Anyone who has even a remote interest in the Second World War, will probably have heard of the American M4 Sherman Tank. It’s a highly iconic weapon and is instantly recognisable to many people. However, there are a huge number of myths surrounding the Sherman criticising its performance as well as the decisions of the the US army during the war.
The most common myths include….
- The Sherman was poorly armoured
- The Sherman was severely under-gunned
- Shermans were nicknamed ‘Ronsons’ as they would catch fire very easily when hit
- It Took 5 Shermans to Take Down a German Cat
- The US refusing to replace the Sherman with a more heavily armed and armoured tank
These myths have been ever present and have all contributed to the poor reputation and widespread derision of the tank.
History and Design of the M4 Sherman
The M4 Sherman was first conceived when the US Army, who requested a medium tank with a 75mm gun as the main armament mounted in the turret. They were originally unable to place said 75mm gun into a turret and as such, they placed it in a sponson. That tank would be known as the M3 Lee. The US Army recognised that the M3 Lee wasn’t perfect and quickly replaced their units with the M4 Sherman as soon as it became available in large numbers.
The M4 Sherman was designed to be the main battle tank for the US Army capable of filling every required role whether it be to fight tanks, support infantry etc. However, the US Army still placed an emphasis for Tank Destroyers to take out enemy tanks. We’ll discuss this in detail later.
The original Sherman used a 75mm M3 gun. It was an all purpose weapon that had an AP round capable of penetrating up to 73mm of RHS(Rolled Homogeneous Steel) at 1000m which proved highly lethal to the earlier German Tanks. The 75mm was also capable of firing an excellent high explosive round which was very useful against soft targets and lightly armoured vehicles. Later versions of the tank would receive a 76mm gun which was able to penetrate 106mm of armour at 1000mm. However the performance of the High Explosive rounds for the 76mm was sacrificed.
The tank itself was actually quite well armoured. The glacis plate of the original Sherman was 50.8mm thick and was angled back at 56 degrees, which gave it an effective armour value of approximately 80–90mm. This made the Sherman extremely well protected when it was introduced. Later Shermans had an improved glacis plate that was 63.5mm thick and angled back at 60 degrees, it provided up to 93mm of effective frontal armour. It should be noted that the Sherman made use of a combination of cast and welded armour and not riveted armour. Both welded and cast armour were generally superior to riveted armour which had a nasty habit of it’s rivets popping off and flying around as shrapnel when hit.
The mobility of the Sherman was quite decent as well. The first Sherman model had a 400hp engine and combined with its weight of 30.3 tonnes, it gave the tank a power to weight ratio of 15.8hp/t, making the Sherman quite mobile. It’s speed however was capped at a maximum of 48km/h on roads.
The Sherman also had decent ergonomics. The tank was roomy and gave the crew plenty of working space. The tank utilised a gun stabiliser that would allow for superior accuracy on the move than contemporary tanks. Combine this with good optics and ergonomics such as turrets being rotated with hydraulics rather than with hand, and you had one of the best tanks to fight in. Other than that, the armour quality was decent with a low chance of spalling, the tank was mechanically reliable and it was very easy to repair.
In many ways, the Sherman was really a Jack of All Trades, Master of None kind of tank. There wasn’t really anything about the tank that you could point to and say, ‘that is bad’.
When taking in all these factors, the Sherman isn’t actually a bad tank and was certainly comparable and even superior to tanks such as the Soviet T-34.
Sherman Myths
The Sherman was Poorly Armoured
As discussed above, the Sherman was actually quite a well armoured tank. The raw thickness combined with the sloping gave the frontal glacis an effective thickness of up 90mm of armour. This was equal or superior to the armour of both the German Panzerkampfwagen IV as well as the Soviet T-34 and was nearly as thick as the frontal armour of the Tiger.
However, it’s armour was unable to compete with armour of tanks like the Panther and the Tiger 2 which used sheer raw thickness of armour combined with sloping. Nevertheless, the armour of the Sherman was actually rather good for its time especially for its weight.
The Sherman was Severely Under-gunned
As discussed again, this wasn’t really the case, the 75mm gun and later on the 76mm gun were perfectly adequate weapons for the entirety of the war. You must remember that encounters with heavier German tanks were extremely rare, the ‘once in a blue moon’ kind of scenario. The majority of the time, the bulk of the enemy encountered would either be soldiers or trucks and anti-tank guns, neither of which had any effective armour.
As discussed before the 75mm main gun of the Sherman fired an excellent high explosive round which was exceptionally good for dealing with these kinds of targets. Most of the time, the heaviest vehicles the Shermans would face were the German Panzerkampfwagen IVH medium tanks. For the most part, both the Sherman and the Panzer IV were equally matched in combat and were both able to destroy each other at normal combat ranges.
Against tanks like the Tiger, the 75mm was inadequate however. The gun was capable of penetrating the frontal armour but it required the Sherman to get extremely close and it generally the Sherman would attempt flank the Tiger to get a shot into the weaker side or rear armour. The 76mm gun was able to penetrate the frontal armour of the Tiger tank but the Sherman did have to get reasonably close to penetrate the armour. The 76mm was also able to penetrate the frontal armour of a Panther tank at reasonably close ranges. Both the 75mm and 76mm guns were easily able to penetrating the side and rear armour of the Panther tank.
The Sherman did noticeably struggle against the heavier German tanks such as the aforementioned Tiger and Panther tanks. However, also mentioned previously was the fact that encounters with them were extremely rare. The British did modify some of their Shermans, fitting them with a 17 pounder gun giving them increased armour penetration capabilities. These variants were nicknamed Sherman Fireflies, but there were downsides with fitting the 17 pounder gun into the tank.
