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"Kelly's Heroes" trivia question...

6K views 33 replies 6 participants last post by  polishshooter 
#1 · (Edited)
I just got done watching one of my favorite movies of all time, "Kelly's Heroes" on DVD...

While overall I think this is one of the BEST WWII movies at least until "Saving Private Ryan" when it comes to weapons use, and making the German Tigers LOOK like Tigers, the number of REAL M4A376W Shermans in ONE frame, the decent attempt at making a real M3 GMC, etc....

It has ALWAYS bothered me exactly WHAT sniper rifle that was that the guy with "Cowboy" takes out those Guards on top of the bank with....it has never looked like a Springfield 03A4 to ME....


UNTIL tonight, I made POSITIVE identification....:p


Can ANYBODY tell me what 'Sniper Rifle" it was....


Any GUESSES????:D :D :D



I'll give you a hint, it's NOT what you would think...ESPECIALLY for a movie filmed in the 1970s....


....Think along the lines of Sgt. Shultz on Hogan's Heroes, and what rifle HE carried.....and no, it's NOT the same one he carried....
 
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#2 · (Edited)
:p Dang! Now I have to go find the tape and see if the VCR even works now! All those negative vibes man! Donald Sutherland did okay in Kelly's, Eagle has Landed, Dirty Dozen, MASH ..... for a liberal Canuck. But, he did have a long going 'relationship' with one Jane Fonda - ATB. And, was vocally anti-war. Go figure with these Hollywood types! Two faces ... one with $$$ in the eyes.

I'll throw in The Big Red One, with a real shooter - Lee Marvin.

And, Away All Boats, (Jeff Chandler) simply because I rode an APA across the Pacific a few times in the 60s. Miserable tub! Know who else was in it --- a very young Clint Eastwood, pre-Rawhide! And, Richard Boone, pre-Paladin.

I'll pick Platoon over Full Metal Jacket. Berenger or DaFoe over Modine any day! And, you probably did not notice Johnny Depp!

But, yep, Saving Private Ryan is it. A 'gripper' in the opening several minutes.
 
#3 · (Edited)
DVDs are GREAT for "rewinding, reviewing and pausing," which is only going to make the props guys and the "historical advisors" more easier to congratulate, or belittle in the future, on war flicks....


Actually, you have to keep in mind "Kelly's Heroes" was ACTUALLY considered an anti-war flick, like "MASH" and "Catch 22" , made at the height of the Vietnam war...

So to me it is MORE amazing Eastwood, Savales and Rickles were in it, than Sutherland....

But the GOOD news it has evolved into simply a GREAT war flick.
 
G
#4 ·
Polish, could it be a Mosin Nagant with a PU sniper scope attached? I only vaguely remember the movie and remember thinking when I saw it that it seemed pretty contrived, especially Savalas driving that M4 with the turret blown to hell and gone. :D ;)
 
#5 · (Edited)
Well, you have the movies a little mixed up, it was in "Patton" that Savales is in the Tank....

Sutherland is in the M4 in this one...

But you got it! It was a Mosin Nagant 91/30 with the PU scope...I first noticed the hooded front sight, and the barrel band the first time I watched it on DVD last week with my wife...

Then last night when I watched it again with my Daughter, I watched it CLOSELY and there is one split second shot from the side...'Snayperskaya" bent bolt and all!:p

When I watched it many times in the past, it was BEFORE I was "in to" Mosins, so I missed it...

But think about it, WHERE in the WORLD did "Central Casting" end up with a Mosin Nagant Sniperskaya in it's "prop room," in the 1970s at the height of the Cold War when nobody in the West even knew how to SPELL "Mosin...." Back THEN a "real" sniper 91/30 was RARE, probably worth a cool grand to collectors in 1970s dollars!

