What Happened to All of the M4 Shermans and T-34 Tanks after World War II?

it is no exaggeration to say that the tank defined the war on land between 1939 and 1945. when the war ended and all sides began to disarm they found themselves with literally tens of thousands of now surplus tanks in their armories many of these war machines inevitably found themselves on the business end of a scrapper's torch as they were broken up melted down and reborn as the trinkets of peacetime but equally huge numbers of these proven modern and widely available machines were now being eyed by other armies around the world as a way of quickly and relatively cheaply modernizing their own tank units as a result for many of these tanks combat was far from over this is the story of how two of the most iconic tanks of world war ii went back into the fray with owners old and new time and time again long after they should have been confined to the history books they were the american m4 sherman and the soviet union's t-34 and this is their incredible story welcome to wars of the world [Music] [Music] unlike the glamour of fighter aircraft or the spectacle of mighty warships tanks have often been sidelined in the admiration of the wider public covered in dirt oil gunpowder and often blood tanks present a sobering reminder of the harsh reality of war that many would rather forget or ignore yet both the m4 sherman and the t-34 managed to break through this barrier and become symbols of the fight against nazi tyranny news reports on the fronts where these tanks fought told of their crew's daring exploits and coupled with their distinctive looks and the fact that both tanks were built in exceptionally large numbers meant that they were soon very familiar to the public however the news film of these tanks going into action often disguised their shortcomings in the face of the very best german tanks such as the panther and the tiger even the t-34 with its famous sloping armor was at a disadvantage when staring down the barrel of the tiger's 88 millimeter gun fortunately neither german tank was built in any real numbers to threaten the tens of thousands of shermans and t-34s in fact it was the allies ability to mass produce both tanks and adapt them to newer threats that made them both such a success in the brief honeymoon period between the east and west immediately following the war there was much discussion between the various tank crews of america britain and the soviet union as to which was the better tank the sherman or the t-34 the soviets actually operated a few of the earlier models of the sherman at the beginning of the war and were generally impressed with it but the t-34 better suited the soviet union's needs and doctrines both tanks were fairly well protected from all but the heaviest german guns in the forward quarter but generally the sherman was seen as being weaker on the sides with its flat hull compared to the t-34 which had sloping armor all around however it is generally agreed that american manufacturing methods meant that the sherman's armor was at least more reliable whereas it was not uncommon for imperfections to appear in a t34 which often caused a horrendous problem called spalling german shells that failed to penetrate the armor of the t-34 would instead cause the metal on the inner side of the hull to shatter spreading shrapnel inside the tank killing or maiming the crew the two areas where the shermans really excelled however were in its greater reliability and the more crew-friendly design of its turrets there were also significantly more shermans fitted with radios than t-34s giving commanders greater levels of coordination at the time it was an interesting debate over who had the better of the two tanks and would remain forever purely academic but as the 1940s gave way to the 1950s that debate went from theory to deadly reality in the immediate aftermath of the second world war the empires of the old world were struggling to either keep hold of their possessions or conduct an orderly withdrawal that didn't see them go over to the communist world british crude sherman saw action in indonesia less than one year after the war ended against insurgents but it was in india pakistan and china that the sherman would see its most extensive use in the immediate post-war era with japan defeated china returned to its civil war between the nationalists and the communists the u.s tried to aid the nationalists by supplying them with weapons including sherman tanks but it was to no avail and the nationalists were forced to retreat to the island of taiwan many shermans were captured by the communists and used for a brief time until replaced by soviet-supplied tanks like the t-3485 which the chinese would later copy almost immediately after gaining their independence from britain both india and pakistan went to war and in this instance both sides were equipped with ex-british and u.s shermans of various models many of the pakistani shermans remained in service long enough to see action in the 1965 indo-pakistan war where they faced off against more modern indian armor as well as other shermans and more powerful british-built centurion tanks they would see action again in india in 1971 but were by then showing their age compared to the newer vehicles than in use by both sides [Music] divided between north and south after world war ii along the 38th parallel the communist north korea invaded the south on june 28 1950 with the material backing of joseph stalin who trained and equipped them with the 85 millimeter gun armed versions of the t-34 us and allied forces quickly dispatched troops tanks aircraft and warships to the korean peninsula to counter them and here they would learn first hand the effectiveness of the t-34 american troops fielding the trusty old bazooka found that the t-34 was almost impervious to bazooka rounds