the exchange itself was won by the tiger. allies only admit 1 pershing knocked out by the nashorn because it was destroyed. however knocked out is a kill. in that case 3 pershings were knocked out in the war.
You brought up an important difference between the US and German armies that I learned from reading Stephen Ambrose's book "Citizen Soldiers". About half of the US Army in Europe were in support roles like mechanics and truck drivers. The Germans had to use 90% of their soldiers on the front lines. When a German vehicle broke down or was damaged, even minor problems, it was abandoned because they had no one to repair them, while the US would tow tanks, trucks, and other vehicles to rear areas and repair them and put them back into action.
Not really considering the shells were still extremely powerful and could keep moving beyond 1000 yards on the move yes but it wss a life or death situation and I imagine he was in the zone and your shooting at huge chunks of metal a bullets then were just a powerful as today they still put the same shit in the bullets^_^
As a military historian, I can really appreciate and understand the hours of research it takes for you to produce the handful of minutes you provide us. Well done, Mate.
Tank nicknames were almost always decided by the tank's crew and typically with humorous intent. This tradition is kept up even today with some tanks being called "Barely Legal" and "ALL BOUT DA BONES".
It could have been for the "Red Ball Express." U.S. Supply Trucks with high priority, high speed supply trucks, had red circles painted on them. They were known as the "Red ball Express," or sometimes as "Fireballs."
@FooBar Maximus that myrh actually has been put to rest. The Sherman was not nearly as flammable or as dangers as many say. If anything it was the most survivable tank of the war.
What really improved by the time of the Pershing was the quality of the steel they used. You see that huge gauge in the armor, like left by an ice-cream scoop - that means the steel became soft under the pressure of the 88mm high velocity round, absorbed and dissipated the energy, instead of letting it through like iron. Took some time until the Americans discovered tempered steel - a hard layer outside, but soft inside to absorb the kinetic energy of the projectile.
I think the most overlooked virtue of tanks like the Sherman was the American designers understanding that a tank like that, equipped with beefed up V8 motors , would easily be handled and repaired in the field by American farm boys use to tractors and combines, and all the young hotrodders... And so they were.
My dad (fought in the Pacific, 90mm AA gun) always told a story about his next younger brother, my uncle, who was in Patton's army from Houffalize and on to the end of the war. He said that when they were fighting their way thru Germany in '45, they came across a town they were ordered to take that was down in a small valley. Only problem was there was a Tiger I down there next to a haystack, and all they had were Shermans. As they were up on a small ridge trying to figure how to go about it, a tanker Sgt. walked up and asked what the holdup was. When they pointed out the Tiger I, the tanker told them his tank could take care of it, and walked back where he came from. They heard a tank approching, and saw an American tank they had never seen before (Pershing). The Pershing positioned itself hull down, fired one round that missed the Tiger, adjusted slightly, fired another round and the turret of the Tiger blew off.Then my uncle's unit went in and took the town. I asked my uncle about it the last family reunion before he died, and he pretty much told it the same way, said it was definitely a Tiger I but added it probably wasn't crewed, though they didn't know that at the time. Kinda odd that when you hear about Pershings vs. Tigers I've never come across that event, other than the story from my uncle. Was my uncle lying? Was he mistaken as to what kind of tank? He was adamant that it was a Tiger I, even describing the characteristics of the different German tanks (Panzer IV, V, Tiger, etc) and said it was definitely a Tiger I. Maybe if that story IS true it wasn't reported as a tank battle, being the Tiger was abandoned (they didn't know it at the time though, just that it was in their way and a potential threat).
Say that to the Stug 3/4 as well as the Panzer IV as they were in mass production. Lets not get into the politics of why certain tanks were made as it was the mindset on how Germany lost the war. As stated above the Stug 3/4 had the highest kill rate of tanks destroyed. Though classified as a tank destroyer it still used treads and therefore labeled as a subset of turretless tanks. The Panzer IV was Germany's Workhorse as it was cheap to make and ease of repair. The Panther had issues but it was one of best tanks in the war. The Tiger I caused absolute fear on the battlefield because it could kill a tank at 4 Kilometers. The Jadgtiger was the best Tank Destroyer in the war and the Hetzer's were able to take down JSII's. And finally 4 Jadgtigers help stop Patton's 3rd army cold at the end of the war. Politics is what Destroyed Germany in WWII as they followed a Mad Man straight into hell. Even then it was certain acts of God that I firmly believe Why I am here today and speaking English instead of being in a concentration camp as slave labor. Because of not being Racial pure. My family on both sides were in the War. My Family had worked in the defense industry. I was blessed to talk to real WWII veterans who told me the real story instead of those people trying to change history for their personal view. I bridge that gap between those of the past who are gone and can not tell their stories. But I firmly believe that as a free people... we got lucky. Do not forget the mistakes of our past because if we do... we might not be a fortunate the next time around.
germany only need to mass produced panzers IV rather than waste time and resources on pointless projects such as the maus,ferdinand and the countless variants of the same tank but then again with germany's limited manpower and resouces they didn't have much of a choice
Tiger wasn't unreliable it's a myth there are numbers and it wasn't slow or had problems in ruff terrain (one museum test it with an still functional tiger tank), if the Pershing drove fast above ruff terrain it broke it's drive components.
Quantity got almost 30 million Russians killed in 4 years of war. I'd rather be in a heavily armored King Tiger that was immobile but could slaughter still then be a easily destroyed weak ass lightweight tank.
I had an uncle who drove tanks in North Africa and Italy (for the New Zealand army) He never talked much about the war. However, as a kid I had a kitset model of a Lee tank and I recall him saying that the issue with the Lee was its main gun not being mounted in the turret. He also mentioned how one gunner in his unit got smacked in the head from the recoil of the gun - was never right in the head after that. Those occasional shared experiences make me wish that someone had been able to document his entire war experience before he passed....
The Tiger was a hell of a tank when it ran. But in my opinion, the biggest limitation on American tanks from everything I have seen was the weight limit of the dock cranes. It would have been easy to build bigger better, it was shipping them across the Atlantic by the thousand that was the issue
Well, the Tiger's unsloped 100mm plate was vulnerable to any high velocity gun (76mm M1, Qf 17pdr, 85mm etc.) and its main gun was roughly on par with the aforementioned guns, generally, I think the hull design lets it down massively in a fight, as 100mm of armor isn't a lot when comparing heavy tanks.
You are one of the only people who recognized the allied shipping problem. When u consider every Sherman was built in the USA they did a great job with that tank.
@John Cornell Even with only a handful, where the hell they gonna unload them at? Considering they didn't get a useable port till Antwerp, and that a lovely bunch of German fellows on the islands in the harbour.
I wanted to add something else. The Americans wanted to tank that was a good balance of speed power and armor. They really did get to the extent technology allowed. The Sherman was fast, in 1942 the 75mm gun was great, and it was armored that many early war tanks had trouble with it. Another great thing about the Sherman is that the thing was fixable. Dropping a transmission in a Sherman is a cake walk compared to doing the same in a panzer 3.
4:34 God can you imagine power and energy it would take to just scoop up the metal in that hit looks like giant ice cream spoon made the indentation and being inside hoping to survive
I thought the same when I saw it. I have seen the Comet tank up close and you do wonder how anything could knock one out. And then you see the photographs of them knocked out and wonder why would go into battle in one of them.
Quite incredible pictures. Looks like in a head to head, both the Pershing and the Tiger's shells could beat the armour of the other, so then it purely comes down to who can get the first shot on target.
Germany: We have built the most technologically tank known to man we can make 5,000 U.S. : We made a tank it’s pretty good. Let’s make 50,000 and see where it takes us
Rules of war: 1) you fight with the army and weapons you have, not what you want. 2) Speed of attack is more important than the force of the attack. 1 M4 now is better than 1 Tiger a day later. 3) Logistics are more important than weapons. Tigers were better tanks, but if they couldn't be supplied, they were useless. The feat of bringing 50,000 tanks to Europe was greater than building a perfect tank. 4) Quantity has a quality all of its own. The Tiger got off 3 shots quickly, one of which was a lucky one. But it got stuck and lost, and the lesser tanks achieved the objective.
The Russians deployed a similar response in the view that sheer numbers and mobility could overwhelm and overcome a superior force. Those British Chieftain tanks were very agile and fleet across the sands of North Africa and outflanked the Germans at several key tactical positions although those tanks were grossly inferior head on. The t34s were simply brutes that could almost be disassembled and rebuilt in the field which was not done due to sheer numbers however that was how they always had stock parts on hand by constantly scuttling damaged tanks. Germany has always been anal about the "perfect mechanism" whatever what form that may take. It often failed coming close to that mark. The Volkswagen beetle in my opinion was superior to all the German tanks. Just sayin
again, as per usual, the very best of WWII videos. My ‘go to guy’ for the best narrated, informative, and concise vids on social media. I look forward to to your no nonsense approach.
