"Sherman variants in U.S. service in France, 6/44 to 9/44?" Topic

I asked a similar question about a week ago. I got some answers (thank you) but should have been more specific.

What I'm trying to understand is which Sherman variants (M4's, M4A1's and/or M4A3's ) equipped American units in France during the period June 1944 to September 1944.

I've searched the internet and just can't find information that drills down to the level of what units had which tanks at which time.

Thanks

I think all three variants were in various units during the Normandy invasion. As to which variant were in which particular unit that's another matter altogether.

I don't think you will find that info, because they were damaged repaired and put back into service so fast and so often that that numbers of mods in a unit changed from day to day if not hour to hour. I think there were some of all of them.

But this might help.

The M4 and M4A1 were the main types in U.S. units until late 1944, when the Army began replacing them with the preferred M4A3 with its more powerful 500 hp (370 kW) engine. Some M4s and M4A1s continued in U.S. service for the rest of the war.

That is helpful. Thank you.

M4A1 76W & M4A3 76W 76mm tanks started appearing at the front line in July 1944, so you'd find the odd one of those mixed in from that point forth.

M4A3(76)Ws did not get deployed to Europe until August 1944. In addition M4A3(75)Ws did not appear till "late summer" (probably around the same time as the 76mm armed tanks), per Steve Zaloga in Armored Thunderbolt, pp.197-198.

Damon.

I asked a similar question about a week ago. I got some answers (thank you) but should have been more specific.

What I'm trying to understand is which Sherman variants (M4's, M4A1's and/or M4A3's ) equipped American units in France during the period June 1944 to September 1944.

Did you read the TMP thread I linked as part of my response to your earlier question? I thought there were several posts that went directly to this question. Here it is again:

TMP link

What everyone forgets of course (including me), since there weren't all that many around, are the Sherman DD (duplex drive) tanks, the "swimming" Shermans. These were M4A1 (W) hulls, with 75mm guns. The M4A1 (75)W is a controversial vehicle. Other than the DD tanks they don't seem to have been used, most of the hulls being used for the 76 mm gun version. Once the units got ashore the DDs seem to have been fairly quickly replaced by either M4s or standard M4A1s and what DDs survived were held in reserve for river crossings.

According to Zaloga in "Armored Thunderbolt: The U.S. Army Sherman in World War II" the 12th Army Group had the following mix of Shermans in their Armored Divisions and Separate Tank Battalions:
June 646 75mm
July 781 75mm
August 1,317 75mm and 95 76mm
September 1,367 75mm and 212 76mm

The bulk of the 75mm would have been M4 and M4A1. The M4A3, according to Zaloga, first appeared in "late summer".

The bulk of the 76mm would have been M4A1. Once again, according to Zaloga, the first of the M4A3/76 appeared in August but not in large numbers.

The earliest picture I have of a M4A3 is late July 1944 and its a Zaloga book .This ties in with Marc's observations .

I've started reading Belton Cooper's book (Death Traps), and he seems to equate M4s with the 75mm gun and M4A1s with the 76mm gun. I'm not sure that is 100% accurate. But evidently the 3rd AD did have a few 76mm M4A1 as early as St. Lo (early July).

donlowry wrote:

I've started reading Belton Cooper's book (Death Traps), and he seems to equate M4s with the 75mm gun and M4A1s with the 76mm gun. I'm not sure that is 100% accurate.

It's 100% inaccurate. I should take anything Cooper writes with a large pinch of me.

All the best,

John.

It's 100% inaccurate. I should take anything Cooper writes with a large pinch of me.

Of course. It was a memoir, written by the guy that had to hose the dead bodies out of knocked out Shermans…

Damon.

Well, it could be that all the 76mm-armed Shermans he saw happened to be M4A1s -- just a guess.

I discovered why Belton Cooper thought all 76mm-armed Shermans were M4A1s: M4s and M4A1s were sometimes mixed within the same units because mechanically they were identical (same engines, etc.) -- only the hulls were different. However, NO M4s received the 76mm guns, only M4A1s and M4A3s. So he noticed that all 76mm gun-armed tanks in his outfit were M4A1s, and he assumed the same was true throughout the Army. He also mentioned that later his 3rd AD received some "M4A1s" with Ford V8 engines -- which were actually, of course, M4A3s, but he didn't know that.

Yes Belton Cooper could well have been set-up by circumstances to believe that M4A1 meant 76mm armed.

In general, Sherman units went into a combat zone with a single major version of the tank. Some units went into ETO with M4s, some with M4A1s. But when the M4A1 76s became available, they were parceled out to both M4 and M4A1 equipped units. So it seems that happy Mr. C was in an M4 unit, and observed these shiny new -A1s starting to show up with their 76mm guns. Easy point on which to become confused, if you are a frontline grunt.

Not so easily excused, though, if you are an ordnance REMF, as Cooper was. Even less excusable if you actively position yourself as a knowledgeable (and vocal) critic of military procurement, development and doctrine. But then, actual knowledge of the facts he writes about was clearly not one of Cooper's strong points.

As with Cooper's confusion about the A1, so also many front liners came to believe later that "E8" or "Easy-8" was a designator for the 76mm gun, when in fact it was a designator for the wide tracked horizontal volute suspension system.

It is an interesting inversion of Cooper's confusion. In Cooper's case, he did not understand that while all Shermans with 76mm were A1s, not all A1s had the 76mm. Later writers do not understand what while all M4A3 that are "E8s" have 76mm guns, not all M4A3s with 76mm guns are "E8s".

The level of misunderstanding on this topic is evident in late war writings, where many first-hand accounts will describe M4A3s with the 76mm as "E8s", when in fact the majority of 76mm-armed M4A3s were not "E8s".

And … you may notice I use the quotes around "E8" … because in fact there was no production M4A3E8. The -E8 designated an experimental unit, that became standardized in production as the M4A3(w)76(HVSS) … which was a mouthful no one wanted to say in a combat zone (nor in a history book).

And it is also worth noting that the E8 was not just an M4A3 experimental unit. There was an M4A1E8 as well, which became the M4A1(w)76(HVSS), although it appears that these went mostly to MTO rather than ETO.

Kind of takes a while to get it all straightened out for the more-than-casual observer. And for the casual observers … well, it ain't NEVER gonna seem straight.

-Mark
(aka: Mk1)

Now to come back to Ken's original question …

Most US Army medium tank battalions in ETO during the period of June through September of 1944 would have EITHER M4s or M4A1s as their primary tank.

They might have a few M4A1(w)76s, that would have been added in July. The number was just a few per battalion in most cases.

New battalions, which just entered ETO in late August or September, might have been principally equipped with M4A3(w)s. These units also typically had a platoon of M4A3 105s.

By late fall, units might well appear with a mix of M4s, M4A1s, or even M4A3s. There was a general shortage of replacement tanks, and units took whatever they could find, regardless of standardization.

So also M4A3(w)76s began to appear in September, being spread across M4, M4A1 and M4A3 units as the M4A1(w)76s were before them. By November the majority of 76mm armed Shermans were M4A3s.

Also in about September the M4 105 began appearing, and by November most of the M4 and M4A1 equipped battalions had received their M4 105 platoon.

The M4A3 "E2" "Jumbo" began appearing also in the fall, and as with the 76mm Shermans were spread across existing units. In this case it seems that most independent tank battalions (infantry support) received a few, while the armored division tank battalions seldom took any. All Jumbos were initially armed with the 75mm gun. Later, in early 1945, 3rd Army set up a workshop to re-equip Jumbos with the 76mm gun.

Hope that clears things up. I doubt it will, but I hope it does.

-Mark
(aka: Mk 1)