“When the US forces faced Panther and Tiger tanks in Normandy” is an incorrect statement. All Tigers were deployed against the British and Canadians. Tankers often thought every German tank was a Tiger. They were almost always wrong.
The importance of Caen and Montgomery's operations, which pinned German armoured forces in front of the British positions so the American units could break out to the west, meant that British and other Commonwealth units had to face over 70 percent of the German armour deployed during the Battle of Normandy, as well as over half of the elite, well-equipped Waffen-SS Panzer units. As a result, the Sherman Firefly was perhaps the most valued tank by British and other Commonwealth commanders, as it was the only tank in the British Army able to reliably penetrate the frontal armour of Panthers and Tigers at the standard combat ranges in Normandy
@@rbtsubs That's not what Omar Bradley said about it in his memoirs. "While Collins was hoisting his VII Corps flag over Cherbourg, Montgomery was spending his reputation in a bitter seige gainst the old university city of Caen. For three weeks, he had rammed his troops against those panzer divisions he had deliberately drawn toward that city as part of our Allied strategy of diversion in the Normandy campaign. Although Caen contained an important road junction that Montgomery would eventually need, for the moment the capture of that city was only incidental to his mission. For Monty's primary task was to attract German troops to the British front that we might more easily secure Cherbourg and get into position for the breakout. In this diversionary mission Monty was more than successful, for the harder he hammered toward Caen, the more German troops he drew into that sector. Too many correspondents, however, had overrated the importance of Caen itself and when Monty failed to take it, they blamed him for the delay. But had we attempted to exonerate Montgomery by explaining how successfully he had hoodwinked the German by diverting him toward Caen from the Cotentin we would have also given our strategy away. So desperately wanted the German to believe this attack on Caen was the main effort.. But while this diversion of Monty's was brilliantly achieved, he nevertheless left himself open to criticism by overemphasising the importance of his thrust toward Caen. Had he limited himself simply to the containment without making Caen a symbol of it, he would have been credited with success instead of being charged, as he was, with failure at Caen. For Monty's success should have been measured in the panzer divisions the enemy rushed against him while Collins sped on toward Chergbourg. Instead, the Allied newspaper readers clamoured for a place name called Caen which Monty had once promised but failed to win for them." ("A Soldiers Story" pg 324-325, Gen. O Bradley
@@JohnCampbell-rn8rz Ok sure . But let's remember the source who still didn't believe Market Garden was a mistake ... Mentioned in that very book I believe . IDK how reliable it would be
@@rbtsubs You don't think that facing seven SS Panzer Divisions and three SS Independent Tiger Battalions, and fighting them to a standstill, was something of an achievement by the British & Canadians, then?
My father was in the Canadian Armoured division, he was a gun layer in a Sherman Firefly with a 17lb gun, he said it was very good, his tank shot up quite a few German tanks, all because, he said, of this gun.
He must have been shooting at close range. The 17-pounder was found to be less than accurate by the US Army. It is one thing to be able to penetrate the armor of an enemy tank at a certain distance, it is another thing to hit it. Missing could be fatal.
@@walterm140 One side were dug in with anti tank guns. One side crossed open ground with amour. The numbers don't tell the whole story. Knocked out and lost are two different things. Two thirds of the British lost tanks were put back into use. The Germans only recorded a tank lost if it could not be put back into use. Who won anyway :)
@@LMyrski not at all. The 17 pounder was excellent at range, but the "inaccuracy" claim is mostly with the APDS round, and due to the flash of the propellant meaning it was hard to see where the shell has gone. If you target something and punch through it with a round so fast you can't follow it's trajectory, it is harder for a follow-up shot, not inaccurate
Many American airmen died in 1942 and 1943 because the P47 fighters did not have the range to cover them all the way to the targets and back. The USAAF P47 fighters based in PNG traveled these distances. They were fitted with external fuel tanks made in the Ford factory in Brisbane, Australia. The P47 came out of the factory with all the fittings and fuel lines to take an external fuel tank that the USAAF would not order. It took Ford Brisbane about 3 weeks to design and make the first batch of tanks.
You can blame General Hap Arnold for his belief the bombers didn't need fighter escorts. He even fought against equipping the U.S. fighter groups with the P-51B Mustang for over a year. Only when his senior subordinate officers threatened to resign did he finally relent. The P-51B could've been fielded in 1943 instead of flying it's first mission in 1944.
Nearly all British planes were designed so that, if needed, in the future they could be fitted with external fuel tanks. American doctrine did not believe in it and therefore the design never allowed for it.
The LITTLE DETAIL YOU ARE OVER LOOKING is that within TWO WEEKS of the Normandy landings - the Yankees had BEGUN MAKING ALL THE SPECIALIZED GADGETS that had been designed as "Funnies" by the Brit 79th division!!!!!!!!! And that INCLUDED retrofitting General Sherman tanks to accept Brit 17 pound guns!!!!!!!!!
It makes you quite proud as a Brit to know that we fixed and improved some of the US best equipment. The Sherman Firefly, P51 Mustang and the Vought Corsair all great bits of kit that took the British to bring them to their full potential.
As an American I have great respect for the British people and their sacrifices in both WWI and WWII. Sorry, "Vought Corsair" was not brought to it's full potential by the Royal Navy. P51, you get all the credit, Firefly as well.
@appaho9tel up untill the Royal Navy sorted out the issue with the landing gear on the Corsar it was not safe for deck landings and was it was restricted to land use only.. Still though they wer3 all great designs pŕdior to ourinv0olvement.
The statement about Americans facing Tiger tanks in Normandy is not correct. In fact, all of the Tigers that fought in Normandy were facing the Brits and Canadians. That was one of the reasons that Caen was so hard to capture and why the Americans were able to break out so spectacularly once they got through the Bocage. Note that I am not trying to take anything away from anyone, much respect to EVERYONE who fought in France.
Though Caen was supposed to have been taken D-Day +1, the 12th SS and 21st Panzer Divisions saw to that. But as Caen was an important communications hub, the Germans had defend it so the Panzer Divisions kept coming. Monty kept taking them out.
@@rickjames9477 The Longest Day gave due recognition to all the troops concerned, but US films like Private Ryan either ignore or show other Allies' forces and personnel as being second rate at best.
@michaelwilkinson2928 yep. In band of brothers the British and Canadians are mentioned or shown 4 times after episode 1. Canadians are mentioned as engineers, that's all they get. The British get to be the tanks that get obliterated in episode 4, its shown that they lost 8,000 men in the end credits, then the next episode has them being saved by the Americans. It doesn't even hint at the fact that when it was revealed the american airborne were getting surrounded at bastogne a load of British and Canadians parachuted in to help them hold the line.
@@zedeyejoe There was very little difference in penetration between the British Ordinance QF 17 pounder and the U.S. 76mm given equal ammunition. For example for tungsten core ammunition: -The 17 pounder shooting APCBC could penetrate 150mm of RHA at 90 degrees at 1000m. -The 76 mm gun M1 shooting T4 HVAP could penetrate 132mm of RHA at 30 degrees at 1000m. With a 16% factor 1/cosine(30) it’s actually better than the 17 pounder. The problem is HVAP was supplied only from Feb 1945 at a rate of 1 round per month per M4 Sherman. The 17 pounder had its fancy ammunition much longer
@@zedeyejoe Umm you do know the Americans tested the 76mm against 30degree slopped Armor to get thar 93mm number. The British 163mm figure is against flat 90degree. 76mm was a lot better than you think. You're using statistics gathered by entirely different test and requirements. US actually had stricter requirements. Difference performance wise between these guns is negligible. Sorry but the British propagandized history as much as the Germans and Soviets did. They're the reason the 5 vs 1 Tiger myth exist for example, the vast superiority of the 17lber myth as well. The Shermans being death trap myth was also fuelled by British and Germans. Basically British armor design sucked so bad throughout most of the war they projected it onto the American Sherman after the war. Despite American tanks were the best tanks the British used throughout the war. Even the Grant and Lee tanks were a big leap over the Crusader and Matilda.
@@Alte.Kameradenthese people are mostly too dumb to get your point here but I certainly do! Britain was super lucky to have Detroit backing her. An m3 Lee might not have a very practical or modern layout, but be damned if it won’t drive across a desert and back and the motor won’t polish itself 40 thou over by sucking up sand, killing its ability to run.
@johncataldo5529 The Germans had 5 Waffen SS Panzer divisions, 3 German Army Panzer divisions, 3 Tiger heavy tank battalions and a Jagdpanther battalion. The concentration of German armour around Caen was 16 times higher than Belarus.
@@bfc3057 Yeah, they may have faced 75% of total German divisions, but the majority of the armoured and mechanised divisions were in the Western Europe. One other interesting fact, the Germans had a greater density of armour (number of tanks and A/T guns per kilometer of front) in Normandy in 1944 than they had had at Kursk in '43. Normandy was a very tough battle.
@@28pbtkh23thats not true. The German armoured forces in France had been sent there for rebuilding after being heavily depleted in the East. By early June, the majority of them weren't operational with some not even mobile. The allies may have struggled to make progress but it was for other reasons. I'll leave you to enjoy your comment and to believe whatever you claim.
"We may begin by recording the final and complete settlement of lend-lease.23 Over the whole period from March 1941 to September 1945, the balance in favour of the United States in the mutual aid books24 was in round terms about $21,000 millions. But by the settlement of 1945 Britain was required to pay no more than $650 millions, or £162 millions sterling. Of this, about $118 millions25 (=£30 millions) was the net amount due to the United States in the offsetting arrangements in mutual aid after VJ-Day. Approximately another $60 millions (=£15 millions) represented payment by the United Kingdom for the acquisition of tangible assets previously the property of the United States and valued at about $350 millions at original costs to the United States.26 The remaining $472 millions (=£118 millions ) were due to the United States in final settlement of the mutual aid account proper for the whole period from 11th March 1941 to VJ-Day. This sum was in fact simply a payment for the considerable stocks of lend-lease goods of civilian types which the United Kingdom held on VJ-Day and now acquired outright.27 page 547 BRITISH WAR ECONOMY By W. K. Hancock
@@isaholbrook9192 "We may begin by recording the final and complete settlement of lend-lease.23 Over the whole period from March 1941 to September 1945, the balance in favour of the United States in the mutual aid books24 was in round terms about $21,000 millions. But by the settlement of 1945 Britain was required to pay no more than $650 millions, or £162 millions sterling. Of this, about $118 millions25 (=£30 millions) was the net amount due to the United States in the offsetting arrangements in mutual aid after VJ-Day. Approximately another $60 millions (=£15 millions) represented payment by the United Kingdom for the acquisition of tangible assets previously the property of the United States and valued at about $350 millions at original costs to the United States.26 The remaining $472 millions (=£118 millions ) were due to the United States in final settlement of the mutual aid account proper for the whole period from 11th March 1941 to VJ-Day. This sum was in fact simply a payment for the considerable stocks of lend-lease goods of civilian types which the United Kingdom held on VJ-Day and now acquired outright.27 page 547 BRITISH WAR ECONOMY W. K. Hancock
Well I made it to my 76 birthday yesterday I know nothing of war also I never grew up speaking German. I grew up poor in a financially stripped England, I often hung out with North American and Canadian children and families who were the warmest people that I knew. I am and will always be grateful to all that came to UK for that immense struggle to free Europe. Let’s stop this bickering of mine’s bigger than yours and be mates from different places please guys. Thank be to God.......Rob in NZ
They didn't want any of Herbet's Funnies either. The flail tank did get American attention though. They only reluctantly picked up anything from the Brits.
"Percy Hobart" But you are pretty well right but I think that most of Hobart's specialist tanks were Churchill based which would put the American command off
@@g8ymw Nah - the Brits were much more frugal than you give credit for - using whatever older tank models could be suited to the purpose...............though older Churchill`s that had been rigged to carry the 6pound gun would have been the obvious workhorse for 79th division since there were lots of them and the turret with the 6 pound gun was obsolete anyway!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
@@trevormj to be fair - Yankees got interested in jet propulsion due to the activities of ME 262 jet fighters................. I doubt very much if Yankee aircraft engineers in 1944 had ever heard of the Brit single engine jet powered Gloster Whittle that flew in 1939................. sadly though the Whittle had performance rather less than that of Hurricanes and Spitfires and Brit industry was to hard pressed to produce conventional weapons to be able to upgrade the Whittle................ in related news - it seems the Yankee navy fiddled with radar in 1922 and gave it up as not being useful...................... just think how history might have been changed if Brit fighter Jets and Yankee navy radar had been in use in 1940!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
@trevormj They eventually took a lot from the Brits. Radar, jet engines & later on the angled flight deck on carriers. Curios, they never tried a steel, armoured deck on US carriers in WW2 like the Brits had.
"It is admitted that American tanks played a great part in the Battle of Egypt. America has been in this war for only a year. Why is it that in that short time she has been able to produce a first-class tank like the General Sherman whereas Great Britain, after three years of war and several years of preparation before the war, has not been able to do so." below 245 Hansard DEBATE ON THE ADDRESS 17 November 1942
I'm an American. The school of thought prior to the war and in the early years of 1942 and 1943 was that tanks would engage everything but a tank. The mobile tank killers like the M36 Jackson with the 90mm gun will do the job better than the 17 pounder. It takes time to build a large army. Logistics does matter to American officers fielding an army several thousand miles away with communications subject to Uboat attack. Remember army officers were watching ships blowing up on their shores in 1943. You don't want to have to send a vast variety of parts across that Ocean you want to send a lot of the same. The Germans fell into that trap using so much captured equipment in the Russian front. Netherlands chassis on German self propelled guns. Slovack modified panzers. French trucks and more created a nightmare for parts to keep them running and have parts available in the right place of the front when needed. American officers wanted to avoid that logistics trap by upgrading to the 76 mm gun. I grant you there were never enough tank destroyers to deal with all the threats fortunately there were enough fighter bombers. So decisions made in 1943 resulted in the army deployed to France in 1944. Remember they were in a position to observe the British in the desert with multiple tank types including captured Italian and German equipment. The British were using everything available in 1941 and 42. US observers drew lessons from this. But they wouldn't shake the tank destroyer concept unfortunately.
@@Twirlyhead pre WW I the US copied the Mauser rifle. in WW I the US adopted the British piss pot lid helmet, the "French 75" and Renault FT tank. interwar the US copied the German 37mm AT gun, much more versatile than the 2pdr. WW II Bofors gun and Oerlikon 20mm then there were the "gifts" brought by Tizard Mission including the reflector gun sight. USAAF operated about 1,000 aircraft reverse Lend Leased.
@@nickdanger3802 Debates in Parliament (as recorded in Hansard) are not a great historical record of 'facts on the ground' -- politicians often lambasted Churchill's government, every time there was a minor setback, but their uninformed opinions in no way reflect the effectiveness of British tanks, which remain some of the very best produced during the war: the Crusader, Cromwell, Cavalier, Challenger, Comet, Matilda, Valentine, and Churchill. These tanks were critical to the British & Commonwealth victory against Rommel in North Africa, the Allies' Italian campaign, and the D-Day landings and push into Normandy.
[ Quote ] = Joseph William Ekins (15 July 1923 - 1 February 2012) was a British soldier. He gained recognition for his action as a British Army ("Sherman Firefly") tank gunner in France during World War II, in which Ekins destroyed four German tanks near Saint-Aignan-de-Cramesnil in a single day, including three Tiger I tanks (numbers 312, 007 & 314). [ Unquote ] Not everyone's got "Balls the size of the Moon" but Joe's crew clearly did - And they used a "Firefly"
But the British have their own issues with senior officers. Ekins achieved this after only a few practice shots. What did the British Army do with this prodigy. Reassigned him as a radio operator of course. Another good Firefly action was Sgt Wilf Harris and his gunner Ian McKillip.
Was that Wittman's last charge? Norm Christie (a Canadian author and TV presenter) in a TV documentary of his gave a pretty convincing argument that it was a Canadian tank that killed Wittman. However, Joe Ekins was there and was pretty sure that he fired at Tiger 007 and saw it brew up.
@@28pbtkh23 = Yeah, I saw that d/m too, over 20 years ago now I'd agree it probably WAS the Canadians, but weren't they using 'ordinary' M4's with 75/L40 ? Regardless = Joe Ekins killed THREE of that platoon//unit of SIX Tigers - as in "3/6" or 50% To even kill HALF that Troop from just ONE 17pdr, show he KNEW what he was doing = Kudos
@@Rain-uc4ru yeah, the Sherbrooke Fusiliers had standard 75s but also some Fireflys, though I understand it was only 75 mms that took on Wittmann's troop. At that range and from the side, the M3 75 easily penetrated the 80 mm side armour. Ekins certainly accounted for three of the Tiger troop, with something like 6 or 7 rounds, which was a great achievement given as mentioned above he'd only had about two practice shots with the 17 pdr before that! I've been to the location, and you can see where Ekins was from roughly where Wittmann blew up, and then over the newer highway to where the Canadians were
Elsewhere on UA-cam it has been noted that, due to the much longer length of barrel of the 17 pdr., the Germans would focus first on knocking out the Firefly then go for the 'standard' Shermans. This resulted in the introduction of special barrel camouflage designed to obscure the longer barrel and give a foreshortened look and so making it difficult to discern between Fireflys and Shermans.
The American troops after D day never met many German Tanks, and the ones they did meet would be older models ( the Yanks went west and south after D day, while the British and Canadians turned east and met the full power of German tanks moving west ).
German armour going to Normandy from east and south had to go through or around Caen. German armour in the US sectors of the Bocage would have been as useless US tanks were until field modified to rhinos.
In the bocage the Shermans height gave the Germans the opportunity to engage or not, at their discretion The Sherman was 11ft 1 inches in height the highest of all WW2 tanks in the ETO
The fact that the Germans had any tanks in the west while the Russians were over running them in the east is staggering. Given a choice which enemy would you want to stop at your border?
The US Army had and will always be fixed on NIH, Not Invented Here. Spent 22 years active duty in the Navy and had to work with the Army on occasion, and they never ceased to amaze me at the rules and regulations placed on the Actual Warfare personnel. Many of their West Point officers, can only live by the book and if they ever had to think and react on their feet, simply they would be screwed. Now the guys that did the job had their shit together and learned ways to sidestep the problems placed upon them.
Funny you mention that because they've exclusively used a British (105mm L7) and then German (smoothbore 120mm) as their tank guns since the 60's. Maybe rethink your little rant.
@@StephenElwess To add to that, the M9 pistol was designed in Italy, and the M240 & M249 machineguns were invented in Belgium. And there's the AT-4 and the Karl Gustav which were invented in Sweden.
@@StephenElwess sorry I worked Intelligence in the Navy and had to constantly go round and round with those Army "By the Book" self-proclaimed IDIOTS, they lived by the "I believe x,y or z, now find me the facts to support that belief, ONLY".
@@StephenElwess The worst department in the US Military was the hidebound Army Ordinance Department (which was severely overhauled by McNamara in the 1960's after the M16 fiasco). They may even have rigged the 1950's rifle trials against the FN FAL and other competitors to ensure that heavily modified M1 Garand in 308. which became the M14. won the competition. During initiation of weapons proposals, foreign weapons were often dropped (before they even submitted a design or if they had correctable flaws during testing) due to concerns about foreign manufacture or influence. Though in almost in every case the developer was going to build a plant in the US or license the weapon to a US manufacturer (for wartime manufacture). Finally with changes in both leadership and more active field officers serving in the Ordnance department, new weapons system started getting a real fighting chance. The other services were already moving in that direction with the Air Force using the German designed sweep wing technology in fighters and bombers, including the British designed Canberra Jet Bomber (we called it the B-57) in 1953. The Marines switching to the Harrier Vertical Take Off jet in 1961. Even the Navy incorporating foreign designs (mostly British in the early days) into it ships and weapons almost since the time of wooden ships to the angled deck on carriers (a British concept) to using German cruise missiles and sweep wing technology. But the Army stubbornly refused foreign designs (except when they stole ideas and claimed them as US property.) into its fold until after WWII. It fought against foreign designs limiting their use within the Army. Though they caused a major uproar when they did copy the M98 Mauser which became the Springfield 1903. But they got caught for copyright infringements on the rifle, the spitzer bullet, and the loading stripper clips (even having to pay the Germans up until WWI and finish paying Mauser after the war). Finally in the 1960's, the Army eventually relented and start incorporating some excellent foreign designed or built technology into its arsenal. Resulting in everything from the AT-4 Swedish Anti-tank weapon to the German 120mm smoothbore cannon on the M1 tank to the M240 and M249 machine guns and even the new Sig M365 pistols (called the M17).
Interesting commentary, but can we please stop the belief that every tank the Allies engaged was a Tiger. The standard vehicle for the Wehrmacht was the Panzer 4. The tank was a support and exploitation vehicle, few times were there large scale tank vs tank actions. Infantry, artillery and air power did most of the heavy lifting.
Something like 75 percent of the tanks faced were the Panzer 4's. You are correct. The British faced the toughest German armored divisions, and those divisions had almost all the Tigers and Panthers. So no wonder the British pressed hard for the 17 pdr
It was EGO, PURE EGO. I'M AMERICAN, I am a veteran was an E-6 and it seemed to me our US Army officers always had A bit of an EGO problem not all of them but most of them. I WAS USAF and the problem wasn't nearly as bad as over there. What I've consistently read the Brits and Canadians had NO problems with the 17 pounders Accuracy installed in the sherman when it was a Firefly the only ones I heard can play about accuracy where the Americans. Maybe it was there training and they're lack of accuracy with the equipment. But it sure is hell what in the problem with the Canadians and the breath seemed me. They had above accuracy with that system
@@Jeffrey-i1n I'm Canadian, I remember listening to an Army vet from WW2 telling me about how in England the American army challenged the Brits to a football match and were mad as hell when they lost because the Brits were using their Rugby players. So they demanded a rematch and brought in top American football players to get their revenge. Same with when the U.S. Army challenged the Brits to a baseball game and the Cricket players won the game, they had to draft the pros for the rematch they demanded. Their were some British and commonwealth armored units with the U.S. 76mm Sherman tanks. They thought it had better HE rounds than Firefly but for them 1st shot penetration in a tank on tank engagement was absolutely critical. The Firefly's standard APCBC round had almost identical penetration numbers with the HVAP round developed for the U.S. 76mm. Problem for the U.S. is that they only had 1 HVAP round per tank troop in 1945. At the same time the Firefly might have 5 SVDS rounds in the ready rack for those 'Oh Shit' moments.
The 2nd and 3rd SS Panzer divisions didn't have Tigers, they had Pz IV's and Panthers. The Tigers were in separate Heavy Panzer Battalions like the 101st, of which Michael WIttman was a member. The 3rd SS weren't even in Normandy, they were on the Eastern front fighting the Russians
An analysis done by "The Chieftain" by reviewing World War II records found the following: 1) Only 14 percent of actions were Tank on Tank actions. The rest were tanks attacking infantry positions, with the infantry possessing 88's as their main anti tank weapon. 2) The old 75 mm weapon was optimized for attacking unarmored infantry and anti tank emplacements, like 88 emplacements. The 75 mm shell burst into 1000 fragments on impact, scattering a huge amount of shrapnel that killed the anti tank gun crews and their supporting infantry. The new 76mm and the 17 pdr only burst into about 500 fragments for their HE shells. 3) Therefore, when the 76 mm guns came in, lots of crews demanded their old 75mm guns back - they were much more effective for the vast bulk of their engagements. The old guns killed the 88 gun crews much quicker. 4) Later, a compromise was reached were one of the tanks in the tank platoon was a 76mm, and the rest remained old 75mm
@@TTTT-oc4ebOther sources eg the US Survey of Allied Tank Losses in WW2 TM ORO-T-117 give 54% by all gunfire, with many other sources giving that the majority of these by AT guns, with tanks/SPGs causing only some 14%.
