Shermans!

[lyric1]

On a given day I have taken out Shermans with 1 shot from a Panzer plenty of times. Then some times it takes more. Of late I have been having issues with tiger rounds not killing other gv's from very close Like m3's with the rounds bouncing off of them. Just have to take the good with the bad.

[macleod01]

Is that a word??? 

It is, it means grumpy.

[Squire]

"And it has come to my attention that the shermans armor is very over modeled."

What's your data?

The Sherman was a tank, not a truck.

Regards.

[Helm]

Bah!! ....my Tiger dies w/ one shot from a Panzer IV ....so I dont even bother w/ Tigers anymore.




Helm ...out

[SlapShot]

And it has come to my attention that the shermans armor is very over modeled. The round of a panzer should be able to 1 hit a sherman every time no questions asked.

So it's "very over modeled" because you believe that just 1 shot from a Panzer should kill the Firefly.

It doesn't matter the distance, angle of the shot, or where the shot hits the tank/armor ... 1 shot should kill it "no questions asked" ... nice try.

[Baitman]

I have shot a m3 with a Sherman three times (ricochet) before a kill and have been killed by a panzer with one shot. It matters not how much but where you shoot

[sethipus]

While we're dropping anecdotes, a few days ago I hit an LVT with a Tiger from about 200 yards, four times, and then someone else hit it and blew it up (I got the kill of course).  It happens.

To the OP: rounds lose energy the further out they go.  A 1000 yard shot is actually pretty far out there (it's over half a mile) and yet we often have tankers duking at out at 1600-2000 yards and further (well over a mile away).  You can't expect that a tank round is going to have as much energy at over a mile away from the gun that shot it as it has in the first 200-400 yards or so.  It simply doesn't work that way.  It's called physics.

This is why Shermans do indeed get knocked out in 1 shot by Panzers, with reasonable hits, in the 0-400 yard range, and usually all the way out to 800 or so, but at 1200-1600 yards it simply doesn't happen a lot, and it often takes 2, 3, even 4 hits in the frontal armor to defeat that Sherman.  This is no mystery.

[IronDog]

Fireflys must be good!!?Paraguays top tank is a Sherman Firefly!!lol

[stephen]

The shermans final drive is placed in the front portion of the vehicle, and has a rounded shape, yet i have hit low on that front armor and watched rounds bounce...this seems unlikly, the same goes for the turret, round is a shape particularly bad for deflecting rounds as there is always a flat surface facing the incoming round.

And as for the firefly being up armored, accept for a couple patches over the ammunition boxes on the sides ( building of armored boxes on on the inside of the sponson's to gaurd against fire and fragments) and a small patch infront and to the sides of the driver, I dont find any proof that the whole machine was thicknd.
My point is this, every book I ever read had the Americans putting railroad sleepers,sandbags,logs,dead bodies etc. on the front to try and provide some protection, this isnt because they where exclusivly afraid of panthers and tigers..., heck I cant find a picture of anything bigger than 37mm bouncing OFF a sherman, but ill keep looking.

I've always thought this tank had a bit to much going for it, mabey the addition of some anti tank guns would put the ronsen liter back in its proper perspective...

[stephen]

Ive got to retract the above statment, after a bit of reading it seems the MkIV was giving the sherman no headaches in the frontal armor game, unless the range was pretty close...
but I also see where the extra armor added to the panzer was pretty good at taking some of the zing out of a round fired from either the sides or rear, but mostly to keep shape charge rounds off the main hull.
I still believe owing to the lack of several anti armor weapons it would have actualy faced, the Sherman is too effective in here.
Just dont have the ammo I thought I did concerning its combat with the MKIV panzer...

[redman555]

thing that made me mad.. was 1 on 1 with an enemy sherman, i was in a Tiger... i shoot sherman right in turret.. nothing happens... he shoots me 1 time... BOOM im dead...


-BigBOBCH

[Masherbrum]

The poster seems to confuse the Panzer IV with a Tiger.

Panzer IV's weren't that kind of uber-tanks guarranteed to kill a Sherman, especially not at longer rangers.  Neither were  Sherman as weakly armored as a common myth seems to indicate...

Tell that to the Americans who served in North Africa or in the ETO, numbers on paper are easy to snipe from the sidelines with.   I've talked to a few that served in the ETO and they agree "The Panzer 4's were bad enough to face, the Tiger's were their worst nightmare."   

My grandfather (USMC PTO - 43-46) worked with a fellow who was in 3rd AD.    In France he recalled of a story that puts one in the driver's seat, per se.    He often stated: "The Sherman was a joke."   

Here's one of his encounters while in a Sherman:

"One day we're East of Paris and we get a call over the radio that two Tigers have stalled the line.   I move forward and had time to count 76 burned out Shermans.   I order the driver to proceed cautiously and we immediately get hit.   We jumped out and watched our Sherman go up with a second round fired at it.   I hop into another tank and we try and get it reversed in enough time to try and flank their position.   Nope, by the time the Sherman rolled backwards, another hit.    We jump out and I commandeer another Sherman to try again.   Nope.   Yet another round hit the track of this Sherman destroying the Main Drive Sprocket on top of it.   We again hop out and now move rearward on our line and I order the remainder of my unit to flank the two Tigers' positions.  We were surprised when the crews exited as they had exhausted their ammo.   He was able to talk to one of the crews while waiting for someone to escort them rearward as POW's."   He said "They displayed more class and honor than we were expecting, from the amount of carnage they caused.   The gunner in the Tiger on the South position had graduated from Harvard."    


He said he personally lost two more Shermans that day alone.   All of that carnage caused by a mere two Tigers hunkered in depressions.    Now, before folks say "Karaya we're talking about Panzer 4's here, not Tigers."    The true story above is to not only enforce the "Myth" but make it Iron Clad.   They were called "Ronson Lighters" for a reason, because their armor sucked.    They (M4's were "adequate" (and this is stretching it) for all mark Panzers up until the 75mm KwK 40 L/48 IV's.   

75mm KwK 40 L/48 laden IV's destroy the M4 even at "long range".    The armor sucked.    If you need another memory jog, crack open a book on how fragile the US Armored elements fared against Panzer III's, IV's (non 75mm KwK 40 L/48 on top of it) and Tigers.   They were on their last thread when the 8th Army broke the Eastern front of NA.   

   

[Masherbrum]

We have a Sherman VC Firefly, not the Sherman M4. The one we have has better armor and a MUCH better gun. (British 17 pounder) It can take rounds from a Panzer IV.

The VC is an M4A4 fitted with the 17-pounder, even so, it is still an M4. 

[Ack-Ack]

http://www.onwar.com/tanks/germany/data/tiger1.htm
http://www.onwar.com/tanks/germany/data/pz4h.htm

Theres some more info on it right there. While were on this topic , there shermans round should not be able to 1 hit a tiger at 2800 yards. I have been ranging at 2800 yards in blue arena on a hill at the 88 North spawn. And shermans pop me first hit almost all time time. If im lucky they will smoke me. shermans gun is garbage at long range compared to the tiger and the panzer.

The 17pound gun on the Firefly was not garbage at long range.


ack-ack

[SuBWaYCH]

The VC is an M4A4 fitted with the 17-pounder, even so, it is still an M4. 

my bad then, I though the Firefly was a bit of a different design.