Now Sgt. Shultz carrying a Krag Jorgenson, even though you KNOW it was just a case of calling the prop room and asking for "any old bolt action military rifle you have..." it actually COULD have been "correct!" (Especially when the Mauser was too complicated to turn out in the QUANTITIES needed....:cool: :p )

The Germans used and ISSUED more captured weapons, ESPECIALLY to rear echelon troops like the Eintzentruppe, or prison guards, and they WOULD have gotten some Krags when they invaded Denmark, but I SERIOUSLY doubt the thinking went THAT far....:p
 
G
#6 ·
Yup, as I said, it's been years since I saw that movie. I think I remember now, isn't there a scene where Sutherland fires off one of those M4 potato gun rounds at the rear of a German Tiger, and it turns out to do nothing but splash some paint? Well, at least the movie was more or less accurate in the effect of the M4 main gun on a Tiger tank. :D ;) :p
 
#9 ·
Here is the tranlated song

Ob's storms or snows whether the sun us laughs,
Whether cheerfully the sky or darkly the night --
The faces are dust-laden,
But gladly our sense is, our sense:
It brews our tank in the Sturme there.

And we are then all united to the fight,
With thundering engine near to the enemy!
Then leave the comrades
In the fight not alone, not alone!
Thus we stosen deeply into the hostile Reih'n.

And in the pass then the perfidious luck lets us,
And we do not return to the homeland,
The death ball meets us,
The fate calls up us, off fate,
Thus us the tank becomes a ehernes grave.
 
#10 · (Edited)
The worst part, BESIDES the crude guttural dissonance of the song that just sounds TERRIBLE to civilized ears, is you need ANOTHER translation after the translation...:cool:


Actually, I would have thought you would have liked Sutherland explaining how they dealt with Tigers...put the pipe over the 76mm so the Germans thought they were 90s and then shoot rounds loaded with PAINT at them to "scare the hell out of them." ALONG with souping up the engines so they could go faster in forward OR reverse so they could get out of trouble faster than they got into it...MOST American tanks COULD be "souped up," which fit the American "Mechanical Ingenutity" to a tee, while late war German tanks were lucky if the crew could keep them RUNNING....

There are MANY examples of Tigers and Panthers turning and running, or SURRENDERING when the M4s just smothered them with rapid fire WP and HE that WORKED while running around them to nail them in the rear, so that one is plausible...


There is even an example of an entire platoon of Panthers surrendering when they came under fire from 4.5 inch Chemical Corps mortars in Sicily, because they THOUGHT they were under naval gunfire...


When the "vaunted" Panzertruppen of the late war in their "superior" tanks faced M4s, they quaked in their boots, just like the French and British tankers did in their SUPERIOR tanks in 1940, when they faced the GOOD "Panzertruppen" in THEIR "inferior" tanks....because Late war American tankers were BETTER at it than the Late war Germans...throw in a tank that WORKED and they were unstoppable...


CRAP. See how easy it is for all you misguided "Germanophiles" to get me going AGAIN!:eek: :D :D


.
 
#11 · (Edited)
The books I have read credit the increased numbers of the M10 tank destroyer for evening the playing field.
Also the M36. The M36 was the sole American weapon capable of defeating the latest Königstiger King Tiger and Jagdtiger tanks while maintaining a stand-off distance.

That and Allied air power.

The M4s only advantage was speed and numbers. Armor and armament was lacking. The Brits called them Ronsons. Why? "They light first time everytime"

In the European theater there were 30,000 M4 Shermans versus 600 Tigers and King Tigers and 1500 Panthers.

This is a 14:1 ratio versus the modern German tanks, and a 50:1 ratio versus the formidable Tigers
 
G
#12 ·
polishshooter said:
The worst part, BESIDES the crude guttural dissonance of the song that just sounds TERRIBLE to civilized ears, is you need ANOTHER translation after the translation...
Not if you speak German, Polish. :D

Herr K98, können Sie Deutsch sprechen? Heute die Vereinigten Staaten, morgan die Welt! :D ;) :p
 
G
#14 ·
The M4s only advantage was speed and numbers. Armor and armament was lacking. The Brits called them Ronsons. Why? "They light first time everytime"

In the European theater there were 30,000 M4 Shermans versus 600 Tigers and King Tigers and 1500 Panthers.