This issue is dealt with and documented very well in a number of books which highlights the American attitude towards foreign weapons design. The same issues with then17pdr occurred with the Mustang being fitted with a Merlin. Not invented here. However, I'm not sure of its mentioned in the comment's here, but the quality of ammunition for the 76mm gun as abysmal. (Except the HVAP which the average American tank has about 3 round's of!). The standard ammunition could rarely perform at its rated penetration rate. "American gunners were dismayed to see 76mm rounds (standard) bouncing of the sides of Panthers (45mm). The 17 pdr had a problem with early APDS, but the APCBC was a superb round and generally was found to have overperformed in penetration.
"occurred with the Mustang being fitted with a Merlin. Not invented here." look up dates of first flights for Mustang Mk X and XP-51B ROLLS-ROYCE MERLIN CARBURETTOR DEVELOPMENT "For the next important and powerful Merlin 66 engine, Rolls Royce finally decided to use the Bendix-Stromberg Injection carburettor. The American Bendix-Stromberg pressure carburettor was developed in the mid 1930’s and was in production from 1938. This carburettor was designed to operate as a fully pressurised fuel system that dispensed with the problematic float controlled fuel level with its emulsion tubes and diffusers. Negative G had no effect on fuel flow or carburettor function. The pressurised and metered fuel flow was delivered as a spray into the inlet air stream just in front of the supercharger inlet. This feature virtually removed the risk of carburettor icing, in fact the throttles and chokes of the injection carburettor did not need heating by hot oil or coolant circulation at all and their deletion removed several other problems associated with the previous provision of those heating circuits. Rolls Royce had been aware of the Bendix-Stromberg Pressure type of carburettor for several years and versions of the carburettor were used on many American engines including the Allison V-1710. Notably, Packard built their Merlins in the USA with a version of the Bendix PD16 from the very start of Packard Merlin production."
6:48 "as history would show the US was proven wrong on all accounts". NO, the Sherman's tank on tank conflicts were less than %13. of the fights it was in. Economics is a large part of war.
Yes, the 17 pounder was GREAT for taking out German MK V and MK VI tanks, but 90% of the time Sherman tanks were used to take out bunkers, fixed hard points, soft sided vehicles, and enemy infantry. In other words, they were used as infantry support, and the 17 pounder was not the best gun for that job. That's why the American commanders preferred the 75 mm that was on most Shermans. Encountering a Panther tank was a very rare event, but encountering German infantry, supported by multiple MG42s, was an every-day thing.
A lot of decisions in war seem obviously wrong when we look back on them, but at the time the people making those decisions probably had no idea they were making fateful choices. You can't know which decisions were important or trivial and which were right and wrong, till you look back.
@janandersen8735 the British asked NAA to build a plane that would suit them in 1940 what emerged was the P51 built around British specifications so more or less a British idea.
@@rayner226 And when they received it, they did not like the Allison engine because of the poor high altitude performance and replaced it with the Merlin. Seeing the improvement, the US licensed the Merlin and had them built in the US. Do I deny a degree of not built here syndrome, no, but it is a lot more complicated than that. The US doctrine called for lots of tanks everywhere, easy to manufacture and repair, whereas the Brits by the nature of their more limited manufacturing base planned in smaller numbers. There is a tendency to think narrowly in terms of individual tank performance. The Panther taken on its own was arguably the best tank of WW2 but it was complicated too build, kept breaking down and was hard to repair whereas the T34 head to head was the lesser tank but could be made in huge numbers cheaply and was good enough. Note, little known is that the T34 suspension system was designed by an American who had been turned down by the US before selling it to the Russians.
As a retired Army Tank Destroyer (MOS 11H) tank killers are now used to secure flanks from enemy encirclement attempts and organic scouts. We’re also used to augment MBT’s in assault or defense since we expect large masses of enemy armored vehicles. I can engage targets at 4,000 meters so I can take out critical vehicles at the onset of an engagement before the MBT’s open up which allows them to remain in their concealed positions. Once the enemy is within the effective range of the MBT’s they cut loose an awesome amount of hitting power. As they engage I can assist and secure or, displace and prepare for a new engagement on the enemy flank or start a new engagement to restrict the enemy from using the force I’m killing as a reinforcement for the attack from our MBT’s. We remain flexible and can also provide CAS direction and indirect fire when required. We always bring every weapon into the fight where it’s needed and when it’s needed, we have to be cautious about exposing locations of our various weapon systems until absolutely necessary since often after they engage they will have to relocate to avoid detection and direct counter attack. An Infantry NCO/leader has to take into account all these factors when fighting to accomplish the mission and save the lives of the men in his charge. And for those who didn’t know, the Infantry ranks are populated by intelligent men and the average IQ in my last Bn was 115, we slowly raised the bar since 1973 after the fiasco of “McNamara’s morons” that brought in new recruits with IQ’s as low as 70 as opposed to the normal minimum of 83. The US Army is going to have to re-learn the skills I was taught as we move closer to potential conflict with mother Russia and/or China. Thank you for the video sir.
@@28pbtkh23 what I described is an example of a young E-5/E-6 in the Army Infantry, we’re a unique MOS because we have the ability to switch from one weapon system along with its tactics to another with minimal training. If we can’t call in a detailed “walking sheath” artillery barrage on an enemy or ensure our organic CAS (Army attack helos) can provide detailed support. And all I described is after the Air Force gets done with them! And during the Gulf War I saw the awesome affects of the B-52 strikes, A-10 runs then our long range artillery chewed on them to where there was nothing left for me to deal with! The enemy will hit us with every damn armored vehicle they can get rolling, same with aircraft and artillery, it’s how they fight and they will not change their tactics. And from what I’ve seen on both sides of the Ukraine conflict, it’s not much of a threat in my book. We teach young NCO’s detailed tactics and what tactics we know of our enemies and we train to ensure we can execute everything fast enough to have an impact of an engagement. We do this for a couple reasons, mainly to ensure we maintain a quality NCO corp in each small unit so when we get a Cherry Officer who doesn’t know squat about killing tanks, we can easily spin him up and teach him our secrets and ensure he has a committed team behind him (if he’s an arrogant POS, we also ensure the CO sees all his weaknesses). It’s also to ensure whenever we get squads, sections or platoons separated we can still continue the fight even if isolated without affecting our abilities. And this is the main weakness of our potential belligerents, they don’t have a professional NCO corps to speak of so, that’s one reason why we take out all command vehicles at the onset of an engagement. There’s so many other little things we do like false insertions, false engagements that we can use to slow an enemy advancement which causes them to go from road march convoys to on line deployment and that’s usually where we have minefields waiting for them. But if the Air Force is begging for somewhere to unload their B-52’s, we’ll withhold the mine deployment. If you’re curious about how we used to employ our forces against the former Soviet Army, read the book “Team Yankee” but please, skip over the family sections in the book, sort of boring. We used ‘Air, Land, Battle” doctrine then and FM-100-1-2 will explain a lot about Russian tactics. Russian tanks are only about 7-8 feet tall and they’re hard to see unlike our M-1 Abrams but, Soviet tanks are so damn easy to kill to the point where it’s almost sad for the tank crewmen. And if we continue to dilute our standards for new enlistments, we won’t have such an effective force as we did 30 years ago.
The Sherman Firefly WAS a Tank Destroyer. That was it’s mission. The US had 76mm armed Shermans in England on D-Day. 76mm armed But were late bringing them to Normandy. The M36 90mm armed TD’s were in France in 1944. The 90mm M26 Pershing heavy tank was on the way.
@Idahoguy10157 The Brits and Canadians used the Firefly in a tank troop in a combined arms approach. The US used Tank destroyers as a separate entity which didn't work as they were often not available in the area they were needed.
‘Was on the way’, doing a lot of heavy lifting here. The firefly was available as ‘second best in time’, it worked and would have assisted the Americans. Having said that American forces barely confronted any tanks for the first couple of months of the campaign, certainly none of the tigers (except in Spielberg propaganda). So they had much less need of a more heavily armed tank until September onwards.
Americans did lose the tank battle in North Africa. They learned from their mistakes. Americans won the subsequent tank battles at the Bulge and Arracourt. Americans relied more on air power than did the British to take out tanks. American strategy worked very well.
A couple points: This seems like a poorly researched "opinion piece". Much of this has been debunked in videos by The Chieftain in sourcing the original documentation. 1) The US was practicing combined arms warfare, so having the tanks support the infantry is the point. Tank destroyers were there but meant as a defensive weapon, not an offensive one. I don't recall any formation leading with tank destroyers over Shermans. 2) Because of the need for offense, the use of the 75mm was thought to be worthwhile. The standard Sherman 75mm had a good high-explosive round, which would have been much better against pillboxes, anti-tank gun emplacements, etc. That said, they thought tanks would still kill other tanks. Hence the 75mm Shermans were issued HVAP rounds, along with HE. 3) Internet commenters also don't get logistics. Sure, the Brits offered to send 17pdr ammunition to the Americans for their Fireflies, but that would mean setting up an entirely different supply chain just for that one gun. The US Army would have to ensure that the few Fireflies in the front-line division had enough to be effective, which can get complicated. And as the 155mm artillery shell shortage in Ukraine has shown, having a good weapon without the ammo to go with it is a big issue. 4) There was also the in-vehicle ergonomics. The 17pdr shell and casing was much longer than the standard 75mm HVAP shell, which had follow-on effects. First, the shell was much harder to maneuver into the breech because the breech extended much farther into the turret because of the size of the gun. In fact, the loader could not exit the standard Sherman turret's hatch because he couldn't get around the breech inside the turret. So another modification for the turret involved cutting a loader's hatch into the top (one mod that DID make its way to the rest of the US force). Also, because the 17pdr ammunition was so large, the auxiliary driver was removed (reducing the crew from 5 to 4) to stow the ammunition there. Also missed was the fact that the 17pdr removed the stabilized linkage the 75mm gun had, which allowed faster targeting by the 75mm gunner. The 17pdr gunner also had the misfortune of having the elevation wheel for the gun down by his right ankle, making elevation changes AND sighting down the scope much harder for shorter crewmembers. Now, a video that misrepresents the movement of the radio "to the hull", rather than to the bustle in the back, I wonder how well this was really researched. Could things have done better? Perhaps. Having the native 76mm gun at the outset. Or a dedicated hatch for the loader. However, the armored branch having the lowest casualty ratio of any MOS in the US military (~3%) suggests that the normal Sherman wasn't that bad after all.
The firefly Sherman was a British adaptation and improvement. The US are notorious for not wanting to adopt weapons created outside of America, simple.
I have a picture of my late father smartly stood in front of his M4 Sherman fitted with the three inch (76mm), 52 cal American anti tank gun. It didn’t have a blast deflector/muzzle brake, but a protective cap for the thread. The picture was taken in Italy and he was in 2nd Lothians and Border Horse, B Sqdn. His troop commander had the 17pdr Firefly gun. I met the troop commander in 2020 when I took dad to see him. Apparently the troop had a mixture of armaments, including some Shermans with the well established 75mm gun, but dad’s was a relative ‘newcomer’. Firing HVAP, there wasn’t a great deal to choose between dad’s gun and the 17pdr in close quarters. The troop had some 75mm tanks for greater effectiveness against infantry and field gun crews as mentioned in the video. Many’s the time dad had to shout at British infantry who were trying to be helpful by going in front of his tank to look for mines - the blast when firing HVAP would have given them concussion at the very least. Dad believed he was in his 7th tank by the time the war in Europe ended, most in N. Africa and Italy were badly mauled. Despite that, he considered himself very lucky and considered the M4 Sherman a very dependable, rugged tank.
The British received 1,300 Sherman MkIIA (M4A1 76w) most being issued to RAC Regiments serving in Italy mid-1944 to the end of the war. However they were never issued with HVAP, that ammo was exclusively issued to US Tank Destroyer Command. The Sherman MkIIA was used in Italy as a substitute for the Firefly. However it was a lot less powerful, penetration was about the same as the older 6 Pounder with APCBC amminition. The 2nd Lothians & Border Horse served in the 26th Armoured Brigade of 6th Armoured Division. They Fought in Tunisia, February 1943 with Crusader MkIII and Valentine MkV. After the Germans were defeated they were re-equipped with Sherman MkIII. They were landed in Italy in 1944, their Sherman MkIII were supplemented by Sherman MkIIA and a few Sherman Firefly after September 1944.
Correction: U.S. 76mm 53 caliber gun M1A1 and M1A2 were not 3 inch guns. It was a new gun that was different from the 3 inch anti-tank gun mounted on the M10 Tank Destroyer. The 3 inch gun was a modified Naval gun and was used on SP mounts and towed.
@@patrickmccrann991 The most important factor is the ammunition and the 3" and 76mm fired the same rounds. The 3" was developed from the M1918 Anti-Aircraft gun. It was considered too heavy at 1,990 lbs and on the large side. This led to the lighter 1,141 lbs 76mm M1 being developed in 1942. There was no rush in getting the gun into action. The 76mm M1 was not mounted until January 1944 on the late-production Sherman. The new mounting allowing the 76mm to replace the 75mm in older tanks did not appear until 1945. However some export re-worked Sherman's received the weapon in the late 1940s
@@billballbuster7186 the 3" anti tank gun, both towed and in the M10 tank destroyer did not use the same ammunition as the Sherman 76mm. The rounds used the same projectiles but different cases and were s not interchangeable. That was the reason for different naming.
The 17pdr was an excellent AT gun, equal to the Panthers 7.5 cm KwK42. There was also more than one variant of it, as its length progressively lengthened, among other tweaks. It was always considered good enough, and more importantly, raised morale among the crews that operated it. When the 11th Armoured division was equipped with Comets, the Guards Armoured division began to increase the ratio of Fireflies to 75mm variants up to 3:1. They compensated for the lack of HE by strapping two Typhoon rockets to the sides of the turret.
Not entirely true, the 7.5 cm KwK42 was a better weapon. The 17-pounder was found to be less than accurate by the US Army. It is one thing to be able to penetrate the armor of an enemy tank at a certain distance, it is another thing to hit it. Missing could be fatal.
@@LMyrski This is from Sherman Firefly V Tiger Normandy 1944 by Dr S.A Hart Page 64 08 Aug 44 at 1300hrs, Tank No 4 "Orenburg" Sgt Finney spotted two Pz IVs and took both off them out with two shots at 1650 yards . You did say the Firefly APDS was inaccurate ?
@@jacktattis Hitting with APDS was the problem, as the round was terribly inaccurate (the 6pdr APDS tended to hit about 2 feet higher than the aiming point, for example) and figures showing this poor accuracy for 17 pdr APDS can be found in Mark Hayward's Sherman Firefly, Barbarossa Books, Tiptree, Essex c. 2001. The first field trials with 17 pdr APDS took place in Normandy in August 1944 when US and British army personnel watched a demonstration against captured German Panthers. The early batches were regarded as sub-standard, and the performance was very erratic - the round was very inaccurate compared to 'standard' APCBC, and much less accurate than the APCR round used in the US 76mm gun. The US did at one stage consider fitting APCR projectiles into the 17pdr shell cases they envisaged being available when Sherman Fireflies were to be (eventually) issued to US army units because the APCR round was more accurate than APDS. Only one US unit, in Italy, ever got (12) Fireflies and too late to use in action.
@@stuartjarman4930 Gee then Sgt Finney who knocked out two PZ IVs at 1645 yards was that lucky No other tank got two in two shots at almost a mile anywhere. You Americans always tend to knock the British And that inaccuracy was fixed on the field with a boring out of the Muzzle Brake
The US was quite rigid in it's ergonomic requirements for its combat vehicles. The 17 pounder installation wasn't that, it required contortionist acts to operate. It also wasn't prepared to lose the bow MG for general usage tanks. The 76mm gun was also meant to have a L56 barrel...but gun mount stabilisation issues prevented that and a L52 cut down barrel was used instead. Approx 6 to 8mm of penetration was lost there.
No one can get away from the fact that the Sherman's frontal armour was inadequate. The blame can be lain squarely at the feet of General Lesley McNair who for some bizarre reason thought that tanks would not end up fighting each other! The inadequate frontal armour and firepower of the Sherman led to significant additional loss of life amongst American tank crews. McNair even tried to stop the development of the Pershing tank that squared the odds for Americans facing Tigers and Panthers. The tragic fact was that the additional inch of armour that was eventually fitted to the front of the 'Jumbo' variant of the Sherman meant they could withstand direct frontal hits from 88mm shells with the loss of only 3-4 mph in speed. McNair was killed in a friendly fire incident in July 1944.
McNair had nothing to do with tank development. Sherman's frontal armor when introduced in 1942 was actually superior to the German Mk IV's. However, when heavier guns were introduced on the new German tanks little increase in armor on Sherman was taken until late in the war. At that point, the front hull was redesigned with a modest increase in armor and the ability to add applique armor was added.
@@patrickmccrann991 McNair was not directly involved in tank development, but he did influence what vehicles were developed based on his armoured doctrine. His belief that tank on tank battles were unlikely to occur and favouring the use of lightly armoured tank destroyers has been well documented, as was his opposition to the deployment of the Pershing tank.
@catinthehat906 That said, despite his personal misgivings, he still approved the tanks and even allowed experimental Pershing tanks on the battlefield. He didn't let his personal opinions get in the way.
Americans only faced mass German armor in December 1944 in the Battle of tge Bulge. In Normandy they faced only 1.5 German armor divisions, against nearly 8 by the British. Thus USA used the 76mm gun and TDs.
Yes, there was that bocage issue and the whole point of Cobra was to hit them where they ain't. Monty was well aware of the shortest route to useable ports and the Reich was the north coast, but also it was also the most heavily defended route. He failed to take Caen in short order and for good reason. Not enough Fireflies I guess. People, this (WW2) was a team effort despite the personalities involved and the propaganda for domestic consumption.
I don't think US forces faced any Tigers during the Normandy campaign. The British and Canadian divisions engaged and were engaged by the bulk of the German panzers and this was intentional - due to the Firefly which performed very well - one knocking out a King Tiger.
Nonsense, haven't you heard of the famous combination of the North American P-51 Mustang fighter and the Rolls-Royce Merlin engine? Textbook example of Anglo-American cooperation.
The Americans did not face Tiger tanks in Normandy. They were all in the Eastern and Caen sector. My dad was in Guards Armoured. Their shells just glanced off the frontal armour.
So the US preferred having many toothless tanks instead of fewer really effective tank busters, the Brits had done the hard work getting the larger gun on board and the flash could be dealt with with eye wear protection brush fires were hardly a serious concern and a less efficient but alive tank crew is better than a demoralised endangered tank crew.
@paulbromley6687 No. The US preferred tanks that were equipped with guns that accomplished their mission under US doctrine - infantry support. And that's what US tanks did almost all the time.
It's just British not adopting US 75 mm anti tank gun early on in the war it could have been fitted in valatine as they did later on in the war. They had to design a 6pdr which wasn't as powerful as the 75 mm. and while they where waiting they use weak 2pdr which already outdated at the start of war.
Americans didn’t need the 17lb in France as they didn’t encounter a single tiger in real combat until they got to Germany, the only one in France was a tiger on a rail car waiting to be shipped back to Germany for repairs
I'm afraid the Arrogance carried on in 1984 Beirut. When British Officers told the United States Marine that their Head Quarters wasn't secure. They ignored Resulting in 240 Dead Marines exactly how the British said it Could .
@MaxwellMoore-d1u Still remember that. Instead of the US government dealing with them, we pulled out. Put the nation on a higher threat level, when the enemy sees we are not retaliating.
@jasondiggs6740 By all means Retaliate. But Prevention would have been the best option. The British had experience with Terrorists in Northern Ireland and Protected their Bases accordingly.
@MaxwellMoore-d1u Not the first time. I don't know why the USA has a hard time listening to the British. What's the point of having Allies if you're not going to listen and cooperate with them🤷🏾♂️
@jasondiggs6740 Exactly. We not only Learn from Allies but more importantly we Learn from what the Enemy does Well .an example is the Gorilla Tactics employed by the Aficaans In the Boar wars .
Criticizing the U.S. at every opportunity seems to be a popular pastime here on UA-cam, but I would point out that the British were putting their big guns on American tanks. In addition, popular thinking is that the Soviets beat the Germans through sheer numbers over more complex German technology - so why is the U. S. wrong for taking the same approach? Something the video didn't point out was that European nations made tanks to be used in Europe, whereas the design of the Sherman tank was optimized for transporting it overseas - to take the war to the enemy. I suspect the idea of putting big guns on the Sherman wasn't rejected by professionals because it wasn't their idea or because the guns weren't made in America, but because they weighted the pros and cons differently and therefore came to a different conclusion. They didn't seem to have a problem with putting Rolls Royce engines in the Mustang.
Maybe the ability to use smoke and HE benefited the Americans more in their sector while the British and Canadians, facing more German armour, appreciated the 17pdr. In any event, it must be cold comfort knowing that although you out number the enemy, you sit there hoping it's not your tank being lined up...
WITHIN TWO WEEKS of the Normandy landings ...............Yankee engineers were conferring with their Brit counterparts regarding HOW TO INSTALL A 17 pnd gun in a General Sherman turret !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! In related news- all the Brit "gadgets" of the 79th division that had previously been SCORNED by Yankees - entered service WITH the Yankees!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! WW2 was won with Brit brains. Yankee supplies and Russian blood!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It was a team effort - take one out and the others would be DEFEATED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
@@jacktattis SAD Woke person still trying to AVOID THE ISSUE - by refusing to address WHY Yankees did not want 17 pound gun in their tanks - till REALITY INTRUDED on their thinking!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Some Woke people simply are NOT HAPPY with the idea that Brits KNEW WHAT THEY WERE DOING and that under Churchill leadership Brit war effort was AMAZINGLY EFFECTIVE!!!!!!!!!!!!! Nor do SAD Woke people want to discuss the UGLY FACT that two decades of LIE-beral and Woke NEGLECT of the military resulted in millions of men being sent off to defend democracy with OBSOLETE WEAPONS AND LIMITED TRAINING!!!!!!!!!!!!!
@@abellseaman4114 1,335 M4's with US 76mm gun Lend Leased to Britain Tank Chats #111 | Sherman M4A1 (76) W | The Tank Museum ua-cam.com/video/LIPG2_TOITo/v-deo.html
@@nickdanger3802 You offer the USUAL LIE-beral; / Woke NONSENSE fun with dates and places and times!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! The historical record supports the points about SUPERIOR BRITISH BRAINS AND BRITISH STRATEGY ........... Yankees LEARNED MUCH FROM THE BRITS - INCLUDING THE LESSON ABOUT MOUNTING 76 mm guns in their tanks!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! And yes - once Yankees realized the NEED - they acted swiftly - but it took TWO WEEKS OF FIGHTING IN NORMANDY TO CONVINCE THEM OF THE NEED!!!!!!!!!!!!