Mark your channel is criminally undersubscribed and your videos deserve many more views. Im very glad I happened upon your videos, Thoroughly enjoying them
There is an interesting revisionism about the Sherman. Perhaps its wasn't quite so inferior as has been the narrative for the last fifty years. Mechanical reliability, the availability of spares, excellent crew survivabilty (as proven by Army casualty records) etc have qualities in themselves that perhaps have been overshadowed by the mystique of the Tiger.
One thing about the Tiger (and all modern German types of WWII) that most neglect to discuss is their outstanding accuracy. The German tanks had the best optics and extremely well trained gunners and their hit rate was outstanding.
Absolutely fascinating to see breakdowns of these small individual engagements. It gives a really nice adjunct to a bigger picture view of the battlefields of the time.
The battle taking place around the 4:00 mark illustrates really well that in tank on tank combat, 99% of the time the victor is the one who acquires and fires on the enemy first.
There were serious design oversights in the Panther like no turret controls for the commander and no unity sight (1x optical or simply periscope) sight for the gunner. That made it very time consuming for the gunner to find the target that the commander has spotted. The French operated some Panthers after the war and found it took about half a minute longer in the Panther from acquisition to engagement than it did for a crew in a Sherman.
Excellent point. It wasn't uncommon for an inexperienced Panther driver to "blip" the throttle too hard in low gear and shear the pins in the final drives, rendering the tank inoperable. M4's were just as mechanically friendly to Iowa farm boys as the Allis Chalmers and International Harvesters back home.
Actually, the Armored Force had said it was going to pass on the M26 Pershing. Not only was the engine weak, they found other faults as well. So many faults were found that when they were finally corrected, the result was a completely different Tank, the M46 Patton. It was these faults that had convinced Armored Force not send the M26 Pershing to Europe. They stated the vehicle still had the bugs being worked out of it. There was a lot of work to be done. The M26 as we know it, was actually a back up design since the originally planned vehicles that were to be produced, all suffered some major fault that delayed delivery by a full year. By the time the M26 Pershing was built, it was 1944 and the first vehicles were only just entering trials when Armored Force said No. The situation changed in Europe with the Battle of the Bulge, though. Despite that, the Armored Force had wanted to send M36 Jacksons instead. They also had a 90mm and were coming off the production lines faster and had their testing complete. Some M36 Jacksons were actually called a B-variant because they used the M4 Sherman's hull and components. These had arrived before the end of the Battle of the Bulge and had acquitted themselves. But they arrived before the end of the Battle of the Bulge and the German Panzer forces were spent and dying. Sherman was enough. The Armored Force was more eager to get rid of their M5 Stuart Light Tanks and get M24 Chaffee Light Tanks into service than get Pershing into Europe. Pershing was pretty much forced on the Army. The commanders who got the M26 weren't happy either. They loved the 90mm guns, but there was now an ammo issue. More importantly, the engines were weak, the transmissions burnt out quick, armor was still vulnerable, crews had to be retrained, allotments made, and that's only the tip of the iceberg. Still, they got things going and managed, if barely.
@ 1:04: This Sherman is not an Easy Eight (E8). E8 is the wide track version wit HVSS suspension bogies. It does not tell something about the gun. But this one has the more powerful long barrel 76mm gun in the later T23 turret. 76mm Shermans used both the early narrow track (VVSS) and later wide track (HVSS).
My Dad was a WWII tanker in the 10th Armored Division. Shermans. He was in it from beginning to the end. He trained for a year in the states, then went to France in mid 1944. The 10th Armored had 80% casualties. Dad would say ” that included the cooks”! He was one of the very few, of the originals, to make it home. He lost about half a dozen of the Shermans and they would quickly give him another one. When he was on the mass-run-to-Bastone a sniper shot him. He recovered and rejoined his unit.
“The first time, the Sherman’s won. The second time the Pershing lost. And the third time they were being loaded only freight trains so it wasn’t really fair” Like if you get where this is from.
Excellent video and most interesting stories! Mr Felton Sir, you have created one of the best WW2 history channels that I know of. Oh, and congratulations on the new 20K or so subscribers! :)
Please watch the Chieftains Myths of American armor. You say some of these myths here. The Pershing was not late due to bureaucratic issues. It didn't work. And unlike the Germans, the US army was not going to rush a tank that was unsatisfactory into the field. We were meeting Tigers and Panthers and killing them with thank destoryer units. Field artillery and Sherman's. The Tiger did not cause any panic from a US perspective. Also, the Germans may have gone for quality, but they certainly didn't achive it. Look at the transmission issues of the Panther. Or the fact that it couldn't rotate it's turret on a slope over 20 degrees.
I have seen a video on the running gear of a panther its a piece of overly complex shit it's like yah ve can make a T34 but produce a pile of overrated shit. german engineering overrated. pity the Pershing wasn't ready a year before a tank division of them might have been Patton's wet dream ford fucked that up, bad engine sad.
@John Cornell I'm going to go with the estimation of a real tanker who spends all of his time on tank combat and history and who dives into archives whenever he can over a good, but general WW2 historian. He acknowledges that the 75 had issues with mid to late war German heavy tanks. The Sherman was upgraded with the 76. I'm not sure what this has to do with Pershing.
@John Cornell You talk about how the Sherman couldn't handle the Elefant - but then you admit that there were only 11 of them, 4 were knocked out by the Allies, and only 3 lasted the whole campaign. That's not exactly a major threat that requires a new tank to be rushed into production.
@John Cornell Cough cough Battle of Arracourt. Don't forget, the M8 that killed a tiger, it's the real champ in life. German tanks were idiotic at the end of the war. They were producing complex unreliable, resource intensive tanks that were so heavy that they broke bridges. They would have been much better off producing armor like the stug or other similar vehicles. Shermans could ding a tiger fine, you even have reports of M10's killing panthers at 3000+meters. That's freaking nuts and shows that we were doing fine with what we had. not only that, but the german crews at this time were not the best. I can go on and on and on, but at the end of the day the Germans lost... They didn't have quality, they had weight.
Don't take it as gospil. I too have seen those articles and they are very debatable. Just because it is a particular person with a rep saying it doesn't make them the premier expert on the subject matter. Don't get me wrong, the guy is very knowledgeable but he tends to gloss over all the weaknesses and mistakes and highlights the strengths. I get a distinct American bias from him too but that is normal. We all have bias one way or another. He is particularly good with his American technical stats but his overall view on WW2 military stratagems, politics, economics and the why of it all is highly controversial. I would never debate him on his technical knowledge of a Sherman but I do not agree with his overall assessment of American armour during WW2
VERY GOOD.!!! You have a new "customer"!!! Very well explained, with all the interesting pormenors. Kudos to you, and thanks for posting such an excellent video.
speech free it was a draw because both crews abandonned their tanks. Sure, the tiger knocked his foe out, but the driver's mistake disabled his vehicle.
The Tiger that hit it backed up into debris and got stuck and the crew bailed pretty much ending the fight with the Pershing getting downed and the Tiger being abandoned
Great video mark yet again. I was reading also that they modified one with parts of panther armour as they still found the armour lacking against the German tanks and anti tank guns. This of course then resulted in the tank being heavier and then caused issues with over heating etc. it would be great to know more on that tank if you could ever find out the info in your never ending resources. Did it survive the war? I love how you manage to where possible include crew names etc. really great stuff and factual without bias which is very rare for history channels on ww2. Thanks
Great video, it's refreshing to see objective information on the US vs German tank situation as it actually happened. Already we can see the improved crew survival rate of the M26 compared with the M4, it's just a pity that what should have been unnecessary delays in the US cost lives.
R Greenup This is not necessarily true. Total deaths for Americans on the whole of the Western front was @1500 for tankers as per Nick Moran, aka the “Chieftain”. Check out his yt channel, Chieftain, he links his sources.
@@MarkFeltonProductions Like it or not you are an excellent counter balance to the self styled expert who calls himself The Chieftan. Unlike him you just present the facts as they happened.
Around 2:25 or so the video shows various vehicles with white rectangular pieces of cloth (?) stretched over things. They are way too small to be for winter camouflage. What were they and what were they used for?
I watched a thing on Tanks in the Korean War. And they brought Pershing’s across from Japan and destroyed a entire wave of T-34’s with them that were headed south before the Inchon landing. The guy they interviewed who took part then went on the offensive with the unit and was all the way to the Yalu river when the Chinese attacked. They drove all the way back down to the 38th parallel
could you possibly make something about kv-2 or katyushas effectiveness or maybe something about the KV-8 or ISU tanks, that would be pretty interesting i think....keep up the good work mark! Really entertaining stuff
I don't think that the first encounter was a draw. The Tiger clearly mauled the M-26 out of action. Getting stuck in debris was an error on the Tiger's crew's part that was a separate happenstance.
One old man being interviewed reflected on his time as the Commander of a Tiger. “ We cut through the enemy’s armor like a hot knife through butter! But we still lost because we were so outnumbered that in the end, we drowned in melted butter!”
The M-26 Pershing was likely the best overall tank of World War II. Like the excellent British Centurian, it was too late to have a real impact on the battle space. Both would be instrumental in the Cold War and both would see action in the ‘56 and ‘67 Arab-Israeli Wars.
