The Sherman Tank - 50,000 made!

I have been interested in tanks ever since I lived on the military base at Borden, Ontario, where my dad was a Captain in the Canadian Armed forces. There was a central park that displayed a large number of tanks, mostly vestiges of World War Two. There were one Japanese tank and an assortment of German, American, and even Canadian tanks. I used to go there with my friends, we were all pre-teenagers, and climb them and engage our imaginations to their fullest potential. I also built tank models from the same era; for some reason, there was a fascination with the subject that is still with me today.

While we were visiting New Zealand two years ago now (it seems like an eternity) we had a chance to visit the National Army War Museum. It had a stunning collection of more modern tanks such as the Challenger; inside the building was where I found the Sherman tank. Shermans were one on one, no match for most of the Nazi armoured vehicles of the time. However, they held their own in most firefights and could defeat heavy tanks under the right circumstances. It was the sheer number of them produced which made the difference. The Germans had better tanks as a rule but they were limited in number. There were only 1350 Tigers built, less than 500 Tiger IIs built, and about 6000 Panthers were made. The tanks used early on in the war were the Panzer II, III, and IVs. These were produced in large numbers and outclassed most armarment which existed at the time. The Sherman was on level with these tanks.

On their own, the Sherman would have had a problem, but thankfully a huge number of other allied tanks existed which added to the war effort. The British placed a 17 pounder gun in the turret of Shermans, which was much better at penetrating the heavy armor on enemy tanks than the original 57 mm gun was. They also made over a dozen different tank models ranging from the lightweight Matilda I to the Comet, which saw action just at the end of WWII. The Challenger entered service after the war's final days but would have been a "game-changer" if it came into service a few years earlier.

Not to be outdone, the Soviets built over 84,000 T-34s. All tolled there were probably some 250,000 tanks made by the allies by war's end. With German infrastructure destroyed, fuel shortages, and loss of both machine and man the end was inevitable. The Sherman wasn't the best tank out there, nor was it built in the greatest numbers, but it made enormous contributions to the enemy's defeat. It is still one of my favourite tanks.

Thanks for reading.     Ericspix     Eric Svendsen