Category Archives: Sherman tank gun Data Sheets

News Post #10: Sherman Tank Site News!

Sherman Tank Site News, April of 2017 edition: Data Part II, Data Strikes again. 

The Sherman data sheets have been a very popular addition to the site, so I decided to gun and engine data sheets as well.  One motor Data Sheet is done, and the others are in the works. There are all kinds of new images and info in the various pages on the Shermans guns.

We also have a new layout to the website, instead of a lot of hard to find posts with an Index that was hard to find things in, we now have set pages,  of the main menu.

As you can see from this handy image, we have a page for the Shermans suspension and Track systems.  We have a Sherman Gun Data page. We also have a motor data page, but right now we only have the Ford GAA in it.  Now we also have pages for each tank model and a main page to find them.  There have also been minor image additions to many posts, and a few pages have received minor updates.

The Crew and their Stations post got a massive update as well. 

We also recently reviewed an inside the Hatch of the M4A1 tank.

Coming soon will be the Sherman Transmission, differential and final drive data sheet. I will also be filling out the individual Sherman model pages over the next few days. There is only so much I can do in a day!

Thanks for being interested in the site for all the guys who have commented and sent me interesting info. More great information on the Sherman tank is on the way.

 

Sherman Tank Site, News Post 9: DATA, DATA everywhere!

News Post 9: New Years News

I decided I needed more hard numbers, the kind of data that makes non tank nerds eyes roll up in their heads, stuff like how many spare periscopes were issued with an early war M4A1! One of the best way to do this is through tank Data sheets, as found in the back of many books on tanks. I used Hunnicutt’s Sherman book for some, but others I’ve made using the Hunnicutt ones as a template and then using data from the Technical Manual for the tank.

We had four, now have spec sheets for 15 different models of Sherman, and 3 Lees! You can find them all on this page. Shermom Model specification sheets. 

90mm GMC M36B1 Spec Sheet PDF

That’s not all though, I decided the gun Data sheets in Hunnicut were really interesting, so I started replicating those, but with an improved format, and slightly more data.  These gun Data Sheets can be found here, Main Guns: THings that go  BOOM!  All the guns the Sherman tank used are covered, and more are coming.

m1-M1A1-M1A2 guns 76.2 Sherman tanks

In the works are Data Sheets for each Sherman tank motor, and several experimental models. These Data sheets will have much more detailed info on the motor, and will include interesting images from the manuals for the motors.

Also in the works as dedicated pages for these data sheets, the beta test of the gun version is up and can be found here.  Next up will be ones for each tank model and then motor.

Also note the latest post on the Ram tank, The Ram: The Shermans awkward Canadian Cousin. This post covers the Canadian and British attempt to come up with a better Sherman before the Sherman design and prototype was done. I’ve been sent some very interesting documents, some are included in the post.

Thanks for reading and stay tuned for more Sherman information!

 

#53 Bibliography and sources: Yeah I Know Sources on Each Post Would be Nice, I’m Working on it

Bibliography and sources: So here are all my sources

So yes, I know the site would be better with a list of sources, and this is going to be that post for now. I will also, as I review and rewrite all the articles over time, add them to each post.

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A bit about the site, and myself, I’m just a guy who really likes WWII history, and more specifically, WWII tank history. I am not an expert on the Sherman, but I do know a hell of a lot about it, and I have a lot of opinions about it as well, and much of this site is me sharing that opinion. The hard data is not my opinion, the specifications, and other details are not my opinion and come from many different sources.  Most of these are listed in the book review and links section. There is even a data post with a whole lot of useful information in picture format of various documents.

First and foremost, most of the minutia details come from reading the Sherman Minutia Website a lot and looking through the Son of a Sherman book. Between these two sources, you can answer almost any question about a production detail on a Sherman you may have, and the nice thing about the SMW is it’s always being updated. I only cover these details in a very general way, I could never do it as well as the book or site.

