My Comcast problems have been solved. They finally got all their ducks in a row after over three weeks, four techs, and six service calls, I have reliable internet again!
All wasn’t lost in those three weeks. I did spend a lot of time reading books I’ve picked up, but haven’t had much time to read, as a result, the Books section will get a huge update very soon. I also spent time cleaning up and rebuilding my main computer, and it is now running in tip top condition!
This week and last week have been slow and frustrating weeks. Comcast cable is out at my home, the place I run the site from, and may be out for a month.
This week has been a tad slow, my day job was hard, and I’ve had a cold for over a week now.
I have picked up a bunch of new books on the Sherman. In particular on the Firefly and British Sherman use. I will be updating a bunch of posts after I read through it all. Expect a lot of updated photo captions.
In the new posts, I will update you on what’s been going on a bit behind the scenes for the week.
This week has been interesting, it’s 4th of July night, and I’m just wrapping things up for the evening before hitting the sack. It sounds like a firing range outside as people celebrate with fireworks and firearms. The Dogs gone deaf, and doesn’t notice, but the cats are scare, and I havn’t seen them in hours.
Anyway, this weekend I spent time on sorting through all the stuff I’ve downloaded over the past few months. I’ve literally downloaded thousands of pictures and hundreds of PDFs on various topics. The Sherman related ones will be going up on the site soon.
I should have some posts on Sherman tank plastic models and French Shermans up soon, and I’ll be doing a post on Dutch Shermans, and Sherman based SPGs soon.
In other news, Drive tanks.coma outfut out of Texas noticed my site and has contacted me! I’m going to be doing a post on them soon with info on their fully operational Sherman tank, and that includes all it’s guns people, and what you can do with it with American Dollars! I hope to be able to take a trip out and see what the whole thing is all about! This place looks like it may be the most magical place on earth, not Disneyland!
Drive Tanks.coms Amazing Easy 8No this isn’t a painting, just a DriveTanks.com awesome Sherman
In future news, I will be signing up for Facebook and Twitter for the site.
Storage Ammo and Everything Else: The Army packed a lot of Gear and Tools into the Sherman, along with the Ammo, Guns, and Men
When most people think about a tank, wait, well, most people don’t think about tanks, but when people who think about tanks think about them it’s the gun, the armor, the motor and it running around doing tank things that they think about. That’s not all that a tank is about; a tank is also about storing things, lots of things. Not just ammo, I mean sure, thousands of rounds of MG ammo and over 100 main gun rounds on late model Shermans, but even after the crew had packed all that stuff in, there was still a hell of a lot of other stuff they carried around. The tank had everything it needed to be maintained by the men it was issued to, including manuals, and a limited number of common spare parts for certain components and as much gear the tankers could accumulate to make their lives easier strapped on outside too.
A chart from the M3 Lee manual, TM9-750 showing the internal ammo layout
There are at least 61 hand tools used for maintaining the tanks automotive components. Most of these tools were stored in a tool bag behind the driver. Some items like the non-magnetic screwdriver for adjusting the compass were stored in brackets on or near the device they were specifically for. The oiler was mounted on a bracket by the assistant driver. He probably used it a lot. The huge track adjusting wrench and all the pioneer tools were mounted on the hull on the outside of the Sherman with the 20-foot long tow cable. The tanks weapons, including the main gun, also has a bunch of tools specific to them, also stored in the tank. These included combination wrenches and other special tools to maintain the machine guns, and an eye bolt and breach removing tool for the main gun adding between 6 and 10 more tools. These tools were stored in a toolbox or a spare parts box. The grease gun, or gun lubricating, was mounted on the right rear lower hull, under the turret basket. It had an extension hose stored with it, and probably tubes of grease. This is what the crew would use to lubricate all the grease fitting that just about anything that moved had.
The crew of an M4A1 (76)W Sherman load all the stuff that comes with a freshly issued tank into it.
Now the crew had to pack in the communication gear. The tanks radio antenna broke down into 6 parts including the case and was stored on the blanket roll rack on the rear of the tank on late model Shermans. The early Sherman manuals do not list a location for them that I can find. There was also a flag set, M238, it had its own bracket on the right side of the turret. This flag kit came in a case, had 3 flags, red, orange, and green, and 3 flagstaffs. You also had the radio setup in the back of the turret that was technically removable. The radios also came with a spare parts kit, small tool kit, and spare tubes and a crystal box to change frequencies.
An M4A3 (76)W tank with a lot of stuff stored on the back
The tank was issued with 12 signal flares (they shoot up in the air), and they were mounted in their own box on the battery box. There were 3 white star parachute flares, 3 white star cluster flares, 3 amber parachute flares and 3 green parachute flares. Then there was the panel set. The set, I think was the big orange panels they put on the rear deck, so attacking fighter-bombers could tell US tanks from German ones, came with two panels, and two cases for them. They were also stored in the blanket roll on the foldup shelf on the rear of most late model Shermans.
The Sherman had two fixed 10 pound CO fire extinguishers that could be triggered from inside the tank, and outside if you knew where the pull handles were. They also provided the crew with 2, four pound CO fire extinguishers, on mounted on a bracket on the right side of the transmission, and the other mounted on the rear of the turret basket. They also supplied a small decontaminated apparatus, called the M2, essentially a 1 ½ quart fire extinguisher, filled with a decontaminating agent instead of fire retardant. These were issued all the way into the sixties as a way to clean something like mustard gas residue from the areas of the tank the crew needed to touch. It was stored in a box in the hull, and probably got thrown away a lot.
The crew’s needs were taken into account, and there was a specific storage location inside the tank for 2 days of rations for the five-man crew. Each crew member also had an M1910 canteen mounted near their position. There was a ration box in the right rear sponson, and it could hold either, 30 boxes of “K” rations, 60 cans of “C” rations or 2 or the much larger “D” rations. There was a small 1 burner Coleman stove stored with the rations. You see an awful lot of pictures of Sherman tanks and other AFV with a lot of ration boxes tied on the tank, so the crews appear to have liked to have more than two days food on hand. Of course, rations boxes are not bulletproof, and I bet it wasn’t all that uncommon to find shell splinters or bullets in the ration cans when stored outside.
We are not even close to done here, next up, sighting gear. The tanks were issued with an M13 binocular set; this consisted of the M13 binoculars and the M17 case. These were secured to the turret wall in its own bracket, near the commander’s position. On late model Shermans, there was a box next to the radio that held 2 spare vision blocks for the commanders all around vision cupola. In a box behind the driver, you could find 10 spare bulbs for either the elevation quadrant or azimuth indicator. There was also a case for the Gunners Quadrant M1with its own bracket above the 5-gallon water can installed in the right sponson.
The periscopes and telescopes deserve their own section so here it is. There was a holder for the periscope in the periscope box in the turret, along with 3 periscope heads, for the M6 periscope. There were two hull periscope boxes with the same contents. There were 6 more periscope heads on the bracket for the driver’s hood for a total of 15 spare heads. I’ve read several accounts where both the Germans and Japanese aimed at the periscopes and vision blocks to blind the tanks. In at least one case in the Pacific, the tanks ran out of spare heads during the battle and were blind without opening a hatch. I bet periscope heads were popular as an extra spare on the tank. Now, that was just heads, there were 12, M6 periscopes in each late model Sherman. Six mounted in in various places, one in the driver’s hatch that rotated, and a fixed one in front of him. The co-driver had the same layout, just on the other side, he used the hatch or fixed periscope to aim the bow machine gun. The loader had had a rotating periscope at their station, and the commander had one in his hatch. There were two complete M6 periscopes in brackets on the turret walls, one near the loader, and the other by the commander. The amazing piece of American tank engineering, the driver’s hood holder, stored four complete M6 periscopes, along with all those spare heads and the drivers hood!
This is the predecessor to the M4A1 periscope
The gunner had his own special set of periscopes. He had an M4A1 periscope with telescope M38A2. On late model Shermans this was the auxiliary sight but allowed the gunner to have a nice wide field of view to find the target, the commander was handing off, mounted in his fixed periscope. He had a complete spare M4A1 periscope in a box on the floor by his feet. They did not give him a spare telescopic sight, in late model Shermans, the M70F was used, and it was mounted on the gun mount. He also had a series of lamps to illuminate the reticles of the M70F and M4A1 sights. He also had lamps for the M1 quadrant, and another for the M9 quadrant.
Oh, we are not even close to done here people, so hang on, it gets even more exciting when we get to the ammo storage and storage changes in a few paragraphs. Anyway, let’s cover some more ‘general equipment’, before getting to ammo storage. Let’s see, the tank had 5 M1936 OD canvas bags to store much of the gear that’s been mentioned, and 1 tool bag for most of the tools listed, stored behind the driver. There were 3 flashlights TL-122 on brackets around the turret, one near the commander, one by the gunner and one by the loader. They carried 12 spare batteries in box C101039. This is the same box all the lamps for the gunner’s sights went. There were also 5 safety belts for the crew’s seats, it may not seem like a vehicle that doesn’t hit 35mph would need them, but off road, I bet they were handy. The tank came with an 18-quart canvas bucket that was stored in the right sponson. There was a special inspection lamp stored in the toolbox. The spare bulb was stored with the other spare bulbs in box C101039. The Home light auxiliary motor had its own accessory kit, it was also stored in the sponson toolbox in the right front sponson. This little kit had a spare spark plug, and the rope and wood pull handle to start the unit if the batteries were dead, plus a set of tools to maintain it.
M4A2 ammo storage. Diagrams like this seem to have gone out of favor in the later manuals, as none of them seem to have them.
The Army liked to make sure a tank crew had lots of stuff to read, so they dedicated a small compartment in the right rear sponson for manuals. The manuals ranged from the one for the Homelite generator TM9-1731k, the spare parts list for the tank model, SNL G-104 in the M4A3s case, to manuals for both machine gun types FM23-50, and FM23-65, the manual for whatever main gun the tank had, and the mount it used. There was a manual for the model of the Sherman, TM9-759 for the M4A3, TM9-731B for the M4A2 etc. If there was a system on the tank the crew was expected to maintain, there was a manual available to tell him how to do it. I’m sure in some cases what actually got to the troops with the tank when it was finally issued varied a lot though.
Ok, now for the guns and ammo, as we know, a Sherman could have the M3 75mm gun, the M1A1/A2 76mm gun or the M4 105mm Howitzer. They all also had 2 and in some early models 3, M1919A4 Machine guns and one M2 HB machine gun. On many models, there was a two-inch smoke mortar as well. Then there were the personal weapons of the crew, on late model Shermans, 5 M3 .45ACP submachine guns were supplied, on early Shermans, a single M1928A1. Each crewmember was issued an M1911A1 .45 ACP pistol as well. These weapons, biggest to smallest all had kits to keep them working, and for the machine guns, they carried a lot of spare parts for known parts that wear on Browning machine guns. These spare parts and tools were scattered around in various tool and parts boxes.
M3A1, five of these were issued with the tankM1911A1, each crew member had one of these as well. One of the finest handgun designs ever made.Early Shermans had only one of these.
All these weapons needed ammo, and in the main guns case oil! This all had to be stored in the tank. The chart below breaks down the changes in ammo loadout for all the weapons on the Sherman, as the tank went through production changes. The earliest Sherman tanks had ammunition stored all over the vehicle in ammo racks with no additional protection. Ammo was placed in sponson ammo racks, with some around the base of the turret, and in a floor ready rack. More was stored under the floor. These early tanks had a fully floored, and screened in turret basket, with only two sections open to the hull. On these early Shermans, and we could be talking, an M4, M4A1, M4A2 or M4A4 most of the direct vision tanks would fit into this category. These tanks, once the ammo around the base of the turret, and ready rack were used, would have to rotate the turret so the openings I the basket matched up with the hull racks, and or co-driver so he could hand in ammo from the rack near him. The idea behind the full turret basket was to protect the crew from getting their limbs severed by the rotating turret if a crew member stuck it in the wrong place.