This is a 14:1 ratio versus the modern German tanks, and a 50:1 ratio versus the formidable Tigers
Ja doch, Herr K98! I've been telling Polish that for two years, but he refuses to listen. Er ist sehr hartnäckig und eigenwillig, nicht wahr? :D ;) :p
 
G
#17 ·
Just FYI, Savalas was in a Chaffee tank(M24 I think), not an M4 in the movie "Battle of the Bulge".:) ;)
Come to think of it, I believe it was indeed a light tank Savalas was in. Of course, all American tanks were "light" tanks in my opinion, except perhaps the M26 Pershing. The Pershing is the only one we built that could take on the Tigers and hope to survive.
 
#18 ·
Oh My, do we have to do this AGAAIN?

K, PLEASE do not be so wedded to "Conventional Wisdom" that you CANNOT see the FOREST because of all those damm TREES....

The M4 series of US tanks was superior to ANY late war German Tank, SIMPLY because it was the PERFECT tank for the war which would be FOUGHT at the time....

The fact that the Americans stuck to a relatively SIMPLE design, EASY to produce for the economy that produced it, that was also INARGUABLY the most mechanically reliable tank IN THE WORLD, that was PERFECT for the war that was ultimately FOUGHT, is somehow unfair? Somehow is something to be ashamed of, since they beat opposing tanks that were so OBVIOUSLY (Read that with THICK sarcasm!) "Superior," crafted by the BEST (ditto with the sarcasm) Tank Designers in the WORLD????;)

Tank versus Tank warfare in the Western Theater was SO rare as to be ALMOST statistically insignificant. YES there were all kinds of other reasons you can point to when crying into your likewise "superior" pilsener, lack of fuel, lack of resources, lack of trained panzertruppen by 1944, smothering tactical air superiority on the part of the allies, the Eastern Front, etc, etc, etc...

But considering all THAT, the Germans STILL choose to build HEAVIER tanks, KNOWING their automotive technology is so bad they can't even develop a decent TRUCK transmission?????

That are TOO heavy for MOST BRIDGES in Europe, where any campaign East or West has like a MINOR river (fordable during the "dry seasons")to cross every 10 miles, a LARGE river (Fordable only at a FEW places, and only during dry seasons) and a MAJOR river (infordable at any time) every 100 Miles????

So heavy, and so mechanically UNSOUND that they build them INTENTIONALLY to depend on Railroad transportation to get them "near" the front because they KNOW they will not withstand "road marches?" Doing this even AFTER they knew they lost tactical air superiority so they could not depend on Railroads or bridges to be even THERE when they needed to move them? And even making them too LARGE to fit through railroad TUNNELS they KNEW were also there, so they had to be fitted with NARROWER tracks and outside road wheels of the TOO complicated "interleaved" road wheels (the ONLY way the "superior" German Designers could figure out how to SUPPORT that weight...)REMOVED, so that when an act of GOD happened and a tank full of them DID arrive at the theoretical "well equipped depot" magiccally situated "30-50" miles BEHIND a rapidly shifting FRONT, TRAINED mechanics (of which the actually AGRARIAN German economy did NOT have many of the ENTIRE war....) would have to take a MINIMUM of 4 hours to get INTO battle shape?????

And oh yeah designing them KNOWING they could expect an average of 100-200 miles track life AT BEST....

KNOWING about the fuel shortages, they build NEW tanks that not only suck down MORE fuel, but severly limit (actully make IMPOSSIBLE) TRAINING in the very types in which the green crews are expected to FIGHT???

YES they had frontal armor virtually impervious to any allied tank or anti tank weapons at a range greater than 600 yds, (but with sides vulnerable, and armor to the TOp and REAR thin or nonexistant to save WEIGHT,) and a gun that COULD penetrate ANY allied tank at 2000 yds, (but with so SLOW a rate of fire, in SUCH a cramped turret, that also due to design and mechanical deficiencies had a very SLOW rate of fire and traverse )

THERE were a HECKUVA lot more reasns you see all those knocked out and abandoned Panthers and Tigers by the sides of the roads in France and Germany in 44 and 45, and not ONLY fuel and Jabos! TheyBROKE DOWN, (USUALLY by stripped ring and pinion gears in the transmissions designed and BUILT by the "superior German machinists and technicians....)they were BYPASSED and killed from the REAR, they were ABANDONED by Green crews that KNEW they were "junk....."


