M4 Sherman Tank - Crew tell how shocking it was

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Sherman tanks remembered by their designers for speed and agility and by their crews for being the right tanks for the wrong war [Music] how many times have you seen images like this from film shot during World War two powerful American Sherman tanks rolling across the European countryside delivering firepower to Allied ground troops where it was needed most the Sherman tanks weight class was somewhere between a light tank which was small and a heavy tank was a big monster it was designed to go over military bridges it was designed to fit on railroad cars it was designed for easy transportation it was designed for automotive reliability when the decision was made to invade Europe General George S Patton himself selected the Sherman as his tank of choice he said we don't need a heavy tank we can win the war with this medium tank make as many of those as you can Sherman tanks rolled off American assembly lines by the thousands nearly 50,000 total when they reached Europe three to five man tank crews immediately took them into battle the image of the approaching Sherman's became a myth like representation of the invincibility of America's war machine but those who actually fought it and maintained the Sherman tanks claimed the invincibility was a myth and as far as their design for World War two is concerned the tanks were engineering disasters [Music] Milton Cooper served as a captain on a Sherman tank maintenance unit in the American 3rd Armored Division he recounted his experiences in a book titled death traps Cooper vividly remembers the first time he approached a disabled Sherman tank the first shot had gone through the transmission and in addition to the forces robbing the transmission is going through a five inch steel driveshaft and that stopped the tank the second shot went hit the top of the turret and cut a three-inch grew through about three inches Rama in the blast killed a tank gunner when I saw that I thought this tank had just had to protect you know and then after that they started bringing tanks in droves with the dead and wounded inside and it was as terrible and I knew then that we had an inferior tank we had short-barrel guns designed to shoot high-explosive shells at a fairly low speed mm fee a second the German guns would shoot a solid shot at 3,500 feet per second that meant that they had to three times the penetrating power of our armor-piercing shells and so they went through our tanks like a hot knife through butter the Sherman's may have had the speed and mobility so highly regarded by Patton but those were not the qualities needed to fight the larger German tiger and Panther tanks the statistics from Belton Cooper's unit speak for themselves we lost 648 tanks totally destroyed in combat another 700 knocked out and repaired and put back in action that's thirteen hundred and forty eight tanks knocked out in combat says five hundred eighty percent loss I don't think anybody took that kind of loss in the world Army Navy Air Force submarines method like that in one unit they sent 18 of these newly crewed tanks into combat and in the first 20 minutes 17 of them are lost it was murder [Music] it really was almost criminal what our forces had to put up with because we didn't have the right tanks why were the Sherman's so vulnerable for starters their offensive power was hindered by inadequate weaponry I have a letter and I filed that came from General Eisenhower and he wrote directly to general Rhodes and he said general Rhodes I know you've been losing a lot of tanks I'd like to have you ask your crew and your tank commanders and your combat commanders why are we losing so many Sherman tanks in the best answer he gave was by a tank gunner who said general in order to knock out a German tank I've got to get that 600 yards and catch it on the flank they could knock me out of 2,000 yards head over for all practical purposes a Sherman could successfully battle the German tank from just one direction the only way our tanks could defeat their tanks is if we could run around behind them and shoot him the rear end where there wasn't much armor we did that but typically it would take five tanks being blown up before the sixth one got around to shoot a German tank at the back the mathematics were not good when it became clear to American tank commanders that their Magnificent war machines were so vulnerable they resorted to makeshift methods that would add defensive capabilities and length to their lives anything that they could gather that they can put on that faceplate to protect it they put logs they put steel plate they put chicken wire backed up with points and concrete in the faceplate anything that could get on that to get my threat of survival but for the most part any effort to improve the Sherman's was futile to make matters worse Sherman's required highly flammable high-octane gasoline their engines were originally designed for airplanes in every decision that was made in the development and use of the Sherman from beginning to end they had to make choices between options okay we need a high powered engine with light weight okay we use this engine it's an aviation engine it burns more flammable fuel but power is the most important thing power and weight or we need a tank that can move very fast to exploit a breakthrough so we can't have real heavy armor because that would slow it down we'll have just enough armor for what we think we need the job of a Sherman tank maintenance engineer was a grizzly one we had to clean the tanks out it's a terrible job to clean out a tank with the head shot off in the arms and legs dismembered it's just awful and we had to put them in inside the tanks to get the bodies out and wrap them up in a tarp and then it would put him outside and that the tank crews knew that when they got in that tank he went to battle if they got hit they would go be in bad shape their tanks were knocked out and sent back to repair and then they came back and they got into a tank that had just been freshly painted to cover over the bloodstains that had obvious patches in it from where the mechanics had plugged the holes they knew what they were going up against they knew they were outclassed they knew that if they ran up against a tiger or a Panther tank they were in a lot of trouble we were just inadequate that's all I can say we just did not understand what we were doing that's a great tragedy

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Channel: spottydog4477

Views: 4,538,778

Rating: 4.6101079 out of 5

Keywords: yt:crop=16:9, M4 Sherman Tank

Id: Ns6l7sCoWX4

Channel Id: undefined

Length: 12min 52sec (772 seconds)

Published: Sun Sep 18 2011

Reddit Comments

The good ol days of the history channel. I miss it

👍︎︎ 81 👤︎︎ u/chocolate_spaghetti 📅︎︎ Mar 31 2018 🗫︎ replies

Ah the classic cologne panther. Probably the most famous panther in existence just due to this film. It's interesting how rare tank-on-tank combat footage is, considering how we have tons of gun-camera footage for planes in WW2, you'd think some guy would have figured out how to do something similar with tanks

Of course, can't forgive the history channel spreading the classic myths about the Sherman

👍︎︎ 63 👤︎︎ u/riffler24 📅︎︎ Mar 31 2018 🗫︎ replies

I can't edit it but it was the panther that got hit!

👍︎︎ 29 👤︎︎ u/QuarterBay 📅︎︎ Mar 30 2018 🗫︎ replies

the full video is on youtube if you look, solely of the tank battle. its in cologne, should be the most popular one

👍︎︎ 17 👤︎︎ u/Verdoom321 📅︎︎ Mar 31 2018 🗫︎ replies

Holy shit that editing is maddening. Can’t let it play for 5 seconds without stopping to remind us who the gunner is.

👍︎︎ 9 👤︎︎ u/Tronzoid 📅︎︎ Mar 31 2018 🗫︎ replies

Why do people feel the need to dub crappy early 20th century projector sounds onto these films? The effect also reduces the frame rates and makes it appear worst that what was actually available.

👍︎︎ 9 👤︎︎ u/tele-caster-blast3r 📅︎︎ Mar 31 2018 🗫︎ replies

At what time mark is the tank hit?

👍︎︎ 7 👤︎︎ u/chillsnthrills2 📅︎︎ Mar 30 2018 🗫︎ replies

Wouldn't want to be a tanker.

👍︎︎ 2 👤︎︎ u/salticat1 📅︎︎ Mar 31 2018 🗫︎ replies

The footage starts around the 8 minute mark

👍︎︎ 2 👤︎︎ u/nutsford1992 📅︎︎ Mar 31 2018 🗫︎ replies