save for a few exceptions it was not uncommon for the t-34 to take up to 20 bazooka rounds and keep fighting as a counter the americans deployed as many of their own tanks as they could muster the sherman in its m4a3 e8 form known simply as the easy-8 by its crews was still the main american tank in the opening rounds and proved an effective counter to the t-34 despite their respective advantages and disadvantages in design it was found that both types were equally lethal to the other but superior training and the adoption of higher velocity armor-piercing rounds tipped the fight in the americans favor however they never underestimated the t-34 and always treated them with respect even when more powerful american tanks joined in the fights like the m26 pershing and the m46 pattern with the addition of intense air support the us and their allies were able to turn the tide on the t-34 but fighting other tanks is only one part of a tank's mission more often than not the shermans found themselves having to fend off waves of north korean and later chinese infantry who could sneak up on the american tanks and swarm over them planting explosives on vulnerable areas it was not unheard of for so many north korean soldiers to be clambering over a tank that allied tanks would have to strafe each other with machine gun fire or simply keep rotating the turret to brush them off in korea the sherman once again gave the us army sterling service but time was catching up with that venerable warrior the soviet union was now fielding more advanced t-54 and t-55 tanks and so by 1957 the shermans stood down from duty but they had left an indelible impression on the us army and the american people with more shermans being released from active service it meant that there were more vehicles up for sale for friendly armies and there were plenty of takers but it would not be the last time that these two tanks would be fighting on opposite sides perhaps one of the more interesting users of the sherman in the post-war world was the french jean-damarie one of two national police forces in france which while being a branch of the french armed forces functions under the jurisdiction of the ministry of the interior france began phasing their shermans out of frontline army service in the second half of the 1950s by which time france's own indigenous tank manufacturing and design program was well underway however this period of history was a turbulent one and france was continuously engaged in wars to hold on to its crumbling empire in asia and africa the french suffered a humiliating defeat at the hands of the viet minh in indochina modern-day vietnam and were then immediately thrust into a battle to hold on to algeria sherman saw varying degrees of service in both conflicts until they were replaced with newer french designs however by 1961 the public mood for continuing the fight for the african colony was waning and upon discovering that their government were entering into secret negotiations that would lead to algerian independence several high-ranking army officers who felt betrayed staged a coup to seize key locations in algeria they also demanded support from their comrades in france leading to the country seemingly teetering on the brink of civil war the jean de marie shermans were thus put out onto the streets as a precaution taking up defensive positions around key buildings in france such as the french national assembly building but in the end a broadcast made by wartime leader charles de gaulle calling for the troops to reject the orders of the coup left the whole coup to collapse after just five days while the shermans thankfully did not have to fire any weapons their use alone demonstrated the severity of the situation they stood on the day france might have fallen from the moment the jewish state of israel was born in 1948 it has been a hotbed of destruction and conflict desperate for any weapons they could get their hands on the israelis snapped up tanks from any source they could find even if they were hopelessly obsolete these included pre-war french tanks such as the hotchkiss 39s and the renault 35s as well as a few leftover british tanks such as the cromwell and one m4a2 sherman which initially lacked its main gun recognizing the effectiveness of this tank the israelis began scouring the scrapyards of europe for more and acquired 30 m4s from italian scrapyards which the israelis rebuilt to fighting condition before sending them out to battle their new arab neighbors more shermans were added to the infantry in the 1950s and these saw service during the ill-fated suez war in 1956 against egypt who had begun to receive large numbers of soviet eight including czechoslovakian manufactured t-3485s these actually served alongside the egyptians own shermans which they had upgraded with turrets from the french amx 13 light tank neighboring syria also received t-34s which frequently skirmished with the israelis along their border in the early 1960s sensing another large war coming the israelis knew they had to upgrade their tank forces to keep them relevant in the face of the more advanced soviet types israel had already been a major customer for french military equipment and so they looked to paris for help in improving their shermans fitting more powerful guns known as the sherman m50 this new tank had to have weights attached to the rear of the turret to counteract the gun's increased weight improvements were also made to the suspension and they were later again upgraded with a new cummins 460 horsepower v8 diesel engine for later conversions in 1967 the conflict that had been brewing for over a decade finally came in the form of the six day war the 105 millimeter armed super shermans proved more than able to destroy arab t-34s t-54s and t-55s although the shermans were equally vulnerable to the enemy tanks guns in the end