Quality v Quantity? | Panzer IV v M4 Sherman | Tank V Tank - Normandy, 1944

what happens when two evenly matched tanks face each other in combat that's what happened in 1944 when the success of the Normandy Landings still hung in the balance on the one hand the American M4 Sherman on the other the German Panza 4 both of these medium tanks have similar capabilities in terms of Firepower armed protection mobility and they are both the most numerous tanks fielded by their respective sides it wasn't the first time these two tanks had met and it certainly wouldn't be the last either but here there's a lot more at stake here the winner could determine the outcome of the war because in the days after D-Day Allied armor had struggled to push out of the beach head and now German armored units were positioning themselves to throw the Allies back into the sea this would be a disaster so those early tank engagements after D-Day really mattered in this video we'll compare the strengths and weaknesses of the M4 Sherman with the Panza 4 then we'll look at what happened at Mo on the 28th of June who came out on top and what made the difference if you've ever wondered how one tank would perform against another there are a few better places to satisfy your curiosity than in the vast battle maps of World of Tanks with over 600 vehicles from 11 different nations World of Tanks allows you to master the tactics of tank warfare it's free to play and new players can sign up today and support the tank Museum using the link and invite code in the description below and now back to the video by far the most numerous Allied tank in Normandy was the M4 Sherman it had a crew of five boasted good mobility and mounted a 75mm gun entering service in 1942 the Sherman proved to be reliable economic and good to crew you could build four Shermans or for that matter 2 and a half pounds of fours for the price of one tiger one now by this point 1944 the Sherman shortcomings have been exposed against the heavier German armor but that's not going to be a factor in this encounter the most numerous tank in the German Army's combat inventory uh by 1944 is this one the Panza Camp vagen via Panza 4 it's got a crew of five uh good mobility and it mounts a 7.5 cm gun now Allied tank Crews most fear encountering you know the big boys things like tiger one King Tiger but in fact this is the enemy tank they are most likely to be facing Panza 4 proved itself to be upgradeable ensuring it was still extremely potent and relevant in the conditions of 1944 now let's take a closer look at the differences between them the first thing to think about is armor and that represents one Tank's ability to survive a hit or multiple Hits From Another when you look at the shape of the two tanks obvious difference has hit you the Panza 4 is quite boxy whereas the Sherman has sloped armor on the glassy things to remember here is that the Panza for is a pre-war design the original spec goes back to 1934 and sloped armor which not only increases the line of sight thickness of the metal itself but it also increases the likelihood of a Ricochet isn't widely adopted until later in fact the panther is the first German tank really to use it the earliest model uh Panza 4 the as forong a was pretty thinly armed this is actually an as forong D but it's been fairly heavily upgraded so it's not much different to the asor H later model which is the one you'd most often encounter in Normandy now this tank originally had 30 mil armor on the turret and on the glassy but it's been beefed up there are multiple V panzas on the glassy there's a ple armor on the hle so actually it's a much tougher nut to crack it would also Al have had Sheron um skirts or I think in German it's more properly aprons around the turret and also along the sides they I'm afraid are now missing the Sherman has often been criticized for poor armor protection but in fact it's better than the Panza 4 in quite a few aspects the Sherman's frontal armor totally different to the Panza 4 is a large single plate 51 mm that's 2 in thick but it's sloped back at an angle of 55° giving a line of sight thickness of 90.8 mm add in the applique armor that was fitted to later Shermans or supplied to some Vehicles already in theater as what they call Blitz kits and you've got front Lor of 51 + 45 mm which is sloped at between 35 and 55 de that gives you a line of sight thickness of 144 m contrast that with the Panza 4's Maximum Armor thickness the glassy in front of the driver has an original armor thickness of 30 mil with spaced 30 mm and 20 mm plates added with the standoff distance between those plates that gives you 210 mm the problems start though when you come around the side and you realize that this plate sponson armor is only 38 mm 1 and 1/2 inches thick now there's been a lot of controversy over the years about the supposed vulnerability of Shermans and a lot of the old nicknames the Ronson the Tommy cook and stuff like that they had been debunked but fact remains a lot of Crews thought the Sherman caught fire too easily leftenant William still brownley second five and four far yry and this guy commanded a Sherman TR throughout the Northwest Europe campaign wrote a hit almost into to brew up and those who are prone to dismiss veteran