5 Shermans 1 Tiger/Panther Myth?

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Richard Anderson
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Re: 5 Shermans 1 Tiger/Panther Myth?

#256

Post by Richard Anderson » 23 Sep 2020, 00:32

Richard Anderson wrote:
22 Sep 2020, 02:46
Delwin wrote:
21 Sep 2020, 22:59
Which I find extremely odd. For sure production of ABCBC ammo would be much cheaper. OK - maybe not perfect option but penetration similar to German 75 mm KWK L48 should be achieved and even slightly surpassed -especially since both velocity and weight of the projectile of M1 gun was slightly higher. The other issue is that even HVAP ammo barely (400 yards ?) was able to went through front turret of Panther.
There does not appear to be any clear reason for that. My inference is they tested the German 7.5cm AP in April 1943...and by then Ordnance was already pushing for the 90mm, which Armor did not like, preferring a more powerful 75/76mm. So Ordnance did what they wanted to do, which is pursue the 90mm gun as the "simple" solution...and since 76mm would go away in 1945, there was no need for something similar to the 90mm AP T33 for the 76mm.
Just to elaborate on this theme a bit, as early as 23 March 1943, Gladeon Barnes "boldly claimed the T23 was designed so that “if desired, armor as thick as that used on the German Mark VI tank can be applied for a total weight of 37 tons” and that it could also mount the new 90mm gun. This memo appears to be the earliest reference to what eventually became the T25 and T26 programs." By that time, it was obvious the T20 and T23 programs with the 76mm gun were going nowhere, but for the next eight months or so Army Ground Forces and the Armored Force (which was downgraded to a "Command" on 2 July) fought a rear-guard action for the 76mm caliber. They saw the 90mm complete round as too large and heavy to manhandle in the confines of a turret, especially that of the Medium Tank M4, a view confirmed by the Ballistics Research Laboratory in tests the previous year. Worse, they were adamant that ammunition stowage not fall below 70 rounds, which was the minimum they believed acceptable based upon British and American combat experience. Instead, they advocated for increasing the propellant load in the existing 76mm cartridge as a means of gaining greater Mv. However, the gurus of the Ordnance Artillery Branch non-concurred strongly, claiming that in paring down the 3-inch Gun M7 tube and breech from 1,990 pounds to 1,204 pounds they had cut safety to a bare minimum. Never mind of course they had also reduced the propellant load from 4.62 pounds to 3.62 pounds, while reducing the chamber volume and ballistically matching the performance of the two guns. No, no actual testing to destruction was not necessary to discover if increasing the propellant load was possible.

About the same time the design and production quality superiority of the German 7.5cm AP projectile over the American 75mm, 76mm, and 3-inch rounds was discovered, but again, Ordnance conveniently did not need to do anything to correct it, because the next generation of tanks would have a 90mm gun. Never mind again that shortly afterwards it became obvious that late 1944 would be the earliest such tanks could be in combat...obviously an inconvenient detail.

In any case, presto! At the end of 1943, all Ordnance's problems went away when first Devers and then Eisenhower at ETOUSA confirmed it accepted and required the 90mm gun as a future replacement for the 76mm, while at the same time the 105mm howitzer would replace the 75mm as the premier high explosive thrower. So obviously Barnes and the gurus of Ordnance were prescient compared to the stick-in-the-mud dinosaurs like McNair and Gillem.

Of course, this happy sense of complacency went out the window when Ike sent his July rocket to Marshal and the shit truly hit the fan. Instead of the 76mm being a perfectly good interim weapon until the 90mm was fielded, the issues with the APC projectile and fuse design and production meant it under-performed...and, worse, the same issues were found in the 90mm APC. So Ordnance's quick and dirty fix for the 76mm was HVAP, which was a good enough solution since by then it was confirmed the 76mm-armed Medium Tank M4 would be eventually replaced by the 90mm-armed Heavy Tank T26E3. Thus, they worked on both HVAP T30 as well as AP T33 for the 90mm.

Nevertheless, the dinosaurs tried again, in September 1944, by describing a requirement for a 45-ton medium tank armed with a 3"/76mm gun firing fixed ammunition weighing no more than 35-pounds (76mm APC was 24.55 pounds and 90mm APC was 42.75 pounds), but with a penetration of eight inches of armor at a 30°degree impact at 1,000 yards, using HVAP ammunition. The gun would be fully stabilized and would include a built-in turret rangefinder. Eventually they got it...in 1949 as the T91E3/M32. By that time improved production processes had also been finally introduced in the M339 projectile, which was AP rather than APC.
Richard C. Anderson Jr.

