One point I'd like to add to this and one very much worth considering in these arguments/discussions. IF the Allies had landed in Normandy with every Sherman replaced with an M26 I guarantee this discussion would still take place and history would record that the Pershing just wasn't good enough. The germans possessed an abundance of weapons with the ability to take out a Pershing whose armour was just on par with a Tiger 1. Throughout the Normandy,France/Belgium/Holland campaigns the Germans invariably initiated any contact / engagement allowing them to destroy a number of AFV before a response was forthcoming (The Allies did the same when the germans counter attacked. Even units of 34 AB (British armed with the Churchill Mk VII with 152mm of frontal armour and side armour equivalent to a Tigers frontal armour took fearful (equipment) losses in attack against prepared - in depth positions. Losses would have been pretty similar to M4 losses IMHO

Maybe fewer M-26’s but they could take hit’s better than a Sherman and they had a gun that could penetrate just about anything.

One point I'd like to add to this and one very much worth considering in these arguments/discussions. IF the Allies had landed in Normandy with every Sherman replaced with an M26 I guarantee this discussion would still take place and history would record that the Pershing just wasn't good enough. The germans possessed an abundance of weapons with the ability to take out a Pershing whose armour was just on par with a Tiger 1. Throughout the Normandy,France/Belgium/Holland campaigns the Germans invariably initiated any contact / engagement allowing them to destroy a number of AFV before a response was forthcoming (The Allies did the same when the germans counter attacked. Even units of 34 AB (British armed with the Churchill Mk VII with 152mm of frontal armour and side armour equivalent to a Tigers frontal armour took fearful (equipment) losses in attack against prepared - in depth positions. Losses would have been pretty similar to M4 losses IMHO

OK, since there are so many 'what if's' now suggested I make it worse:
What would have happened if the UK had given a bit more trouble to get the Centurion available sooner....................

The only mechanical reliability problems I know of was with the Super Pershing that had so much appliqué armor on it, it was greatly stressed.

The British had such manpower issues they almost had to slower and more methodical than the US so they weren't going to be as overt in taking on German AFV's.

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The only mechanical reliability problems I know of was with the Super Pershing that had so much appliqué armor on it, it was greatly stressed.

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You should expand your research and study efforts. Your perspective is too narrow and limited. For example...

The Sherman tank was much preferred over the Pershing or M46 as the Korean War moved into its positional warfare phase. The Sherman's power to weight ratio made it superior to the M26-M46 in hill climbing, thus is was assessed by its users (the guys in the tanks) and the commanders as preferable to the (on paper) more advanced tanks.

Nothing in warfare is equal.

There are no even matches (which is what every good commander strives to achieve, an unequal match with his opponent at the disadvantage). Paper superiority-inferiority comparisons are like Samuel Clemons "lies, damned lies, and statistics." They can be slanted to support just about any opinion.

Modern warfare is as much (or more) about economics and industrial wherewithal than anything else (except perhaps political will). Technological superiority is not usually decisive, in and of itself, unless it is overwhelming and can be coupled with economic and industrial capacity.

The atom bomb was technologically decisive even though the US only dropped two of them because no other nation on the planet could match the feat, either economically or industrially. A single A-bomb was, though, not so very more destructive as many of the larger bomber attacks. The decisiveness was in its potential to focus all of the US economic and industrial power in a way that the target could not resist nor ever hope to match.

In a one-on-one matchup, some German tanks were, in two of the three major tank characteristics (armor and fire power), technically superior to the Sherman. However, the Germans could not couple that capability to their economies or industrial capacity to achieve decisiveness. Battlefield combat power is industrial power focused. Technology without that industrial power is nothing, and certainly not decisive and war-winning.

However, sometimes achieving decisive levels of combat power requires constraining and limiting resources in one area to put them towards something else even more important, something that will be decisive. The Sherman tanks was as absolutely good as it needed to be. Anything more would have been a waste of economic and industrial resources.

You should broaden your outlook and study to understand this. ALL of the US ground automotive warfare production (to include the development, production and fielding of tanks) took a backseat to other industrial efforts that were considered more important. As long as the AFV effort was good enough, additional effort could be focused elsewhere.

The US was able to turn economic and industrial power into decisive combat power on battlefields all over the globe. None of the Axis power, to include Germany, was any match for this. Decisive power on a global, strategic scale.

