Okay, Mr. Nicholas Moran need to have a nice and long talk with Ido about this 5vs1 myth.
...then again, the one who talking in strip is German, so it kinda understandable.
Ido is not saying it takes 5 Sherman to fight a German tank. Ido is saying America chose to fight German armor at the rate of 5 to 1. Which is not wrong, as far as historical accuracy is concerned.
And it's still Iowa talking. Bismarck's line is in the blue bubble.
Ido is not saying it takes 5 Sherman to fight a German tank. Ido is saying America chose to fight German armor at the rate of 5 to 1. Which is not wrong, as far as historical accuracy is concerned.
And it's still Iowa talking. Bismarck's line is in the blue bubble.
It's more of a going everywhere with 5 tanks, since you don't go solo around a battlefield no matter what WoT wants you to believe.
Yes thank you someone posted the Chieftain's video. Its the same as infantry section etc tbh. You don't go into an engagement undermanned or matching, you bring the next size up for encirclement/combat spread maneuvers. I.e You see something section sized you push a platoon in, platoon-sized vs company sized etc.
But yes, anything singular you send in the smallest military unit with an officer, which is a platoon.
Ido is not saying it takes 5 Sherman to fight a German tank. Ido is saying America chose to fight German armor at the rate of 5 to 1. Which is not wrong, as far as historical accuracy is concerned.
And it's still Iowa talking. Bismarck's line is in the blue bubble.
That isn't totally right either. Platoon sizes varied in amount, and commitments happened without too much standardization on a case by case basis.
There's cases of Allied tank platoons getting pinned down by a single tank, or not even a tank, a single stationary 128 AT gun, 88 pak, 88 kwk or even lighter like 8 cm PAW 600 anti tank gun. These cases usually involved initiative, good positioning, and luck.
Though there's cases opposite too, like a single Allied tank, 122 A19 AT gun, QF 6 pounder, 75 mm, 57 mm and other weapons with good defensive positioning ripping apart a German tank platoon. It is very dependent on the situation and circumstances. There is no real 'rule of thumb'. It is true that Allied commanders preferred to attack with overwhelming numbers and overwhelming force, but Axis commanders prefer this as well. Every commander prefers to attack with overwhelming force, though the supply lines and maintenance readiness of Allied units meant most Allied commanders had more force available, and used it. But the Axis commanders also used all the could, and in many tactical battles had overwhelming numbers at a local level. Though overwhelming numbers increases chances of victory, it doesn't guarantee it. A German offensive with massive numbers got utterly smashed by a smaller American tank force at the Battle of Arracourt. Meanwhile a large Allied force got defeated pretty handily at Battle of Kasserine Pass by a smaller Axis force. Essentially, general rules aren't a good idea for things like this.
The 5 to 1 ratio doesn't really hold up, and is only really used in absolute terms in the belief that the Sherman performed poorly. The "1" point is especially silly, since armor is valuable. It almost never deploys alone, and if it is alone, that usually means the unit it was attached to got utterly smashed. There was almost never a lone Tiger or other tank just milling about somewhere, unless something had gone very wrong for that tank. No other text uses the '5 to 1' ratio as exact numbers except the infamous 'shot traps' book that most people draw the figure from. Thus its only really used by people who downplay the tank. It's not a perfect tank by any means, but no unit is flawless. A lot of other tanks that were considered peers to the Sherman historically are considered by pop culture to be outright better now, with their flaws glossed over and their good points over emphasized.
I do find it interesting that the comic calls the Sherman 'half baked' in this panel, and in its only previous mention gets called a 'poor showing'. This is especially notable since tanks it performed equal to or better in many ways tactically don't get called this in this comic, including the Russian T34, Panzer IV, Stug III, Churchill, and other vehicles.
It's fascinating how pop media like games and films have blurred the perception of the Sherman.
ido plays it up with a lot of other nations as well. Like how the Italians or Akitsu Maru are played as a bit of a joke. The Italians for example didn't really focus on tanks units since Italian terrain is awful for most tank pushes. The Japanese Axis meanwhile didn't as well, since hauling tanks on transports over contested waters is nearly suicidal.
The M4 initially also saw limited deployment to the Pacific compared to lighter vehicles like the M3 because the extra armor and firepower the M4 offered wasn't useful or needed at all, and at times outright useless, while the M3 was even easier to maintain, supply, and even easier to transport because it was smaller and lighter and easier to disassemble.
The M4 wasn't the best tool for a Pacific War. To use a metaphor, you don't use a super heavy elephant gun to go bird hunting. There's better, cheaper, lighter tools for that.
homegrownhero said:
Yes thank you someone posted the Chieftain's video. Its the same as infantry section etc tbh. You don't go into an engagement undermanned or matching, you bring the next size up for encirclement/combat spread maneuvers. I.e You see something section sized you push a platoon in, platoon-sized vs company sized etc.
But yes, anything singular you send in the smallest military unit with an officer, which is a platoon.