My next big source of information is period literature and manuals. If you haven’t noticed, I have a very large selection of technical manuals and field manuals on my website, all available for download, for free. I’ve collected a huge number of the things over the years, most in PDF format, but a few in real paper, and I’ve read a hell of a lot of them.  I am missing a few key Technical Manuals, like one on the M4/M4A1, I have the M4A2, A3 and A4 covered though, and several TDs and the Lee. I’m pretty confident I could start up and drive around and M4A2 or A3 or even A4 and adjust the clutch linkage and do a host of other maintenance tasks from reading through the manuals on how to do them. These old tanks are so similar to old cars is funny, and if you know a good bit about old cars the manuals should be very easy to follow, the big difference is the size of the tools and weights involved.

Along with the TM and FMs, I’ve hosted a lot of other documents I’ve found on the internet, from battalion and division histories, the very interesting Combat Lessons booklets the DOD put out during WWII, and I’ve taken information from all these sources.

Now for the books, so many books, most of these I own, and love, but a few I only have in PDF. I already mentioned Son of a Sherman Volume one. If you have any interest in the Sherman tank, you should by the book while it’s in print and reasonable in price, it’s fantastic. It also had some of the better info I used in the factories post. It’s to late to get this book at regular price now, and new and used copies are going for 300 to 700 bucks!

Sherman: A History of the American Medium Tank, by RP Hunnicutt is the holy grail of Sherman books. It is filled with so much information about the production history, use, design, modifications, and hard specifications, that much of the data on this site comes from this book. The gun chart data came from here, all the data sheets, and a lot of the future things that almost made it came from here as well. This book is currently in print again, for 60 buck paperback, 70 hardbacks. Buy it now, before it goes back into the hundreds after going out of print. Though slightly dated in is the short history of battle sections, it is still an amazing book, and really the only hard technical history of the Sherman that is really great. Also always keep your eye out for an original printing, the photos are much better.

Armored Thunderbolt: The US Army Sherman in WWII, by Steven Zaloga this book, when combined with Son of a Sherman and RP Hunnicutt’s Sherman book will give you a very good knowledge base on both the technical and historical histories of the tank, and if you throw in Son of a Sherman you have all the minute details covered. With these three books, you can really get a good idea how wrong the pop culture opinion of the Sherman and German armor in general really is.  So a little more about this book, Zaloga covers both the design history, though not in minute detail, (You will not find detailed specification sheets or a breakdown of the exact details of the differences in all Sherman models) but he does cover much more of the politics and decision making that led to some of the key problems that popped up with the Sherman, US Tank design, and armor tactics.  In this book and several Interesting interviews, he really covers why Belton Cooper of Deathtraps fame was so wrong. He also has a lot of the numbers in his book backing up the Sherman performing in battle better than the Panther. Zaloga is a prolific writer and has put a lot down on paper about the Sherman, and I’ve read almost all of it, aside from a few older Osprey New Vanguard books. This man, almost as much as R.P. Hunnicutt is responsible for bringing out the truth about the Sherman tank.

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The Tank Killers, Steel Victory, and the Infantry’s Armor, by Harry Yeide, These books are another big source they are really great books covering the use of Tank Destroyers and the Separate Tank Battalions.  Yeide is both knowledgeable and easy to read, and I will continue to buy every book he puts out.

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Marine Tank battles of the Pacific by Oscar Gilbert, in comparison, to Sherman use elsewhere, until recently info on the Shermans use in the Pacific was pretty light. This book is specific to the Marines and covers more than just Shermans use, but it does a pretty good job of covering each battle, and most of the info, along with some histories from the Marine Corps was used for the old Tarawa post. His book on Marine tank use in Korea also has some Sherman use covered and is a good read as well.

Tanks in Hell by Oscar Gilbert and Romain Cansiere is a very recent and very detailed study of the use of Marine Shermans on Tarawa.  It is the most detailed history available on the Shermans use in that battle and clears up some mysteries and misconceptions. It was a great read and I just finished it up.