The Sherman tank was just one small part of that cumulative power. It was not "obsolete," but rather it was the exact, perfect combination of everything it needed to be to win the war - no more, no less.

Far from obsolete, the Sherman tank was nearly perfect. Just ask the Germans sitting in POW compounds at the end of the war.

Okay,I’m confused.Sherman is not obsolete. But under armored and under gunned.Why do I see tons of Sherman pictures with appliqué armor on them ?Clearly these crews were scared of something...dying. Why did they put this extra armor on? Tactics, superior numbers ,etc.,yet they still resorted to more armor.And it helped occasionally. Plate armor,logs, spare tracks, road wheels,sand bags,concrete...Seemed like they were trying to survive to me.

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The British had such manpower issues they almost had to slower and more methodical than the US so they weren't going to be as overt in taking on German AFV's.

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Sorry but that is nonsense perpetuated by current celebrity historians and many before. A read of the war Diaries of 7, 11, GAD and the Independant AB will tell you a very different story. The advances against opposition in the last month of the war (and for the whole NWE campaign if the truth be told) were fast, decisive and certainly not as you describe. yes they had man power problems but that did not make them anymore cautious, in fact the tanks took on more of a role as the Infantry was where the shortages were. The whole 45 campaigns were some of the bloodiest fighting in horrendous conditions.
Al

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Maybe this thread should be closed and then stickied as the example once and for all.

Okay,I’m confused.Sherman is not obsolete. But under armored and under gunned.Why do I see tons of Sherman pictures with appliqué armor on them ?Clearly these crews were scared of something...dying. Why did they put this extra armor on? Tactics, superior numbers ,etc.,yet they still resorted to more armor.And it helped occasionally. Plate armor,logs, spare tracks, road wheels,sand bags,concrete...Seemed like they were trying to survive to me.

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Okay,I’m confused.Sherman is not obsolete. But under armored and under gunned.Why do I see tons of Sherman pictures with appliqué armor on them ?Clearly these crews were scared of something...dying. Why did they put this extra armor on? Tactics, superior numbers ,etc.,yet they still resorted to more armor.And it helped occasionally. Plate armor,logs, spare tracks, road wheels,sand bags,concrete...Seemed like they were trying to survive to me.

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The Sherman did have additional armor welded over thinner part of the turret and side, they did this as the threats increased and weaknesses were exposed such as ammo storage went from dry to wet to cut down on brew ups. Many of these were corrected in later models with thicker turret castings but additional armor is added to many tanks. Even the M1 Abrams now uses add on armor such as the TUSK Kit, but perhaps it should be retired because its a 40 year old design that's now a death trap and have you seen what the Syrians are doing to their T-72s? Mattresses, boards, chicken wire all to make their tanks last longer.

But the germans did the same thing with their tanks. The Panzer IV had extra armor plate on the hull and they devised a whole additional armored skirt system to defeat anti-tank rifles. They put them on the PZ IV and on your darling Panther. You might as well criticize all tanks as death traps because just about every tank, German, Russian and U.S. stuck sandbags, extra tracks, timbers, fencing and even slabs of concrete on their tanks. Now if the Sherman was such an under gunned, under armored P.O.S. why would your much vaunted Panther do something like this? According to you all a German Panther tanker needed to do was fart at one and it will instantly burst into flame barbecuing 20 men.

You are not confused. You are here picking fights even tho all your claims have been dis-proven. You seem incapable of accepting that the Sherman wasn't much of a death trap as proven by history and facts provided by many of the posters in this thread. You are going to sit in your puddle of Sherman hated and not accept that Belton Coopers book was nothing but a rambling account of an old man by someone out to revise history. But of course you knew two former crew members and they say the same thing. Well the same can be said by any soldier on any battlefield in any war. How do you think the soldiers of the 101st Airborne feel about their comrads getting shot down before they reached their jump zone? "oh gosh the C-47 was an under armored flying death trap and we should have waited for something else. But guess what dude, they went in, they did their job just like the tankers in their Shermans. How about the men running from the landing craft on every beach head around the world. Perhaps we should've stopped all fighting until we had a safe way to get the soldiers and marines from the ship to the objective without getting hurt. Did the Sherman have faults? Yes. All tanks did. Was it a death trap? No more so than any other tank out there. If you really want to be outraged about something turn your outrage on the T-34. A tank so poorly built they could see sunlight thru gaps where the plates were supposed to be welded together. A tank so unreliable that they left the factory with replacement transmissions strapped to their hulls. A tank so poorly made it's lifetime could be measured in kilometers.

