Quality v Quantity? | Panzer IV v M4 Sherman | Tank V Tank - Normandy, 1944

What happens when two

tank

s of the same level meet in combat? That's what happened in

1944

, when the success of the Normandy Landings was still at stake, on the one hand the American M4 Sherman, on the other the German Panza 4, both medium

tank

s have similar capabilities in terms of protective mobility armed with firepower and both are the most numerous tanks deployed by their respective sides. It wasn't the first time these two tanks had faced each other and it certainly wouldn't be the last, but there's a lot more here. At stake here, the winner could determine the outcome of the war because in the days following D-Day, Allied armor had fought their way off the beach and now German armored units were positioning themselves to drive the Allies back into the sea. , this would be a disaster, so those first tank engagements after D-Day really mattered.

In this video we will compare the strengths and weaknesses of the M4 Sherman with the Panza 4 and then look at what happened at Mo on June 28. above and what made the difference If you've ever wondered how one tank would perform against another, there are few better places to satisfy your curiosity than World of Tanks' vast battle maps featuring over 600 vehicles from 11 different nations. Tanks allows you to master the tactics of tank warfare, it is a free game and new players can register today and support the Tank Museum by using the link and invite code in the description below and now back to the video, by far , the most numerous Allied tank in Normandy was the M4 Sherman, it had a crew of five, had good mobility and mounted a 75 mm gun that entered service in 1942.

The Sherman proved to be reliable, economical and good for the crew. . Four Shermans could be built, or indeed 2 1/2 pounders of four. for the price of a tiger, at this point in

1944

, the Sherman's deficiencies have been exposed against the heavier German armor, but that will not be a factor in this encounter, the most numerous tank in the German army's combat inventory, for 1944, it is this. Camp Panza vagen through Panza 4 has a crew of five uh good mobility and now mounts a 7.5 cm cannon. Allied tank crews most fear encountering, you know, the big boys, things like Tiger One King Tiger, but in reality this is the enemy tank they are most likely to encounter.

Panza 4 proved to be upgradable, ensuring that it remained extremely powerful and relevant in the conditions of 1944. Now let's take a closer look at the differences between them. The first thing we should think about is the armor, which represents the armor of a tank. ability to survive one hit or multiple hits from another when you look at the shape of the two tanks the obvious difference has hit you, the Panza 4 is quite square while the Sherman has sloping armor on the glassy things. What you need to remember here is that the Panza is a pre-war design, the original specification dating back to 1934 and a sloped armor that not only increases the line-of-sight thickness of the metal itself, but also increases the likelihood that a Ricochet won't be widely adopted until later, in fact the panther is the first german tank to actually use it, the first model, uh, Panza 4, the ace forong a was pretty underarmed, this one is actually an ace forong D, but it has been quite improved, so it is not very different from the later model asor H, which is the one you had encountered most frequently in Normandy, now this tank originally had 30 thousand armor on the turret and in the glass, but it has been reinforced, there are multiple V-bellies in the glass, there is simple armor in the gap, so it is actually a much more difficult bone to handle. crack, also Al would have had Sheron skirts um or I think in German they are more properly aprons around the turret and also along the sides, I'm afraid they are missing now.

The Sherman has often been criticized for its poor armor protection, but it is in fact better. that the Panza 4 in quite a few respects the frontal armor of the Sherman, totally different from the Panza 4, is a single large 51 mm plate that is 2 inches thick but is inclined rearward at an angle of 55° giving a line thickness of 90.8 mm vision. on the applied armor that was fitted to later Shermans or supplied to some vehicles that were already in theater as what they call Blitz kits and you have a 51+45mm front Lor that is sloped between 35 and 55 of what you gives a line. of sight thickness of 144 m contrasts with the maximum armor thickness of the Panza 4, the glass in front of the driver has an original armor thickness of 30 mil with 30 mm and 20 mm spaced plates added with the separation distance between those plates which gives it 210mm, the problems start when you turn around to the side and realize that this plate armor is only 38mm 1 and 1/2 inches thick.

There had been a lot of controversy over the years about the supposed vulnerability of the Shermans and many of the old nicknames of Ronson, Tommy's Cook and such had been debunked, but the fact is that many Crews thought that the Sherman caught fire with too easily. Leftist William was still Brownley's second five-four and this guy commanded a Sherman TR all over the northwest. The Europe campaign wrote a success almost in the making and those who are prone to dismiss veteran accounts should know that 50 RTR in Italy in 1944 recorded that it is prepared too easily near the top of their list of tactical defects of the Sherman as listed in the Regimental War Diary, the problem was inadequate sponsor armor with ammunition stored just behind it.

