But they were not concentrated and committed in the same numbers as at the Battle of Brody, which hardly anyone has written about. This article by Paul Richard Huard originally appeared at War is Boring in 2014.Expanding the battle beyond Prokhorovka, the total number of tanks fielded by the 2nd SS Panzer Corps and the Soviet 5th Guards Tank Army at and near the battle amounted to 1,299, according to a statistical analysis published in 2000 by Niklas Zetterling and Anders Frankson.Įxpanding the number to encompass all of Operation Citadel would include many more tanks. Heavily-modified “Super Shermans” even saw combat with the Israeli Defense Force during the Six Day War in 1967 and the Yom Kippur War in 1973. Even after the United States replaced the Sherman with the M48 Patton main battle tank during the 1950s, the Sherman served with U.S. The Sherman tank remained in service with both the Army and the Marine Corps after World War II, and saw action throughout the Korean War. military and armed forces around the world. Shermans modified to stream napalm through their gun muzzles blasted Japanese strongholds with jets of flame aimed at the enemy gun ports.ĭespite its many weaknesses, the Sherman tank became a mainstay for both the U.S. In the last months of the war when die-hard Japanese soldiers rarely surrendered, shelling pillboxes often didn’t stop the withering fire directed at American troops. In the Pacific, Marines deployed Shermans equipped with flamethrowers to destroy Japanese defensive positions. Both guns could mow down German infantry or destroy machine gun nests. Although its 75-millimeter gun was less potent than German tank guns were, it still could fire high-explosive rounds that would level buildings sheltering German troops.Īdditional weapons included two M1919 Browning. But for all of its problems, infantrymen were always happy when a Sherman arrived.Ĭommon roles included infantry support-often times, soldiers would stack up in long lines behind Shermans as the tanks advanced across open fields, leading the assault and letting armor block rounds fired from German MG-42 machine guns or small-arms fire from enemy soldiers. Whether there was another trained tank crew to man the Sherman was more problematic. The Tiger outmatched the Sherman, but the United States always had another Sherman to put in the field. The Germans manufactured slightly more than 1,300 Tigers. In comparison, the Tiger-clearly the superior tank when compared to the Sherman-was made of costly materials, laboriously assembled and expensive to operate. in tank production at that time through manufacturing the legendary T-34. to Ford Motors cranked out nearly 50,000 Shermans, the second-most produced tank during the war. It was one more example of the United States’ industrial prowess during World War II, a time where factory workers and factory output did as much to win the war for the Allies as the soldiers, sailors and airmen in battle.Ĭompanies ranging from the Pullman Car Co. Yet, the Sherman’s strength was in its numbers. “During the European Campaign, the Division had some 648 Sherman tanks completely destroyed in combat and had another 700 knocked out, repaired and put back into operation. armored divisions and their battles in Europe during World War II. “The 3rd Armored Division entered combat in Normandy with 232 M-4 Sherman tanks,” writes Belton Cooper, author of the appropriately named Death Traps, a study of U.S. Simply put, in the heat of battle it was as dangerous inside of a Sherman tank as it was outside of one. The loss of both men and machines is hard to grasp. “The German tank had an 88- and it just blew the General Sherman tank to pieces until there was nothing left but smoke and fire.” “If you’ve seen movies where the people come out of the tank all aflame-I saw that,” Stavros said during a video interview for a combat oral history sponsored by the National Endowment for the Humanities. Gus Stavros, a World War II veteran who witnessed actual combat between a Sherman and a Tiger outside of the town of Nennig, Germany, said the reality of pitched battle between the two tanks was just as horrifying. In the new film Fury, a single Tiger tank devastates a platoon of Shermans advancing across Germany.
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