I dont know where you got the abalistics info about the 76mm or the 90mm, but both were quite capible of taking out a Panther or atiger, "Fury" us wrong, the 90mm was as good or better than the 88.
Competitive jealously sounds like to me. What a shame for all those American tankers who suffered due to SHEAF hardheadedness. Why didn't the US, the industrial powerhouse it was, develop a better gun earlier in the war, especially when in Africa and Sicily the US doctrine was proven less then ideal? The Brits were tough fighters.
Britain and the Soviet Union both entered the war sooner than the U.S. and both nation's armies fought the German army on an ongoing basis in North Africa and on the Eastern Front. Consequently, developments in armored warfare were known quickly - even to senior officers. This ongoing "arms race" between tanks and the means of knocking them out informed and drove British and Soviet tank and anti-tank weapons development. The British saw the lethal effect of the feared German dual-purpose 88mm anti-tank/anti-aircraft in North Africa long before the U.S. did. The Germans saw the KV-1 and T34 tanks in action, which in turn spurred the Panther to be developed, and so on. The Americans, however, were playing catch-up due to not entering the war until the Pearl Harbor attack, and also the fact that many of their generals in charge of armored forces had little to no experience with modern weaponry of the kind being used in places like N. Africa and the USSR. This is evidenced by some of the rattletrap designs first put forth early in the war as proposed tanks for the U.S. (and her allies). To the credit of the U.S., at least some military and civilian personnel were fast learners, since better designs began to come off the draftsman's tables - such as the Lee/Grant series of medium tanks, M3 Stuart light tank, and eventually the M4 series. For a time after its introduction into operational use in N. Africa, the Sherman was the best tank in theater - being equal to anything the Germans could throw at it. It took the introduction of the Mk IV Special long-barreled high-velocity 75mm gun on the Panzer IV and later the Tiger I to regain the edge for the Axis. So, going into Sicily and Italy and then France in 1944, the U.S. tankers were feeling pretty good about their prospects. Word of formidable new tanks and TDs reached the U.S. from the USSR, but these reports did not alter the complacency of the high command. And in any case, new and better designs were on the way for the Americans, so all was well or so it seemed. General Eisenhower, the head of SHAEF, and his staff had participated in demonstrations and had been briefed on new weapons, such as the 76mm gun - which was considered at the time as an answer to the best German armor. Given the overly-optimistic reports of the 76mm gun's effectiveness, SHAEF did not see any reason to accept the British offer of the potent Ordnance QF 17-pounder gun. Particularly since it had proven so troublesome to install in the Sherman in the first place. It is a real shame that Ike and his staff didn't look more closely at what the British were doing. Not only had they installed the 17-pounder into a Sherman, they also created not one but two potent new TDs using the gun. In the M10 Motor Gun Carriage, they added the 17-pounder to create the Wolverine TD. And in their own Valentine medium tank chassis, they created the Archer, another very useful AT platform. In practice, the M36 Jackson tank destroyer, which mounted the 90mm gun, gave performance more-or-less equivalent to the British 17-pounder, and it is that platform which saved the bacon of many beleaguered Sherman crews and others imperiled by German armor. Flawed U.S. Army doctrine also played into the situation. Tanks - such as the 75mm M4 Sherman - were not supposed to fight other tanks, but were to serve as breakthrough weapons and in support of infantry. Tank Destroyer Command had - or was supposed to have - the job of knocking out enemy armor. In the real world, the distinction between the two quickly became blurred and vanished altogether by the war's end.
Actually the M1 76mm was effective against Tiger 1 tanks up to a range of 1 km against their frontal armor. So it was just about adequate for the job but needed to be in closer distances to be effective against Tigers and panthers. 76mm is useless against Tiger IIs, where even the 17pdr struggles frontally
Its a truism that arrogance and pride often gets in the way of efficiency. The Firefly situation was repeated later with the T55 problem which lead the British towards the 105mm Centurion, the American military again insisted on their own designs, though at least they eventually adopted the 105 L7.
@richardbradley2802 - Not that arrogance and pride on the part of certain members of the brass - senior officer corps ranks - wasn't a problem; it came into play there's little doubt of that.... but there was more to it. Around the time the MBT which was to eventually become the Abrams was being designed (early 1970s), the British and American armies began diverging with regards to rifled weapons versus non-rifled ones. Britain, with her superb Challenger series of tanks which so dominated battlefields for much of the 1980s-2000s, utilized a rifled main gun, in part because the Royal Armor Corps wanted to continue to use squash-head munitions. These excellent anti-armor/anti-barrier rounds were designed to flatten themselves against the outer surface of the target, and then detonate - sending a supersonic shock-wave through and into the target, which would blow high-velocity fragments and spall all over the interior creating havoc, starting fires, etc. These rounds proved to be very effective, and they worked well out of rifled barrels as did many other types of rounds. The Germans and the Americans, however, opted to develop smooth-bore high-velocity cannon, by Rheinmetall and other firms. The chief advantage of a smooth-bore is that it allows the powder charge to propel the projectile/warhead to very high muzzle velocity. The disadvantage is that such projectiles must be fin-stabilized since they can't rely on rifling in the barrel. There are ways of spinning projectiles in a smooth bore, but the point remains. International politics played its part, of course, in whose design was selected to arm the new American MBT. Rheinmetall won out over the other competitors, a number of whom offered superb entrants in their own right.
"Sir, the 17 pounder gun won't fit in the turret" "Put it in sideways!" "Ok, but now the radio won't fit" "Cut a hole on the back of the turrets and stick it in there!"
3rd SS Panzer division (Totenkopf) was not present in Normandy. The division took part in the battle of France in 1940 and was then employed exclusively in the east against Russia. The SS divisions that did fight in Normandy did not have Tiger tanks. The Tigers were removed from the divisions and formed into a single battalion, the 501st SS. That Tiger battalion did fight in Normandy.
@@carmy1313 pretty sure Whitman and his crew and Tiger tank were killed in an air strike. Probably from a Hawker Typhoon since he was still in the British sector.
Seriously? Of course they didn’t adopt the Firefly. 1 - The 17 pounder gun was only made in limited numbers , 2 - it was an adaptation of the Sherman and not a production model. 3 - The USA had its own anti Tiger gun coming down the line. 4 - The ammunition, it would have meant the USA were very keen, rightly, on standardising ammunition given the vast quantities needed. I could go on.
I remember watching a video of a Sherman mechanic. He talked about how they would have to clean out the remains of tank crews, make repairs and patch holes, then a new tank crew would take it. You could tell he didn't like the Sherman because he knew the armor wasn't good enough and he was constantly working. I can't imagine having to clean out those remains.
My late uncle survived a strike on his Sherman in Belgium I believe. I think it would have been better to have shifted production towards the Firefly or the T25 tank being developed. Obviously, the tank destroyers were a dead end in hindsight. The Sherman was good in the South Pacific theater or sending to the Chinese but should have been replaced by a more effective tank.
McNair thought tank destroyers would combat German heavy tanks- which is daft really particularly in the Bocage in Normandy where German heavies and Stugs could lie in wait, any vehicle combating them had to be able to take frontal rounds without being destroyed to have any chance of survival.
The video explains the US tactical doctrine of using tank destroyers to hunt tanks but does not mention the way the commonwealth forces used them. After any successful advance the British/Canadian/Polish units would rush tank destroyers (17pdr or 3 inch armed) forward to support the infantry who would face an inevitable German counterattack. The Germans had to do this because H*tler would not allow them to withdraw. When the antitank guns came up to reinforce the positions the tank destroyers would go back to the rear. In other words they used them as mobile antitank guns fighting from concealed positions. They were still vulnerable to mortar fire which caused the majority of casualties in Normandy.
Request for your next video; Talk about the Lockheed L-133 and why the government said "NO" to that. It was a proposed jet design that was more advanced than the ME-262 but the government said "No thanks". Pretty cool looking jet too.
The M4 Sherman was actually a further developement of the M3 Lee. The M3 Lee was equipped with a 37mm gun in a fully rotating turrent and a side mounted 75mm gun in a casement. The M3 Lee dominated the Panzer IIIs and Panzer IVs when delivered to the British 8th Army in North Africa. American doctrine did call for the use of combined arms tactics to overcome the Germans in North Africa, Sicily, and Italy in 1943. The 75mm guns on Shermans supported by 3in guns (76mm) in the M10 Tank Destroyer still maintained overmatch against Panzer IIIs and were about equal to the Panzer IVs. They did have trouble against Panthers and Tigers. However, these tanks did not really enter service until 1943 and were primarily used on the Eastern Front. The mountainous terrain in Sicily and Italy did not make for good "tank country" for the Germans, Italians, British, or the Americans. The US began fielding M4 Shermans with 76mm guns in 1944 shortly after D-Day. The US developed a number of M4 Sherman models during the war, eventually producing over 50,000 of these vehicles. The models included the M4 and M4A1 Sherman. The M4A1 was produced with 75mm guns through 1944, then production shifted to 76mm guns. In 1944 the US began fielding the M4A3 Sherman series. These included models with 75mm main guns and others with 76mm main guns. The M4A3E2 Jumbo Sherman was heavily armored and included models with 75mm main guns and others with 76mm main guns. Finally, in late 1944 the US fielded the M4A3E8 armed with a 76mm gun. The M4A3E8 was a very good tank and the US Army upgraded many M3A3s to the M4A3 standard after the war. Export models of the venerable Sherman tank included the early M4 Shermans, the M4A2 Sherman, and the M4A4 Sherman. These tanks were primarily provided to the British, French, and Russians. It was these M4A4 models that the British transformed into "Fireflys" armed with 76mm (17 pounders). So, the US Army had quite a few 76mm gun armed tanks by the end of 1945. In fact, the United States had more 76mm gun armed tanks than the British had Fireflys. Again, the US produced over 50,000 M4 Sherman series tanks, including tanks for the US Army, US Marines, the French Army, the British Army, and the Russian Army. Last, but not least, the United States fielded the M26 Pershing in December 1944. The Pershing was comparable to the Panzer V "Panther." The Germans and Russians had very good tanks. The German Panther and the Russian T34 /75 and the T34/85 were probably the best medium tanks in the war. The Sherman variants came in a close third. Having said the German Tiger I, Tiger II, and the Russian KV1, KV2, IS2, and IS3 series tanks were very good heavy tanks that dominated medium tanks on the battlefield In terms of numbers, the US produced 50,000 Sherman tank variants. German Panthers and Tigers were produced in much smaller numbers. The Germans produced less than 7,000 Panthers, less than 1,500 Tiger I tanks, and few than 1,000 Tiger IIs. German Panthers and Tigers were spotted much less frequently in Northern Europe compared to Panzer IVs and various assault guns like the Panzer jaeger IV and the Stug III, Stug IV, and various Marder type vehicles. The Sherman variants were equal to these German vehicles in terms of firepower and protection. The Germans and Russians also developed heavy tank destroyers such as the Jagdpanther and Jagdtiger. The Russians fielded the excellent SU-85 and the SU-100 that could penetrate the armor of any German tank. Neither the United States nor the British produced heavy tanks or heavy tank destroyers like those produced by the Germans and Russians.
It wasn't that they had to move the radio that's just where the Brits wanted it that's also why the Grant tank had a diff turret than the Lee tank. The space were the radio was originally was than used for ammo storage but you had to get out of the tank to access it. As for the gun they ended up rotating it so it sat sideways
@@FairladyS130 - Incorrect. One hit might have done it 'most times.' But the Firefly was an ergonomic nightmare, so slow firing, inaccurate, at best, wildly so with sabot.
Super wonderful video about tank destroyer Sherman fire fly fixed with 17 pounder gun.how British adopted this powerful fire power and sufficient velocity. But Americans regretted it due to military doctrines between the British and the US. in addition to Sherman tanks designed for infantry supports.amercans have had independent tank destroyers. They fixed by a 90mm gun to challenging Pather 4, Tiger German tanks....thank you 🙏 ( Factbytes) channel for sharing
This is reminiscent of British putting Merlin in the Mustang 😮 making it game changer . Sherman was a good tank just needed an upgrade,it needed whole new rotational turret to suit more powerful gun.
"It is admitted that American tanks played a great part in the Battle of Egypt. America has been in this war for only a year. Why is it that in that short time she has been able to produce a first-class tank like the General Sherman whereas Great Britain, after three years of war and several years of preparation before the war, has not been able to do so." below 245 Hansard DEBATE ON THE ADDRESS 17 November 1942
NIH. The Americans were slow to learn from earlier British mistakes on many occaisions. Hubris cost American lives dearly in North Africa, Italy and Normandy.
"It is admitted that American tanks played a great part in the Battle of Egypt. America has been in this war for only a year. Why is it that in that short time she has been able to produce a first-class tank like the General Sherman whereas Great Britain, after three years of war and several years of preparation before the war, has not been able to do so." below 245 Hansard DEBATE ON THE ADDRESS 17 November 1942
Whatever reasons the US Army high command used for not using bigger tank cannon in the Sherman M-4, they were wrong, and the US Armies' tank crewmen paid the price with hideous wounds or their lives. You can bet that no US Army General lost his life.
@frankfischer1281 they were not necessarily "wrong". US armor doctrine had tanks supporting infantry and tank destroyers fighting enemy tanks. The 75mm was a superior gun for infantry support as it's HE shell was better. Now of course that doctrine was honored more in the breach. But nonetheless, US Army tanks spent most of their time fighting in support. There were plenty of effective tank destroyers in Western Europe in 1944. The idea that belated delivery of 76mm tanks was a mistake is at the least exaggerated.
Maybe it was because they 17 pounder gun not only took up alot more room in the turret in an already cramped space but that it would also added another type of round to the logistics side
“Now at this very moment I knew that the United States was in the war, up to the neck and in to the death. So we had won after all! ... How long the war would last or in what fashion it would end no man could tell, nor did I at this moment care ... We should not be wiped out. Our history would not come to an end ... Hitler's fate was sealed. Mussolini's fate was sealed. As for the Japanese, they would be ground to a powder. All the rest was merely the proper application of overwhelming force.” ― Winston S. Churchill
It just shows the damage people at the top can do it should of been obvious to the American top brass to use the 17 Pounder on the shermans but because it was a British idea obviously it wasn’t
Another reason for not introducing the 17 pounder into the American military was due to supply chain problems. It's very easy to ship a butt load of ammunition all over the theater, if it's all the same. If the majority of tanks use 75mm ammo, it's more difficult to run out if they all use the same. You don't have to worry about your 17 pounder getting tied up in t he rear... it was already a logistics headache to worry about getting the 76mm ammo in steady supply once those tanks were sent into action.
@jameskraft7657 The US Army was supplying two types of tank gun ammo already. 75mm and 3 inch. The 3 inch was used in the M10. If you include light tanks, armored cars, and towed AT guns then four (37mm and 57mm).
You have to remember all the American costly equipment mistakes that plagued war efforts. We had the lousiest torpedoes on submarines, ships and air dropped for a couple of years and the Department of the Navy responsible for them made little effort to correct them. Subs firing on Japanese merchant and naval ships only to have them fail to explode. The Douglas TBF Avenger was so slow that all were shot down at the Battle of Midway.
Torpedoes had problems due to inadequate testing prewar by the Bureau of Ordnance. The TBF was built by Grumman not Douglas and only 6 were involved at Midway land based. The aircraft that was obsolete at suffered horrible losses at Midway was the Douglas TBD Devastator which was an advanced aircraft when introduced in 1937, but obsolete by 1942.
@MrTigurius TBFs entered service in June 1942 at Midway. There were only 6 available and they were land based off of Midway by a detachment of VT-8. 4 of 6 were lost during their unescorted attack on the Japanese fleet.
The Douglas TBD Devastator torpedo bomber was still standard equipment for the USN during the Battle of Midway, and it is that largely obsolescent bomber/torpedo bomber which was lost in such numbers. The Avenger didn't enter service in large numbers until somewhat later.
Good to come across a video that accepts and understands American hubris. The Americans had something of a baptism of fire in Operation Torch (North Afrika) but with lashings of hubris behind their thinking, changed very little in their "doctrine" until much later in the war.
I'm afraid that there was a considerable amount of anti-British feeling in the Americans, with the result that they suffered increased casualties and difficulties. This is just one example, others include failure to implement the convoy system for their domestic shipping when they came into the war, failure to implement blackout along the east coast of USA meaning that their merchant ships were silhouetted against the shore lights, failure to use the DD "swimming" Sherman tanks properly on D-day, meaning most of theirs sank.
Agreed!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It took a while for the Yankees to figure out that Brits KNEW WHAT THEY WERE TALKING ABOUT!!!!!!!!!! The Disaster at Omaha beach could have been pretty much AVOIDED if Yankee planners and listened more carefully to Brit planners!!!!!!!!!!
@@abellseaman4114Doesn't explain the repeated British/Canadian failures in front of Caen does it? The Brits did not fight any better than the Americans, and when all was said and done, played a subsidiary role. They never fielded more than 12 divisions in NW Europe, better than the Canadian's 5, but a definitively minor contribution.
@@abellseaman4114 "The Disaster at Omaha beach could have been pretty much AVOIDED if Yankee planners and listened more carefully to Brit planners!!!!!!!!!!" source ?
@@thomasmurphy6595 HYPOCRITE LIE-berals and their anti Woke BIGOT ALLIES REFUSE TO RECOGNIZE what happened immediately after D-day........................... and hypocrite LIE-berals like to blame Montgomery for Yankee failings!!!!!!!!! Yankee forces that landed on Utah beach WERE LOST due to faulty navigation - after IGNORING BRIT WARNINGS ON THE SUBJECT - thus in the early days after the invasion - Nazis pretty much IGNORED troops at Utah as they floundered their way through swamps and flooded areas..................... Yankee troops at Omaha beach had suffered so much due to faulty planning that Brits had warned them about - that the Omaha troops took a long time to summon the energy to push inland to any real distance............. Eventually Omaha and Utah troops got far enough inland that heavy equipment that was landed at Utah got driven down the beach to Omaha and then sent inland and then headed south to link back up with Utah FOOT SOLDIERS who had walked and waded through THE HEAVY FLOODING AT UTAH!!!!! In related news - there were eleven Nazi armoured divisions in Normandy and through much of the fighting - TEN OF THOSE ARMOURED UNITS FACED BRITS AND CANADIANS until the Yankee break out at St. Lo.............thus Patton benefited from Nazi defences that were WEAKER IN HIS AREA THAN IN OTHER SPOTS ON THE LINE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
A "factbyte" that is short on facts. Allied tanks in the Western Desert armed with the American 75mm and British 6-pounder guns had no problem penetrating the armour of the Panzer IV which was relatively thin (compared to the Panther and Tiger), especially on the early variants. The threat posed by the Panzer IV came from those equipped with the long-barrel 7.5cm gun, as did the Panzer III with the long-barrel 5cm gun. The US 76mm was NOT an upgrade of the old 75mm, it was a completely new weapon that used different ammunition. As for rotating the 17-pdr so the "breach was at the back",, it was already at the back; it was rotated 90 degrees to make loading easier in the Firefly's cramped turret.
Me thinks the last reason for the decision not to deploy the Firefly was the most important…US military arrogance and unwillingness to accept a non American solution. Still true today. But one wonders why Patton didn’t demand some Fireflies.
I think you pretty much summed it up yourself . Patton was arrogant and thought himself infallible . He made some great choices during the war but also some bad ones like the Metz fortresses , even his success at Remagen was down to sheer luck . I think the reason he and Montgomery never got on is because they were more alike than they'd ever admit
Patton citing U.S. Army tank and tank destroyer doctrine to a tee, had rejected the need for the new T-26/M-26 Pershing tank in the months leading up to the invasion of Normandy in June 1944. Citing space concerned aboard trans-Atlantic merchant shipping, as well as the proper doctrinal role of tanks under current war-fighting doctrine, Patton said that the existing M4 series would be enough to do the job. He was a cavalryman, and liked how the Sherman performed in that role, as a breakthrough and exploitation weapon. A role for which it was well-suited. You can't help but think that if Patton had spent more time in the turret of a tank in combat, like some of his staff sergeants, his views might have been different. Like most general and flag officers, he was highly-dependent upon his staff and staff officers to supply him with accurate and timely information. If he didn't get it, it wasn't necessarily his fault. And like many senior officers, as long as his men got the results he wanted, he probably didn't look too hard at how they had done it. Too busy moving on to the next objective. In the run-up to D-Day, Supreme Commander Allied Expeditionary Forces (SHAEF) General Eisenhower and his top staff, including Patton, had been promised that the new 76mm gun would be the equal of the enemy's best guns and best armored vehicles. Ike later complained bitterly that he had been misled when the gun under-performed in its initial combat in N. France.
The US was shipped I think two converted Firefly turrets for evaluation. These were mounted on M4A3 hulls at Aberdeen for evaluation. The US concluded that the Firefly turret was "unfightable", meaning the turret with the 17lbr gun was too cramped and not enough room to maneuver the ammo in a timely manner. Further, the 17lbr ammo being larger in diameter and longer reduced the ammo count below what the US Army considered acceptable. The US also concluded that the 17lbr firing APCBC ammo did not offer enough of a advantage over the US M7 3in gun used on the M10 or the 76.2mm M1 gun used on the M18 GMC and coming into service on the M4A1/76 being shipped to UK. While the M4A1/76 typically fired APCBC ammo, the M10 and M18 crews had access to HVAP ammo by Normandy. Roughly 200 M4A1/76 tanks were rushed to the UK for use in D-Day but the armored Division commanders left then at home because they did not want the added logistical burden of supporting another ammo type. The M4A1/76 first saw action about August 1st 1944 in the opening of Operation Cobra. Initially the US assigned the M4A1/76 similar to the British with one M4A1/76 per US M4 platoon of four tanks. Unless I misheard, the video stated the M4A1/76 could not penetrate the Panther at ranges over 500m and could not penetrate the Tiger I or II at all. This is incorrect. The US M7 3in gun and the M1 76.2mm fired the exact same projectile. The propellant casing was redesigned to reduce the length of the casing while increasing its diameter. the volume of propellant was identical giving the same ballistic performance. Where the M7 3in gun was adapted from the M1917 3in towed anti aircraft gun and weighed about 1,990lbs. the M1 76.2mm was designed for vehicle mounting and to use modern materials and reduced complexity. the M1 76.2mm weighed about 1,100lbs. The round typically fired was the M62 APCBC, the M79 APC-T, and the M93 HVAP round. The M62 round could not penetrate the Panther at normal combat ranges of 500 to 700 meters, unless the round hit the underside of the gun mantlet and ricocheted down through the hull roof with catastrophic results. The upper front plate was mostly impenetrable by all except the M93 HVAP fired at under 300 meters which was suicidally close. The lower front plate of the Panther being 60mm thick, was able to be penetrated at normal combat ranges when it was visible. The Panthers 40mm ot 50mm side armor was easier to penetrate at normal combat ranges as long as it was a 90deg angle shot. If the Panther was angled the changes of penetration went down. The US 3in and 76.2mm gun had little problems with the Tiger I's almost vertical armor. The M62 APCBC couldnt penetrate the Tiger I frontally out to 1000 meters, and out to 1400 meters from the side. By comparison the M3 75mm had to close to under 500meters to penetrate the Tiger I frontally. This is confirmed in Germanys own Tiger fibel, the handbook for training Tiger I crews. If your firing 3in or 76.2mm at a Tiger II...pray. Due to low armor quality in Tiger II's some crews used HE and white phosphorous. The M36 GMC with its M3 90mm gun firing HVAP could penetrate the Panthers upper front plate at normal combat ranges and from the side out to 1000 meters. Unfortunately 90mm HVAP was always in short supply. The 90mm M3 firing M77 AP or M82 APC ammo could penetrate the Tiger I out past 2,000 meters reliably assuming the gunner could hit the target.
