[Bilge_Rat]

Originally Posted by Feuer Frei!

It was an improvement over the 75mm, granted.
But to assume and allege that the new m93 was the be all end all to successfully engaging and defeating Tiger and Panther Tanks, assuming that unless you faced the rear of the Tiger dead on and at close-ish range then this is just not so.

Also, limited production meant that the m93 was mainly fitted out on tank destroyers.
Not all or even the majority of Shermans had them.


Despite the upgrades, however, the armament of Sherman tanks were still far inferior to the Panther tanks' 75-millimeter gun, only effective against Panther tanks at close range, for example. I won't even mention the Tiger. Successfull at 500 mtrs, 122mm 76mm penetration glacis against Tiger tanks.
Which was adequate, but not optimal, fighting a Tiger at 500 mtrs. And not possible most times.
If you can get that close. Before being obliterated by the Tiger's 88m. 500mtrs is close range, by tank standards. Very close. Certainly compared to the Tiger's history of distance-related stats in combat. Optimal and proven at distances greater than 1300 mtrs and reports of kills at greater than 4klmtrs !

The Firefly's introduction (17 pdr) is where we would have started seeing some balanced and realistic combat against both the Tiger and the Panther.

It wasn't that i wasn't pleased about a Sherman engaging a Tiger (or 3).


If that was the case, i wouldn't have posted this thread.

I'll give you a hint as to 1 reason why i'm displeased.

Why is it that in the majority of Theaters of WW2 (certainly in the middle and latter stages of ww2) the Germans found themselves increasingly outnumbered by large ratios, yet in ww2 Bollywood movies they are represented as being in vast numbers, outnumbering the Allied force(s)?
In most cases?

Allied commanders thought it was acceptable to lose 4-5 of their own tanks in order to take out a Panther or Tiger by swarming them with superior numbers.

More garbage.

A study of US tank battles in Germany found that victory was generally ensured if allied tanks outnumbered their opponents 2.1:1.

These last points go towards the movie and how the battle was represented (amongst other things).


EDIT:




Tiger vs Sherman:

That is not entirely accurate, by the time period in the film, i.e. april 1945, the standard Sherman coming off the production lines was the 76mm "Easy Eight". With HVAP shells, which were in adequate supply by that time, they could kill Tigers and Panthers at all angles at normal combat ranges, i.e 500 meters or less and farther out on the sides and rear.

I submit that there is an argument that yes, in practice it was the correct decision as well. The bottom line question is “What could the 17pr Sherman Firefly do that the 76mm M4 could not do at least as well, if not better?” The answer is basically nothing. Both tanks were more than capable of reliably dealing with Panzers, StuGs and Tigers from all angles and at reasonable ranges. Neither tank had much of a hope against King Tigers from the front, both had no difficulty from the side. As the tests at Isigny showed, neither could reliably penetrate the front of a Panther, except at close range. There was perhaps a narrow band from at closer range where 17pr had a more reasonable expectation of killing Panther, while the 76mm was being a bit optimistic (The short range band at maybe 400-500m where SVDS might still actually go in the direction you were aiming while 76mm was of questionable penetration), if you came around the corner and had to get a round off quickly enough that you didn't have time to aim for the turret. In pretty much every other factor of tanking, the 76mm M4 was the superior tank. It could engage targets more quickly, it could put more explosives on targets in a shorter amount of time, it was more accurate, it had safer ammunition

http://worldoftanks.com/en/news/21/T...atch_Firefly3/


500 meters was more or less a normal combat range on the western and italian front, where the terrain was more contricted, i.e. more hills, forests, urban. Very long range firefights, which was the Tigers strong point, was more a feature of the OstFront where you had a lot of treeless Steppe terrain, especially in the Ukraine.

p.s. - this may also be of interest, the "Chieftain's Hatch" view of "Fury". The guy who writes that column is a former U.S. tanker and they are all highly informative if you are interested in tanks.

The reality, however, was much different. The arrival of the 76mm gun greatly equalized the battle, giving Sherman a more than fighting chance. By the end of the war, the time of Fury’s setting, Sherman had one additional ace up its sleeve: The HVAP (High Velocity Armor Piercing) round. Primarily in response to the Panther problem, the US powers-that-were authorized the development of a “hot” tank-killing round. The projectile which would give Sherman (and most of the tank destroyers) a fair chance against Panther at moderate range could, and did, kill Tigers at over two kilometers. Both tanks could now kill each other at long range, except one tank was faster, more mobile, lighter, had a higher rate of fire, was more accurate, more likely to spot the enemy first due to proliferation of optics, had faster traverse, and had a stabilized gun. Oh, and it also had the advantages of better artillery and air support. It was no longer much of a contest and the roles had been reversed. Tiger crews now had justification to fear Shermans far more than a Sherman crew had to fear Tiger. Even the continued use of 75mm tanks was of little comfort to the Germans: By Autumn 1944, wherever there were 75mm M4s, there were probably also 76mm M4s

http://worldoftanks.com/en/news/pc-b...Sherman_Tiger/