Ah, beware the "cheap" wive's tails of History, and those who repeat them...ESPECIALLY after they were REFUTED...
I can show you many quotes, where German Tankers claimed their Panthers "burned too easily," where Soviets called the (Diesel!) T-34 "Their little Lighter..." But everybody that feels the NEED to slam the M4 "conveniently" remembers the British called the EARLY model "the Ronson." (AMERICANS would have called it the ZIPPO.
) EARLY models without wet storage of ammo, or the applique armor over the sponsons where the ammo was stored, DID brew up more quickly than most Gasoline powered tanks (and MOST were still powered by gasoline!) But AFTER the "Wet" modification, showing again the VERSATILITY of the design, , which virtually ALL of ours after 1943 WERE, except the MANY early ones that SURVIVED to roll into Germany in '45 of course...they "brewed up" with no MORE frequency than OTHER gasoline powered designs, the Cromwell, the Churchill, or even the Pzkw IVs, Panthers and Tigers! YES they were "Petrol powered" as WELL!.. (BTW, PS, how many German tanks made in 1942 were still in action in 1945?)
This really DOES get tiring, PS,
ESPECIALLY having to defend the tank that actually helped WIN the war, against proponents of the tanks that actually HASTENED the defeat of Germany!
Bill and 300, they made the Sherman in Diesel too, that did NOT "light up" any faster than other diesels AFTER the wet stowage, but the Army refused them just SO we wouldn't have to ship two types of fuel over 3000 miles TOO...the USMC, as well as the Free French, Polish (which made no sense, we had to supply THEM diesel in Europe too....) and the Russians via lend-lease used them...the M4A2s...
The one thing the M4 ALSO brought to the table that no German design could match was VERSATILITY, but that's another story, even though PS and the Sherman detractors ignore THAT too...like the M10 and M36 TDs with guns that DID defeat German armor rather easily? Like the M4A3 105mm that could ALSO defeat all German armor with HEAT, BESIDES giving tremendous HE support?
The M4A1s and M4s (Kinda funny the A1 was produced BEFORE the standard 'M4,) had the radials, the M4A2 had the Diesel, the M4A3 (the most common US type after '43) had the three Ford V-8s, the M4A4 (used mainly for training, none supposedly saw combat) had the weird 4 or even 5 Chrysler engines hooked together. And YEAH, the three Fords gave 500hp power for a much lighter tank than the 600hp of the Maybach in the Tiger or Panthers...but better than that they usually STARTED each morning, not like the German crap...
The limiting factor on the horsepower though, for the Germans, was not that they couldn't MAKE bigger engines, they could! It's just that they couldn't make TRANSMISSIONS that could handle the wear and tear of anything much larger than a ton and a half TRUCK! Almost as MANY of those "parked" Panthers and Tigers you see captured almost unscathed (as opposed to the ones burned out from getting smoked by Jabos or by the fast moving Sherman's (or M10s, M36s or Hellcat TDs!) hitting them in the flank and from behind by surprise, are parked because of a stripped tooth on a ring or pinion gear, or a smoked clutch, as from lack of FUEL!
One of the very FIRST definitons of a "Tank, what they were DESIGNED for, includes the term "MOBILITY."
You can have as much armor and gun as you want, but without MOBILITY that you can DEPEND on, you have a PILLBOX. A very DIFFICULT pillbox to destroy possibly, but one that should have used non-strategic CONCRETE instead of STEEL to save valuable RESOURCES....
One thing PS and all the other "German Superiority" preachers NEVER discuss is where the line of ABSURDITY of German Tank design in WWII was crossed...they ALWAYS spout, almost with PRIDE, and with the Prussian Marching Music almost AUDIBLE in the background, the "Invincible Tiger II, or Panther..." but what about the 100 ton Sturmtiger, the 240 ton Maus, or the even HEAVIER German designs and prototypes actually being TESTED at the of the end of the war armed with NAVAL guns and ALSO eating up precious resources and industrial capacity??? If bigger is BETTER, why not extoll THEM, in your wistful fantasies of "What if?????"