Professor Felton there is a story here I suspect that needs your scholarship. You made reference to the "poor' performance of the Ford V8 tank engine. That engine has a lot of mystery around it. First of all why wasn't it a V-12. Why wasn't it in the P-51 Mustang? At some point the US Government chose to ignore the Ford V-12 that Henry Ford had created to demonstrate that he could build a better engine than the Rolls Royce Merlin. He never got the chance. They chose the mature Merlin over the promising Ford. So P-51s flew with Packard Merlin engines even though on paper the new Ford was in all ways superior. The engine that we got from Rolls-Royce had to be extensively re-engineered. One wonders if we had simply put the Ford in the Mustang instead of the Allison would it have been ready sooner that the lengthy period it took to modify the Merlin? The main advantages that that the Mustang had over the German planes were Texas 150 octane gasoline and the Merlin supercharger. Why didn't we just insist that the Brits give us the Merlin supercharger technology? We seemed to have struck a weak deal with our ally. The Ford V-12 was chopped down from a twelve to an eight and put into Sherman tanks where it served very successfully. The first question was why not use the Ford V-12 in aircraft. The Navy wanted to use rotraries but the Air Force (as it was known later) preferred straight 12s. One suspects that there was a political dimension. The British at the time were not contributing as much as we had hoped. Later and after the the end of the war the British made some great tanks but early in the conflict their tanks were pretty bad. We gave them Shermans. We gave everyone Shermans. The Brits stuck a detuned Merlin in a whole series of their tanks starting with (I think) the Meteor. They kept it as a natural V-12 but removed the supercharger. Worked great. Very fast and powerful for its day. We could have similarly dropped our V-12 Ford which was an inherently more reliable and advanced engine into our Shermans and Pershings. Why didn't we? Eventually of course we got a proper purpose built V-12 air cooled diesels for our tanks. But that was later. In 1945 and in Korea the Pershings should have had Ford V-12 power plants. Everyone is arguing about why America was fighting with a medium tanks against German heavy tanks. The greater mystery was why with didn't we use our superlative Ford engines. Was it for Anglo-American politics? I'm just an amature tank enthusiast. We need a real historian.
Your videos are soo good. Thank you. I had always wondered what would happen. I love the style of your voice over the foootage. Keep up the good work mate.
4:51 A "draw"? Not really. The fight was over when the German crew got stuck. As I see it, the Tiger won that engagement, with 3 hits and no return fire..
Please do an episode on the U.S. Army M36 tank destroyers. IIRC they had the same 90mm gun that the M26 Pershing used. The M36 were in Northern Europe in 1944. But not much is ever said about the 90 mm tank destroyer combat record
During my army service in the Croatian Army in 1998.I had the honor to drive in M36 Jackson.In our brigade we had 6 of them.They were donation of USA to ex.Yugoslavia in 1950s because of Yugoslavia vs.USSR political conflict.These tanks were upgraded in croatian factory Đuro Đaković( they produced croatian upgraded versions of T-72 )by new 90mm cannon and stronger engine .These tanks were also used in Croatian homeland war1991-1995.They knocked out few serbian T72 and T55 (majority of the tanks on both sides were T 55 and T72 and it's variant M84) but against serbian bunkers it was awesome👍We have them still preserved in our army museum in the Turanj,the defence point of the city of Karlovac.M36 rocks !
Mark, if you look up Aspengler on TH-cam you will see a weekly updated Lego ww2 battle based on events at the Cologne cathedral, where a panther fought a Pershing. I recommend you check it out because it is very detailed and looks cool. Love your work and videos!
One of the things about American tanks as opposed to the German tanks which was shown here was how easy they were to repair. The Pershing was damaged but repaired and returned to service. When a German tank was damaged the repairs that were required would practically keep it out of service.
Not correct at all. I have done extensive research on German tank recovery and repair units. They were extremely good at what they did only limited by spare parts they had to hand. Depending on the type of tank your talking about and the type of damage they could get a tank up and running again in 24 hours. A German repair crew actually completely took apart a Tiger and put it back together in under 24 hours IN THE FIELD! As long as they had the spare parts they actually worked miracles with their armour. Particularly if you take into account the complexity of German engineering.
Narrative is so skewed against Germany and in favor of the Allies that we rarely hear about the everyday heroes like mechanics and doctors on their side History is written and revised by the victors
The Americans were generally advancing, while the Germans were generally retreating. That made it easier for Americans to recover and repair their damaged tanks - just wait a few days for the front to move, and recover the damaged tanks in peace, while the Germans had only a limited time to recover their tanks before getting overrun and they would more likely be under fire while doing so.
One unsung "hero" of armor battles is the tank recovery vehicles and crews. It's basically a tank with the main gun removed and a tow crane installed. My old friend was adopted by an older man who worked/fought on a Sherman recovery vehicle in WW2. He said the US was far better at quickly going out an retrieving knocked out but repairable tanks than the Germans. One of the problems is the Germans were actually critically short if tanks through the last half of the war and they could use fewer as recovery vehicles. The Russians who had even cruder tanks (and more of them) than both the Germans and US could repair and return tanks to combat even faster. There is a story of a T-34 riddled with AP shot being repaired. They grinded off the spalled metal, welded new metal over the holes, dropped the engine and replaced it. Then sprayed the blood out with hoses as the new crew were loading supplies. Imagine the feeling the crew must of had.
dont take down videos for minor mistakes, i was going to watch it 5 mins later and it was gone, you can leave them up there while you are perfecting it. Love your channel keep up the good work
Good video, but I would encourage you to watch some of the Chieftain’s videos about WWII U.S. armored vehicles, the M-4 Sherman in particular, which has gotten a bum rap. It was a superbly designed tank that did what it was designed to do literally all around the world. U.S. armor crewmen had the highest survival rates of any army in WWII, much better than that of the infantry. It was very reliable, easy to maintain and repair. And the best tank in the world is useless if you cannot maintain it or supply it with enough fuel and ammunition to keep fighting (i.e. German tanks).
While that is very true, it nothing to do with what he said, the Tiger was after all a hard opponent for the Sherman and a long range fight would almost always end with the Sherman being destroyed, so even as great as the Sherman was for am all round tank, it had disadvantage wich were recognized and dealed with in form of the Pershing.
Yes, but unlike most tankers, the Chieftain has done exhaustive research (because that’s what Wargaming pays him to do) examining original documentation (not internet information) in military archives around the world. He is a thorough scholar in these matters. The actual documented cases in which M-4 Shermans actually had to fight Tiger tanks can be counted on one hand. The Panther was actually a bigger threat.
It's interesting to note how opposing sides can agree, at least on some things! The Germans called the Sherman tanks used by the English in North Africa "Tommy Cookers," & their OWN British crews called them "Ronsons," because Ronson cigarette lighter's motto was "Lights EVERY time!" It was known that the Sherman had 2 side mounted fuel tanks - one each side & an ordinary High Explosive shell [Armour Piercing NOT needed] could set these alight EVERY time!
The T-34 Russian tank was probably the best all around tank of WWII.Sloped frontal armour and more than capable gun and super dependable motor.The T34s took out plenty of Tigers and Panthers on the Eastern front.
@@mark6310 T-34 was a scrap comparing with Tigers or Panthers.Tiger was able to confront 1vs5 T-34.The biggest advantage of T-34 was the very high mass production(quantity over quality).
US ports were limited by the max weight capacity of the cranes. Since all vehicles had to be lifted onto ships this part of the infrastructure had to be upgraded.
I think my choice would be the M26 and the Panther with the Comet for Britain. Ironic that the two iconic German tanks of WW2 are the Panther and the Tiger. One is the German version of the T34 and the other was a design cobbled together to take on the T34. You have to wonder what would have happened if the Germans had just gone for a simplified version of these two tanks and concentrated on numbers and less on quality. We found them difficult enough. Imagine if the production numbers had been between 20,000 and 30,000.
This differs slightly from the other places I've heard of this story. I've always heard it said that, during the night, the inexperienced *Fireball* crew took up a position watching a cross roads, with a burning building behind. This perfectly silhouetted the tank for enemy observers, whilst leaving the Pershing crew blind to the dark.
Interesting video Mark! Cheers again! Maybe you could do a video on the duel between a T26E1 "Super Pershing" and a Tiger 2 ausf B in Dessau on the 21st of April 1945 which ends in a Super Pershing victory, I reckon it would make a good video as there's lots of material surrendering the duel from what I've seen online.
There is no evidence of that battle happening. There is no pictures or any evidence that king tigers were in the area where it was claimed to have happened.