American Thunder: U.S. Army Tank Design, Development, and Doctrine in World War II
Cracking Hitler's Atlantic Wall
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Artillery Hell

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Re: 5 Shermans 1 Tiger/Panther Myth?

#257

Post by Thumpalumpacus » 23 Sep 2020, 03:40

Richard Anderson wrote:
22 Sep 2020, 22:18
Unfortunately, no actual knowledge of the subject is displayed by Mr. Respectful, so he misses that the veteran, if he was Essex Yeomanry, was unlikely to have experienced what he describes. So who dressed up the veterans account? The veteran? Or the reporter?
Yeah, that's why I didn't bother to reply about those links. It was simply rehashing what he'd already written, without addressing any objections.

Richard Anderson wrote:
22 Sep 2020, 22:18
Well, yeah, of course, but that is the red herring Mr. Respectful likes to rely on.
Sure. I just wanted to knock that cudgel out of his hand before he called me a "fanboi" or something.


paulrward
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Re: 5 Shermans 1 Tiger/Panther Myth?

#258

Post by paulrward » 23 Sep 2020, 06:06

Hello All ;

Mr. Richard Anderson Posted in Posting # 255 in this thread:
Does it not strike anyone as odd that "Bromberg" apparently had no other name?
Or rank? Or that he drove tanks, except when crossing rivers, so he wasn't a driver? Or
that he didn't like the M26, because it was "computerized"? That Americans called German
sub-machine guns "grease guns"? Or that the "M4A3E8" featured "thicker armor"?

If one takes the time to read the entire article, one finds the following:

His name is Private First Class Irving Bromberg, from Columbus Ohio, He enlisted in the U.S. Army
in April 1942, at Fort Hayes , and trained at Fort Knox, Kentucky, for three months in M3 Light tanks and M3
and M4 Medium tanks.

Mr. Anderson wrote :
Or that he drove tanks, except when crossing rivers, so he wasn't a driver?

To quote Private Bromberg's own words;
.......The Rhine River stood as the last natural boundary into Germany.
The Ninth Army crossed on March 23, 1945, but by the time Bromberg’s tank
reached the river there was already a pontoon bridge in place. He did not explicitly
remember crossing the Rhine. He and his crewmen had crossed so many rivers that
the Rhine was just another one. Bromberg did not like crossing rivers. “Every time
I was driving and we came to a river, I’d switch,” he recalled. “That’s why they
didn’t make me a tank driver.”
In the artlcle, he states that he served as a driver, loader, and, when their tank commander was killed,
the gunner moved up to commander, and he moved up to gunner. In other words, he was ' cross-trained'
to do most of the tasks in the tank, but, as he stated, did not feel his skills as a driver were sufficient
to take a tank on a narrow pontoon bridge, so he would ' switch ' with a crewman who was more confident
in driving the tank.

Mr. Anderson wrote :
......he didn't like the M26, because it was "computerized"?....
Here are the Gunner's Controls and sights for the M4 Sherman with 75mm gun, the M 4 Sherman with 76 mm gun,
and the M 26 Pershing with 90mm gun . Note how they differ. Is it strange that a tanker who had served from
North Africa to Northern Europe over two years in a 75mm gunned M4 Sherman might find the newer controls
on the M 26 Pershing somewhat confusing and daunting?
Tanks US Tanks Gun Controls.jpg
tank controls
( Just as an aside, one of my father's boyhood friends flew P47s and P51s in the ETO - the P51B he flew was
equipped with an N-9 Reflector Gunsight. Then, his squadron received a set of ' mod kits ' that allowed them
to install the new K-14 Gyro Lead Computing Gunsight. He flew one mission with it, and beiieved that it
cost him a kill, so he had the K-14 removed and the N-9 re installed, and when he got a P-51D, had the N-9
moved to the new Mustang. Because he was familiar with it, and felt comfortable using it.
Tanks - US Fighters Gun Sights.jpg
gun sights


Mr. Anderson stated :
...That Americans called German sub-machine guns "grease guns"?
Tanks Grease Guns.jpg
grease guns

Mr. Anderson stated :
......Or that the "M4A3E8" featured "thicker armor"?........

The article was originally published on January 11, 2019. I do not know when the interview was conducted,
but is it possible that, 75 years after the event, he simply confused the M4A3E8 with the M4A3E2, which was
the Assault Tank often referred to as a ' Jumbo ' ? After all, if he was 19 years old in 1942, that means he
was born in 1923, which means that, in 2019, he was about 95 years old at the time of the interview.

