Facebook: Friends of the Tank Museum

[Lord Kermit of Birkenhead]

Looks great

[steve_holmes_11]

The Danish government has now ordered 1'000 as dazzle pattern camo.

If it's good enough for Land Rovers and Spitfires ...

[Lord Kermit of Birkenhead]

To say nowt of WWI Dreadnaughts 

[Raider4]

Shame it's not an old German tank, then it would have been a pink Panther . . .

[Lord Kermit of Birkenhead]

Shame it's not an old German tank, then it would have been a pink Panther . . .

CLOSE UT DOOR AHIND YE, but leave your coat for chewing !!

[fsn]

The Belgium 1st Lancers Regiment, using their M47 tanks to stress test the new bridge spanning the Meuse Rice at Namur in 1954.


What would have happened if the bridge had failed the test?
Water tanks?

[Steve J]

Hmmm, I'd be rather worried what would happen if the stress test failed...

[fsn]

[Steve J]

Very good     

[Big Insect]

The Lockheed XM-808 Twister.
An 8x8 articulated armoured car with a 20mm Hispano-Suiza cannon.
The five-ton, 8x8 armoured car has two main body segments joined by a pivotal yoke. Independently suspended wheels at the front and a rear walking-beam suspension allow the Twister to keep all eight wheels on the ground even over rough terrain. The Twister had a top speed of 65mph and could reach 45mph from a standing start in 18 seconds.


Oooh! Pause the Praying Mantis Dave, I want some of these!

My all time fav IFV - you just gotta love it

[fsn]

During the Second World War the M4 Sherman equipped every Allied nation except Australia and fought in every theatre. Its service life extended for decades beyond 1945 but it still attracts controversy. Its reputation has been damaged by myth and 'Top Trumps' assessments that don't consider context. It was not a perfect tank, but it was very capable and far from a death-trap. Indeed, it was one of the most survivable tanks of the war, second only to the Churchill. It outclassed many of its opponents and, perhaps most importantly, it was available whenever and wherever it was needed.

Hang on! The Australians didn't use Shermans?! 

[fred.]

Yes a very capable tank, and one that proved very adaptable and upgradable during and after WWII. 

I do wonder if its shear ubiquity gave rise to some of the views - i.e. if 80% of allied tanks were Shermans then 80% of knocked out allied tanks will be Shermans. An army mostly only sees what the enemy's weapons do to your own troops and tanks - which is rarely good. 

The ability to provide numbers was very important. On one of the British post D-Day attacks in Normandy, a British armoured division lost most of its Shermans on one day, but overnight they were able to replenish them all. This both speaks to the volume of tanks available but most also speak to the overall survivability of them. 

[Duke Speedy of Leighton]

Hang on! The Australians didn't use Shermans?! 

Ripped off Wikipedia lend lease article...
Australia
A M4A2 during Australian Army trials in 1944

Although the Australian Army received 757 M3 Lee/Grants in 1942, it only received three Sherman tanks. These three tanks were supplied by the UK and were only used for trials purposes. When the Australian Cruiser tank program was cancelled in 1943, after US authorities promised M4 Mediums would be available in any quantity required by Australia. A proposal was made to replace the entire order of 775 Australian Cruiser tanks with 310 Sherman tanks; however, this proposal was not acted on. Early in 1944 Australian Army was requested by War Office to undertake trials of Churchill and Sherman tanks in "New Guinea conditions". Trials were conducted in the jungle terrain of New Guinea using British Churchill Mk IV, Mk V and Mk VII Infantry tanks and American Sherman M4A1 and M4A2 Medium tanks, and included armament tests involving firing 75mm and 95mm main guns on a Japanese style bunker constructed from coconut logs. It was considered by those trials results that the Churchill was preferable to the Sherman for operations in jungle.

Australia's first Sherman, an M4A2, arrived in Australia in 1943 with a further two M4s (sometimes mis-labelled as M4A1s) arriving for tropical trials in New Guinea in 1944. The tanks were manned by crews drawn from the Australian 4th Armoured Brigade. The results of these trials showed that the British Churchill tank was better suited to jungle warfare's low-speed infantry support than the Sherman. As a result, the Australian Government ordered 510 Churchills, of which 51 were delivered before the order was cancelled at the end of the war, and did not order any further Shermans. Following the war, the three trials tanks were placed on display at Australian Army bases and one was later destroyed after being used as a tank target.[10]

[fsn]

Well, I'll go to the foot of our stairs.

I always associate Australians with the Matilda and the Grant.

Cheers Speedy.

[fsn]

Yes a very capable tank, and one that proved very adaptable and upgradable during and after WWII.

To a point m'lud.  I think watching the Chieftain and the Tank Museum has made me appreciate of the different pressures on tank designers. Italy was hampered by a mountainous terrain and narrow tunnels through them, the British insisted upon railway gauge until the Centurion(?) and the French faced a multiplicity of competing demands, bureaucracy and being French. For the Americans, the problem was that their tanks would need to go by sea to get into the fighting and as the Chieftain points out the most important part of the Sherman was the fitting that allowed it to be hoisted onto a ship.

Yes, it could be churned out in the thousands and I do think it got an (eventually) undeservedly poor reputation. However, it was in a gun to gun fight probably going to lose to a Panther or a Tiger, but there were so few Panthers, and even fewer Tigers.