By Belton Cooper. I know this books been around for a while, but it was new to me. Gives a different insight to the armored dash through Europe in 1944-45. The recovery & repair of battle-damaged tanks, halftracks, Guns etc. seldom get wrote about much. I really enjoyed the read. What surprised me were some authors/historians that really attacked this book & cast doubt on this authors first hand experience & insight dealing with the M4 Sherman tank in WW2. (read the comments in the Amazon reviews section for this book) These folks really get anal about this authors assessment of the M4 Sherman...bitterly defending the tanks role in WW2. Belton Cooper wrote of his own eye witness accounts of the damage the tanks sustained & what it took to keep em going. And the fact that replacement crews couldn't be found/trained fast enuff to man them.
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Death Traps: The Survival of an American Armored Division in World War II
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Maybe the reviewers had drunk Patton Kool-Aid too. BTW, i have in book on Patton, a photo captioned something like, "Patton walks away after castigating tank crew for makeshift armor additions" (spare track sections, etc. on front mantle). I thought this was an absolutely great book - could have gone on much more! ....Years ago, in Seattle, i met in our club a man, Art Corbus, who had been in a tank recovery unit. I sure wish i had had the courage then to try to interview him in depth. He did tell me once he was on top a tank, preparing to hook it up for tow, apparently the Germans kept the tank under obs and fired, and some heavy explosion nearby blew him off the tank. He also described the Falaise Gap with the descriptions you have heard before.
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Cooper was honest in his opinions. He reported, with integrity, how he felt. I can respect that, but it still doesn't mean he was right in all his views.
Some things he wrote were silly, such as claiming the Germans didn't have special tank recovery teams. They had a very elaborate system for this, but of course, catastrophic defeats such as at Falaise made the system break down, and tanks were indeed abandoned.
As to the merits of the Sherman, it was a superior tank, despite its flaws. The real problem was that Shermans should not have been getting into shootouts with German heavy tanks. There should have been an American heavy tank for this purpose.
The real worth of the Sherman can be seen in the Red Army's use of the tank. It was not by chance that they assigned Shermans to the Guards Tank Armies from the spring of 1943 onward. The Guards Tank Armies were committed on the key fronts to exploit the breakthroughs opened by Rifle/Infantry Armies, and thus carry out "deep battle" offensives. The Sherman had a much greater mechanical life expectancy than did Soviet tanks, which suffered from shoddy construction and mostly poor transmissions.
Sure the Soviet tanks had better armor, and eventually better main armaments. But those aren't helpful when the tank breaks down after 50 miles. Shermans could often manage hundreds of miles with only minor maintenance, and could be expected to cover 5000 miles before needing an overhaul. This made them ideal for deep battle, and for the American and British equivalent following the Normandy breakout. Other assets were supposed to duke it out with German tanks, while the Shermans carried the fight to softer targets in the German rear.
FWIW, Panthers tpically needed an overhaul after 500 miles, and needed constant maintenance to get that far. They were really too fragile and fuel-thirsty to lead an offensive, even if they were a strong opponent in a firefight (as long as no one shot at their thin side armor). The Panther's extra-long main armament was impressive with armor-piercing rounds, but required shells with thick walls to withstand the stress. This meant its high-explosive round was not very effective. For all the complaints you read about the lousy American 75mm main armaments, they fired very good high-explosive shells, which is why American tank units always kept a mix of 75mm and 76mm Shermans. During WW2, most antitank guns, and the equivalent pieces mounted on tanks as main armaments, fired far more soft-target rounds than armor-piercing ones.
The above are all things to consider, that are often left out in assessing the relative merits of WW2 tanks.
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Marc makes good points, but his explanation for the reasons for varying performance of HE rounds leaves much to be desired. In short, his theory is invalid (sorry Marc!). The reason is simply that an HE round does not need to be fired at the same high muzzle velocity as an AP round since the terminal ballistic performance of an HE round does not depend on its impact velocity.
Usually HE rounds had lower mv than AP rounds which makes sense from two different points of view: lower mv leads to reduced barrel wear and lower expenditure of propellant.
That the U.S. 76 mm gun had poorish HE ammo did not result from the gun itself, it was the ammo designer's screw up.
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Interesting topic - been done really well on the following link, which discusses the merits of the German Panzers vs Allied tanks
http://www.amazon.com/forum/world%20...x1EH957QA4CMIW
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I read two pages from the above link and I wasn't too much impressed. While there were many good points mentioned there were numerous odd comments perpetuating unsustainable myths. E.g. the claim that the Panther was supposedly more reliable than the Tiger when the exact opposite is true. Or that the Pz IV was supposedly a rugged and reliable tank when in fact its ruggedness, especially in heavy terrain, left much to be desired.
The Pz IV suffered from easily damaged trackwheels, weak final drive housings and poor suspension (the Pz III was much better in this respect). It is rarely noted that despite the fact that Germans invented both SI and CI engines and were great automotive innovators, WW2 German tanks' greatest weaknesses lay in their automotive characteristics. Automotively, the best German tank was the Czech Pzkw 38 (t).
The tendency is to blame Hitler for those shortcomings, yet he was one of the few at the top who understood the importance of diesel engines. On the other hand, it seems that neither Hitler nor his advisors really understood the importance of quantity. Many German tank designers sought only premium engineering solutions for engineering's sake instead of carefully weighing what is important and what is not in a combat tank operated under real battle conditions. Hence the Panther had a very complicated double-torsion bar suspensions that provided little benefit in real life.
One example is the very high maximum speeds demanded from the Panther which basically prevented the creation of a simple and easily produced tank. Another absolutely useless requirement was the demand for deep wading capability.
One reason for the above screw ups was that some private companies seem to have had very great influence on those making productions decisions. Outright favouritism reigned. Many company bosses were obviously more interested in personal gain than their nation's interest.
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Originally posted by pasoleati View PostI read two pages from the above link and I wasn't too much impressed. While there were many good points mentioned there were numerous odd comments perpetuating unsustainable myths. E.g. the claim that the Panther was supposedly more reliable than the Tiger when the exact opposite is true. Or that the Pz IV was supposedly a rugged and reliable tank when in fact its ruggedness, especially in heavy terrain, left much to be desired.
The Pz IV suffered from easily damaged trackwheels, weak final drive housings and poor suspension (the Pz III was much better in this respect). It is rarely noted that despite the fact that Germans invented both SI and CI engines and were great automotive innovators, WW2 German tanks' greatest weaknesses lay in their automotive characteristics. Automotively, the best German tank was the Czech Pzkw 38 (t).
The tendency is to blame Hitler for those shortcomings, yet he was one of the few at the top who understood the importance of diesel engines. On the other hand, it seems that neither Hitler nor his advisors really understood the importance of quantity. Many German tank designers sought only premium engineering solutions for engineering's sake instead of carefully weighing what is important and what is not in a combat tank operated under real battle conditions. Hence the Panther had a very complicated double-torsion bar suspensions that provided little benefit in real life.
One example is the very high maximum speeds demanded from the Panther which basically prevented the creation of a simple and easily produced tank. Another absolutely useless requirement was the demand for deep wading capability.
One reason for the above screw ups was that some private companies seem to have had very great influence on those making productions decisions. Outright favouritism reigned. Many company bosses were obviously more interested in personal gain than their nation's interest.
And there in lies your problem, you read only two pages of 13 - WOW !!!
Way to go !!!!
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