I think I can forgive a man forgetting, after 75 years, the type numbers of every variant of the M4 Sherman
produced by the United States in WW2.


’ Old men forget; yet all shall be forgot, but he’ll remember, with advantages, what feats he did that day...... This story shall the good man teach his son............ from this day to the ending of the world.......
But we in it shall be remembered-we few, we happy few, we band of brothers; for he today that sheds his
blood with me shall be my brother; be he ne’er so vile, this day shall gentle his condition........




Respectfully :

Paul R. Ward
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Voices that are banned, are voices who cannot share information....
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Richard Anderson
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Re: 5 Shermans 1 Tiger/Panther Myth?

#259

Post by Richard Anderson » 23 Sep 2020, 08:32

This is so funny I have to violate my policy of not replying directly to trolls.

Mr. Respectful posted...
paulrward wrote:
23 Sep 2020, 06:06
If one takes the time to read the entire article, one finds the following:

His name is Private First Class Irving Bromberg, from Columbus Ohio, He enlisted in the U.S. Army
in April 1942, at Fort Hayes , and trained at Fort Knox, Kentucky, for three months in M3 Light tanks and M3
and M4 Medium tanks.
It would have helped if Mr. Respectful could have bothered to post the URL to the actual article https://warfarehistorynetwork.com/2019/ ... ew-of-war/ rather than to the secondary source his initial Google search took him to.
To quote Private Bromberg's own words;
.......The Rhine River stood as the last natural boundary into Germany.
The Ninth Army crossed on March 23, 1945, but by the time Bromberg’s tank
reached the river there was already a pontoon bridge in place. He did not explicitly
remember crossing the Rhine. He and his crewmen had crossed so many rivers that
the Rhine was just another one. Bromberg did not like crossing rivers. “Every time
I was driving and we came to a river, I’d switch,” he recalled. “That’s why they
didn’t make me a tank driver.”
Irving H. Bromberg, ASN 15076996, enlisted in the Army 5 May 1942 at Fort Hayes, Columbus, Ohio...that he recalled it as April is yet more evidence of the fallibility of veteran memories, in this case an unknown number of years after the fact, since it is unclear when or if Kevin Hymel conducted or discovered the interview with Mr. Bromberg.

In any case, the passage above is unfortunately almost certainly from Mr. Bromberg's imagination. While he could well have served with Fox Company of the 66th Armored, since his earlier narrative matches events, he is unlkikely to have "crossed the Rhine on March 23, 1945", because his Hospital Admission Card shows that he was admitted to hospital in October 1944 and never returned to his unit. He was discharged in April 1945 from an Army "Regional" hospital, which were Army General Hospitals operating in the Z/I...i.e., he was back in the States when he was discharged. BTW, his diagnosis on discharge was "nematode infection".
Here are the Gunner's Controls and sights for the M4 Sherman with 75mm gun, the M 4 Sherman with 76 mm gun,
and the M 26 Pershing with 90mm gun . Note how they differ. Is it strange that a tanker who had served from
North Africa to Northern Europe over two years in a 75mm gunned M4 Sherman might find the newer controls
on the M 26 Pershing somewhat confusing and daunting?
It is a bit stranger that someone discharged in the United States in April 1945 was also present in Germany 17 April 1945, when Lt. Donald Critchfield, Maintenance Company, 66th Armored Warrant Officer John Darden, and five tank crews from Fox Company returned to the 66th Armored with the first five T26E3 that regiment was issued in late March. Although the records are not completely clear, about the same time HOW Company, 66th Armored was also issued five T26E3 and the 67th Armored also received ten.

It is even stranger that none of the other tank gunners assigned to the 149 T26E3 issued to units before the end of hostilities seemed to have any trouble transitioning from the M4 75mm and 76mm to the T26E3 90mm? Certainly Clarence Smoyer in Eagle Seven, 32d Armored had no such problems, as he proved 6 March 1945 at Cologne Cathedral.
( Just as an aside, one of my father's boyhood friends
Here we go again...My Daddy knew a guy who worked with a guy that built ray guns that destroyed the Hidden Nazi Base on the Moon...
Tanks Grease Guns
The nickname commonly applied to the American Submachine Gun, Cal. 45, M3, not to the German SMG, which was commonly known as the "Schmiesser" (and, no, it wasn't a "Burp Gun" either).

