Don't know much about tank combat but was it realistic that the tiger one shoted 3 tanks it engaged and shrugged of multiple frontal shots. I heard there was an tiger which rampaged through a British column but those were Churchill tanks I believe. Anyone know about that?
shareja
I remember an interview with a German tanker and he mentioned a 10 to 1 ratio against Shermans. He then smiled and pointed out that the US always had an 11th and 12th.
shareThat's amazing even with that ratio it wasn't enough at that stage in the war. Someone told me the main drawback of tigers was they were
Over engineered therefore costly compared to the t 34s and Sherman's, also ran on diesel instead of petrol.
As I've said in other threads:
The M4 Sherman was superior to the early German Mark IV tank, and the later Mark V Panther, Mark VI Tiger were not encountered in large numbers prior to Normandy. Also, contrary to what the movie depicted, while the rule of thumb was that it took five Shermans to knock out one Tiger, that did not mean that the Tiger inflicted a 5 to 1 kill ratio against the Sherman, but is part of the general rule of thumb that success in offensive operations requires a 3 to 1 numerical ratio over the defender. Except for one or two isolated incidents in Normandy in which Tigers got into flanking ambushes against mostly Sherman-equipped British and Canadian units, the lopsided Tiger vs Sherman kill ratio is a myth, and SHAEF (Eisenhower's headquarters) did not consider the qualitative superiority of the Panther and Tiger to be that significant. (The commander of one of those Tiger units, who had personally knocked out over a dozen Shermans in that fight, was himself killed in an ambush by Shermans when he took the offensive.)
Over engineered therefore costly compared to the t 34s and Sherman's, also ran on diesel instead of petrol.
I heard there was an tiger which rampaged through a British column but those were Churchill tanks I believe.
The Fury doesn't look like a bog standard Sherman. It kind of has Pershing features like muzzle on end of gun. UK had Sherman fireflies with decent 17 pounder guns. Which could and did take out Tigers etc. Best was 3 by a guy called Eakins I think. 75 mm Shermans were useless against Tiger. Most allied tanks had crappy guns. Russian tanks way better than ours.
shareIt's an M4A3E8. Different turret, different gun than the standard M4's.
Unfortunately, Russian tanks were only better "on paper". Google "Fallacy of T34's". They were numerically superior with a decent gun (admittedly better than the Sherman's) but had quality control issues.
To be pedantic, it's an M4A2E8 playing an A3. The A2 Shermans had a diesel rather than the gasoline-powered Ford GAA of the A3. Other than the engine and engine deck, the A2E8 and A3E8 were more-or-less identical with "wet" ammo stowage, late pattern armour, hatches, and optics, and the T23 turret with the 76 mm gun. Still better than a vismod T-34 "Tiger I" let alone a Spanish Army M47 "Tiger II".
The T-34-85 was a good match for the later model Sherman, but had quality control, ergonomic, and ammunition stowage issues. That last means that while the crew of an M4A2E8 would usually survive a penetrating hit, the T-34-85 crew would not as they exploded catastrophically. This seems to be a feature of Soviet and Russian tanks to this day. In battle, they were close enough that crew quality was by far the deciding factor. US Army Easy 8 Shermans had no trouble with North Korean T-34-85s.
The older model Shermans before "wet" stowage tended to burn when penetrated much as the T-34 would explode. The 76 mm armed T-34 also was faster and had lower ground pressure than the Sherman. However, it had worse quality control issues than the 85 mm armed models, usually lacked a radio, and had a two man turret rather then the three man one of the Sherman and T-34-85. It was better than the Panzer 38(t), probably better than the Panzer III and the Panzer IV with the short-barrelled 75 mm, not as good as the Panzer IV with the longer 75 mm, and not as good as the 75 mm armed Sherman.
Yeah the turret on Fury looked larger than the other Shermans in the company, if it was a Pershing weren't they a lot less common than the Tigers?
Seems like the advantage of the Shermans was their adaptability in combat, able to be fitted with different weapons depending on the battlefield like flamethrowers in the Pacific theater etc.
IIRC there were only about 20 or so Pershings used in NW Europe. "Fury" though is an M4A3E8 Sherman fitted with the later pattern turret fitted with a 76mm gun with muzzle brake. I seem to recall too that the muzzle brake was copied from the one used on Panzers IVs hence its similarity.
The other Shermans in Fury are a mixture of types including an M4A4 which was primarily used by British and Canadians, in fact I'm not sure the US Army used any of them at all, AFAIK they kept to the M4, M4A1 and M4A3 types. The diesel engined M4A2 went mostly to the Us Army and Marines in the Pacific and to the Russians, although the British got some for use in North Africa earlier in the war.
Trust me. I know what I'm doing.
I figure the 4-1 ratio always mentioned is on Front to front engagements --- My reading has indicated that the M3's 75mm could take out a Tiger with a side shot anywhere but the Turret, using AP rounds
And the M3 with the bigger gun could do so anywhere
Biggest problem with the M3 was the armor -- a 37 could take it out