Panther quality? Is this a joke? A tank the wehrmacht was so paranoid about breaking down, they wouldn't allow it to travel distances further than 50 kilometers without transportation on railways. And let us not even talk about the terrible ergonomics of the tank for the crews. A Sherman crew could identify and engage a target in roughly half the time it took a panther crew, due to the layout of the crew compartment. The Panther had many mechanical issues, which plaqued the tank till the end of the war. The Panther used straight cut spur gears made from low-quality steel designed for a 35 ton tank in what ended up being a 45 ton tank, which had only an average lifetime of aprox 140 km. And the Panther was not as well protected as it might look on paper. The front was well angled, but the sides had only 40mm of armor, pretty much any allied anti tank gun could penetrate it on larger distances. This made the Panther vulnerable in many engagements. And the tank it self was hopeless undermotorized, the original concept for the Panther was designed around a 20-30 ton vehicle not the 45 it ended up with! This put a lot of stress to the engine, which lead to high maintenance and brake downs. Not a good characteristic for a medium tank that is supposed to move large distances on its own. This idea that the Panther was a good or just decent medium tank is a myth.
There is a lot of statements in your comment. But I cannot agree to all of them. When Panther arrived at the battlefield, the Red Army was shocked, because of the precision and long-range penetration capabilities of the armament. In combination with the clear doctrine for use of this tank, it was superior to anything at that time, also because of its mobility. It was high-powered with a 700 hp engine, the negative talk about the panther is when it was (at times out of necessity) not used as per its doctrine, and the flanks were not protected. Then the AT guns had an easy time. The reliability in covering long distances was very much improved with upgrades in spur gears and the like in mid 44. The Panther was considered a quantum leap in tanks.
And to add some facts for you, you do not drive tanks for long distances when your nation have a low supply in fuel and when you are defending, you put them on a railroad and drop them off about 50 km from the front and drive them there. Do you know how much fuel a tank consume? It vary from tank to tank, but it's a crazy amount! like 10-20 liters per 10 km. That and building the Panther where a really good tank for it's time, of course you are gonna run into infant problems with a new tank, especially when you are pressed on 3 fronts and have to push it into battle. That is just natural, but not doing anything towards these problems would be idiotic, and the Germans actually dealt with these problems and had a superior tank after that, and you gotta see that this was already in 1942. The Pershing was introduced in 1944, the Germans where on producing the Tiger II and where looking into standardizing there overall tank designs with a "MBT variant". So claiming that the Panther "where a joke" is a lack of knowledge from your part or you are just bias towards the U.S. And i'm not saying this too be mean, it just looks like that from my perspective. But yes the Pershing was a good tank, nobody is gonna take that away from the U.S. but it came too late, and if the German army would have lasted for like let's say another 2 years, they would have put there new MBT into the field and now the Pershing along with all the Soviet's counterpart would have been outdated and maybe the war would have ended differently, who knows? The main reason for all the German tank losses was not because of the Sherman's and the Pershing's, it was because of the Allied air superiority.
and the panther continued to be used by the french years after the war, the panther did have teething troubles as any new tank had but they were ironed out and it was very reliable - and lethal, even the tiger 1 if looked after and maintained was not the unreliable machine it was made out out to be - read 'tigers in the mud ' by tiger ace, otto carius.
At Kursk only a few of some hundreds reached the battle field, the final gear was so overstressed that the crews were told to not use it often, if Hitler had stopped the pz IV production completely to favour the Panther the war was over a year sooner, but the generals told Hitler that the pz IV should continue by any means. The Panther gun was the best 75 mm gun ever though.
I've been searching for a long time for something that told the story of the Pershing in WWII. I have finally found it. I want to hear the stories in more detail.
The M4 with 76mm was a superior upgrade that gave her knockout ability against Tiger 1 and Panthers. Not so much for the rare King tiger. They were more than capable of taking them out. Sherman's generally operated in superior numerical advantage in most scenarios and that is why the allied high command always relied on that strategy to overcome veteran German tanks. Also infantry plays a big role in anti tank warfare with anti tank guns and close in bazooka. The battlefield is not all about tank to tank warfare
Yes, regarding the 76mm gun upgrade. But even here, the Tiger had to be within 500 yards and the Panthers within 100 yards to penetrate the front armor. The Tigers and Panthers could penetrate Sherman front armor a mile away. As far as WW II U.S. towed anti-tank guns and bazookas go, they were a joke against well-armored German AFVs.
As usual another fine production Mr. Felton. I enjoy your work very much! One minor detail to note, at 2:45, that should be the 3. Panzergrenadier Division not "2nd".
The "Easy Eight" Shermans were those with the HVSS suspension not the 76mm gun. These were usually later model 76mm Shermans, but many earlier 76mm tanks had VVSS and thus not Easy Eight. The M4E6 (E6 modification) was the uprade to larger turrret (borrowed from T23 development tank) and 76mm gun. The very first 76mm up-gunned Shermans saw actions just after D-Day and were VVSS equipped M4A1 cast hull Shermans.
The design really came into it's own in Korea where it mopped the floor with the T-34s.
This is like History Channel about 15 years ago when it still displayed fascinating stuff I didn't know.
Tiger knocks out Pershing. Tiger gets stuck in debri. "Alright then, we'll call it a draw".
"I've had worse"
the exchange itself was won by the tiger.
allies only admit 1 pershing knocked out by the nashorn because it was destroyed. however knocked out is a kill.
in that case 3 pershings were knocked out in the war.
Chess pieces
You brought up an important difference between the US and German armies that I learned from reading Stephen Ambrose's book "Citizen Soldiers". About half of the US Army in Europe were in support roles like mechanics and truck drivers. The Germans had to use 90% of their soldiers on the front lines. When a German vehicle broke down or was damaged, even minor problems, it was abandoned because they had no one to repair them, while the US would tow tanks, trucks, and other vehicles to rear areas and repair them and put them back into action.
There was nothing wrong will the quality of the Sherman. It’s just that you can’t match a medium tank against a heavy tank. It’s a different category.
Connecting 4 shots on the move from 1,000 yards is quite an amazing display of gunnery skill for 1945.
W1se0ldg33zer well the Pershing have a stabilizer...
gyroscopically stabilized main gun, just like the Sherman.
Not really considering the shells were still extremely powerful and could keep moving beyond 1000 yards on the move yes but it wss a life or death situation and I imagine he was in the zone and your shooting at huge chunks of metal a bullets then were just a powerful as today they still put the same shit in the bullets^_^
bender rodriguez Lol tank commanders took 9 months to train. German crews didn’t get 10% of that.
Some did have a barrel stabilizer which helped.
As a military historian, I can really appreciate and understand the hours of research it takes for you to produce the handful of minutes you provide us. Well done, Mate.
Whos genius Idea was it to call their tank "Fireball"? Thats great for crew morale id say...
Tank nicknames were almost always decided by the tank's crew and typically with humorous intent. This tradition is kept up even today with some tanks being called "Barely Legal" and "ALL BOUT DA BONES".
It could have been for the "Red Ball Express." U.S. Supply Trucks with high priority, high speed supply trucks, had red circles painted on them. They were known as the "Red ball Express," or sometimes as "Fireballs."
@FooBar Maximus that myrh actually has been put to rest. The Sherman was not nearly as flammable or as dangers as many say. If anything it was the most survivable tank of the war.
@@mladtheimpaler Oh ok. But it's the tankies themselves that say it. Perhaps they were wrong all along, and your right eh?
It would be a good name for some german tank destroyers if you know what I mean.
What really improved by the time of the Pershing was the quality of the steel they used. You see that huge gauge in the armor, like left by an ice-cream scoop - that means the steel became soft under the pressure of the 88mm high velocity round, absorbed and dissipated the energy, instead of letting it through like iron. Took some time until the Americans discovered tempered steel - a hard layer outside, but soft inside to absorb the kinetic energy of the projectile.
I think the most overlooked virtue of tanks like the Sherman was the American designers understanding that a tank like that, equipped with beefed up V8 motors , would easily be handled and repaired in the field by American farm boys use to tractors and combines, and all the young hotrodders...
And so they were.
My dad (fought in the Pacific, 90mm AA gun) always told a story about his next younger brother, my uncle, who was in Patton's army from Houffalize and on to the end of the war.
He said that when they were fighting their way thru Germany in '45, they came across a town they were ordered to take that was down in a small valley. Only problem was there was a Tiger I down there next to a haystack, and all they had were Shermans. As they were up on a small ridge trying to figure how to go about it, a tanker Sgt. walked up and asked what the holdup was. When they pointed out the Tiger I, the tanker told them his tank could take care of it, and walked back where he came from. They heard a tank approching, and saw an American tank they had never seen before (Pershing). The Pershing positioned itself hull down, fired one round that missed the Tiger, adjusted slightly, fired another round and the turret of the Tiger blew off.Then my uncle's unit went in and took the town.
I asked my uncle about it the last family reunion before he died, and he pretty much told it the same way, said it was definitely a Tiger I but added it probably wasn't crewed, though they didn't know that at the time.
Kinda odd that when you hear about Pershings vs. Tigers I've never come across that event, other than the story from my uncle. Was my uncle lying? Was he mistaken as to what kind of tank? He was adamant that it was a Tiger I, even describing the characteristics of the different German tanks (Panzer IV, V, Tiger, etc) and said it was definitely a Tiger I. Maybe if that story IS true it wasn't reported as a tank battle, being the Tiger was abandoned (they didn't know it at the time though, just that it was in their way and a potential threat).
