This is interesting because even if we take the ludicrously generous assumption that the Sherman’s killed every single Japanese ATG on the Island, it indicates that the Shermans were ripped apart by 47mm anti tank guns with relative ease.
This level of effectiveness against the Sherman is so high it’s actually closer to the Zis-3 against a Panzer IV.
In one a case a single Japanese 47mm gun destroyed 3 tanks before even being engaged during a 30 tank attack, which calls into question various preconceptions.
To that same end you seem to be willingly omitting that even your source highlights that the 111 tanks that were engaged via gunfire, were not all destroyed, with some just being damaged, same with the 64 tanks which encountered Japanese magnetic mines.
Along with that, sherman or not, almost all of the engagements that occurred with sherman losses, were rear or side ambushes, with engagements like sugar loaf hill having two 47mm guns firing directly into the back of an advancing group of LVTs and shermans. You could get the same result with a 37mm gun in that situation, its not that the 47mm was good it was that the Japanese forces employing the guns were fully willing to die in advantageous positions if it meant that they could use that position before their death.
Okinawa was simply “ambush, the island”, this is why in other locations where M4s were not endlessly walking into ambushes they mopped the floor with IJA forces, like the Philippines.
The armor engagement in Luzon is a stellar example of this where 59 shermans and supporting artillery routed the vastly superior Japanese armor detachment of 220 tanks, many being the 47mm armed medium tanks.
It should be noted that further on into the conflict, there were sherman losses, most commonly, in ambushes, with sacrificial infantry or other tanks being used to bait out shermans into disadvantageous positions to allow other tanks or AT guns to fire into their sides.
In the end, open combat is the only real measure of the effectiveness of a weapon, any weapon will fair better if you fire first and from cover, but such is not indicative of actual sustained combat.
Replacements for a number of light and medium tanks which had been lost were requested on April 28, 1945, but they did not arrive until after the battle had ended. Four light and 147 medium tanks were written off up to June 30, 1945.
Engagement on Luzon was different since the US defeated the Japanese force piecemeal.
And couldn’t maneuver due to the constant threat of air attack.
The document the enemy on Luzon goes over how Japanese 47mm guns readily destroyed Shermans from the front.
Kakazu Ridge
Withering Japanese machinegun fire effectively kept the infantry from supporting the tanks. One Japanese 47mm anti-tank gun destroyed four tanks without receiving any return fire, and other vehicles were destroyed or disabled
by mines and indirect fire.
I couldn’t upload the pdf I wanted to:
Saddles and Sabers: Reducing World War II
Underground Facilities: Failures and Successes Against
Japanese Defenses on Okinawa with Tank-Infantry
Teams, 1945
But yes it’s quite noticeable.
American sources incl enemy on Luzon credit a 47mm round with 4.5" penetration.
Let me just copy over the direct excerpt your source used.
American armor, which played so important a part in the ground action, had suffered heavily. By the end of May, not counting Marine tank losses, there had been 221 tank casualties in the four Army tank battalions [193rd, 706th, 711th, 763rd] and the one armored flame thrower battalion [713th]. Of this total, 94 tanks, or 43 percent, had been completely destroyed. Enemy mines had destroyed or damaged 64 tanks and enemy gunfire 111. Such mishaps as thrown tracks or bogging down in bad terrain had accounted for 38, of which 25 were subsequently destroyed or damaged, mostly by enemy action. The 221 tank casualties constituted about 57 percent of the total number of Army tanks on Okinawa. At least 12 of the valuable and irreplaceable armored flame-throwing tanks were among those lost.
So per your own source, “Of this total, 94 tanks, or 43 percent, had been completely destroyed” with 221 “casualties” occurring, meaning the tank took crew losses, but was not necessarily destroyed, with only 94 of those tanks actually being destroyed.
Thats also what happened on Okinawa as well, or do you think that the IJA held on to a single position on the island.
Man I’m sure the IJA were able to manuver on Okinawa, the island bracketed by multiple fleet carriers, and the grand majority of the USN’s pacific fleet and totally did not have to make suicide attacks during the night if they wanted to have actually productive attacks outside of running into machine guns and the wrath of every single warship the USN could muster there.
Now I know you are arguing in bad faith given these 4 shermans were in the process of clearing a mine field and were attacked by flanking fire while doing so. Imagine my shock that the mine clearing vehicles that were clearing mines are more preoccupied with mine clearing.
Is shot at barrel stuffing distance
Wow, its almost like shooting something at near point blank range for a large caliber gun is optimal for penetration.
Funny bit about this though, this document states effectiveness up to 500 yards but such is quite dubious when … well
It had a partial pen at nearly point blank range.
Maybe if you get lucky and hit the same spot multiple times you might be able to get through at 500 yards, but first shot, lol no, not if you are getting partial pens at 1/4th the range.
