There's a reason they were called tommy cookers. First hit usually lit them on fire burning the entire crew. The US didn't work around the clock to ge tthe pershing into production. The boys back home told everyone that the sherman was more than adequate and thats why they made 10's of thousands of them. Despite as early as 1943 shermans were lighting on fire and were outclassed by panzer4s. I'd consider the barebones t34/76 tanks with a life expectancy of a week a better tank than the sherman piece of shit mobile. Shit Eisenhower had to order that no more 75 mm shermans be sent to europe after the shit ton of losses after the battle of the bulge. Or else they would of kept at it. They worked against the dinky japanese tanks, but got shit on by the germans and needed aircraft support for them to engage enemy armor on a serious scale.
Shermans were not good tanks, they were not planned for future german tanks at all, the americans were really short sighted simply because they performed adequately vs upgunned panzer3s and panzer 4s. Just like russia, they picked really cheap easily expendable tanks because their economy could handle producing 10s of thousands of vehicles as well as finding near infinite crews to operate them relative to the germans. If they really cared about crew safety and such upon entering the war they would have taken a more panther like approach of armor, firepower, and mobility. After the war they wised up and were like "Oh shit maybe sending hundreds of crews to their deaths isn't such a good idea" Hence why everyone copied the idea of the panther and why Modern Main Battle Tanks are a thing.
Feel free to go and read up on some feedback from american tank crews of the time.
http://archives.library.illinois.edu/blog/poor-defense-sherman-tanks-ww2/
Hell even go read through the wikepedia article on the m4 sherman. Only the 76mms were more even vs stugs and panzer4s.
Wong The death trap thing was entirely a myth. The reason why they went up in flames was because
1. Early on crews were packing the tanks with ammo everywhere resulting in catastrophic cook offs when penetrations occurred once this was fixed the Sherman was no more prone to fire than any other tank. Also once wet ammo storage was introduced the Sherman was one of the least likely tanks to catch fire (10-20% with a crew fatality rate of roughly 18% which translates to one man out of the 5 person crew for a detah trap it seems to be pretty bad at killing its own crew)
2. When the Germans could they would continue to fire on knocked out shermans until they caught fire to ensure the vehicle was 100% destroyed and couldn't be recovered
http://www.amazon.com/Armored-Thunderbolt-U-S-Sherman-World/dp/0811704246/ref=cm_cr_pr_product_top?ie=UTF8
http://knowledgeglue.com/dispelling-myths-surrounding-m4-sherman/
"Myth: Belton Cooper’s book “Death Traps” is a good book about the Sherman.
Fact: Belton Cooper was a mechanic during the war, and thus lacked a good overall perspective of the Sherman’s performance. His laments about Shermans being no good against Tigers and Panthers are questionable, as his unit did not encounter Tigers and Panthers when he said it did. Furthermore, a portion of his book is dedicated to a rant about a Yankee conspiracy when it came to naming the tank, despite the fact that “Sherman” was a British nickname. The American designation was “Medium Tank M4″. To be fair, the Sherman name did make it into official documentation in 1944, but the common soldiers never used it. (Partial credit: The_Chieftain)"
"Myth: Shermans were prone to fires due to the gasoline engines, and were nicknamed “Ronson” by their crews.
Fact: Shermans were not especially fire-prone (consider German tanks that also used gasoline engines, but avoid this reputation). Fires were caused by improper storage of ammunition, when it was literally stuffed everywhere inside the tank it could fit. The end of this practice drastically reduced the number of Sherman fires. The Ronson nickname is attributed to the slogan “lights every time”. The slogan was launched post-war, and thus could not influence the nickname."
http://ftr.wot-news.com/2013/09/05/common-myths-about-wwii/
"Death Traps is an unusual book. It is written in the style of a memoir, but it also presents itself as a history of the 3rd Armored Division, the unit in which Cooper served as an ordnance Lieutenant. The main theme of the book is that M4 Sherman was, as the title implies, a “death trap” to the men that operated them. However, the book has several flaws. As a memoir, it is meandering and repetitive, far too often wandering away from the authors personal experiences into the realm of speculation. As a history it is lacking, containing no end notes, foot notes or bibliography. And finally, as an indictment of the M4 Sherman tank, the book is filled with so many factual errors and outright falsehoods, it cannot be taken seriously on this count either."
http://tankandafvnews.com/2015/01/29/debunking-deathtraps-part-1/
http://books.google.com.ph/books/about/Panther_Vs_Sherman.html?id=SWwRkr_6mzUC&redir_esc=y
"The data above is not complete but surely shatters the 5:1 nonsense. A British study concluded, during the Normandy campaign, that if the allies outnumbered the Germans 2.2 to 1 then victory was practically ensured. On the flip side, the Germans needed a 1.5 to 1 numerical superiority to ensure victory. In between these figures it came down to tactics. Again this data isn’t a complete representation but it debunks the 5:1 claim which has no evidence to support it."
Sorry but Shermans did just fine against Axis armor. Also your point about Big makes zero sense look at like this. By your words the Sherman is a bad tank due to its inability to effectively take down already rare Heavy Armor(said heavy armor that had a myraid of its own problems) in extreme rare niche engagements? (ergo long range engagements past 1 KM that rarely happened)
You also seem to think that war is always fought in a vacuum and tanks only fight only fight other tanks so basing a overall view on the sherman just based on its abilities to fight as mentioned above a few tanks in very rare instances, and nothing else is absurd and daft.
http://tankarchives.blogspot.com/2013/08/combat-performance-of-75-cm-and-88-cm.html
"The data is not surprising at all. The majority of 88 mm hits are at 600-800 meters, exactly the range at which a Tiger would be engaging a T-34 according to the Tigerfibel. The mythical 2 km shots represent a negligible amount of the total. The 75 mm caliber favours closer engagements, at about 400-500 meters."
Oh and fun fact Shermans were still being used by the US after WWII in korea and continued to see service in other countries until the 1980s meanwhile only the french briefly used German Tanks after WWII, and raved about their poor performance. (
http://forum.worldoftanks.com/index.php?/topic/177929-french-panthers/) Also german tanks literally had ZERO influence on post war tank design except for the French prototype AMX-50 which never entered production.
(
http://forum.worldoftanks.com/index.php?/topic/327199-our-problem-child-a-teardown-of-pzkpfw-v-panther/)
Lastly your one source is based entirely on just one mere personal account and death traps which has already been thoroughly debunked as a historical source.
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