As soon as the Sherman saw extensive combat use, it was clear, they were prone to fire. This was nothing new, every tank was prone to fire, and the Sherman had a tendency to burn catastrophically often launching the turret in the air. When the Army did a study into why this was the case, they found the main gun ammo was the main cause of catastrophic fire losses. When you take a look at the ammo layout chart in the other image, you can see with the ammo stored, in unprotected internal bins all over the crew compartment, an ammo fire was going to be common problem.
This is an ammo layout diagram for the M4A4 tanks, this should be similar to all small hatch early non wet setups before the extra armor was added over the ammo bins.
The first try at a fix for the problem started pretty fast. The fix was to remove the unarmored ready rounds from around the base of the turret, and reduce the size of the floor ready rack and to make it armored. The hull ammo racks were all covered in armor, and extra armor was added to the outside of the sponson racks on both welded and cast hull Shermans. On late production cast hull tanks, the thicker armor over the sponson racks was just added to the casting. They managed to keep the number of main gun rounds pretty consistent even with these changes. Another aspect of the early fix was the removal of the turret screening around the turret basket. The ammo rack changes along with some other improvements were offered in kit form to US tank units already deployed, and it was eventually incorporated into the production lines, and tank overhaul facilities. Many Shermans in British use did not see these get these improvements.
An M4 composite hull tank with a lot stuff loaded on the back.
The real big change in Sherman storage came when the hull changed from the small hatch to large hatch configuration, though all the late model M4A2 tanks with large hatch hulls and 75mm turrets still got the dry ammo storage setup with add-on sponson armor. The other exceptions are the M4 and M4A3 105 tanks, they had their on dry storage setup. The M4 Composite hull tanks with large hatch hulls also kept the dry storage layout. So, the M4A1 (76)W, M4A2 (76)W, the M4A3(75)W, The M4A3 (76)W tanks all had the improved wet ammo racks. This change included moving all main gun ammo into the floor of the hull under the turret. These ammo racks were also surrounded by water filled jackets. Early production wet tanks retained the turret basket, and had hatches that could be opened to access the hull ammo racks, later they only installed a half basket, and eventually removed the basket floor entirely.
A loader checking out the ammo loaded in the wet storage on an M4A3 (76)W tank
On early Shermans a lot of stuff other than ammo was stored under the turret basket, in the floor, were the ammo was now going. This included the batteries, and a generator setup on some models. Also many of the items listed in the early part of this article were stored in the hull floor. These items including the batteries were moved up into the sponsons. The generator was moved to the rear of the transmission. While making all these changes, they managed to pack even more ammo into the 75mm wet Shermans!
Loads of stuff on the back of an M4A1
So, when all is said and done, if you take into account each round of ammo, a Sherman has nearly 8600 items packed into or onto it, officially. Granted, 7500 of that number is ammo, that still leaves 1100 items stored in or on the tank the crew had to keep track of and I’m sure I didn’t take some things into account. You also have to think about all the personal gear the crew would have stuff in and on the tank. Anything they didn’t want shot or possible stolen had to be stored inside, even with all the official stuff in the tank, the crew would find places to stuff their most valuable personal things. Less valuable things, like their uniforms and anything they decided to keep that couldn’t fit, was all hung outside. If you look at late war pictures of Shermans, they are covered in stuff tied down on their rear decks. It’s no secret US troops were fond of taking souvenirs, and it got pretty rampant once they got into Germany.
Special Gallery 2: Shermans at Fort Benning, the ones waiting to go the new National Armor & Cavalry Museum.
These images all came from the Fort Benning Photos Website, and these images were all taken by John D. Helms or Kristian Ogden, and you can find much larger version on the Benning site. These Sherman tanks, and other historic vehicles will be displayed in the new Museum once it’s done.
An M4A3 76 HVSS tank, done up in Korean war markings at the museum site. Close up of the suspensionClose up from the front
An M4A3 75w large hatch late production Sherman stored indoors. An M2 and M10More detail on the M10, and a nice shot of a M4A3 76w HVSS tank, this may have been the one that Fort Knox had running?Side shot of the indoor M4A3 76w HVSS tankLongshot of the M2 and M4A3 75wan M5 lightstored in the yard next to a pair of M48s, an oddball M4A4. M3 GrantM3 lightM24 Chaffee lightThe mighty T29! This thing would have eaten King Tigers for breakfast!
A restored VC, note how far apart the pair bogies are, this one with a museum in Europe.
Civilian Sherman Use: Hollywood, Loggers, Farmers, Museums and Frat Boys
Since the Sherman tank was produced in huge numbers, and the Army didn’t need that many, and even after taking the best for themselves, mothballing the best of the ones they didn’t for use as military aid to struggling allies, they still had a bunch of small hatch M4 tank of various types sitting around. The US Government decided there might be a civilian market for the tanks and put them up for sale as surplus.
The M3 Lee in 1941
It was not just Sherman tanks that would go on sale after the war, actually before the war ended in the case of aircraft. When the war ended the US Government was saddled with so much, now essentially useless, war material, in many cases they just left it to rot where it was sitting. They bulldozed the stuff into ditches or off cliffs, or dumped it into the ocean. That was the fate of most of the war material in the pacific theater. There are heartbreaking photos of P-38 Lighting fighters bulldozed off a cliff in the Philippines.
This was the only photo I could find of the P-38 dump in the Philippines.
The war material, tanks, planes, trucks, tools, bulldozers, tug boats, etc. back in the United States would mostly be melted down for scrap, thousands of B-17 and B-24 bombers, P-40s, P-38s, P-47s, you name it, if it flew, it was surplused after the war. Many airlines snapped up the transport planes and cargo planes, but just about all the fighters and bombers got scrapped. For about the price of a nice new car you could have owned any of the fighters, brand new, with full tanks of gas. Many fighters were bought up for use as air racers, or use as surveying aircraft, but at that point in time no one cared enough about them to consider preserving them, with exceptions for particularly historically significant aircraft.
You could buy Shermans in running condition, with the gun DE milled, for about the price of a nice used car. I do not think the Sherman was a hot seller, though a few civilians here and there bought them for the novelty. They did sell to some construction company’s here and there, other companies bought them up in droves, and all the other vehicles that used the Sherman powertrain, and began converting the hulls into specialized equipment used in construction, mining, and forestry. They also one in at least one case sold a Sherman to a college fraternity.
Several companies, Finning, Traxxon, and Morpac made rocking drilling machines based on Sherman hulls, the whole upper hull being replaced by the drill and superstructure. Madill seems to have specialized in converting Sherman hulls into mobile ‘yarders’, a central tower with winches, used to pull freshly cut trees up to an area to be further processed and loaded on trucks. These companies were mostly Canadian, and Morpac is still making heavy duty off road load carriers based on Sherman suspension components.
Vickers used Sherman hulls and suspension to make heavy duty tractors for peanut farming in Africa. These heavy tractors were to be used to clear land for the farms. They only used the suspension, final drives, differentials and tracks, the transmission was different and they used a large inline six for power.
Some power companies used drilling machines based on the Sherman tank as well, but I am not sure if they are the same as the drills made by Finning and Traxxon. In at least one other case a company named Abdo S Allen Co. used a Sherman tank they bought surplus in the 60s as a heavy duty building destroyer. They used the M4A3E8 Sherman, with no dozer blade or anything to knock down large swaths of houses in North West Oakland California in the late 60s. They could be the only destruction company to figure out they could use a tank for demolishing light buildings.
This is Agnes II, the Plane of Fame Museum at Chino California’s working M4A1. This tank looks like it’s in very good condition, and is an early small hatch tank.
In the 70s things began to change. Interest in World War II started to pick up, and that meant interest in the equipment, so museums for WWII equipment started becoming more popular. The United States has always been interesting in aviation as a people. So WWII aviation was the first thing to really take off. It really started with surplus machines being used as air racers, and then many of the old racers, sitting around rotting, got bought up by men who wanted to own a WWII aircraft. Some of these men founded things like the Confederate Air Force, or the Planes of Fame Museum in Chino. These groups and many more keep aviation history alive by keeping the fantastic old flying machines in the air. It’s amazing that today, there is a larger variety of well restored and rare WWII aircraft flying than when I was a kid in the 70s.
I can’t resist a chance to past Corsair porn. This is the Planes of Fame’s F4U-1A Corsair. They’ve had it for years and you can see the amazing Steve Hinton at the controls. This image is from www.warbirdsdepot.com
Hollywood made a few movies using somewhat correct airplanes, but most movies until 90s didn’t bother with accuracy in armor, and many of the big screen epics like, The Longest Day, the Battle of the bulge, and Patton, using more modern stand in tanks. A Bridge To Far, broke the mold, and got a lot of running Shermans together, though many not exactly period correct. Kelly’s Heroes was another oddball in that it used real Shermans as well, but their tiger was fake.
A bunch of Sherman tanks gathered for the Movie, A Bridge To FarJame Garner, on top of the M4A3 small hatch tank he is about to use to knock down a building, in the Movie ‘Tank’Train yard raid in Kelly’s Heroes
As interest in WWII continued to grow, all forms of equipment became popular, and there had already been a few tank guys out there that had a tank or two, or whole collections. Tank museums, most in the US anyway, are owned by the government, and the displays are largely gutted, welded closed near hulks, rusting away in an outdoor display area. It’s not uncommon in Europe for a tank museum to have several runners they bring out for events various times a year for crowd pleasing displays. There are a few museums in the US not owned by the government that are doing this now too. One, at least in the past, I don’t know if it still runs, was the Planes of Fame museum in Chino California, they had a running Sherman they show off at their airshow. The Flying Heritage Collection in Everett, Washington, has a running M4A1 75 and a T-34-85 and do an event where they drive them around on May 30th! This weekend! Battlefield Vegas a huge shooting range in Las Vegas, has a large verity of Machine guns you can shoot and is resto modding a Sherman that they got off a target range. The owner is planning on adding some more modern updates to it, for safety, reliability, and habitability in the Vegas heat. Since the tank was just about at the scrapping point, and I’m for A/C in everything, I see no problems with this at all.
This is the later production M4A1 75 Sherman the Flying Heritage Collection operates, it’s newer model but still a small hatch tank. Note the extra armor on the turret cheek and over the hull ammo rack
There is also a large group of people, who like to reenact WWII battles, and they collect the vehicles as well, but tanks in this scene are rare. There are small private tank museums that use their tanks in local events like veteran days parades or local airshows. Tanks are a lot easier operate and cheaper to maintain than a WWII airplane, and that may be adding to their popularity and value with collectors as well. Aircraft require all kinds of inspections and certifications, and you have to store them in hangers, and if you don’t fly them regularly they will rot away. Since they fly, not being on top of all the required maintenance might get you killed.
privately owned and beautifully restored M4A1 76w
If your tank restoration project breaks down when your testing out the rebuilt Ford GAA, you just fix it there, or have it towed back to your work area. It’s not going to fall out of the sky and possible kill you and other people. In both cases, to really work on it, you need some heavy equipment. You’re not pulling a turret, or motor (tank or plane), without a heavy duty hoist of some type, 10,000 pounds plus minimum, and that might not be enough to get a turret off. Most tank motors the Sherman and other American WWII tanks used are pretty simple as internal combustion engines go, though the R975 radial would be pretty daunting to most car people, even it isn’t that complicated. In both cases they are thoroughly documented, but true experts on the motors who can overhaul them are few and far between, for both tank and aircraft motors.
Privately owned M4 105
In the United States, it’s not all that hard, if you’re willing to pay the taxes and go through the government checks, to own a tank with a working canon. Since the tanks were never sold by the government to civilians with working guns, the guns are often pieced together, with parts that don’t match, and this really takes the danger level of owning a tank to a new level. Part of the added danger is the rounds can’t just be purchased, you have to find suitable used brass, not an easy task, and then hand load it with surplus or custom made projectiles and surplus powder. As dangerous as this can be, I’m all for allowing people to do what they want with the things they own, and having a working main gun on your Sherman is pretty damn cool.
An Isreali Sherman M1, that belonged to the largest private collection of Armor on the west coast. Until the owner died.