as had been proven so many times over before and since it was the superior tactics of the israelis that was the deciding factor egypt alone lost some 251 t-34s in the war interestingly the syrian army used their t-34s alongside a number of ex-german tanks that the t-34s were famous for battling against during the second world war these old enemies were now on the same side in 1973 the israeli shermans were slowly bowing out when the arab armies launched a brutal offensive aimed at crushing the state once and for all the yom kippur war is probably the closest time that israel has come to defeat and the use of world war ii era shermans on the front line seemed to demonstrate just how desperate their situation was the shermans were now terribly vulnerable thanks to the widespread use of the at-3 saga missile by the arab armies but again superior tactics and american aid saved israel after the war around 100 of the israeli shermans were re-gunned with 60 millimeter hyper velocity medium support guns imported from italy and sold to chile who were still fielding them at the end of the century it was not the last time the sherman would see action in the middle east however as iran would use them in their war against iraq in the 1980s the shermans suffered badly against the better-equipped iraqis who captured several examples which were then discovered by american troops during operation iraqi freedom in 2003. cuba purchased seven sherman tanks from the us to serve in the fight against the communist gorillas led by fidel castro the east seeing action against castro's forces in the battle of santa clara where at least one was captured by the rebels after the government forces were defeated afterwards cuba began to receive t-34s from the soviet union and these would see action against the shermans again this time on a cuban beach when american-backed forces opposed to fidel castro's communist regime in havana landed on april 17 1961 dubbed the bay of pigs invasion the pro-american units were equipped with 10 shermans and during their brief breakout from the beachhead they are credited with destroying a cuban army t-34 personally commanding the cuban counter-attack it is reported that fidel castro himself rode in the first column of t-34s which engaged the shermans destroying two of them and forcing the invaders back to the beaches another sherman was destroyed by nicaraguan pilot ernesto guerrero flying a hawker sea fury for the cuban air force within just 24 hours the disastrous invasion was over as the invaders surrendered elsewhere in south america nicaragua acquired four ex-u.s shermans to combat the sandinista national liberation front who were opposed to the government's ruling dictatorship the shermans were used in bitter house-to-house fighting between 1978 and 1979 before the government fell [Music] northern vietnam received huge quantities of aid from china and the soviet union during the vietnam war but it wasn't until the americans began to withdraw that they started to deploy their armored units in any real strength these included chinese-built type 58 tanks which were a copy of the t-3485 they played a limited role in the push south as more capable chinese and soviet tanks took the lead since the south vietnamese were still equipped with more powerful american tanks they would again see action in defense of a now unified vietnam in a long brutal and bloody border conflict with cambodia beginning in 1978 and then again against vietnam's former ally china in 1979 another less obvious operator of these tanks this time the t-34 was the cypriot national guard situated in the strategically important eastern mediterranean sea the island of cyprus has been divided along ethnic lines for generations between the greeks and the turks throughout the 1960s the cypriot government was engaged in a series of pitched battles with the turkish cypriot militia forcing the government to issue a requirement for armoured combat vehicles which was satisfied by the delivery of 35 t-34 tanks armed with 85 millimeter guns these tanks supported a greek cypriot coup against the government sponsored by greece itself in defense of the turkish people on cyprus turkey launched a surprise invasion of the north of the island on july 20th although largely outclassed by turkish forces fielding newer american tanks greek cypriot t-34s fought pitched battles against the turkish invasion forces destroying two dug-in defensive positions and two m-113 armored personnel carriers on the beach before being beaten back despite their best efforts the greek cypriot t-34s could do little to hold back the turkish forces who possessed overwhelming air power and newer anti-tank weapons at least 12 t-34s were reported destroyed or abandoned in the fighting which lasted until august 18th 1974 after which the northern turkish area of the island remained independent from the south [Music] in 1975 angola became independent of portugal and immediately found itself the prize in a power struggle between rival internal factions supported by countries in the region and beyond who had their own interests in the country's future of these foreign nations one of the most prominent was cuba who supported the marxists within the faction known as the f-a-p-l-a the cubans deployed their own t-3485s as well as facilitated the delivery of t-34s to the marxists who used them in their power struggle in july of 1975 a platoon of cuban t-34s supported f-a-p-l-a troops as they retook the capital of luanda the t-34s were key to an overwhelming victory for the f-a-p-l-a fighting poorly-led infantry was one thing but the real threat was from the neighboring south africa fielding their powerful force of british-made centurion tanks led by experienced commanders on october 7th 1975 cuban t-34s engaged with a south african force for the first time but the fight was inconclusive