M4 Sherman vs Tiger

[Greybeard]

Hello Grumbler, Shortrengage,

Yep the P-38 was a nasty bugger - and contrary to popular vote, my favorite WW2 aircraft.. by the time the 'J' model arrived, it could compete with anything in the sky (except jets of course)..

Italy based 15th airforce and the troops in the pacific could never get enough of them.. the Germans called them the Fork-Tailed Devil for good reason..

The P-38 was originally designed for Bomber intercept work - the Military specified that enough armament was required to bring down the likes of a B-17.. Considering that the prototype flew in the late 30's, and standard armament then for the P-26, or F3F was a single 50 paired with a single .30.. the P-38 at 390mph, 30K+ ceiling, and 5 heavy guns was a huge step forwards..

The early models up thru about the 'G' model suffered problems in europe largely because the oil coolers were too efficient, and it was never intended for the '38 to spend all of it's time above 30K altitude.. the intent was to climb up quick, shoot down the bad guys, and come back home.. so the '38 was prone to engine failures in the colder ET environment.

They did not have the problem in the Pacific or based out of Italy.. warmer climate..

Another issue that didn't get solved until the arrival of the 'J' was that the '38 suffered from compressability in prolonged dives from high altitude.. this was the first aircraft that ever suffered from this issue.. and it was a big unexpected surprise..

The J and L model had hard points to carry up to 2 1600 lb bombs.. although I have seen adapters (Lockheed archive photos when I worked there) that allowed 3 500lb on each hard point.. plus they could carry 8 rockets.. if you substituted another adapter on the bomb hard-points, you could carry 6 rockets on each hard point, plus the 4 under each wing..

Another thing the Lockheed team did was develop a special 20mm cannon for the nose.. knowing that the trajectory of the .50's was different than the .20's of the day.. the skunk works came up with a requirment for a 20mm design that would match the .50 for trajectory.. out to about 1000 yards.. so the cone of fire from the nose was much more concentrated and could put a larger weight of shell into the target zone at any range that wing mounts couldn't match because of the convergance factor..wing guns were sighted in to about 300 yards.. shorter or longer and the pattern began to 'shotgun'..

Standard ammo load was 120 x 20mm, and 250 for each 50..

I wonder what the muzzle flashes looked like sitting right behind the guns like that..

Early on, Lockheed was considering using a 37mm instead of the 20.. but decided that shell size put too much of a limit on qty of ammo that could be carried.

There were few aircraft that could match the Lightning for ground work.. perhaps the most famous/best was the B-25H

The H- was a brainchild of the pacific where ground crews added firepower.. and the mods were officially incorporated into the 'H'..

A 75mm M2 cannon, upwards of 10 fwd firing .50's (2 in the dorsal turret, 4 in the nose, 4 in side packs), up to 8x 5" rockets, and 3000-4000 lbs of bombs in the bay..

Whew!!

:smg:

-GReybeard

[McIvan]

The fact is tho that hardly any German armour was KO'd by airstrikes. Soft transport heck yes, armour no. Might drive them off, or supress them....hard to do your job when there's aircraft diving on you (assuming the aircraft could actually ID the tank). Might damage them with blast or the odd .50cal round getting through the armour (which would be pretty rare considering the shallow angle they're hitting even the thin top armour at) and actually doing something....spend half a day in the workshop. Didn't destroy them, really....claims running about 50:1 against tanks actually written off.

So it was artillery, AT guns, tanks/tank hunters and men that had to do the job of shifting the German tanks. Considering that Stugs and PIVs were still the most numerous German type (collectively) until the war's end, that wasn't quite as bad as it sounds, but there were still a heap of Panthers and Tigers to make their lives difficult. Against Tigers, the 75mm Sherman didn't really have much of a chance, notwithstanding the odd sucess....needed the 76mm TDs or Sherman 76s, or 17pdrs/Fireflys/Archers for the Brits, or shift the beast back with artillery.

The Lightning was a beautiful plane. Unfortunately it was often used at high altitude in the western ETO and not so often at low altitude where it excelled. Lightnings in the Western eto, according to an exhaustive book on the Lightning that I read a year or so ago, claimed 4 German planes for every 3 Lightnings lost which, given the usual two to one or more over-claim rate, means they were most likely taking more losses than they inflicted by a fair margin. In Italy, as long as they avoided too much of the high altitude stuff, they were worth their weight in gold and of course in the Pacific they were outstanding.

I have always thought, tho, that air support in Steel Panthers is completely divorced from reality in its effectiveness against armour.