And built by an economy for an army likewise that still depended on HORSES, that never built enough TRUCKS that werre reliable, so they had more CAPTURED trucks trying to SUPPLY these dinosaurs...


And oh yeah, these "superior" tanks were designed that way to fight a modern "MOBILE" war...:cool: :cool: :cool:

Patton PROBABLY could have ended the war in 1944 by a run directly to Berlin after Falaise...if WE had the fuel (that we had to ship THOUSANDS of miles in slow tankers across waters infested with all those "superior" German submarines....)

The reason it IS controversial to this day, that we made a MISTAKE stopping him, is because everybody KNOWS it was FEASIBLE...the ONLY tank in the WORLD that could have made that 1000 mile run ON THEIR TRACKS at high speed was the M4....accompanied by GMC, Mack, and White trucks and half-tracks carrying troops and supplies, and self-propelled artillery (most of which were based on the SAME M4 chassis) that would have ALSO made the trip... that no OTHER army in the world would have EVER considered!!!!

No, K, you waked into it there, like so MANY other "historians" and "buffs" have, the M4 tank was the PERFECT tank for the war, and contributed to allied victory a LOT more than anybody merely reading stats or looking at the impressive (many STAGED) photographs of those "superior" tanks in action considers....

And don't let those "few" instances of Panthers and Tigers shooting up the proverbial "columns" of M4s fool you either, not only was it rare, and only happened when the M4s were constrained by terrain from anything OTHER than frontal assault, MOST M4s destroyed by German Tanks were done by LONE German tanks in a well entrenched "ambush" position, that were then handled by artillery or flanked... good for "local" success, but NOT a way to fight a decisive "mobile war..."

Remember losses are ALWAYS high when somebody is ATTACKING, it's the name of the game...the FEW times when the roles were reversed, the GERMAN Panthers and Tigers lost disproportionately to the M4s they killed TOO...(Arracourt? September 44, the ONLY large tank vs tank battle between Falaise and the Bulge,? 285 German tanks and assault guns destroyed, virtually ALL by M4s and M10s and towed 76mms and 105s, for the loss of 25 M4s and 7 M10s and Hellcats?) Does THAT alone "prove" for you that the M4 was superior? NO it shouldn't, any MORE than the times you cite of the REVERSE, should "prove" GERMAN tanks were superior to the M4! Remember the TOTAL picture....


COULD Germany have done better? YES...the number ONE German killer of the M4 was not their tanks, it was towed AT guns (from those same concealed "ambush" positions,) but the number TWO was the "Hetzer..."

Think about it, a LIGHT, mechanically RELIABLE Czech design, from what Coinncidentally the most successful TANK the Germans had during the halycon Blitzkrieg days, the one that WON for them, the 35 and 38ts..not the BEST tank then, just one that WORKED...

...with a gun ABOUT as powerful as the M4s 75, that was SMALL, hard to SEE and hit, relatively FAST, fuel efficient, and could "shoot and scoot...." How many of THEM could the Germans have built if they did NOT waste resources on the heavy junk? How hard would it have been to TRAIN new tankers in them?


DON'T fall for that "Ronson" BS...YES early M4s "brewed up" quickly.... but so did many OTHER tanks...(one of the SOVIET'S "pet names" for their early T-34 was "The Little Lighter" for the same REASON!)

This had to do with the Army's DECISION to use the gasoline powered model, to avoid having to supply two types of fuel, there WERE many models that used diesel (AGAIN, proving the adaptability of the "superior design!") that we supplied to the Free French, Polish, Soviets, and the USMC, that worked AS well!" BUt again showing the adaptabilitym once "Wet" stowage of ammo was started, in 1944, sympathetic brew ups were MIMNMIZED, but reputations gained are TOUGH to shake....

And we won't EVEN go into the different models, each successful in it's own right, that showed WHY we built so many of them...the TD, 105mm howitzer tanks and SPs, 155 SPs, flame tanks, engineer tanks with blades, 'Jumbo" assault tanks, the HVSS tanks in action by the Bulge that gave BETTER reliability and cross country performance, the "Calliope" rocket launchers, etc, etc, etc that just show HOW versatile and dependable the M4 design WAS...

