Sherman to the Tiger. In the end the Sherman won the contest due to sheer numbers produced. It was also mentioned that the US refused to mount the more potent 17pounder that the British seemed to have success with. The question is should the Tiger be considered the loser due to being out numbered?
just because of the mechanical breakdown…
I would say not. You mentioned the reason the Sherman won, was sheer numbers. The rule of thumb was that it took 5 Shermans to knock out a Tiger. I forget the figures, but more than 80,000 Shermans produced to only about 1,500 Tigers a 16:1 ratio. More than the 5:1 loss ratio. Let’s also add fighter-bomber support which undoubtedly took a huge toll of Tigers. The tiger had far greater fire-power and armor. When was the last time you heard a Sherman taking 10 hits? One area the Sherman dominated was manueverablity and and reliability. If the Tiger were built in Shermanlike numbers, supported by the Luftwaffe, the outcome may have been very different.
I believe it would be wrong to say that the Tigers lost to the Sherman, it lost to Shermans, allied airpower, lack of fuel, lack of spare parts, problems with engine and transmission etc. etc. etc.
Apart from a few Sherman versions like the Firefly, the Sherman was outguned by the Tiger and the Tiger had much thicker armor. At the end of the war the Tigers had a kill ratio of about 1/9 ( for every Tiger lost the enemy lost 9 tanks ) but that is not enough if the enemy have 50.000 tanks and air superiority.
The Tiger was great tank, but it had some problems. The Sherman was also a great tank but completely different.
And they were made for different purposes
The Sherman was meant to be maneuverable and faster and the Tiger was meant to be a heavy tank, where they sacrificed speed for more protection and a bigger gun
A more appropriate comparison would be the Sherman to the Pz III or IV.
The US program went ahead with the Sherman as opposed to the Pershing based on Patton’s considerable political pull. He saw the role as break though, encircling type of action similar to what the Germans used against France and Poland. The job, in his opinion, was not to engage in tank battles but support infantry. Also, you must consider, the Sherman had to be transported across the ocean, alot easier for a lighter tank.
The Tiger was designed to smash through heavy resistance or to overrun artillery. The original intention was to be used strictly supported by light tanks and infantry. They were to be moved by rail and attached to whatever army group neccesary and be used for breakthroughs, then moved elsewhere.
You wouldn’t have happened to see the Sherman vs. Tiger Epsidode of Greatest Military CLashes on the Discovery Military Channel, did you? IT was on last Thursday and did a comparison between two actual running tanks, including ballistics tests, armor tests and a driving test. Very interesting. The best part wa sit arrived at the conclusion that the Sherman won due to ease and rate of production, but when asked, every tanker interviewed, both sides, said they would rather have the Tiger.
Yes. [:p]
I have that episode of Greatest Military Clashes taped, due to the amount of information it contained. Tank on tank, it’s the Tiger, no doubt in my mind.
Okieboy
lol, I was wondering whether he watched that myself, Jason, as it sounds like that brought on this topic [:D]
I believe that the conclusion reached by that show is ridiculously flawed. THey credit the Sherman as being the victor through it’s ease of use and superior numbers. That strays VERY far from a comparison of the tanks themselves, and becomes a comparison of the logistics and infrastructure of the two nations involved. What are you trying to compare, the tanks, or the ability of the nations building the tank?
The Tiger was more powerful, more heavily armored, and more potently (much more) armed. The Sherman was far superior in reliability and maneuverability. However, given those two facts, and given criteria based on what an MBT SHOULD be judged on, I think the Tiger is the clear victor. I think the chances of a one-on-one conflict with a Sherman and Tiger, where the Sherman was the victor, are pretty slim…
I thought it was a very interesting show. The side by side comparison between the Sherman 75mm shell and the 88mm Tiger shell was amazing.
zokissima- that is an excellent point.
Wow, this is one of those debates that will probably never end! I think there’s no doubt that one on one the Tiger wins out. But also the Tiger was designed for open field wafare. In France and Europe you had broken terrain and urban battlefields.The Sherman’s negatives turned to positives in these circumstances.I remember watching the Heavy Metal on The History Channel about the Sherman.One vet said the manuverability of the Sherman won out in the end but they hated seeing a Tiger!!
Ironically, just last night I was watching a Tiger vs. Sherman program that I recorded last week on Discovery’s new military channel, and it addressed this very question. Its conclusion was that individually the Tiger is vastly superior to the Sherman. However, collectively the sheer numbers of Sherman due to its ease of manufacture and servicability in the field allowed it to contribute more effectively to the overall Allied cause than did the fewer Tigers to the overall German cause. The soldiers interviewed, British and German, all agreed that they would rather do battle in a Tiger than a Sherman.
To a degree, I do agree with that conclusion. For as good a tank as the Tiger was, there were too few of them. Even at a 9 to 1 kill ratio, 1300 Tigers would counter only about 12000 Shermans. Dovetailing into the recent discussion on the best German tank of the war, as a soldier taking a tank into combat, I want to sit inside of Tiger II. However, I suspect that the Germans maybe would have been better served by throwing their resources into up-armored and up-gunned Panzer IV’s.
As for the Sherman, in spite of it contributions, I do think that the Army screwed up by ignoring some of the basic flaws in it for too long, i.e. the gun, ammo storage, and track width. I also think the Army screwed up by not working harder for a more powerful tank that really could hold its own when going toe to toe with a Tiger or Panther. It seems like Army as a whole as well as the individual soldiers, would have been a lot better off if our breakout from Normandy had been accomplished by a mixture Pershings and 76mm, Easy 8’s with wet ammo storage than the older style Shermans that actually went.
In the context of the show’s title “Tiger vs. Sherman”, I might agree with you. The title does sort of imply some sort of one-on-one competition that would be easily won by the Tiger. However, tanks are not used as champions in an arena, but are part of an overall Army offensive. Thus when evaluating the overall value of one tank design vs. another, the manufacturing, logistics, ease of use, etc. all need to be considered. How well one tank design supports the overall army effort will include all of these factors beyond simple one-on-one effectiveness.
A person watching the program on the military channel with me commented on the Tiger tank looking odd, is that because it was a T34 mod? This person also commented on the various Sherman’s that were shown, especially the one with HVSS suspension. The question was asked if in fact that particular model of Sherman saw action at Normandy.
As Larry said, the answer to your original question is simply “yes”. However, it looks like this discussion has morphed into something else. Ask yourself one question; if you were in any piece of country 5 miles from me and we had a tiger and a sherman, which tank would you like to be in. If I chose first, you would be in the sherman…
the HVSS suspention started to apear in the Battle of the Bulge
one of the first ones entered Bastogne
I missed the show, but it sounds like you are talking about the converted T-34 made into a Tiger. It has the T-34 running gear and tracks. I believe it was first used in the movie Kelley’s Heroes. It was also in the Saving Private Ryan, unless they made new ones for that movie.
Yes the Sherman was more manuverable, but only on solid ground. In the winter conditions in Europe the Sherman was terriable. Its tracks were too narrow to spread out the weight. Many Shermans became easy targets when they got stuck in the same mud that the Tigers could cross over. A great book on this subject is Death Traps: The survival of an American Armored Division in World War II, by Belton Y. Cooper. Cooper was a maintanence liason in WW2. He goes into great depths about the inadaquacies of the Sherman.
Todd