Patton certainly epitomized that arrogance and limited thinking!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Patton believed it was Montgomery who hampered him and restricted his actions in North Africa and Sicily - but in reality it was the American Congress who was the major obstacle as they kept trying to draw off men and equipment for the Pacific theatre as Congress DID NOT UNDERSTAND the strategic situation that dictated allied effort against Nazi Germany first and foremost!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
This was infuriatingly repetitive It also seems to overstate how common the tiger - and to a lesser extent the panther - were, and understate how relatively common the Panzer IV was. It also downplays how few tanks Germany had. And how for most of the war all nations, including Germany, used tanks for exploitation. And how common using artillery, airstrikes and anti tank guns against tanks. And how you'd always try to flank the enemy. And, with regard to Africa, it completely ignores Rommel's use of the sword and shield tactic. It also downplays how bad the ergonomics were inside the Firefly. Seriously, go look at some of the chieftain's videos on Firefly. The Firefly was a good bodge, but it was a bodge nevertheless which ment it was hyper specialised. The 76mm sherman however was a good tank.
I believe the EM2 but was put aside because of commonality with the American weapon. It is like here in Australia we had to buy second hand Abrams for commonality When we could have bought Second Hand Challenger I ,a better tank cheaper My govt is corrupt We have that shit plane the F18 for commonality
@jacktattis it was not for commonality that the EM2 was rejected. It was the yanks thought the the round was too small and they wanted the bigger bullet like the 7.62 mm with a better stopping power. How history proves the British smaller round would prevail. Their is a vlog on you tube which explains the reasoning about this subject, forgotten weapons is one such channel, just search for this channel and put in EM2 British bullpup rifle it will explain 👍
@@BanIslam-j6p There has been an argument about that for 80 years. I think they stole them Nick Danger thinks that those engines were paid for by the USA . All I know is that RR/R paid $130mil. up front to Packard. Where that went no-one has been able to find out.
The US Army rejected the Firefly for the same reason it rejected the M4E2 with the 76mm Gun M1 in the M34 mount on the original cast turret. The turret couldn't be balanced, so the gun stabilization system couldn't be used. There was insufficient room for enough ammunition to be carried in protected storage. There was insufficient room for the loader, reducing crew efficiency. The turret training motors, both mechanical and hydraulic could not turn the turret when the tank was at an angle. The flash and smoke disoriented the gunner using the periscopic sight or the telescopic sight which increased time to lay on and fire a second shot. The British accepted these issues in order to get a more effective gun into service. It should be noted that the US Army tested the APPCBC shot and the APDS and found that the dispersion around the aim point on a target was greater than the US 76mm M1/3" M7 and the 90mm M3. The APDS dispersion at 1,000 yards was such that 50% of the shots missed a target representing a typical medium tank turret. As it was, according to Hunnicutt, the US Army in Europe actually tested the 17pdr in a T23 turret on an M4A1E8. The outcome was favorable and the US Army requested 50 M4A1E8 and M4A3E8 tanks undergoing depot maintenance be provided to the British to be upgunned. It is not known if these tanks were completed or if they were issued. The US Army already had a good tank gun, the 90mm M3. It was mounted on the M36 Gun Motor Carriage, which included some M36 turrets mounted on M4 Sherman hulls. The 90mm also armed the T25 and T26 tanks. Moreover, the US Ordnance had done a study on mounting the T25 turret, which had the same mounting ring dimensions as the T23 turret into Shermans. When the French upgraded their Shermans and worked with the Israelis to upgrade the Shermans the French sold to them, they mounted the 75mm CN-75-F1 gun from the AMX-13 by building an extension of the turret to the front where the new mantlet was mounted, providing more room in the turret. The CN-75-F1 was similar in length to the 17pdr, which then begs the question why no one thought of this answer before 1954. Finally, as proof the T25 turret on the Sherman would have worked, we have the HV-51, a Sherman with a T23 turret mounting the French 105mm D-1455 gun, a shorter and lighter version of the CN-105-F1 of the AMX-30, the recoil forces being reduced by firing only HEAT rounds.
A couple of inaccuracies in the otherwise good video. First one is that the front armour on the panther was harder to penetrate than the Tiger. Much weaker everywhere else but tougher on the front. 2- the americans barely fought the tiger and didnt fight any in Normandy. The germans always focused their best troops and weapons in the more strategic fronts of Eastern Sicily and northern france/netherlands/belgium and these happened to be the British fronts. Not to downplay the americans but their breakouts would not have been as easy if they were facing SS with Tigers instead of inexperienced soldiers.
The British civilian Ministry of Supply had already stopped the idea of a 17 pdr armed Sherman back in 1942 (appx). It was Major George Brighty, with the help of Lieutenant Colonel Witheridge of the British army who had to push the concept through the British bureaucracy! There are a couple of factual reasons why the US Army correctly did not fully adopt the 17 pdr: (The correct name Ordnance QF 17-pounder but everybody uses 17 pdr) 1. The US Army did in fact order 160 Fireflies (British conversions of USA supplied Sherman M4 tanks) and never received the total of 160 Firefly M-4's. (That total never progressed beyond 100 tanks) These tanks were in the US Army inventory but never supplied to the US armor battalions. Why? The US Army doubted whether the UK could produce enough conversions to satisfy the US Army needs. This was critical! If the US Army was to "adopt" the Firefly and place the tank into the TO&E of US armor battalions then enough 17 pdr guns, ammunition and spare parts would be needed to the tune of thousands not just a hundred or so. The UK was already stretched with supplying it's own needs let alone the needs of the USA. As it turned out the UK was at it's limit of production of the 17 pdr, ammunition and spare parts. The only way the UK was going to produce enough 17 pdrs to meet all it's commitments was to go the route of demanding the USA supply even more machine tools, high grade steel and chemicals! Also not that PM Churchill had given 2 towed 17 pdr's to the Soviet army for testing and possible adoption. The Red Army after testing said "thank you but no" due to the towed version of the 17 pdr being to heavy to manhandle by a crew of seven. Also the Red Army found that the armor penetration was no better than the 85 mm AT already in use both towed and on the T-34/85, SU-85, KV-85 and adopting this AT gun would only complicate the supply situation that much more. (Note that the reduced armor penetration was due to the Soviets being supplied with only APC, HE, APCBC type ammunition not the APDS (aka SVDS)) 2. The US Army had already conducted it's own evaluation of tank use in Europe and the Pacific and found that: US Army tankers used more high-explosive ammunition than armor piercing ammunition, with a firing ratio of about 70% HE, 20% AP, and 10% smoke! The 17 pdr was great for armor penetration but absolutely horrible at infantry support! And infantry support was the tanks greatest use in WW2 in any theater except maybe in Eastern Europe. The HE shells for the 17-pounder had smaller bursting charges (Mk 1 shell: 1.28 lbs, Mk 2 shell: 1.06 lbs) than those for the 75mm gun used by the M4 Sherman (M48: 1.49 lbs, Mk 1: 1.64 lbs) The 17 pdr had a limited range of ammunition: Armor Piercing Capped (APC) (Not used on the tank mounted 17 pdr) Armour Piercing, Capped, Ballistic Capped (APCBC) Armour-piercing discarding sabot (APDS) High Explosive (HE) (poor performance as stated above) Compared to the 75 mm M3 gun: M61A1 Cartridge, APC-T M338A1 Cartridge, APC M72 Cartridge, 75mm AP M66 Cartridge, 75mm HEAT-T Mk 1 Cartridge, 75mm Shrapnel (WWI shell, probably only used in the Pacific if at all) M89 Cartridge, 75mm Smoke M64 Cartridge, 75mm Smoke WP M2A2 75mm Dummy Cartridge M19 or M19B1 Cartridge, 75mm Dummy Cartridge, 75mm Chemical, Mk 2 (fortunately never used in combat!) Cartridge, 75mm Blank, M337, M337A1, M337A2 Cartridge, 75mm Blank 3. The Legendary Inaccuracy of the 17-pounder firing APDS (aka SVDS) The claim to fame for the 17 pdr was it's ability to penetrate the armor of the German "cats" i.e., Tiger I, Panther and Tiger II. But hey if you cannot HIT the "cat" you cannot kill it! U.S. Army Firing Test No.3 U.S. Army Firing Tests conducted August 1944 by 12th U.S. Army Group at Isigny, France. 30 August 1944 SUBJECT: Final report of board of officers appointed to determine comparative effectiveness of ammunition of 76mm gun and 17pdr gun. TO: Commanding General, Twelfth Army Group. The board convened pursuant to the attached order at the firing range established by First U.S. Army near Isigny, France at 1030 hours, 19 August 1944 and conducted firing tests against the front plate of German Panther Tanks. The firing was continued, as the weather and the availability of target tanks permitted, on 20 and 21 August 1944. Because of the urgency of the test, a preliminary report, dated 21 August 1944, was submitted on 22 August 1944. Forty-two (42) rounds of 17pdr SABOT were fired and only 57% [24 rounds] were hits. Info from "The Sherman Firefly" Published, January 1, 2001 by Mark Hayward (Barbarossa Books) 400 yds APC hit 90.5% APDS hit 56.6% 600 yds APC hit 73.0% APDS hit 34.2% 800 yds APC hit 57.3% APDS hit 21.9% 1000 yds APC hit 45.3% APDS hit 14.9% 1500 yds APC hit 25.4% APDS hit 7.1% The Chieftain's Hatch worldoftanks.com/en/news/history/The_Chieftains_Hatch_Firefly/ Nicholas Moran explores the US Army testing of a 17 pdr on a imported M4 17 pdr MkVII turret that was fitted onto a standard M4A3 VVSS hull. The Firefly turret was being compared to the M4(76) and M26. This test was late 1943 at Aberdeen Proving Ground. The problem was with the APDS ammunition! The issue of tube fouling and interference of the muzzle brake with sabot separation was not solved until after WW 2 ended and I believe it was the Canadians who partially solved the issue. www.quora.com/The-QF-17-Pounder-suffered-accuracy-issues-with-APDS-why-could-the-Canadians-fix-it-but-not-the-British Or just got to UA-cam ua-cam.com/video/DaE0VJ7IaFU/v-deo.html Fast forward to 24:59 where the Chieftain discusses how the Canadians fixed the APDS separation issue. 4. Poor Ergonomics of the 17 pdr in a Sherman turret. a. Far fewer ammunition rounds could be carried. (Down from 97 to 77) b. The hull gunner had to be removed to make room for the ammunition. (Uhh, anyhow the hull gunner was an anachronism in my opinion. But the front of the hull was a stupid place to store main gun ammo) c. The rate of fire was much slower do to the size of the ammunition and the larger breech. d. At the time of the Firefly conversions the US was ending production 75 mm gunned Shermans. 5. The US Army testing proved that the the M36 tank destroyers (1,770 produced) and the rather late M26 Pershing were a much better choice than the Sherman based Firefly. Both used the M3 90 mm main gun which had an overall a better performance than the 17 pdr. The British Army themselves used the Firefly much as a "tank destroyer" rather than a MBT. Normally only 1 Firefly was allocated to a troop of 4 in each squadron of a Armored Regiment in the British army. Approximately 2000 Firefly conversions were made (unknown if this total includes thew 100 for the USA). During the battles in Northwest Europe the British had issues with some regiments refusing any more 17 pdr Firefly tanks and the number of encounters with German armor was becoming minimal and the 75 mm Sherman was preferred in urban fighting and for infantry support in the field.
Very interested in your source for the claim Regiments were 'turning down' the 17pdr tanks. Where can I see it. Also why have you left out Mark Haywards response (in his Firefly book) to the claims the 17 pdr was sub-par?
Actually no, The US Requested most if not all of Hobarts designs, however they only received a handful of Duplex-Drive tanks as time was in short supply.
@@autistic_m4a3_76w_hvss There was time enough to build the Funnies but not train the crews making them effectively just a burden. The US deployed a similar number of DD's as the UK and Canadian forces did on their beaches. Numbers limited by operational factors such as how many tanks can you actually use effectively on a narrow beach frontage.
The names never are provided, so the INDIVIDUALS who make the asinine decisions don't get held accountable and later promoted into other positions their not qualified for.
The biggest decision of the Americans to not accept the Sherman firefly was the fast production of the Sherman in its original form. It had great mobility. It had easy repair times and fewer mechanical breakdowns that kept them off the battlefield. This decision for the unaltered Sherman was all due to a battle plan that the British and Canadians would keep Germany’s need for heavier tanks north which was the shortest route to Germany. The Americans would push through the south and east which would involve less encounters with heavier tanks, such as the tiger 1 & 2. The Americans could do open field running from town to town with less heavier resistance and cause Germany to constantly having to shift units from one sector to another. Germany was consistently having to reinforce positions by transporting armor to different fronts. Wasted time and resources for transportation and less time in actual battle. Germany faced constant fuel and transportation crisis doing this. Germany’s 88s were better for transportation and were very effective for these purposes, but Sherman’s were fast and mobile enough to get around these positions and take them out with a single shot. A much better performance compared to tank on tank encounters. Here’s another point to consider….. America didn’t produce the tanks, the private manufacturing companies did that. And, we all know that deals were/are made to keep these companies in business and profitable and keep politicians and lobbyists in business…..and profitable.
The yanks never took advice or weapons from the British, they knew it all apparently - and paid for their hubris with the loss of many lives.... They dropped their British floating tanks too far offshore and they sank, they did not assemble their mulberry harbour properly and it broke up..
The failure of the Mulberry Harbor had nothing to do with improper assembly. The U.S. Harbor was in a more open, exposed location than the British Harbor and had heavier seas. That is the reason it broke up. Omaha Beach was more exposed to the seas and that led to the DD tanks foundering. DD tanks were not designed to operate in 5 foot seas. They were launched at the designated location, but couldn't handle the seas. Even some of the British DD tanks foundered. The Utah Beach Dd tanks were not launched until much closer to shore; a decision made by the landing craft group commander on his own authority based on the sea conditions.
The Americans at first didn’t think that the Mulberry Harbours were needed and everything could be off-loaded straight from ship onto the beach as they were doing in the Pacific! It had to be pointed out to them the difference between trying to supply two armies and a couple of Divisions!
There is no answer to this question. The UK was interested in making very specialised equipment for a special purpose e.g. armoured carriers, Mosquitos. They continued to do this after the war e.g. Buccaneer, Harrier. The US was interested in generalised equipment in numbers. It can all be summed up by geography, the US needed to think about the pacific, which is vast, and fighting in very varied terrain. The British were thinking about Europe and the Med. Different solutions for different problems.
The yanks are not wrong because they understood the concept of fit for purpose vs ideal. The Sherman tank could defeat any tank in the field of battle because you don't measure tanks on just 1 vs 1 stats but how many you WILL field in battle vs the enemy. If i can field 20 times the number of tanks you can field then it doesn't matter if your tanks are better in a 1 vs 1 stand off.
The British military was initially reluctant to squeeze the 17 pounder into the Sherman's turret. It was the tenacity of a few people and the impending invasion that the firefly was put into service. It was a necessity that was solved by sacrificing some ergonomics and operator convenience to get the job done. Besides the effectiveness of possibly the best gun at the time, the tactics used by the tank teams at the time was a key to its success. This is only my opinion and is not based on any research. I learned a lot in this video.
They would have had to admit that the British had a better gun than they did. Another ridiculous decision made by people back home who had absolutely no idea what was actually happening on the battlefield. This ridiculous decision cost the lives of many Sherman tank crews who had no chance against a Panther or Tiger from the front. Early on in the Normandy invasion they sent out 20 Shermans .... 2 came back. Read the reports of the men operating the Shermans and you will understand the truth.
Nope, not going to let you get away with this garbage that gets spewed every time the Sherman comes up. Shermans had one of the highest survivability rates of any mass produced tank of the war. Total ETO casualties for tank crew was 1,407 out of 49,516 deployed. This includes tankers killed from things like running over a mine, or killed outside their vehicles by things like snipers and artillery. That's a 3% rate. Infantry on the other hand suffered an 18.5% rate. Being in a Sherman tank was safer than being an infantryman. It was safer than being in a B-17, B-24, or B-25. Most of the AFVs engaged were Panzer IV H and J, or StuG III G, all of which the short 75mm could take from the front. Tigers were fairly rare on the Western front. Total tank medium tank write offs was 4,644. Let me repeat that and let it sink in. Total Shermans destroyed was 4,644 yet tanker casualties was 1407. That's not a death trap (which is pure fantasy written by a man with a bone to pick)
@@coachhannah2403 Irrelevant and stupid. It was a shorter gun compared to the 76mm. US tanks have nothing to do with early war German tanks. But hey, feel free to try and nitpick.
IWM Britain's Struggle To Build Effective Tanks "From late 1942, US tanks were required in increasing numbers to make up for the deficiencies of home-grown products. Only in 1944 was British industry able to deliver a tank reasonably fit for a fast-moving battlefield, and even then it was scarcely a match for its opponents."
Yes they did; except the US Sherman’s were manned by British / Canadian and commonwealth crews. Pretty sure all Sherman’s were built in America? I could be wrong mind so take it with a ouch of salt
“When the US forces faced Panther and Tiger tanks in Normandy” is an incorrect statement. All Tigers were deployed against the British and Canadians. Tankers often thought every German tank was a Tiger. They were almost always wrong.
Weren't tigers also deployed against Soviets?
@@mahirshahriarhussain5756 In particular, on the west in Normandy, almost all of the bigger cats were against the commonwealth forces.
@@mahirshahriarhussain5756 Tiger 1's were first deployed at the Leningrad front. The Soviets were the first to face them.
@@WildBill1992Don't forget Kursk
@@mahirshahriarhussain5756 Yes most of the Tigers where fighting the Russians, in fact there where relatively few Tigers during the normandy fighting.
The importance of Caen and Montgomery's operations, which pinned German armoured forces in front of the British positions so the American units could break out to the west, meant that British and other Commonwealth units had to face over 70 percent of the German armour deployed during the Battle of Normandy, as well as over half of the elite, well-equipped Waffen-SS Panzer units. As a result, the Sherman Firefly was perhaps the most valued tank by British and other Commonwealth commanders, as it was the only tank in the British Army able to reliably penetrate the frontal armour of Panthers and Tigers at the standard combat ranges in Normandy
OH PLEASE . It was a debacle
@@rbtsubs That's not what Omar Bradley said about it in his memoirs. "While Collins was hoisting his VII Corps flag over Cherbourg, Montgomery was spending his reputation in a bitter seige gainst the old university city of Caen. For three weeks, he had rammed his troops against those panzer divisions he had deliberately drawn toward that city as part of our Allied strategy of diversion in the Normandy campaign. Although Caen contained an important road junction that Montgomery would eventually need, for the moment the capture of that city was only incidental to his mission. For Monty's primary task was to attract German troops to the British front that we might more easily secure Cherbourg and get into position for the breakout.
In this diversionary mission Monty was more than successful, for the harder he hammered toward Caen, the more German troops he drew into that sector. Too many correspondents, however, had overrated the importance of Caen itself and when Monty failed to take it, they blamed him for the delay. But had we attempted to exonerate Montgomery by explaining how successfully he had hoodwinked the German by diverting him toward Caen from the Cotentin we would have also given our strategy away. So desperately wanted the German to believe this attack on Caen was the main effort..
But while this diversion of Monty's was brilliantly achieved, he nevertheless left himself open to criticism by overemphasising the importance of his thrust toward Caen. Had he limited himself simply to the containment without making Caen a symbol of it, he would have been credited with success instead of being charged, as he was, with failure at Caen. For Monty's success should have been measured in the panzer divisions the enemy rushed against him while Collins sped on toward Chergbourg. Instead, the Allied newspaper readers clamoured for a place name called Caen which Monty had once promised but failed to win for them."
("A Soldiers Story" pg 324-325, Gen. O Bradley
@@JohnCampbell-rn8rz Ok sure . But let's remember the source who still didn't believe Market Garden was a mistake ... Mentioned in that very book I believe . IDK how reliable it would be
@@rbtsubs Another one of the Yankee myths about Montgomery. Your're really bought in, aren'tcha.
@@rbtsubs You don't think that facing seven SS Panzer Divisions and three SS Independent Tiger Battalions, and fighting them to a standstill, was something of an achievement by the British & Canadians, then?
My father was in the Canadian Armoured division, he was a gun layer in a Sherman Firefly with a 17lb gun, he said it was very good, his tank shot up quite a few German tanks, all because, he said, of this gun.
He must have been shooting at close range. The 17-pounder was found to be less than accurate by the US Army. It is one thing to be able to penetrate the armor of an enemy tank at a certain distance, it is another thing to hit it. Missing could be fatal.
@@douglasprewer7913 The British Army lost 500 tanks during Operation GOODWOOD and killed fewer than 50 German tanks.
@@walterm140 One side were dug in with anti tank guns. One side crossed open ground with amour. The numbers don't tell the whole story. Knocked out and lost are two different things. Two thirds of the British lost tanks were put back into use. The Germans only recorded a tank lost if it could not be put back into use.
Who won anyway :)
@@LMyrski Missing it was a lot better than hitting and failing to penetrate. Hitting gives your position away much more than missing.
@@LMyrski not at all. The 17 pounder was excellent at range, but the "inaccuracy" claim is mostly with the APDS round, and due to the flash of the propellant meaning it was hard to see where the shell has gone. If you target something and punch through it with a round so fast you can't follow it's trajectory, it is harder for a follow-up shot, not inaccurate
Many American airmen died in 1942 and 1943 because the P47 fighters did not have the range to cover them all the way to the targets and back. The USAAF P47 fighters based in PNG traveled these distances. They were fitted with external fuel tanks made in the Ford factory in Brisbane, Australia. The P47 came out of the factory with all the fittings and fuel lines to take an external fuel tank that the USAAF would not order. It took Ford Brisbane about 3 weeks to design and make the first batch of tanks.
You can blame General Hap Arnold for his belief the bombers didn't need fighter escorts. He even fought against equipping the U.S. fighter groups with the P-51B Mustang for over a year. Only when his senior subordinate officers threatened to resign did he finally relent. The P-51B could've been fielded in 1943 instead of flying it's first mission in 1944.
Nearly all British planes were designed so that, if needed, in the future they could be fitted with external fuel tanks. American doctrine did not believe in it and therefore the design never allowed for it.
Different kind of tank than what this video is about.