ANd as for GUNS, yes, the EARLY M2 75mm Dual Purpose was not very good, (t did WELL on M24 recon tanks LATER though...:p ) IT was only about as powerful as the 76mm on the T-34 A-C models that did so well against the Germans in the EAST the entire war:p . The M3 75 DP gun that replaced it was good enough that we never fully replaced IT. It fired a better HE, and had such a rapid fire it was BETTER at fighting infantry, which is what MOST M4s, and most OTHER tanks do the most!)

The 76mm was better against armor, with "hypersot" could penetrate FRONTALLY Tigers and Panthers, we just rarely gave tanks more than 2-3 rounds per tank, SINCE Tank v tank was so RARE...the TDs and towed ATs got most of THEM...

But what about the Firefly Sherman? THAT could go toe to toe with any "Konigstiger," or 'Panther," showing once AGAIN the "versatility of the "superior" design!

No, K, I hope you keep an open mind, the "MORE we know, the less we KNOW," even about a subject as "beat to death" as World War II!


And I LOVE it......;) :p :D
 
#19 · (Edited)
A good, but spurious argument. M4 versus tiger, tiger wins. I have seen interviews with U.S. and British M4 tank crewmen who talk of having three and four tanks shot out from under them by German tanks. They all say the German tanks were superior. The one British crewman I saw in the interview had a very disfigured face. Why ? Because his M4 took a German tank round through the frontal armor and burst into flames.

Here is a quote from Omar Bradley's book "A Soldiers Story" "You mean our 76 won't knock out these Panzers?" General Eisenhower exclaimed angrily, "Why I thought it was going to be the wonder gun of the war." "Oh,it's better then the 75," replied General Bradley but the charge is much too small.She just hasn't the kick to carry her through the German armor". Much later The HVAPM93 shot came along but this could only pierce the PANTHER armor under 300 meters.
The only person I have EVER heard say the M4 was superior is you. . As to forest for the trees,you seem lost in the woods!:p :)
 
#20 · (Edited)
A good, but spurious argument.!:p :)
K, MY argument is "spurious," and "anecdotal evidence" is ALL you can refute any of my FACTs with???? Thanks for the CHUCKLE!:D :D :D

ESPECIALLY when one of the FACTS is that "M4 versus Tiger" battles were so RARE as to be IRRELEVANT to the course of the WAR????

Granted, While ANY Allied tanker would have lOVED to have the armor and gun of a TIger, not ONE of them would have given up the "mechanical reliability" to GET it...

And I have read JUST as many "anecdotal accounts" of GERMAN tankers in AWE of that SAME "mechanical reliability," of the M4s, and COMPLAINING that they recieved so much tank fire from BEHIND....

No K, you and PS are just the latest batch of "German Superiority Lovers," that cannot handle any OBJECTIVE analysis of the war....and must make EXCUSES to make the facts FIT your preconcieved love of anything German...

Now GRANTED, I AM admittedly prejudiced....'German Superioroty" in ANYTHING is like fingernails on a blackboard to me, so I LOOK for all the evidence I can find of German mistakes and missteps, and LOVE to find instances where the concept is LAUGHABLE.

Like the fact the BF109 prototype probably would NEVER HAVE been adopted WITHOUT a BRITISH Kestrel Engine and an AMERICAN Hamilton-Standard PROP...History ITSELF laughs at us for that one...;);):):)

But what is FUNNY is I AM objective enough to be willing to give the devil his due...ARE YOU? The TRUTH is somewhere in the MIDDLE of my "M4 was the BEST, PERIOD," and your "The Tiger was the unquestionably the BEST, if only...."

The proof is in the RESULTS, not "If only we had some bacon we could have some bacon and eggs if we only had some eggs" arguments.

I am WILLING to stand on the record of the M4 tanks, warts and all, and STILL declare them winners...while you DISMISS the glaring faults of yours as "bugs..."

But the TIGER was inarguably junk, and worthless. Like EVERY 'heavy" tank turned out to be. And simply was NEVER a problem for M4s to handle, or to run around the entire war, EXCEPT those FEW incidents where everything came together for the Germans, that is an irrefutable fact.There is NO getting around it.

