Portsmouth - Sherman Tank .
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A Sherman tank at a D-Day memorial site in Portsmouth.
The Sherman was the main allied battletank used in WWII, and was a development of the chasis of the flawed Lee/Grant tank.
Shermans had the unpleasant reputation of being a tank that would explode very easilly if hit by enemy fire, which was true, but the misconception was that this was caused by them being petrol engined. The German tanks were also petrol engined, and didn't catch fire nearly so easilly.
The real problem was that the ammunition was stored in a very vulnerable position, and even a minor hit could cause it to explode.
While Shermans were certainly flawed, and no match for the German Tiger and Panther tanks, sheer weight of numbers usually allowed them to win when it really mattered.
Such were the numbers of tanks in Western Europe by 1944, that though it could take up to five Shermans to destroy one Tiger... the allies were far more likely to have five Shermans than the Germans were to have one Tiger. In fact, there are accounts of German defenders with anti-tank guns who were able to destroy anything that moved down specific roads... only to run out of ammunition before the allies ran out of Shermans to send down the road.
Photo taken with a Fuji Finepix 2800 camera.
This photo is Copyright © S Challis 2006
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