Now, these last few paragraphs have had a touch of tongue and cheek in them, owning a tank is a very expensive thing to do, and the bigger the tank the more money it will suck up each year, just less than an airplane. A tank can’t fall out of the sky, but it is by no means safe, and doing any kind of work on it, or even climbing on and off of it, can cost you a finger or broken bones. Putting an arm or hand in the wrong place while a turret is being rotated can get them messily removed. Falling off a tank while it’s moving is a bad way to die, but it happens. It’s hard for people who have never worked with heavy equipment of any kind to realize just how dangerous 30 tons of steel is just sitting still. That said, the people out there restoring WWII history, and keeping it running are awesome. Nothing beats seeing a Sherman tank moving around to really give you an idea of what the thing was all about. The Sherman people who go to the trouble to get the A57 in their M4A4 working are my automotive heroes!
James Garner hauling ass in a M4A3 Sherman in the movie ‘Tank’
At some point in the 80s some producer or special effects place got their hands on a Sherman and it made appearances in shows like the A-team, Knight Rider and Airwolf. I suspect it was the same M4A3 used in the Movie ‘Tank’ with James Garner, and that is now owned by the Collings Foundation. In more recent years, privately owned tanks, and some working museum vehicles were used in the making of the miniseries Band of Brothers on HBO. They don’t appear in many of the episodes, but they are in at least two. More recently the movie Fury was filmed using the tanks of the Bovington tank Museum in the UK. They also purchased an M4A4 hulk, and did a quickie ‘resto’ on it and made up a fiberglass turret that could be blown off, for the movies to often used ammo rack explosion.
M4A2 used in Fury, before it was kitted out for the movie
Another thing tanks get used for in civilian life is in ‘Drive a tank’ places like, Ox Ranch in Texas, and driving a tank isn’t the only thing you can do there! Machine guns, Off roading, hunting, tanks, this is like heaven!
OX Ranch’s M4A2 76w HVSS in actionOX Ranch’s M4A2 76w HVSS in action
There are several other places in the US, and around the world like Drive a Tankin Minnesota and Battlefield Vegas,(Sherman in the works). You can pay for a package that often includes driving several kinds of vehicles leading up to the tank of your choice. They often offer add-ons like shooting machine guns or running over a car you supply, for various fees. The places that have a Sherman usually don’t use it in the car crushing displays; it’s usually a bigger tank like a British chieftain.
M4 tank in front of a VFW
The final civilian Sherman type I want to mention is the kind you find in front of VFW halls, or town or state parks. The tanks in these cases are not actually civilian tanks. The Army still owns them more or less, so if the place they are in happens to close down or change, the town or VFW can’t sell the tank. The Army will come and get it, and they are supposedly responsible for keeping them up, but in reality, they are usually pretty rusty on the inside, and often have the floors starting to rust through.
Special Gallery 1: The Shermans and Lees of the Fort Bennings Digital Archive.
Fort Benning, a very active US Army base in Georgia has put up many very interesting historic Photo Galleries. You can find the website here. The Gallery these Sherman photos came from is the Historic Photo Gallery. These are just the Sherman and or Armor related images in the gallery, there are many more from Vietnam and Desert Storm.
The tank is from the 37 TB, of the 4th AD. This caption says the man in the photo is the gunner, September 1944, the tank is either an M4 105, or an M4A3 105, from the location of the M2, I’m going to say, M4.This is an M4A3 76 HVSS tank in Korea, by this point, the water jackets on the hull ammo rack would not be in use. One hint it’s a post WWII Sherman is the first aid kit mounted on the side of the tank. I can’t make out the markings it looks like 7-32-1 on the co drivers side of the differential housing, and a triangle 13 on the other side.10th AD training in 1943, the tank is an M4.A tank crew cleaning the tube, in Belgium 1944, the curved hull corners say M4A1 to me.An M2 Medium having some heavy duty field repair work done. The photo caption says WIAs evacuated via tank, and it looks like Korea. The tanks are M4A3 76 HVSS tanksMost of a M3 Lee crew getting ready for some chow in North AfricaThis is a really interesting picture, the tank is an M4A1, it has small hatches, but has the improved, no DV port casting. The tank is with the 1st AD, somewhere in Italy. Note all the mud, the blanket draped over the commanders hatch, it was probably rainy and humid.Men of the 761st TB clean their M1919 machine guns in front of their M5 lights.This is an M4 with the 2nd AD in Belgium December of 1944, it looks like it has all the quick fix upgrades.An M4 composite hull, with the 66AR of the 2nd AD, crossing small gully on a very rickety looking bridge in September of 19441st AD M3 Lee crew somewhere in North Africa, November of 1942, man, do these guys look dirty or what?A US Army M4A3 in Brittany, August of 1944A platoon of M4 tanks in Italy, with the 1st AD.I wonder if they planned to try and climb that hill… Probably not. An M5 light somewhere in the ETOThis photo is labeled ‘tank infantry team’, the tank is an M4, and it’s probably somewhere in the ETO.1st AD M4A1 tanks near Anzio, note all the storage on the back deck, a large tarp and a big bundle of camo netting. This image is labeled Tank Infantry Team in town, the tank is an M4A3 76w HVSS tank, and it’s somewhere in the ETO, probably Germany, in 45.This one is labeled Tank Infantry Team Bougainville 1944, and the tank is the famous Lucky Legs II. I think I have more info about this tank and it’s battalion here somewhere. More info from Belisarius, ‘An M4 Sherman named ‘Lucky Legs II’ of 754th Tank Battalion leads the attack with infantrymen following close behind with fixed bayonets on the perimeter of the 129th Infantry, 37th Division, Bougainville (Papua New Guinea, in the Solomon Sea). 16th of March 1944.An M4 HMC, or Howitzer Motor Carriage.
City Tanking: The Tank Infantry Team in Cities and Towns
Tanks and cities do not like to mix, but when your job is to support the dough on the ground when they go into the city, so do the tanks. So when your Armored Division is ordered to attack into an urban area or the infantry division you’re supporting as a separate tank battalion goes into a city, so do your Shermans. When you really think about it, it’s a lot safer in a tank in an urban environment than for infantrymen, since they face all the same threats, but the tank has armor…
An Easy 8 in France, in a town, in action
All the hiding places and areas tanks can’t see or reach is what makes a town or city far more dangerous to armor. More than forest or jungle, the city gives the enemy infantry so many good places to hide, the already nearly blind tank is at just about as big a disadvantage as it could be at, and they only have the firepower to use to thwart it, and at times the firepower was restricted. The clever US Army soldiers came up with solutions for this, like every other problem they encountered during the war.
Heavy rain coming down on doughs, on an M10A1 in a city
The main threats to a tank in an urban environment are enemy grunts with TD weapons like the Panzerfaust or Panzerschreck, or even just grenades and improvised explosives. Anti-tank guns would also still be a serious threat, but they are harder to hide in a city, but if they can be emplaced in the right kind of building, a stone, heavily constructed one, or area in the city that could cover many roads, like a hilly, mid-city park they can make a very tough strong point. In Europe, there are a lot of heavily constructed buildings too, but also large numbers of wood buildings a Sherman could bring down with ease, as long as it didn’t have a basement. If the defenders of the city have time to figure out all the good site lines and emplace things in ideal spots if they know a fight is coming, they can really make a city into a fortress.
I threw this one in to show German tanks had all the same issues in urban areas that the Sherman did.
The defenders of a town or city have a big advantage in setting up their defenses. First off, they know the layout of the city; they would not just have maps or aerial photos to rely on. They can also blow up buildings and create roadblocks to channel attacks. When they set their city defenses up correctly they can set up roadblocks, covered machine guns, or even AT or infantry guns, which could not be engaged by the attackers behind the roadblock because of buildings and other obstructions. Another advantage the defenders would be sure to use would be pre ranging in their artillery and having it ready to drop right on key areas. If the town had any castles or other historic, large stone buildings, these would be troublesome hardpoints and in some cases bigger than the Shermans cannon could deal with.
Brit Shermans moving through an urban area
Another big threat to everyone was the sniper. A hell of a lot of tank commanders, infantry sergeants, and officers got offed by German snipers. Its well know, in the ETO, MTO, and North Africa, most American tank commanders fought un-buttoned, making them prime targets. It takes a ballsy sniper to take on a tank because if they miss and the commander spots them, he’s going to respond in one of three ways. By shooting at him with the tanks co-ax, by shooting him with the .50, or most likely of all, the 75mm with an HE round or WP round. Or all of the above and it takes even more guts to try and shoot a panzerfaust or Panzerschreck, and they get all of the above for sure.
771st Tank Battalion M4A3 76w tanks move through a town
All these things that make city fighting deadly for tanks make it absolute murder for the foot soldier. In a tank you have armor, and if done right, a lot of men outside your tank there with the sole duty of defending it. Including a dough sergeant riding on your back deck talking to your commander and when the shit hits the fan, the commander buttons up and the sergeant gets on the phone at the rear of the tank and tells the commander what stuff to shoot. The key here though is they are outside, and the only cover they’ll have is the buildings around the tank or the tank. Far more doughs died in every engagement than tankers, and even more, would die without the tanks around.
An M10 in a town
The proper way to use armor in the attack on a town, or city, was to start by offering to let them surrender. If they didn’t, depending on the politics around keeping the village intact, they may or may not shell the hell out of it before attacking. In many cases, the Nazi scum was occupying buildings in towns of countries they conquered and couldn’t care less if the places were wrecked and the town’s people killed when they were forced out. The Allies cared to some degree, but only so much, and if the Germans put up a really stiff fight, some big divisional artillery would probably be called in.
A bunch of 5th Army tanks in a town
The next step, in any case, would be for the infantry doughs to move out. They move into the town ahead of the tanks and will take the buildings on either side of the roads the tanks will be forced to work on before the tanks move up. If there is resistance in the first buildings, the tanks will be in view of them and help support the infantry with direct fire. Once the buildings were secure, the tanks would move up, and the doughs would begin to attack the next set of buildings, that the Shermans would now be close enough to fire into. If the first buildings are tough, the tanks may move up a little to support the infantry pulling back.
6th AD M4 knocked out in a Belgian town
Once the attacking force had penetrated into the town or city, they have to be ever watchful of the German counter-attack, that the Nazi forces, who knew the places they were just forced out of well, would attack, and try and cut off the tanks, sometimes using clever routes the allied forces might not know about. If they succeeded the tanks were in trouble, because the infantry could attack them from several directions at once, and while the turret was facing one way, walk right up and place a charge a weak spot and blow the tank up. The key here would be if the US line was getting weak for the tanks to pull back with the doughs, shooting the hell out of the buildings as they backed out.
A 10th AD Easy 8 in Rosswalden. Fenders are beaten up, the wood on the front is cracking, and the co-driver needs to put on his helmet. Also, note the poor lady in the background trying to fight the fire.
Most of the time pulling back wouldn’t be needed, the Sherman tank when supported properly, could make short work of all but the most massive buildings. The 75mm guns 1.5 pound TNT HE round would make short would of wood buildings, and WP smoke would fill it with smoke and set it on fire. For harder buildings, constructed of things like brick or stone, they may have to punch a few holes with AP before sending HE rounds in through the same holes. Plus the Sherman has two medium machine guns, and the turret .50 manned by a dough adding to the firepower. For anything really stubborn, they could bring in the 105 Sherman with its 6 pound HE charge. We also know Shermans, even when working with independent tank battalions tried to at least operate in pairs.
14AD M4A3 76W in an urban setting, doing what Tank crews and GI’s, in general, did a lot, sitting around bored to out of their minds.
Even using the best tactics, tanks were lost, and many doughs went down, and while in allied countries, retaking ravished and conquered lands, restraint was encouraged and often shown. This was not the case in Germany and other pro-Nazi countries. Once in the lands of the enemy, and after seeing concentration and death camps most allied troops were unwilling to show restraint when the Nazis decided to make things hard and use a town as a strong point. Burning a whole town flat wasn’t out of the question if the Nazis fought hard, or the population helped much.
A pair of up-armored M4A3 tanks in Arnoldsweiler Germany, both knocked out.
