Hi guys, could someone help me out with this? I was watching a 1950s war film when there were some close ups of the road wheels of Sherman tanks as they drove forwards. On the road wheels there were radial grooves round the rubber tyre.

I've never seen them before and wondered if they were a post war change?

I've seen that same film, I think: "They Were Not Divided". Lots of M4A4 in action shots.

I noticed the grooves too and asked about it on another forum, and also asked an acknowledged Sherman expert. The consensus reply was that it was a shadow of the mould line found around the tyres when new.

I am not convinced. Those mould lines wore off quickly and to my eyes the film clearly shows a distinct groove, on several different wheels.

Was this perhaps a feature of worn wheels which had new tyres moulded in the UK? They were British tanks and the film was made not long after the war. Was the groove a wear indicator? Replace when no longer visible.

To me it looks like they were divided...

H.P.

a) That's definitely a groove, not a shadow.

b) The mold lines did not wear off easily, mainly because they were so shallow to start.

At some point US Army Ordnance thought it would help with wear if the bogie tires were grooved. It turns out that the grooves caused a different type of wear to increase. Anyhoo, I've found no official notice about the whole scheme beyond a 1945 comment in an Ordnance magazine noting that bogie tires are no longer grooved.

I've seen both single


and multiple grooved tires


and you can see from the sidewall markings that neither was foreign-made.

I don't know if the UK made their own tires. If they weren't keeping Shermans (like the French were) it's doubtful that they would bother making their own spares and modifications (like the French did).

KL

Thanks for the replies chaps. To be honest as I've never seen a Tamiya kit showing the grooves I wondered if the film makers had made a mistake lol.