Ask anyone who fought in one during WW2. British Tanks, including Shermans, were called "Tommy Cookers" by the Germans. (That's what passes for German humour.) Most tank crews hated that welded patch on the side over what had been the armourers loading hatch. Even with the patch it was a very vulnerable spot and located the ammunition store very precisely for the Jerries. When hit, the tank Brewed Up, shovelling out black smoke with big puffs as each individual shell "cooked off". When the ammunition store was hit directly, that's when the turret went flying 30 or more feet in the air, and came down like a bomb that didn't go off.



I saw an interview on television with an 88mm gun commander deployed in an anti-tank role (a wrinkle originated by the Austrian corporal, it was a Flak gun originally.) He spoke about a column of tanks coming down his road, and knocking them out one after another at a kilometer distance. He said, "We ran out of shells before they ran out of tanks." Canadians from the Sherbrooke Fusiliers took out Michael Wittman at about 200 yards distance. They were on the other side of a hedgerow with only the gun poking through. Another Canadian tank trying the same trick at a greater distance saw its shell bounce off, and then the Sherman turret was cut almost in half, at least across the top by the return shot from the Tiger. The turret crew were all wounded, but I believe all survived, reversing at top speed to hide behind a stone farm building. The crew could see the sky through the channel cutting through the length of the turret roof.



The Germans fell prey to the US's and the USSR's ability to build more tanks than they, the Germans, could make shells.

Both the Panther Pkw V and the Tiger Pkw VI had unreliable hydraulics and gears. Sherman's had herringbone gearing, the grooves cut diagonally so that several teeth were always engaged with several other teeth. German tanks had simple gears set at 90 degrees to the direction of travel. the teeth both wore badly, and were sabotaged in factories where conquered populations served as slave labout. Cracking a tooth with a hammer was a favourite bit of sabotage.



From the movie Kelly's Heroes, the German SS tank commander claimed the fuel system was rotten. I don't know if that is true or not, but there were more than enough other problems with the Tiger to make it a pain to maintain.



Rob



Someone please explain to me why an asthmatic with eye trouble keeps preparing just in case he gets called up to fight a war that has been over for almost 70 years? It didn't start that way, it was only over for 19 years when I started, and it started with aircraft which were undeniably gorgeous and sexy and sounded wonderful..