[US] Sherman lacking field prescence?

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[TheVolskinator]

So, yeah, like the title states, does the Sherman lack field prescence? I know that whenever I bring one out I'm always babysitting it to hell and gone, and whenever I see one I go "LolK AT magnet sighted". So does it lack prescence? If it does, why is it so "meh" in it's macro-related performance/cost effectiveness/whatever? What makes it so much less of a shock weapon then anything else out there?

*Can we not have debates of how directly effective the Sherman is compared to XYZ/fanboism about how OP/UP it is...

[Zamochit]

you have to baby all allied tanks because axis AT is so good

[Hicks58]

The problem with the Sherman is that it is less of a medium tank and more of an infantry support tank.

Early in EiRR doctrine progression the Sherman is a handy piece of kit for keeping Axis light and medium armour at bay. The worst it has to face is a Panther, which means as long as you keep it away from Panthers, it can handle armour quite well. However, with the late doctrine progression Axis heavy armour is plentiful in both quality and quantity. The heavy armour will outright replace most uses of medium to light armour meaning the Sherman loses it's AT presence.

Now here's the main point. Most users of Sherman's field them late EiRR in the same capacity that they would early EiRR and get torn to shreds for it. The Sherman's role changes in late EiRR to put down the better Axis late doctrine infantry. PIV's are forgotten about in favour of better options and LV's are rendered useless by Allied late doctrine buffed/supported infantry, which laugh at their attempts to kill them.

On top of that, its more cost efficient to get tank destroyers with your fuel and then use all of your munitions to counter infantry.

Shermans have a presence... Just a different one to what people expect of a medium tank. If you want the best results with Shermans in the current environment, use them purely for AI and as nothing more than a deterrent/last ditch flanker for AT. Take the 75mm over the 76mm (As it's purely for putting down PIV's, which are pretty much non-existent at this point bar one or two players) and cut up some infantry while something better handles the AT.

Leave it at that for now.

[8thRifleRegiment]

all medium tanks are lacking presence atm

[RikiRude]

here is the problem.

here's the sherman, he's 12 pop, and he kills infantry pretty darned good, especially with the expensive top mg. but, if you see any vehicle that isn't a lv, ostwind, or IST you run away.

upgun? well that's fine and dandy, but you wont be smoking those infantry as well anymore. but guess what?! you can now fight P4s! and that's about it, i mean you can kill the stuff you could before but a little quicker, and that's it. and guess what? you dont need to kill p4s, so it makes more sense to buy m18s and m10s that can deal with every other piece of axis armor, and are cheaper.

and this is why shermans are not (and for the most part never be needed) in EIR. even with buffs via armor company, you still rarely see them.

[NightRain]

Sherman IS the best medium armor in EIRR with its main purpose of being the infantry support (will be obsolete once Jumbo is unlocked) and will be able to combat any vehicle (except super heavies) with relatively good chance to penetrate with the upgun that is. What comes to its anti infantry cabilities- it is pretty unbeatable in there. With the top MG being one of the best tank MGs in the entire game. The only reason you don't see them on the field is well- it is just much more cost effecient to take a Tank destroyer. M10 can crush, snipe and smash infantry and take on vehicles at the same time and you can get more of them than you can get Shermans.

In all fairness, I'd take Shermies over P4s anyday.

Waiting till metagame switches to medium armor coys. I doubt it'll happen anytime soon.

[PonySlaystation]

Are you kidding? When they changed upgun to cost fuel instead of muni it became the most popular tank and still is.

[smurfORnot]

so,what do you think about inf top t4 and shermans? About jumbo,is it better to take him or take off map t3?

[Hicks58]

Another issue with medium tanks is that they tend to soak up quite a bit of munitions, but require munitions based AT to back them up properly. If you want to run medium tanks with proper AT support, chances are you'll end up with a lot of non-upgraded standard infantry at the end of it.

[aeroblade56]

well i think that, its harder for them to make a presence because when does a axis have just a blob of infantry running around for a sherman to takle. as where the p4 with buffs can handle a TD rarely and can take down a sherman while hitting infantry effectively. in this case the p4 is more well rounded then the sherman its mainly ai

[3rdCondor]

I have an armored company that's built entirely around shermans being on the field constantly. Although I'm not a very good player, I dominate with that company.