It is also odd that Bromberg believed the Rhino replaced the Tankdozer, when in fact it was the other way around. The "bulky and slow" multi-purpose Tankdozer was quickly found superior to the Rhino, which was only good for busting bocage.

BTW, while its is more than possible FOX Company lost 14 Medium Tanks M4 in the bocage, the division as a whole only "lost" 22 through 23 July, with a further 50 damaged, so roughly 1.83 "lost" and 4.17 damaged on average per company.
The article was originally published on January 11, 2019. I do not know when the interview was conducted,
but is it possible that, 75 years after the event, he simply confused the M4A3E8 with the M4A3E2, which was
the Assault Tank often referred to as a ' Jumbo ' ? After all, if he was 19 years old in 1942, that means he
was born in 1923, which means that, in 2019, he was about 95 years old at the time of the interview.
Irving Bromberg was born in 1922. If he was interviewed in 2019, then he was going on 98.
I think I can forgive a man forgetting, after 75 years, the type numbers of every variant of the M4 Sherman
produced by the United States in WW2.
Sure, and forgetting his enlistment was a month later, and that he was discharged from the Army in the US when he had been in hospital since October 1944, that he fought in the battle of the Bulge while in hospital, that he refused to crew a T26E3 when he was in the States awaiting discharge, that he was in England in may 1945 when he was discharged from the Army in the States in April 1945.
Respectfully
I respect Irving Bromberg, even if he decided, like many soldiers, to tell war stories when someone came asking. A large part of the blame sadly probably rests on Mr. Hymel if he conducted the interview, since it is part of the interviewers responsibility to assemble as much background as possible on the interviewee ahead of time. It took me two minutes to track down Bromberg's extant records and discover the known parameters of his story. We did so in our large and small-scale veteran interviews for the Breakpoints project in 1987-1988, which saved us a lot of time wasted on war stories. Knowing the recorded background also allowed us to jog memories, but we were also lucky enough to often have multiple participants in the same events, who tolerated war stories only so long, before putting their fellows back on track.

Anyway, responding to you directly makes me feel icky now, so I'm putting you back on ignore. Go try to troll someone else.
Richard C. Anderson Jr.

American Thunder: U.S. Army Tank Design, Development, and Doctrine in World War II
Cracking Hitler's Atlantic Wall
Hitler's Last Gamble
Artillery Hell

paulrward
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Re: 5 Shermans 1 Tiger/Panther Myth?

#260

Post by paulrward » 23 Sep 2020, 19:10

Hello All :

Mr. Anderson posted in # 259

It is a bit stranger that someone discharged in the United States in April 1945 was
also present in Germany 17 April 1945, when Lt. Donald Critchfield, Maintenance Company,
66th Armored Warrant Officer John Darden, and five tank crews from Fox Company returned
to the 66th Armored with the first five T26E3 that regiment was issued in late March. Although
the records are not completely clear, about the same time HOW Company, 66th Armored was
also issued five T26E3 and the 67th Armored also received ten.

It is even stranger that none of the other tank gunners assigned to the 149 T26E3 issued to
units before the end of hostilities seemed to have any trouble transitioning from the M4 75mm
and 76mm to the T26E3 90mm? Certainly Clarence Smoyer in Eagle Seven, 32d Armored had no
such problems, as he proved 6 March 1945 at Cologne Cathedral.

Mr. Anderson, Here is the verbatim paragraph from the Article, in order that I may demonstrate
that you did NOT read it carefully:


In early April, the unit received heavy M26 Pershing tanks. Bromberg was not impressed
with the new weapon. “It was all computerized,” he said. “No way could I have functioned in
that tank.” He preferred the simplicity of the Sherman. In fact, he fought the whole war in a
Sherman with the 75mm cannon and never upgraded to the thicker armored M4A3E8 Sherman,
the “Easy Eight,” which carried a much more powerful 76mm cannon.

For the informed readers of this Forum, note VERY CAREFULLY that while the passage states that
the 4th Armored received M26 Tanks, IT DOES NOT SAY THAT MR. BROMBERG INSPECTED THE
M26 TANKS, EITHER IN APRIL OF 1945, OR EVEN IN EUROPE !


Mr. Bromberg might have inspected an M26 in England, while awaiting return to the United States,
or he might have inspected one in the post war years. For all we know, a few years after the end
of the war, in Columbus Ohio, there might have been a Fourth of July or Veterans Day Parade, and
he may have seen an M26 at one of those events. I can easily imagine a veteran of Normandy and
the Rhine striking up a conversation with the G.I.s in the tank crew as it sat in the Public Square,
and being given a tour of the Army's latest ' Tiger Killer '. He might even have examined one
in the early 1950s, after about 800 of the 2000 M26's built were upgraded to the M46 standard
with a new engine, new gun, AND NEW FIRE CONTROL ! Seeing such an installation, he might
very well have commented to the crew that, " that's waaay too complicated for an old soldier like me...."