There are so many books on the Sherman out there, I’ve tried to read any I could, but the ones listed are the best and most important. I do not read books just on the Sherman tank, and at one time was what one could consider a wehraboo, and I know the guy who invented the word too, so I have that going for me. Anyway, while a wehraboo, I collected some of the premium good source books on German tanks.  Reading through Panther Tank by Thomas L Jentz started me down the path to salvation, the combat readiness reports found in that book; even on the late model G Panther are truly pathetic, though it is really a beautiful book, Jentz was only against listing source material. I also have Panther and its Variants by Walter Speilberger, another beautiful book, filled with beautiful illustrations on a tank so unreliable to be almost useless. I have Jentz’s two books on the Tiger, D.W to Tiger I and Tiger I&II Combat tactics. Also very nice books but based on old outdated historical information when it comes to the unit histories, but boy are the pictures great. I have Speilburger’s books on the Panzer III and IV, both great books, and the subject matter is more interesting since these were the real stars of the German tank design, in that at least they worked and offered real value to the German Army.  I’ve read Tigers in the mud and even enjoyed it.  There are of course more, but that covers the really big stuff/good stuff.

Other important sources are sites like Archive Awareness, who author takes Russian Soviet-era archive documents and translates them and offers opinions on them. He has some very interesting information on the Sherman tank on his site, and far more on Russian tanks and German lies.  Some say he is biased, but if he is, it’s against the Nazi propaganda that still lives on to stink up the world, and I’m fine with that. Other good sites include Tank and AFV news, and the Lone Sentry.

The Chieftains Hatch of  Wargaming fame, like him or not has produced some very interesting new information about various tanks, and his publication of the French post-war report on Panther use is a real eye-opener and was groundbreaking info. I have links to many of his very interesting posts in the links section. Like World of Tanks or not, they have dropped a lot of real cash on restoring real tanks, and paying real researchers to unearth interesting tank information, they deserve some real credit for furthering the modern understanding of Armor. Wargaming also got a lot of armor experts in one place as a panel for their Operation Think Tank series and let the crowd ask questions, it is on YouTube and filled with very interesting info.

If I have it listed on my links, information from their website has probably contributed to a post on this site.

Now a final bit about sources and this site, all the information in the various posts is true to the best of my knowledge and sources. Some information, mostly image captions are very generic and often wrong, and many helpful people have posted corrections, and I’m always grateful for it this help.  If you think I’m wrong on something, and you can back it up with sourced info, by all means, contact me through the site email, or posting a comment so I can correct any mistakes. I try and keep the site from being about my ego in any way, and will listen to reasonable people with reasonable arguments and most importantly, data and source info to back it up. Don’t bother if your ‘source info’ originated with a German wartime SS source, their wartime numbers are not at all accurate, and even the German army discounted them.

On a final note, am I a fanboy of the Sherman, in a sense, I suppose, but a true fanboy does not understand the flaws of their subject of obsession, and in my case, that’s not true. I know the Sherman had flaws, it like all things created by man, was an engineering tradeoff, and the ones they chose, were the right ones for the US Army in WWII, and even Shermans armed with only the 75mm could have carried the day in Europe. Or that’s my opinion anyway, but don’t let my opinions scare you away from all the hard data on the site.

After just over two years in operation,  this site has grown past 350,000 words, with a huge number of Sherman photos and drawings, many of the drawings pretty rare.  I have more information on the motors and powertrain of the Sherman series than any site on the net. This site has more technical manuals, and field manuals on the Sherman and US Armor use than any site I know of.

This site is largely a one-man operation, and with that much content there will be typos and grammar mistakes, and I apologize and fixe them when I find them. This site has been funded out of my own pocket, and if you count book purchases, the cost has gotten significant, but the content will always remain free, and ad-free.

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