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

[Daan Kemp]

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?

[Gil Boyd]

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>

[Badger]

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

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

Regards,
Doug

[Gil Boyd]

Doug,
Just came home from Duxford where I asked the very same question amongst the tanky crews. When the laughing had stopped 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!!

[Flying10uk]

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.

[Badger]

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 ..

Regards,
Doug

[Flying10uk]

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?

[CINDERS]

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

[mr.e moose]

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

[Peter Laidler]

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