As for the reference to the M4A3E8 , that error appears to be one by the interviewer, as he does
not show it as a quotation.


As for Mr. Bromberg being in the hospital from October 1944 to April 1945, I find that somewhat difficult
to believe. If he had been that sick, he would have been sent home to be discharged after a month
or two.

Now, we all know of cases where soldiers were admitted to a Field Hospital, stayed for a few hours
or a few days, and then simply hitched a ride back to their units. They were never ' discharged' -
they were in fact AWOL from the Hospital while they were serving with their unit - but no one ever
made a stink about it - it just happened. Read Mr. Bromberg's account of his Sicilian Soiree -
he and another soldier lost their tank, went ashore in a DUKW, and spent the next two weeks
wandering around having a good time. When they got back to their unit, the officer asked if they
were OK, and put them into a tank. I wonder it that shows up in Mr. Anderson's vaunted Army
Records ? ( I have a feeling ..... no ! )



Mr. Anderson went on :
Here we go again...My Daddy knew a guy who worked with a guy that built ray
guns that destroyed the Hidden Nazi Base on the Moon...

Mr. Anderson, one of my father's boyhood friends was Ted Herman. They attended school together,
were both builders of Model Airplanes, and were very interested in Aviation. Ted Herman enlisted
in the USAAF, went through flight training, became a fighter pilot, and flew missions in Europe. He
returned to the U.S. after the war, and joined the Illinois Air National Guard, first as a weekend warrior
flying P51Ds, then P51Hs during the Korean War, and then transitioned to KC97s ( both straight prop,
and later those with auxiliary jets on the wings like the B36s. ) He flew refueling missions, deployed
to Europe, and his wing was one of those tasked, if WW3 had broken out, with flying in company with
the B47 Stratojets for their attack on the Soviet Union, refueling them on the far side of the North Pole
for their run into Russia. Such a mission meant that the KC97s would not have enough fuel to get back
over the pole, and the crews would die on the Polar Ice Cap. Mr Herman married a beautiful woman
named Dorothy, and had three sons, Robert, Ronald, and Richard ( we knew them as Robby, Ronnie,
and Ricky ) While serving as a full time ANG officer, Mr. Herman often deployed overseas, and his
rank at the time of his retirement was, I believe, Lieutenant Colonel. Please feel free to verify that
if you want.

After my family moved from Chicago to the San Francisco Bay Area, one summer, Mr. and Mrs. Herman
visited us. I spent some time in our garage with my Father, Mr. Herman, and my oldest brother, talking
aviation, model aviation, and his experiences. That was when we discussed his P51, and the gunsight
he preferred. In the years since, I have even seen photos of P51H models with the N9 gunsight rather
than the K14, which tells me that Ted Herman was not alone in his dislike of the more complex sight.

As a side note - Ted Herman had gotten hold of an ejection seat from an F86 Saber, and had it converted
into a office chair. The basement of his house had been converted into a Recreation room with a small
Study for him to work at home, and on his desk was one of those large ' Eight Ball ' novelty toys, which
you shake and then allow a prediction or fortune to come to the window on one side.


Tell me, Mr.Anderson, you claim that your father served in WW2 - did he see any Alien Space Bats ?



As a final note: Mr. Anderson mentions his work on a sort of project called ' BreakPoints ' in 1987-88. This
was conducted as a study by a minor league think tank founded by Trevor Dupuy, who had some, shall we
say, interesting ideas on strategy, tactics, and management in general. Dupuy kept founding think tank
corporations, then, as they lost money and went out of business, he would start another one and sell the
assetts of the old organization to the new one. This started with Historical Evaluation Research Organization
( HERO ), which morphed into T.N Dupuy Associates, which was bought out by Dupuy's next Shell Company,
Data Memory Systems Inc. ( DMSI ) which carried out the BreakPoints study in the late 1980s. The study
was so successful and influential, and made so much money that in 1990. Dupuy essentially quit his own
company, effectively shutting it down, and started the Trevor N. Dupuy Institute. ( A non profit 501C3
organization ) This resulted in lawsuits as the employees of the old company were suing the new Institute
over things like office chairs,

As the TNDI website states, " The non–profit status was merely recognizing what had been the financial
status of all his companies over the last 30 years. "
In other words, his outfits were money pits, and never
were self supporting. Which should tell you something about the quality of their research.