accounts should know that 50 RTR in Italy in 1944 recorded it Brews up too easily near the top of their list of tactical defects of the Sherman as listed in the regimental War diary the problem was inadequate sponson armor with ammunition stored just behind it now these a patches were an attempt to remedy that but again according to Steel brownley they just Ed as aiming marks now they did realize this and the problem was fixed when there was a redesign the ammunition was moved further down the hole and into wet storage which stopped it cooking off um but that doesn't happen till later in the war until late 1944 and the tanks we're talking about in this engagement our Shermans didn't have it so both of these tanks have benefited from some up armoring uh but the Panza 4 in particular particular has a lot more protection than it would have had as it originally came out of the factory in the 1930s from taking hits to giving them out both the Panza for and the Sherman have 75 mm guns which are capable of putting the other out of action Not only was the Panza for up armored during its service life it was also upgunned now it starts out as a biglet Panza and that's a support tank uh for the Panza 3 which is intended to be the main gun tank as such it was equipped with short barreled KW k37 75 mm gun and what that's supposed to do is deal with things like anti-tank guns uh similar targets that the Panza 3's 37 mm gun wouldn't cope with as the Panza 3 became obsolete the Panza 4 assumed it role as a gun tank and it was upgunned to a long barreled kwk 40 7.5 cm gun the British in North Africa when they first encountered the up gun Panza 4 soon realized the potency of this gun and turned the tanks Panza 4 specials the Sherman was built to carry one gun this one the m375 mm now earlier on in the war this is more than equal to taking on most of the German armor that was on the battlefield Panza 1 2 Panza 4 but later on it would struggle against the up armored Panza force and that's before you start to think about the heavier German armor the guns may be the same size but the performance is quite different in terms of firing against another tank penetrating armor both the Panza 4 and the Sherman use an apcbc round which is armor piercing capped ballistic capped this one is the panag Granata 39 and this is the Sherman's m61 round now in terms of achieving velocity therefore penetration a lot of this is down to the weight of propellant and you can see the difference in the actual size of the shell cases pandagon has 2.4 kg of propellant the m61 0.98 but it's also down to barrel length this is measured in calibers so it's basically the the the width of the inside of the barrel now the KW K40 gun Panza 4 gun is an l60 it's 60 calibers now if you times 7.5 cm by 60 that gives you 3.6 M the M3 gun on the Sherman is 38 calibers 38 * 7.5 cm is 2.85 M so cutting to the chase a longer Barrel means better obturation and what that is is pressure build up from the propellent gases therefore greater muzzle velocity so the longer Barrel KW K40 has a muzzle velocity of 740 to 790 m a second whereas the shorter Barrel M3 the Sherman gun it's only 620 to 625 m a second now both of these RS weigh about the same they're both about 6.8 kilos but greater muzzle velocity means greater kinetic energy transferred therefore better penetration the panag Granata 39 will penetrate up to 96 mm of 30° sloped armor at 500 M the m61 will only penetrate 67 mm so tank on tank Gunner wise paner 4 has the edge over the Sherman however by mid 1944 Sherman's mounting the high velocity 76 mm gun beting to appear and some British Shermans are being fitted with the 17 pounder creating the Sherman Firefly but neither of these are involved in the encounter we're going to look at so whereas the Panza 4 has got an advantage at hitting power it's limited in its ability to exploit that by the speed of the turret Traverse now now both of these tanks have got power Traverse but whereas the Sherman can do a full 360° in 15 seconds it takes the Panza 4 23 seconds in combat and particularly the shorter ranges incountered in Normandy that could make a big difference the ability for a tank commander to be able to put his tank where it needs to be is essential in ensuring a tactical Advantage the Panza 4 engine is a maybar 120 TRL the same as used in the Panza 3 and the sgr 76 transmission synchrome gearbox with six forward and one reverse gears is very sophisticated this makes the vehicle easy to drive but it comes at the cost of ease of Maintenance and Repair this M4 A4 has the Chrysler multibank engine which is surprisingly reliable despite being complicated and it has a caterpillar synchromesh gearbox with five forward and one reverse gear the downside of this engine is the impact it has on the height of the tank it's only 30 cm taller than the Panza 4 but it's got an almost topheavy appearance this is because the engine itself was tall so the engine bay had to be tall to accommodate it it's also because it's rear engined but with a gearbox at the front meaning the drive chaft has to pass under the turret basket and that gives you the humped effect both tanks have a crew of five which is quite normal for the time so you got a commander Gunner loader driver and whole machine gunner