The M4 Sherman - In The Movies

A brief overview of The M4 Sherman as featured in many war movies.

Sahara 1943
The Bridge 1959
Battle of the Bulge 1965
s Paris Burning? - 1966
Patton 1970
Kelly’s Heroes 1970 A Bridge Too Far 1977
1941 – 1979
Big Red One – 1980
Tank - 1984
Sahara - 1995
Life is Beautiful – 1997
Band of Brothers 2001
Letters From Iwo Jima – 2006
Flags of our Fathers - 2006
The Pacific - 2010
Fury - 2014
Girls Und Panzer - 2015
Call of Duty WW2 (Video Game)

#guns #tanks #warhistory

[killpackers]

Sherman tanks also had the highest crew survivability rate out of any tank in WW2. This was incredibly valuable considering an experienced tank crew was MUCH harder to place than a tank.

[Eagle-odim]

Therapist: Wide Sherman isn’t real, it can’t hurt you
*W I D E* Sherman: 4:36

[jamesturner]

Chieftain had made a good point that I hadn't really thought about. It was very important for America to make a simple, yet reliable tank that could survive and operate far from its factory infrastructure. Was the Sherman the best tank? No. But it was the best tank to roll off the assembly lines that was easy to make and operate.

Due to a lot of myths people seem to think that if a Tiger shot a single round 5 Shermans spontaneously combusted.

[williamashbless]

The Sherman was designed to fit the role required by Armored Doctrine. Against the Panther and Tiger tanks it struggled.  
The Tiger was a limited role Breakthrough tank that rarely faced American armor. The Panther was an overreaction to the appearance of the T-34. It made for a great long range, tank destroyer but never actually replaced the older, Panzer IV in armored units.

High velocity, Tungsten cored shot was available in late ‘44, but Tank Destroyer units had priority. By that late in the war, so few German tanks were encountered that it never became a priority for most Sherman units.

The fact Israel was still using them in the Seventies is a testament to their sound design and engineering.

[garrisonnichols]

There's alot of misconceptions about the M4 Sherman tank mostly because of the book by Belton Y Cooper. Cooper was a soldier fighting in France with the 3rd Armored Division during World War Two. His book is based mostly on his personal experience but keep in mind his job was to recover and repair damaged tanks. So because he saw so many destroyed Sherman tanks he came to believe that the Sherman wasn't very good in combat against German tanks. I always wondered what he would think of the Panthers or Tigers if he had to repair them. Basically he would say they were unreliable and prone to malfunctioning. The M4 definitely had its disadvantages but was more reliable and efficient in combat compared to its German counterparts. Also the M4A3E8 was a major improvement and had a more capable 76 caliber main gun compared to the 75. The 75 had a better high explosive charge against German infantry which was much more common than enemy tanks as the war came to an end.

[PolarizedMechs]

Thoroughly loving your videos, Johnny! I had a relative who was a gunner on M36 Jacksons in WWII. He hip-shotted a Panther with the 90mm, and thought he was pretty damn cool. Then he found out the tank had been abandoned by its crew, because it had broken down. He said it was like getting a kiss from your sister.

[griz]

Glad you addressed the Arm Chair Generals critique with Panzers retreating against Sherman’s in Band of Brothers. It’s also worth noting the Germans stopped where they did because they were afraid of a larger force even though they could have overrun the infantry lines.

[patrickazzarella]

Shout out to Girls Und Panzer the sports anime, very funy and has some amazing 3d models and battles even if the plot is paper thin. Has alot of love and historical references

[blackegret]

This is gonna be tricky to make another "Tanks in movies" video because I can't really think of any other tanks that were used a lot in movies and TV other than the T-34. Keep up the work!

[SeanHiruki]

Fun note about Gurls Und Panzer: The Chieftain himself helped work on the accuracy of the tanks.

[crumpetcommandos]

Sherman was probably the best all around tank in the war

[que]

One of, if not, my favorite tank. I love using all of its variants on War Thunder or any other WW2 game with tanks on it

[HappiKarafuru]

One of the icon vehicle of ww2. People cannot pictures ww2 without M4 Sherman. It just that it was so "Universal" that it saw combat all across two major theatre. Yes it had it down flaw, but it easily get corrected, and from a hand of experience, well trained crew. It was very deadly and two variants, the Easy eight and firefly, makes the German tankers and AT gun worried. Even after 40 years since it introduction in ww2, it saw it last major fight with Israel as I-sherman or outside Israel as Super Sherman. Imagine if this Sherman is the one that face German tank, what the German will react with a Long Barrel 105mm gun Sherman with additional armor plate

[jerryudonneedtoknow]

One random fun fact about the Sherman...
Specifically regarding early war and maybe mid war, the Sherman's armor varied from great to complete garbage. This is due to the manufacturers. At the beginning of production, it was produced by car companies, the car companies terrible metal working, unskilled metal workers, and various other problems, this led to some pretty awful armor quality making the armor effectively ineffective against enemy rounds which it should have been effective against (Including the sloping factor).
This was resolved by changing the manufacturing from car companies to railway / locomotive companies, or in simple terms, train companies, companies which had experience pumping out high grade steel and such.