In 1995, Trevor N. Dupuy...... well, tell you what. Go watch the movie The Shawshank Redemption - you'll
figure it out.

At the present Time, to the best of my research, TNDI is now being run out of a private home, is down
to two employees, ( the President and the Sr. Military Analyst ), and they are marketing a management
tool for Windows 3.1 and Windows 95 that is sold on 3.5" floppy diskettes.......

Nothing says ' State of the Art ' like 1990s technology.....



That's all I have time for.


Respectfully :

Paul R. Ward
Last edited by paulrward on 24 Sep 2020, 17:19, edited 2 times in total.
Information not shared, is information lost
Voices that are banned, are voices who cannot share information....
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Michael Kenny
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Re: 5 Shermans 1 Tiger/Panther Myth?

#261

Post by Michael Kenny » 23 Sep 2020, 19:58

paulrward wrote:
23 Sep 2020, 19:10



As for Mr. Bromberg being the hospital from October 1944 to April 1945, I find that somewhat difficult
to believe..............
You seem to have no difficulty believing impossible things when it suits the lies you peddle.

This from Sun Sep 20, 2020 2:24 pm :
paulrward wrote:
20 Sep 2020, 16:24


Here are two articles I found this morning that are worth your reading. They will enrage the Sheman
Fanbois, but they are both based on interviews with actual M4 Sherman Tankers.

In the first one, you will find the following passage :

Fury accurately portrays how superior the German tanks were. A Sherman
provided you with protection against most enemy fire but against a Tiger it could
easily become your coffin. I remember a very near miss where an eight cm shell
from a Tiger tank went within inches of our turret and we decided not to stay
around too long after that. In open combat we never had a chance. So, like in
Fury, we always had to be one step ahead. It was only because we could call up
air strikes and had many more tanks than the Germans that we eventually won
.


is shown to a lie by this quote from you in 2016
paulrward wrote:
30 Nov 2016, 06:01
here is an excerpt from an article in the Guardian, in which Mr. Bill Betts, a British WW2 veteran who served in Shermans in Northern Europe in the Essex Yeomanry, comments on the scene in the motion picture 'Fury', in which a group of Shermans encounter a single Tiger I :



For Bill Betts, the scene in which this Tiger tank takes on three US counterparts was the most realistic part of the film.

" Fury accurately portrays how superior the German tanks were. A Sherman provided you with protection against most enemy fire but against a Tiger it could easily become your coffin. I remember a very near miss where an eight cm shell from a Tiger tank went within inches of our turret and we decided not to stay around too long after that. In open combat we never had a chance. So, like in Fury, we always had to be one step ahead. It was only because we could call up air strikes and had many more tanks than the Germans that we eventually won."
Word for word the same 'quote' and you had used it in 2015 as well.

You also lack the wherewithal to check the validity of that you references. The 'UK Sherman tanker' you rely on for your tales of Tiger engagements was not a tanker after all. He states his unit was Essex Yeomanry which is a field Artillery unit. Your veteran never took on any Tigers, was never expected to engage any Tigers and has was not even a 'tanker'.

You posted a 'reference' which is worthless as a reference. Google is, in this case not your friend!

What next?
Quotes from the film Patton ?
Ralph lngersoll's views on Montgomery?
'Newsreel' clips from Iron Sky?
Screeffnshot_179_stitch.jpg
You also seem to have more 'veteran buddies' than Jim Lankford, do you know him?

Extracts from

Richard Anderson
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Posts: 6350
Joined: 01 Jan 2016, 22:21
Location: Bremerton, Washington

Re: 5 Shermans 1 Tiger/Panther Myth?

#262

Post by Richard Anderson » 24 Sep 2020, 01:09

Michael Kenny wrote:
23 Sep 2020, 19:58
paulrward wrote:
23 Sep 2020, 19:10
As for Mr. Bromberg being the hospital from October 1944 to April 1945, I find that somewhat difficult
to believe..............
You seem to have no difficulty believing impossible things when it suits the lies you peddle.
I can honestly say I am no longer surprised at the way this...person...chooses to double down on the silliness. Frankly, I doubt there is anyone left who is surprised that Mr. Respectful finds it "difficult to believe" simple facts.

