Battle Stations
M4
Sherman Tank
Crew 5
Weight 31 tons
Maximum road speed 26mph
Range (road) 100 miles
Armour 15–100mm
Armament 1 x 75mm gun, 2 x 0.3in machine-guns, 1 x
0.5in machine-gun
More Shermans were manufactured than any other single tank in World War II, a tribute to the American genius for mass production. When production ceased in June 1945, 49,234 had been built, a figure that exceeded the combined British and German tank output.
Combat experience quickly revealed that the Sherman was under-gunned in comparison with the German Tiger and Panther. Later models of the M41, M42 and M43 were armed with a 75mm gun that improved armour-piercing capability but still fell short of that possessed by the British Firefly conversion, which had a 17-pounder gun.
Active service also revealed that the Sherman had an alarming propensity to 'brew up' – incinerating the crew inside – if penetrated by a shell. To overcome this fault, attempts were made to provide wet stowage for the ammunition, the bins being surrounded by water jackets.
As well as providing the backbone of the US Armoured Force during the war, the Sherman was also the mainstay of the British armoured divisions, which counted on its reliability in action, ease of maintenance and sheer weight of numbers to offset its inferiority against Tigers and Panthers.
The many Sherman derivatives included the DD Duplex-Drive swimming tank, the mine-detonating Crab flail tank and the M18, M19, M36 and M40 tank destroyers. Like the T-34, the Sherman had a long post-war life.
