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Though I tried, I found I could not write anything better than George Forty in the introduction to his book The M4 Sherman. I have included them here in total for you.

While I was researching for an earlier book about American tanks in World War Two, I remember receiving an anecdote from one of my correspondents, an American named Frank Woolner, who had served as a reconnaissance tank destroyer Sergeant and later as a combat correspondent with 3rd Armored Division. He wrote that most of the German tankers they captured seemed to have the same stock joke: "Von off our tanks iss better than ten off yours", the captured German would say. "Then, just about when you had decided to punch the guy on the whiskers, he would shrug, grin and say "But you always haff eleven!" I would take any odds that the vast majority of those eleven were M4 Shermans of one type or another. The Sherman was a logical development in the US medium tank line, which began back in the early 1920s and included the M2, M2A1 and M3 in its lineage. It was the most widely used tank of World War Two, appearing in every theatre of operations, and on nearly every battlefield from 1942 onwards. While it was not on a par with the best German tanks, such as the Tiger and Panther, as far as firepower and armored protection was concerned, its mobility, reliability and general ease of handling made it an excellent tank to fight in*. The Sherman was without doubt the most important tank produced during the war by the Western Allies and was built in such staggering quantities as to dwarf all other tank production anywhere in the world. 49,234 Sherman gun tanks of all types were produced by the United States, more than half the entire American wartime tank production and equal to the total combined production of Great Britain and Germany. If one adds to that enormous figure all the other variants which used basic M4 components, such as chassis and power-packs, which included Gun Motor Carriages, Howitzer Motor Carriages and Tracked Recovery Vehicles, then the total is even more mind boggling.

In common with every other armored fighting vehicle ever built, the Sherman had its good and bad points. Tank design is always a compromise between the three basic characteristics of firepower, protection and mobility, and when the Sherman was designed in mid 1941, it was considered to be a very good compromise. Events were to prove that it lacked firepower, but its popularity in its original form actually militated against putting this right until far too late in the war to have much effect - apart from the relatively small number of British conversions which mounted the hard hitting 17-pdr anti-tank gun. Firepower was marginally improved with the fitting of the 76mm gun, but it was left to the Israelis many years later to mount a really effective gun on their Shermans. However, the gun control equipment was excellent and a well-trained Sherman crew could be guaranteed to outshoot most other AFVS, even though their well-aimed rounds might then all bounce off the enemy glacis plate. Protection was disappointing, especially as the German tank guns improved, and it had a penchant for catching fire quickly. Not for nothing did the Germans call it the "Tommy Cooker", or the Sherman crews themselves refer to it as the "Ronson Lighter", because it could always be guaranteed to light first time. Yet its straightforward, uncomplicated design, excellent mobility, general ruggedness and ease of maintenance, all added up to an extremely reliable fighting machine. The Sherman was designed for mass production. It was also designed to be capable of being transported by road or rail to the ports of the USA, put in ships and carried all over the world, then landed if necessary over beaches into enemy territory. It then had to motor for miles without a breakdown while receiving the minimum of maintenance. All this it achieved with ease.

When the Sherman was first introduced in I942 everyone sang its praises: 'We'll win the war with the M4 was the slogan heard everywhere. The British, who were the first to use the new tank in battle in North Africa, were positively euphoric about its performance: "The M4 tank is a better tank than the best German tank" is how British Generals described the Sherman to a party of senior American officers, led by General Devers, then Armored Force Commander, when they visited Montgomery's veteran Eighth Army. This was probably a perfectly true statement at the time, and indeed, later, when armored units of the Eighth Army were withdrawn to the UK from Italy, prior to D-Day, and were re-equipped for the coming battle with the new British cruiser tank, the Cromwell, they were very unhappy. General Bobbie Erskine, GOC of the famous 7th Armored Division (The Desert Rats) echoed these worries when he wrote later: " . . . It did not make matters easier when we found that the armored brigade was to be equipped with Cromwells which was an entirely new tank for us. We all knew the Sherman inside out, but none of us knew the Cromwell. This had various repercussions. The armor regiments had to learn the gunnery and maintenance of a new tank which many of them judged inferior to the Sherman".

One of the fairest assessments of the Sherman that I have read was written by the late General Mark Clark, commander of the US Fifth Army in Italy. To put his comments in context, they were contained in a letter he wrote to judge Jim Osborne of Vincennes, Indiana. Jim, as well as being a Judge in the Knox County Court, runs a fine military museum and amongst his vehicle collection is an immaculate M4A1E8(76)W, which you will see photographed from just about every angle later in this book. This is what General Clark had to say in answer to the question: How good was the Sherman?

