Up-armouring a Sherman tank using telephone directories???

Hopefully I am not the only U.K. member to have watched last night's episode of "Combat Dealers" on the Quest channel. Basically Bruce, the dealer, purchased a Canadian built Sherman tank already restored and in good overall condition. He then invited a WW2 British Veteran tank driver over to his workshop to have a look at it and advise on how the appearance of the vehicle could be enhanced and be made more original looking. He advised on replacing some of the sand bags strapped to the front of the Sherman and replacing them with a couple of short lengths of track to provide additional protection to the front of the hull.

Fair enough so far but here comes the weird bit. :confused: He then went on to say that they used phone books/directories to provide added protection in the event of hitting a mine. He didn't go into details of how they were used. I can only assume that he meant that they laid them out on the floor of the tank, on the inside, side by side. I realise that this sounds like a very strange idea and I'm struggling to get my head around the notion of a Sherman Tank with the floor "tiled" with telephone directories. However the Veteran recounted this as a statement of fact, perfectly seriously and the 2 workshop engineers appeared to take what he said perfectly seriously.

Has anyone else heard anything similar, along these lines, please?

Several years ago I saw an episode of "Mythbusters" where they used phone books. It took a lot of paper to make a small difference, but....

Sometimes if you believe enough the protection, you will be free to do amazing things. Knowing what we do today about the US WW2 tanks, I am amazed anyone wanted to go armor (join the rolling target assembly corps). We had guys putting sandbags and old flak jackets on the floors of their HMMWVs in DS2. Didn't help much (stay on the road), when it did hit them the medic said it put a lot more dirt into survivors' wounds. Would not say how many really survived with or without.

How many phone books? How many people had a phone in Europe in the 1940s
I don't think the phone books would be as thick as they are today....... why collect all the towns phone books when they were already cutting add on armour from other brewed up tanks.
I would have thought filled sandbags on the floor would be better and readily available.... and a known technique for other vehicles (we were shown sandbagging soft skin vehicles for operations in the former Yugoslavia in the 1990s

I saw the episode on the "unknown" Panther tank made in 1944 and used in Normandy ...... the full history of this, French made, from recovered parts post war .. Panther is well known.

A large pinch of salt is required for this "made for TV" program

I've heard of "primitive forms of armour" used during WW2 as being made up of sheet steel backed by thick oak planks (3" thick, I think), only really intended to stop a rifle bullet, but never telephone directories.

Spose' if you broke down you had the local directory to ring up for assistance, I could not imagine it being sanctioned to fill the spaces with loose items that may impede the traversing of the turret or make it difficult to get to ammunition with all the gyrations the Sherman would be doing to dodge the 88mm or H V 75mm rounds that are trying to brew it up.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Flying10uk

sheet steel backed by thick oak planks (3" thick, I think)

---

Those are to detonate a HEAT round outside. It leaves the regular armor less damaged and the molten jet can't penetrate effectively.

Ammo bins are in the floor too...

I was thinking of the Beaverette armoured car that had the oak on the inside and was used by the Home Guard and RAF Regiment for airfield protection.

They did say that only around 180 Shermans were built in Canada and so the running example shown on the programme must be a rare vehicle.

With the floor "tiled" with telephone directories it'd keep the fires burning. The things were called 'Ronsons' for a reason. I've heard of sand bags used on the floor. Never fire starters though.
"...only around 180 Shermans..." 188 Grizzly's(a copy of the M4A1) were made in the Montreal Locomotive Works. None sent out of the country. 2,122 Ram tanks(M4A5) made there between November 1941 – July 1943.
"...you had the local directory to..." Use as TP as well. snicker. Issue is where the guy got all the phone books in war time.

There wasn't any suggestion in the programme that the Canadian built Sherman that the dealer had was the same vehicle that the Veteran had driven during the war, only something similar, i.e. a Sherman tank.

Landmine usually detonates under the tracks/roadwheels to immobilise the tank for leisurely destruction. Where would the wads of paper be to mitigate the effects of the detonation?

I would have to side with Skiprat on this one. Sandbags were the choice of all soldiers whether in a tank on not.
The key thing on defeating the opposition from dropping a HESH round into the cab was to get as much angled deflection on the tank as possible, and by placing the track spares on the front would indeed help......a little.
Mines are, by their very nature designed to stop and disable a tank for a given period whilst the crew change the track, or hit a more substantial mine that it kills those inside. Thats why sandbags in my book would have been used.
The turret front armour was just 76.2 mm (3 inches) thick, angled at 30 degrees from the vertical, giving an effective thickness of 87.9 mm (3.46 inches). The opening in the front of the Shermans turret for the main gun was covered by a rounded 50.8 mm (2.00 inches) thick rotor shield.
Sandbags would be needed in my view to reduce the shock wave and blast from mines, envariably setoff by the tracks, and therefore from an oblique angle. Sand and bags in plentiful supply too>

Having served in Shermans with many WWI and Korean veterans, I never once heard anyone mention phone books .. :lol:

The preference was to use sandbags, spare track pads and steel sheets/bars from destroyed buildings etc. :thup:

Regards,
Doug

Doug,
Just came home from Duxford where I asked the very same question amongst the tanky crews. When the laughing had stopped:lol::lol::lol::madsmile: I was then told the facts...............sandbags were the only thing available, and imagine yourself I was told...... with often wet boots tramping across Telephone directories, they would interfere with the smooth running of the internals of the tank by its crew, and break into pulp.
Not only that.........the telephone directories of WW2 were very thin and made from crap paper, so in short a fable, but kept us all laughing!!

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Gil Boyd

so in short a fable, but kept us all laughing!!

---

I couldn't quite believe my own ears when I heard it but they repeated it several times and, not having served in tanks myself, I didn't like to criticise.

I was only referring to the outside of the Sherman, not laying anything on the floor as it would block access to the ammo storage under the floor, create a movement hazard underfoot and depending upon what was used, possibly get caught in turret rotation. ;)

Sometimes I just sit and wonder .. :lol:

Regards,
Doug

The Veteran didn't go into details of how he had used telephone directories to "up-armour" a Sherman during WW2. I just assumed that he meant that they were laid out "tile fashion" across the floor. I guess another possibility could be that he actually meant that the crew sat on huge piles of telephone directories, within the tank, in the vain hope of providing some additional protection to the buttock area, in the event of running over a mine?

How long did Canada continue to use the Sherman tank after WW2, does anyone know, please?

Thats pretty cool in a dry environment but given a European winter I am afraid after 2-3 hours in soaking rain would probably make them a suspect improvement but initially they would be denser due to the soaked water.
I understand the HESH being stopped by logs, spare tracks S/B's and so on but what of the tungsten cored round as would the timber/SB's have enough stopping power for the tip of the projectile to start flattening out to start the process of the KEP starting to push through the armor. TIA

Reminds me of the classic gecko45 threads on the internet when a "mall security guard "up armoured his vest with phonebooks to take .308.

Spare track links around the turret are the way to go externally - as on the Centurions in SVn. Manganese steel, tough as old boots, made to take a lot of punishment and there's always plenty of spare/new/used ones in the tank parks as each track set (was it 105 if my memory sevres me correctly but feel free to correct me...) came with two extra links. Internally the trusty old and flexible sandbag was the answer