A lot of games and other media really overlook the importance of tactical and strategic mobility.
During the Fall of France, the main active tank force the Germans had were Panzer Is and IIs for the bulk of many of their units. Panzer IIIs were rare, and Panzer IV's were even rarer.
The French Char B1 tank, which would have been considered poor by the war's end, was one of the best armored and armed tanks in the world at the start of the war. The Char B1 tank at the war's start was like a Tiger to the Germans and got a reputation that it could take on multiple German Panzer units, with proper positioning and supply support. How much of that reputation was warranted isn't as clear. Troops always see how their own side could be better, but rarely see or notice what goes wrong to the enemy, so often get skewed ideas on the ways enemy equipment is 'better'. Take the Char B1 again, on paper, one of the best armored and armed tanks of the time, and some might call it peerless.
But it didn't do much good in the end. The Char B1 had horrible strategic mobility and was a maintenance nightmare, and once a Char B1 unit was encircled, it was done for.
A similar thing happened during the 1944 liberation of France. The Allies in weeks retook most of France and collapsed massive pockets of Axis troops they surrounded with superior strategic mobility and the ability to keep a steady tempo against them, as well as a much better supply train.
It would be amusing to show Bismarck having a fit like Iowa does played for laughs, over 'Char Shock' though.
Ido is not saying it takes 5 Sherman to fight a German tank. Ido is saying America chose to fight German armor at the rate of 5 to 1. Which is not wrong, as far as historical accuracy is concerned.
Except that it's absolutely wrong in every possible sense.
The US did not design the Sherman to 'flood the enemy with numbers', it was designed to be the best vehicle possible at a given weight, and yes produciablity was considered, but that's because the US like the Russians weren't idiots and grasped that having lots of good tanks EVERYWHERE was far more effective then having a few slightly better tanks nowhere. And it was a good vehicle largely superior in most aspects to the vaunted T-34 and decisively superior to any version of the Panzer 4 with the 76mm gun, and with much greater growth potential as well.
At no point in the war did US armored forces outnumber Germans 5 to 1 at theater level (well beside maybe like April 1945), they might have very occasionally attained that ratio in major operations at a small level, but even that was rare. In reality in many engagements there was near parity and US armored units defeated larger German formations on a number of occasions, usually funnily enough during the comparatively isolated incidents when they got to fight on the defensive forcing the Germans to attack into them...
The US choice not to deploy heavier vehicles to supplement it's medium tanks was mainly a logistical one. Keep in mind every single Sherman ever built arrived at the battlefield by ship, larger vehicles would meant major changes to ship and even port facilitates and reduced capacity per vessel. It was a far different matter for the US to try and mix in a few out-sized "assault" or "breakthrough" vehicles into it's composition then continental powers. Mind you most of those units in Russian and German armies were of dubious strategic value, they look great in a table top war game, but in the actual war most of them were deployed so sparsely that their impact on the wider flow of the war is extremely dubious.
The reality is that the Sherman was an even to better match for the majority of German armor composed of Stug and Panzer 4s into 1944, and only ran into a notable problem with the unexpectedly large numbers of Panthers fielded from mid 1944. Even that could have been heavily mitigated if more effort had been put into ramping up HVAP ammo production ahead of the invasion, with a few rounds of HVAP regularly available there was really nothing German would've been fielding in any numbers through the end of the war that the 76mm wouldn't have been able to defeat frontally.
Though honestly what the Sherman needed most IMO wasn't a new or better gun, it was a standardized up armoring of the front hull and turret. It was tantalizingly close to having frontal protection against the L43 and 48 guns that composed over half of Germany's AFV guns and almost all of their AT guns and based on how reliable the Jumbo's were there was ample weight allowance for a standardized applique. You wouldn't need the side armor increases, just adding about 25mm more on the front hull and turret would've given you a strong frontal protection from an L48 at 750 meters and a shot at 500.
This was noted even by operators though and depots level operations to add additional salvaged armor plate to the front hulls of many Sherman's in theater became rather common during the last half year of the war or so. These proved highly effective being able to survive hits from the common L43/48 AT guns that composed almost the entire German anti-tank and assault gun pool. If a standardized program to get more tanks fitted like that had begun during or shortly after D-day it's likely the reputation of the Sherman's durability would've been drastically altered.
olou said:
ido plays it up with a lot of other nations as well. Like how the Italians or Akitsu Maru are played as a bit of a joke. The Italians for example didn't really focus on tanks units since Italian terrain is awful for most tank pushes.
That's not an excuse, Italy had ambitions in Africa among other places where tanks were sure as hell useful. The problem was Italy was a joke of an industrial nation. It was second world really, even Japan was more developed. It was simply industrially incapable of producing comparable vehicles to the other major combatants at scale while also meeting other demands. I mean for god sake they couldn't even supply enough mortars and towed mounts for their infantry divisions, large high capability armored forces were a delusional dream.
The Japanese Axis meanwhile didn't as well, since hauling tanks on transports over contested waters is nearly suicidal.