Now these patches were an attempt to remedy that, but again, according to Steel Brownley, they only used Ed as aiming marks. They now realized this and the problem was fixed when there was a redesign, the ammunition was moved further down the hole and into wet storage, which prevented it from cooking, but that did not happen until later in the war, until the end of 1944, and the tanks we are talking about in this confrontation, our Shermans are not. I have it so both tanks have benefited from some armor, but the Panza 4 in particular has a lot more protection than it would have had, having originally left the factory in the 1930s, from taking hits to giving them both. .

The Panza for and the Sherman have 75mm cannons that are capable of knocking each other out of combat. Not only was the Panza for armored during its lifespan, but it was also reinforced now, it starts out as a Panza biglet and is a support tank, uh. For the Panza 3, which is intended to be the main tank as such, it was equipped with a short-barreled 75mm KW k37 gun and what it is supposed to do is deal with things like anti-tank guns, targets similar to those of 37 mm from the Panza 3. The gun could not support it as the Panza 3 became obsolete, the Panza 4 took over its role as a gun tank and was upgraded to a long barreled 7.5 cm kwk 40 cannon.

The British in North Africa when they first encountered the Panza 4. I realized the power of this weapon and converted the Panza 4 tanks into special ones. The Sherman was built to carry a weapon, this one, the M375mm, now at the beginning of the war, this is more than equivalent to facing most of the German armor that was on the battlefield. Panza 1 2 Panza 4, but later on it would have problems against Panza's armored force and that's before you start thinking about the heavier German armor, the guns may be the same size but the performance is quite different in terms of firing against another penetrating tank. armor both the Panza 4 and the Sherman use an apcbc bullet that has a ballistic cap with piercing cap, this is the panag Granata 39 and this is the Sherman m61 bullet now in terms of achieving velocity, therefore the penetration, great Part of this is due to weight. of propellant and you can see the difference in the actual size of the bushings.

Pandagon has 2.4 kg of propellant, the m61 0.98, but it is also due to the length of the barrel, which is measured in calibers, so it is basically the width of the inside of the barrel. now the KW K40 Panza 4 gun is a l60, it has 60 calibers now, if you multiply 7.5 cm by 60, you get 3.6 M, the M3 gun on the Sherman has 38 calibers, 38 * 7.5 cm is 2, 85 M, so getting to the point is longer. The barrel means better plugging and that is a build-up of pressure from the propellant gases, therefore a higher muzzle velocity, so the longer KW K40 barrel has a muzzle velocity of 740 to 790 m per second, while the shorter M3 gun, the Sherman gun, has only 620 to 625 m per second.

Secondly, now both RS weigh about the same, both weigh around 6.8 kilos, but a higher muzzle velocity means more kinetic energy transferred, therefore better penetration, the panag Granata 39 will penetrate up to 96mm of 30° inclined armor at 500 M, the m61 only penetrates 67 mm, so the Paner 4 tank-to-tank gunner has an advantage over the Sherman; However, by mid-1944, Sherman is mounting the 76mm high-velocity gun and some British Shermans are being fitted with the 17-pounder gun creating the Sherman Firefly, but neither. of these are involved in the encounter we're going to see, so while the Panza 4 has an advantage in hitting power, its ability to exploit that is limited by turret speed.

Go through now both tanks have power. Traverse, but while the Sherman can make a full 360° turn in 15 seconds, the Panza 4 takes 23 seconds in combat and, in particular, the shorter ranges found in Normandy, which could make a big difference, the ability to a tank commander to be able to place his tank. where it should be is essential to guarantee a tactical advantage. The Panza 4's engine is a Maybar 120 TRL, the same one used in the Panza 3, and the SGR 76 transmission synchronized gearbox with six forward gears and one reverse gear is very sophisticated. , which makes the vehicle easy to drive, but comes at the cost of ease of maintenance and repair.

This M4 A4 has the Chrysler multibank engine which is surprisingly reliable despite being complicated and has a Caterpillar synchromesh gearbox with five forward gears and one reverse gear. The disadvantage of this engine is The impact it has on the height of the tank is only 30 cm higher than the Panza 4 but it has an almost heavy appearance. This is because the engine itself was tall, so the engine bay had to be tall to accommodate it. It's also because it's rear. with an engine but with a gearbox at the front, which means the driveshaft has to pass under the turret basket and that gives it the humpback effect.

