Osprey - New Vanguard 003 - Sherman Medium Tank 1942-45.pdf

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Sandini

NEW VANGUARD

MEDIUM

TANK

V ZALOGA PETER SARSON

Sandini

Published in 1993 by

Osprey Publishing I.td

Michelin House,

X I

Fulham Road,

I.ondon

SW3

6RB

Previously published as Vanguard 26

Revised Edition

purpose of private study, research, criticism or review, as

permitted under the Copyright Designs and Patents Act.

19x8, no part of this publication may he reproduced,

stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form

or by any means, electronic, electrical, chemical,

mechanical, optical, photocopying, recording or

otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright

owner. Enquiries should be addressed to the Publishers.

Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank the staffs of the U S .4rmy

Institute for Military History, Carlisle Barracks; the Patton

Museum, Ft. Knox; the National Archives, Washington DC;

the Federal Record Center, Suitland

MD;

and the ,Marine

Historical Division. T h e author would like to express his

special gratitude to Col. James Leach, formerly of 37th Tank

Battalion, 4th Armored Division; to 'Sliver' I,aPine, 8th

Tank Battalion; and to Col. Henry Gardiner, Frank Clay,

Alvin Parham and John Elliot, all of 13th Armored Regiment

(13th Tank Battalion), 1st Armored Division, for their patient

answers to my many questions.

Author's Note

For those seeking a more thorough technical study of

the Sherman the author highly recommends

Shermrrn

H~storyofthe

Medium

Tank,

by R. Hunnicutt.

T h e evaluations of the Sherman contained here are based on

interviews with former Sherman crewmen; on wartime

interviews with Sherman crews conducted by U S Army

Intelligence and other branches of the service; and on

Ordnance Department evaluations. T h e material quoted from

crews of the 2nd Armored Division is taken from a special

report prepared for Gen. Eisenhower in 1945 on the

inadequacies of the Sherman in combat. All photos are from

the

Army, unless otherwise indicated.

Filmset in Great Britain

Printed through Bookbinders I.td, Hong Kong

For a catalogue of all books published by Osprey Military

please wrlte to:

T h e Marketing Manager,

C o n s u m e r Catalogue Department,

Osprey Publishing Ltd,

Michelin House, 81 F u l h a m Road,

London Sw3 6RB

Sandini

SHERMAN MEDIUM TANK

DESIGN AND

DEVELOPMENT

T h e development of American tanks, in the

engineering sense, was undertaken by the Ordnance

Department. However, Ordnance was limited to

initiating design studies unless a formal requirement

was issued bv the user service, in this case the

Armored Force, and production decisions required

the approval of Army Ground Forces (AGF) headed

by Maj. Gen. Lesley McNair. T h e A G F was

responsible for formulating Army tactical doctrine,

and came heavily to reflect the opinions and biases

of M c N a i r , an artilleryman with prodigious

administrative skills but no combat experience.

McNair felt that tanks had no business jousting

with other tanks, and that this task should be left

to his pet service, the Tank Destroyers. Tanks

were envisaged as infantry support weapons (in

the case of those belonging to independent tank

battalions) or as tools for rapid 'cavalry' exploitation

of breakthroughs in the case of those of the

armoured divisions. T h e breakthrough would be

secured by the infantry divisions with local support

from the independent tank battalions to soften up

particularly tenacious defensive positions, and any

sallies by enemy tanks would be greeted by towed

or self-propelled tank destroyers. With a gap

secured, the armoured divisions would pour through

to wreak havoc in the enemy rear, destroying

reinforcements, disrupting the command structure

and forcing the enemy infantry to flee o r be

destroyed. This American approach was in distinct

contrast to German doctrine, which viewed the

Panzer divisions as a vital mass of mobile firepower,

central to the securing of the breakthrough against

both armoured and unarmoured opposition, as

well as to the rapid exploitation of success.

T h e basic fallacy of the American doctrine

was the inability of the tank destroyers to deal

Crem of an M 3 Lee of

'E'

Co., 2nd Medium Tank

Battalion 13th Armoured

Regiment, U S 1st Armored

Division pose beside their

tank at Souk-PI-Arba,

Tuni.cia, on 26 Nooember

1942. The M3 mas the

precrrrsor of the Shennan

and, though obsolete, mas

used e.utet~sirellrin the

fiRhting in North Africa.

completely with enemy armour. The McNair doctrine

presumed a certain amount of concentration of

German armour, since a single tank destroyer

battalion could hardly be expected adequately to

cover an entire divisional front. Rut with Allied

air superiority, concentration of armour by the

Germans became extremely risky except on a

small scale for local counter-attacks. Tanks were,

inevitably, obliged to deal with German tanks,

usually without tank destroyer support. Moreover,

the tank destroyers were not particularly useful

armoured vehicles. They were essentially under-

armoured tanks with slightly bigger guns, and

could not slug it out on even terms with their

heavily-protected German adversaries. Since they

were open-topped they were very vulnerable to

overhead airbursts, mortar fire and even dedicated

infantry attack. They were adequate weapons for

ambush or fire support; but since the

1944-45

campaign was a string of unbridled offensive drives,

they did not fulfil the needs of the U S Army. As

a First Army report bitterly complained, what was

needed was not tank killers, but killer tanks.

Sandini

I,!. Col. Ifern:)!G N V ~ ~ I I I ~rdrr~tr/ies

tlrts

rrhrrlr 0s

stands befire his MJAI

being mith the HQ Co., 2nd

Sherman 'Henry 111'.

