And, AGAIN, respectfully, PS, I have to disagree!
First, some of your facts are just wrong...the EARLY M4s even with the M2 gun were found to be effective in Tunisia, EVEN AGAINST TIGER Is, AFTER the crews gained experience....the main deficiency was found to be the untrained green CREWS...silhoueting against skylines, bunching up, advancing in the open before adequate prep fire.
What is the MAIN reason Montgomery won at el Alamein? BESIDES Rommel's incompetence? (OK, STRONG word, I just wanted to fire you up, but it WASN'T his finest tactical hour!
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The 300 Sherman Is (in British Parlance) that we STRIPPED from the 2nd Armored Division in training and rushed to the mid-east! IT was SUPERIOR even them to the PZKW IIIs and IVs, AND the dual purpose 75 did well even against the FIXED 88mms, smothering them with accurate HE and Smoke while ON THE MOVE, something NO other tank was CAPABLE of the entire war....
SECOND, how DID we manage to produce "appalling" (using your word, by which incidentally I think you inadvertently let your German PREJUDICE show through
) numbers of M4s? By NOT making the SAME fatal mistake the GERMANS did! By NOT trying futilely to convert WHOLE production lines, retraining workers, AND tankers, rushing production, trying to work out bugs of a NEW design, KNOWING we would NEED tens of thousands of Tanks that WORKED for the campaign we PLANNED to fight in 1944!
You keep spouting the "CW" arguments, that were FIRST written by the US Army apologists immediately AFTER the war when the US Army was FILLED with "German Lovers," driven even DEEPER into German arms because of the need to QUICKLY reconstitute the German Army to face the Russians...eager to explain away the ease in which we defeated the "BEST" Tankers in the World who so obviously had the "BEST" tanks!
When the FACTS are in 1944 and 1945 US tankers were by FAR the best trained in the world, operating the BEST tanks in the world FOR THE CAMPAIGN THAT WAS FOUGHT!
FACTS (NOT "conventional wisdom")
1.) In Western Europe, 1944-45 Tank vs Tank battles were so RARE as to be NOT A FACTOR. PERIOD. Designing a TANK able to defeat OTHER TANKS would have been a WASTE OF TIME, and RESOURCES. (As it WAS, for the GERMANS...)
Arguing that "German Tanks were better, Tank vs Tank" in the WEST is the actual ultimate SOPHISTRY in this argument. Since so FEW tank vs tank battles happened, you can't EVEN prove THAT with certainty, besides being also IRRELEVANT.
This is the one irrefutable logical fact EVERYBODY needs to take away from this argument, which IS the hurdle nobody on the "other side"wants to face. Once you embrace THAT, the TRUTH will set you free!
You can WISH, dream, fantasize, but that one fact will NEVER change...
It makes as MUCH sense as me claiming Polish Cavalry was the BEST IN THE WORLD in 1939....They WERE, but so WHAT?????
2.) The EARLY M2 75mm M4 gun matched the 76mm of the T-34 A-C models, the MAIN tank of the Soviets the ENTIRE war, which is the main REASON the Germans designed so MANY late war tanks, to defeat the T-34! (Keep in mind, those same GERMAN lovers writing the histories immediately post war ALSO inflated the "prowess of the SOVIETS to explain away Germany's defeat in the EAST...) by making the T-34 INVINCIBLE. IT was FASTER than the M4, better at cross country performance than the M4, lower and better sloped armor, but virtually EQUAL in gun and armor thickness, and NOT as reliable!) WHY is the T-34 given accolades, when the SAME people pooh-pooh the SHERMAN???? PREJUDICE...it TOO was "merely" a "very reliable, simple design given to MASS production....."
And the higher velocity but still "dual purpose" M3 75mm which replaced the M2 in 1943, was SO good we never replaced it during the war! The BEST tank units, by far, at the end of the war had "mixed" platoons...3 with 75s, 2 with 76mms "in case" they ran into German armor, but the 75 was BETTER at fighting entrenched INFANTRY, which is what tanks DID in 1944 and 1945! And it DID work against German armor too, even if not FRONTALLY, good thing they RARELY needed to do THAT huh?
So the "undergunned" myth is popped....big time.
3.) Was it "underarmored?" PROBABLY. BUT remember NO tank since the MATILDA II has ever been made with armor that could withstand it's OWN gun, much less BIGGER guns...so even THEN armor THICKNESS by itself was already seen as counterproduc tive...merely adding WEIGHT which strained suspensions and powertrains. As the GERMANS found out, which is one of the reasons the Tiger II was WORTHLESS. AND why the TIger I was obsolete when first ISSUED...the 75mm in Tunisia DID penetrate FRONTALLY the VERTICAL glacis....