Germans went for quality, but ended up with complexity, unreliability and lower production rates.
Say that to the Stug 3/4 as well as the Panzer IV as they were in mass production. Lets not get into the politics of why certain tanks were made as it was the mindset on how Germany lost the war. As stated above the Stug 3/4 had the highest kill rate of tanks destroyed. Though classified as a tank destroyer it still used treads and therefore labeled as a subset of turretless tanks.
The Panzer IV was Germany's Workhorse as it was cheap to make and ease of repair. The Panther had issues but it was one of best tanks in the war. The Tiger I caused absolute fear on the battlefield because it could kill a tank at 4 Kilometers.
The Jadgtiger was the best Tank Destroyer in the war and the Hetzer's were able to take down JSII's. And finally 4 Jadgtigers help stop Patton's 3rd army cold at the end of the war.
Politics is what Destroyed Germany in WWII as they followed a Mad Man straight into hell. Even then it was certain acts of God that I firmly believe Why I am here today and speaking English instead of being in a concentration camp as slave labor. Because of not being Racial pure.
My family on both sides were in the War. My Family had worked in the defense industry. I was blessed to talk to real WWII veterans who told me the real story instead of those people trying to change history for their personal view.
I bridge that gap between those of the past who are gone and can not tell their stories. But I firmly believe that as a free people... we got lucky.
Do not forget the mistakes of our past because if we do... we might not be a fortunate the next time around.
germany only need to mass produced panzers IV rather than waste time and resources on pointless projects such as the maus,ferdinand and the countless variants of the same tank but then again with germany's limited manpower and resouces they didn't have much of a choice
And this is why Soviet Union won
Tiger wasn't unreliable it's a myth there are numbers and it wasn't slow or had problems in ruff terrain (one museum test it with an still functional tiger tank), if the Pershing drove fast above ruff terrain it broke it's drive components.
Quantity got almost 30 million Russians killed in 4 years of war. I'd rather be in a heavily armored King Tiger that was immobile but could slaughter still then be a easily destroyed weak ass lightweight tank.
I had an uncle who drove tanks in North Africa and Italy (for the New Zealand army) He never talked much about the war. However, as a kid I had a kitset model of a Lee tank and I recall him saying that the issue with the Lee was its main gun not being mounted in the turret. He also mentioned how one gunner in his unit got smacked in the head from the recoil of the gun - was never right in the head after that. Those occasional shared experiences make me wish that someone had been able to document his entire war experience before he passed....
"Quantity has a quality all it's own."
-Joseph Stalin
The Tiger was a hell of a tank when it ran. But in my opinion, the biggest limitation on American tanks from everything I have seen was the weight limit of the dock cranes. It would have been easy to build bigger better, it was shipping them across the Atlantic by the thousand that was the issue
Well, the Tiger's unsloped 100mm plate was vulnerable to any high velocity gun (76mm M1, Qf 17pdr, 85mm etc.) and its main gun was roughly on par with the aforementioned guns, generally, I think the hull design lets it down massively in a fight, as 100mm of armor isn't a lot when comparing heavy tanks.
You are one of the only people who recognized the allied shipping problem. When u consider every Sherman was built in the USA they did a great job with that tank.
The best feature Sherman's had was that we could put a lot of them on our cargo vessels.
@John Cornell Even with only a handful, where the hell they gonna unload them at? Considering they didn't get a useable port till Antwerp, and that a lovely bunch of German fellows on the islands in the harbour.
I wanted to add something else. The Americans wanted to tank that was a good balance of speed power and armor. They really did get to the extent technology allowed. The Sherman was fast, in 1942 the 75mm gun was great, and it was armored that many early war tanks had trouble with it.
Another great thing about the Sherman is that the thing was fixable. Dropping a transmission in a Sherman is a cake walk compared to doing the same in a panzer 3.
4:34 God can you imagine power and energy it would take to just scoop up the metal in that hit looks like giant ice cream spoon made the indentation and being inside hoping to survive
Slightly disconcerting
I thought the same when I saw it. I have seen the Comet tank up close and you do wonder how anything could knock one out. And then you see the photographs of them knocked out and wonder why would go into battle in one of them.
Quite incredible pictures.
Looks like in a head to head, both the Pershing and the Tiger's shells could beat the armour of the other, so then it purely comes down to who can get the first shot on target.
Pushed aside not scooped, humans are amazing. We went from throwing rocks and using sticks to launching "ice cream scoopere" at "metal walls"
Unimaginable.. at that time, with that much at stake.. adrenalin has replaced your blood.. and the misery after a failed battle.. omg.
Germany: We have built the most technologically tank known to man we can make 5,000
U.S. : We made a tank it’s pretty good. Let’s make 50,000 and see where it takes us
a lot of "us" - to a grave
Rules of war: 1) you fight with the army and weapons you have, not what you want. 2) Speed of attack is more important than the force of the attack. 1 M4 now is better than 1 Tiger a day later. 3) Logistics are more important than weapons. Tigers were better tanks, but if they couldn't be supplied, they were useless. The feat of bringing 50,000 tanks to Europe was greater than building a perfect tank. 4) Quantity has a quality all of its own. The Tiger got off 3 shots quickly, one of which was a lucky one. But it got stuck and lost, and the lesser tanks achieved the objective.
The Russians deployed a similar response in the view that sheer numbers and mobility could overwhelm and overcome a superior force. Those British Chieftain tanks were very agile and fleet across the sands of North Africa and outflanked the Germans at several key tactical positions although those tanks were grossly inferior head on. The t34s were simply brutes that could almost be disassembled and rebuilt in the field which was not done due to sheer numbers however that was how they always had stock parts on hand by constantly scuttling damaged tanks.
Germany has always been anal about the "perfect mechanism" whatever what form that may take. It often failed coming close to that mark. The Volkswagen beetle in my opinion was superior to all the German tanks. Just sayin
@@AndyZach The fact is German are outnumbered by US+UK+USSR, Its already miracle that they can sustain Allies attack for so long
The sherman tank was nicknamed RONSON by allied troops after the RONSON lighter .
The Panther was a beautiful tank
*is
the gearbox however, was pretty horrible :)
again, as per usual, the very best of WWII videos.
My ‘go to guy’ for the best narrated, informative, and concise vids on social media.
I look forward to to your no nonsense approach.
Very kind of you to say - thanks for your support of my channel
Mark your channel is criminally undersubscribed and your videos deserve many more views. Im very glad I happened upon your videos, Thoroughly enjoying them
I assume this M26 Pershing was the one that killed the "Last Panther in Cologne"
You will soon find out
@2nd Amendment for Canada! Thats a job for the M103 or T29/T32 American heavy tanks.
Or a 76mm Sherman. Or the M18 GMC. Or a firefly...
I think it was an M10 or another tank destroyer
Yup....
I dont think the US encountered any more Tigers/ Panthers than did the Brits. It was the Brits who faced the first of the Panzer Divisions around Caen
There is an interesting revisionism about the Sherman. Perhaps its wasn't quite so inferior as has been the narrative for the last fifty years. Mechanical reliability, the availability of spares, excellent crew survivabilty (as proven by Army casualty records) etc have qualities in themselves that perhaps have been overshadowed by the mystique of the Tiger.
The Cheiftain seems to spearhead its rehabilitaion. He had a very good video regarding this
One of the primary reasons why the British suffered higher tank casualties was because they wore berets rather than helmets.
Remember the Sherman jumbo, more estimated frontal armour then a tiger 1
@@semiauto3148 You're Donald Trump, aren't you ?
@@fudgedog123
If he was he wouldn't bash Russia (deservedly).
Once again Mark. I get excited like a school kid when I see you posted new videos. Superb quality and content. Hit it out of the park!!!!!
High praise indeed!
One thing about the Tiger (and all modern German types of WWII) that most neglect to discuss is their outstanding accuracy. The German tanks had the best optics and extremely well trained gunners and their hit rate was outstanding.
Absolutely fascinating to see breakdowns of these small individual engagements. It gives a really nice adjunct to a bigger picture view of the battlefields of the time.
The battle taking place around the 4:00 mark illustrates really well that in tank on tank combat, 99% of the time the victor is the one who acquires and fires on the enemy first.
I finally found where all the history from History Channel went to! Love the channel.
Many thanks - very kind
They say "quality over quantity" but the u.s. tanks were way more reliable than the German tanks I think it should be more complexity over quantity
There were serious design oversights in the Panther like no turret controls for the commander and no unity sight (1x optical or simply periscope) sight for the gunner. That made it very time consuming for the gunner to find the target that the commander has spotted. The French operated some Panthers after the war and found it took about half a minute longer in the Panther from acquisition to engagement than it did for a crew in a Sherman.
@John Cornell what is an overall average operational ratio?