but the ergonomics and the actual crew dispositions vary where the Panza for does score over Sherman is the Commander's position here the this is what we call the throne he is Center rear of the turret and he's got an armored Cupa with seven Vision blocks so that's excellent situational awareness even when closed down and of course if he needs to he can open the hatches and stick his head out Sherman commanders certainly in the early marks just had a periscope in a traversing mounting meaning they were forced to spend a lot more time with their head and shoulders exposed to the hatch another difference between the two is that in the Sherman the radio kit is in the bustle at the back of the turret and that means the commander assisted by the loader has the job of keeping the set on net which must have been something of a distraction in Panza 4 the bow gun also acts as a radio operator now that frees up the commander but against that the funk Gat 5 set is low powered it's only got a range of about 4 km and that is less than a third of the number 19 set used in British crude Shermans oh and being an AM set the fug 5 suffered from massive static interference when the tank was moving the bow Gunner also has a dedicated site for his mg34 which could put accurate rounds on the target compared with the bow gun from the Sherman who can only aim his 30 cal mg through a basic Periscope this lack of a dedicated site means the Sherman's mg can only really be used for suppressive fire Panza 4 the Gunner sits on the left hand side of the gun and you can see his manual uh elevation and Traverse wheels and also the azoth indicator we've also got the excellent uh teril phon 5B 2.5 times magnification telescopic site in the Sherman the Gunner and loaders position are reversed the loaders on the left and the Gunner on the right initially the only Gun Site was periscopic but in an early Improvement the gun mount was redesigned to add a telescopic site this meant greater accuracy through the three times magnification m55 coaxial telescopic site and a wider filled view through the M4 Periscope The Best of Both Worlds for the driver both tanks easy to drive and light on the controls both have similar Mobility a top speed on the road of 35 to 48 km hour for the Sherman and 38 to 42 km an hour for the Panza 4 although both speeds are more or less halfed off-road the vertical Vol spring suspension the Sherman gave a notably smoother ride than the leaf spring arrangement of the Panza 4 if you're doing a lot of miles particularly across country that will make a difference to crew comfort and performance so by mid 1944 there's not actually a great deal to choose between the Panza for and the Sherman Panza 4 has got the edge in terms of uh Firepower and the commander situation awareness but the Sherman has got a faster taret Traverse and the Gunner's got an advantage because of course he's got periscope and a telescopic site to understand how these tanks would perform against one another we can look at a short but violent action uh which would be repeated across Normandy when Sherman and Panza fall went head-to-head the date is the 28th of June 1944 it's 3 weeks on from D-Day Landings the Allies have yet to secure a breakout from the Normandy Beach head and capture the strategically vital city of K as part of operation Epsom third County of London YY part of 11th Armored Division are attacking enemy positions on the river Odon the Germans were wrong-footed by Allied deception into thinking that the landings were going to happen in the padal not in Normandy what that means is most of the major armed formations weren't able to intervene until the Allies were preparing to break out on top of this the Norman Countryside which is known as the bokage consisting of small Fields surrounded by high hedge rows is far from ideal tank country consequently lines of sight are very limited and tank actions that occur in the early days are small scale and fought at close range instead the Allies are making the most of air superiority and massive artillery bombardments to inch Inland despite this the countryside favors the Defenders so progress is agonizingly slow and costly among those on the receiving end of this overwhelming Firepower is 21st Panza division who've been in continuous action since the invasion started sustaining heavy losses between the 6th of June and the 8th of July the division lost 54 Panza fours and only received 17 Replacements many of the Panza Crews were experienced they'd seen service over on the Eastern front uh but there are others replaced who are fresh from the panas shulan the tank training schools man for man they are generally more experienced than the Allied tank Crews they faced they'd also been used to the vast Open Spaces of the Russian step which favored Mass armored formations they'd have to adjust to a very different form of tank warfare in Normandy on the 28th of June they are ordered to support Panza grenader of first SS Panza division liband data in a Counterattack on British positions at Mo due to the losses it's already sustained it's only able to spare fourth company of 22nd Panza regiment four companies lead Zug five Panza fours avoiding the dense bokage and using the embankments for cover follows the cutting of