@@barrysears8194 I am aware of that. This was a similar example of the thinking in the American Army. A lost opportunity.
The LITTLE DETAIL YOU ARE OVER LOOKING is that within TWO WEEKS of the Normandy landings - the Yankees had BEGUN MAKING ALL THE SPECIALIZED GADGETS that had been designed as "Funnies" by the Brit 79th division!!!!!!!!!
And that INCLUDED retrofitting General Sherman tanks to accept Brit 17 pound guns!!!!!!!!!
It makes you quite proud as a Brit to know that we fixed and improved some of the US best equipment. The Sherman Firefly, P51 Mustang and the Vought Corsair all great bits of kit that took the British to bring them to their full potential.
As an American I have great respect for the British people and their sacrifices in both WWI and WWII. Sorry, "Vought Corsair" was not brought to it's full potential by the Royal Navy. P51, you get all the credit, Firefly as well.
@appaho9tel up untill the Royal Navy sorted out the issue with the landing gear on the Corsar it was not safe for deck landings and was it was restricted to land use only.. Still though they wer3 all great designs pŕdior to ourinv0olvement.
The radio was not relocated into the hull. It was mounted in the box welded onto the rear of the turret.
It says that in the dialogue.
Actually, the radio is in the hull. However, there is a control box in the turret that was moved when the turret was modified.
Also, did you pick up on the statement that a bunker is a soft target?
The statement about Americans facing Tiger tanks in Normandy is not correct.
In fact, all of the Tigers that fought in Normandy were facing the Brits and Canadians.
That was one of the reasons that Caen was so hard to capture and why the Americans were able to break out so spectacularly once they got through the Bocage.
Note that I am not trying to take anything away from anyone, much respect to EVERYONE who fought in France.
Canadians did far more in ww2 then they’re given credit for.
Though Caen was supposed to have been taken D-Day +1, the 12th SS and 21st Panzer Divisions saw to that. But as Caen was an important communications hub, the Germans had defend it so the Panzer Divisions kept coming. Monty kept taking them out.
@@rickjames9477 The Longest Day gave due recognition to all the troops concerned, but US films like Private Ryan either ignore or show other Allies' forces and personnel as being second rate at best.
@michaelwilkinson2928 yep.
In band of brothers the British and Canadians are mentioned or shown 4 times after episode 1.
Canadians are mentioned as engineers, that's all they get.
The British get to be the tanks that get obliterated in episode 4, its shown that they lost 8,000 men in the end credits, then the next episode has them being saved by the Americans.
It doesn't even hint at the fact that when it was revealed the american airborne were getting surrounded at bastogne a load of British and Canadians parachuted in to help them hold the line.
@@bigenglishmonkey American historical "artistic license" which usually is at British expense.
17 pdr was 76.2mm calibre but US developed their own 76mm gun. But the muzzle velocity of the 17 pdr was about 10% higher than that of the 76mm
@@zedeyejoe There was very little difference in penetration between the British Ordinance QF 17 pounder and the U.S. 76mm given equal ammunition. For example for tungsten core ammunition:
-The 17 pounder shooting APCBC could penetrate 150mm of RHA at 90 degrees at 1000m.
-The 76 mm gun M1 shooting T4 HVAP could penetrate 132mm of RHA at 30 degrees at 1000m. With a 16% factor 1/cosine(30) it’s actually better than the 17 pounder. The problem is HVAP was supplied only from Feb 1945 at a rate of 1 round per month per M4 Sherman. The 17 pounder had its fancy ammunition much longer
@@williamzk9083 You think? Take APCBC at 500 yards. 17pdr 163mm and 76mm 94mm.
Personally I think 163mm is more than 94mm :)
@@zedeyejoe Umm you do know the Americans tested the 76mm against 30degree slopped Armor to get thar 93mm number. The British 163mm figure is against flat 90degree.
76mm was a lot better than you think. You're using statistics gathered by entirely different test and requirements. US actually had stricter requirements.
Difference performance wise between these guns is negligible.
Sorry but the British propagandized history as much as the Germans and Soviets did. They're the reason the 5 vs 1 Tiger myth exist for example, the vast superiority of the 17lber myth as well. The Shermans being death trap myth was also fuelled by British and Germans.
Basically British armor design sucked so bad throughout most of the war they projected it onto the American Sherman after the war. Despite American tanks were the best tanks the British used throughout the war. Even the Grant and Lee tanks were a big leap over the Crusader and Matilda.
@@Alte.Kameradenthese people are mostly too dumb to get your point here but I certainly do! Britain was super lucky to have Detroit backing her. An m3 Lee might not have a very practical or modern layout, but be damned if it won’t drive across a desert and back and the motor won’t polish itself 40 thou over by sucking up sand, killing its ability to run.
So thats about 20% more energy on the target, pound for pound?
The standard Sherman wasn’t a bad tank, it was just constantly asked to do things that it wasn’t designed to do.
In Normandy the British and Canadian army faced the majority of the the whermact and SS panzer divisions.
Not hardly. The majority of the army and the waffen SS units and there armour were on the eastern front facing the Russians.
@johncataldo5529 The Germans had 5 Waffen SS Panzer divisions, 3 German Army Panzer divisions, 3 Tiger heavy tank battalions and a Jagdpanther battalion. The concentration of German armour around Caen was 16 times higher than Belarus.
The Soviets continuously faced over 75% of the total German order of battle, so I would suggest not bothering with who did what in Normandy
@@bfc3057 Yeah, they may have faced 75% of total German divisions, but the majority of the armoured and mechanised divisions were in the Western Europe. One other interesting fact, the Germans had a greater density of armour (number of tanks and A/T guns per kilometer of front) in Normandy in 1944 than they had had at Kursk in '43. Normandy was a very tough battle.
@@28pbtkh23thats not true. The German armoured forces in France had been sent there for rebuilding after being heavily depleted in the East. By early June, the majority of them weren't operational with some not even mobile. The allies may have struggled to make progress but it was for other reasons.
I'll leave you to enjoy your comment and to believe whatever you claim.
Brits/Sherman: "Nice tank! But it needs a bigger gun."
Brits/P-51: "Nice plane! But it needs a better engine."
Brits "May we have 17,000 M4's and 30,000 aircraft for free?"
Yanks "OK"
@nickdanger3802 😅
@@nickdanger3802it wasn't free bro it was lend-lease. Why tf would they give away that much equipment for free 😂
"We may begin by recording the final and complete settlement of lend-lease.23 Over the whole period from March 1941 to September 1945, the balance in favour of the United States in the mutual aid books24 was in round terms about $21,000 millions. But by the settlement of 1945 Britain was required to pay no more than $650 millions, or £162 millions sterling. Of this, about $118 millions25 (=£30 millions) was the net amount due to the United States in the offsetting arrangements in mutual aid after VJ-Day. Approximately another $60 millions (=£15 millions) represented payment by the United Kingdom for the acquisition of tangible assets previously the property of the United States and valued at about $350 millions at original costs to the United States.26 The remaining $472 millions (=£118 millions ) were due to the United States in final settlement of the mutual aid account proper for the whole period from 11th March 1941 to VJ-Day. This sum was in fact simply a payment for the considerable stocks of lend-lease goods of civilian types which the United Kingdom held on VJ-Day and now acquired outright.27
page 547
BRITISH WAR ECONOMY By W. K. Hancock
@@isaholbrook9192 "We may begin by recording the final and complete settlement of lend-lease.23 Over the whole period from March 1941 to September 1945, the balance in favour of the United States in the mutual aid books24 was in round terms about $21,000 millions. But by the settlement of 1945 Britain was required to pay no more than $650 millions, or £162 millions sterling. Of this, about $118 millions25 (=£30 millions) was the net amount due to the United States in the offsetting arrangements in mutual aid after VJ-Day. Approximately another $60 millions (=£15 millions) represented payment by the United Kingdom for the acquisition of tangible assets previously the property of the United States and valued at about $350 millions at original costs to the United States.26 The remaining $472 millions (=£118 millions ) were due to the United States in final settlement of the mutual aid account proper for the whole period from 11th March 1941 to VJ-Day. This sum was in fact simply a payment for the considerable stocks of lend-lease goods of civilian types which the United Kingdom held on VJ-Day and now acquired outright.27
page 547 BRITISH WAR ECONOMY W. K. Hancock
Well I made it to my 76 birthday yesterday I know nothing of war also I never grew up speaking German. I grew up poor in a financially stripped England, I often hung out with North American and Canadian children and families who were the warmest people that I knew. I am and will always be grateful to all that came to UK for that immense struggle to free Europe. Let’s stop this bickering of mine’s bigger than yours and be mates from different places please guys. Thank be to God.......Rob in NZ
@@annsmith8000 Happy birthday Rob! My parents were born in Holland in March 1940. They migrated in the mid 60,s to Australia. Well said mate!
Okay but mines pretty big,just sayin.
Hope you had a very happy birthday and many more of them. Best wishes from the UK.
But the ability to debate openly is the legacy of our forebears sacrifice.
Your right Bob. Happy birthday. But they started it😢
They didn't want any of Herbet's Funnies either. The flail tank did get American attention though. They only reluctantly picked up anything from the Brits.
"Percy Hobart"
But you are pretty well right but I think that most of Hobart's specialist tanks were Churchill based which would put the American command off
@@g8ymw Nah - the Brits were much more frugal than you give credit for - using whatever older tank models could be suited to the purpose...............though older Churchill`s that had been rigged to carry the 6pound gun would have been the obvious workhorse for 79th division since there were lots of them and the turret with the 6 pound gun was obsolete anyway!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
They were pretty quick to pick up the jet engine...!!!
@@trevormj to be fair - Yankees got interested in jet propulsion due to the activities of ME 262 jet fighters.................
I doubt very much if Yankee aircraft engineers in 1944 had ever heard of the Brit single engine jet powered Gloster Whittle that flew in 1939.................
sadly though the Whittle had performance rather less than that of Hurricanes and Spitfires and Brit industry was to hard pressed to produce conventional weapons to be able to upgrade the Whittle................
in related news - it seems the Yankee navy fiddled with radar in 1922 and gave it up as not being useful......................
just think how history might have been changed if Brit fighter Jets and Yankee navy radar had been in use in 1940!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
@trevormj They eventually took a lot from the Brits. Radar, jet engines & later on the angled flight deck on carriers. Curios, they never tried a steel, armoured deck on US carriers in WW2 like the Brits had.
Not invented here. That's been the problem with the Americans through well history which they seem to like to rewrite in their favour
"It is admitted that American tanks played a great part in the Battle of Egypt. America has been in this war for only a year. Why is it that in that short time she has been able to produce a first-class tank like the General Sherman whereas Great Britain, after three years of war and several years of preparation before the war, has not been able to do so."
below 245
Hansard DEBATE ON THE ADDRESS 17 November 1942
I'm an American. The school of thought prior to the war and in the early years of 1942 and 1943 was that tanks would engage everything but a tank. The mobile tank killers like the M36 Jackson with the 90mm gun will do the job better than the 17 pounder. It takes time to build a large army. Logistics does matter to American officers fielding an army several thousand miles away with communications subject to Uboat attack. Remember army officers were watching ships blowing up on their shores in 1943. You don't want to have to send a vast variety of parts across that Ocean you want to send a lot of the same. The Germans fell into that trap using so much captured equipment in the Russian front. Netherlands chassis on German self propelled guns. Slovack modified panzers. French trucks and more created a nightmare for parts to keep them running and have parts available in the right place of the front when needed. American officers wanted to avoid that logistics trap by upgrading to the 76 mm gun. I grant you there were never enough tank destroyers to deal with all the threats fortunately there were enough fighter bombers. So decisions made in 1943 resulted in the army deployed to France in 1944. Remember they were in a position to observe the British in the desert with multiple tank types including captured Italian and German equipment. The British were using everything available in 1941 and 42. US observers drew lessons from this. But they wouldn't shake the tank destroyer concept unfortunately.
Yet they had no problem adopting the 17pdr's also very good predecessor the British 6pdr. Strange.
@@Twirlyhead pre WW I the US copied the Mauser rifle.
in WW I the US adopted the British piss pot lid helmet, the "French 75" and Renault FT tank.
interwar the US copied the German 37mm AT gun, much more versatile than the 2pdr.
WW II Bofors gun and Oerlikon 20mm then there were the "gifts" brought by Tizard Mission including the reflector gun sight.
USAAF operated about 1,000 aircraft reverse Lend Leased.
@@nickdanger3802 Debates in Parliament (as recorded in Hansard) are not a great historical record of 'facts on the ground' -- politicians often lambasted Churchill's government, every time there was a minor setback, but their uninformed opinions in no way reflect the effectiveness of British tanks, which remain some of the very best produced during the war: the Crusader, Cromwell, Cavalier, Challenger, Comet, Matilda, Valentine, and Churchill. These tanks were critical to the British & Commonwealth victory against Rommel in North Africa, the Allies' Italian campaign, and the D-Day landings and push into Normandy.
[ Quote ] = Joseph William Ekins (15 July 1923 - 1 February 2012) was a British soldier. He gained recognition for his action as a British Army ("Sherman Firefly") tank gunner in France during World War II, in which Ekins destroyed four German tanks near Saint-Aignan-de-Cramesnil in a single day, including three Tiger I tanks (numbers 312, 007 & 314). [ Unquote ]
Not everyone's got "Balls the size of the Moon" but Joe's crew clearly did - And they used a "Firefly"
But the British have their own issues with senior officers. Ekins achieved this after only a few practice shots. What did the British Army do with this prodigy. Reassigned him as a radio operator of course. Another good Firefly action was Sgt Wilf Harris and his gunner Ian McKillip.
Was that Wittman's last charge? Norm Christie (a Canadian author and TV presenter) in a TV documentary of his gave a pretty convincing argument that it was a Canadian tank that killed Wittman. However, Joe Ekins was there and was pretty sure that he fired at Tiger 007 and saw it brew up.
@@28pbtkh23 = Yeah, I saw that d/m too, over 20 years ago now
I'd agree it probably WAS the Canadians, but weren't they using 'ordinary' M4's with 75/L40 ?
Regardless = Joe Ekins killed THREE of that platoon//unit of SIX Tigers - as in "3/6" or 50%
To even kill HALF that Troop from just ONE 17pdr, show he KNEW what he was doing = Kudos
@@Rain-uc4ru yeah, the Sherbrooke Fusiliers had standard 75s but also some Fireflys, though I understand it was only 75 mms that took on Wittmann's troop. At that range and from the side, the M3 75 easily penetrated the 80 mm side armour.
Ekins certainly accounted for three of the Tiger troop, with something like 6 or 7 rounds, which was a great achievement given as mentioned above he'd only had about two practice shots with the 17 pdr before that!
I've been to the location, and you can see where Ekins was from roughly where Wittmann blew up, and then over the newer highway to where the Canadians were
@@28pbtkh23 No it was Ekins
Elsewhere on UA-cam it has been noted that, due to the much longer length of barrel of the 17 pdr., the Germans would focus first on knocking out the Firefly then go for the 'standard' Shermans. This resulted in the introduction of special barrel camouflage designed to obscure the longer barrel and give a foreshortened look and so making it difficult to discern between Fireflys and Shermans.
Indeed it is correct that the firefly's barrel was camouflaged. How well it worked I don't know
The American troops after D day never met many German Tanks, and the ones they did meet would be older models ( the Yanks went west and south after D day, while the British and Canadians turned east and met the full power of German tanks moving west ).
German armour going to Normandy from east and south had to go through or around Caen.
German armour in the US sectors of the Bocage would have been as useless US tanks were until field modified to rhinos.
@@nickdanger3802 iN THE bCAGE THE sHERMAN WAS
In the bocage the Shermans height gave the Germans the opportunity to engage or not, at their discretion The Sherman was 11ft 1 inches in height the highest of all WW2 tanks in the ETO
Yes, the Americans tend to forget this.
The fact that the Germans had any tanks in the west while the Russians were over running them in the east is staggering. Given a choice which enemy would you want to stop at your border?
1:04 That's an Achilles. An American M10 tank destroyer fitted with the 17-pounder.
Correct but this is a video about the 17 pounder and the firefly. Not necessarily exclusive of either
The US Army had and will always be fixed on NIH, Not Invented Here. Spent 22 years active duty in the Navy and had to work with the Army on occasion, and they never ceased to amaze me at the rules and regulations placed on the Actual Warfare personnel. Many of their West Point officers, can only live by the book and if they ever had to think and react on their feet, simply they would be screwed. Now the guys that did the job had their shit together and learned ways to sidestep the problems placed upon them.
Funny you mention that because they've exclusively used a British (105mm L7) and then German (smoothbore 120mm) as their tank guns since the 60's. Maybe rethink your little rant.
@@StephenElwess To add to that, the M9 pistol was designed in Italy, and the M240 & M249 machineguns were invented in Belgium. And there's the AT-4 and the Karl Gustav which were invented in Sweden.
@@StephenElwess sorry I worked Intelligence in the Navy and had to constantly go round and round with those Army "By the Book" self-proclaimed IDIOTS, they lived by the "I believe x,y or z, now find me the facts to support that belief, ONLY".
@@StephenElwess The worst department in the US Military was the hidebound Army Ordinance Department (which was severely overhauled by McNamara in the 1960's after the M16 fiasco). They may even have rigged the 1950's rifle trials against the FN FAL and other competitors to ensure that heavily modified M1 Garand in 308. which became the M14. won the competition. During initiation of weapons proposals, foreign weapons were often dropped (before they even submitted a design or if they had correctable flaws during testing) due to concerns about foreign manufacture or influence. Though in almost in every case the developer was going to build a plant in the US or license the weapon to a US manufacturer (for wartime manufacture). Finally with changes in both leadership and more active field officers serving in the Ordnance department, new weapons system started getting a real fighting chance. The other services were already moving in that direction with the Air Force using the German designed sweep wing technology in fighters and bombers, including the British designed Canberra Jet Bomber (we called it the B-57) in 1953. The Marines switching to the Harrier Vertical Take Off jet in 1961. Even the Navy incorporating foreign designs (mostly British in the early days) into it ships and weapons almost since the time of wooden ships to the angled deck on carriers (a British concept) to using German cruise missiles and sweep wing technology. But the Army stubbornly refused foreign designs (except when they stole ideas and claimed them as US property.) into its fold until after WWII. It fought against foreign designs limiting their use within the Army. Though they caused a major uproar when they did copy the M98 Mauser which became the Springfield 1903. But they got caught for copyright infringements on the rifle, the spitzer bullet, and the loading stripper clips (even having to pay the Germans up until WWI and finish paying Mauser after the war). Finally in the 1960's, the Army eventually relented and start incorporating some excellent foreign designed or built technology into its arsenal. Resulting in everything from the AT-4 Swedish Anti-tank weapon to the German 120mm smoothbore cannon on the M1 tank to the M240 and M249 machine guns and even the new Sig M365 pistols (called the M17).
Creativity in the US Army comes from the ROTC and OCS trained officers, not from the Point.
Interesting commentary, but can we please stop the belief that every tank the Allies engaged was a Tiger. The standard vehicle for the Wehrmacht was the Panzer 4. The tank was a support and exploitation vehicle, few times were there large scale tank vs tank actions. Infantry, artillery and air power did most of the heavy lifting.
Something like 75 percent of the tanks faced were the Panzer 4's. You are correct. The British faced the toughest German armored divisions, and those divisions had almost all the Tigers and Panthers. So no wonder the British pressed hard for the 17 pdr
It was EGO, PURE EGO. I'M AMERICAN, I am a veteran was an E-6 and it seemed to me our US Army officers always had A bit of an EGO problem not all of them but most of them. I WAS USAF and the problem wasn't nearly as bad as over there. What I've consistently read the Brits and Canadians had NO problems with the 17 pounders Accuracy installed in the sherman when it was a Firefly the only ones I heard can play about accuracy where the Americans. Maybe it was there training and they're lack of accuracy with the equipment. But it sure is hell what in the problem with the Canadians and the breath seemed me. They had above accuracy with that system
Very true, at the end of the day, in the western theatre, it was the overwhelming air superiority that finally won it for the Allies.
@@Jeffrey-i1n I'm Canadian, I remember listening to an Army vet from WW2 telling me about how in England the American army challenged the Brits to a football match and were mad as hell when they lost because the Brits were using their Rugby players. So they demanded a rematch and brought in top American football players to get their revenge. Same with when the U.S. Army challenged the Brits to a baseball game and the Cricket players won the game, they had to draft the pros for the rematch they demanded. Their were some British and commonwealth armored units with the U.S. 76mm Sherman tanks. They thought it had better HE rounds than Firefly but for them 1st shot penetration in a tank on tank engagement was absolutely critical. The Firefly's standard APCBC round had almost identical penetration numbers with the HVAP round developed for the U.S. 76mm. Problem for the U.S. is that they only had 1 HVAP round per tank troop in 1945. At the same time the Firefly might have 5 SVDS rounds in the ready rack for those 'Oh Shit' moments.
All the Tiger tank units were sent to Caen to take on the British, Canadian and Poles.
The 2nd and 3rd SS Panzer divisions didn't have Tigers, they had Pz IV's and Panthers. The Tigers were in separate Heavy Panzer Battalions like the 101st, of which Michael WIttman was a member. The 3rd SS weren't even in Normandy, they were on the Eastern front fighting the Russians
AKA: "Hell."
An analysis done by "The Chieftain" by reviewing World War II records found the following:
1) Only 14 percent of actions were Tank on Tank actions. The rest were tanks attacking infantry positions, with the infantry possessing 88's as their main anti tank weapon.
2) The old 75 mm weapon was optimized for attacking unarmored infantry and anti tank emplacements, like 88 emplacements. The 75 mm shell burst into 1000 fragments on impact, scattering a huge amount of shrapnel that killed the anti tank gun crews and their supporting infantry. The new 76mm and the 17 pdr only burst into about 500 fragments for their HE shells.
3) Therefore, when the 76 mm guns came in, lots of crews demanded their old 75mm guns back - they were much more effective for the vast bulk of their engagements. The old guns killed the 88 gun crews much quicker.
4) Later, a compromise was reached were one of the tanks in the tank platoon was a 76mm, and the rest remained old 75mm
Point 4.
Wasn't that what the Brits used as well, 1 Firefly to 3 75mm Sherman.
Half truths as usual from that source. The 76mm gun was useless because their much improved AT round was in short supply so only TD's got them.
Yeah. I remember this too. Didn't he also say that the Firefly rate of fire was REALLY low? Like 3 rounds per minute?
50% of Allied tanks destroyed in Normandy were knocked out by German tanks/SPGs. (N. Zetterling).
@@TTTT-oc4ebOther sources eg the US Survey of Allied Tank Losses in WW2 TM ORO-T-117 give 54% by all gunfire, with many other sources giving that the majority of these by AT guns, with tanks/SPGs causing only some 14%.
This issue is dealt with and documented very well in a number of books which highlights the American attitude towards foreign weapons design. The same issues with then17pdr occurred with the Mustang being fitted with a Merlin. Not invented here.