Vehicles that don't suffer from major breakdowns or issues, I'm guessing
Excellent point. It wasn't uncommon for an inexperienced Panther driver to "blip" the throttle too hard in low gear and shear the pins in the final drives, rendering the tank inoperable. M4's were just as mechanically friendly to Iowa farm boys as the Allis Chalmers and International Harvesters back home.
Yes but even if factories weren’t being bombed, panthers and especially the tiger 2 had serious dogshit engines resulted by rushed blueprints
Pretty much the only TH-cam channel that makes me smile when a new video goes up.
Actually, the Armored Force had said it was going to pass on the M26 Pershing. Not only was the engine weak, they found other faults as well. So many faults were found that when they were finally corrected, the result was a completely different Tank, the M46 Patton.
It was these faults that had convinced Armored Force not send the M26 Pershing to Europe. They stated the vehicle still had the bugs being worked out of it. There was a lot of work to be done. The M26 as we know it, was actually a back up design since the originally planned vehicles that were to be produced, all suffered some major fault that delayed delivery by a full year.
By the time the M26 Pershing was built, it was 1944 and the first vehicles were only just entering trials when Armored Force said No. The situation changed in Europe with the Battle of the Bulge, though. Despite that, the Armored Force had wanted to send M36 Jacksons instead. They also had a 90mm and were coming off the production lines faster and had their testing complete. Some M36 Jacksons were actually called a B-variant because they used the M4 Sherman's hull and components. These had arrived before the end of the Battle of the Bulge and had acquitted themselves.
But they arrived before the end of the Battle of the Bulge and the German Panzer forces were spent and dying. Sherman was enough. The Armored Force was more eager to get rid of their M5 Stuart Light Tanks and get M24 Chaffee Light Tanks into service than get Pershing into Europe.
Pershing was pretty much forced on the Army. The commanders who got the M26 weren't happy either. They loved the 90mm guns, but there was now an ammo issue. More importantly, the engines were weak, the transmissions burnt out quick, armor was still vulnerable, crews had to be retrained, allotments made, and that's only the tip of the iceberg.
Still, they got things going and managed, if barely.
@ 1:04: This Sherman is not an Easy Eight (E8). E8 is the wide track version wit HVSS suspension bogies. It does not tell something about the gun.
But this one has the more powerful long barrel 76mm gun in the later T23 turret.
76mm Shermans used both the early narrow track (VVSS) and later wide track (HVSS).
You're going to spend a lot of time if you want go through Mark's videos and point out all the inaccuracies :)
My Dad was a WWII tanker in the 10th Armored Division. Shermans. He was in it from beginning to the end. He trained for a year in the states, then went to France in mid 1944. The 10th Armored had 80% casualties. Dad would say ” that included the cooks”! He was one of the very few, of the originals, to make it home. He lost about half a dozen of the Shermans and they would quickly give him another one. When he was on the mass-run-to-Bastone a sniper shot him. He recovered and rejoined his unit.
“The first time, the Sherman’s won. The second time the Pershing lost. And the third time they were being loaded only freight trains so it wasn’t really fair”
Like if you get where this is from.
I think Mark needs to watch that video.
Flat cars*
@@kyle857 I think a lot of people need to watch that video.
Yes, Mark does a great job but needs to watch that video.
@@kyle857 I think Mark needs to watch a lot of videos and read a lot of books.
Nice, tightly produced story. I learned things from it. Thank you.
I'm pleased to hear
Thank you for this. Very well done. The actual photos were great.
Having been to Köln, by train through Belgium, I can attest that the forest is still very dense.
Yes, I've driven it both ways and agree with you
Excellent video and most interesting stories! Mr Felton Sir, you have created one of the best WW2 history channels that I know of. Oh, and congratulations on the new 20K or so subscribers! :)
Very king of you to say - thanks for watching
Naming a tank 'Fireball' reminds of the Navy naming their Ammo supply ships after Volcanos
Now that's a sense of ghoulish humor!!!
This is one of the best WW2 channels on youtube.
Please watch the Chieftains Myths of American armor. You say some of these myths here. The Pershing was not late due to bureaucratic issues. It didn't work. And unlike the Germans, the US army was not going to rush a tank that was unsatisfactory into the field. We were meeting Tigers and Panthers and killing them with thank destoryer units. Field artillery and Sherman's. The Tiger did not cause any panic from a US perspective. Also, the Germans may have gone for quality, but they certainly didn't achive it. Look at the transmission issues of the Panther. Or the fact that it couldn't rotate it's turret on a slope over 20 degrees.
I have seen a video on the running gear of a panther its a piece of overly complex shit it's like yah ve can make a T34 but produce a pile of overrated shit. german engineering overrated. pity the Pershing wasn't ready a year before a tank division of them might have been Patton's wet dream ford fucked that up, bad engine sad.
@John Cornell I'm going to go with the estimation of a real tanker who spends all of his time on tank combat and history and who dives into archives whenever he can over a good, but general WW2 historian. He acknowledges that the 75 had issues with mid to late war German heavy tanks. The Sherman was upgraded with the 76. I'm not sure what this has to do with Pershing.
@John Cornell You talk about how the Sherman couldn't handle the Elefant - but then you admit that there were only 11 of them, 4 were knocked out by the Allies, and only 3 lasted the whole campaign. That's not exactly a major threat that requires a new tank to be rushed into production.
@John Cornell Cough cough Battle of Arracourt. Don't forget, the M8 that killed a tiger, it's the real champ in life. German tanks were idiotic at the end of the war. They were producing complex unreliable, resource intensive tanks that were so heavy that they broke bridges. They would have been much better off producing armor like the stug or other similar vehicles. Shermans could ding a tiger fine, you even have reports of M10's killing panthers at 3000+meters. That's freaking nuts and shows that we were doing fine with what we had.
not only that, but the german crews at this time were not the best. I can go on and on and on, but at the end of the day the Germans lost... They didn't have quality, they had weight.
Don't take it as gospil. I too have seen those articles and they are very debatable. Just because it is a particular person with a rep saying it doesn't make them the premier expert on the subject matter. Don't get me wrong, the guy is very knowledgeable but he tends to gloss over all the weaknesses and mistakes and highlights the strengths. I get a distinct American bias from him too but that is normal. We all have bias one way or another. He is particularly good with his American technical stats but his overall view on WW2 military stratagems, politics, economics and the why of it all is highly controversial. I would never debate him on his technical knowledge of a Sherman but I do not agree with his overall assessment of American armour during WW2
So good Mark. I think this is my favorite TH-cam channel. Great work!
VERY GOOD.!!!
You have a new "customer"!!!
Very well explained, with all the interesting pormenors.
Kudos to you, and thanks for posting such an excellent video.
Glad to welcome you aboard
One of my top three you tube channels. Love to see an upload! Fantastic as always.
That's great to hear
Tiger was a beast, and interestingly deployed. But... the mechnical troubles were unpardonable.
Nicely done, Mark, you know your stuff, and you deliver it well.
How was that a draw? The tiger mopped the ground with the pershing.
speech free it was a draw because both crews abandonned their tanks. Sure, the tiger knocked his foe out, but the driver's mistake disabled his vehicle.
The Tiger that hit it backed up into debris and got stuck and the crew bailed pretty much ending the fight with the Pershing getting downed and the Tiger being abandoned
It had to be abandoned.
Pershing wasn't completely decommissioned. Both crew men on both tanks bailed so it was a draw.
Both sides lost a tank, but in the actual tank vs tank stats, the Tiger did win that one.
Always love these Nuggets of History - thank you again & again!
It's a vast and uncomplicated pleasure!
Great video mark yet again. I was reading also that they modified one with parts of panther armour as they still found the armour lacking against the German tanks and anti tank guns. This of course then resulted in the tank being heavier and then caused issues with over heating etc. it would be great to know more on that tank if you could ever find out the info in your never ending resources. Did it survive the war? I love how you manage to where possible include crew names etc. really great stuff and factual without bias which is very rare for history channels on ww2. Thanks
There were several "super pershings" built in the field, there is a picture of one in a tank depot at the end of the war.
This channel is a rising star!
Great stuff.
You are very kind
Little tease of the Cologne Panther vs M26 at the end there, can’t wait for the video!
Great video Mark, I am enjoying your channel very much. Well done Lad!
Thanks for joining
I subscribed when you had like 80 subscribers, good show old chap !!
Mark Felton. A stitcher of puzzles in WW2 history
Great video, it's refreshing to see objective information on the US vs German tank situation as it actually happened. Already we can see the improved crew survival rate of the M26 compared with the M4, it's just a pity that what should have been unnecessary delays in the US cost lives.
Watch the Chieftains Myths of American armor. The Sherman was one of the most survivable tanks of the war.
R Greenup
This is not necessarily true. Total deaths for Americans on the whole of the Western front was @1500 for tankers as per Nick Moran, aka the “Chieftain”. Check out his yt channel, Chieftain, he links his sources.
Very kind.
I get the feeling you enjoy my videos in a way that was not intended.
@@MarkFeltonProductions Like it or not you are an excellent counter balance to the self styled expert who calls himself The Chieftan. Unlike him you just present the facts as they happened.
