Category Archives: Picture Data

Sherman Tank Site News Post 17: 

Sherman Tank Site News Post 17:  Summer is here, I have all kinds of content for updates, but less time than I would like. 

I am always tweaking the site and doing minor edits, but in the past few weeks, I’ve had time for some more major projects. There have been a few minor projects worth noting as well.

The Editor over at  Tank and AFV News sent me some very interesting reports that give a very interesting look into the Army’s search for a suitable tank Motor.

THE NEW REPORTS! (They are new to the site, not new)

Ordnance Development of the Wright-Continental R-975 Radial Engine: This report is very interesting. It shows how long, and just how far the Army and Continental went to try and improve the life of the R-975 tank motor. By the time they were done, it was almost a new motor, but still not a great tank motor. Good enough for sure, but no Ford GAA, or as reliable as even the A-57!

Ordnance Development of the Chrysler a-57 Multibank Tank Engine:  This report is just like the one on the R-975, but all about my favorite tank motor, the Mighty A-57! This motor became shockingly reliable for how complicated it was. What made it great was the complication only came in mating the five motors, the banks themselves were solid, wells designed, motors.

Ordnance Development of the Ford Tank Engines: The same report, this time for the Ford GAA, GAN etc. Very interesting, the GAA had a lot of developmental bugs. Aircraft motors, even Vs do not always make the best tank motors.

Ordnance Report on all Army Diesel Engines, June 43:   This report is not exactly like the three above, but close enough. It is a very interesting look into the GM diesel program and the other oddball diesel.

Memorandum on Tank motors: This report is more of a summary of the Tank motors as of mid-June of 1942.

These reports will give you a very good look into why the US Army chose the motors they did and the story behind getting each one to work as a tank motor. They are interesting stories in their own right.

Also new,

Sherman Tank Site Post 75, From the Army Motors Archive: Your M4 Tank Steering Brakes Should Work Gentle’n Easy

So you want to know how to fix that hard to steer Sherman, now you can find all the info you would ever need right here.

Sherman Tank Site Post 74: From the Army Motors Archive! The Maintenance Maze

You ever wonder how something like the US Army with the hundreds of thousands of vehicles it had, kept them running? Well, this post will help clear it up a little.

Tank and AFV News new Video channel has some new videos

Tank and AFV News is doing a Video History of Tanks, check it out, it’s good stuff, and he will get to the Sherman at some point!\

Episode one!

Episode Two!

Episode Three!

Episode Four!

 

I also updated a few pages with some minor changes and tweaks.

The only one with changes with linking too is this one.

That’s all for now!

 

 

Sherman Tank Site News Post 13: Lots of small things!

News post 13: Lots of small things, mostly cleaning up Sherman drawings.

The Sherman tank site has been up for 2 years, and is all paid up for the coming year. I have content coming out my ears, and the speed things go up is all based on my free time. Unfortunately, free time has been scarce, but that should be getting better.  Thanks for all the comments and feedback!

I’m going to list of some new things here and then post a bunch of drawings from various manuals i’ve cleaned up and improved.

I uploaded a bunch of new unit histories as well, and there are several new pages.

Unit Histories

Paths of Armor: The history of 5th Armored Division. 396 high quality pages of history on the 5th AD. 

The Combat history of the Super Sixth:  182 pages, ok scan with a lot of very good info.

 You can read their unit history here: Impact, the battle history of the Tenth Armored Division

A history of the 12th Armored Division: Hellcats   98 pages, good scan.

the 13th Armored division: A history of the Black Cats from Texas to France, Germany and Austria and back to California  

The 68th Tank Battalion in combatUnit history 68th Tank Battalion, 57 good quality pages.

717th Tank Battalion recordA short history of the 717, 78 ok pages.

The combat story of the 743rd Tank Battalion: Move out Verify. This unit was in it from D-day to the surrender of the Germans. 194 pages and good quality scan.

752nd Tank BnThis history is for the 752 who spent their whole war in Italy. It makes for an interesting contrast. 85 ok quality pages.

Battle history of A battery 391st Armored Field Artillery BattThis one is just one A battery, and is 120 ok pages

Our battalion: 89th tank destroyer battalion history  This one is 97 pages, ok scan quality.

782nd Tank Battalion: Treat’em Rough A short history of this Tank unit, 37 pages, ok scan.

782nd Tank Battalion: Treat’em Rough A short history of this Tank unit, 37 pages, ok scan.

New pages: 

Sherman Tank Turrets and Turret components.

Sherman Tank Fuel Systems: Fuel tanks, Lines, and Valves, plus Carbs and Injectors

And now for the images. 

 

 

 

 

 

Sherman Tank Site: News Post 12, pictures and cleaning them up, a lot of them.

Sherman Tank Site: News Post 12, things have been changing, its all behind the scenes.

I’ve gotten my hands on a lot of manuals, and they are all great for gathering info on the Sherman, because you can almost always read them. The picture quality varies a huge amount depending on how it was created. There are some very common and easy to find  Sherman manuals with terrible pictures. For example the two I have on the M4A3, and the manual on the Ford GAA, both were probably photocopied multiple times, then scanned on a really early scanner.

This means, the pictures at best, are mostly black blobs, and even the text isn’t great. All isn’t lost with these, as the line drawings usually come through ok.  In some cases the manuals being sold online are these terrible photo copies printed into a cheap book with no improvements to the quality at all.

Some of these manuals have been scanned in by people with decent scanners, and these though much larger, have much nicer photo quality. Even if the scans are good, the original has to be good as well, and in some cases that’s really mixed.  I have several, scanned at very high resolution, making them restorable, to some degree.

I’ve done the most work on the Ford GAA imaged I have, and the tranny. Here is a selection of the ones I’ve done, but not all. Check out the power train and GAA pages for all of them. These are relaxing to do, and I have a ton to work with so keep checking around the site!

#27 Sherman Data: The Post For Charts, Tables, And Reports

Sherman Data:  The Devil In The Details

This section will contain a lot of images of documents that provide useful information on the Sherman tank.

Info from Survey of allied Tank Casualties in WWII (Courtesy of Priory_of_Sion)

Summary:

Basic Breakdown of Causes of Tank Losses:

Average Range of Gunfire/Panzerfausts:

Placement of Gunfire Hits:

Caliber of Enemy Gunfire:

Mine/Tank Exchange Rate:

Crew Casualties by Position:

Sampling of Tank Losses:

Causes of Vehicles Destroyed V Vehicles Disabled:

Distribution of Gunfire Hits (aspect):

M4 Production figuresM4 production list

page012-013

Extract from report to HQ Second Army from Col A.G.Cole. DDof A

post-7344472-0-08824400-1405881061