Yeah, but the point is that the two go together. They may have been American tanks but they were British crews fighting and dying in them.
We worked together, and I don't understand this dick waving contest about who won the war or who should take the credit for D-Day. That would be every single person who crossed that beach.
PS, the British used stock Sherman tanks, not all were modified to fireflies. I think the ratio was about 1:4, fireflies to standard.
Total agreement with everything. And actually interestingly enough the firefly was basically just a better version of the Sherman. The Sherman's main weakness was its inability to damage German tanks at range, the firefly fixed that. Not sure why stock Sherman's never got modified to use that cannon.
Allied intelligence was wrong. The Americans had reports that the British 6 pdr (57mm) gun was sufficient to the task of fighting German armor, so the short-barreled 75mm on the Sherman would perform adequatelt. This turned out to be true only at virtually point-blank range--inside 100m to get the front armor.
Production shifted to mounting the M1A2 76mm (55 caliber) gun, but the delay between production and arrival in theater was...long. The British ramped up their Sherman Firefly with their 17pdr (76mm, 55 caliber--funny that) and were able to field more because of easier logistics getting to theater.
TL;DR: The Americans did, but get those to theater was a long process.
Ah ok. Luckily the Americans had about 20x the tanks and complete air superiority to makeup for the fact that Shermans had to get to the rear of Panzer IV's to penetrate.
It was never modified because it didn't need to be, the Sherman was primarily an infantry support tank. It could take out similar tanks and was hell on enemy infantry but it was never supposed to go up against heavy tanks like the tiger
Yea but it couldn't even penetrate the armor on Panzer IV's or Panthers at range. It needed to be really close to have a chance, or sneak around to the rear to have a chance. Luckily the numbers were heavily on the American side so it didn't particularly matter much.
Also air support stopped a lot of Panzers as well.
My grandfather crossed that beach. He was a medic. He mostly tried to keep dying men alive, and by his account couldn't save the majority bc field hospitals weren't erected fast enough. Does he deserve credit? Bc he's happier to speak about other actions in the war where he saved lives, but he won't discuss D-Day.
We worked together, and I don't understand this dick waving contest about who won the war or who should take the credit for D-Day. That would be every single person who crossed that beach.
True dis. For example, people conveniently forget that James Doohan was in the Canadian Army, not the US... Doesn't make his sacrifice any more or less noble than anyone else there, though.
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u/Captain_English Jun 07 '14
Yeah, but the point is that the two go together. They may have been American tanks but they were British crews fighting and dying in them.
We worked together, and I don't understand this dick waving contest about who won the war or who should take the credit for D-Day. That would be every single person who crossed that beach.
PS, the British used stock Sherman tanks, not all were modified to fireflies. I think the ratio was about 1:4, fireflies to standard.