This is the voice of the man that comes out in a lot of WW2 short documentaries!!!
Re-uploaded?
I made a mistake in the narration - thought it best to correct early on!
Indeed
@@MarkFeltonProductions Haha, 100 meters of frontal armour, that's an awful lot! quick fix though, great video.
Around 2:25 or so the video shows various vehicles with white rectangular pieces of cloth (?) stretched over things. They are way too small to be for winter camouflage. What were they and what were they used for?
I watched a thing on Tanks in the Korean War. And they brought Pershing’s across from Japan and destroyed a entire wave of T-34’s with them that were headed south before the Inchon landing. The guy they interviewed who took part then went on the offensive with the unit and was all the way to the Yalu river when the Chinese attacked. They drove all the way back down to the 38th parallel
Thank you, Mark Felton! Great knowledge, Great videos!
Thanks for watching
could you possibly make something about kv-2 or katyushas effectiveness or maybe something about the KV-8 or ISU tanks, that would be pretty interesting i think....keep up the good work mark! Really entertaining stuff
Yes. Those don't get much attention!
Excellent. I love the detail, describing small unit tactics. Definitely on my list of go-to channels!
That's great news.
I don't think that the first encounter was a draw. The Tiger clearly mauled the M-26 out of action. Getting stuck in debris was an error on the Tiger's crew's part that was a separate happenstance.
Damn i just love these videos man. So many magnificent untold stories being unfolded.
One old man being interviewed reflected on his time as the Commander of a Tiger. “ We cut through the enemy’s armor like a hot knife through butter! But we still lost because we were so outnumbered that in the end, we drowned in melted butter!”
The M-26 Pershing was likely the best overall tank of World War II. Like the excellent British Centurian, it was too late to have a real impact on the battle space. Both would be instrumental in the Cold War and both would see action in the ‘56 and ‘67 Arab-Israeli Wars.
Professor Felton there is a story here I suspect that needs your scholarship. You made reference to the "poor' performance of the Ford V8 tank engine. That engine has a lot of mystery around it.
First of all why wasn't it a V-12. Why wasn't it in the P-51 Mustang? At some point the US Government chose to ignore the Ford V-12 that Henry Ford had created to demonstrate that he could build a better engine than the Rolls Royce Merlin. He never got the chance. They chose the mature Merlin over the promising Ford. So P-51s flew with Packard Merlin engines even though on paper the new Ford was in all ways superior. The engine that we got from Rolls-Royce had to be extensively re-engineered. One wonders if we had simply put the Ford in the Mustang instead of the Allison would it have been ready sooner that the lengthy period it took to modify the Merlin?
The main advantages that that the Mustang had over the German planes were Texas 150 octane gasoline and the Merlin supercharger. Why didn't we just insist that the Brits give us the Merlin supercharger technology? We seemed to have struck a weak deal with our ally.
The Ford V-12 was chopped down from a twelve to an eight and put into Sherman tanks where it served very successfully. The first question was why not use the Ford V-12 in aircraft. The Navy wanted to use rotraries but the Air Force (as it was known later) preferred straight 12s. One suspects that there was a political dimension. The British at the time were not contributing as much as we had hoped. Later and after the the end of the war the British made some great tanks but early in the conflict their tanks were pretty bad. We gave them Shermans. We gave everyone Shermans.
The Brits stuck a detuned Merlin in a whole series of their tanks starting with (I think) the Meteor. They kept it as a natural V-12 but removed the supercharger. Worked great. Very fast and powerful for its day. We could have similarly dropped our V-12 Ford which was an inherently more reliable and advanced engine into our Shermans and Pershings. Why didn't we?
Eventually of course we got a proper purpose built V-12 air cooled diesels for our tanks. But that was later. In 1945 and in Korea the Pershings should have had Ford V-12 power plants.
Everyone is arguing about why America was fighting with a medium tanks against German heavy tanks. The greater mystery was why with didn't we use our superlative Ford engines. Was it for Anglo-American politics? I'm just an amature tank enthusiast. We need a real historian.
Pershings seem to have been spread out thinly between many different units, rather than concentrated into a single unit. Is that correct ?
Is there any footage with fighting T-35/T-28 ?
Your videos are soo good. Thank you. I had always wondered what would happen. I love the style of your voice over the foootage. Keep up the good work mate.
4:51 A "draw"? Not really. The fight was over when the German crew got stuck. As I see it, the Tiger won that engagement, with 3 hits and no return fire..
Good video Mr. Felton. I enjoy little known facts about the combat life of weapons.
Please do an episode on the U.S. Army M36 tank destroyers. IIRC they had the same 90mm gun that the M26 Pershing used. The M36 were in Northern Europe in 1944. But not much is ever said about the 90 mm tank destroyer combat record
The TD units didn't really want to upgrade. The 75mm and 76mm equipped units worked fine.
During my army service in the Croatian Army in 1998.I had the honor to drive in M36 Jackson.In our brigade we had 6 of them.They were donation of USA to ex.Yugoslavia in 1950s because of Yugoslavia vs.USSR political conflict.These tanks were upgraded in croatian factory Đuro Đaković( they produced croatian upgraded versions of T-72 )by new 90mm cannon and stronger engine .These tanks were also used in Croatian homeland war1991-1995.They knocked out few serbian T72 and T55 (majority of the tanks on both sides were T 55 and T72 and it's variant M84) but against serbian bunkers it was awesome👍We have them still preserved in our army museum in the Turanj,the defence point of the city of Karlovac.M36 rocks !
aquariumkarlovac.com/museum-turanj-military-complex/
Mark, if you look up Aspengler on TH-cam you will see a weekly updated Lego ww2 battle based on events at the Cologne cathedral, where a panther fought a Pershing. I recommend you check it out because it is very detailed and looks cool. Love your work and videos!
One of the things about American tanks as opposed to the German tanks which was shown here was how easy they were to repair. The Pershing was damaged but repaired and returned to service. When a German tank was damaged the repairs that were required would practically keep it out of service.
Not correct at all. I have done extensive research on German tank recovery and repair units. They were extremely good at what they did only limited by spare parts they had to hand. Depending on the type of tank your talking about and the type of damage they could get a tank up and running again in 24 hours. A German repair crew actually completely took apart a Tiger and put it back together in under 24 hours IN THE FIELD! As long as they had the spare parts they actually worked miracles with their armour. Particularly if you take into account the complexity of German engineering.
schizoidboy Tiger 201 was still recoverable they just weren’t able to do it due to the allies advancing close to their position.
Narrative is so skewed against Germany and in favor of the Allies that we rarely hear about the everyday heroes like mechanics and doctors on their side
History is written and revised by the victors
The Americans were generally advancing, while the Germans were generally retreating. That made it easier for Americans to recover and repair their damaged tanks - just wait a few days for the front to move, and recover the damaged tanks in peace, while the Germans had only a limited time to recover their tanks before getting overrun and they would more likely be under fire while doing so.
One unsung "hero" of armor battles is the tank recovery vehicles and crews. It's basically a tank with the main gun removed and a tow crane installed. My old friend was adopted by an older man who worked/fought on a Sherman recovery vehicle in WW2. He said the US was far better at quickly going out an retrieving knocked out but repairable tanks than the Germans. One of the problems is the Germans were actually critically short if tanks through the last half of the war and they could use fewer as recovery vehicles.
The Russians who had even cruder tanks (and more of them) than both the Germans and US could repair and return tanks to combat even faster. There is a story of a T-34 riddled with AP shot being repaired. They grinded off the spalled metal, welded new metal over the holes, dropped the engine and replaced it. Then sprayed the blood out with hoses as the new crew were loading supplies. Imagine the feeling the crew must of had.
dont take down videos for minor mistakes, i was going to watch it 5 mins later and it was gone, you can leave them up there while you are perfecting it. Love your channel keep up the good work
Good video, but I would encourage you to watch some of the Chieftain’s videos about WWII U.S. armored vehicles, the M-4 Sherman in particular, which has gotten a bum rap. It was a superbly designed tank that did what it was designed to do literally all around the world. U.S. armor crewmen had the highest survival rates of any army in WWII, much better than that of the infantry. It was very reliable, easy to maintain and repair. And the best tank in the world is useless if you cannot maintain it or supply it with enough fuel and ammunition to keep fighting (i.e. German tanks).
While that is very true, it nothing to do with what he said, the Tiger was after all a hard opponent for the Sherman and a long range fight would almost always end with the Sherman being destroyed, so even as great as the Sherman was for am all round tank, it had disadvantage wich were recognized and dealed with in form of the Pershing.
@@Enthropical_Thunder It's hard to avoid a long-range fight? The guys in the '40s had a solution for that: Don't stop and fight at long range.
don't say that in front of an American ww2 armour veteran he might tear your head off
Yes, but unlike most tankers, the Chieftain has done exhaustive research (because that’s what Wargaming pays him to do) examining original documentation (not internet information) in military archives around the world. He is a thorough scholar in these matters. The actual documented cases in which M-4 Shermans actually had to fight Tiger tanks can be counted on one hand. The Panther was actually a bigger threat.