"All things considered, the M4 Sherman family of tanks were good tanks with your M4A3E8 being about the best of the breed. Perhaps the strongest point of the M4 was its manufacturing quality and quantity. Regardless of its design, the Sherman was a well-finished and fitted tank. Further, over 40,000 were produced from I943 to 1945. This was greater than the total of all German tracked vehicle production from- I934 to I945. This quality and quantity were great advantages and helped outweigh some shortcomings. Unfortunately, the Sherman had more than it's share of shortcomings. It's profile was far too high, its armor was woefully thin, and its gun was hopelessly underpowered. Interior stowage and access was poorly organized. The suspension gave a rough ride while the converted civilian engines were underpowered and tended to overheat. Both suspension and engine were difficult to maintain. On the strong side, the Sherman had excellent fire controls (sights and auxiliary systems) and superior gun controls (mechanisms for traversing and elevating). These items, coupled with the high finish quality of the weapons, allowed the American tanker to wring out the last ounce of potential firepower. Your M4A3E8 was an effort to improve upon the Sherman. Its thicker armor and bigger gun, while not enough (compared to German or Russian tanks) was a quantum leap over other models of the Sherman. Likewise, it's new HVSS suspension and specially designed engine were vast improvements over earlier AUs. Since the M4A3E8 retained the other Sherman strong points, it was truly the best of the breed. Lastly, let me say a word about the American tanker. He was a highly trained and motivated individual. Gifted with innate American initiative and ingenuity, he took the organizational, technological and tactical expedients necessary to capitalize on the Sherman's strong points and negate the effect of its weaknesses. It was this, coupled with the immense quantity of available replacement tanks, that made the Sherman an overwhelming force on the battlefield from I943 to VE Day".

No matter which way you look at it, a tank that can last for over 40 years and still be in service all over the world has got to be counted as a success. Search now for the much vaunted Tigers and Panthers, and the only ones you will find are in museums, while the Sherman still soldiers on, getting the job done in an unspectacular yet businesslike way. As another of my correspondents, Les "Spud" Taylor, who served with the Northamptonshire Yeomanry, put it when I asked him what he liked best about the Sherman: "First, its utter mechanical reliability. Our one same vehicle carried us from the bocage through the chase to the River Seine, the battle for Le Havre, then by tank transporter through northern France and Belgium to the south of Holland. Defending the corridor Nijmegen-Eindhoven during Operation MARKET GARDEN, clearing the Noord Brabant, then the long cold winter journey to the Ardennes and the Battle of the Bulge. It says much for the expertise of our American friends that during the many battles and actions, plus the wear and tear of that long journey, I can only recall one breakdown, when the rubber stripped off a couple of bogie wheels. It never let us down during the fighting and apart from the laborious task of replenishing with ammunition and fuel, the usual checks were all that it required. The turret power traverse often gave us the edge over the hand operated German types and, of course, being an American tank, it possessed an excellent toolkit". Twenty-five years on, if you had asked an Israeli tanker on the Golan Heights for his comments, I have no doubt they would have been very similar.

This book is therefore a toast to a very fine piece of machinery, the M4 Sherman medium tank, and to all the tank crews of all the nations who have fought within its armored frame over the past four decades.

George Forty
Bryantspuddle, Dorset
December 1986.

* The Tiger and Panther Tanks were notorious for either having just enough or simply not enough engine power. The transmission was a noted weak point by the drivers - and this was especially true in early Panthers. At Kursk, Panthers that tried to tow disabled Panthers would often end up with a blown transmission and disabled themselves. In Italy, there are several stories of Tigers being abandoned with burned out clutches. Disciplinary measures were adopted in order to halt tanks towing tanks unless there was absolutely no other choice. The interleaved road wheels contributed to mobility problems. I have noted many comments attesting to the Tiger's penchant to become immobilized in freezing conditions due to mud, rocks, or ice collecting between the road wheels. During normal conditions stones or mud could collect between the roadwheels and bind the tracks so tightly that the tank would become immobile. Under those conditions, loosening the idler would not even free the track. The German tanker was then advised to have his tank towed or, if in fear of having to abandon the tank, actually blow out a track link with an explosive charge. Crossing rivers and bridges was a real problem and hazardous. The sheer weight of these vehicles overcame bridge weight limits and ground normal road surfaces into rubble.

William Kirk

As Good As The T-34?

Rodger Ford writes in his book "The Sherman Tank" a small note about The Sherman and the Soviet T-34.

"Was the Sherman as good an all-round tank as the other main contender for the dubious title of 'Best Allied Armored Vehicle' the Soviet T-34/85? The Red Army, which got over 4000 Shermans, 2073 of them 76mm gunned tanks, as part of Lend Lease didn't think so, but that says little or nothing about the real comparative merits of the two, for the T-34 was conceived specifically for the sort of conditions to be found in European Russia, and the Sherman was not. When the two types met in combat, in Korea, they proved to be quite well matched; the better ballistic performance of the Russian 85mm gun was effectively cancelled out by the speed with which an experienced Sherman turret crew could train and fire the stabilized 76mm gun of the M4; there was little difference in the effectiveness of the two tanks' armor."


Last Update: Thursday, February 13, 2003