In some crowds, it is popular to decry the treatment the German people got by the Allies when the tied had turned and it was clear Nazi Germany was done for. I’m not going to knock the good guys for being harsh to the Germans, soldier, criminal SS, or civilian, I didn’t have to fight against the evilest regime in modern human history, and see the evil shit they did first hand, and am more than willing to accept they felt some Nazis, no matter their age, sex or type, deserved no mercy. The Nazi regime showed no mercy for the 6 million Jews, and 6 million other undesirables, after robbing them of everything including their hair, before murdering them in the death camps. They killed tens of millions of Russian civilians, and raped so much, they planted that seed in the Russians. The Nazi German regime raped, murdered, and robbed its way across Europe, they are lucky mankind had come far enough to not imprison every living adult German or worse. This site will never support Nazi propaganda, myths lies, or popularize war criminals like many other websites on the internet.
A pair of 3rd AD M4A1 tanks in Schevenhutte
. . .
Several M4 and M4A1 parked in a town
There was also something called the tank raid, but it fell out of favor pretty early on and depended on the enemy having no idea you were coming. This was basically a commando raid with tanks; they breakthrough in lightly defended area, and romp and stomp and then move on, before much resistance can build.
A large photo of an M4 moving into a heavily damaged urban area.
Using these tactics, the tanks, and any infantry riding them, could do a lot of damage to a unit that was capable of knocking them out, and running away before they got the chance, AA units, any kind of artillery really. If you can think of a unit that would be behind the lines, but somewhat close, your tank raid could come and ruin their night or early morning, or late evening. On a big scale, this is what the Armored Divisions were envisioned doing but rarely got the chance to do.
Milan Italy
The big danger is in staying in one place long enough for a strong response to being formed, moving out into a unit that knew you were coming and has armor or anti-tank guns, or getting cut off and hunted down. Other problems are tanks breaking down, and getting lost, and not having enough space for everyone on the working vehicles. So for these to work they had to have limited objectives, a way in and out, and enough good intelligence on the area to know the areas to avoid that could kill your tanks. That’s a serious list of problems to overcome to make this work, and when tried, even in the Pacific, it usually resulted in a lot of lost tanks and dead or captured tankers and doughs.
A whole tank company or more parked in a square. Huge very detailed photo
The train yard scene in the movie Kelly’s Heroes is a decent example of this, as far as movies go. This could also happen on accident when things were unsettled during a large attack, parts of units trying to get back to friendly lines could run into supply units trying to find the attackers, and fights could take place. There were cases where tanks were sent into urban areas by infantry officers who had no idea how to properly use tanks, but this went badly most of the time. On occasion, TDs were asked to fill in for tanks in the infantry support role, but this was a harder job for them since they had open-top turrets, less armor, and fewer machine guns.
IC Firefly in a town in Normandy
Sources: Combat Lessons, The Rank and file, what they do and how they are doing it 1-7, and 9. Oscar Gilbert’s, Marine Tank Battles in the Pacific, Harry Yeide’s, two Tank Battalion books, and his TD book. Zaloga’s Armored Thunderbolt, and Armored Attack.
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.
Data
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.
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.
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 theSherman 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.
Computer Games that have Sherman Tanks in them: WWII and or Sherman Tank games
There have been far more games with Sherman tanks in them than I can really cover here, I’ll just try and cover the ones currently available. I’ll start with the biggest tank game of all time.
World is a great game. I could be accused of being biased, I do have over 20k games in the beta, and a little more than 15K since release. I’ve been playing computer games since I was a kid, in the 80s, on an old Apple II. Since my dad was also a military history nut, and like computer games as well, I got to play an awful lot of games involving tanks, going as far back as SSI’s Panzer Commander game, and Kampfgruppe games, and then SSI’s last Hurrah, Steel Panthers.
Random in game shot with interface turned off.
World of Tanks is a different type of tank game, since it is really arcade based, but it’s very fun. The problem with most simulator type tank games is they take to long, and then you finally make contact, miss the camping sniper tank and die. They claim to be realistic, but really, when they get past the set PVE scenarios, are not more realistic in PVP play then the arcade games, because of the limitations of the platform. War Thunder suffers from this along with a lot of other problems.
An M7 medium on fire, in game shot, interface off, as you can see the HD game is very nice looking.
Having played WOT from the almost the beginning, having started in the early closed beta, before there were any other tech trees than the German and Russian lines, I really know the game. I saved up free exp and gold (you got like 200 gold a day) before the American Tank release, so I have a T29 the first day it came out. This was back in the old days when if you ran over a dog house, (since removed) a dog yelped, before the whiners got them to soften it up.
An M3 Lee and A-20 light that killed each other in a live game, interface turned off
I clearly still like the game, since I still play, though Clan Wars nearly burnt me out. I am glad I was in a clan good enough to get the special tanks for the first three campaigns. PBKAC was a great clan, and they kept me around long after my skills had become low rung in the clan. The real problem with clan wars is the time it takes. Now compared to games like Worlds of Warcraft or other MOLRPG games, the CW in WOT is great, and far less time consuming, but it’s still an hour or two 3 to 5 nights a week, or more of the clan was really active. They also went a long way to make being active give you some in game extras. As for all the whining about CW sucking etc., or the game in general, especially from the elite class of players, whining is the in thing, talking shit about something you’re good at and play all the time seems to be the thing with elite gamers. I’ve seen in in every PVP game I’ve played, and I’ve played a lot.
This is what Clan Wars in World of Tanks looks like, this pic has the full interface in place. This is not the stock interface, I use Webium’s Modpack
My thoughts? Negative whiners suck, if you don’t like something, don’t bore us with the crying and moaning, leave and find something else to do. Does the game have issues? Sure, what game doesn’t? Do they make the game less fun? Yes, Arty I’m looking at You, but they do not make it so bad, you need to dbase yourself and whine about it like a little wimp. State your case to the people who mater, and then either move on and or deal with it until fixed. No one wants to hear you cry.
A nice glamour shot of an M24 Chaffee shooting, in game footage, interface off
How this all relates to Shermans? Well, as a PVP tank versus tank Arcade game, where you start with old, weak tanks, and by killing other players, win exp and credits to unlock and buy new tanks. The game is free to play. Though there is a play element, it really only makes advancing in the game easier and quicker, and really offers no in game PVP advantage. You start running into Sherman tanks or Lees really, at Tier 4. You get the Basic M4 Sherman at Tier 5 and the M4A3E8 and Jumbo at Tier 6. There are some other Shermans in the game, The British line has an M4A2 Sherman III at T5, and the Firefly IC Composite hull at T6. There is also an M4A2E4 Sherman as a rare tank given out to beta players with more than 3000 games. The latest Sherman to be added is the French M51 105mm Sherman tank, as a premium. I’ll discuss each tank and it’s model below.
M3 Lee: The Combat RV in WOT, Tier 4, US Medium Tank
The M3 Lee got an HD update early in the HD update process, but it’s still a fairly decent HD model. The biggest flaw I can really see is they have the points on the sprocket stabbing through the track end connectors, instead of between them. The model is an early production M3, with the 37mm gun lacking the counter weight needed to work with the stabilizer for that gun. It still has hull side doors, another sign of an early model. It has the two fixed forward firing hull machine guns that were eliminated early on as well.
The tank in game has a reputation for being poor. There are a few reasons for this, one, it’s a holdover from when the games matchmaking spread was larger, so the M3 would see T7 tanks, and it’s one shotable to many of these. That has been fixed. Another reason is the large crew, for the tank to shine, it needs a 100% crew, and many of the advanced crew skills help this tank. With a almost three skill crew, a rammer, binocs, and enhanced gun laying drive, I was in the top 50 players in the Lee the last I looked, and with this crew and setup, in a T4 match, the tank is a monster, and not as a sniper TD wanabee. It high damage for tier, high rate of fire gun, make it deadly even up close at T4, and it can shoot fairly well on the move!
Both the model, and tanks in game performance are very good.
M3 Grant: The Combat Caravan, Tier 4, British medium Tank
This HD model was added a little later than the M3 Lee, and they fixed the problem with the tracks. They put the Grant specific turret on it, without the machine gun cupola, and added sand shields. The 37mm gun lacks a counter weight, and the hull has the paired machine guns, and I’m not sure if that was the case with the Grants, I’ll have to look. It’s still a very nice model of the Grant.
In game, it plays like a Lee, but you can put the 6 pounder on it in place of the 75mm. I don’t like the swap, and do not actually play this tank much, though I have one in the garage. When I want a T4 tank, I play the Lee since it’s crew is better.
Overall the tank and model are both good in game.
M4 Sherman: The M4A1 Mishmash, T5 US Medium.
What can I say about this model, well other than it’s a mess, it’s also historically impossible. If you put the 75mm turret, the and M3 gun on it, it’s almost passible, but still has later heavy duty suspension on a direct vision hull with fixed hull machine guns and three piece differential that would not have had that suspension, and should have the suspension on the M3 Lee. There are also many little accuracy problems with the model, the driver and co drivers hatches are off a little, the suspension units are not spaced evenly. The model only gets more accurate if you put the top turret and gun on. Since it’s a small hatch M4A1, it should not get the T23 turret. These were only installed on M4A1, A2 and A3 large hatch hulls.
What they need to do to fix the model is, remove the T23 turret, add a later 75mm turret with full gun mantlet at the upgrade turret, and allow the M1A1 gun to be the top gun on that turret. They also need to fix the mantlet of the 105 model on this turret, it’s all wrong, but would be easy to fix on the full mantlet 75mm turret, though it really needs a second ventilator, and no 105 M4A1s were ever made.
Anyway, in game, it’s a very good T5 Medium. At one point, before the HEAT nerf, the M4 was actually very OP, as were all the 105 derp tanks, like the Panzer 4. Since, it’s been balanced, and a decent tank. You can run it will all guns and still contribute to your teams win. Even it’s basic 75mm gun can take on a KV an pen it from the front. Derping in it is more art than science now, but still viable, but the best gun overall is the M1A1.
The tank is good in game but the model is subpar as the HD models go. It is supposed to get a model update soon, so hopefully they fix it.
M4A2 Sherman III: This Model, as First Unlocked is Very Pretty and Accurate, T5 British medium
This model, as unlocked is one of the best HD models in the game. The model is a M4A2 Sherman III, with a 75mm M3 with the shorty, no ear mantlet, DV ports, fixed hull MGs, sand skirts, and the proper turret box the Brits added. It also has the proper, early Lee style suspension bogies. The hull may be a touch to long since the wheel spacing looks a little wide. One final flaw may be the antenna bracket near the co-driver. It looks like a type not installed on M4A2 tanks with the fixed hull guns, but that’s a detail only the geekiest of Sherman geeks would get so faulting Wargaming on it is a tad unfair.
The Model goes south when you add the upgrade turret, a T23 turret, that is wrong for a small hatch hull. They could solve this the same way I suggested with the M4, or they could update the M4A2 hull to a large hatch hull and ad a later set of T5mm turrets to fix it. It is a fine looking T23 turret though, and it’s not like it couldn’t have been built, and there are a few Franken Shermans around with the T23 turret on the wrong, small hatch hull, this is not something Wargaming needs to put on the critical fix list.
It plays in game just like the American M4 T5 Sherman. It can hold its own in any match with any of its guns.
M4A2E4: One of the Oldest Models in the Game, and not Very Pretty, T5 US Premium Medium
This tank is fairly rare on the US Server, since it was a Beta Reward tank. If I recall right, it is purchasable as a premium tank on the Euro an Russian Servers. It is a classic Premium tank, in that it is not as good as it’s fully upgraded T5 piers, but its slightly better than a stock T5 tank. This was an experimental M4A2 with torsion bar suspension, and they now have all the parts to make a very nice model for this tank, but who knows when they will.
They could fix it by taking the Sherman III hull, and the turret off the Firefly IC minus the 17 pounder and loaders hatch.
The tank in game is a pretty decent T5 medium tank. The gun is decent, the armor is decent, the mobility is decent if it’s flat or you start on a hill. Honestly, I play it because it’s rare, and I like tanks that are not the ‘best’, and it can play my best crew. It will never go on sale again though, since it has improved match making, and that makes up for its flaws, since it will not see T7 matches at all. I’ll never sell mine.
