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Sherman tank
The M4 General Sherman tank was the main tank designed and built by the US for use in World War II. It was named after Union General William Tecumseh Sherman. The name is often shortened to M4 Sherman or simply Sherman.
Its high profile and rounded top made it an easy target, but it was rather fast and maneuverable, reliable, and easy to produce and service.
The M4 was based on the M3 Lee. Over 49,000 were produced during the war, for use by the armies of Britain, the United States, France and Poland.
Early models were fitted with a 75 mm low-velocity gun which had limited anti-armour performance but fired a useful explosive charge.
Later American Shermans were fitted with a 76 mm gun with improved anti-tank performance.
Some British Shermans were retro-fitted with the powerful British 17 pounder (8 kg) anti-tank gun to produce the Sherman Firefly variant. A 1944-pattern British armoured company had one Firefly per platoon of 4 Shermans.
After World War II, Israeli Shermans were fitted with the French 105 mm gun, as used in the AMX-30.
The Sherman was a reliable tank which was produced in large numbers and was effective in World War II. Early models are often criticised for the 75 mm gun chosen by the artillery branch of the US Army. While it was an effective weapon in 1942 when the Sherman was introduced, by the Normandy landings of 1944 the Sherman lacked effectiveness against contemporary German tanks, especially the Panther and Tiger. The 75 mm gun was, however, a solid weapon against infantry and anti-tank artillery. Later models had a somewhat more powerful gun, but the Sherman was still outgunned by Axis armor.
Overall, the Sherman's lack of armor protection made it nothing more than an adequate tank for the US Army in World War II.
According to Belton Y. Cooper in his memoir of his 3rd Armored Division service, Death Traps, the final combat losses of the division were nothing less than breathtaking. The division was nominally assigned by table of organization 232 medium tanks (a total which included ten M26 Pershing tanks that made it into combat). It lost 648 tanks totally destroyed in combat, and 1,100 needing repair. Of those 1,100 tanks, nearly 700 had been knocked out in combat. According to Cooper, the 3rd Armored therefore lost close to 1,350 medium tanks in combat, for a total loss rate of 580 percent.
Although the M4 has been derided as inferior to German armor, the limitations of the Sherman must be looked at in context. Stephen Ambrose stated in Citizen Soldiers that, in accordance to Army doctrine at the time, the tank was designed to help infantry exploit a breakout rather than to engage in armor vs. armor combat. The United States Army was influenced by the German Panzer IV, used successfully in the Blitzkrieg tactics in the 1939 Polish Campaign to support fast moving infantry. The Sherman's high speed and reliability made it adequate in this role.
The comparatively compact size of the Sherman also made it suited for transportation across the Atlantic and for amphibious operations. According to Ambrose, General George C. Marshall favored the M4 because experiments showed two Shermans could be loaded onto an LST while only one larger tank could be accommodated.
Shermans with the 17 pdr (8 kg) gun were known as Fireflies.
M4A2
M4A4 VC Firefly
| American armored fighting vehicles of World War II |
| Tanks |
| M3 / M5 Stuart | M3 Lee | M4 Sherman | M22 Locust | M24 Chaffee | M26 Pershing |
| Self-propelled artillery |
| M7 Priest | M8 Scott | Tank destroyers |
| M10 Wolverine | M18 Hellcat | M36 Jackson |
| Experimental vehicles |
| M6 tank | American armored fighting vehicle production during World War II |
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