12-250 Garand Picture of the Day

[browningautorifle]

that skirt

Looks like it. I'll bet they were pretty skippy to cut that mess away when they had a second ashore...they say all spares have been removed...there's a .30 cal in the bow of that same one.

[CINDERS]

Yes one thing the Sherman did well was light up when hit hence the Nik "Ronson" like they said send 4 Shermans to knock out a Tiger 3 will go but one may get around the back! Von Rosen a Tiger commander of the German Tiger Tank Battalion 503 stated even the British firefly did not phase them much at all though the American tank destroyer gave them headaches as did the Russian heavies. When you consider America could churn out 1 Sherman every 30 minutes and the total wartime production of Tigers was only @1200. I can only admire the weapons the Germans developed not what they did the tanks like the Tiger and Panther (even if the latter was a spin on a T-34) were far superior though a bit unrelliable at first to what the Allies had the only real way early on was to ambush them or later call in the Typhoons if you met either one head on in a Sherman then KYAGB. Thank goodness the man at the top liked to meddle in things he knew naught about as if the ME 262 had been left as a fighter and not his revenge weapon it may have been in service a year earlier perhaps, then the formations of B-17's and the Liberators would have been severley hammered by 4 x 30mm cannons per jet it was even in modular form with an engine change in 20 minutes for 1, cannon package as one unit or fuselage and cannon package as one unit very smart thinking............

[Bob Womack]

I think a factor that is often overlooked is the design philosophy of the two forces. Americans favored lower-precision methods that offered more universal parts interchange. The Germans favored high precision. Each Tiger tank was a one-off, a bespoke, custom vehicle. The parts were hand-fitted to each, meaning that very little could be interchanged between them without a lot of hand-fitting again. This was in direct contrast to our little Sherman, where probably 70% of the tank was directly interchangeable with only basic tools. As a result, you could cannibalize damaged units for parts and put more back on the road very quickly. You could do the same with our weapons such as the M-1 Garand, while the German weapons had the individual weapon's serial numbers stamped on all the parts because they had been hand-fit. Our repair depots were essentially assembly-line operations where there's required far more craftsmanship to rehabilitate a damaged vehicle. Ernie Pyle wrote a great piece about an ordnance depot in Normandy that is HERE.

Bob

[CINDERS]

Agreed Bob but none of the Allied troops liked facing the MG 42 and to change out a barrel in under 10 seconds is pretty good even by todays standards; hence the order was "wait for them to change barrels" I was referencing the fact that people seem to think there were zillions of Tigers running around France, Sth Africa, Italy when they were only really a small force in the whole scheme of things but when they were there with good tactics they really decimated things. Like Wittmann and the bocage episode a well known encounter.
Sure they were pretty much thin skinned allied column but 5 Tigers and well trained crews had an absolute field day, just like the T-34's did in Rissia when the Panzers found them, wide waffle plate tracks, diesel engined (from what I gather) and the very sloped armour thats why Hitler ordered a copy but better as he thought the Russians incappable of building such a machine hence the Panther and the HV 75mm gun.
When the Germans made George the air dropped land mine it contained the first printed circuit and photo electreic cells in the tail the only way in to defuse the mine, bomb disposal opens the tail in sunlight and there ya go no one to tell the tale read it in Softly tread the brave by Ivan Southall about Australian RNVR bomb disposal in WWII they really needed to get the VC for their efforts. They had 17 seconds to run 400yds if the fuse ran.....olympic effots enjoy the book if you get one

[Snafu]

Bump
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[13Echo]

For another take on the Sherman M4 vs Tiger try this site:

The Chieftains Hatch | World of Tanks

The Sherman was a much better tank than it is commonly thought and was designed to meet certain restrictions the German's didn't have such as loading into ships and sending across oceans without being too heavy for the loading cranes and equipment. They were far more reliable and quicker than a Tiger with faster turret traverse and easier egress from the hull if hit. They were also a massed produced tank with interchangeable parts and far easier to maintain than the nearly custom hand built Tiger. As Stalin said "Quantity has a quality all its own."

Jerry Liles

[Mark in Rochester]

[Bob Womack]

Um... Ow.