EDIT: *cough* Actually please buff shermans because they suck and I need buffs to make them work.

[Ahnungsloser]

My personal main problem with the Sherman is the fact that they are cost a lot of resources. Dual repair kits eats a lot of ammunition and the
.50 cal and upgun,to. The result of this is that i lose vital infantry stuff and can't equip my rifles with grenades or i had to think about to but
one .30 cal less in my company.

And then i lose the capability to keep Axis infantry at bay (I got less supression), my infantry squads are weaker equiped and when a axis player
set out to hunt down my Sherman he can do it easily. Allthough i had to execpt that i lost a small amount of any serious anti tank capability.

[3rdCondor]

I do believe that shermans are powerful, but I will agree with rifle on a more broader note about medium tanks in general lacking presence. It's not that they aren't necessarily good, it just feels like people don't see the value in investing resources into them.

[Rainbows]

My perspective on it, is to look at how good they (medium tanks in general) are in vCoH (very good if you can actually reach them), and then see what makes the environment different here that reduces their usage or usefulness. I see two primary factors that may cause medium tanks to have lacklustre performance compared to vCoH. The first is doctrine buffs - for the Sherman, only one out of three doctrines buffs it, and considering how much better it can be to invest your resources including lots of munitions into doctrine buffed units, the Sherman can be less cost efficient than elite upgraded infantry for Airborne and Infantry. The second is the constant presence of heavy AT - you can pretty much safely assume there's an ATG or Marder or somesuch pointed at where-ever you want to go most of the time, which is not usually the case in vCoH where AT tends to be more scarce, and medium tanks tend to fare well against the cheap infantry-based AT unless it's massed.

The third, in my opinion lesser factor, that only really applies to the Sherman/Cromwell, has already been mentioned - the presence of heavy armour. Panthers, Tigers, and Jagdpanthers are all exceptionally rare in vCoH, but it's rare I run into an Axis player without at least one Panther in EiRR, and Tigers are fairly commonplace. 88s too. This does apply in a much lesser extent to Axis medium armour as well, because Pershings are more common than in vCoH, but Allied heavy armour is not nearly as prevalent as Axis heavy armour.

I don't think it's necessarily a balance issue, as I don't really dabble into balance discussion at all, but looking at it from a logical perspective I believe these to be the factors causing medium tanks to perform lower than what your expectations might be.

[jackmccrack]

Old EIR had great buffs for Shermans

Tungsten Tipping +20% penetration
Next Gen Vehicles +25% rate of fire, +50% turret rotation
Onboard Mechanics regen HP slowly

[TheVolskinator]

So basically, Sherman sux and has a redundantly high munitions intake in relation to how munitions heavy it's support needs to be. And also prevents you from upgrading as many of your infantry squads...squads that NEED upgrades to tackle axis squads.

Fail Sherman is fail.

[NightRain]

Why would you build a sherman company and then try to have your infantry fight axis infantry when Sherman is meant to fight against axis infantry and infantry is there to support, cap, and recrew and for LoS?

[TheVolskinator]

Because the longer effective range of the majority of Axis AT allows that AT to 'strong arm' the Sherman; keep it out of firing range of said infantry. So, take a squad of nilla' Grens. You throw a PaK 15m behind them and it has a 5m range advantage on the Sherman before it can fire at the Grens, and a 10m buffer zone before the Sherman even knows the grens are there. So you want to send in riflemen to fight the grens or spot the PaK so you can flank it. Problem is, from-cover fighting between a nilla rifle squad and a nilla gren squad usually allows the Grens to win.

[Hicks58]

Why would you build a sherman company and then try to have your infantry fight axis infantry when Sherman is meant to fight against axis infantry and infantry is there to support, cap, and recrew and for LoS?

Because after the munitions expenses of Shermans and the ATG's you WILL need to make the company work, thats about all your infantry will be able to do. Fight infantry and recrew your ATG's/smattering of HMG's.

[NightRain]

Then what about lowering the mass ammount of anti tank guns or perhaps decrease the upgrades in sherman to afford everything and those said needed infantry weapons? Or try using machineguns with vanilla riflemen as they are only 20 mun per piece. That way you have somewhat 'upgraded' infantry along with you to fight. I mean isn't that exactly what 'combined arms' means?