It took until around mid 1943 for the M34A1 mount to see action, before which the Sherman relied on 1-1.44x observation periscopes for gunnery. That’s not even the level of a machine gun tank like a T-40.
It clearly calls into question standard tropes like “excellent vision of the Sherman”, when for instance, the Soviets had mixed views about it. (Some like it, some disparage it, either way their record of waiting for better Shermans is pretty clear)
Not to mention…
(2) There is very little use of the coaxially mounted telescope; the dispersion which results
from its use is even greater than that experienced with the M4 periscope. In addition, the optics
of the M55 telescopes are unsatisfactory, resulting in unsatisfactory light-transmission characteristics.
Furthermore, most gunners report that it is very difficult for them to get their heads
into proper position for sighting through the coaxial telescope. When tanks are operating in
combat, the crash helmet is always worn; in most cases, the steel helmet without liner is worn
over the crash helmet.
And other issues with the poor quality of American optics. A Soviet report in 1942? gives a damning evaluation; the worst precision of all sights tested. While British North Africa reports aren’t much better. Claiming it’s so much of an issue that it makes the Crusader a markedly better tank than a Stuart.
And yeah fighting setpiece battles in the open against the US is quite different from fighting from fortifications.
Earlier in the war you have reports about XYZ effectiveness of various Japanese shells against the Sherman. That doesn’t give a very clear picture.
So I looked up the metallurgical reports on some Japanese AP shells (and Japanese armor in general) and found some interesting results.
I think it goes without saying that the original shells (37mm) were totally inadequate, but later experience shows the Japanese drastically improved the quality of their shells (as the document says), which is why they are killing Shermans so often on Okinawa.
Also, this tungsten steel shell they’re using is an APBC, which raises it’s ranged performance by a huge margin.
I cannot support this with book sources, but in Okinawa the Japanese also used Type 90 75mm field guns and Type 88 75mm anti-aircraft guns to destroy Shermans.
Lol no, thats barely even possible for the sherman’s own 75mm which has vastly superior penetration and angled penetration to begin with.
So what is it then, 147 write offs, 111 write offs or 151, this number seems to be jumping all over the place at this point.
I don’t know what little reality you have wrapped yourself into but none of it is based in fact. That or Field Marshal Montgomery was lying through his teeth when he praised the vehicle in the North African campaign with it’s primary issue being it’s lackluster protection against heavy German artillery and tanks, namely the flak 36, 88mms which tore them apart from emplaced positions. Huh that sounds rather familiar.
You are aware that both of those images are using different hardness scales, that’s why the 37mm there has larger shown values. No the copper rotating band is not somehow harder than the face hardened steel of the 75mm AP round.
Also the Sherman can’t pen that. It can only pen it at 35 degrees.
147 medium tanks written off, 111 losses to anti tank fire, 151 tanks total including 4 light tanks. Nothing changed.
M55, M70 telescopes? The periscope sights?
PM Knight on the M3 Stuart, the Sherman being blind and firing inaccurately at long range, using the artillery method, are documented though.
f. Fire control.-
(1) Because of the excessive dispersion which occurs with the M4
periscope, firing of tank guns is confined almost entirely to the artillery method of sensing and
locating bursts and giving corrections in mils to the gunners. The average dispersion which
occurs as a result of slack in the periscope holder and linkage extends 4 mils in both planes. This
dispersion is so great that guns do not stay bore-sighted with the telescope after any operation.
The infamous Sherman tank site even mentions the M34 mount issue;
The Sherman tank went through a series of fire control changes, each an improvement over the last. The first tanks lacked telescopic sight mounted on the M34 gun mount. The only sight was incorporated into the gunner’s periscope, and it wasn’t magnified.
So at the time it was first produced, the Sherman was almost hopelessly backwards.
Since you don’t know the documents you might not have noticed that they’re both ~1942 shells. And the point I was trying to raise is that the Japanese 37APHE has walls so thin, the Soviet 45mm HE shell has thicker sidewalls.
The reason was because the US lowered the alloy content to essentially starvation levels, producing very low alloy plate, that couldn’t handle being hardened.
So it makes sense that there were many complaints with the very bad quality of American armor. The Soviets often received turrets that couldn’t even rotate because of how badly they were made.
The sherman can go through the side at up to 59 degrees, you can test this for yourself in game.
Ok so its 147 again, the 151 quote is irrelevant and has no reason to be presented here as light tanks are not the topic of conversation.
Aight so I was fine with trying to humor this for a bit but now I understand what this thread really is about.
Stay in your little bubble if you want, but this thread started with the misguided belief that the IJA 47mm could front pen the sherman and destroy the vehicle, which is fundamentally false.
Sorry but the M4 series of tank was the most influential and successful tank in WW2 and that is a fundamental fact that will not change and yes, it stops IJA 47mm frontally IRL and in game.