Both tanks have a crew of five, which is pretty normal for the era, so you have a commander, a gunner, a loader driver and everything. machine gun, but the ergonomics and actual crew layout vary where the Panza surpasses the Sherman is the Commander's position here, this is what we call the throne, it is in the center of the rear of the turret and has an armored Cupa with seven blocks of vision, so that's excellent situational awareness even when closed and of course if you need to you can open the hatches and poke your head out. Sherman commanders certainly in the early brands only had a periscope on a transverse mount, meaning they were forced to spend much more time. with the head and shoulders exposed to the hatch Another difference between the two is that on the Sherman the radio equipment is in the bustle at the rear of the turret and that means that the commander assisted by the loader is tasked with maintaining the equipment on the network. which must have been something of a distraction in Panza 4, the bow gun also acts as a radio operator now that frees up the commander, but against that the Gat 5 funk set is underpowered, only having a range of approximately 4 km and that is less. more than a third of the number 19 set used on crude British Shermans.

Oh, and being an AM set, the fug 5 suffered from massive static interference when the tank moved its bow. The gunner also has a dedicated site for his mg34 which could fire accurate rounds at the target compared to the Sherman's bow gun which can only aim his mg30 cal through a basic periscope. This lack of a dedicated site means that the Sherman mg can only be used for suppressive fire. Belly 4, the gunner sits on the left side of the gun and can see its manual elevation and traverse wheels and also the azoth indicator. We also have the excellent uh teril phon 5B telescopic site with 2.5 times magnification on Sherman, the position of the gunner and magazines are reversed, magazines on the left and Initially, the gunner on the right, the only gun site was periscopic, But in an early improvement, the gun mount was redesigned to add a telescopic site, which meant greater accuracy through the M55 coaxial telescopic site with three magnifications and a larger sight.wide and complete through the M4 periscope.

The best of both worlds for the driver, both tanks are easy to drive and light on controls, both have similar mobility, a maximum road speed of 35 to 48 km per hour for the Sherman and 38 to 42 km per hour For the Panza 4, although both speeds are about half off-road, the Sherman's vertical Vol spring suspension provided a noticeably smoother ride than the Panza 4's leaf-spring arrangement if you're doing a lot of miles, particularly off-road, which which will make a difference in crew comfort and performance, so in mid-1944 there is not much to choose between the Panza and the Sherman Panza 4 has the advantage in terms of firepower and commander's situational awareness, but the Sherman has a faster course and the gunner has an advantage because of course he has a periscope and a telescopic site to understand how these tanks would behave with each other.

We can see a brief but violent action that would be repeated in Normandy when Sherman and Panza came face to face on the date. It is June 28, 1944, 3 weeks have passed since the D-Day landings, the Allies have yet to secure a breakout from the head of Normandy Beach and capture the strategically vital town of K as part of Operation Epsom, Third County of London YY, part of the 11th Armored Army. The division is attacking enemy positions on the Odon River. The Germans were confused by the Allied deception into thinking that the landings were going to occur at Padal and not Normandy, what that meant was that most of the main armed formations were unable to intervene until the Allies were preparing to storm on top of this, the Norman countryside, known as the bokage, consisting of small fields surrounded by high hedges, is far from ideal country for tanks, consequently lines of sight are very limited and tank actions that occur in the first few days They are small.

Instead, the Allies are taking full advantage of air superiority and massive artillery bombardments to advance slowly inland, despite this, the countryside favors the defenders, so progress is agonizingly slow and costly between those who receive this overwhelming firepower. Firepower is the 21st Belly. The division that has been in continuous action since the invasion began suffered heavy losses between June 6 and July 8. The division lost 54 Panza fours and only received 17 replacements. Many of the Panza crews were experienced and had seen service on the Eastern Front, uh, but there are others replaced who are fresh out of the panas shulan, the tank training schools, man for man, are generally more experienced than the tank crews allies they faced, were also accustomed to the vast open spaces of the Russian Pass. which favored massive armored formations, they would have to adapt to a very different form of tank warfare in Normandy, on June 28 they were ordered to support grenadier Panza of the 1st SS division Panza liband data in a counterattack on the British positions in Mo because of the losses it has already suffered, it can only spare the fourth company of the 22nd Panza regiment, four companies lead Zug, five Panza four, avoiding the dense bokage and using the embankments as cover, follows the cut of the single track railway towards Colville, passing the remains of the British tanks.