[Erwin_Von_Heidenheim]

I'll say it again and again it's so good to see Girls und panzer featuring in these tank videos

[Perfusionist]

Nice piece of work! I am a major "Shermanoholic" (one who loves the history and minutiae of the M4 series). Trivia: the Shermans in "Kelly's Heroes" were M4A3E4 models - a later WW2 Sherman with a 75mm gun that was rebuilt and re-equipped with a 76mm for Foreign Military Sales (FMS). These rebuilds went to Yugoslavia, Denmark, Lebanon, and Pakistan (some were rebuilt M4A1s). "A Bridge Too Far" gathered a lot of the running Shermans in Europe and still wanted more so some "tanks" are mockups on Land Rover chassis (held as background tanks). One of the best movies showing tanks, but featuring the WORST writing was 1951's "The Tanks Are Coming". It was filmed with old Shermans (mostly M4A3s) used for training at Ft. Knox and in California. One of the major stars of the clunky "Target Zero" was an M4A1E8 from the California Army National Guard. "Patton" did show a Sherman type - in the snowy highway near Bastogne a tank recovery vehicle (tank "tow truck") rolls by.

[robertmoore]

I love the Sherman. It was very reliable and when it needed repair or maintenance it was relatively easy to do, unlike the German tanks which were over engineered and difficult to repair and as a result if they did break down or run out of petrol, they would be destroyed by their own crews.

[pingwenhung]

Pros :
Easy to Maintain
Easy to repair
Has tons of Parts
Has tons of roles it can fit into it
Has tons of available upgrades it can have
Has a Short-stop stabilizer
Has Wet-storage
Has comfortable Crew compartment
Can travel almost anywhere in the world
Highest Crew survival rate compare to other nation's tanks aside from Churchill.

Cons :
"Armor somehow too thin against the Germans"
Totally not because of the several counters of Germans unable to penetrate T-34's, Kv-1's and Churchills and specially Early Shermans that leads to the Germans having High penetration Anti-tank weaponry, if you put a Tiger 1 in-front of another Tiger 1, they both can penetrate each other's armor and yet people say Tiger 1 is a good tank.
"Tank too Tall"
I don't see how this would ever be an issue, specially when you need a high place to see better which makes it a better tank for commands to look out from, sure it maybe easy to be spotted by the enemies but Tanks are not quiet and they travel with a company of tanks and troops, ain't going to hide them when US is on the Offensive while the Germans are on the Defensive side
"Guns too Weak"
Yet another false rumor about the guns doesn't work, High crew survival rate also makes the "Armor too thin" and "Gun too weak" rumor spread like wild fire which leads us to the Bad reputation of it which is just another thing in a War that could happen, 75mm aren't really that useful against Heavily armor but they were meant to support infantry to push the german bunkers and infantries while the 76mm fits the role of Anti-tank gun, even if that is said, 75mm can pen Tiger 1 from the front at a closer range definitely but at longer range naturally a 88mm long gun would be far superior

Jack of all trade, master of none
a standard WW2 Tank that imo is the BEST out of all tanks that people will argue about.
With everything easy to maintain and repair/replace + crew often survive more than any other nation's, I cannot see how this tank get a terrible reputation aside from people being ignorant to history about it/design about it and those crews whom survived from it and spreading false rumor about how garbage it is and such. Survivor Bias you would say.

[Fancypants]

Another myth that the sherman's armor was very thin isn't quite true either since it's frontal armor had a nice slope to it and could deflect a lot of standard AT guns used in the majority of German units like in the stug
But ultimately ordinance found that the winner of most engagements was the one who fired first
the Sherman tank was probably the "best" tank of the war due to it's flexibility and being easy to highly mass produce without suffering too much in quality like the T34 did

[MistahFox]

Thanks so much for the very accurate video on the M4 Sherman!
I hate seeing videos about it that just perpetuate the same myths over and over again, but you really did your homework!
I do have a few things to add about the Sherman, but they aren't a criticism of the video as they wouldn't have fit and aren't necessary anyway:

The Sherman was not a 'cheap' tank as many claim, but a sophisticated and expensive vehicle. They produced so many of them because every part of it was designed with mass manufacturing in mind, so that Shermans made efficient use of American industry.

Contrary to popular belief, it had technological advantages against the Tiger and Panther:
It's radio had significantly more range.
It had a 'unity' sight for its gunner which was a wider field of view sight the gunner could use to find a target before switching to the zoomed in scope, which most German tanks didn't have, so the gunner was stuck looking through a zoomed in scope permanently.
The commander had additional control over the turret and gun, so an engagement would go like this: the commander sees an enemy tank, and slews the turret to point in its general direction. Then the gunner sees it in his unity sight and aims the turret at it, then switches to the main scope to aim an accurate shot then fire. The German commanders just had to kick their gunner in the shoulder they wanted them to turn in, and hope they eventually found their target. In French testing post-war, the Sherman engaged targets significantly faster than the Panther, and whatever tank shoots first normally wins.
It had a hydraulic stabilizer for the gun that let it fire on the move at slow speeds and shoot much faster after stopping.
Its spring-loaded hatches and better crew ergonomics let its crew bail out extremely quickly.

The Sherman in Europe was almost always caught in ambushes since it was almost always pushing into enemy territory, but despite that being often disastrous, it was probably the best tank in the world for that situation because it could return fire so quickly, and the crew survived more frequently than other tanks.