A premium tank in WOT is a tank you can buy for gold, or real money through the WOT website. You can also win them through events and missions. They allow you to put any crew from the same class tank into it without retraining, and they get an experience bonus from the tank. This makes the tanks nice for training a crew, but also nice for making extra cash, using your best crew. Premium tanks also make more money than regular tanks. There are a lot of premium tanks in the game, and they range from T2 to T10, and a few over the years have been considered overpowered and removed from sale, but not the game. Most are balanced on the weak side.
M4A3E8: Ugly Old Model, But Still A Great Tank, T6 US medium
This tanks model was one of the original models in the game, well, it has been unchanged since the American line was released in beta and the model shows it. It’s plain ugly and looks out of place in a game that has come really far graphics wise since its release.
In game once fully upgraded this tank is everything a medium tank should be, mobile over all terrain types, decent armor, and fairly good gun. It has good gun handling, and can shoot well on the move. Some like the Cromwell better, since it’s a little faster, and has a slightly better gun, but I think the Easy8 still holds its own. The thing really keeping this tank rare, and probably holding back the HD model is the Fury Premium tank, basically a E8 with a stock turret and slightly slower, with an ok HD model based on the Movie tank.
M4A3E8 Fury: An American Premium Medium, Just Like the Tank in the Movie Fury, T6 US Premium Medium
Turrets can be blown off, if you get hit in the ammo rack, or hit someone there
Fury was a big deal in the WOT community; it had a lot of tie ins with the game and War gaming, including this premium tank. The model is HD, but not the best one around but it’s still better than the Model on the T5 M4 Sherman. I’m not sure if it’s still for sale, but since it’s basically a slightly nerfed E8, it will probably be available on and off for years.
The Model does show off what a late war Sherman looked like from a storage perspective, and has all kinds of junk draped on the tank. You can see the same kind of thing in period photos. The Model has the wrong sprockets though, showing they based it directly off the tank in the Movie that was NOT an M4A3 76 HVSS tank, but it was an M4A2 76 HVSS tank made by FTA, not CDA.
It plays just like the E8, but it makes very good money. It came with a crew with the same names as the movie crew as well. Everything said about the E8 above applies to this tank, meaning it’s a pretty good medium tank too.
M4A3E2 Jumbo: A Good HD model, but a Confused Tank In Game, T6 US Medium
The Jumbo model is very good. It just has a few minor flaws, the first being it has CDA not FTA sprockets. ONLY FTA made Jumbo tanks so their plain sprockets were the only ones used. It also has sand skirts, and they were removed before being deployed into combat. The other problem with the model comes with the upgraded turret, basically a T23 turret, with the Jumbo mantlet, IE a fantasy turret. Very few tanks have completely fabricated configurations like this, and I suspect they did this for balance reasons, since the M1A2 gun in the full armor turret may have tipped this tank just a tad to the OP side. This leaves you with a choice, good armor, or good firepower, since if you chose the top turret and gun, you can be easily penned anywhere on the turret but the mantlet, thus defeating the whole purpose of the jumbo.
I run mine with the 105 derp gun, not historically correct, but not impossible either. At T6 the 105 Derp is really at the bottom end of its effectiveness, and I would run the M1A2 if they let you put it in the stock turret, but nope… The Jumbo is a good tank, it’s armor can bounce a lot, with good angling and clever terrain use you can really bounce a lot of stuff. I’ve got almost 300 battles in mine, but really prefer a more mobile tank.
All Wargaming needs to do to fix the model is remove the second turret, and make the top gun the M1A1 off the T23. They could then remove the skirts and put plain sprockets on it and the model would be perfect. Oh, they also need to swap out all the road wheels for the stamped plain ones.
Sherman IC Composite Firefly: This Model is all Kinds of Good, T6 British Medium
This model is good overall in both the stock, and fully upgraded configurations, but does have a few minor problems. Someone should really send the modelers, who do the Shermans at Wargaming a copy of Son of a Sherman, but really, these models are very nice, and some of the best of the Sherman models. Problem one, these composite hull M4 tanks, were large hatch hulls, built by CDA, by this point, they should have the fancy CDA sprocket, like wrongly used on the Jumbo. The next model problem involves the turret, the stock turret has no loaders hatch, and all if not the vast majority of M4 Composite hull tanks had a loaders hatch. There may have been a batch early on that didn’t but I’m trying to confirm this. In any case, by the time production really got going the M4 Composite production tanks were getting late production 75mm turrets with loaders hatches cast in, or were using older turrets left over from the ARV program and updating them by adding cheek armor and cutting a loaders hatch in. This means the upgraded turret on the IC Composite Firefly should have a oval loaders hatch not the British square one.
Other than these minor things the model is beautiful, and may have been based on a post war restoration with the wrong sprockets. It has many very fine details and is toped with a very nicely modeled M2 .50 machine gun. I think this is the prettiest Sherman model in the game at this point.
It plays in game more like a TD than a Medium tank. It has a very nice gun that can pen just about anything you’re going to see, but it’s got a slow ROF. It’s slow for a Sherman, and is not good in a close in knife fight. I do not have a large number of games in this tank and am only average in it at this point. It’s play style is not really one I enjoy so I rarely play it.
M4A1 Revalorise: The Most Awesome Sherman of them All, T8 French, premium Medium
This is a T8 Sherman tank. That’s two tiers higher than any other, and in some ways it shows, the tank is slow, has no armor and really only has one thing going for it, a gun with nice pen. The model is a little odd. It’s an M4A1 76W VVSS hull, and it’s well modeled. This is the only M4A1 large hatch hulled tank in the game so the hull model was new, and they did a great job with that part. The turret looks a little fat, but it was modified, with new parts welded to the front and back, but the all-around vision cupola looks a little off. It is supposed to be a limited Premium, so it will only be sold on special event weekends and stuff, and it’s a fun tank. I have not played it much though, simply because I have so many T8 Premium tanks to choose from, I usually pic something I have a really good crew for.
The Tank plays like the classic glass canon. The gun is decently accurate and handles ok, but is really slow on the rate of fire. This is a sit back and snipe and anoy tank. It does make good money if you get some good damage in. I really bought it because it was a Sherman, and I must have all things Sherman.
I’ll add the Tanks based on the Sherman Chassis later.
. . .
World of Tanks has come a long way from its release, and unlike most games it’s really only gotten better. As a 15 on 15 tank based PVP Arcade game, there is really nothing that can touch it. I think what’s really kept me playing is the companies push to improve and add to the game, even years into its release. For example a new physics system and sound system are about to be implemented. The biggest advantage to the causal played, and as much as I play, I’m now just a casual, is a battle can take no more than 15 minutes, and most of the time it’s less than 10. If you want more action you can stack games, playing tank after tank, rack up the games, exp, and credits, but you don’t have to. As a casual with a huge tank base, I can play tanks I like, and burn a little real money on gold to keep premium and convert exp, and get any tank I want in a short time. I can jump on for three games after work, and even if everyone is a loss, still have a little fun. Many a night after a hard day at real world work, when I’m dead tired, dehydrated, and hungry, I’ll play a game or two before I go to bed, sometimes on weekends, I can crank the games out like the old days, or get on with a few pals, and platoon up and spread T1 Conan tank Terror through T5. For the type of gaming I do now, this is just about the best game I could ask for.
4.5 out of 5 stars
A variety of Heavy Tanks fighting it out on a ridge, in game shot, no interface.M4 Sherman in game shooting into a Valley, in game shot, interface off.Another shot of those heavies on the ridge
Combat Missions: The Originals, Beyond Overload, Barbarossa to Berlin, and Africa Corps, Oldies But Goodies
So these games are pretty old at this point and can be purchased from the Battlefront Website for fifteen bucks each. They will run on very low power computers so for the price, if you like turned based, tactical combat simulations based in WWII, but these games. The guys who make the games are a small team, and I’m sure can use any cash the old games generate, and they are well worth the price.
Combat Missions: Beyond Overlord was the first game in the series. Each one stands by itself, and incorporates improvements to the basic game engine. Africa Corps came last, and is the most polished of the three. The games work in a interesting way, not like RTS games, these games work in 1 minute of battle turns, were between each minute, you can give units orders. They focus on squad level, and individual vehicle level battles, but you can have some really huge battles with more than a battalion of troops on each side. The interface is a tad clunky but easy enough to learn and you can modify any of the scenarios and campaigns that come in the game. In these versions troops are available from the Germans, British, Americans and Russians, depending on the game version.
Game play is great, each game has a huge number of premade battles and campaigns to play, they can be modified, and many actual battles are in the game. The unit selection is very good.
The main difference between each version is the setting, Beyond Overlord covers from D-Day until the end of the war in north west Europe, Barbarossa to Berlin Covers the beginning to end on the eastern front, and Africa Corps covers North Africa and Italy. This may be the biggest flaw, as three standalone games, to get all the features of the interface, you have to buy the latest game, and they do not update the older ones. This is a limitation of how these games were designed, and is a fairly minor thing.
The game is fully 3d, and you can spin the map and zoom in and out to fixed points. For their day they were really great, and they are not so dated now that they are not fun. I find I play Beyond Overlord the most, simply because it has M26 Pershings in it, and I really like the tank. My second favorite is Africa Corps, because it’s fun to kick German but in the M3 Lee.
I’m going to give these games a collective 4 out of 5 stars, since I still play, and the only game that really pulled me away was World of Tanks.
Combat Missions: The Updated ‘Improved’ Version, Battle For Normandy
War Thunder: An ok Copy/Twist of WOT with an Air Element
Ok, I’m going to admit it, I had some bias going in, but the game was better than I thought. I’m still playing it, though really not enjoying it, much like I tried it when it was in early Beta and just had planes, but I will play it enough to give it a fair shake. Back when I tried it the first time the plane models were very nice, and still are, though many are inaccurate in big ways it was nice to see them go to the trouble to put cockpits in the game, it never struck me as all that much more realistic than WoWP, though it was clearly the superior product of the two. I have high standards as far as airplane games that want to be considered simulators, and WT really doesn’t cut it, simply put, their flight models in many cases just suck and don’t match history. I also know some people involved with the game modeling who said they strait up picked and chose their sources for model info based on how they wanted the game to work. When I want a online flightsim with realistic models, I’ll go back to the best, AcesHigh, by Hightech Creations. The game may be ugly, but the flight models are top notch, not some BS based on a bad Russian flight ‘sim’, or the whims of WT staff.
So then ground forces came out, and I heard so many unkind things about it, coupled with a very toxic forum experience, I never felt the need to try it. All the stories about how bad it was were enough for me. This became a slight problem when I couldn’t get one of my comrades to do the review for me. So, I decided to download it and have a look. The game is easy to jump into; the looks, interface, and controls are all pretty much the same as WOT. WT does have more game modes then WOT, and offers “realistic battles”, and “Tank Simulator battles”, but one thing I’m sure of so far, is none of it is as fun as WOT. The game has some nice features that WOT does not, in some cases, these features highlight the WT teams lack of attention to detail though.
The cool features that stand out are the ability to look at internal modules on the tanks in the ‘garage’, and being able to preview anything on the tech tree. Something WOT took years to do. The other is the window that pops up to show the damage done when round penetrated the tank, an interesting, if not a tad bit distracting. Some of the models are very pretty, and the game overall looks pretty good, though a lot like a few year old FPS game. Yes, this is with every option set to max. The game also looks a bit cartoony to as well. Popping off the co-ax and roof machine guns can be fun though. The multiple turret/gun support is nice. The customization options for your tank are pretty nice, and the WT system offers more variety and options to make your tank stand out. This is a good and bad thing; some tanks can get pretty garish.
The things I don’t like are glaring; the way the game plays is annoying. Driving the tanks around feels like work. It’s not a smooth fun thing to do in like in WOT. It’s a frustrating effort, often requiring more correction than is fun, and makes it hard to maintain any speed. The faster the tank is the worse it is. This was described as ‘cow on ice’ syndrome by more than one friend, and until you’ve played it, it’s hard to image just how bad the tanks in War Thunder drive. This was an instant turn off when your test driving a tank, and when in an actual game, and there is some lag, it is a game killing disaster. I want the tanks to be fun to drive, and since WOTs latest physics update, they made the tanks realistic enough to make driving just challenging enough, but kept the fun factor very high. The way the tanks in WOT drive feels right to me, granted I’ve never driven a tank, but I have spent a lot of time four wheeling jeeps, and the way WOT feels when one track has better traction feels right. I know someone who’s played WOT, WT and driven real tanks, and he came up with the ‘cow on ice’ term for WT and mainly plays the air portion of the game.