meanwhile cuban and f-a-p-l-a-t-34s along with newer t-55s continued to battle the opposing factions but as south african forces continued to embroil themselves in the fighting cuban and fa pla t-34 losses mounted while south africa captured eight examples in 1981 complete with ammunition and spare parts a very small number also found their way into the hands of other factions but their use was limited as they ran out of spares and ammunition as the conflicts dragged on through the 1980s the t-34s were slowly taken off the front lines replaced by the newer t-55 and were instead relegated to defending airfields and bases or carrying out a training role the war ended in 1988 but erupted again in 1990 and while t-34s were seen being driven off their bases it is unclear if they were used in combat before being taken out of service [Music] completely [Music] yugoslavia existed in a somewhat unique position during the cold war a communist country yugoslavian leader marshall tito rejected soviet authority preferring to keep his country independent as a result tito's forces received american aid in the late 1950s that included a number of surplus shermans which complemented large numbers of soviet tanks such as the t-34 by 1990 with communism collapsing all over europe yugoslavia was beginning to fracture along ethnic lines sparking a decade-long series of brutal and bloody wars for independence the yugoslavian state of serbia held on to much of the yugoslavian army tank forces and this included both shermans and t-34s it is unclear what role if any the basic shermans played in the conflicts but the t-34s certainly saw use by bosnian croatian and serbian forces who scrambled to get hold of any armoured vehicles they could find being a civil war many of the combatants were armed with little more than a rifle and so the 40-plus year-old t-34 was still useful in clearing towns and villages of militia groups as well as aiding in the so-called ethnic cleansing at least one serbian t-34 was photographed having been destroyed during the siege of vicova in 1991 and numerous other examples would be photographed destroyed or abandoned throughout the 90s often with crudely painted markings representing their respective factions indicating they saw extensive use throughout the conflict perhaps even more crude than these markings were the efforts to improve the protection of the t-34 particularly with the bosnian and croatian forces who had to face off against the often better-equipped serbs the t-34s were seen covered in anything from sandbags to rubber panels to scrap metal anything that would reduce the effectiveness of weapons such as rocket-propelled grenades even slightly one of the more notable incidents involving a t-34 occurred on may 3rd 1995 when a serbian t-34 attacked a un outpost manned by troops of the british army's 21st regiment of the royal engineers six british soldiers were injured one of whom sustained life-changing injuries during the incident when nato began its air campaign against serbian forces many of their t-34s served out their final mission as decoys for nato air power to destroy and thus sparing the more capable tanks still in service the surviving t-34s are widely believed to have been withdrawn from use by the new countries that once made up yugoslavia by 2002. in an age of drones and smart bombs it seems inconceivable that while the sherman has bowed out the t-34 remains in combat but it is in fact true t-34s were still being used by various factions in afghanistan prior to the us-led invasion in 2001. these had been delivered for use as internal security vehicles during the days of the pro-soviet government in the 70s but invariably found their way into the hands of warlords and tribal leaders it is unlikely that any survive today technically the vietnamese type 58s remain in service to a degree but are based on the disputed spratly islands where they have been dug in and used as static defense posts it has also been claimed that at least one t-34 was returned to service by pro-russian fighters in ukraine in 2014 after it was pulled down from the pedestal where it was being displayed although information on its actual use is sketchy most people believe it was a symbolic gesture by the rebels rather than a serious attempt to get into a fight with the ukrainian government however it was in 2018 amidst the yemeni civil war where the t-34 once again answered the call to arms yemeni forces using the t-3485 are understandably weary of the 70-year-old gun exploding when being fired and thus killing the crew so much that they have resorted to fitting a rip cord that can allow them to fire the gun from outside of the turret thus the tank has become known as the ripcord t-34 it is incredible to imagine that the t-34 is still in combat given that during world war ii the soviet army considered any t-34 which survived driving more than 1 000 kilometers to be almost elderly it is a testament to solid engineering and man's insatiable propensity for war and there you have the tale of the great tanks of world war ii a legacy far longer than anyone would have ever believed please leave a comment down below with your own thoughts and reactions and remember to like this video and subscribe to support the channel thank you for watching and i'll see you next time

Channel: WarsofTheWorld

Views: 564,217

Rating: 4.8689418 out of 5

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Id: 4kcbLddY1W0

Length: 29min 28sec (1768 seconds)

Published: Fri Jun 11 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/blitskrieg4169]

I know for a fact that Sherman's were heavily reused after the war but t34s ? And I won't watch the video cuz I don't really want to

[u/TankArchives]

They kept fighting in a bunch of local wars, unlike the overhyped Tigers and Panthers.

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