No.
Japan had industrial problems too, but it was also burdened by poor leadership and backwards thinking about armored units. Japan could have done better with a focused and well thought out doctrine and plan, but it had neither and so instead if squandered what capacity it had on garbage designs years out of date, and only made any efforts to modernize after it was FAR too late, despite having seen first hand what tanks could do during their clash with Russia years before the war began.
The M4 initially also saw limited deployment to the Pacific compared to lighter vehicles like the M3 because the extra armor and firepower the M4 offered wasn't useful or needed at all,and at times outright useless, while the M3 was even easier to maintain, supply, and even easier to transport because it was smaller and lighter and easier to disassemble.
Uh, no.
The real delay was landing craft, and during the earliest phases of the campaign in 1942 limited numbers being prioritized for use by British and American forces in Africa. Keep in mind the first combat use of a Sherman only occurred in October 1942, that same month coincidentally the Army transferred a small number of M4 to the marines for testing prior to planned adaption. By and large though it was an issue of the M4 being a much bigger vehicle which needed new landing craft and transport to deploy effectively in an amphibious operation. The fact it was very much wanted though is made obvious by the fact that the needed modifications where hurried along so it could be deployed, and once available it immediately began replacing the lighter units as quickly as possible.
I have no idea where the hell you're getting the idea the hugely improved protection and firepower weren't useful or needed either. The M3 was slightly superior to most Japanese tanks, but that was beside the main point of a tank in that theater. Namely the 37mm was extremely limited as a demolition weapon even rather lightly built fortification could protect against it and the armor was vulnerable to most Japanese AT weapons at usable ranges.
The M4 Sherman was frontally protected to basically every dedicated Japanese infantry AT gun fielded during the war and most of the improvised howitzers and AA guns as well. The 75mm meanwhile was a HUGE step up in lethality against fortifications and cover. The 37mm HE shell had a filler weight of only 39 grams of TNT this is less then an M2 hand grenade. The weapon was extremely limited as even simple things like thick sandbag walls or a log bunker could survive being pelted with 37mm HE. The busting charge of an HE shell out of a 75mm was 675 gramsnearly 20 times as heavy. Light field crafted fortification like log or sandbag/earth works were easily shattered by these weapons. You needed to move up to purpose built fortification like concentrate emplacements to gain protection from this weapon.
The M4 wasn't the best tool for a Pacific War.
What? So the marines frantically sought to have it replace their light tanks as quickly as possible because it was worse then? It was superior in every way to the M3 at the important part of actually being a tank, and the US could easily support the added logistical burden of the larger vehicle.
It would be amusing to show Bismarck having a fit like Iowa does played for laughs, over 'Char Shock' though.
It would more likely be KV-1s and T-34s actually which were indeed a very nasty shock to the Germans during the times they were used competently and didn't break down before getting into action... so yeah pretty much exactly like the Germans. It's kind of amusing if you think about it. The Germans in 1941 had already proved that more powerful tanks that aren't available in numbers and have constant mechanical problems was an inferior force to 'worse', but better used and more reliable vehicles, but then they went and sent their tank development into that exact direction within like a year.
That's.....not true at all. Shermans were designed and expected to engage enemy armor. The US Army absolutely expected its Shermans to engage enemy tanks. Tank Destroyers were designed as a defensive tool, to be held in reserve and sent to counter an enemy armor offensive (though that rarely happened). I don't understand why this myth persists, German TD doctrine was almost the same and yet there's no myths about only TDs were to engage enemy tanks.
American Tank Platoons consists of 5 Tanks, but on the German side, it consists also of Five Tanks and in real life armored warfare, Tanks never fight alone.
Note: The American Tank Doctrine is meant to exploit weak enemy defensive positions and flank the weakened enemy position that was once a strong position and of course, assist Infantry pushes. The M4's were designed to do that in which were meant to destroy enemy weapons, infantry and armored vehicles, in which includes enemy Tanks.
Thus of course, a 75mm M3 L/40 Gun with AP Shell is capable to penetrate the frontal armor of a Tiger-I around 300 Yards.
The IJA made use of captured M3 light tanks, which were found to be stronger than any of the Japanese tanks used in live combat, you see.Tyranny of the majority!Quite the contrary, in fact. Even the M3 light tank performed valiantly!Ugh...On the other hand, there were no Japanese tanks on the Pacific Front that could even hold a candle to the M4 - there weren't many tank battles that were hard-fought or anything.So to that end, it was a battle doctrine to fight them 5-on-1.Though with that said, the half-baked battle strength of the M4 Sherman meant that going up against the tough German panzers was very hard!squish
sqoosh
squish
sqoosh
GRABBO!Eeeek!Très bien...Ah!
Nnn♥Wait!
Not there...!Oho!
That's the American Empire for you!
Such a bodacious body, indeed!The M3 Light Tank was even called the "IJA's Strongest Tank" and everyth-Why's that?You shut up now!Nooo!It's a Tiger!!