However, I'm not sure of its mentioned in the comment's here, but the quality of ammunition for the 76mm gun as abysmal. (Except the HVAP which the average American tank has about 3 round's of!). The standard ammunition could rarely perform at its rated penetration rate. "American gunners were dismayed to see 76mm rounds (standard) bouncing of the sides of Panthers (45mm). The 17 pdr had a problem with early APDS, but the APCBC was a superb round and generally was found to have overperformed in penetration.
"occurred with the Mustang being fitted with a Merlin. Not invented here."
look up dates of first flights for Mustang Mk X and XP-51B
ROLLS-ROYCE MERLIN CARBURETTOR DEVELOPMENT
"For the next important and powerful Merlin 66 engine, Rolls Royce finally decided to use the Bendix-Stromberg Injection carburettor. The American Bendix-Stromberg pressure carburettor was developed in the mid 1930’s and was in production from 1938. This carburettor was designed to operate as a fully pressurised fuel system that dispensed with the problematic float controlled fuel level with its emulsion tubes and diffusers. Negative G had no effect on fuel flow or carburettor function. The pressurised and metered fuel flow was delivered as a spray into the inlet air stream just in front of the supercharger inlet. This feature virtually removed the risk of carburettor icing, in fact the throttles and chokes of the injection carburettor did not need heating by hot oil or coolant circulation at all and their deletion removed several other problems associated with the previous provision of those heating circuits.
Rolls Royce had been aware of the Bendix-Stromberg Pressure type of carburettor for several years and versions of the carburettor were used on many American engines including the Allison V-1710. Notably, Packard built their Merlins in the USA with a version of the Bendix PD16 from the very start of Packard Merlin production."
6:48 "as history would show the US was proven wrong on all accounts".
NO, the Sherman's tank on tank conflicts were less than %13. of the fights it was in.
Economics is a large part of war.
17 Pounder the best of British, in my eyes a Legend, just saying from Glasgow 💙🇬🇧😎👍
Yes, the 17 pounder was GREAT for taking out German MK V and MK VI tanks, but 90% of the time Sherman tanks were used to take out bunkers, fixed hard points, soft sided vehicles, and enemy infantry. In other words, they were used as infantry support, and the 17 pounder was not the best gun for that job. That's why the American commanders preferred the 75 mm that was on most Shermans. Encountering a Panther tank was a very rare event, but encountering German infantry, supported by multiple MG42s, was an every-day thing.
A lot of decisions in war seem obviously wrong when we look back on them, but at the time the people making those decisions probably had no idea they were making fateful choices.
You can't know which decisions were important or trivial and which were right and wrong, till you look back.
I think the Americans were not able to accept a solution that was not an American solution.
They had no issue with putting the Merlin in the P51.
@janandersen8735 the British asked NAA to build a plane that would suit them in 1940 what emerged was the P51 built around British specifications so more or less a British idea.
@@rayner226 And when they received it, they did not like the Allison engine because of the poor high altitude performance and replaced it with the Merlin. Seeing the improvement, the US licensed the Merlin and had them built in the US. Do I deny a degree of not built here syndrome, no, but it is a lot more complicated than that. The US doctrine called for lots of tanks everywhere, easy to manufacture and repair, whereas the Brits by the nature of their more limited manufacturing base planned in smaller numbers. There is a tendency to think narrowly in terms of individual tank performance. The Panther taken on its own was arguably the best tank of WW2 but it was complicated too build, kept breaking down and was hard to repair whereas the T34 head to head was the lesser tank but could be made in huge numbers cheaply and was good enough. Note, little known is that the T34 suspension system was designed by an American who had been turned down by the US before selling it to the Russians.
@@janandersen8735 his name is Walter Christie
As a retired Army Tank Destroyer (MOS 11H) tank killers are now used to secure flanks from enemy encirclement attempts and organic scouts. We’re also used to augment MBT’s in assault or defense since we expect large masses of enemy armored vehicles. I can engage targets at 4,000 meters so I can take out critical vehicles at the onset of an engagement before the MBT’s open up which allows them to remain in their concealed positions. Once the enemy is within the effective range of the MBT’s they cut loose an awesome amount of hitting power. As they engage I can assist and secure or, displace and prepare for a new engagement on the enemy flank or start a new engagement to restrict the enemy from using the force I’m killing as a reinforcement for the attack from our MBT’s. We remain flexible and can also provide CAS direction and indirect fire when required. We always bring every weapon into the fight where it’s needed and when it’s needed, we have to be cautious about exposing locations of our various weapon systems until absolutely necessary since often after they engage they will have to relocate to avoid detection and direct counter attack. An Infantry NCO/leader has to take into account all these factors when fighting to accomplish the mission and save the lives of the men in his charge. And for those who didn’t know, the Infantry ranks are populated by intelligent men and the average IQ in my last Bn was 115, we slowly raised the bar since 1973 after the fiasco of “McNamara’s morons” that brought in new recruits with IQ’s as low as 70 as opposed to the normal minimum of 83.
The US Army is going to have to re-learn the skills I was taught as we move closer to potential conflict with mother Russia and/or China. Thank you for the video sir.
Your comment was a fascinating read. Cheers 👍👍👍
@@28pbtkh23 what I described is an example of a young E-5/E-6 in the Army Infantry, we’re a unique MOS because we have the ability to switch from one weapon system along with its tactics to another with minimal training. If we can’t call in a detailed “walking sheath” artillery barrage on an enemy or ensure our organic CAS (Army attack helos) can provide detailed support. And all I described is after the Air Force gets done with them! And during the Gulf War I saw the awesome affects of the B-52 strikes, A-10 runs then our long range artillery chewed on them to where there was nothing left for me to deal with! The enemy will hit us with every damn armored vehicle they can get rolling, same with aircraft and artillery, it’s how they fight and they will not change their tactics. And from what I’ve seen on both sides of the Ukraine conflict, it’s not much of a threat in my book. We teach young NCO’s detailed tactics and what tactics we know of our enemies and we train to ensure we can execute everything fast enough to have an impact of an engagement. We do this for a couple reasons, mainly to ensure we maintain a quality NCO corp in each small unit so when we get a Cherry Officer who doesn’t know squat about killing tanks, we can easily spin him up and teach him our secrets and ensure he has a committed team behind him (if he’s an arrogant POS, we also ensure the CO sees all his weaknesses). It’s also to ensure whenever we get squads, sections or platoons separated we can still continue the fight even if isolated without affecting our abilities. And this is the main weakness of our potential belligerents, they don’t have a professional NCO corps to speak of so, that’s one reason why we take out all command vehicles at the onset of an engagement. There’s so many other little things we do like false insertions, false engagements that we can use to slow an enemy advancement which causes them to go from road march convoys to on line deployment and that’s usually where we have minefields waiting for them. But if the Air Force is begging for somewhere to unload their B-52’s, we’ll withhold the mine deployment. If you’re curious about how we used to employ our forces against the former Soviet Army, read the book “Team Yankee” but please, skip over the family sections in the book, sort of boring. We used ‘Air, Land, Battle” doctrine then and FM-100-1-2 will explain a lot about Russian tactics. Russian tanks are only about 7-8 feet tall and they’re hard to see unlike our M-1 Abrams but, Soviet tanks are so damn easy to kill to the point where it’s almost sad for the tank crewmen. And if we continue to dilute our standards for new enlistments, we won’t have such an effective force as we did 30 years ago.
The Sherman Firefly WAS a Tank Destroyer. That was it’s mission. The US had 76mm armed Shermans in England on D-Day. 76mm armed But were late bringing them to Normandy. The M36 90mm armed TD’s were in France in 1944. The 90mm M26 Pershing heavy tank was on the way.
But 76mm AT ammo was in short supply so only the TD'd got it.
@Idahoguy10157 The Brits and Canadians used the Firefly in a tank troop in a combined arms approach. The US used Tank destroyers as a separate entity which didn't work as they were often not available in the area they were needed.
@@FairladyS130 …. The 76mm armed TD’s had priority by army doctrine. However, Once it got to Europe how it was distributed was up to Omar Bradley.
@@Idahoguy10157 As it turned out some Shermans 76's got the golden rounds late in the war.
‘Was on the way’, doing a lot of heavy lifting here. The firefly was available as ‘second best in time’, it worked and would have assisted the Americans. Having said that American forces barely confronted any tanks for the first couple of months of the campaign, certainly none of the tigers (except in Spielberg propaganda). So they had much less need of a more heavily armed tank until September onwards.
Americans did lose the tank battle in North Africa. They learned from their mistakes. Americans won the subsequent tank battles at the Bulge and Arracourt. Americans relied more on air power than did the British to take out tanks. American strategy worked very well.
A couple points: This seems like a poorly researched "opinion piece". Much of this has been debunked in videos by The Chieftain in sourcing the original documentation.
1) The US was practicing combined arms warfare, so having the tanks support the infantry is the point. Tank destroyers were there but meant as a defensive weapon, not an offensive one. I don't recall any formation leading with tank destroyers over Shermans.
2) Because of the need for offense, the use of the 75mm was thought to be worthwhile. The standard Sherman 75mm had a good high-explosive round, which would have been much better against pillboxes, anti-tank gun emplacements, etc. That said, they thought tanks would still kill other tanks. Hence the 75mm Shermans were issued HVAP rounds, along with HE.
3) Internet commenters also don't get logistics. Sure, the Brits offered to send 17pdr ammunition to the Americans for their Fireflies, but that would mean setting up an entirely different supply chain just for that one gun. The US Army would have to ensure that the few Fireflies in the front-line division had enough to be effective, which can get complicated. And as the 155mm artillery shell shortage in Ukraine has shown, having a good weapon without the ammo to go with it is a big issue.
4) There was also the in-vehicle ergonomics. The 17pdr shell and casing was much longer than the standard 75mm HVAP shell, which had follow-on effects. First, the shell was much harder to maneuver into the breech because the breech extended much farther into the turret because of the size of the gun. In fact, the loader could not exit the standard Sherman turret's hatch because he couldn't get around the breech inside the turret. So another modification for the turret involved cutting a loader's hatch into the top (one mod that DID make its way to the rest of the US force). Also, because the 17pdr ammunition was so large, the auxiliary driver was removed (reducing the crew from 5 to 4) to stow the ammunition there.
Also missed was the fact that the 17pdr removed the stabilized linkage the 75mm gun had, which allowed faster targeting by the 75mm gunner. The 17pdr gunner also had the misfortune of having the elevation wheel for the gun down by his right ankle, making elevation changes AND sighting down the scope much harder for shorter crewmembers.
Now, a video that misrepresents the movement of the radio "to the hull", rather than to the bustle in the back, I wonder how well this was really researched.
Could things have done better? Perhaps. Having the native 76mm gun at the outset. Or a dedicated hatch for the loader. However, the armored branch having the lowest casualty ratio of any MOS in the US military (~3%) suggests that the normal Sherman wasn't that bad after all.
The firefly Sherman was a British adaptation and improvement. The US are notorious for not wanting to adopt weapons created outside of America, simple.
such as the Canberra bomber, 6pdr AT gun, Bofors gun, Oerlikon gun, Packard Merlin?
@@nickdanger3802 The US 57mm AT gun was the UK 6lbr slightly adapted for US deployment and manufactured under licence in the US.
I have a picture of my late father smartly stood in front of his M4 Sherman fitted with the three inch (76mm), 52 cal American anti tank gun. It didn’t have a blast deflector/muzzle brake, but a protective cap for the thread. The picture was taken in Italy and he was in 2nd Lothians and Border Horse, B Sqdn. His troop commander had the 17pdr Firefly gun.
I met the troop commander in 2020 when I took dad to see him. Apparently the troop had a mixture of armaments, including some Shermans with the well established 75mm gun, but dad’s was a relative ‘newcomer’.
Firing HVAP, there wasn’t a great deal to choose between dad’s gun and the 17pdr in close quarters. The troop had some 75mm tanks for greater effectiveness against infantry and field gun crews as mentioned in the video. Many’s the time dad had to shout at British infantry who were trying to be helpful by going in front of his tank to look for mines - the blast when firing HVAP would have given them concussion at the very least. Dad believed he was in his 7th tank by the time the war in Europe ended, most in N. Africa and Italy were badly mauled. Despite that, he considered himself very lucky and considered the M4 Sherman a very dependable, rugged tank.
The British received 1,300 Sherman MkIIA (M4A1 76w) most being issued to RAC Regiments serving in Italy mid-1944 to the end of the war. However they were never issued with HVAP, that ammo was exclusively issued to US Tank Destroyer Command.
The Sherman MkIIA was used in Italy as a substitute for the Firefly. However it was a lot less powerful, penetration was about the same as the older 6 Pounder with APCBC amminition.
The 2nd Lothians & Border Horse served in the 26th Armoured Brigade of 6th Armoured Division. They Fought in Tunisia, February 1943 with Crusader MkIII and Valentine MkV. After the Germans were defeated they were re-equipped with Sherman MkIII. They were landed in Italy in 1944, their Sherman MkIII were supplemented by Sherman MkIIA and a few Sherman Firefly after September 1944.
Correction: U.S. 76mm 53 caliber gun M1A1 and M1A2 were not 3 inch guns. It was a new gun that was different from the 3 inch anti-tank gun mounted on the M10 Tank Destroyer. The 3 inch gun was a modified Naval gun and was used on SP mounts and towed.
@@patrickmccrann991 The most important factor is the ammunition and the 3" and 76mm fired the same rounds. The 3" was developed from the M1918 Anti-Aircraft gun. It was considered too heavy at 1,990 lbs and on the large side. This led to the lighter 1,141 lbs 76mm M1 being developed in 1942. There was no rush in getting the gun into action. The 76mm M1 was not mounted until January 1944 on the late-production Sherman. The new mounting allowing the 76mm to replace the 75mm in older tanks did not appear until 1945. However some export re-worked Sherman's received the weapon in the late 1940s
@@billballbuster7186 the 3" anti tank gun, both towed and in the M10 tank destroyer did not use the same ammunition as the Sherman 76mm. The rounds used the same projectiles but different cases and were s not interchangeable. That was the reason for different naming.
Why did this video not talk about the American m4s with 76mm guns?
The US army did adopt some British guns. The 57mm M1, the American production version of the Ordnance QF 6-pounder being a notable example.
The 17pdr was an excellent AT gun, equal to the Panthers 7.5 cm KwK42. There was also more than one variant of it, as its length progressively lengthened, among other tweaks. It was always considered good enough, and more importantly, raised morale among the crews that operated it. When the 11th Armoured division was equipped with Comets, the Guards Armoured division began to increase the ratio of Fireflies to 75mm variants up to 3:1. They compensated for the lack of HE by strapping two Typhoon rockets to the sides of the turret.
Not entirely true, the 7.5 cm KwK42 was a better weapon. The 17-pounder was found to be less than accurate by the US Army. It is one thing to be able to penetrate the armor of an enemy tank at a certain distance, it is another thing to hit it. Missing could be fatal.
@@LMyrski This is from Sherman Firefly V Tiger Normandy 1944 by Dr S.A Hart Page 64 08 Aug 44 at 1300hrs, Tank No 4 "Orenburg" Sgt Finney spotted two Pz IVs and took both off them out with two shots at 1650 yards . You did say the Firefly APDS was inaccurate ?
@@jacktattis Hitting with APDS was the problem, as the round was terribly inaccurate (the 6pdr APDS tended to hit about 2 feet higher than the aiming point, for example) and figures showing this poor accuracy for 17 pdr APDS can be found in Mark Hayward's Sherman Firefly, Barbarossa Books, Tiptree, Essex c. 2001. The first field trials with 17 pdr APDS took place in Normandy in August 1944 when US and British army personnel watched a demonstration against captured German Panthers.
The early batches were regarded as sub-standard, and the performance was very erratic - the round was very inaccurate compared to 'standard' APCBC, and much less accurate than the APCR round used in the US 76mm gun. The US did at one stage consider fitting APCR projectiles into the 17pdr shell cases they envisaged being available when Sherman Fireflies were to be (eventually) issued to US army units because the APCR round was more accurate than APDS. Only one US unit, in Italy, ever got (12) Fireflies and too late to use in action.
@@stuartjarman4930 Gee then Sgt Finney who knocked out two PZ IVs at 1645 yards was that lucky
No other tank got two in two shots at almost a mile anywhere.
You Americans always tend to knock the British
And that inaccuracy was fixed on the field with a boring out of the Muzzle Brake
@@jacktattis Is there a page on Finney? Like with joe ekins
Was a stop gap until newer british tanks could enter service, better to have a 17 pounder in a cramped turrent than no 17 ponder
The US was quite rigid in it's ergonomic requirements for its combat vehicles.
The 17 pounder installation wasn't that, it required contortionist acts to operate.
It also wasn't prepared to lose the bow MG for general usage tanks.
The 76mm gun was also meant to have a L56 barrel...but gun mount stabilisation issues prevented that and a L52 cut down barrel was used instead.
Approx 6 to 8mm of penetration was lost there.
No one can get away from the fact that the Sherman's frontal armour was inadequate. The blame can be lain squarely at the feet of General Lesley McNair who for some bizarre reason thought that tanks would not end up fighting each other! The inadequate frontal armour and firepower of the Sherman led to significant additional loss of life amongst American tank crews. McNair even tried to stop the development of the Pershing tank that squared the odds for Americans facing Tigers and Panthers. The tragic fact was that the additional inch of armour that was eventually fitted to the front of the 'Jumbo' variant of the Sherman meant they could withstand direct frontal hits from 88mm shells with the loss of only 3-4 mph in speed.
McNair was killed in a friendly fire incident in July 1944.
That was interesting to learn.
@@28pbtkh23 yes, though mostly myth or incorrect.
McNair had nothing to do with tank development. Sherman's frontal armor when introduced in 1942 was actually superior to the German Mk IV's. However, when heavier guns were introduced on the new German tanks little increase in armor on Sherman was taken until late in the war. At that point, the front hull was redesigned with a modest increase in armor and the ability to add applique armor was added.
@@patrickmccrann991 McNair was not directly involved in tank development, but he did influence what vehicles were developed based on his armoured doctrine. His belief that tank on tank battles were unlikely to occur and favouring the use of lightly armoured tank destroyers has been well documented, as was his opposition to the deployment of the Pershing tank.
@catinthehat906 That said, despite his personal misgivings, he still approved the tanks and even allowed experimental Pershing tanks on the battlefield. He didn't let his personal opinions get in the way.
Americans only faced mass German armor in December 1944 in the Battle of tge Bulge. In Normandy they faced only 1.5 German armor divisions, against nearly 8 by the British. Thus USA used the 76mm gun and TDs.
Yes, there was that bocage issue and the whole point of Cobra was to hit them where they ain't. Monty was well aware of the shortest route to useable ports and the Reich was the north coast, but also it was also the most heavily defended route. He failed to take Caen in short order and for good reason. Not enough Fireflies I guess. People, this (WW2) was a team effort despite the personalities involved and the propaganda for domestic consumption.
I don't think US forces faced any Tigers during the Normandy campaign. The British and Canadian divisions engaged and were engaged by the bulk of the German panzers and this was intentional - due to the Firefly which performed very well - one knocking out a King Tiger.
The Americans would never admit the British could do something better than them.
That goes both ways
@@Sid-jx4gl It that were true the Brits would have rejected any US weapon. @colingreen210 is totally correct.
@spritbong5285 we were probably worse but it went both ways if you guys weren't desperate at the time you wouldn't have used so much of our equipment
@Sid-jx4gl
It didn't go both ways. The British happily used American equipment and admitted when it was better.
Nonsense, haven't you heard of the famous combination of the North American P-51 Mustang fighter and the Rolls-Royce Merlin engine? Textbook example of Anglo-American cooperation.
The Americans did not face Tiger tanks in Normandy. They were all in the Eastern and Caen sector. My dad was in Guards Armoured. Their shells just glanced off the frontal armour.
Imagine the difference to the battle of the bulge had the US taken even a number of firefly options
And yet the British used them just fine
No, not really...
Only because they were short of tanks.
So the US preferred having many toothless tanks instead of fewer really effective tank busters, the Brits had done the hard work getting the larger gun on board and the flash could be dealt with with eye wear protection brush fires were hardly a serious concern and a less efficient but alive tank crew is better than a demoralised endangered tank crew.
@paulbromley6687 No. The US preferred tanks that were equipped with guns that accomplished their mission under US doctrine - infantry support. And that's what US tanks did almost all the time.
It's just British not adopting US 75 mm anti tank gun early on in the war it could have been fitted in valatine as they did later on in the war. They had to design a 6pdr which wasn't as powerful as the 75 mm. and while they where waiting they use weak 2pdr which already outdated at the start of war.
Americans didn’t need the 17lb in France as they didn’t encounter a single tiger in real combat until they got to Germany, the only one in France was a tiger on a rail car waiting to be shipped back to Germany for repairs
That time the enemy didn't get the memo of your latest flawless doctrine and decided to kick your sitting apparatus by doing its own thing...
American arrogance that we are better than anyone else cost the lives of thousands of our tank crews.
I'm afraid the Arrogance carried on in 1984 Beirut. When British Officers told the United States Marine that their Head Quarters wasn't secure. They ignored Resulting in 240 Dead Marines exactly how the British said it Could .
@MaxwellMoore-d1u Still remember that. Instead of the US government dealing with them, we pulled out. Put the nation on a higher threat level, when the enemy sees we are not retaliating.
@jasondiggs6740 By all means Retaliate. But Prevention would have been the best option. The British had experience with Terrorists in Northern Ireland and Protected their Bases accordingly.
@MaxwellMoore-d1u Not the first time. I don't know why the USA has a hard time listening to the British. What's the point of having Allies if you're not going to listen and cooperate with them🤷🏾♂️
@jasondiggs6740 Exactly. We not only Learn from Allies but more importantly we Learn from what the Enemy does Well .an example is the Gorilla Tactics employed by the Aficaans In the Boar wars .
Criticizing the U.S. at every opportunity seems to be a popular pastime here on UA-cam, but I would point out that the British were putting their big guns on American tanks.
In addition, popular thinking is that the Soviets beat the Germans through sheer numbers over more complex German technology - so why is the U. S. wrong for taking the same approach?
Something the video didn't point out was that European nations made tanks to be used in Europe, whereas the design of the Sherman tank was optimized for transporting it overseas - to take the war to the enemy.
I suspect the idea of putting big guns on the Sherman wasn't rejected by professionals because it wasn't their idea or because the guns weren't made in America, but because they weighted the pros and cons differently and therefore came to a different conclusion. They didn't seem to have a problem with putting Rolls Royce engines in the Mustang.
Maybe the ability to use smoke and HE benefited the Americans more in their sector while the British and Canadians, facing more German armour, appreciated the 17pdr. In any event, it must be cold comfort knowing that although you out number the enemy, you sit there hoping it's not your tank being lined up...
WITHIN TWO WEEKS of the Normandy landings ...............Yankee engineers were conferring with their Brit counterparts regarding HOW TO INSTALL A 17 pnd gun in a General Sherman turret !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
In related news- all the Brit "gadgets" of the 79th division that had previously been SCORNED by Yankees - entered service WITH the Yankees!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
WW2 was won with Brit brains. Yankee supplies and Russian blood!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
It was a team effort - take one out and the others would be DEFEATED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The Firefly had 4 rounds three A.P and one HE
@@jacktattis SAD Woke person still trying to AVOID THE ISSUE - by refusing to address WHY Yankees did not want 17 pound gun in their tanks - till REALITY INTRUDED on their thinking!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Some Woke people simply are NOT HAPPY with the idea that Brits KNEW WHAT THEY WERE DOING and that under Churchill leadership Brit war effort was AMAZINGLY EFFECTIVE!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Nor do SAD Woke people want to discuss the UGLY FACT that two decades of LIE-beral and Woke NEGLECT of the military resulted in millions of men being sent off to defend democracy with OBSOLETE WEAPONS AND LIMITED TRAINING!!!!!!!!!!!!!