It’s also good to check up on the armor thicknesses, to see if anyone missed any details.
So for example, the Sherman turret is quoted as 76.2@30, 50.8 sides & rear, but that doesn’t actually come up in live fire. The sides are 50.8mm, but the front is 66.5mm, and the rear is 44mm.
I think the actual thickness is 63.5, 50.8, 44.5 (2.5", 2", 1.75") with a lot of positive tolerance on the face.
This was checked with the blueprints of the Sherman recently posted, and the drawing confirms a 63.5mm face.
Somehow the nose casting was 44.5mm, pennable by the Pak 36, I think it was actually just 1.75" for a short while.
So it wouldn’t take that much to punch through the face, as can be seen here. Actually in the right conditions the 2 pdr can net partial penetrations on it.
So it goes without saying that the Japanese 47 could repeat these penetrations.
Man its a really bad thing that no sherman ever got upgraded or changed and that they relied on the initial production batch periscope the entire war. Its also a good thing that the US did not have any interest in moving away from the periscopes being the primary sighting system and instead mounted an optic to trunnion.
Its a real shame that the US only used the initial M4 and M4A1 for the entire war and never improved or upgraded the vehicle like the soviets did with the glorious T34.
The T-34 had the TOD-6, an articulated telescope and PT-4-7 periscopes from Day1
The US didn’t even have articulated telescopes by the end of the war.
Coefficient of light transmission for the TMFD was 39.2% vs ~22% for German articulated telescopes.
The magnification was 2.5x and FOV 26, same for PT-4-7. These periscopes were proven in earlier tanks like T-26 and T-28.
Technically another weakness of American sights is that they had a fixed range scale, unlike on German or Soviet guns, so they couldn’t dial in the range very well.
Yet could not produce a tank that would last more than 100 service hours of operation.
Man weird, I guess the M83 was not issued to shermans by March 1944, and said shermans should cease to exist to adhere to your mythos.
You know, I find it funny that you are now really keen on shifting the entire situation away from the battle of Okinawa to a hypothetical battle between the Soviet Union, the US and Germany. Curious.
Because you dont and can’t dial in range with such sights, you ladder aim. But you already knew that didn’t you?
An articulated telescope isn’t variable power, it’s
This
And Sherman tank site said; I have not seen this one mentioned anywhere but Hunnicutt’s Sherman book. That doesn’t mean it didn’t get issued as a replacement later in the war since I’m going off TM’s and spec sheets and those are a small snapshot into a tanks actual combat gear.
Of it.
I’ll reply with the facts, unfortunately I don’t have all of them, but you don’t seem to have any.
For the Japanese on Okinawa, you said at first they only destroyed 60, 90 tanks, then I mentioned writeoffs (guessed) around 140 iirc, but posted the source with 151 total writeoffs incl 147 medium tanks. With 111 losses to anti tank fire.
Yes I am aware, yet it is a scope that allows the gunner to input range specificly with the M83D having the feature but being removed due to US tankers never using the feature since it was not a normal practice like with Russian gun sights.
Nope, I swear people cant scroll at all.
I stated this, which was durectly pulled from your reddit user’s source.
You responded with this.
You claimed this, the reddit when it was the reddit user stating this and not his source.
I then copied over the entire excerpt from his actual source and it stats that only 94 tanks were destroyed.
You then agreed with the 94 totally destroyed but then chose to add the light tank losses into the reddit user’s claim for some reason.
I then questioned this.
You then support the reddit poster’s claim.
And I refute the 151 claim since, once again, this is not about light tanks
In the grand scheme of things, your source for 147 total writeoffs is the redditor themselves, they are not a source, meanwhile the actual source it posted directly states there was 94 destroyed vehicles with 111 vehicles Damaged or Destroyed not written off or lost to at fire of all types, with 64 being damaged or destroyed by magnetic mines.
Reminder that 22 shermans were hit and “Destroyed” per IJA records during a part of the death ride at Kakazu Ridge. Yet all 22 shermans during that push were recovered and subsequently repaired and put back into service during that same exact campaign.
You have seldom replied with actual facts, you’ve attempted to contort citations to fit your narrative multiple times now and all of them have been extremely easy to pick apart with the exact citations that you have listed.
No, an articulated telescope has a joint so that the users eye position can remain at a constant position. It’s an ergonomic feature.
A direct telescope can have articulated range scale.
"By the end of May (ie May 31st 1945), there had been 221 tank casualties (not counting marine tank losses). Of this total, 94 tanks, or 43 percent, had been completely destroyed.
And 147 medium tanks were written off up to June 30, 1945.
Are not mutually exclusive.
111 tank losses to anti tank fire doesn’t mean 111 burned out wrecks as you helped illustrate.