Throw in the fact they could not even be USED directly at the Bulge, the LAST hope for German armor in the West, because they were TOO HEAVY FOR BRIDGES in the Ardennes, shows their relative worth in mobile warfare....ZERO.

Heck, I have actual, not anecdotal, "evidence" that Boeing P-26 is credited with shooting down SEVERAL Jap planes, including at least ONE Zero, in the Philippines, and THOSE "successes" of the FEW Tigers the Germans were ever able to produce, of EITHER model, had as much bearing on the WAR, or even the BATTLE in question, as did the "Peashooter's successes...." FACE IT.

The PANTHER was the design that gave M4s fits...and was the design that prompted the upgun to the 76mm...THAT design WAS good, and potentially the BEST of the war....GREAT practical gun, GREAT slope, not THICKNESS of armor, decent speed and cross country performance, not TOO big, just slightly underpowered for it's weight, BUT still too much for "German Engineering" at the time, even YOU mention "bugs..." They weren't "bugs," they were GLARING deficiencies, in German engines and transmissions....PERIOD.

The fact you ONLY have to remember, one that you can NOT refute, and incidentally is the ONLY argument that matters, is....:p

The M4 tank Design HELPED the Allies WIN the war....
While the Tigers and Panthers HELPED the Germans to LOSE the war...

Counselor, I rest my case....:p
 
G
#22 ·
I do refute it . Allied superiority in air over,artillery and logistics played the deciding role. Your sophistry cannot change that.
And don't forget allied industrial capacity, K98, which resulted in the ability to produce 50,000 M4s compared to only 1,300 or so Tigers and Panthers that the Germans were able to field. Quantity has a quality all its own. The German tanks were essentially nibbled away by ducks. :D ;)

Polish, we've been over this ground MANY times. :p Yes, the allies won the war (fortunately!) but not because the M4 was a better tank than what the Germans could field. It was (barely!) a match for early German Panzer IIIs , but almost useless against Tigers and Panthers. The allies won because the Germans overmatched themselves by beginning a war with the U.S., Britain, and the Soviet Union in the first place! Wars are won logistically, Polish, and that's how the allies actually won WWII, both in the ETO and the PTO. In a purely technological sense, the Germans consistantly produced better weapons than the allies, for proof you need look only at the V-1s, V-2s, and the Me-262 fighter. Their greatest weakness lay in two main areas: first, Germany lacked the industrial capacity to produce its designs in sufficient quantity and the time necessary to work out the inevitable bugs in any new design; and second--and in this area I must agree with you--the Germans had too much of a tendency to jump from one project to the next while never concentrating on any one weapons system for long enough to develop it properly.

You point out, correctly, that the greatest difficiency of the Tigers was their mobility. Yes, they were heavy and slow, but that was not always a serious problem. The Germans essentially sacrificed mobility for fire power, and tactically that made sense on the Steppes of Russia and in the kind of war the Germans were forced to fight after the D-day landings. Remember too, Polish, that the vast majority of Germany's tank production went not to the Western Front, but to the Eastern, for use against the Russian T-34s. You want factual proof of the effectiveness of the Tigers? Look carefully at the battles in Russia where German Tigers ravaged the Russian T-34s time and time again. Once again, the Russians like the Western allies, won with numbers, not necessarily quality. The T-34 was an excellent tank, but no match for a Tiger in a gun duel, and that was proven over and over again.
 
#23 · (Edited)
OK, K, still too stubborn to "see the light...."

IF you still can't accept that designing a "new" tank like the Panther, much less the Tiger II, was just STUPID when all those things you cited were ALREADY fact, and any new design would have to FACE on any battlefield it was intended to be ON in the future...not even CONSIDERING that the designers already KNEW all the deficiencies of the German wartime ecomony, shortage of skilled machine workers, heck ANY workers, when they KNEW they could never get ANY meaningful numbers produced, and so they STILL went ahead and SHUT DOWN assembly lines making LESSER tanks in decent numbers, that workers were trained to make, AND tankers were trained to fight in...and you still think THAT was smart...

Let's try it a DIFFERENT way...using YOUR "if only" arguments....


Let's say in 1944 the Americans FOUND a way to put an 88mm gun JUST like the Tiger, or a long 75mm JUST like the Panther (the better tank gun of the TWO by the way...:p ) on the M4....