Another thing I don’t like is respawns, I like the short WOT battles. I like running a game, getting knocked out and then writing something, or fixing dinner, or watching TV with my wife, I don’t like to have to commit more time to the game. This was one of the things that really made me fall in love with WOT, 15 minutes at most, and my average is like 5 minutes, I’m aggressive.
So War thunder is doing better than I thought, and even though I don’t really enjoy it, I bought the Firefly bundle, so I’ll play it enough to get a really good feel for the game, but it’s not something I’ll jump into for a relaxing thing to do after work. I will continue to play it though, if for nothing else, to give it a fair review, but unlocking all the cool Shermans in the game is sounding somewhat fun.
Ok, so now onto the Sherman tanks and Vehicles based on the chassis, and like WOT, there are a lot of them, and a lot of model problems, just like WOT.
War Thunder Lee/Sherman Models.
Medium Tank M3 Lee:
This model is pretty good, nothing glaring stands out, the base model has the shorter M2 75mm gun with counter weight, so its modeled as if the stabilizer is there, and the counterweight is also on the 37mm gun mount indicating it had the stabilizer for that gun installed as well. I love how the site for the 75mm gun actually moves with the canon like it should; showing at least whoever modeled this tank understood how it worked. I love how you can use both guns and the 37mm turret is fully functional. It has both bow .30 calibers installed, indicating an early production Lee, and other than the suspension seeming to be a little squished down, the model looks great. The WOT Lee is an early HD model, and is not as good, but they are close. There are no real problems with the x-ray view with this model either. If I have a minor complaint, it’s the tracks not fitting the sprocket very well.
X-ray view of the M3 Lee showing internal modules and crew
Medium Tank M4A1 Sherman:
This model is not as good as the M3 Lee, the final and transmission housing looks off a little, and the welds on the lifting hooks on the front of the hull are overdone. Some of the tools don’t look right and the rear hull proportions seem off, but it’s not a bad model. It is much better than the WOT M4(M4A1), since theirs doesn’t even really make sense. They get away with that being an arcade game with all kinds of what if and inaccurate tanks, mostly German granted, but all nations have a few. The X-ray view has no glaring flaws as either, so this model is another win for WT.
Medium Tank M4 Sherman
This model is great on the outside, it shows an D-Day era M4, really the same tank as the M4A1, but with a welded upper hull instead of cast, with all the quick fix upgrades to help resolve some of the problems the tank had with ammo fires and known weak spots. It has the cheek armor on the turret, the armor added in front of the drivers hoods, and the armor over the sponson ammo racks. In real life these additions had some internal changes that went with them. The ready rounds around the base of the turret were removed, and are still present in the x-ray view. There should also be a small exhaust deflector mounted in the rear and the things just look a little off there. WOT has no corresponding Sherman really, so we can’t really compare, but this is a nice model for sure.
Medium Tank M4A2 Sherman
This model is pretty good but has more glaring problems as well. Fisher produced many small hatch M4A2 tanks that would look the M4 more than this later production M4A2. This model is of a late production M4A2 75 dry tank with a large hatch hull, but with the old improved dry ammo setup. The turret should also have at least the cheek armor cast in, and probably a high bustle, and the turret in the model doesn’t seem to have either. Then there is the X-Ray on this one, it shows the radiator in the completely wrong place, and still has the ready rounds around the base of the turret. In real life, most of these tanks went to the Soviet Union as lend lease.
You can see the misplaced radiator in this image.Another shot, showing the radiator in the wrong place. The radiator should be behind the motor.
Medium Tank M4A1 (76)W Sherman
This model is really well done, with just a few flaws. It should have rubber chevron tracks, and the fenders are wrong, like the wrong ones Dragon used on their M4A1 76W model. It also has a cover over the hull blower vent between the hatches, that shouldn’t be there. It also has all the steel bar stock welded to the mantlet for the canvas cover, which was not done until much later in the war. The .30 caliber co-ax machine gun is sticking to far out as well. Still, great model on the outside and no problems with the x-ray model either. In real life this tank saw widespread use starting with Operation Cobra.
No real major flaws, though the suspension seems to be compressed to much, or maybe scaled a little small, overall, this is a very pretty digital Sherman.
Medium Tank M4A2 (76) W Sherman
This model has some issues, first off the huge glaring ones, it’s a wet storage tank, all factory 76 tanks were, yet this model has the sponson ammo rack armor in place, when it was not installed on these tanks. It has the mantlet cover the M4A1 (76)w model has the mounting bars for, and some tanks sent to the Soviet Union apparently had them so this is a nice feature, though the color seems, off. They got the motor type right in the x-ray view, but the radiator location is hilariously wrong. Other than these glaring problems, it’s a nice looking tank.
This model has some glaring flaws. It is also a model that was not used by US forces pretty much at all. The flaws start with the welded on armor over the hull ammo racks, but since the tank is a wet tank, there were no racks in the hull sponsons anymore, so they stopped putting those plates on. That should have been an easy one to fix, since no T23 turreted tanks had these extra plates added.
Radiator placement is the other flaw on this one.
Medium Tank M4A3 76 W HVSS Sherman
This model is really nice on the outside, representing a great example of a Korean War era Easy 8. The model looks great except for the package shelf, it doesn’t look right. The real problem with this model is the engine compartment in X-ray view. They have the twin diesel 6046 in place, when it should be a Ford GAA V8. They did get the radiator in the right place, but it’s a tad small. This is a more accurate M4A2 (76)w then the modeled M4A2 (76)w. Since the WOT M4A3 (76)w HVSS tank has not gone HD, this one wins hands down. It even has the post war torsion bar assisted engine bay grill doors.
Such a pretty model, but they got the motor completely wrong!
No M4A3 ever came with the 6046 twin diesel as shown.
Medium Tank M4A3 (105)
This model is messed up pretty bad. The Hull is ok, but it has the post war engine deck hinges that should not be there. The place this model really goes wrong is the turret. They have a poorly modified low bustle turret, whoever modeled this didn’t know all M4/M4A3 105 tanks has special turrets with two ventilators, and they were all high bustle turrets final general 75mm turrets.
On the X-ray view they got the size and location of the 105 ammo storage all wrong, and the tank has an GM 6046 twin diesel instead of the proper Ford GAA, though, they did get the radiator in the right place for a change, though it’s still to small!
Better radiator placement, still the wrong motor though.
Take a close look at the back of the turret, it should be almost flat, since it should be a high bustle turret, but its not, they just added a second ventilator to the low bustle turret and slapped the 105 gun mount on it. Sloppy.
Assault Tank M4A3E2 Jumbo/M4A3E2 76
A decent model, though the suspension appears to be a little to compressed, it may just be me but all the Shermans WT seem to be a little compressed, maybe they don’t like the environment. The only glaring thing wrong with the model that stands out to me is the little machined spots in the gun mount on the turret are flared back, when they shouldn’t be, but this is minor. The only flaw is the tracks seem to be spaced to far out from the hull, almost like it has the E9 mod. It’s also missing the exhaust deflector, and the rear hull area is not a strong point on any of the Shermans in the game. X-ray view still has a GM 6046 in place of the correct GAA, and the radiator is the right size and in the right place! The 76 version is the same model with a different gun.
Other than the wrongly modeled machined holes in the turret, a pretty decent model.
Will the same wrong motor problem.Jumbo with M1A1 gun, same model same flaws, longer tube. Threaded barrel is also wrong, the guns used were all unthreaded.
3-inch Gun Motor Carriage M10
This model looks like a pretty decent model of a mid-production M10 TD. It has the proper 6046 exhaust at the rear hull. The X-ray model is where the issues show and this is an amusing problem, this model has the Ford GAA when it should have the 6046, and the radiators are to small.
A pretty nice M10 model, with an amusing flaw.
Look at that, a Ford GAA, so they have the right motor modeled, they just can’t get it into the right tanks!
90-mm Gun Motor Carriage M36
This model is not as good as the M10, the turret doesn’t look quite right. On X-ray this did finally get the right motor in, but the radiator is still to small.
Right motor, in the right tank, with the radiator in the right spot, but still to small.
17pdr M10 Achilles 65th Reg
This model looks pretty good, though I would have to really look over Achilles Photos to find any major flaws on the exterior. The X-ray model has one amusing flaw, it has the Ford GAA that should be in all the M4A3 tanks, and their GM6046 should be in this tank!
So this tank should have the GM6046, but has the GAA, is this stuff really that confusing?
Sherman IC Firefly (Premium)
There is nothing really wrong with this model, at least nothing major, the armored cover for the hull machine gun looks a little off, but not to bad. Everything else seems right at first glance, even the X-ray view everything is correct. This is a very nice looking IC Firefly, the rarest version of the C tanks. I liked it enough to buy it. It has the add on armor for the sponson ammo racks, the add-on on cheek armor, and all the extra boxes the British added to their Shermans, it is missing the extra hull mounted fire extinguishers.
A nice solid Ic Firefly, and everything’s in the right place, I liked this one enough to buy it.
Sherman VC Firefly
This model is a little off, they got the wheel spacing for the longer hull right, but it has a lot of crap on the hull I’ve never seen in pictures before. It does have the external fire extinguishers the Ic lacks. It also does not have the proper A57 Multibank motor, and the radiator is in the wrong spot, even though they put the bulge in the upper rear deck for it. Other than these flaws, the model is ok.
I really like the Sherman V/M4A4, so I was disappointed to see they didn’t bother to get the right motor in it. That and the weird things on this model are it’s only big flaws, well, plus it has the wrong sprockets.
. . .
I would say, after looking the models over, the modelers have never heard of the Sherman Minutia site. I would also say they don’t know the difference between the high bustle and low bustle 75mm turrets. They also don’t know the actual sizes of any of the components inside the tanks.
My overall take on War Thunder has changed a little, I still think they borrowed far more than most rabid fans will admit, from WOT. They game also has serious flaws if you like fun, but that’s just my initial impression, I’ll play several hundred games and see how I feel then.
Now considering some of the amusing comments I got from my glossary entry on Warthunder, keep in mind this is a game review, IE opinion based, so try and keep calm, the world isn’t ending because someone on the Internet thinks WT is subpar.
An M4A1 76w from the 2nd Armored Divisions, 66th Battalion, tank D13, transporting doughs. M4 small hatch 75 Sherman with the 3rd AD In Mons France, this tank was made by American Locomotive Company. Image courtesy of The Sherman Minutia site. 3rd Platoon, Company A, 812th Tank Battalion Easy 8 tanks, 1945. This was most likely taken post war on occupation duty. The tanks are so clean and in very good shape. 3rd AD M4A1 76w tanks crossing a pontoon bridge. Note the number of missing end connectors. This is a fairly late production M4A1 it has a muzzle brake. M3 Lee crew with some 75mm Ammo, note this M3 has an M2 gun. M32 Armored Recovery Vehicle on display somewhere. This is a late production M4A2 75 tank with large hatches but still with the dry ammo storage. American soldiers of Patton’s Third Army standing in front of their M36 TD while rolling up a Nazi flag they have taken as a trophy after the capture of Bitberg.This tank is an M4A2 with a Firefly turret installed for testing by the US Army. The tank survives to this day as part of the US Army’s collection. M4A3 76w HVSS Sherman that was on display at Fort Knox. It is now in storage on Fort Bragg. M10 3 inch GMC moving down an alley. M4 Sherman with extra wide grousers fitted.M4A1 76w named Gila Monster. This was the type of Sherman introduced for Operation CobraAnother Shot of Gila Monster, now it has fenders and an M1A1 gun with muzzle brake. Late production M4A1 76w.An M4A1 75 tank being unloaded from a train. Image courtesy of the Sherman Minutia site.Early M4 tanks on the production line.M4A1 76w HVSS tank, these tanks just missed the war in Europe. M4A3 105 probably a post war publicly shot. Note the dough on the infantry phone, and the muzzle cover on the 105. M10 TD in actionA captured M4 Sherman in Nazi servitude during the battle of the bulge.M4A3 75w captured by the Nazis. Another Captured Sherman, this one an M4A2. A knocked out 1st AD M4A3E2 Jumbo, February 1945.Nazi prisoners being watched by Sherman crews during the Bulge.The fascist crew of a M4A2 Sherman captured on the eastern front. This was a large hatch dry storage tank.