- Ergonomics: The 17 Pounder gun was far larger than both the 75mm and 76mm guns the regular Shermans would use. This resulted in the rate of fire being rather low, as the turret was rather cramped inside.
- Terrible Against Soft Targets: The 17 Pounder lacked an effective HE round and was inferior to the 75mm gun against soft targets. In fact the US Army had rejected the use of Sherman Fireflies because they were inferior against soft targets. It should be noted that the US Army also rejected the Firefly on the grounds that the gun was rather inaccurate at standard combat distances.
The Allies did use a more powerful gun on the Sherman tanks. However, it also came with numerous downsides which in the grand scheme of things, was not desired. The 75mm and 76mm guns were better weapons for the opposition that the Shermans would be facing almost all the time.
Shermans were nicknamed ‘Ronsons’ During the War as They Would Catch Fire Very Easily When Hit
As the story goes, the British nicknamed the Sherman tanks ‘Ronsons’ after the cigarette lighter company due to their slogan “Lights first, every time” to describe the flammability of the tanks. The problem with this myth, is that the slogan became used after the War, and could not have influenced the nickname.
Generally the flammability of the Sherman was associated with the Gasoline, however, fires and catastrophic explosions were actually due to the detonation of the ammunition in the Sherman. Early Sherman models stored their ammunition in rather vulnerable ‘humps’ near the front of the hull.
Because of this, the ammunition was quite vulnerable from the front and especially the sides. Early Shermans were more prone to ammunition detonations than their later and more improved versions. Later Shermans would make use of a wet ammo-rack which consisted of surrounding the ammunition stowage bins with a water and glycerine mixture which is held in an outer hollow casing. The idea was that the mixture would pour out over any penetration of the bins by enemy shots, preventing or at the very least slowing ammunition fires. A US Army study showed that burning and explosions rates would drop from up to 60% down to 15% when making use of wet storage. Shermans really didn’t burn all that often.
It Took 5 Shermans to Take Down a German Cat
This myth asserts the superiority of the heavier German tanks such as the Tiger and Panther tanks. The reason why it would take 5 Shermans to take out an enemy tank was because upon hearing about enemy armoured vehicles, they would often send a tank platoon which coincidentally consisted of 5 tanks. So it is somewhat a half-truth but no, a German tank was generally not equal to 4 or 5 Sherman tanks in combat.
The US Army Refused to Replace the Sherman With a More Heavily Armed and Armoured Tank
The M4 Sherman was first introduced in 1942, in the early middle stages of the war. At that time it was one of the most powerful and effective tanks on the battlefield. However, as the war dragged on, the Sherman obviously lost it’s initial effectiveness, especially against the heavier German tanks. Despite this, the Sherman continued to see service throughout the entire war.
This begs the question. Why did the US Army refuse to replace the Sherman with a more well armed and armoured tank?
There were a few reasons for this
- Logistics
- Tank Destroyer Doctrine
- Lack of Necessity
Logistics was an important factor for the design of the Sherman tank. The US Army restricted the height, width and weight of the tank so it could be transported via typical bridges, roads, railroads and landing craft without special accommodation. This greatly aided the strategic, logistical, and tactical flexibility and mobility of Allied armoured forces using the Sherman.
It must be recalled that to get to the European Theatre of War, the US had to send all their soldiers, equipment, supplies, planes and tanks by ship to England across the length of the Atlantic Ocean.
Obviously when sending over their soldiers, equipment, tanks etc, the US Army would want to send as much as possible in one go to maximise efficiency. Had the US used a larger tank like the M26 Pershing, they would’ve been able to send far less tanks across. The US were able to send multiple Shermans for every Pershing, sending far more tanks across allowing Shermans to support all numerous offensives.
The manufacture, maintenance and repair of the Sherman tanks would’ve also taken a hit. The Sherman was designed to be cheap and easy to manufacture in large numbers. This also meant an abundance of spare parts for allowing Shermans to be repaired and sent back into the fight relatively quickly. To press another tank into service would’ve disrupted the manufacturing and the supply chain for the Sherman, as the US Army would have to cater to the new tanks as well.
The Second major reason was the Tank Destroyer Doctrine. It was the opinion of General Lesley McNair who was the head of the Army Ground Forces between 1942 -1944, that the job of destroying enemy tanks was to be left to anti-tank gun as well as specialised gun motor carriages . McNair believed that the role of tanks was to exploit breakthroughs in enemy lines and support infantry, while enemy tanks were to be engaged by tank destroyer units that comprised of a mix of self-propelled and towed tank destroyers.
In practice however, this rarely ever worked out the way it was intended to. The Shermans would end up on the offensive engaging everything from enemy infantry to enemy tanks while the tank destroyers would take a more defensive role, reacting to threats as they came up.
The Tank Destroyer Doctrine and McNair also slowed down the development of newer and more well armoured tanks most notably the M26 Pershing, a much heavier and more well armoured tank mounting a 90mm gun. There was major opposition to the idea of a heavy tank engaging enemy tanks, and the US Army Ground Forces preferred to up-gun their tank destroyers. It should be noted that these were not the only reasons the development of the Pershing was slowed down, however it was probably the biggest reason out of all of them.
The final reason was simply because there wasn’t really a need for a superior tank. As mentioned above, the Sherman was more than perfectly adequate for the entire duration of the war. Encounters with heavier German tanks were extremely rare and even then, the Allies enjoyed overwhelming air and artillery support allowing them to take out the enemy tanks without too much risk. The Sherman was excellent at combating the majority of enemies that the Allies would face.
Overall, the Sherman was a decent tank, that has had its reputation ruined by the many myths surrounding it. The Sherman proved its usefulness throughout the entirety of the war and although it wasn’t the best tank performance wise, it was the best tank overall in the grand scheme of the war.