[Grumbler]

I have read that also and did not find it crediable. The studies were done by the ground pounders that were recovering the wrecks, and were very much subject to political pressure from the top. At the time ( fall of '44) the US Army was taking a lot of shit because guys would write home that they were being transferred to armor and it was all over for them. So there was a concerted drive by the Brass in Europe to portray the Sherman as being able to stand up to the Tiger and Panther 1 on 1. Meanwhile the Army brass stuck to their silly plan of having TD's engage the German Armor and Shermans engage the german infantry. Major General McNair was the front man for this concpt of war, although most of the principal American commanders agreed with him. Gen. McNair was never in combat beyond budget battles. He was completely clueless, but like most ignorant people, very firm in his beliefs.
I suggest "Eisenhower's Lieutenants" by Russell F. Weigley. He has some excellent materiel on the whole issue in his second chapter Ewapons and Divisions. In American thinking, the tank was an infantry weapon, something to help the infantry by shooting them onto their objective. This was not just a military thought, but a matter of Law. National Defense Act of 1920.
Blast from a %"HVAR was more then enough to destroy German tanks and did so many times. After the crew was killed by concussion a tank or TD would come along and pump rounds in them until they burned.
Whittmann was killed by a 5" HVAR, after which Brown put some 17Lber round in his already knocked out Tiger. The 17 Lber rounds got credit for the kill because the Allies needed the booste in morale.
Plenty of gun camera film of P-47's bouncing .50 rounds off the pavement and into the thin underbelly of a german tank.

BTW, guys, it wasn't the altitude, it was the temperature in combination with the moisture. Know what a contrail is? In Europe they form about 15,000 lower then in the pacific. The P-38 did fine at altitudes in the Pacific and Med that it couldn't even reach in the ETO.

[McIvan]

I wondered why the Lightning did so well in the Pacific in comparison....I sort of put it down to the temperature but didn't know exactly why....thanks for that.

That's a very interesting view on Wittman's death, I had heard both versions but not a version where they both happened just one after the other. It doesn't really square with the 17pdr version where the Tiger is knocked out when attacking in concert with other German armour. I reckon you should post that at the Battlefront Forums because they have some people over there who are, after extensive debates, probably as clued up as it is possible to be on Wittman's death. I guess it is impossible to be truly sure.

I'm not sure we saw the same studies, since the ones I'm thinking of are based on German total loss records, not Allied post battle inspection at all. I don't disagree that a 5" rocket (or the Brit equivalent) hitting a tank could put the crew out of commission due to concussion or perhaps even kill them; it was just that they were almost never hit. I'm dredging now, and I'm not sure I could find the study if I was challenged on it, but I seem to recall a study showing that multiple aircraft with rockets were almost completely unable to hit even stationary practice targets. The blast from near misses was not going to kill a tank. If I remember rightly (and I may not) it was generally bombs that resulted in the limited number of kills that did occur, because their blast was much greater and the tolerance for missing accordingly more lenient.

When you think about it, bouncing .50cals into the belly of a Tiger is going to do exactly nothing. They'd have greatly reduced energy from the bounce, they'd be misshapen, and they'd be hitting the underside at an extremely shallow angle which would ricochet the rounds even if they hadn't been bounced and battered first. I think it is quite possible that the crews hopped out and ran off till the nasty airplanes had finished strafing, rocketing and bombing their tanks, but I reckon they then hopped straight back in. I would astonished if a single Tiger was ever destroyed in that manner.

[Grumbler]

No need to look, I remember that study also. It was flawed. The pilots doing the study were new pilots taken out of the OTU before going off to combat flying. The HVAR is extremely accurate in the hands of a pilot that has a lot of experience with them. There were no sighting systems available for the HVAR, so it was a matter of what us ami's call "Kentucky windage". In order to get hits, it required a LOT of practice and a LOT of raockets.
You guys never really had the stocks in rockets, petrol or the time to let a pilot shoot a few dozen of them in practice. The 9th AF did and did.
My father had 5" HVAR on the Patrol Bomber (PV-2) he flew in during the war (late 44 and early 45) and after. They would never land with their rockets, but when they got back to the base would shoot them at a designated target to keep the pilots in practice.
BTW, there would only be deflection on a tank if the pilot wanted it. It doesn't matter how high up you are when you shoot, those bullets are going to get back to earth. To many people think that straffing attacks were done at 50 feet off the deck. They get that idea from hollywood. The Manual I have (for the F4F) says ground attacks should be done from overhead with a pullout no lower then 1500 feet. You cannot get any visual excitement out of that with the camera, so in the movies the fighter comes roaring in a treetop level ala 'Saving Private Ryan'. In the real world flying much above stall speed at 100 feet is extremely dangerous, which is why most air forces proscribe it. Add the factors of target and AA guns and it's easy to see why the pilots ( who ALL wanted to go back to base and get a cold one) would make overhead diving attacks and pull up while still beyond small arms fire ( hopefully).
As far as the Whittmann controversy goes, IIRC, the #5 Tiger was Whitmann's and it was hit by a HVAR on the rear turret ring, which lifted the turret up a little . It was sitting cocked in it's basket. It also had several holes in it from a 17 Lbr. Now who got in the first shot no one will ever know. I tend to think it was the Typhoon, just because Michael was a canny ol' bird and I don't see Corporal Brown ( that was the fella, right?) geting into the position he got on Germany's crack tank crew while alive and well. On the other hand, just because Whittman and Schmidt (His gunner, I think) had killed the last few hundred tank crews that had tried to get a kill shot on them doesn't mean they couldn't screw up that one time it took.
I have the book on Micael someplace. Prolly in storage.
Anyway, this whole issue has been going on for 60 years now, and I don't think it will ever be resolved. Unless of course time travel gets invented, in which case it will not have that high a priority. I don't think anyone will change their minds on the question either.

