Tiger

[Buzzbait]

S!

The Sherman has a bad reputation because it is always compared to the Tiger and Panther.  Against them, it didn`t stand much of a chance.  But the numbers of Tigers on the front was very small.  And the same would go for the Panthers.  Against the standard medium velocity 75mm gun which equipped the Pz Mk IV, the Sherman was a reasonably well matched opponent.

In the case of the Sherman Firefly with the 17lber high velocity gun, it was considerably superior to the Mk IV.  This gun had a slightly higher penetration ability than both the 75mm high velocity in the Panther and the lower velocity 88mm which equipped the Tiger I.  The Firefly did not have the armour of these two though.

The 76mm which replaced the 75mm on Shermans in `44 was equivilent to the Mk IV`s gun.  The armour on that model of Sherman was also equivilent to the Mk IV.

As mentioned, the Sherman was much more durable than the German tanks, in terms of both engine and tread life.  

It had a higher cross country speed.

The subject of the Gyroscope is a contentious one.

US Army tests with properly trained crews showed the Gyroscope to be an advantage.  However, in the field, many crews either lacked the training or didn`t bother to learn how to use it.

The armour of the Sherman varied considerably.  Some models, like the `Jumbo`had very thick armour, including a turret cast as a single unit and a heavy glacis plate.  They were capable of defeating the shells of a standard 75mm or even the high velocity 75mm which equipped the Panther.

There is also the subject of numbers.

The Sherman was ubiquitous, equipping not only the Armoured divisions, but there was also a battalion provided for the infantry divisions.  Corps and Army headquarters had many independent battallions under command which could be assigned where needed.

A standard US Armoured divison had approx. 400 Shermans in `44.  A standard Werhmacht Panzer division had 100-150 Mk IV`s.

The best way to simulate this would be to limit the numbers of German Tanks in a CA or Scenario, or put a cheap perk value on them.

[Karnak]

Non-Perk Tanks:
Panzer IV H: High velovity 75mm gun, decent armor, 7.92mm machine gun as anti-aircraft, 25mph.

T-34/85: 85mm gun, good armor, no anti-aircraft, 35mph

M4A1(76)W Sherman: 76mm gun, poor armor, .50 cal machine gun as anti-aircraft, 24mph

Sherman Firefly: 17pdr gun, poor armor, .50 cal as anti-aircraft, 24mph

Perk Tanks:

Panther V G: 75mm high velocity gun, excellent armor, no anti-aircraft, 29mph

Tiger I: 88mm high velocity gun. very good armor, no anti-aircraft, 24mph.

Tiger II: 88mm high velocity gun, excellent armor, no anti-aircraft, 22mph

IS-2: 122mm gun, excellent armor, no anti-aircraft, 23mph

M26 Pershing: 90mm high velocity gun, very good armor, .50 cal as anti-aircraft, 30mph, poor power to weight ratio


Brady is right about the cost of perk tanks, they'd better be cheap as any Zero with a bomb can kill you.

[ 08-16-2001: Message edited by: Karnak ]

[Buzzbait]

S! Karnak

The speeds you quote for the Tiger I, Tiger II, and Panther may have been the factory speeds, but in fact, they didn't operate that fast in RL.

Actual speeds for the Tigers were in the 12-16mph range.

The Tigers had problems with their transmissions throughout the war, they simply weren't strong enough to deal with the weight they were carrying.

Both the Tigers had problems, especially the Tiger II or King Tiger, with bogging or getting stuck in ditchs, or less stable ground.  Their off road capabilities were bad.

The Panther had a better track area to weight ratio, but also had serious problems with bogging.

During the Normandy Campaign, some bright US engineer came up with the idea of equipping the front of Shermans with a device which let them burst through the hedgerows which dominated the countryside.  This allowed the US tanks to move off the roads and bypass opposition or move around behind it.  The Germans were stuck to defending in road accessible areas.

[Buzzbait]

S!

Anyone who is interested in seeing how these vehicles worked in a tactical situation should take a look at the following site:
 http://www.battlefront.com/

This is the homesite of 'Combat Mission', a tactical, individual tank and squad level simulation, (not a first person) which examines the realities of combat in WWII.  It is an extremely well researched and detailed Sim and has won numerous awards and positive reviews from Online mags.

All the vehicles contained are exhaustively researced as far as gun penetration, armour protection etc.

There is a demo available there.

[GRUNHERZ]

Actually the Panther's Kwk42L70 75mm has rather better AP performance than the KwK42L56 88mm of the Tiger! Both 17 Pounder and Kwk42/L70 are better in AP than the 88mm of Tiger I.

The Kwk43L71 88mm of TigerII is in a class by itself though.

As for comparison of 17 Pounder and Kwk42L70 that depends on ammo. On regular AP ammo the Panthers is better while both are resonably equal on less common "HVAP" type ammo like the Panther's Pzgr.40/42 shot. When it comes to HE ammo the Panther is much better as 17 punder never had any good HE during the war. Thats why the British only had limited production of the Fireflies istead of converting all the shermans, they needed HE capability as well so they kept large numbers of the 75mm. and BTW much more HE ammo is used in combat than the "sexier" AP ammo. Another disadvantage of 17 Punder is its combat use and mounting in Shermans, Challengers (a sort of unsucessful and unwieldy enlarged Cromwell), and open topped turretless Archer SPG limited its effectiveness in combat. The only good tank to get a 17 Pounder was the early Centurion that saw service only in April 1945, and the Comet which used a sort of mini 17 pounder called the OQF 76mm, this also saw irrelevant service only in late spring 1945.  So basically tanks mounting the Kwk42L70 75mm and Kwk42L56 88mm can kill tanks mounting the 17Pounder at greater ranges than vice versa. However the 17Pounder did finally give the western allies a competant waepon for 1944 tank fighting and proved very useful. A 17 pounder Firefly is belived to have killed Michael Wittmann in his Tiger "White 007".

The Sherman had some other problems. One of the biggest was floatation. Basically the VVSS Shermans narrow 16inch track did not provide sufficient floataion and the Sherman would esasily sink into soft mud and become immobilized. The Heavier Panther, Tiger I, and even the Tiger II were actually much better in this regard due to their lower ground pressure. Some Shermans including all Jumbos fitted duckbill extentions to the track, but this was only solved later in the M4A3E8 HVSS and its 23inch wide T66 track in early 1945. This negated any slight advantage in cross-country mobility. Another intersting note is the fact that Panther actuallh has a higher top speed than M4A3 with the Ford GAA V8, and even faster than the radial shermans.

As for the Jumbos they had good armor but only mounted the 75mm gun although some were refitted in the field with 76mm weapons in late 1944/early1945. The problem with the Jumbo is its 43ton weight, this made it extremly sluggish and caused frequent transmission failiures.

Another factor is the exteme rarity of of Jumbos and Fireflies. For example the British had Fireflies in a ratio of 1/5 compared to 75mm shermans. And only about 250 Jumbos were ever made.

The Sherman was SUFFICENT in 1944 only because of numbers, numbers, numbers,  reliabilty and the USAAF.

[Karnak]

Buzzbait,

I have to agree with GRUNHERTZ about the off road capability.

I saw some interviews with American tankers who were saying that the inability if the German heavy tanks to navigate off road was a bunch of bull cooked up to increase the faith of the Americans in their tanks.  These guys were saying that the German tanks, Tigers and Tiger IIs were actually better at off road stuff than the Sherman, and because they could turn inplace while the Sherman had to move to turn, they were also more manuverable.

These were the things that they had personally encountered in combat.

I do agree with you that the mechanical reliability of the Tigers was poor, but in AH that is eliminated.