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Solis Obscuri, on 11 January 2012 - 01:48 AM, said:
The Sherman was more like a Centurion that got deployed too often against assault mechs and wound up with a bad reputation as a result.
The Urbanmech is more like a field gun mounted on a flat-bed truck to use as an improvised tank destroyer.
The Urbanmech is more like a field gun mounted on a flat-bed truck to use as an improvised tank destroyer.
I meant as in cheap, economical, incredably adaptable, and effective against all but the most insanely huge opponents.
Adridos, on 11 January 2012 - 07:44 AM, said:
No, I think it is really perfect. The Shermans were too, as Aegis said: "cheap, ugly and destined to be trashed".
They even exploded after the first shot in the beggining of their service. Only problem with them is that, unlike Urbies, they couldn't roll the legendary 12.
Sherman tanks were great tanks in 1942 when they first saw combat in Africa; against Panzer II and III's they were great, even the M3 Grant was workable. And the US tested several tanks after that which were roughly equivalent to the German Panther and Russian T-34. T-20 Series medium tank, the United States had the technology and production capability to mass produce good tanks, the problem was with Doctrine.
At the time, the US followed the "tank destroyer" doctrine, which called for two separate armor cores, one a using regular tanks, which US doctrine saw as primarily an infantry support weapon, so we saw the Sherman using the M3 75mm GENERAL PURPOSE (which was actually SUPERB at destroying bunkers, buildings, gun emplacements, etc, in support of infantry.) until the very end of the war. the second was the "tank destroyer" core equipped with fast moving light armored vehicles, but which had effective anti tank weapons; 76mm and 90mm guns, and these weapons could kill even a tiger, the 90mm on the Pershing could pierce the Tiger's frontal glacis plate dead on.
The theory was that the tanks would support the infantry, and whenever enemy armor was encountered they would call in the tank destroyers who would swoop in and destroy the enemy armor. It didn't work. Infantry support tanks frequently fought meeting engagements against enemy armor with no friendly tank destroyers anywhere to be seen, and a study conducted after the war found that a majority of the shells fired by Tank Destroyers where high explosive, not armor piercing, aka, Tank Destroyers were used as a regular infantry support tank most of the time. After the war, this lead to the abandoning of the tank destroyer doctrine and the creation of the Main Battle Tank.
So since the Sherman was so great as an infantry support tank, why slow down production to change factory tooling to make newer designs, such as the Germans did? The bean counters in Washington decided not to.
But the Sherman was a good tank, the easy eight with the HVSS suspension was a very mobile tank, with the addition of safe wet ammo storage, it no longer would "light on the first strike", and the with the adition of the 76mm and British 17lbdr guns, they could take out German armor. The fact that the Israelis used Shermans until the 1970's speaks volumes as to the tank's adaptability.