I actually simply place the line of absurdity, in front of the Tiger II. It really was as absurd as the Maus, any tank that takes 150000 man hours apiece to build, too heavy for all BRIDGES on a continent where river crossings are a fact of military LIFE, and have been for CENTURIES, so they have to waste time experimenting with SCHNORKLES is "Absurdity" in neon lights!
The PANTHER is another story, and it is TRULY a good thing it was too little too late, still a little too complicated for the state of the mechanical aptitude of the German tanker and mechanic, and rushed into service before any of the bugs could be worked out, and crews could be adequately trained in it. When it WORKED as designed, it was the toughest adversary the Shermans (and T34s) had, thank God they had relatively only a few, and those few broke down as much as they did, so they did not affect the outcome of the war.
Horrendous losses? More wives tails...I've said it before, but PS doesn't hear well
...knocked out Shermans averaged
one (do you HEAR that PS? ONE!) casualty for EVERY Sherman "Knocked out." American tankers did NOT suffer "horrendous" casualties due to their "Inferior tank!"
That rate is actually BETTER than the average casualty rate of MOST tanks of the war, INCLUDING the Germans!
Yes many more American/Allied tanks WERE knocked out in Western Europe than German...WHY??????
For the ENTIRE war they were ATTACKING, which is what tanks were DESIGNED for....the GERMANS only "attacked" at the BEGINNING...(with "inferior tanks," by the way the only ones they WON with...
) and when the Allies learned how to STOP them, they rarely EVER attacked again.
The OTHER thing PS ignores, is Tank vs tank encounters in Europe, from June 6th 1944 until VE day were RARE. One on one "Shootouts at high noon" which is what is envisioned when people ONLY refer to published gun/armor ratios and thus "pronounce" the "best tank", NEVER happened!
For EVERY instance where "one Tiger held up an entire army and destroyed 30 Shermans," I can show you SEVERAL incidents where one 76mm WHEELED US AT gun or an M10 tank destroyer at Bastogne or Elsenberg ridge did the same THING in reverse to the Panthers and PZKW IVs! (Granted, not to any Tiger IIs, because remember they were too HEAVY for the terrain to be USED in the main attack through the Ardennes at the Bulge, so for Germany's "last Gasp," it's "Best"
tanks could only play a minor role in a feint in the SOUTH, that fooled no one, especially Georgie Patton, driving up from the South in a maneuver even the GERMANS thought was impossible with TANKS and SMASH into their flank, with of course. "inferior" M4A3s...
MOST of those "horrendous" losses PS cites were to entrenched towed Anti tank GUNS usually 75mm, (giving the devil his due, they had GREAT 75mm AT guns!) NOT 88s.. and PANZERFAUSTS carried by INFANTRY in built up areas, and the cheap, reliable and easily made tiny and quick HETZER Tank Destroyer with the LOW velocity 75mm gun, based on a small. RELIABLE Czech chassis and engine!
My point is simply that the Sherman, ALL things considered, that it was made and TRANSPORTED many thousands of miles to hostile shores to carry out a doctrine that it was built and specifically TAILORED to carry out, SUCCEEDED wonderfully, in a really epic campaign of rapid MANEUVER and MOVEMENT that probably will never be equaled by armored forces, and is probably the only tank that COULD have done it......
....while late war GERMAN tanks, (after YEARS more of armored experience than anyone else, ((heck they INVENTED "Blitzkrieg"!)) they SHOULD have gotten it right, but DIDN'T) that could be DRIVEN from the factories to the front, still were designed to be RAILROADED to the front because the road march would cause too much wear and tear, (AND when designed, the designers even KNEW air superiority was LOST, so there might not BE any railroads left!) and were fragile mechanically, and many times too HEAVY to maneuver around a battlefield due to available BRIDGES did NOT succeed...so were FAILURES.
And thus, the M4 series Shermans were BETTER tanks, all things considered...
Counselor, your witness...