The 23rd Huzar was eliminated the day before as they approached Mo. Three Stewart light tanks of the 3rd CL and a recky troop emerge from a forest track and stand in their path. Realizing their mistake, the Stuarts try to turn back but they are in big trouble and the three are beaten by the leading Panza 4 when they reach the railway line with the track now blocked by burning Stewarts, the Panza Force scales the embankment towards the fenced field to one side before supporting the Panag grenadier in an assault on an isolated company of British infantry holding muons.

He rolled the Panza Grenadier's position and entrenched himself with Panza's fortresses, covering the flank north of the railway. The weight of the Pansas held for the counterattack. Three squadrons do not have to wait long. 16 Sherman tanks of the 3rd CL supporting an infantry battalion are advancing. towards them expecting only a slight opposition of 3 to 1, the bellies are greatly outnumbered and that makes the result more or less inevitable. 3cl and Advanced with b and c squadrons at the head, one on each side of the railway and each accompanied by a company of infantry one squadron is in reserve to provide distant support the attack begins with an artillery bombardment but this has not weakened the defender's resolve They open with mg that disorganizes the infantry and forces the Shermans to advance to the front hidden and firing from a hold.

In a low position at a distance of approximately 80 m, a Panza four dispatches the three leading Shans before its commander W aritzia AA is decapitated by a shell and the tank facing the retreat is knocked out of action. This is the highlight of the German defense after that. the weight of the fire says it and one after another the Panza fors are eliminated 422 he is hit in the turret and suffers damage to his Sheron which makes it impossible to retreat the turret having thrown the Sheron the tank is then hit again 413 his crew having repaired with success a broken runway Under Fire is hit and destroyed while stabbing the owners of Feld vable Ship 434 F avable cor Flur 425 which suffers damage to its engine catches fire and is abandoned by its crew 4 company has lost a total of 12 legs of four in 2 days leaving him with only five remaining, these are losses he could not afford, meanwhile the clly had lost four Sherin, but by gaining ground they are able to recover three of the Knocked Out rated as damaged rather than destroyed, either repaired or salvaged for pieces in In this small victory we can see how Germany would eventually be defeated in this confrontation.

We have seen that the Sherman and Panza 4 1944 are quite even, but this is the crucial thing: it is often said that wars are one in the factories and this has shown that the capacity. producing the colossal amount of material to supply the armies in the field would be the winning factor of the war. Just under 50,000 Shermans were built, making it the second most prolific tank of the period after the Soviet T34, crudely put, this made the Sherman's losses more affordable. 4 was built in much smaller numbers, just over 8,500 now, why when the actual production was several years longer than the Sherman?

The German tanks were the product of highly skilled engineering, every vehicle to the end of the wall. It was built almost by hand to exacting standards and throughout the war German tank production was affected by the need to produce more complicated and probably overly sophisticated vehicles, which of course slowed down overall production, in short, Germany produces some very good tanks, but never in insufficient quantities and certainly not enough. Replacing losses in days like this Sherman story is exactly the opposite, using American genius for mass production, particularly in things like the automobile, railroad industries. The tanks were produced in large quantities in factories that had probably never built one before, but what counts in The End is the ability to throw an enormous volume of men and especially material into a rapidly depleting market for the Panza buffer.

German. The situation would continue to deteriorate once the breakup had been achieved. Allied victory in Western Europe was more or less assured. I would not do it. It would be easy, but it would be easy, so how do the Sherman and Panza work to be fair in World of Tanks? Sherman has several offerings in World of Tanks with variants available in the US, UK, France and even the Soviet Union, one of the most mass produced tanks in World War II, the M4A1 Sherman is a solid medium tank level five that offers good damage per minute and a decent top speed.

The blind hole is best played with due to the vehicle's thin armor. The Panza 4 was Germany's most prolific tank during World War II, specifically, the Panza 4 orh can be equipped with cannons ranging from 7.5 to 105mm, that 105mm cannon can cause one of the highest damage per minute between its level and its frontal hull armor is better than that of the same level. Sherman, just keep in mind the average to below average top speed thanks for watching. I hope you enjoyed this video and if you did please subscribe and if you can support us on patreon.