@@Enthropical_Thunder The issue is you're comparing a medium tank to a heavy assault tank... It's pointless to compare.
It's interesting to note how opposing sides can agree, at least on some things! The Germans called the Sherman tanks used by the English in North Africa "Tommy Cookers," & their OWN British crews called them "Ronsons," because Ronson cigarette lighter's motto was "Lights EVERY time!" It was known that the Sherman had 2 side mounted fuel tanks - one each side & an ordinary High Explosive shell [Armour Piercing NOT needed] could set these alight EVERY time!
I wouldn’t use the word quality to describe late war German tanks. They certainly were ambitious but not spectacular.
overengineered.
The T-34 Russian tank was probably the best all around tank of WWII.Sloped frontal armour and more than capable gun and super dependable motor.The T34s took out plenty of Tigers and Panthers on the Eastern front.
@@mark6310 T-34 was a scrap comparing with Tigers or Panthers.Tiger was able to confront 1vs5 T-34.The biggest advantage of T-34 was the very high mass production(quantity over quality).
@Jonas Pell German armor was actually not as good as people make it out to be.
@@bitang69 that is totally false.
Thanks Mark. Interesting as always!
Thanks
US ports were limited by the max weight capacity of the cranes. Since all vehicles had to be lifted onto ships this part of the infrastructure had to be upgraded.
At some point someone figured the answer is a better ship. Today roll on roll off ships or RoRo's skip the need for cranes.
You know I never thought about that lol makes sense
It wasn't really the US ports. It was ports in Europe that could offload the tanks.
I do enjoy the stories that end "That's a story for another time". Thank you for the research.
The M26 pershing and Tiger 1 are my favourite tanks btw great video I love learning about Famous WW2 battles
Thanks
I think my choice would be the M26 and the Panther with the Comet for Britain. Ironic that the two iconic German tanks of WW2 are the Panther and the Tiger. One is the German version of the T34 and the other was a design cobbled together to take on the T34.
You have to wonder what would have happened if the Germans had just gone for a simplified version of these two tanks and concentrated on numbers and less on quality. We found them difficult enough. Imagine if the production numbers had been between 20,000 and 30,000.
Excellent work, your videos are the best! 🍺
Thanks very much
The first Pershing destroyed was situational and said little or nothing about the capabilities of the two tanks.
This differs slightly from the other places I've heard of this story.
I've always heard it said that, during the night, the inexperienced *Fireball* crew took up a position watching a cross roads, with a burning building behind.
This perfectly silhouetted the tank for enemy observers, whilst leaving the Pershing crew blind to the dark.
Interesting video Mark! Cheers again!
Maybe you could do a video on the duel between a T26E1 "Super Pershing" and a Tiger 2 ausf B in Dessau on the 21st of April 1945 which ends in a Super Pershing victory, I reckon it would make a good video as there's lots of material surrendering the duel from what I've seen online.
Sorry man but we don’t want to hear stories about tigers losing that’s no fun
It was not confirmed that the Super Pershing actually engaged a King Tiger, but in fact was but a humble Panzer Mk IV.
I think its proven by now that this story is wrong in at least some aspects.
The super pershing destroyed a pz4
There is no evidence of that battle happening. There is no pictures or any evidence that king tigers were in the area where it was claimed to have happened.
Dude ,
thanks for these , we history buffs and tank buffs alike say thank you !!!
The only and huge problem with German tanks were their absolute flawless ability to break down almost immedeatly.
I did enjoy this bit. Tank you very much.
The gun upgrade for us for the sherman is call easy6. Easy8 is the horizontal suspension.
An excellent presentation, sir. Thank you.
"Germans went for quality over quantity"
*shows panther*
That's cute, Mark.
thank you. that's the best video ive seen. absolutely great vid ill donate very soon
Panther quality? Is this a joke? A tank the wehrmacht was so paranoid about breaking down, they wouldn't allow it to travel distances further than 50 kilometers without transportation on railways. And let us not even talk about the terrible ergonomics of the tank for the crews. A Sherman crew could identify and engage a target in roughly half the time it took a panther crew, due to the layout of the crew compartment. The Panther had many mechanical issues, which plaqued the tank till the end of the war. The Panther used straight cut spur gears made from low-quality steel designed for a 35 ton tank in what ended up being a 45 ton tank, which had only an average lifetime of aprox 140 km. And the Panther was not as well protected as it might look on paper. The front was well angled, but the sides had only 40mm of armor, pretty much any allied anti tank gun could penetrate it on larger distances. This made the Panther vulnerable in many engagements. And the tank it self was hopeless undermotorized, the original concept for the Panther was designed around a 20-30 ton vehicle not the 45 it ended up with! This put a lot of stress to the engine, which lead to high maintenance and brake downs. Not a good characteristic for a medium tank that is supposed to move large distances on its own.
This idea that the Panther was a good or just decent medium tank is a myth.
There is a lot of statements in your comment.
But I cannot agree to all of them.
When Panther arrived at the battlefield, the Red Army was shocked, because of the precision and long-range penetration capabilities of the armament.
In combination with the clear doctrine for use of this tank, it was superior to anything at that time,
also because of its mobility. It was high-powered with a 700 hp engine,
the negative talk about the panther is when it was (at times out of necessity) not used as per its doctrine, and the flanks were not protected.
Then the AT guns had an easy time.
The reliability in covering long distances was very much improved with upgrades in spur gears and the like in mid 44.
The Panther was considered a quantum leap in tanks.
All tanks are vulnerable from the side. Everything else was explained by Frank.
And to add some facts for you, you do not drive tanks for long distances when your nation have a low supply in fuel and when you are defending, you put them on a railroad and drop them off about 50 km from the front and drive them there. Do you know how much fuel a tank consume? It vary from tank to tank, but it's a crazy amount! like 10-20 liters per 10 km. That and building the Panther where a really good tank for it's time, of course you are gonna run into infant problems with a new tank, especially when you are pressed on 3 fronts and have to push it into battle. That is just natural, but not doing anything towards these problems would be idiotic, and the Germans actually dealt with these problems and had a superior tank after that, and you gotta see that this was already in 1942. The Pershing was introduced in 1944, the Germans where on producing the Tiger II and where looking into standardizing there overall tank designs with a "MBT variant". So claiming that the Panther "where a joke" is a lack of knowledge from your part or you are just bias towards the U.S. And i'm not saying this too be mean, it just looks like that from my perspective. But yes the Pershing was a good tank, nobody is gonna take that away from the U.S. but it came too late, and if the German army would have lasted for like let's say another 2 years, they would have put there new MBT into the field and now the Pershing along with all the Soviet's counterpart would have been outdated and maybe the war would have ended differently, who knows? The main reason for all the German tank losses was not because of the Sherman's and the Pershing's, it was because of the Allied air superiority.
and the panther continued to be used by the french years after the war, the panther did have teething troubles as any new tank had but they were ironed out and it was very reliable - and lethal, even the tiger 1 if looked after and maintained was not the unreliable machine it was made out out to be - read 'tigers in the mud ' by tiger ace, otto carius.
At Kursk only a few of some hundreds reached the battle field, the final gear was so overstressed that the crews were told to not use it often, if Hitler had stopped the pz IV production completely to favour the Panther the war was over a year sooner, but the generals told Hitler that the pz IV should continue by any means.
The Panther gun was the best 75 mm gun ever though.
I've been searching for a long time for something that told the story of the Pershing in WWII. I have finally found it. I want to hear the stories in more detail.
The M4 with 76mm was a superior upgrade that gave her knockout ability against Tiger 1 and Panthers. Not so much for the rare King tiger. They were more than capable of taking them out.
Sherman's generally operated in superior numerical advantage in most scenarios and that is why the allied high command always relied on that strategy to overcome veteran German tanks.
Also infantry plays a big role in anti tank warfare with anti tank guns and close in bazooka.
The battlefield is not all about tank to tank warfare
Yes, regarding the 76mm gun upgrade. But even here, the Tiger had to be within 500 yards and the Panthers within 100 yards to penetrate the front armor. The Tigers and Panthers could penetrate Sherman front armor a mile away. As far as WW II U.S. towed anti-tank guns and bazookas go, they were a joke against well-armored German AFVs.
@@robertholden3121 that is false.
As usual another fine production Mr. Felton. I enjoy your work very much! One minor detail to note, at 2:45, that should be the 3. Panzergrenadier Division not "2nd".
We all know from History that it was the T-34 that won the war , and the first tank to roll through BERLIN .
The "Easy Eight" Shermans were those with the HVSS suspension not the 76mm gun. These were usually later model 76mm Shermans, but many earlier 76mm tanks had VVSS and thus not Easy Eight. The M4E6 (E6 modification) was the uprade to larger turrret (borrowed from T23 development tank) and 76mm gun. The very first 76mm up-gunned Shermans saw actions just after D-Day and were VVSS equipped M4A1 cast hull Shermans.