The Sherman did it's job and it did it well. We went from horses to tanks in a very short time and went into the war with the m2/m3 and then the Sherman. The M26 was not the panacea you believe it would be. It had transmission problems and a major concern was that our bridging gear wouldn't support the tank. Perhaps Cooper could have called the Germans and told them to stop blowing up the bridges so our new wunderwaffe could be deployed. He could make that call as soon as he told Patton to stop dicking around and field it. And while he was at it perhaps he could also call Hitler tell him not to field the Tigers or Panthers because they were scary. He then could call Zhukov to slow down and give us a year or two to field the M26 and not take the rest of Europe if we're delayed a few months.

After all Cooper had all the answers.

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Okay,I’m confused.Sherman is not obsolete. But under armored and under gunned.Why do I see tons of Sherman pictures with appliqué armor on them ?Clearly these crews were scared of something...dying. Why did they put this extra armor on? Tactics, superior numbers ,etc.,yet they still resorted to more armor.And it helped occasionally. Plate armor,logs, spare tracks, road wheels,sand bags,concrete...Seemed like they were trying to survive to me.

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The Sherman did have additional armor welded over thinner part of the turret and side, they did this as the threats increased and weaknesses were exposed such as ammo storage went from dry to wet to cut down on brew ups. Many of these were corrected in later models with thicker turret castings but additional armor is added to many tanks. Even the M1 Abrams now uses add on armor such as the TUSK Kit, but perhaps it should be retired because its a 40 year old design that's now a death trap and have you seen what the Syrians are doing to their T-72s? Mattresses, boards, chicken wire all to make their tanks last longer.

But the germans did the same thing with their tanks. The Panzer IV had extra armor plate on the hull and they devised a whole additional armored skirt system to defeat anti-tank rifles. They put them on the PZ IV and on your darling Panther. You might as well criticize all tanks as death traps because just about every tank, German, Russian and U.S. stuck sandbags, extra tracks, timbers, fencing and even slabs of concrete on their tanks. Now if the Sherman was such an under gunned, under armored P.O.S. why would your much vaunted Panther do something like this? According to you all a German Panther tanker needed to do was fart at one and it will instantly burst into flame barbecuing 20 men.

You are not confused. You are here picking fights even tho all your claims have been dis-proven. You seem incapable of accepting that the Sherman wasn't much of a death trap as proven by history and facts provided by many of the posters in this thread. You are going to sit in your puddle of Sherman hated and not accept that Belton Coopers book was nothing but a rambling account of an old man by someone out to revise history. But of course you knew two former crew members and they say the same thing. Well the same can be said by any soldier on any battlefield in any war. How do you think the soldiers of the 101st Airborne feel about their comrads getting shot down before they reached their jump zone? "oh gosh the C-47 was an under armored flying death trap and we should have waited for something else. But guess what dude, they went in, they did their job just like the tankers in their Shermans. How about the men running from the landing craft on every beach head around the world. Perhaps we should've stopped all fighting until we had a safe way to get the soldiers and marines from the ship to the objective without getting hurt. Did the Sherman have faults? Yes. All tanks did. Was it a death trap? No more so than any other tank out there. If you really want to be outraged about something turn your outrage on the T-34. A tank so poorly built they could see sunlight thru gaps where the plates were supposed to be welded together. A tank so unreliable that they left the factory with replacement transmissions strapped to their hulls. A tank so poorly made it's lifetime could be measured in kilometers.

The Sherman did it's job and it did it well. We went from horses to tanks in a very short time and went into the war with the m2/m3 and then the Sherman. The M26 was not the panacea you believe it would be. It had transmission problems and a major concern was that our bridging gear wouldn't support the tank. Perhaps Cooper could have called the Germans and told them to stop blowing up the bridges so our new wunderwaffe could be deployed. He could make that call as soon as he told Patton to stop dicking around and field it. And while he was at it perhaps he could also call Hitler tell him not to field the Tigers or Panthers because they were scary. He then could call Zhukov to slow down and give us a year or two to field the M26 and not take the rest of Europe if we're delayed a few months.

After all Cooper had all the answers.

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