Contrary to what the statement at the opening of the movie says, German qualitative superiority to US armor actually lasted only a nine month period from D-Day in Normandy June 1944 to about late February to early March 1945.
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.)
The US had developed a tank from the ground up specifically to kill Tigers, the M26 Pershing, but the project was put on a back burner based on the recommendations of SHAEF due to each Pershing requiring the shipping space of three Shermans. It wasn't until the Battle of the Bulge in December 1944 that the Tiger and Panther threat were finally taken seriously and SHAEF asked for the Pershing to be delivered yesterday. The first 20 Pershings were pulled off the Aberdeen Proving Grounds and arrived in Europe in January 1945 at the tail end of the battle, and were operational by February. Depending on which statistics to use, the Pershing enjoyed a 2 to 1 or 3 to 1 kill ratio over the Tiger. All but one of the Pershings knocked out in combat were repaired and returned to the line, the one unrepairable being knocked out by an antitank artillery piece.
It's good that you are thinking realistically about what might happen to you if you join the Army. I've been retired from the Army for 13 years and I'm not one to go around recruiting people with BS. For whatever it's worth, as far as I know, there have only been a half dozen US tank crewmen killed in combat in M1 Abrams tanks in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, mostly while having their heads sticking out of the crew hatches and being hit by IED shrapnel or snipers. On the other hand, sticking my head out of the hatch to look out for the enemy and maintain situational awareness is one of the reasons I've never felt claustrophobic in a tank. It was different in World War II with Shermans, or even Pershings, but nowadays the inside of an M1 Abrams is just about the safest place to be on a battlefield.
MadTom
Major, Armor, US Army (Retired)
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