[McIvan]

I WOULD be starting to come round in normal circumstances :) Although I note it still needs lots of experience and practice to get hits, and fighter-bombing was a low life expectancy occupation. But I'm happy to concede that some pilots were able to get hits...and they may well have caused the majority of what tank losses were suffered.

But we still haven't got past the bit where the German total losses reports for tanks to air attack are about one for every fifty tank kills claimed. I'll see if I can find a link to the research (searched too long and found all sorts of interesting stuff, including a debunking of Rudel's claimed 500 tank kills, but not what I was looking for). As a taste, and as an example, fighter bomber pilots (US & Brit/Commonwealth) claimed 391 tank kills in the Mortain operation, whereas the Germans only lost 50 to ALL CAUSES in total...not just air attack, all causes. USAAF claims of tanks destroyed or damaged in the ETO (not counting the Mediterranean) are 3 times the total number of German tanks fielded in the ETO. US fighter bombers flew 335,000 sorties in the ETO, not counting the Brit Typhoons and other fb craft. If a fighter bomber got even one tank every ten missions they would have wiped out the German tank fleet in western Europe several times over, but of course they didn't.

A highly interesting thread, particularly page four (it's all worth reading) although not the one I was looking for:
http://www.battlefront.com/cgi-bin/bbs/u...004176;p=4

In fairness to the previous crews trying to get Wittman, the vast majority didn't have a gun that could scratch a Tiger. Even at Villiers Bocage people tend to forget that all the Tigers were eventually lost, including Wittmans. Once the Tigers were up against guns capable of killing them, it ceased to be such good sport. At least five of eight Tigers were destroyed in the attack in which Wittman died, without any loss to the Brits.....he was just one more target. German recollections (tank commander Dollinger) are of heavy anti-tank fire from locations they initially could not spot. Research covering RAF log books of the day's operations by 2nd Tactical Air Force has been able to discount the idea that a Typhoon was responsible.

Check out this superb thread at the Battlefront forum....it is an extremely lengthy read, but well worth it. It starts off with the Typhoon theory, which is gradually and meticulously discounted.

http://www.battlefront.com/cgi-bin/bbs/u...024918;p=1

Joe Ekins of 1st Northamptonshire Yeomanry is the gunner generally credited with killing Wittman, as well as two of the other Tigers, but there is a case to be made for the Sherbrooke Fusiliers of 4th Canadian Armoured Div.

[wulfir]

Saw a documentary long ago with a lot of focus on the Tiger. They asked some ex German tankers, knowing what they know now, would they choose to fight in the Tiger (and with it the German late war disadvantages) or the Sherman (of course with the allied late war advantages). The Germans said Tiger.

Then they asked some allied ex WWII tankers (I think they were Americans) the same question. They too said Tiger.

[Weasel]

Yes, that was the program I watched too where they put the 5 shermans upa against the tiger in a battle, losing 4 to the tiger 1.

[Greybeard]

Hello All,

I've read many books placed in WW2.. I always thought it interesting that so often the writers talk about 'Tigers' and '88's.. with only the occasional mention of a Panther later in the war.. SP guns were pretty unmistakeable - but given the superior performance of the German guns/optics in North Africa/Italy/France compared to the US Sherman it's no wonder that everything became a 'Tiger' or '88' especially since barely 3000 Tiger 1's were produced.. compared to Panther and Mk-4 production the Tiger was a rare cat..

Along time ago I saw a photo of Russian tank crews standing on a dead Tiger at Kursk.. you could count 15 odd hits on the portion of the Turret that you could see the Ruskies standing on - and only 1 was a hole.. made me wonder how many other Dents/pocks there were that you couldn't see..

the biggest thing that the Sherman had going for it was rugged reliability, and large numbers..

For the P-38.. thanks Grumbler - I knew that the cold and wet had dire effects on reliability.. with the 'L' model the oil coolers had a means of controlling the qty of air passing thru.. so the oil didn't run so cold and starve out the engine's oil system..

-Greybeard

[jadpanther]

Hey Greybeard,

I think the number of Tigers produced was much closer to 1250 then 3000. There were around 5000 panther of all models and around 8000 PZ4's........I'm not sure on the PZ3's. But when you consider the total german tank production was somewhere around 50,000 for the entire war. Compare that to 65,000 british tanks, 100,000 soviet tanks and 150,000 US tanks. I think they did fairly well with what they had. If a german tanker lasted till the end of the war he was a highly skilled or an extremly lucky warrior.

Jad