Realistic tank battle would involve shermans and M18s raping panthers and P4s.
since when did they rape Panthers? I bet they also raped tigers,especially 1v1
I'll just copy paste what I've posted before:
2TheWindCriesMary
M4 Sherman was really not best choise (easy to produce and cheap), but US loose the time and was behind USSR and Germany for 3-5 years of tank industry tecnologies, their only chanse was to produse as much as they can. Fact that US develop tank, which can hold the line with 5-years exspirienced german military and science is a real triumph. In tank battles in 44-45 for 1 destroyed Panther US pay 5 shermans (statistic). That why all allied soldiers in west front was afraid of wehrmacht panzer and mechanized divisions.
Bullcrap. Actual statistics complied after the war showed that when shermans engaged panthers the actual ratio was 1.2 panthers killed for every sherman lost.
Here is month end result the battle of arracourt, second biggest tank battle of the war, fought between the 4th armored division equipped with mostly 75mm shermans and M10s
with no air support due to heavy fog vs the 5th panzer army:
Of the 262 tanks and assault guns deployed by the German units in the week of fighting near Arracourt, 86 were destroyed, 114 were damaged or broken down, and only 62 were operational at the end of the month. The 4th Armored Division, which had borne the brunt of the Arracourt tank fighting, lost 41 M4 medium tanks and 7 M5A1 light tanks during the whole month of September, and casualties had been 225 killed and 648 wounded.
Here is a specific engagement within the battle:
For 3 days Colonel Clark's CCA was behind enemy lines. The 37th Tank Battalion spent those days spreading confusion and terror in the German rear areas. From 19 September through 22 September 1944, the Germans tried to push the 37th Tank Battalion back across the Moselle. It was one of the largest tank-to-tank engagements of the war, at Mayenvie, the 37th Tank Battalion lost 14 Shermans while knocking out 55 Panthers and Tigers. Needless to say, the German counterattack was unsuccessful.
On 22 September 1944, the 37th Tank Battalion's M4s swept south again through Coincourt and Bures to the Rhine-Marne Canal. Counterattack followed counterattack as the desperate Wehrmacht tried to dislodge the Third US Army from its position, but as the toll of Panthers mounted, the attacks dwindled in intensity and finally ceased. The 37th Tank Battalion was relieved on 12 October 1944 by elements of the 26th "Yankee" Infantry Division. For its tenacity in the Moselle Valley, the 37th Tank Battalion was awarded its second Croix de Guerre with Palm by a grateful French Government (it's first having come in Normandy). The 37th's tankers were pulled off line for a rest after 87 straight days of combat.
The picture is clear. When the Americans were the ones doing the defending for once(very rare), 4:1 kill ratios in favor of the humble sherman was the norm. But even when the Americans were attacking, outside of the initial landings at Normandy the Sherman still achieved a positive kill ratio against German armor.
The Sherman was simply better.
Here's a Department of War analysis of the sherman vs the panther during WWII:
US Army's Ballistics Research Laboratory conducted a study of tank vs tank engagements fought by the 3rd and 4th Armored Divisions from August to December 1944.
98 engagements were identified, including 33 from the Ardennes fighting. The typical engagement involved 9 US Shermans against 4 German AFVs. Only 1/3 of the total involved more then 3 German AFVs. The average range Shermans inflicted kills on the panzers was 893yds, and the panzers averaged kills at 946yds.
The study concluded that the most important factor was spotting and shooting first. Defenders fired first 84% of all engagement, inflicting 4.3 times more casualties on the attackers then suffered. When the attackers fired first, they inflicted 3.6 times as many casualties on the defenders compared to own losses.
29 engagements involved Panthers and Shermans. The Shermans had an average numerical advantage of 1.2:1. The data showed the Panther was 1.1 times as effective as the Sherman in defense, but the Sherman was a whopping 8.4 times more effective then the Panther when on the defense. Overall, the Sherman was 3.6 times as effective as the Panther in all engagements.
At the end of the 2 weeks of fighting in the Ardennes, the Panther regiments had lost 180 tanks, or about 43% of the starting forces. Of the 235 survivors, only 45% were operational, with the remainder dead-lined due to mechanical problems or battle-damage.
The First US Army had lost 320 Shermans by the end of December (90 were 76mm tanks) about 25% of it's average daily strength. Due to reinforcements, First Army ended December with 1,085 Shermans on hand, 980 operational and 9% deadlined due to mechanical problems or damage.
3rd Armored fought 14 engagements before Ardennes, and 17 after. 4th Armored fought 34 actions from 19 Sept to 6 December.
According to Table II, the most common type of engagement was Shermans defending against Panthers, and the Shermans fired first. in 19 engagements, involving 104 Shermans and 93 Panthers, 5 Shermans were destroyed compared to 57 Panthers.
The second most common engagement was US Tank destroyers defending against Panthers, with the TDs firing first. In 11 engagements, involving 61 TDs and 19 Panthers, 1 TD was lost compared to all 19 Panthers.
The most successful enemy weapon was antitank guns defending. In 9 engagements (3rd most common), 19 a/t guns inflicted 25 casualties on 104 total attacking Shermans, losing 3 guns in exchange.
The 4th most common engagement was Shermans attacking Panthers, and the Shermans fired first. In 5 actions a total of 41 Shermans fought 17 Panthers, losing 2 and taking 12 Panthers in return.
One table gives the average ranges for 6 areas of battle. The one with the longest average range of allied casualties, Arracourt, 1260yds, also had the most German casualties by far, 74, more then twice the next most Germans losses at Sarre (35) with an average range of 1116 yds for each allied kill. The least number of Germans casualties came with the shortest average distance to allied tank losses, 476 yds. No German tanks were lost against 26 allied tanks at Stollberg.
Yes, contrary to popular belief, a wide open field is
not in favor of the heavily armed and armored German tanks. Their optics were so poor compared to the American counterparts that Shermans would often get the first and second shot before the Germans could even get off a single shot. German tanks were actually better defending a narrow chokepoint where their slow turret rotation and poor optics were less of a factor and the American advantage in mobility and optics were negated.
Overall, the sherman tank was much superior to a panther.
As to the stories of Hellcats' success, Gamesguy revelled me with a tale of the heroics of two Hellcats who, together through the power of friendship or something equally unbelievable, were able to stall an entire panzer division for several days. Or something like that. Hellcats were the very definition of "shoot and scoot" and weren't terribly bad at it, either.
It was actually four hellcats. They literally raced past the German division, reaching the German objective ahead of the Germans despite starting later and from further away.
Then those four hellcats attacked an entire panzer division and destroyed around 30-40 panthers and tigers without a single loss. This attack stalled the German division's attack long enough for reinforcements to arrive.
People like to talk about Wittman, but he had firepower and armor on his side. The hellcats had paper thin armor that could barely deflect a machine gun bullet and they still destroyed a ridiculous number of enemies using far heavier and more expensive tanks.
Which takes more skill? Sitting on a road shooting up cromwells driving down a road while all their shots bounce off your armor like a turkey shoot or desperately manuevering and flanking to dodge the return fire from an entire panzer division(any of which, if it hit you, would destroy your tank) and still achieve the same ridiculous kill ratio?