@@abellseaman4114 1,335 M4's with US 76mm gun Lend Leased to Britain
Tank Chats #111 | Sherman M4A1 (76) W | The Tank Museum
ua-cam.com/video/LIPG2_TOITo/v-deo.html
@@nickdanger3802 You offer the USUAL LIE-beral; / Woke NONSENSE fun with dates and places and times!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The historical record supports the points about SUPERIOR BRITISH BRAINS AND BRITISH STRATEGY ...........
Yankees LEARNED MUCH FROM THE BRITS - INCLUDING THE LESSON ABOUT MOUNTING 76 mm guns in their tanks!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
And yes - once Yankees realized the NEED - they acted swiftly - but it took TWO WEEKS OF FIGHTING IN NORMANDY TO CONVINCE THEM OF THE NEED!!!!!!!!!!!!
I dont know where you got the abalistics info about the 76mm or the 90mm, but both were quite capible of taking out a Panther or atiger, "Fury" us wrong, the 90mm was as good or better than the 88.
Competitive jealously sounds like to me. What a shame for all those American tankers who suffered due to SHEAF hardheadedness. Why didn't the US, the industrial powerhouse it was, develop a better gun earlier in the war, especially when in Africa and Sicily the US doctrine was proven less then ideal? The Brits were tough fighters.
@@whiplash8277 Agreed!
Britain and the Soviet Union both entered the war sooner than the U.S. and both nation's armies fought the German army on an ongoing basis in North Africa and on the Eastern Front. Consequently, developments in armored warfare were known quickly - even to senior officers.
This ongoing "arms race" between tanks and the means of knocking them out informed and drove British and Soviet tank and anti-tank weapons development. The British saw the lethal effect of the feared German dual-purpose 88mm anti-tank/anti-aircraft in North Africa long before the U.S. did. The Germans saw the KV-1 and T34 tanks in action, which in turn spurred the Panther to be developed, and so on.
The Americans, however, were playing catch-up due to not entering the war until the Pearl Harbor attack, and also the fact that many of their generals in charge of armored forces had little to no experience with modern weaponry of the kind being used in places like N. Africa and the USSR. This is evidenced by some of the rattletrap designs first put forth early in the war as proposed tanks for the U.S. (and her allies). To the credit of the U.S., at least some military and civilian personnel were fast learners, since better designs began to come off the draftsman's tables - such as the Lee/Grant series of medium tanks, M3 Stuart light tank, and eventually the M4 series.
For a time after its introduction into operational use in N. Africa, the Sherman was the best tank in theater - being equal to anything the Germans could throw at it. It took the introduction of the Mk IV Special long-barreled high-velocity 75mm gun on the Panzer IV and later the Tiger I to regain the edge for the Axis. So, going into Sicily and Italy and then France in 1944, the U.S. tankers were feeling pretty good about their prospects. Word of formidable new tanks and TDs reached the U.S. from the USSR, but these reports did not alter the complacency of the high command. And in any case, new and better designs were on the way for the Americans, so all was well or so it seemed.
General Eisenhower, the head of SHAEF, and his staff had participated in demonstrations and had been briefed on new weapons, such as the 76mm gun - which was considered at the time as an answer to the best German armor.
Given the overly-optimistic reports of the 76mm gun's effectiveness, SHAEF did not see any reason to accept the British offer of the potent Ordnance QF 17-pounder gun. Particularly since it had proven so troublesome to install in the Sherman in the first place.
It is a real shame that Ike and his staff didn't look more closely at what the British were doing. Not only had they installed the 17-pounder into a Sherman, they also created not one but two potent new TDs using the gun. In the M10 Motor Gun Carriage, they added the 17-pounder to create the Wolverine TD. And in their own Valentine medium tank chassis, they created the Archer, another very useful AT platform.
In practice, the M36 Jackson tank destroyer, which mounted the 90mm gun, gave performance more-or-less equivalent to the British 17-pounder, and it is that platform which saved the bacon of many beleaguered Sherman crews and others imperiled by German armor.
Flawed U.S. Army doctrine also played into the situation. Tanks - such as the 75mm M4 Sherman - were not supposed to fight other tanks, but were to serve as breakthrough weapons and in support of infantry. Tank Destroyer Command had - or was supposed to have - the job of knocking out enemy armor. In the real world, the distinction between the two quickly became blurred and vanished altogether by the war's end.
All British tanks were junk.
@@walterm140 The British fought their asses off and survived. The Germans laughed at the American tanks.
@@richardlee1972 The British used American tanks and according to Jon Buckley wanted no British tanks at all..
Actually the M1 76mm was effective against Tiger 1 tanks up to a range of 1 km against their frontal armor.
So it was just about adequate for the job but needed to be in closer distances to be effective against Tigers and panthers.
76mm is useless against Tiger IIs, where even the 17pdr struggles frontally
Its a truism that arrogance and pride often gets in the way of efficiency. The Firefly situation was repeated later with the T55 problem which lead the British towards the 105mm Centurion, the American military again insisted on their own designs, though at least they eventually adopted the 105 L7.
@richardbradley2802 - Not that arrogance and pride on the part of certain members of the brass - senior officer corps ranks - wasn't a problem; it came into play there's little doubt of that.... but there was more to it. Around the time the MBT which was to eventually become the Abrams was being designed (early 1970s), the British and American armies began diverging with regards to rifled weapons versus non-rifled ones.
Britain, with her superb Challenger series of tanks which so dominated battlefields for much of the 1980s-2000s, utilized a rifled main gun, in part because the Royal Armor Corps wanted to continue to use squash-head munitions.
These excellent anti-armor/anti-barrier rounds were designed to flatten themselves against the outer surface of the target, and then detonate - sending a supersonic shock-wave through and into the target, which would blow high-velocity fragments and spall all over the interior creating havoc, starting fires, etc. These rounds proved to be very effective, and they worked well out of rifled barrels as did many other types of rounds.
The Germans and the Americans, however, opted to develop smooth-bore high-velocity cannon, by Rheinmetall and other firms. The chief advantage of a smooth-bore is that it allows the powder charge to propel the projectile/warhead to very high muzzle velocity. The disadvantage is that such projectiles must be fin-stabilized since they can't rely on rifling in the barrel. There are ways of spinning projectiles in a smooth bore, but the point remains.
International politics played its part, of course, in whose design was selected to arm the new American MBT. Rheinmetall won out over the other competitors, a number of whom offered superb entrants in their own right.
"Sir, the 17 pounder gun won't fit in the turret"
"Put it in sideways!"
"Ok, but now the radio won't fit"
"Cut a hole on the back of the turrets and stick it in there!"
3rd SS Panzer division (Totenkopf) was not present in Normandy. The division took part in the battle of France in 1940 and was then employed exclusively in the east against Russia.
The SS divisions that did fight in Normandy did not have Tiger tanks. The Tigers were removed from the divisions and formed into a single battalion, the 501st SS. That Tiger battalion did fight in Normandy.
The Tigers were part of three Heavy Panzer battalions, the 102nd, 101st and 503rd
You’re right and I used to know that. It bothered me when he said that 3rd SS “T” was in Normandy when it was fighting in Poland near Warsaw.
Where was Michael Whitman in his Tiger 1 when a Firefly got him?
@@carmy1313 pretty sure Whitman and his crew and Tiger tank were killed in an air strike. Probably from a Hawker Typhoon since he was still in the British sector.
@@carmy1313 Killed by Joe Ekins in a Firefly from 800 yards away in a orchard and he was one of three destroyed
Seriously? Of course they didn’t adopt the Firefly. 1 - The 17 pounder gun was only made in limited numbers , 2 - it was an adaptation of the Sherman and not a production model. 3 - The USA had its own anti Tiger gun coming down the line. 4 - The ammunition, it would have meant the USA were very keen, rightly, on standardising ammunition given the vast quantities needed. I could go on.
"The Americans stuck to their guns" great summing up of the situation !
I remember watching a video of a Sherman mechanic. He talked about how they would have to clean out the remains of tank crews, make repairs and patch holes, then a new tank crew would take it. You could tell he didn't like the Sherman because he knew the armor wasn't good enough and he was constantly working. I can't imagine having to clean out those remains.
According to a co-worker who served in these tanks, (passed away many years ago) it was impossible to get rid of the smell.
@dash5257 if you are referring to Belton Cooper, I'm afraid a lot of his statements were not accurate.
@RobinRobertsesq I'm not sure who that is, it was a black gentleman that was telling his story.
My late uncle survived a strike on his Sherman in Belgium I believe. I think it would have been better to have shifted production towards the Firefly or the T25 tank being developed. Obviously, the tank destroyers were a dead end in hindsight. The Sherman was good in the South Pacific theater or sending to the Chinese but should have been replaced by a more effective tank.
McNair thought tank destroyers would combat German heavy tanks- which is daft really particularly in the Bocage in Normandy where German heavies and Stugs could lie in wait, any vehicle combating them had to be able to take frontal rounds without being destroyed to have any chance of survival.
The video explains the US tactical doctrine of using tank destroyers to hunt tanks but does not mention the way the commonwealth forces used them. After any successful advance the British/Canadian/Polish units would rush tank destroyers (17pdr or 3 inch armed) forward to support the infantry who would face an inevitable German counterattack. The Germans had to do this because H*tler would not allow them to withdraw. When the antitank guns came up to reinforce the positions the tank destroyers would go back to the rear. In other words they used them as mobile antitank guns fighting from concealed positions. They were still vulnerable to mortar fire which caused the majority of casualties in Normandy.
The Firefly was always an interim tank The Turret was extremely cramped
Request for your next video; Talk about the Lockheed L-133 and why the government said "NO" to that. It was a proposed jet design that was more advanced than the ME-262 but the government said "No thanks". Pretty cool looking jet too.
The M4 Sherman was actually a further developement of the M3 Lee. The M3 Lee was equipped with a 37mm gun in a fully rotating turrent and a side mounted 75mm gun in a casement. The M3 Lee dominated the Panzer IIIs and Panzer IVs when delivered to the British 8th Army in North Africa.
American doctrine did call for the use of combined arms tactics to overcome the Germans in North Africa, Sicily, and Italy in 1943. The 75mm guns on Shermans supported by 3in guns (76mm) in the M10 Tank Destroyer still maintained overmatch against Panzer IIIs and were about equal to the Panzer IVs. They did have trouble against Panthers and Tigers. However, these tanks did not really enter service until 1943 and were primarily used on the Eastern Front. The mountainous terrain in Sicily and Italy did not make for good "tank country" for the Germans, Italians, British, or the Americans. The US began fielding M4 Shermans with 76mm guns in 1944 shortly after D-Day.
The US developed a number of M4 Sherman models during the war, eventually producing over 50,000 of these vehicles. The models included the M4 and M4A1 Sherman. The M4A1 was produced with 75mm guns through 1944, then production shifted to 76mm guns. In 1944 the US began fielding the M4A3 Sherman series. These included models with 75mm main guns and others with 76mm main guns. The M4A3E2 Jumbo Sherman was heavily armored and included models with 75mm main guns and others with 76mm main guns. Finally, in late 1944 the US fielded the M4A3E8 armed with a 76mm gun. The M4A3E8 was a very good tank and the US Army upgraded many M3A3s to the M4A3 standard after the war.
Export models of the venerable Sherman tank included the early M4 Shermans, the M4A2 Sherman, and the M4A4 Sherman. These tanks were primarily provided to the British, French, and Russians. It was these M4A4 models that the British transformed into "Fireflys" armed with 76mm (17 pounders).
So, the US Army had quite a few 76mm gun armed tanks by the end of 1945. In fact, the United States had more 76mm gun armed tanks than the British had Fireflys. Again, the US produced over 50,000 M4 Sherman series tanks, including tanks for the US Army, US Marines, the French Army, the British Army, and the Russian Army.
Last, but not least, the United States fielded the M26 Pershing in December 1944. The Pershing was comparable to the Panzer V "Panther."
The Germans and Russians had very good tanks. The German Panther and the Russian T34 /75 and the T34/85 were probably the best medium tanks in the war. The Sherman variants came in a close third. Having said the German Tiger I, Tiger II, and the Russian KV1, KV2, IS2, and IS3 series tanks were very good heavy tanks that dominated medium tanks on the battlefield
In terms of numbers, the US produced 50,000 Sherman tank variants. German Panthers and Tigers were produced in much smaller numbers. The Germans produced less than 7,000 Panthers, less than 1,500 Tiger I tanks, and few than 1,000 Tiger IIs. German Panthers and Tigers were spotted much less frequently in Northern Europe compared to Panzer IVs and various assault guns like the Panzer jaeger IV and the Stug III, Stug IV, and various Marder type vehicles. The Sherman variants were equal to these German vehicles in terms of firepower and protection.
The Germans and Russians also developed heavy tank destroyers such as the Jagdpanther and Jagdtiger. The Russians fielded the excellent SU-85 and the SU-100 that could penetrate the armor of any German tank. Neither the United States nor the British produced heavy tanks or heavy tank destroyers like those produced by the Germans and Russians.
It wasn't that they had to move the radio that's just where the Brits wanted it that's also why the Grant tank had a diff turret than the Lee tank. The space were the radio was originally was than used for ammo storage but you had to get out of the tank to access it. As for the gun they ended up rotating it so it sat sideways
The 17 was a nightmare to load, and thus very slow fire rate.
@@coachhannah2403 Most times one shot did it unlike the Sherman 75mm.
@@FairladyS130 - Incorrect.
One hit might have done it 'most times.' But the Firefly was an ergonomic nightmare, so slow firing, inaccurate, at best, wildly so with sabot.
@@coachhannah2403 American excuses are irrelevant when actual battlefield results show the Firefly's effectiveness.
@@FairladyS130 - 🤷♂️ Believe what you want.
long story short the yanks thought they were better and didnt learn anything from their failures
Super wonderful video about tank destroyer Sherman fire fly fixed with 17 pounder gun.how British adopted this powerful fire power and sufficient velocity. But Americans regretted it due to military doctrines between the British and the US. in addition to Sherman tanks designed for infantry supports.amercans have had independent tank destroyers. They fixed by a 90mm gun to challenging Pather 4, Tiger German tanks....thank you 🙏 ( Factbytes) channel for sharing
This is reminiscent of British putting Merlin in the Mustang 😮 making it game changer . Sherman was a good tank just needed an upgrade,it needed whole new rotational turret to suit more powerful gun.
What this tells us kiddies is Uncle Sam's Generals, are devoid of common sense. Thank God for the Brits ❤ ❤ ❤
"It is admitted that American tanks played a great part in the Battle of Egypt. America has been in this war for only a year. Why is it that in that short time she has been able to produce a first-class tank like the General Sherman whereas Great Britain, after three years of war and several years of preparation before the war, has not been able to do so."
below 245
Hansard DEBATE ON THE ADDRESS
17 November 1942
NIH. The Americans were slow to learn from earlier British mistakes on many occaisions. Hubris cost American lives dearly in North Africa, Italy and Normandy.
And having convoys in the Atlantic
"It is admitted that American tanks played a great part in the Battle of Egypt. America has been in this war for only a year. Why is it that in that short time she has been able to produce a first-class tank like the General Sherman whereas Great Britain, after three years of war and several years of preparation before the war, has not been able to do so."
below 245 Hansard DEBATE ON THE ADDRESS 17 November 1942
@@BanIslam-j6p if you think you can make a case for the RN doing a better job of convoys in 1917 than the USN in 1942, please do so
"Ignite nearby shrubbery?" You gotta be shittin' me!
Whatever reasons the US Army high command used for not using bigger tank cannon in the Sherman M-4, they were wrong, and the US Armies' tank crewmen paid the price with hideous wounds or their lives. You can bet that no US Army General lost his life.
@frankfischer1281 they were not necessarily "wrong". US armor doctrine had tanks supporting infantry and tank destroyers fighting enemy tanks. The 75mm was a superior gun for infantry support as it's HE shell was better. Now of course that doctrine was honored more in the breach. But nonetheless, US Army tanks spent most of their time fighting in support. There were plenty of effective tank destroyers in Western Europe in 1944. The idea that belated delivery of 76mm tanks was a mistake is at the least exaggerated.
Maybe it was because they 17 pounder gun not only took up alot more room in the turret in an already cramped space but that it would also added another type of round to the logistics side
The Germans had the Italians and the British had the Americans.
“Now at this very moment I knew that the United States was in the war, up to the neck and in to the death. So we had won after all! ... How long the war would last or in what fashion it would end no man could tell, nor did I at this moment care ... We should not be wiped out. Our history would not come to an end ... Hitler's fate was sealed. Mussolini's fate was sealed. As for the Japanese, they would be ground to a powder. All the rest was merely the proper application of overwhelming force.”
― Winston S. Churchill
yo why is Tiger I vs IS-2: How German "Defensive Blitzkrieg" video private?
It just shows the damage people at the top can do it should of been obvious to the American top brass to use the 17 Pounder on the shermans but because it was a British idea obviously it wasn’t
Another reason for not introducing the 17 pounder into the American military was due to supply chain problems. It's very easy to ship a butt load of ammunition all over the theater, if it's all the same. If the majority of tanks use 75mm ammo, it's more difficult to run out if they all use the same. You don't have to worry about your 17 pounder getting tied up in t he rear... it was already a logistics headache to worry about getting the 76mm ammo in steady supply once those tanks were sent into action.
@jameskraft7657 The US Army was supplying two types of tank gun ammo already. 75mm and 3 inch. The 3 inch was used in the M10. If you include light tanks, armored cars, and towed AT guns then four (37mm and 57mm).
You have to remember all the American costly equipment mistakes that plagued war efforts. We had the lousiest torpedoes on submarines, ships and air dropped for a couple of years and the Department of the Navy responsible for them made little effort to correct them. Subs firing on Japanese merchant and naval ships only to have them fail to explode. The Douglas TBF Avenger was so slow that all were shot down at the Battle of Midway.
@@snuffle2269 sorry but it was not the TBF avenger at Midway. It was an outdated prewar TB. TBFs entered service in 1943.
Torpedoes had problems due to inadequate testing prewar by the Bureau of Ordnance. The TBF was built by Grumman not Douglas and only 6 were involved at Midway land based. The aircraft that was obsolete at suffered horrible losses at Midway was the Douglas TBD Devastator which was an advanced aircraft when introduced in 1937, but obsolete by 1942.
@MrTigurius TBFs entered service in June 1942 at Midway. There were only 6 available and they were land based off of Midway by a detachment of VT-8. 4 of 6 were lost during their unescorted attack on the Japanese fleet.
The Douglas TBD Devastator torpedo bomber was still standard equipment for the USN during the Battle of Midway, and it is that largely obsolescent bomber/torpedo bomber which was lost in such numbers. The Avenger didn't enter service in large numbers until somewhat later.
Good to come across a video that accepts and understands American hubris. The Americans had something of a baptism of fire in Operation Torch (North Afrika) but with lashings of hubris behind their thinking, changed very little in their "doctrine" until much later in the war.
I'm afraid that there was a considerable amount of anti-British feeling in the Americans, with the result that they suffered increased casualties and difficulties. This is just one example, others include failure to implement the convoy system for their domestic shipping when they came into the war, failure to implement blackout along the east coast of USA meaning that their merchant ships were silhouetted against the shore lights, failure to use the DD "swimming" Sherman tanks properly on D-day, meaning most of theirs sank.
Agreed!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
It took a while for the Yankees to figure out that Brits KNEW WHAT THEY WERE TALKING ABOUT!!!!!!!!!!
The Disaster at Omaha beach could have been pretty much AVOIDED if Yankee planners and listened more carefully to Brit planners!!!!!!!!!!
@@abellseaman4114Doesn't explain the repeated British/Canadian failures in front of Caen does it? The Brits did not fight any better than the Americans, and when all was said and done, played a subsidiary role. They never fielded more than 12 divisions in NW Europe, better than the Canadian's 5, but a definitively minor contribution.
"failure to use the DD "swimming" Sherman tanks properly on D-day, meaning most of theirs sank."
source ?
@@abellseaman4114 "The Disaster at Omaha beach could have been pretty much AVOIDED if Yankee planners and listened more carefully to Brit planners!!!!!!!!!!"
source ?
@@thomasmurphy6595 HYPOCRITE LIE-berals and their anti Woke BIGOT ALLIES REFUSE TO RECOGNIZE what happened immediately after D-day...........................
and hypocrite LIE-berals like to blame Montgomery for Yankee failings!!!!!!!!!
Yankee forces that landed on Utah beach WERE LOST due to faulty navigation - after IGNORING BRIT WARNINGS ON THE SUBJECT - thus in the early days after the invasion - Nazis pretty much IGNORED troops at Utah as they floundered their way through swamps and flooded areas.....................
Yankee troops at Omaha beach had suffered so much due to faulty planning that Brits had warned them about - that the Omaha troops took a long time to summon the energy to push inland to any real distance.............
Eventually Omaha and Utah troops got far enough inland that heavy equipment that was landed at Utah got driven down the beach to Omaha and then sent inland and then headed south to link back up with Utah FOOT SOLDIERS who had walked and waded through THE HEAVY FLOODING AT UTAH!!!!!
In related news - there were eleven Nazi armoured divisions in Normandy and through much of the fighting - TEN OF THOSE ARMOURED UNITS FACED BRITS AND CANADIANS until the Yankee break out at St. Lo.............thus Patton benefited from Nazi defences that were WEAKER IN HIS AREA THAN IN OTHER SPOTS ON THE LINE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
A "factbyte" that is short on facts. Allied tanks in the Western Desert armed with the American 75mm and British 6-pounder guns had no problem penetrating the armour of the Panzer IV which was relatively thin (compared to the Panther and Tiger), especially on the early variants. The threat posed by the Panzer IV came from those equipped with the long-barrel 7.5cm gun, as did the Panzer III with the long-barrel 5cm gun. The US 76mm was NOT an upgrade of the old 75mm, it was a completely new weapon that used different ammunition. As for rotating the 17-pdr so the "breach was at the back",, it was already at the back; it was rotated 90 degrees to make loading easier in the Firefly's cramped turret.
Me thinks the last reason for the decision not to deploy the Firefly was the most important…US military arrogance and unwillingness to accept a non American solution. Still true today. But one wonders why Patton didn’t demand some Fireflies.
I think you pretty much summed it up yourself . Patton was arrogant and thought himself infallible . He made some great choices during the war but also some bad ones like the Metz fortresses , even his success at Remagen was down to sheer luck . I think the reason he and Montgomery never got on is because they were more alike than they'd ever admit
@@garypeyman932 Patton was not at The Hurtgen Forrest
@@jacktattischeers , fixed . It a couple of books I read over the years suggested he was
Patton citing U.S. Army tank and tank destroyer doctrine to a tee, had rejected the need for the new T-26/M-26 Pershing tank in the months leading up to the invasion of Normandy in June 1944. Citing space concerned aboard trans-Atlantic merchant shipping, as well as the proper doctrinal role of tanks under current war-fighting doctrine, Patton said that the existing M4 series would be enough to do the job.