single track Railway towards Colville passing the wrecks of Tanks of the British 23rd huzar knocked out the previous day as they near Mo three Stewart light tanks of third CL y recky troop emerg from a forest track and blunder into their path realizing their mistake the Stuarts attempt to reverse but they're in big trouble and all three are hit by the lead Panza 4 as they reach the railway with the railway now blocked by burning Stewarts the Panza Force scal the embankment into the hedged field to the side before supporting the panag grenader in an assault on an isolated company of British infantry holding muon having rolled up the position the Panza Grenadier and dig in with the Panza fors flank cover north of the Railway the pansas weight hold down for the Counterattack they don't have to wait long three squadrons 16 Sherman tanks from the third CL supporting a battalion of infantry are Advan ancing towards them expecting only light opposition at 3 to1 the panzas are heavily outnumbered and that makes the outcome more or less inevitable 3cl y Advanced with b and c squadrons in the lead one each side of the Railway and each accompanied by a company of infantry a squadron is in reserve to provide far support the attack begins with an artillery barrage but this hasn't dampered the defender resolve they open up with mg which disorganizes the Infantry and forces the Shermans to push on in front concealed and firing from a hold down position at a range of about 80 m one Panza four dispatches the three lead shans before its Commander W aritzia AA is decapitated by a shell and the tank in front of retreat is knocked out this is the high point of the German defense after after that the weight of fire tells and one after the other the Panza fors are picked off 422 is hit on the turret and suffers damage to its Sheron which makes it impossible to reverse the turret having jettison the Sheron the tank is then hit again 413 its crew having successfully repaired a broken track Under Fire is hit and destroyed as is stabs Feld vable Nave owners 434 F avable cor Flur 425 suffering damage to its engine catches fire and is abandoned by its crew 4 company has now lost a total of 12 pan of fours in 2 days leaving it with only five remaining these are losses it couldn't afford meanwhile the clly had lost four Sherin but in gaining the ground they are able to recover three of those Knocked Out rated damaged rather than destroyed either repair or salved for parts in this small victory we can see how Germany would eventually be defeated in this engagement we've seen that Sherman and Panza 4 1944 are fairly evenly matched but here's the crucial thing it's often said that Wars are one in factories and this has demonstrated that the ability to produce the colossal amount of material to supply armies in the field would be the war-winning factor just under 50,000 Shermans were built making it the second most prolific tank of the period after the Soviet t34 crudely put this made Sherman losses more affordable the Panza 4 was built in much smaller numbers just over 8 a half thousand now why was that when the actual production run was several years longer than that of the Sherman German tanks were the product of Highly skilled engineering each vehicle right up to the end of the wall was almost handbuilt to exacting standards and throughout the war German tank production was dogged by the need to produce more complicated and probably over sophisticated Vehicles which of course slowed production overall putting it simply Germany produces some very good tanks but never insufficient numbers and certainly not enough to replace losses on days like this Sherman story is the exact opposite using the American genius for mass production in particularly things like the automobile the railroad Industries tanks were produced in huge numbers in factories that have probably never even built one before but what counts in the end is the ability to throw a huge volume men and especially material at a rapidly depleting ver market for the German Panza buffer the situation would continue to deteriorate once the breakout had been achieved Allied victory in Western Europe was more or less assured it wouldn't be easy but it would [Music] come so how do the Sherman and Panza for fair in World of Tanks the Sherman has several offerings in World of Tanks with variants available from the US UK France and even the Soviet Union one of the most mass-produced tanks in World War II the M4A1 Sherman is a solid tier five medium tank that delivers good damage per minute firing rate and a decent top speed best to play with the hole hidden due to the vehicle's thin armor the Panza 4 was the most prolific tank for Germany during World War II specifically the Panza 4 orh can be equipped with cannons that range from 7 5 to 105 mm that 105 mm gun can deliver some of the highest damage per minute amongst its tier and its front Hull armor is better than that of the same tier Sherman just be aware of the average to below average top speed thanks for watching do hope you enjoyed this 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Channel: The Tank Museum

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Id: Okk1YksfFX4

Length: 26min 30sec (1590 seconds)

Published: Fri Jun 14 2024