Merlium Tank Rrrttalion,

Gardiner's previous two

13th Armoured Regiment,

1st Armoured Dizision.

tanks were knocked out in

earlier fighting in Tunisia,

Col. Gardiner went on to

command the 13th Tank

and this particular vehicle

Battalion in Ztalj~,

was destrojled bjl a German

but

anti-tank gun near Mateur

named his subsequent tank

with the loss of two crewmen. 'Ball3,kinler

( H e n q ~

The geometric insignia

Gardiner)

T h e Ordnance search for the killer tank was

stymied by the smug complacency of the AGF,

and by a major failure in the Army as a whole to

appreciate the growing shift within the Wehrmacht

towards even heavier and better-armed tanks. T h e

Sherman had proved capable of dealing with the

PzKpfw

I11

and

on equal terms, but its hopeless

showing against the Tiger was brushed aside by

unfairly blaming the heavy losses at Faid Pass on

the inexperience of the troops, and by assuming that

the Tiger would be encountered in small numbers

and could therefore be dealt with by artillery or

tank destroyers. These attitudes were summed up

in an AGF policy statement to the Chief of Staff

in November 1943 opposing the production of the

excellent new T26 (M26 Pershing) heavy tank:

'The recommendation of a limited proportion

of tanks carrying a 90mm gun is not concurred in

for the following reasons: T h e M4 tank has been

hailed widely as the best tank on the battlefield

today. T h e r e are indications even the enemy

concurs in this view. Apparently, the M 4 is an

ideal combination of mobility, dependability,

speed, protection and firepower. Other than this

particular request- which represents the British

view-there has been no call from any theatre for a

90mm tank gun. There appears to be no fear on

the part of our forces of the German Mark

(Tiger) tank There can be no basis for the T26

tank other than the conception of a tank-vs-tank

duel

which is believed to be unsound and

unnecessary. Both British and American battle

experience has demonstrated that the anti-tank gun

in suitable numbers and disposed properly is the

master of the tank..

There has been no indication

that the 76mm anti-tank gun is inadequate against

the German Mark

tank.'

T h e contemptuous view of British opinion on

this subject was widely shared in the US, and

stemmed from the abysmal quality of British tank

design in the early years of the war. Yet the combat-

wise British liaison officers appreciated what their

American counterparts had failed to understand

through their own inexperience

that German tank

design was not stagnant. Driven by the need to

surpass excellent Soviet tank designs like the T-34,

there was a constant escalation of German armour

and firepower. T h e British had witnessed the leap

from the 20mm and 37mm guns of 1940, to the

50mm and short 75mm in 1941, and finally to the

long 75mm of the PzKpfw

Special (Ausf.F)

and the 88mm of the Tiger in Tunisia in 1943.

T h e same improvements had taken place in tank

armour as well. T h e British had every expectation

that they would face an even more dangerous

adversary in France in 1944, and sawr their fears

borne out when liaison teams in Moscow reported

in July 1943 that the Russians had captured a new

45-ton medium tank called the Panther, with

excellent sloped armour and a potent new long-

barrelled 75mm gun. To deal with this threat the

British had developed a special mounting for the

excellent 17pdr. antitank gun that could be

crammed even into the small turret of the 75mm

gun Sherman. This fine weapon was offered to the

Ordnance Dept. in the autumn of 1943, and was

ignored. T h e Sherman with 17pdr. gun, called the

Firefly, was issued to British and Commonw~ealth

tank troops initially on the basis of one vehicle per

troop, to deal more effectively with the new German

tanks. The American tankers would not be so lucky.

Sandini

Part of the resistance within the U S Army to a

heavy tank like the T26 to supplement the Sherman

was a legitimate concern over logistics. American

tanks had to be shipped thousands of miles to distant

battlefields in Europe and the Pacific, and every

extra ton of tank was a ton less of other vital

supplies. T h e T 2 6 weighed nearly 50 per cent

more than the Sherman and would require elaborate

new training, new spare parts and new ammunition.

T h e Army was not convinced of the need for this

tank, anyway. T o some extent this concern over

logistics was exaggerated. T h e Soviet Union,

whose heavy industries were stretched far more

thinly than those of the US, managed to provide

the Soviet Army with excellent heavy tanks

throughout the war without insuperable logistics

problems. As a compromise, the AGF agreed to

up-arm the M10 tank destroyer with the T26's

90mm gun, resulting in the M36; and agreed to

allow the limited production of up-armed Shermans

with a 76mm gun which Ordnance had been

pushing since 1942. T h e 76mm gun was chosen

rather than a different and more potent weapon

since it fired the same ammunition already in use

by the M10 and M18 tank destroyers. It was a

short-sighted move, as this gun was barely capable

of defeating existing German tanks like the Tiger

I, and provided no leeway for newer tanks with

even better armour. This development was greeted

with ambivalence by the Armored Force. While a

better tank gun was desired, the M1A1 76mm gun

chosen was only marginally better than the 75mm

gun in anti-tank performance, while lacking the

advantage of the 75mm gun's excellent H E round

'Condor', an M4A2 of

'C'

Co., 2nd Marine Tank Bn.,

was one of

handful of

Shermans successfully

landed on Tarawa on

'D-

Daj~', November 1943,

marking the operational

debut of the M4 in the

Pacific. 'Condor's' combat

career was shortlived as it

was inadvertently bombed b j ~

a U S Navy plane which had

not been informed that there

were Marine tanks ashore, and

presumed it to be Japanese.

The elephant insignia was the

marking of the 2nd Marine

Tank Battalion ( U S M C )

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