To reiterate, it is the gentleman's hospital admissions record. Note, yet again, he was discharged from a Regional Hospital, but we do not know when he arrived back in the Z/I. However, his hospitalization in October 1944 coincided with a change in the theater evacuation policy from 180 to 120 days, i.e., if they were ill enough that they could not be expected to RTD within 120 days, then they were to be evacuated from theater to the Z/I. The reason for the change was the increasing stress on the hospital system in theater as bed space became a premium. His hospitalization also likely coincided with the War Department direct order on 5 December 1944 to the Chief of Medical Services, ETOUSA, General Hawley, to make maximum use of the sea transports for evacuation, which he had been avoiding doing for months. Thus, Mr. Bromberg was probably evacuated to the U.S. sometime in December-January, held there for further treatment, and then discharged from service in the spring when the discharge restrictions were eased due to the winding down of the war.

Nor can Mr. Respectful even keep track of his own tissue of lies and red herrings. Mr. Bromberg claimed he was in FOX Company, 66th Armored, 2d Armored Division, not the 4th Armored Division. :roll:

I suppose I should be curious how anyone randomly "examines" the interior of a tank in wartime? There was one T26E3 shipped to the UK for Ministry of War evaluation in December 1944 and six more in 1945 for the same purpose. I am not sure I can imagine a circumstance in which a sick American soldier would get a chance to "examine" them, but I'm sure Mr. Respectful can. Could he have seen the interior of one after the war? Possibly, long after the end of the war, say in the 1960s, when those not converted to M46 standard were stripped out and those not scrapped became gate guards. I suppose I could speculate that postwar he was employed by DTA or LATP and just forgot to mention it when interviewed? It makes as much sense. :roll:

So now more red herrings...maybe he "went AWOL from hospital" and returned to FOX Company, because "we all know" of such cases. :roll:

And yet another...who truly gives a rat's ass about Ted Herman, what aircraft he supposedly flew and when, in the context of this thread? Lyndon Johnson was at my sister's wedding rehearsal...which is absolutely true, but also absolutely irrelevant to this discussion.
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American Thunder: U.S. Army Tank Design, Development, and Doctrine in World War II
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Re: 5 Shermans 1 Tiger/Panther Myth?

#263

Post by Carl Schwamberger » 24 Sep 2020, 02:36

Richard Anderson wrote:
24 Sep 2020, 01:09
It is even stranger that none of the other tank gunners assigned to the 149 T26E3 issued to units before the end of hostilities seemed to have any trouble transitioning from the M4 75mm and 76mm to the T26E3 90mm? Certainly Clarence Smoyer in Eagle Seven, 32d Armored had no such problems, as he proved 6 March 1945 at Cologne Cathedral.
When we transitioned from the M101 105mm howitzer to the shiny new M198 155mm howitzer It took about two hours of familiarization in the parking lot to snap in the crews on the sights and other bits. A half day of shooting showed the gun sections were near standard at getting rounds down range. There was of course always that one guy in the battery who had problems with new stuff, usually the same guy who f...ed up repainting the white lines in the parking lot. I cant see a experienced tank crew having trouble transitioning between these tanks after some instruction from whatever tech reps were present & a day running them around the parking lot and nearby fields.

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Re: 5 Shermans 1 Tiger/Panther Myth?

#264

Post by Richard Anderson » 24 Sep 2020, 03:31

Carl Schwamberger wrote:
24 Sep 2020, 02:36
When we transitioned from the M101 105mm howitzer to the shiny new M198 155mm howitzer It took about two hours of familiarization in the parking lot to snap in the crews on the sights and other bits. A half day of shooting showed the gun sections were near standard at getting rounds down range. There was of course always that one guy in the battery who had problems with new stuff, usually the same guy who f...ed up repainting the white lines in the parking lot. I cant see a experienced tank crew having trouble transitioning between these tanks after some instruction from whatever tech reps were present & a day running them around the parking lot and nearby fields.
Smoyer may have taken less time than that to dial in on the T26E3, apparently his biggest adjustment was with the trigger. Smoyer first got into a T26E3 on 22 February 1945, after four days of "classroom" instruction at Aachen. His first three rounds fired were at 1,200, 1,500, and 1,700 yards and each were first round hits.
Richard C. Anderson Jr.

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Cracking Hitler's Atlantic Wall
Hitler's Last Gamble
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Re: 5 Shermans 1 Tiger/Panther Myth?

#265

Post by histan » 24 Sep 2020, 04:25

Haven't posted for a while and not a tank expert so just joining in to say:
The the plural of anecdote is not data.

Also that Field Marshal Lord Carver, who had held command and staff posts at every level in the armoured forces in North Africa said after the war that when he studied the campaign in detail he realised that not everything that the user thought at the time was actually correct.