Gallery V, More Sherman Photos, more Comments, Maybe Fewer Resolutions.
US Army M4 crew, probably somewhere in the ETO or MTO. The crew are wearing a HBT coverall that was not all that popular. Later they would would wear the same things the infantry did. Being color you can see the black on OD green camo used, and a red air ID panel on the back of the tank. The top hat was not standard issue. M4 Crab, with the 739th TB.British Sherman V based Crab, 1944.M4 Crab Breinig 1944. A Sherman IC Firefly probably with the British 11th Armored Division, in the town of Putanges, 20 August 1944.A captured M4A1 75 tank, an early DV model, being tested by the Nazis. This tank was probably captured in North Africa.An M4A4 based Crab up survives to this day in Canada.An M4A2 75 large hatch tank, this is one of the rare dry ammo rack large hatch tanks. It must have been going pretty fast when it hit that mud, note the tanker bar on the left about to fall off.An M4A3 76w HVSS tank is climbing up a muddy road in this HUGE image. Note the commander has a 1919 mounted in front of him. The caption says 11th US Armored Division Einheiten Der Germany 1945. You can see a Jumbo and another A3 76 tank , this one VVSS in the background.M4 Sherman with a M1 Dozer blade drivers through a whole in the Siegfried lines Tank Trap belt. The tank is a M4 75. Close up of the T34 Calliope, being loaded by the crew, it shows lots of detail of the T34 installation. This is an M4 Sherman in Italy that hit a large Anti tank mine, or maybe a pair of them in the same hole. The tank is a DV tank, with an M34 gun mount. This picture was taken during the staging in the UK just before 6 June 1944. Note the left-hand tank has the characteristic arm for mounting a dozer blade (barely visible running along the suspension); the hydraulic jack and blade are missing. 741st Tank Battalion after action reports indicate that among the eight dozer tanks they had scheduled to land in Wave 2, one of them, commanded by LT Kotz, did not have a blade attached. The 741st’s tanks on Omaha Beach came in three flavors. B and C companies had DD tanks. Co. A had M4A1 tanks and the tank dozers (six of their own and two from the 610 Engineer Company) were M4A3s, if I am not mistaken. If these are 741st tanks, then the photo was taken at the Portland ‘hards’ in the UK, where they out-loaded. Also note the M8 armored ammunition trailer. Each of the eight LCTs carrying Co. A embarked two standard tanks and a dozer tank. They also carried an engineer gap assault team and towed an LCM behind. Off the Normandy coast, the engineers boarded their LCM and followed the LCT ashore, where the dozer tank was supposed to support and work under the direction of the gap assault team leader. Also, on the way in, the two standard tanks were to fire over the LCT’s bow ramp, providing suppressive fire as they neared the beach. The ammo trailers were there to ensure they had plenty to shoot. One pair of Co. A’s tanks reported firing 450 rounds of 75mm on D-Day. Love your site. Caption Info, thanks to Chuck Herrick.M4A3 or A2 76w Sherman somewhere in Europe 1945, that almost looks like Soviet numbering on the side of the turret. A pair of M4 small hatch 75mm tanks coming off an LST-77 at Anzio, Italy, May 1944; note the small barge capsized in the background.A line of French Sherman tanks in Paris after the city was liberated by French forces. The tanks are a mix of small and large hatch Shermans, one is a M4 or M4A3 105 and there is a 76 gun sticking out down the row. Vive La France!An UK M4 and an M4A1 pass through a fence in an urban area. It could be an M4A4 in front I suppose. M4A4 Crab. Another Sherman Crab. M4A3 based flamethrower tank, probably with the Marines on Iwo Jima. These tanks used a Navy Mark 1 Flame-Thrower. M4A1 76w with extra plate armor added to the front hull, it’s from the 3rd Armored Division on the outskirts of Korbach 30 March 1945, also note the Commanders and loaders hatches have been swapped. There is also a pair of boxing gloves hanging on the front armor! An M4A1 76w and an M4A3E2 Jumbo of the 3rd Armored Division, probably during the Battle of Hürtgen Forest. 14th Armored Division M4A1 76W with sandbags, the tank has a threaded and capped M1A1 gun and the split loaders hatch. M4A1 North Africa, 1943, the tank appears to be rather dirty. M4 based Scorpion mine clearing tank.M4 Sherman coming out of a gully, this is a command tank, note the extra antenna on the front right of the hull. Soviet M4A2 75’s crew play an accordion and pal around. This tank is another rare large hatch hull with dry ammo racks, you can make out the armor over the ammo racks on t he side of the hull. Most, it not all of these tanks went to Russia. Also note the drivers side head light and guard are nearly ripped off. A pair of M4A2 76w Shermans serving with the Soviets, these tanks are just like the one above. Crewmen of a M4A3 76w Sherman loads ammo into the floor ammo racks. The manual says the rounds should be stored nose up.
Gallery III: Even More Random High Resolution Sherman and Lee Photos with Comments.
British or French M4A2 tanks in the desert. Probably training in North Africa. Convoy of tanks, trucks and jeeps from the100th ID, and 781st TB, the photo isn’t detailed enough to get a specific make on the Shermans. This M4A1 76w is from A Company, 20th Tank Battalion , 20 Armored Division. They are on the outskirts of Cailly, France on February 24th, they had arrived in country a few days before and had not seen combat yet. The crew is unpacking and taking inventory of all the gear issued with the tank, they probably received the tank with the back deck covered in the boxes. Agroup of Doughs gathered around the rear of an M4A3 76w, probably somewhere in Germany in 1945. Note how much stuff they have strapped to the back deck. 1st Marine Tank Battalion, Okinawa 1945. notice all the extra stuff on the tank. The Marston matting on the hatch is to keep the Japanese infantry from putting a satchel charge or worse right on top of the periscope, a fairly weak spot. They also had magnetic mines they could put on the side of the tank on I bet the matting on the side helped prevent that. Wood and concrete was also used. It must be the angle, but the pistol port almost looks like it’s missing. An M10 serving in the 2nd French Armored Division Hallville France November of 1944.AFrench M4A3 76w or M4A2 76w of second company of the 501st Tank Regiment. The French used almost all versions of the Sherman, so without seeing the engine deck, I can’t tell for sure what model it is. M4 Sherman tank named Bell of Little rock, and a Lt R Hoffman looking it over, January of 1944, oddly I can’t find out what unit this tank was with. This seems to be concrete going over sandbags. The tank is either an M4A1 76w or an M4A3 76W. If you have any other info on this image let me know.M4A4s on the Burma road. How cool is it to see M4A4 tanks on the Burma road? These M4A4s were probably fairly late production A4s, that had been used in the US for training then overhauled and shipped to the UK. Some M4A4 tanks ended up back in US hands in the CBI when a composite US/Chinese tank unit needed some mediums. Not the lead tank has some kind of windscreen up for the driver and how heavily loaded the tanks are. Behind a destroyed British Sherman M4 near Caen in Normandy, a fascist soldier, of the criminal, Waffen SS watches the enemy line. Date: 1944 The Tank if either an Ic or Vc Firefly, probably the latter since it was the most common Firefly type.Our Soviet allies(at the time) using a Lend Lease M4A2 76w. I have no idea what unit these Russian Soldiers are from, but if someone does, let me know. I bet they killed a lot of Nazis to get to there, there being somewhere in Germany 1945Soviet Lend Lease M3 Lee knocked out. The Germans on it seem to be using it like a jungle gym, though something less wholesome could be going on since some of the fascist, criminal, invaders are in various states of dress.During a pre war training exercise this M3 Lee collapsed this bridge. The crew is helping the local kids get across so they can get to school. I love this image!This British M3 Grant Crew is setting up to spend the night in the desert, in egypt, in 1942. I do not understand why two of them are naked. Note the .30 1919 on the roof, and the canvas mantlet cover on the 75mm. This is the Production pilot of the M3 Lee, photo may have been taken during the demonstration for the factory workers, where the Lee took out an empty Guard shack by accident, by running it over. Clearly tanks and bridges are not fond of each other. This M4A3 76w HVSS tank seems to have been a tad much for this one. It was also a German bridge, so it was probably complicated, just adequate for the Job, and prone to failure. =DAnother shot of the prototype Lee at Aberdeen Proving ground.Another Lend Lease M4A2 76w being used by the Soviets. These tanks were well liked by the Russian crews, they felt they were very lavishly equipped. They were not fond of the .45 ACP round or the submachine guns that used them, and that these tanks came with. Even more Russian M4A2 76w tanks, the Russian crews called them ‘Emchas’ and they were unhappy to have to give them up when the war ended. In some case they didn’t, and converted them to tractors. Even more even more Russian M4A2 76w tanks, of the various engine types the Sherman could come with, the only ones the Russian would accept were the diesel based M4A2 tanks. French M4A2 coming off an LST, this one is with the 12e RCC, 2e Division Blindee. This was a very famous French Armored Division commanded by the General Philippe LeClerc. This photo was taken on 2 August 1944, on Utah beach. Vive la France!Fascist troops using a knocked out M4 as a resting spot. These may have been taken in Italy. This huge image is of Sherman M4A2 tanks with the French 12e Regiment De Chasseurs D’Afrique, part of the 2e Division Blindee, commanded by General Philippe LeClerc, taken August of 44 in Normandy. Vive la France!
Gallery II: More Random High Resolution Photos Of The Sherman With Comments. I Plan On Going Through Books To Confirm The Captions On Some Of These. I Know I’ve Seen Most Of Them In Zaloga’s Armored Attack Books.
