm Shermans in the Battle of the Bulge

#17

Post by Richard Anderson » 07 Jul 2019, 22:10

Oh, sorry got called away to have fun and forgot the "76mm" part...
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Re: 76mm Shermans in the Battle of the Bulge

#18

Post by Carl Schwamberger » 07 Jul 2019, 22:47

rcocean wrote:
07 Jul 2019, 19:59
... We can't blame it on McNair, since he was killed during Operation Cobra.
The decisions McNair made that affected this for better or worse were made much earlier in 1944, or 1943.
Stiltzkin wrote:
07 Jul 2019, 20:32
Yes, but I would argue that: a) You do not need a full park of 76mm Shermans. b) There were other means of combatting them (AT Guns, TDs, HEAT etc.) c) the 75mm variant was not completely powerless, nor was its primary task to combat the heavies (and also still useful against a variety of enemy armoured vehicles).
Yes indeed, just what proportion of the German armored vehicle park were these heavy tanks at any time during 1944? Lets include the heavy weight German TD & assault guns as well.

But my question is; how many Panther and Tiger tanks were arrayed vs the US Army June-Dec 1944? How many battles above platoon or company size? In Normandy a 'battalion' of Panthers was deployed on the US 1st Army sector, with the Pz Leher? There were some platoon size actions during August in the course of delaying actions. Correct?

Then in September there was the battle of Arrincourt. I recall several German tank brigades that included four Panther battalions fought the French 2d Armored & US 4th Armored Divs for a couple days. How badly were the two Allied divisions treated by the Panther heavy tanks there?

@ Celles Belgium the US 2d Armored Div, reinforced with a Brit tank brigade fought the German 2d Pz Div. Did the Panthers inflict a 5-1 loss ration of the M4? A 3-1 loss, or a 2-1 loss in that battle.

Theres others; & how badly were the US tank battalions beaten by the German heavyweights in those?

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Re: 76mm Shermans in the Battle of the Bulge

#19

Post by Carl Schwamberger » 07 Jul 2019, 22:57

rcocean wrote:
07 Jul 2019, 19:59
...

So, IOW, 6 months after D-Day, the 75 mm Sherman was still outnumbering the 76mm by almost 2-1. That's pathetic. No wonder the US tankers were upset. Not only was the 76mm not good enough to take on the Panther, but we didn't even have enough of them. Did Bradley or Ike do anything to speed up the delivery of the M-36 jackson or the 76mm SHerman? ...
Bradley & Ike were distracted by trivia like the artillery commanders whinging about ammunition, the infantry commanders carping on the number and quality of the replacements, the logisticians all teary eyed about automotive and rail transport shortages, and everyone bellyaching about the fuel tanks being half full. They were so inept letting nonsense like that catch their attention...

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Re: 76mm Shermans in the Battle of the Bulge

#20

Post by Richard Anderson » 08 Jul 2019, 07:01

Carl Schwamberger wrote:
07 Jul 2019, 22:47
The decisions McNair made that affected this for better or worse were made much earlier in 1944, or 1943.
Why is it that everyone seems to miss that procurement was not a decision by McNair or AGF? Nor was allocation of shipping space and rail space from the arsenals to the ports of embarkation. That was the purview of Brehon Somervell and ASF.

There is also the not so small issue of Lend-Lease and other obligations. Of those 2,331 medium tanks (and 753 in depot reserve...sorry, forgot them)b on 31 May, 338 were obligated as theater deliveries to meet Lend-Lease obligations to the British. Then ther were another 100 detailed to be converted as flamethrowers. The Soviets also locked in bids for most of the M4A2 "Ultimate" M4 production in 1943 (not that the US Army wanted diesels). So all the 76mm-armed production was restricted to the M4A3, which the Army preferred and the M4A1, which, curiously enough, the British also bid on, scarfing up 1,330 in 1944 that otherwise would have gone to the Americans. The British promptly put most of them in reserve, only issuing them to the Polish Armoured Division and, IIRC, the Czech Armoured Brigade.

Many of those decisions were way above Eisenhower's and McNair's pay grade.

Then there was the disconnect between what AGF, the Armored Force, and theaters wanted and what the Ordnance Department would develop. Much of that story was only told by Ordnance after the war, since no single AGF history comparable to the histories prepared by Ordnance at OCMH were ever written. Ordnance and especially the Chief of the Development Branch, MG Gladeon Barnes, carefully tailored the narrative postwar to place all the blame on AGF and Armor, but the complete story is much more complex.

Ordnance never acknowledged the primitive state of their projectile design and testing during the war...best characterized by the sudden "discovery" in Mat 1944 that the 75mm, 76mm, and 90mm APC design, specifications, and production were faulty, as was the fusing, resulting in penetration performance drastically lower in practice than was claimed by Ordnance. On top of that, Ordnance had resisted developing a high velocity 75mm weapon comparable to the German 7.5cm KwK 42, instead focusing on the 90mm...which lowered ammo stowage and ROF that Armor correctly identified was critical and required a larger vehicle...and the 90mm APC did not perform as advertised either.
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Re: 76mm Shermans in the Battle of the Bulge

#21

Post by Richard Anderson » 08 Jul 2019, 07:11

Carl Schwamberger wrote:
07 Jul 2019, 22:57
Bradley & Ike were distracted by trivia
Actually, Ike became directly involved in trying to break the logjam of 76mm and 90mm tank deliveries after meeting with Bradley at FUSA Headquarters on 1-6 July (although Ike never contradicted Bradley's account of how he supposedly exploded in a rage at "suddenly" finding out about the problem with the 76mm, it is obvious he was aware of it earlier from the May tests at Shoeburyness). He also intervened directly on 26 May to increase the shipment of reserve tanks to the ETOUSA after ASF failed to take any action on repeated requests by the ETOUSA AFV&W Section beginning in March.
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Re: 76mm Shermans in the Battle of the Bulge

#22

Post by yantaylor » 08 Jul 2019, 12:40

Do any of you guys know where I could get a good breakdown of the tanks and vehicles the US 37th Tank Battalion [4th Armored Division] had during the battle of the bulge?