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Re: 5 Shermans 1 Tiger/Panther Myth?

#266

Post by Dwight Pruitt » 24 Sep 2020, 04:51

paulrward wrote:
23 Sep 2020, 06:06
Here are the Gunner's Controls and sights for the M4 Sherman with 75mm gun, the M 4 Sherman with 76 mm gun,
and the M 26 Pershing with 90mm gun . Note how they differ. Is it strange that a tanker who had served from
North Africa to Northern Europe over two years in a 75mm gunned M4 Sherman might find the newer controls
on the M 26 Pershing somewhat confusing and daunting?
Yes, it IS strange that a trained gunner would find them "confusing and daunting." The gunner's controls are almost identical with traversing and elevation mechanisms being practically the same in all three vehicles. Fire controls differ only with the telescope being the primary sight on the M4 and the periscope being the primary sight on the Pershing. The gunner's reticles again are similar with the only differences being the ballistic characteristics of three different guns. There is no reason that a gunner couldn't be proficient with a day or so of training.

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Re: 5 Shermans 1 Tiger/Panther Myth?

#267

Post by Sheldrake » 24 Sep 2020, 09:55

histan wrote:
24 Sep 2020, 04:25

The plural of anecdote is not data.
#

I wish I had said that - and from now I will! (Though if you are studying myths or fake history, may be it is)

Carver was a waspish man. I heard him speak on two occasions on neither occasion did he pull punches. I find his writing more constrained and less impressive. I lost interest half way through Apostles of Mobility.

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Re: 5 Shermans 1 Tiger/Panther Myth?

#268

Post by Carl Schwamberger » 24 Sep 2020, 13:39

histan wrote:
24 Sep 2020, 04:25
...

The the plural of anecdote is not data.

...
Individual annecdoates are in analogy to physics a data point, which require context and multiple points to be useful. In the business world or the military I routinely have to make decisions based on a single message, anecdotal in nature. For this context is everything.

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Re: 5 Shermans 1 Tiger/Panther Myth?

#269

Post by Takao » 25 Sep 2020, 00:26

I'm curious, What was all computerized on an M-26? Or an M-46? The first ballistic computer was in the M-47s.

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Re: 5 Shermans 1 Tiger/Panther Myth?

#270

Post by histan » 25 Sep 2020, 00:33

Carl and Sheldrake

I think this article sums up the point about a small number of anecdotes
'“The plural of anecdote is not data” is a phrase well-loved by scientific sceptics. Often attributed to Dr Ben Goldacre, but probably originating with Raymond WoIfinger, the phrase cautions us against the mistake of thinking that what you experience – or what you and your granny or friends experience – might not actually be representative of any significant trend, or give you valuable evidence regarding the causal efficacy or role of something you might regard as significant.

In short, we think we spot patterns where there might be no pattern at all, and we ascribe causality quite casually, based on things like temporal proximity (“I took this drug yesterday, and today I feel better”) and confirmation bias (if you are already sympathetic to a hypothesis, you’ll over-value confirming evidence, and discount contradictory evidence, even if you’re doing so in a biased manner).

So, in a purely scientific sense, we often make the mistake of over-valuing the significance of personal experience, because we’re taking that experience as evidence of something more general, whereas in fact, the experience might be explained in a way that relies on some other general principle, or on something quite specific and subjective.'
Anecdotes and Data in Public Discourse 28 July 2017
By Jacques Rousseau who teaches critical thinking and ethics at the University of Cape Town, South Africa.

Critical thinking teaches us to look carefully at anecdotes.

As a researcher into air power and in World War II, I look at the war diaries of Typhoon Squadrons in Normandy. These contain details of missions flown and results achieved. A large number of individual anecdotes that combine together to form an impressive collection of anecdotes. When looking at the tank claims in these anecdotes I find a large umber of "Tank Kills". However, surveys of tanks by the ORS sections of 2 TAF and 21 Army Group that looked a destroyed tanks and the cause of their destruction showed a vastly smaller number than the anecdotes suggested. It is now accepted that material destruction by air power was much less than the anecdotes suggested.

Carl, I agree that decision makers have to make decisions on the information available to them at the time and that this is always subject a greater or lesser degree of uncertainty. We have just lived through six months of this, where decision makers couldn't afford to wait for science to produce "good" data.

My point was that we need to treat with caution assertions made on the basis of two or three anecdotes.

You guys get back to discussing the issue - I enjoy reading your posts.

Regards

John

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