In this very nice Signal Corps photo an M4A3 75w, late 44 early 45 somewhere in Europe. This tank also has the M1 dozer blade kit installed. The Sherman, burned out in the background, is also an M4A3 75w. There is an M32 in the background and several Half tracks. The tank appears to be from the 8th Armored Division, 36th Tank Battalion, and it’s tank C17, probably one of the HQ platoon tanks. This is based off the markings on the gun mantlet. Note all the junk on the front of the tank, a como wire reel, a oil lantern, and some other things I can’t make out. M4A3 75w, burned out late war Europe, the tank looks like it was loaded up, note the large metal basket on the rear of the tank. The basket looks like it was filled with some ration boxes, and a jerry can. M4A3 76w Sherman with a threaded and capped M1A1 gun, and split loaders hatch. Oddly this tank has T51 tracks, when the T48 rubber chevron track would be more common or The T54E1 steel chevron track. This Sherman also has concrete armored added to the front hull. Looks to be from the 2nd Armored Division 1945.This one is another M4A3 75w, the caption says hurtgen 1944, but is wrong. The tank is with the 746th Tank battalion, they are attaching ‘corduroy logs’ logs wired together, to the front of the tank. This was on the Roer front, December of 44. it was very muddy. The infantry in the picture are from the 39th infantry, 9th Division. The 746th would be supporting them on offensive operations, this was the first day. Oddly, this tank lacks duck bill end connectors, and they would help with the mud. The logs on the front hull would be used to get the tank unstuck from the mud. This huge image of a M4 and M10, photo caption says Aachen 1944. The M4 is with the 745th Tank Battalion. This photo was taken on October 20th. The Germans surrendered the next day when an M12 155mm Gun Motor Carriage was brought in to shell the Germans command bunker at point blank range. The M12 used the M4 chassis. The tracks on the M4 look almost worn out, and everything on the back is wrapped in tarps, other than the ration boxes. The tank is also wet from recent rain. Yanks and Limeys in one place!! M4A3 75w, and some kind of Churchill. This was a rare occurrence, the two nations working so close. This was units of the US 9th Army and British 21st Army Group, in January of 45, near Brachelan. note the use of white tarps as snow camouflage. This huge image is of a small hatch M4 75, with a lot of infantry around it. On closer inspection, the tank is an for sure an M4, and it’s named Jinx, and the troops on the ground around the tank and are colored. The tank is also carrying spare ammo and some of the Doughs gear. With the help of Russ Amott, we now know this tank is with the 754th Tank Battalion and troops are with the 24th Infantry, and the location is Bougainville Island, one of the northern most islands in the Solomon Islands, in the Pacific, so my MTO guess was way off! Thanks again Russ for the photo caption help!The crew of this 14th Armored Division M4A3 76w, with a M1A1 that is threaded and capped. The tank has sandbag armor. I think this was a big thing in the 14th. Do these guys look bored or what? All the daily chores the tank required must be done already.M4A3 76w with a split loaders hatch and a M1A1 with threaded and guarded tube. Caption says Rittershoffen, but you never know, also could it be a 14AD tank? Look at all the communication wire they are holding up for the tank to drive under. Look at all of it coming out of the house and running across the front of it. So I found this photo in Armored Attack 45, and it was a 14AD tank, but in Niederbetsdorf. Note the sandbags are larger, and sloppier than the previous or following tanks. A very nice photo of a M4A3 76w with HVSS, or Easy 8 Sherman, with the 14AD, if had to guess, the 25th battalion, B Company, the Company commander’s tank B17, and the crew is messing around with a BC-603 Radio Receiver 14 March of 45, the tank is sandbagged and camoed, the typical black and olive drab, and note the M1 Carbine leaning on the turret. This tank would have 5 M3A1 submachine guns normally. Aknocked out and burned M4A3 76w from the 48th Tank Battalion, 14th Armored Division. This picture is a little disturbing, and I toyed with not putting it in, but in the end, it stays, because war is ugly, and the Sherman was a machine of war.SNIPER!!!! Does anyone see the sniper!! At least that what it looks like to me. I bet the gunner or commander is in the gunners seat looking at all the windows in that house with an HE round ready to go. Most if not all the men outside the tank are the tanks crews. The Sherman on the left is an M4A3 76w HVSS tank. These tanks belong to the 745th Tank Battalion, they were supporting the 1st Infantry Divisions assault on St Andreasberg on 14 April 1945. Note the M4A3 76w VVSS tank has one mismatched road wheel. The extended end connectors on this tank are also in bad shape.M4A1 75 with add on steel armor passing a knocked out PIV. The M4A1 is a late production small hatch tank. This Sherman is an M4A1 made by Pressed Steel Car, the tank was named ‘Honky Tonk’ and was with 3rd battalion, 1st armored regiment, 1st Armored Division, this tank was lost in the infamous Kasserine Pass battle. Thanks for the info on the photo Russ Amott. For a few more shots, and more info on this tank, see the wonderful Sherman Minutia site.M4A3 75w, with a T-34 Calliope actually firing. That’s not all that’s interesting though. This tank has two spare old style road wheels on the front hull, plus the track linking tools, and some large boxes. It also has a full set of duckbill end connectors. The whole Calliope Launcher could be jettisoned in a few minutes. This M4A3 76w tank is supporting infantry from the 75th Infantry Division, so it would be whatever independent tank battalion supporting them. The tank is a fairly early production M4A3 76w, since it has the split loaders hatch and the threaded and thread guarded M1A1 gun. Photo caption says Riedwihr 1945, the tank is from the 709th Tank Battalion. Note the lack of duckbill end connectors on the Sherman, and the tarp covered M2 .50 on the rear of the turret. This massive photo is an M4A1 75 small hatch tank with an M1 dozer kit. It’s being used to clean up debris in Lonlay-L’abbaye on August 15th during the chase of the German Army towards Paris. The M4 and M4A1 were the least desirable tanks to have the dozer blade installed on. Jungle tanking! This PSCC M4 Sherman is a fairly late production M4. This photo was taken on Bougainville 1944, and this would be the last of the major Solomon Islands taken. The tank was serving with the 754th Tank Battalion. These guys were true jungle tankers, and the environment in the Solomons was harsh and nearly as big an enemy as the Japanese. They would go to great lengths to get Shermans to Japanese strong points, because the firepower the Sherman offered was very hard for the Japanese to counter. A US ‘Dough’ checking out a firefly Ic , probably lost during Market Garden, it was indeed supporting US paratroops, near Eerde, near Veghel, in the 101st AB AOO. (thanks to Crash_over-ride and ww2Colorizations over on reddit for the correction).M4A3 76w with a split loaders hatch and a thread a thread guarded M1A1 gun driving through a bunch of wrecked Nazi equipment. Notice how the gunner, and loader are both standing in the loaders hatch. Note the modification to the commanders vane sight. This looks like a 14th AD sandbag job. M4A1 75 small hatch tank. with the 753rd Tank Battalion. Knocked out near Crane France, after seeing action in the MTO. This was a pretty early tank judging from the M34 gun mount. Note the .30 1919 on the commanders hatch. A pair of knocked out M4 tanks from the 756 Tank Battalion, probably knocked out in a combo Mine field/AT gun trap, lost in the fighting on 12 september near Vesovi. B17 may have been the CO of B company’s tank. Small hatch M4 75 tank passing through a town in Europe somewhere. You can make out XX-735-c-11 on the drivers armor, maybe indicating C company 735 Tank Battalion. Note all the extended end connectors piled on the front hull. This huge photo shows an large hatch M4A3 75w this photo was taken on Okinawa. The crew seems to be hamming it up for the photographer, so not in combat. This tank has two large plates welded onto the front plate, these are probably for the T6 Floatation Device, also known as the M19, basically large solid, semi modular floats attached by cable to the front and rear of the Sherman, with side sections to give it so rigidity. The whole thing dropped off when the cables holding it place were cut. I could only find one image of it. A big thank you to Michel E for the info for this photo.M4 with T6 Flotation DeviceAn M4A3 76w from the 778th Tank Battalion caption Lampaden 1945. The has an M1A1 gun with a threaded and protected barrel. With all the hatches open, it looks like most of the crew may have made it out.M4 small hatch 75mm Sherman with the 6th Armored Division. The photo is captioned Belgium 1945, and it was right, Margaret, Belgium, January 1945. This tank was knocked out with a panzerfaust.Asmall hatch M4 and an M4A1 both 75mm tanks. Image had no caption, looks like somewhere in the ETO. These are British tanks. This is a M4 composite hull or M4A1 75W only 100 were produced before they were replaced with the M4A1 76w on the production line. It has a “Richardson Device” hedgerow cutter, and is passing a knocked out, most over rated weapon of the war, the 88mm Flak 36. The tank is with the 3rd Armored Division and the photo was taken in August of 44 during Cobra.Inflatable Sherman, still more reliable than the non inflatable Panther. They were meant to be detailed enough to fool recon airplanes. M4 75, in Italy, 1944. Tank is with the 755th Tank Battalion, and it looks like it’s being used as Artillery. The tank is an early production M4, not the gun mantlet. It also looks very muddy there, and explain the tanks use as artillery. This is something some tank Battalions became very adept at.Huge image, not sure the make of Sherman, not sure why one of the crew is out with his pistol. Looks like American kit on the crewman. The tank was named Hun Chaser, that sounds British. Update, commenter John Berwick pointed the odd armor near the fuel caps indicates this is an M4A4, and also mentioned the wheel spacing, and it does look like an A4, so good catch John! British Shermans in the desert. This is a Sherman I with the 3rd CLY, at the end of the north African Campaign. These tanks have a standard camouflage scheme in use by June of 43, of Blue-Black over Light mud.Another huge image, no caption, but Im pretty sure this one is in the PTO, maybe the Philippines. The Sherman looks like an M4 Composite hull. This huge photo is an action shot, note explosion. This appears to be a mix British M4A2 an M10 and M4A1s or Sherman IIIs, IIs and IIa. The caption only said 5th army.Concrete armor being installed on an M4 105 tank.Nazis surrendering and running to the rear. Tank is an M4A4 so it must be a Brit Sherman.14th Armored Division M4A3 with a T34 Calliope installed. This also has the 14th typical sandbag armor, it also appears to a girl painted on the turret. The name looks like ‘Annabelle’ under it.750th Tank Battalion M4A3` 105 near Manhay, some battalions pooled all the 105 tanks into a battery, since there are three in the field, that may be whats going on here. An M4 with Brigadier Tom Rutherford 1st Armoured Brigade standing in front of it.Anice color shot of an M4A4 with some hay on it.The same hay covered M4A4 now moving around.The same hay covered M4A4 now moving around again. (i43)The same hay covered M4A4 now more hamming for the photographer.The same hay covered M4A4 on the move again.
Apair of knocked out British M4A2 tanks.M4A1 76w with bow mounted flamethrower in use. Note the interesting writing in chalk on the side of the tank. The Flamethrower was an E4-5 and the tank is from the 70th Tank Battalion, testing it out. With a limited range of 25 yards and a low fuel load, it was deemed not worth the effortM4A1 with a bow mounted flame thrower, huge image. Massive image of a British M4A4 and troops. A British M4A2 Sherman coming out of an LST on the dock they can make. There is water under the Sherman. That causeway could be several hundred yards long.736th Tank Battalion M4 105 loading up on ammo in Neuss 1945, these are the HQ 105 tanks loading up to support the 83rd Division on March 3th.A snow and ice covered Sherman. It appears to be an M4A3 75w. The crew is hooking a tow cable up, so the tank was probably disabled and abandoned by the crew. An M4A1 entering Fort Santiago in Manila, during the campaign to retake the Philippines from the Japanese. Thanks to Michel E for the info on this image!These look like M4A1s maybe the ones the Marines used on Cape Gloucester.Canadian Major General Bertram Meryl (bert) Hoffmeister in front of his M4A4 command tank “Vancouver” (Thanks R.Wagner!).84th Infantry Division in Geilenkirchen 1944, being supported by an British M4A4, the town was on the border between the US an British areas.M4 Shermans fighting on Guam 44.A Soviet M4A2 76w in Europe.An M4A1 and an Inflatable Sherman at Anzio in 1944.
M4A3 75w tanks of the 9th Armored Division, Westhausen, Germany, 10 April 1945M4 composite hull flame thrower. Somewhere in the PTO. Russ Amott was nice enough to point out these tanks were with the 763rd TB and the location was Okinawa, so I was at least right on the location this time!Another composite hull flame thrower with the 763rd Tank Battalion, on Okinawa. Thanks again Russ.
Marine supporting an M4A2 maybe on Saipan
An M4 Sherman with wading kit.Marine M4A3 flamethrower tank, Iwo Jima Ron H a commenter posted this info “The pic was taken on Iwo Jima. It appears in Bill D. Ross’ book “Iwo Jima” (ISBN 0-394-74288-5) with the caption, “Flame-thrower Sherman tank burns pillbox near base of Suribachi as infantry waits to attack.” The photo is credited to Mark Kaufman. Ross, the book’s author, was a Marine combat photographer on Iwo. The infantry in question were the 28th Marine Regiment, 5th Marine Division. The 28th Marines’ 2nd Battalion (2/28) was assigned to take Suribachi itself, while the regiment’s other two battalions (1/28 and 3/28) fought northward toward Airfield No. 1. It’s not clear from the photo which battalion the tank is supporting.”
Thanks again Ron!
M4A1 75 passing knocked out or broken down, or just abandoned, or out of gas PIVs. This tank is with an unknown unit supporting the 30th ID outside of St. Lo ion July of 44Massive photo of a road, that has an M4A1 76w on it.This Sherman in a Marine, M4A2, part of the tank company attacked to the 4th Marines, 1st provisional Marine Brigade on Guam. You can just make out the Rhino painted on the side of the tank. (Caption info from Russ Amott, Thanks again Russ!)The Sherman is a large hatch 75mm Sherman, it could be an M4A2 or A3, and I’m betting it’s the PTO and the Philippines
Color shot from waralbum.ru Probably an M4.French Sherman M4 105, with crew posing for Camera.A French M4 crew hamming it up for the Camera.
