> Often also referred to as 'The Ronson', by the British. Wasn't
> 'Ronson', a British lighter company in Surrey anyway ? I am not sure as
> to whether 'brewing up', as it was generally called by the British. Was
> of much significance to the crews, as surely wern't most killed when the
> subject of a hit which caused the engine and fuel to burn. I have a
> friend who survived two hits in 'Sherman's', one in the desert and one
> in Normandy. He is treated as somewhat of a celebrity amongst other
> vet's. I know my 'Sexton', which was also fitted with the 'Continental
> radial engine', had a high risk of catching fire just on start-up.
> There used to be a 'multi-bank Sherman', parked outside the shop 'Stock
> Americain', about 50 miles north of Bastogne in Belgium. (Not the place
> also called 'Stock Americain', near Waterloo. That was an engineless
> 'Chaffee', parked outside).
> I thought the 'multi-bank', was 24 cyl (four 6 cyl GMC or Dodge engines
> linked together in 2 banks of 2) ?
Hello all of you interested in this thread,
The Sherman went through a four-engine evolution; when it first came out, it was
indeed equipped with the same basic 9-cylinder Continental gas radial as is found
in the Sexton and the Canadian Ram and its variants. In Shermans, that was the
basic M4 and (I believe) the M4A1.
The M4A2 was given a powerpack of twin GM diesels, but most of those variants
found their way into Canadian, British or Russian hands (it's interesting to note
that those diesel-engined M4A2's survived into the Sixties as 76mm HVSS units in
Canadian service, amongst others).
The M4A3 had a Ford GA gas engine; this was the variant most common in U.S.
service in WW2. The M4A4 had the Queen of Tank Engines: a Chrysler-produced,
5-bank, 30-cylinder gas wonder (which I'd give my eye-teeth just to work on!),
radially-arranged around a central adapter. (Picture 5 six-cylinder motors
coupled together.... :-) .... it, too, was mostly found in British and Canadian
service, where many were converted to the 'Firefly' configuration.The issue of
'brewing-up' (funny, isn't it, how the British used the same terms for making tea
and getting immolated in one's tank...?) is a real one. With the engine
compartment not totally sealed from the crew compartment and the fuel tanks in the
hull, any hit aft of the crew area would start an immediate conflagration which
found its way within SECONDS into the former. I don't however, have any solid info
on the comparative tendencies of gas vs diesel, although I'd suspect that a diesel
variant might survive a glancing hit which would fire-up a gas engine.
Of course, any hit in the crew compartment itself guaranteed the ignition of main
gun ammunition in the ready racks, at least until the advent of 'wet' storage,
which at least slowed the process.
The bottom line: any Sherman survivor of a solid hit by anything 50mm and up is
truly a lucky man (incidentally, this is why you see so many pics of Shermans
festooned with sandbags and spare track - to try to slow down an incoming AT
prjectile enough to prevent penetration).
BTW, the British DID call the Sherman the 'Ronson', indeed after the lighter...
the Germans called them "Tommy-Cookers", a somewhat more graphic appellation, for
obvious reasons...
I'll close this with a brief quote from one Andrew Wilson, a 1944 Churchill
Crocodile commander, in his book "Flamethrower"...
'...When the Churchill was hit it caught fire three times out of five, and it
could take up to ten seconds for the fire to sweep through from the engine
compartment to the turret. The American Sherman caught fire every time, and the
flames swept through in about three seconds...'
Thanks for your time; I hope this is useful.
Regards, Geoff
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