Re: [MV] British military superiority - tid bits

From: Ryan Gill (rmgill@mindspring.com)
Date: Fri Apr 08 2005 - 12:15:59 PDT


I don't know about all this because it's rife with a lot of things that just aren't so.

At 10:56 AM -0700 4/8/05, Mil-Veh Co. wrote:
>
>As the story goes GM, et al, were producing the
>Sherman's when it came to their attention that the
>Tiger tanks were far better gunned and armoured. Now
>they had a big decision to make, keep making an
>inferior tank of a flawed design with inadequate
>firepower and hope that they could overwhelm the enemy
>through force of numbers or stop production and retool
>to meet the German challenge.

The Sherman was exceedingly well liked by the British and when it was first introduced it in fact had better armor than the Matilda that had effectively ruled the Desert during the early desert campaigns.

>In the final analysis it was the time delay and cost
>factor that won. Halting production and retooling
>would have cost GM a lot of money based on the terms

GM didn't have that much to say on what was built, it was more doctrine and such because the Shermans were built at more than just GM plants.

>The British units who were supplied with relatively
>weak Sherman's were stunned. Never mind the 2 inch
>armour, the Sherman's 75 mm cannon was a joke compared
>the German 88 they claimed.

The 88 was a big gun that was going to overmatch anything even the 152mm armor of the Churchills depending on the issue. Development for a heavy tank was forthcoming but slow. Even the British were slow in developing a heavier tank.

> Since the British were
>not so keen as corporate America on sacrificing their
>crews, the British looked for a remedy to the 88
>threat.

Doctrine dictated that Tank Destroyers engage tanks, hence the M10 with a 3" guns. Tanks engage infantry and exploit breakthroughs.

>They found it in an anti-tank cannon called a "17
>pounder" which was in most respects comparable to the
>German 88. With some ingenuity, they had to turn it
>90 degrees to fit in the small Sherman turret and
>called this upgraded Sherman tank the "Firefly."

The firefly didn't show up until much later in the game. 17 Pounder AT guns were first rushed into production about the time that the First Tigers were shipping over to North Africa and the first tiger died to 6 pounders. This tigeris in fact still at the Bovington Tank Museum.

> This
>was what I was watching on TV. This was a remarkable
>improvement, however the Americans balked at using a
>"foreign" cannon for what must have been both ego and
>financial reasons. Instead they insisted the 75mm gun
>was just fine, when clearly it was not even capable of
>penetrating a Tiger's armour!

The 75mm was able to do so. The British liked it initially because they had a gun that was able to throw a good sized HE charge a good distance away in the form of the short 75mm on the Grant and the later long 75 on the Sherman.

The British had foreign guns in US service. The 75mm was derived from the French 75 of WWII and the US 57mm AT gun was derived from the British 6 pounder, many in fact were British or Canadian Tubes that were made in reverse lend lease.

The 6 pounder however was anemic in it's HE content, that's why the British liked the 75mm over the 6 pounder, even fitting 75mm guns to their Churchill tanks. These were the North Africa 75 Churchills, aka NA 75s.

Might I also point out that the up-gunned 76mm Shermans did look for an additional

>For the Allies using the new improved "Firefly", it
>was simply a case of too few, too late; although the
>British had demonstrated their scientific, military
>superiority once again.

More over it was a question of keeping the supply up rather than shortening the supply of armor due to the smaller volume of heavier M26 Pershings. There was also some misapprehension that the M26 Pershing was slower than the Sherman. It was in fact as fast if not faster with a better power to weight rating

>I say again since the British has earlier warned the
>American's that failing to use armour on carrier decks
>and instead they were using wood, was sheer stupidity,
>a formula for disaster. The American and ironically
>the Japanese navy learned the hard way later in the
>war as this warning proved prophetic.

No it was not sheer stupidity. It was a difference of doctrine. The armored decks of the British Carriers increased their topside weight and the other factors limited the size of the air wing. Since the British carriers had to operate in the North Atlantic, they needed to park the aircraft below decks. The US designs preferred the armor lower down for better handling characteristics and the more easily repaired flight deck in the event of battle damage. Again, this is doctrine.

Might I suggest you read the Great Tank Scandal and The Universal Tank for a bit more info on the Tank Development in WWII.

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