Yan.

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Re: 76mm Shermans in the Battle of the Bulge

#23

Post by Richard Anderson » 08 Jul 2019, 18:34

yantaylor wrote:
08 Jul 2019, 12:40
Do any of you guys know where I could get a good breakdown of the tanks and vehicles the US 37th Tank Battalion [4th Armored Division] had during the battle of the bulge?
Sorry Yan, but no, U.S. Army tank battalions rarely reported anything other than the mandated standard categorized daily tank state reports...and unfortunately they were not always recorded in the Battalion Report, After Action (AKA AAR, which also sometimes referred to as a "Historical Report") or the S-3 Journal or File, or other supporting documents to such reports. The 37th Tank Battalion December 1944 AAR and supporting documents is at http://cgsc.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/land ... p4013coll8 but does not contain such information.
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Re: 76mm Shermans in the Battle of the Bulge

#24

Post by Carl Schwamberger » 08 Jul 2019, 20:02

Richard Anderson wrote:
08 Jul 2019, 07:11
Carl Schwamberger wrote:
07 Jul 2019, 22:57
Bradley & Ike were distracted by trivia
Actually, Ike became directly involved in trying to break the logjam of 76mm and 90mm tank deliveries after meeting with Bradley at FUSA Headquarters on 1-6 July (although Ike never contradicted Bradley's account of how he supposedly exploded in a rage at "suddenly" finding out about the problem with the 76mm, it is obvious he was aware of it earlier from the May tests at Shoeburyness). He also intervened directly on 26 May to increase the shipment of reserve tanks to the ETOUSA after ASF failed to take any action on repeated requests by the ETOUSA AFV&W Section beginning in March.
Cant tell if you missed the sarcasm...

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Re: 76mm Shermans in the Battle of the Bulge

#25

Post by Carl Schwamberger » 08 Jul 2019, 20:10

Richard Anderson wrote:
08 Jul 2019, 07:01
Carl Schwamberger wrote:
07 Jul 2019, 22:47
The decisions McNair made that affected this for better or worse were made much earlier in 1944, or 1943.
Why is it that everyone seems to miss that procurement was not a decision by McNair or AGF? Nor was allocation of shipping space and rail space from the arsenals to the ports of embarkation. That was the purview of Brehon Somervell and ASF. ...
My point being the bulk of the decisions were made earlier & McNair living or dying in July 1944 is irrelevant.

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Re: 76mm Shermans in the Battle of the Bulge

#26

Post by Richard Anderson » 08 Jul 2019, 22:02

Carl Schwamberger wrote:
08 Jul 2019, 20:02
Cant tell if you missed the sarcasm...
Sorry Carl, but I guess you missed that sarcasm was outlawed by EO 9666 yesterday. Dear Leader was tired of his awesomeness being made fun of. I forgot though that on an international website like this we might still get away with it.
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Re: 76mm Shermans in the Battle of the Bulge

#27

Post by rcocean » 09 Jul 2019, 02:34

Um, if you can stop distracting me maybe I can finally get my book finished in which I address many of these subjects (Chapter 22, Where are the Tanks?). Meanwhile, two short answer.
Well, get going on your book, so we can buy it!

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Re: 76mm Shermans in the Battle of the Bulge

#28

Post by Richard Anderson » 09 Jul 2019, 02:47

rcocean wrote:
09 Jul 2019, 02:34
Um, if you can stop distracting me maybe I can finally get my book finished in which I address many of these subjects (Chapter 22, Where are the Tanks?). Meanwhile, two short answer.
Well, get going on your book, so we can buy it!
643 pages in manuscript so far, not including space for about 220 photos and still working on major bits of it...I may have to excess some or it'll be a two volume opus...but I'm still no Chris Lawrence. :D
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Cracking Hitler's Atlantic Wall
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Re: 76mm Shermans in the Battle of the Bulge

#29

Post by rcocean » 09 Jul 2019, 03:00

As long as you're not a George R.R Martin we're fine. I believe he's going to finish Game of Thrones sometime around 2025.

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Re: 76mm Shermans in the Battle of the Bulge

#30

Post by Carl Schwamberger » 09 Jul 2019, 03:43

Richard Anderson wrote:
08 Jul 2019, 22:02
Carl Schwamberger wrote:
08 Jul 2019, 20:02
Cant tell if you missed the sarcasm...
Sorry Carl, but I guess you missed that sarcasm was outlawed by EO 9666 yesterday. Dear Leader was tired of his awesomeness being made fun of. I forgot though that on an international website like this we might still get away with it.
The world becomes yet more dreary.

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