Now SLOPE of the glacis which added "virtual" thickness as the shot is now penetrating at an angle, so through more "steel" whil;e not making it ACTUALLY thicker, was key, which is why the PANTHER was the best German tank, and is what made the T-34 so hard to knock out....so MAYBE if you mentioned the Shermans HEIGHT which made it a better target, and precluded a better slope...even though it WAS improved by the later 47 degree hull in 1944 (which Sherman haters IGNORE as well...")
But even THEN you have to understand WHY it was high...the POWERPLANT.. first the Wright Whirlwind aircraft radial, but then the big Ford GAA, of the M4A3s, and even later the 4 Chrysler V6s...which gave it it's FAMOUS reliability...
But then there is the LITTLE thing of "Crew Comfort," which I will GRANT you was NOT even THOUGHT of when designed, BUT has been "discovered" SINCE the war and is included in EVERY Western design SINCE! Crews in BIGGER hulls, and turrets, NOT as cramped, FIGHT better, over a long campaign! ANd not even considering quicker reloads, the chance one penetrating shot would directly hurt less crew, etc...That IS a fact! ANOTHER reason the M4s could have fought their way right to Berlin in 44....the CREWS would have MADE it in a condition to still FIGHT.
Throw in the quicker powered turret, and the gyroscopic sight allowing for the fast accurate shooting ON THE MOVE, which is ALSO misunderstood (NO it DIDN'T allow them to hit a fly at 1000 with AP like the ABRAMS today, BUT it put mixed HE and WP on target so quickly it OVERWHELMED Dug in German Armor and AT guns WHILE other M4s raced in close, even the T-34 had to stop to fire even HE in order to hit anything....)
And then, like most "Sherman Haters" like to do, is ignore the MANY variants the VERSATILE M4 had, including the JUMBO Assault version, both specially made AND converted in the field, almost as impregnable frontally as the PANTHER...why didn't we make and use MORE than the 300 or so we used? TOO SLOW, TOO HEAVY, not MOBILE enough... one or two as a "spearhead" sufficed, not whole COMPANIES...maybe the Germans could have learned from US
No PS, you have to get over the "awe" you first get comparing "stats" of the tanks ON PAPER, and look DEEPER....there are REASONS we won in the west, and granted, one of them WAS "logistics" and the power of the US economy to put more of EVERYTHING on the line, which from 3000 miles away is even MORE impressive...but the fact remains the M4 was the PERFECT tank in ALL regards for the Campaign we fought in 1944 and 1945 in Western Europe, (that was PLANNED in 1942 and 1943, for using weapons AVAILABLE AND TESTED, not "pie in the sky..."!) while the fact ALSO remains that the Tiger II and to a lesser extent the Panther, were TERRIBLE tanks for the defense against that same campaign...
And the fact the GERMANS had the SAME time to prepare, and KNEW what they were facing, to STILL waste time and resources at that stage of the war attempting to develop, produce and FIELD in any kind of useful numbers NEW tank designs...was simply absurd.
Remember, PS, as MUCH as I know it grates on you and K, the GERMANS failed, with the weapons they HAD, while the Americans and their allies, won BIG, with the weapons THEY had....
The fact remains that the GREATEST fear of American tankers was facing PANTHERS, Thank God that happened RARELY.
The VAST majority of Shermans knocked out were NOT knocked out by German armor other than HETZERS....
In this order, they were knocked out by Towed AT guns in the bocage, and elsewhere in ambush,, Infantry with Panzerfausts and Panzerschrecks in towns, THEN Hetzers.....ANY German tank goes WAY down on the list after that, look it UP.
And FINALLY, what is even MORE unbelievable to you "Sherman haters," is the FACT that for EVERY M4 knocked out the ENTIRE war, an average of "only" one tanker was KILLED or WOUNDED, which is I think (I haven't yet seen comparisons for ALL tanks, but it was substantially LESS than German tanker losses...) the BEST record of ANY tank in the war!
I would argue that it was shameful for OTHER countries to subject their men to battle in Tanks NOT as good as the M4....INCLUDING the never perfected unreliable Panther, and the MORE unreliable "sitting Duck" Tiger II....
Not BAD for such an "inferior" tank, right?
All I ask is for you to put things in PERSPECTIVE.
IF you OBJECTIVELY consider EVERYTHING, and not JUST "Armor-Gun Ratios" and "Production numbers" you will accept the M4 as a great
DESIGN, if not the BEST of World War II....
'Simply winning by sheer numbers" becomes so simplistic as to be laughable.