He was a cavalryman, and liked how the Sherman performed in that role, as a breakthrough and exploitation weapon. A role for which it was well-suited.
You can't help but think that if Patton had spent more time in the turret of a tank in combat, like some of his staff sergeants, his views might have been different. Like most general and flag officers, he was highly-dependent upon his staff and staff officers to supply him with accurate and timely information. If he didn't get it, it wasn't necessarily his fault. And like many senior officers, as long as his men got the results he wanted, he probably didn't look too hard at how they had done it. Too busy moving on to the next objective.
In the run-up to D-Day, Supreme Commander Allied Expeditionary Forces (SHAEF) General Eisenhower and his top staff, including Patton, had been promised that the new 76mm gun would be the equal of the enemy's best guns and best armored vehicles. Ike later complained bitterly that he had been misled when the gun under-performed in its initial combat in N. France.
@@GeorgiaBoy1961 Not in David Millers Tanks
The US was shipped I think two converted Firefly turrets for evaluation. These were mounted on M4A3 hulls at Aberdeen for evaluation. The US concluded that the Firefly turret was "unfightable", meaning the turret with the 17lbr gun was too cramped and not enough room to maneuver the ammo in a timely manner. Further, the 17lbr ammo being larger in diameter and longer reduced the ammo count below what the US Army considered acceptable.
The US also concluded that the 17lbr firing APCBC ammo did not offer enough of a advantage over the US M7 3in gun used on the M10 or the 76.2mm M1 gun used on the M18 GMC and coming into service on the M4A1/76 being shipped to UK. While the M4A1/76 typically fired APCBC ammo, the M10 and M18 crews had access to HVAP ammo by Normandy.
Roughly 200 M4A1/76 tanks were rushed to the UK for use in D-Day but the armored Division commanders left then at home because they did not want the added logistical burden of supporting another ammo type. The M4A1/76 first saw action about August 1st 1944 in the opening of Operation Cobra. Initially the US assigned the M4A1/76 similar to the British with one M4A1/76 per US M4 platoon of four tanks.
Unless I misheard, the video stated the M4A1/76 could not penetrate the Panther at ranges over 500m and could not penetrate the Tiger I or II at all. This is incorrect. The US M7 3in gun and the M1 76.2mm fired the exact same projectile. The propellant casing was redesigned to reduce the length of the casing while increasing its diameter. the volume of propellant was identical giving the same ballistic performance. Where the M7 3in gun was adapted from the M1917 3in towed anti aircraft gun and weighed about 1,990lbs. the M1 76.2mm was designed for vehicle mounting and to use modern materials and reduced complexity. the M1 76.2mm weighed about 1,100lbs. The round typically fired was the M62 APCBC, the M79 APC-T, and the M93 HVAP round.
The M62 round could not penetrate the Panther at normal combat ranges of 500 to 700 meters, unless the round hit the underside of the gun mantlet and ricocheted down through the hull roof with catastrophic results. The upper front plate was mostly impenetrable by all except the M93 HVAP fired at under 300 meters which was suicidally close. The lower front plate of the Panther being 60mm thick, was able to be penetrated at normal combat ranges when it was visible. The Panthers 40mm ot 50mm side armor was easier to penetrate at normal combat ranges as long as it was a 90deg angle shot. If the Panther was angled the changes of penetration went down.
The US 3in and 76.2mm gun had little problems with the Tiger I's almost vertical armor. The M62 APCBC couldnt penetrate the Tiger I frontally out to 1000 meters, and out to 1400 meters from the side. By comparison the M3 75mm had to close to under 500meters to penetrate the Tiger I frontally. This is confirmed in Germanys own Tiger fibel, the handbook for training Tiger I crews. If your firing 3in or 76.2mm at a Tiger II...pray. Due to low armor quality in Tiger II's some crews used HE and white phosphorous.
The M36 GMC with its M3 90mm gun firing HVAP could penetrate the Panthers upper front plate at normal combat ranges and from the side out to 1000 meters. Unfortunately 90mm HVAP was always in short supply. The 90mm M3 firing M77 AP or M82 APC ammo could penetrate the Tiger I out past 2,000 meters reliably assuming the gunner could hit the target.
There is always two versions of history, the truth and the American version.
look up
First Opium War
Alabama Claims
Bengal Famine
Patton certainly epitomized that arrogance and limited thinking!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Patton believed it was Montgomery who hampered him and restricted his actions in North Africa and Sicily - but in reality it was the American Congress who was the major obstacle as they kept trying to draw off men and equipment for the Pacific theatre as Congress DID NOT UNDERSTAND the strategic situation that dictated allied effort against Nazi Germany first and foremost!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
😊
This was infuriatingly repetitive
It also seems to overstate how common the tiger - and to a lesser extent the panther - were, and understate how relatively common the Panzer IV was.
It also downplays how few tanks Germany had.
And how for most of the war all nations, including Germany, used tanks for exploitation. And how common using artillery, airstrikes and anti tank guns against tanks. And how you'd always try to flank the enemy.
And, with regard to Africa, it completely ignores Rommel's use of the sword and shield tactic.
It also downplays how bad the ergonomics were inside the Firefly. Seriously, go look at some of the chieftain's videos on Firefly.
The Firefly was a good bodge, but it was a bodge nevertheless which ment it was hyper specialised.
The 76mm sherman however was a good tank.
The yanks did not invent this powerful weapon so they would not adopt it, like so many orher weapons like the EM2 rifle the British developed
I believe the EM2 but was put aside because of commonality with the American weapon. It is like here in Australia we had to buy second hand Abrams for commonality When we could have bought Second Hand Challenger I ,a better tank cheaper My govt is corrupt We have that shit plane the F18 for commonality
@jacktattis it was not for commonality that the EM2 was rejected. It was the yanks thought the the round was too small and they wanted the bigger bullet like the 7.62 mm with a better stopping power. How history proves the British smaller round would prevail. Their is a vlog on you tube which explains the reasoning about this subject, forgotten weapons is one such channel, just search for this channel and put in EM2 British bullpup rifle it will explain 👍
Didn't stop them taking the Merlin engine for their P51 Mustang
@@BanIslam-j6p There has been an argument about that for 80 years. I think they stole them Nick Danger thinks that those engines were paid for by the USA . All I know is that RR/R paid $130mil. up front to Packard. Where that went no-one has been able to find out.
The US Army rejected the Firefly for the same reason it rejected the M4E2 with the 76mm Gun M1 in the M34 mount on the original cast turret. The turret couldn't be balanced, so the gun stabilization system couldn't be used. There was insufficient room for enough ammunition to be carried in protected storage. There was insufficient room for the loader, reducing crew efficiency. The turret training motors, both mechanical and hydraulic could not turn the turret when the tank was at an angle. The flash and smoke disoriented the gunner using the periscopic sight or the telescopic sight which increased time to lay on and fire a second shot. The British accepted these issues in order to get a more effective gun into service.
It should be noted that the US Army tested the APPCBC shot and the APDS and found that the dispersion around the aim point on a target was greater than the US 76mm M1/3" M7 and the 90mm M3. The APDS dispersion at 1,000 yards was such that 50% of the shots missed a target representing a typical medium tank turret.
As it was, according to Hunnicutt, the US Army in Europe actually tested the 17pdr in a T23 turret on an M4A1E8. The outcome was favorable and the US Army requested 50 M4A1E8 and M4A3E8 tanks undergoing depot maintenance be provided to the British to be upgunned. It is not known if these tanks were completed or if they were issued.
The US Army already had a good tank gun, the 90mm M3. It was mounted on the M36 Gun Motor Carriage, which included some M36 turrets mounted on M4 Sherman hulls. The 90mm also armed the T25 and T26 tanks. Moreover, the US Ordnance had done a study on mounting the T25 turret, which had the same mounting ring dimensions as the T23 turret into Shermans.
When the French upgraded their Shermans and worked with the Israelis to upgrade the Shermans the French sold to them, they mounted the 75mm CN-75-F1 gun from the AMX-13 by building an extension of the turret to the front where the new mantlet was mounted, providing more room in the turret. The CN-75-F1 was similar in length to the 17pdr, which then begs the question why no one thought of this answer before 1954. Finally, as proof the T25 turret on the Sherman would have worked, we have the HV-51, a Sherman with a T23 turret mounting the French 105mm D-1455 gun, a shorter and lighter version of the CN-105-F1 of the AMX-30, the recoil forces being reduced by firing only HEAT rounds.
A couple of inaccuracies in the otherwise good video.
First one is that the front armour on the panther was harder to penetrate than the Tiger. Much weaker everywhere else but tougher on the front.
2- the americans barely fought the tiger and didnt fight any in Normandy. The germans always focused their best troops and weapons in the more strategic fronts of Eastern Sicily and northern france/netherlands/belgium and these happened to be the British fronts. Not to downplay the americans but their breakouts would not have been as easy if they were facing SS with Tigers instead of inexperienced soldiers.
Tiger I or II?
@jacktattis Tiger 1 armour. Tiger 2 also had sloping armour and was harder to penetrate than the Tiger and Panther
The British civilian Ministry of Supply had already stopped the idea of a 17 pdr armed Sherman back in 1942 (appx). It was Major George Brighty, with the help of Lieutenant Colonel Witheridge of the British army who had to push the concept through the British bureaucracy!
There are a couple of factual reasons why the US Army correctly did not fully adopt the 17 pdr:
(The correct name Ordnance QF 17-pounder but everybody uses 17 pdr)
1. The US Army did in fact order 160 Fireflies (British conversions of USA supplied Sherman M4 tanks) and never received the total of 160 Firefly M-4's. (That total never progressed beyond 100 tanks) These tanks were in the US Army inventory but never supplied to the US armor battalions.
Why?
The US Army doubted whether the UK could produce enough conversions to satisfy the US Army needs. This was critical! If the US Army was to "adopt" the Firefly and place the tank into the TO&E of US armor battalions then enough 17 pdr guns, ammunition and spare parts would be needed to the tune of thousands not just a hundred or so.
The UK was already stretched with supplying it's own needs let alone the needs of the USA. As it turned out the UK was at it's limit of production of the 17 pdr, ammunition and spare parts. The only way the UK was going to produce enough 17 pdrs to meet all it's commitments was to go the route of demanding the USA supply even more machine tools, high grade steel and chemicals!
Also not that PM Churchill had given 2 towed 17 pdr's to the Soviet army for testing and possible adoption. The Red Army after testing said "thank you but no" due to the towed version of the 17 pdr being to heavy to manhandle by a crew of seven. Also the Red Army found that the armor penetration was no better than the 85 mm AT already in use both towed and on the T-34/85, SU-85, KV-85 and adopting this AT gun would only complicate the supply situation that much more.
(Note that the reduced armor penetration was due to the Soviets being supplied with only APC, HE, APCBC type ammunition not the APDS (aka SVDS))
2. The US Army had already conducted it's own evaluation of tank use in Europe and the Pacific and found that:
US Army tankers used more high-explosive ammunition than armor piercing ammunition, with a firing ratio of about 70% HE, 20% AP, and 10% smoke!
The 17 pdr was great for armor penetration but absolutely horrible at infantry support! And infantry support was the tanks greatest use in WW2 in any theater except maybe in Eastern Europe.
The HE shells for the 17-pounder had smaller bursting charges (Mk 1 shell: 1.28 lbs, Mk 2 shell: 1.06 lbs) than those for the 75mm gun used by the M4 Sherman (M48: 1.49 lbs, Mk 1: 1.64 lbs)
The 17 pdr had a limited range of ammunition:
Armor Piercing Capped (APC) (Not used on the tank mounted 17 pdr)
Armour Piercing, Capped, Ballistic Capped (APCBC)
Armour-piercing discarding sabot (APDS)
High Explosive (HE) (poor performance as stated above)
Compared to the 75 mm M3 gun:
M61A1 Cartridge, APC-T
M338A1 Cartridge, APC
M72 Cartridge, 75mm AP
M66 Cartridge, 75mm HEAT-T
Mk 1 Cartridge, 75mm Shrapnel (WWI shell, probably only used in the Pacific if at all)
M89 Cartridge, 75mm Smoke
M64 Cartridge, 75mm Smoke WP
M2A2 75mm Dummy Cartridge
M19 or M19B1 Cartridge, 75mm Dummy
Cartridge, 75mm Chemical, Mk 2 (fortunately never used in combat!)
Cartridge, 75mm Blank, M337, M337A1, M337A2
Cartridge, 75mm Blank
3. The Legendary Inaccuracy of the 17-pounder firing APDS (aka SVDS)
The claim to fame for the 17 pdr was it's ability to penetrate the armor of the German "cats" i.e., Tiger I, Panther and Tiger II. But hey if you cannot HIT the "cat" you cannot kill it!
U.S. Army Firing Test No.3
U.S. Army Firing Tests conducted August 1944 by 12th U.S. Army Group at Isigny, France.
30 August 1944
SUBJECT: Final report of board of officers appointed to determine comparative effectiveness of ammunition of 76mm gun and 17pdr gun.
TO: Commanding General, Twelfth Army Group.
The board convened pursuant to the attached order at the firing range established by First U.S. Army near Isigny, France at 1030 hours, 19 August 1944 and conducted firing tests against the front plate of German Panther Tanks. The firing was continued, as the weather and the availability of target tanks permitted, on 20 and 21 August 1944. Because of the urgency of the test, a preliminary report, dated 21 August 1944, was submitted on 22 August 1944.
Forty-two (42) rounds of 17pdr SABOT were fired and only 57% [24 rounds] were hits.
Info from "The Sherman Firefly"
Published, January 1, 2001 by Mark Hayward (Barbarossa Books)
400 yds APC hit 90.5% APDS hit 56.6%
600 yds APC hit 73.0% APDS hit 34.2%
800 yds APC hit 57.3% APDS hit 21.9%
1000 yds APC hit 45.3% APDS hit 14.9%
1500 yds APC hit 25.4% APDS hit 7.1%
The Chieftain's Hatch
worldoftanks.com/en/news/history/The_Chieftains_Hatch_Firefly/
Nicholas Moran explores the US Army testing of a 17 pdr on a imported M4 17 pdr MkVII turret that was fitted onto a standard M4A3 VVSS hull. The Firefly turret was being compared to the M4(76) and M26. This test was late 1943 at Aberdeen Proving Ground.
The problem was with the APDS ammunition! The issue of tube fouling and interference of the muzzle brake with sabot separation was not solved until after WW 2 ended and I believe it was the Canadians who partially solved the issue.
www.quora.com/The-QF-17-Pounder-suffered-accuracy-issues-with-APDS-why-could-the-Canadians-fix-it-but-not-the-British
Or just got to UA-cam
ua-cam.com/video/DaE0VJ7IaFU/v-deo.html
Fast forward to 24:59 where the Chieftain discusses how the Canadians fixed the APDS separation issue.
4. Poor Ergonomics of the 17 pdr in a Sherman turret.
a. Far fewer ammunition rounds could be carried. (Down from 97 to 77)
b. The hull gunner had to be removed to make room for the ammunition.
(Uhh, anyhow the hull gunner was an anachronism in my opinion. But the front of the hull was a stupid place to store main gun ammo)
c. The rate of fire was much slower do to the size of the ammunition and the larger breech.
d. At the time of the Firefly conversions the US was ending production 75 mm gunned Shermans.
5. The US Army testing proved that the the M36 tank destroyers (1,770 produced) and the rather late M26 Pershing were a much better choice than the Sherman based Firefly. Both used the M3 90 mm main gun which had an overall a better performance than the 17 pdr.
The British Army themselves used the Firefly much as a "tank destroyer" rather than a MBT. Normally only 1 Firefly was allocated to a troop of 4 in each squadron of a Armored Regiment in the British army. Approximately 2000 Firefly conversions were made (unknown if this total includes thew 100 for the USA).
During the battles in Northwest Europe the British had issues with some regiments refusing any more 17 pdr Firefly tanks and the number of encounters with German armor was becoming minimal and the 75 mm Sherman was preferred in urban fighting and for infantry support in the field.
Very interested in your source for the claim Regiments were 'turning down' the 17pdr tanks. Where can I see it. Also why have you left out Mark Haywards response (in his Firefly book) to the claims the 17 pdr was sub-par?
The Tommies also offered the so called "funnies", special purpose tanks but the Yanks said No thank you witch cost a lot of American boys their lives.
Actually no,
The US Requested most if not all of Hobarts designs, however they only received a handful of Duplex-Drive tanks as time was in short supply.
@@autistic_m4a3_76w_hvss There was time enough to build the Funnies but not train the crews making them effectively just a burden. The US deployed a similar number of DD's as the UK and Canadian forces did on their beaches. Numbers limited by operational factors such as how many tanks can you actually use effectively on a narrow beach frontage.
Who made these decisions? NO NAMES given.
The names never are provided, so the INDIVIDUALS who make the asinine decisions don't get held accountable and later promoted into other positions their not qualified for.
The biggest decision of the Americans to not accept the Sherman firefly was the fast production of the Sherman in its original form. It had great mobility. It had easy repair times and fewer mechanical breakdowns that kept them off the battlefield.
This decision for the unaltered Sherman was all due to a battle plan that the British and Canadians would keep Germany’s need for heavier tanks north which was the shortest route to Germany. The Americans would push through the south and east which would involve less encounters with heavier tanks, such as the tiger 1 & 2.
The Americans could do open field running from town to town with less heavier resistance and cause Germany to constantly having to shift units from one sector to another. Germany was consistently having to reinforce positions by transporting armor to different fronts. Wasted time and resources for transportation and less time in actual battle. Germany faced constant fuel and transportation crisis doing this.
Germany’s 88s were better for transportation and were very effective for these purposes, but Sherman’s were fast and mobile enough to get around these positions and take them out with a single shot. A much better performance compared to tank on tank encounters.
Here’s another point to consider….. America didn’t produce the tanks, the private manufacturing companies did that. And, we all know that deals were/are made to keep these companies in business and profitable and keep politicians and lobbyists in business…..and profitable.
The yanks never took advice or weapons from the British, they knew it all apparently - and paid for their hubris with the loss of many lives.... They dropped their British floating tanks too far offshore and they sank, they did not assemble their mulberry harbour properly and it broke up..
The failure of the Mulberry Harbor had nothing to do with improper assembly. The U.S. Harbor was in a more open, exposed location than the British Harbor and had heavier seas. That is the reason it broke up. Omaha Beach was more exposed to the seas and that led to the DD tanks foundering. DD tanks were not designed to operate in 5 foot seas. They were launched at the designated location, but couldn't handle the seas. Even some of the British DD tanks foundered. The Utah Beach Dd tanks were not launched until much closer to shore; a decision made by the landing craft group commander on his own authority based on the sea conditions.
The Americans at first didn’t think that the Mulberry Harbours were needed and everything could be off-loaded straight from ship onto the beach as they were doing in the Pacific!
It had to be pointed out to them the difference between trying to supply two armies and a couple of Divisions!
@@chrissmith2114 Not entirely true. The British 6 pounder gun was adopted as the 57mm towed AT gun.
There is no answer to this question. The UK was interested in making very specialised equipment for a special purpose e.g. armoured carriers, Mosquitos. They continued to do this after the war e.g. Buccaneer, Harrier. The US was interested in generalised equipment in numbers.
It can all be summed up by geography, the US needed to think about the pacific, which is vast, and fighting in very varied terrain. The British were thinking about Europe and the Med.
Different solutions for different problems.
Thousands and thousands of Brits died in the far east!
You have heard of the British Empire well in those days it was huge
@@jacktattis My point is that it was not only the US fighting the Japanese.
The yanks are not wrong because they understood the concept of fit for purpose vs ideal. The Sherman tank could defeat any tank in the field of battle because you don't measure tanks on just 1 vs 1 stats but how many you WILL field in battle vs the enemy. If i can field 20 times the number of tanks you can field then it doesn't matter if your tanks are better in a 1 vs 1 stand off.
The British military was initially reluctant to squeeze the 17 pounder into the Sherman's turret. It was the tenacity of a few people and the impending invasion that the firefly was put into service. It was a necessity that was solved by sacrificing some ergonomics and operator convenience to get the job done. Besides the effectiveness of possibly the best gun at the time, the tactics used by the tank teams at the time was a key to its success. This is only my opinion and is not based on any research. I learned a lot in this video.
They would have had to admit that the British had a better gun than they did. Another ridiculous decision made by people back home who had absolutely no idea what was actually happening on the battlefield. This ridiculous decision cost the lives of many Sherman tank crews who had no chance against a Panther or Tiger from the front. Early on in the Normandy invasion they sent out 20 Shermans .... 2 came back. Read the reports of the men operating the Shermans and you will understand the truth.
@@noiricha - No, Beldon Cooper never operated a Sherman in battle.
Nope, not going to let you get away with this garbage that gets spewed every time the Sherman comes up. Shermans had one of the highest survivability rates of any mass produced tank of the war. Total ETO casualties for tank crew was 1,407 out of 49,516 deployed. This includes tankers killed from things like running over a mine, or killed outside their vehicles by things like snipers and artillery. That's a 3% rate. Infantry on the other hand suffered an 18.5% rate. Being in a Sherman tank was safer than being an infantryman. It was safer than being in a B-17, B-24, or B-25. Most of the AFVs engaged were Panzer IV H and J, or StuG III G, all of which the short 75mm could take from the front. Tigers were fairly rare on the Western front.
Total tank medium tank write offs was 4,644. Let me repeat that and let it sink in. Total Shermans destroyed was 4,644 yet tanker casualties was 1407. That's not a death trap (which is pure fantasy written by a man with a bone to pick)
@@TSD4027 - Stop calling it a 'short 75.' The short 75 was on the early PzKwIV and StuGIII, models.
@@coachhannah2403 Irrelevant and stupid. It was a shorter gun compared to the 76mm. US tanks have nothing to do with early war German tanks. But hey, feel free to try and nitpick.
Lets see, the us accepted radar, sonar, the rolls royce merlin engine, and certan naval vessels, without complaint. So get your facts straight.
Thankfully the British managed to come up with something good.
Would have seriously struggled without it
IWM Britain's Struggle To Build Effective Tanks
"From late 1942, US tanks were required in increasing numbers to make up for the deficiencies of home-grown products. Only in 1944 was British industry able to deliver a tank reasonably fit for a fast-moving battlefield, and even then it was scarcely a match for its opponents."
I stopped this nonsense at time 7:02.
U.S Shermans never "faced" German Tiger or Panther tanks.
Yes they did; except the US Sherman’s were manned by British / Canadian and commonwealth crews. Pretty sure all Sherman’s were built in America? I could be wrong mind so take it with a ouch of salt
@@olilastname8844 Reread what I stated. "U.S Shermans never "faced" German Tiger or Panther tanks." NOT Shermans didn't face Tigers or Panthers.
Tanks for the video. 😁
Without going much further than 1:00 into the video, I predicted it would be (as usual) politics.