And let's say when they introduced the better 47 degree glacis slope (ANOTHER improvement which you guys ignore,,,)like they did in 1944, they ALSO gave it frontal and side armor as thick as a Tiger, (like they CAME CLOSE with the Jumbo, and applique armor retro fit kits. ALSO in 1944...)and with the HVSS kept the performance and mechanical reliability about the same...


Would you THEN admit the M4 was better than the Tiger or Panther....?:)


(CAREFUL now, your irrational prejudice TOWARDS anything German just MIGHT show through with your answer.....;) )


IF you consider that the M4 was DESIGNED in 1941, and produced in 1942, for a European land war NO American land force was even INVOLVED in yet...much LESSX had a developed "doctrine" for their USE...

...the American designers did a pretty FINE job "nailing it," designing a Machine that would WIN THE WAR FOR US, taking into consideration the strengths AND weaknesses of the American economy, American industrial capabilities, then AND in the future, the fact they had to WORK in ALL climates, AFTER being shipped THOUSANDS of miles to fight, at the end of a LONG logistical chain.....and STILL made them as reliable and mechanically sound as they were, in the NUMBERS that they did to fight the WAY they did, WITH the "air superiority" you cite, that wasn't a GIVEN, but was ALSO "planned for..." and ACHIEVED through a HELLUVA lot of hard work and fighting by US and Allied soldiers and sailors and airman, not just "Given" to us by the Germans from the kindness of their heart...

The American DESIGN is superior in ALL respects to the TIger and the Panther...BECAUSE it worked....


I think it is AMAZING how glibly people reduce the GLARING deficiencies in the Tiger and Panther designs, taking into account AT THE TIME OF THE DESIGN the designers KNEW they had or would shortly face shortages of FUEL, STEEL, TUNGTEN, ALLOYS of every type, had only transmissions and engines that could reliably power nothing heavier than a mid series PZKW IV, and KNOWING they could never produce more than a few thousand of them, KNOWING they would be facing TENS OF THOUSANDS of both M4s and T-34s, and KNOWING they would have to GIVE UP the production of TENS OF THOUSANDS of lesser, but more or less serviceable tanks, that incidentally their few MECHANICS were trained to SERVICE and maintain, and what FEW trained panzertruppen they had LEFT werer trained to fight IN, to MAKE the mere thousands, if they were LUCKY with the Panthers, and the mere HUNDREDS of the Tigers...

...and call them "bugs....":p
 
#24 ·
Oh, thicker armor and bigger guns do not a better tank make. Reliability and ease of manufacture counts for much more. Tanks need to get into the battle to have any effect on such, so the German transmissions alone made them inneffective. Kurt "Panzer" Meyer accomplished many AMAZING feats in his Tigers, but in the end it didn't matter that he could run through an allied column leaving destruction in his wake because there were always more Shermans to move up to fill the lines.
 
G
#25 ·
Kurt "Panzer" Meyer accomplished many AMAZING feats in his Tigers, but in the end it didn't matter that he could run through an allied column leaving destruction in his wake because there were always more Shermans to move up to fill the lines.
And that, Bunny, was my point. There indeed were always more Shermans to sacrifice, which the allies did in appalling numbers. The allies won by virtue of numbers, not quality. The Sherman had advantages, that is true. It was fast, highly mobile, and able to negotiate narrow European roads more easily than the larger German machines. It was also much more easily repairable. When the Sherman was first fielded in North Africa it did reasonably well against German Panzer IIIs, though it was by no means superior to them. I've always argued, though, that there is no excuse for our having built ONLY Shermans and sacrificed them, and their crews, by the hundreds to superior German armor and anti-tank guns. We darn well could have done better, most especially with the M26 Pershing with its much heavier armor and 90mm, high velocity main gun. No matter how mobile a tank is, it is useless if it cannot protect itself against the weapons likely to be used against it. The Sherman simply could not, nor could it deliver any sort of reliable penetration against German armor. For infantry support and fast movement, the Sherman did well. In a slugfest with German armor, it was a disaster.
 
#26 · (Edited)
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!;))

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:p ) 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?:p

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.
 
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