Which was better in WWII, The German tiger Tank, or the US Sherman?

After war US modified some shermans and sold to Israel. They had better engine, more armor and 90mm cannon. This one could fight panther or tiger.

Originally posted by Adam_S
After war US modified some shermans and sold to Israel. They had better engine, more armor and 90mm cannon. This one could fight panther or tiger.

That was a bit after the fact. The Third Reich was a memory at that point.

While I am no expert on armor, I think it would suffice to say that a similarly hot-rodded and upgraded Panther could probably be quite effective as well.

Ok you win fire fights by having better firepower than your opponent, not better armor.Sherman could out shoot Tiger atleast 2:1. As long as the shermans gun was the medium 75mm gun then this was not an issue, but if the sherman gets the 76mm with HVAP ammo or the 17lb , then the scales will tip in shermans favor, or atleast balance up the contest.

Thats tactical. Operationally Sherman is easly winner due to much better mobility and Strategically Sherman again due to low cost of production compared to Tiger [Tiger cost 3 times what the Pz-IV cost].Also the lower cost of logistics to field the Sherman. THis would have been a fraction of the amount of logistics needed for the Tiger to be deployed in campaigns.[from what I understand a 60 tonner requires atleast 4 times as much logistics tonnage as a 20 tonner.

[Edited on 3-6-2004 by psteel]

[Edited on 3-6-2004 by psteel]

Originally posted by Adam_S
After war US modified some shermans and sold to Israel. They had better engine, more armor and 90mm cannon. This one could fight panther or tiger.

Adam>
The Shermans sold to Israel were WW2 surplus. They were not specially upgraded and then sold to the Israelis. In fact, if you read the

www.israeli-weapons.com...

they will tell you that the US actually "bored a hole in the barrel" of the gun to make it less effective. Why they did this was not explained. So the US did the opposite of making the weapons more powerful - instead they tried to make them less lethal.

The Israelis may have done some upgrading themselves much later. But at the time the Shermans were purchased, it was because they needed something to quickly fight the Arab armies. So they did not wait around for the US to "upgrade" them. The last versions of the Shermans made by the US for WW2 already had the rounded cast hull and the longer, more powerful gun.

Well, the Sherman would be shot to hell if it ever faced the Jagtpanther.

I just wanted to say thx to all that posted! it had alot of info/ and illl have to say that i should have included the T-34! it won the war for russia

It must be remembered that the Sherman was originally designed for the supporting infantry rolen not anti-armour, whereas the tiger was designed for the anti-armour role.

Also the British produced their version the Firefly with a 17 pdr gun (90mm) which could take out a Tiger at a reasonably range. Standard practise was that their would be one Firefly in each troop of 4 tanks, and when they met German armour the Firefly was brought up to the front. the Germans were actually instructed to avoid the Firefly (distinguished by it longer barrel). To combat this the practise developed of painting the end of the barrel black to try and disguise its length.

This version was offered to the US who refused it (it was not until a certain US general (saw a v. interesting programme on the Sherman) who governed US tank strategy (he believed in less powerful weapons and rebutted all efforts to upgrade the Sherman including refuse to fit the superior 76mm gun - in fact he believed the Sherman was too powerful - probably would have been at home in the charge of the light brigade!!) was killed that the Sherman was upgraded.

the sherman tank was a good tank but not as good as the tiger. the sherman had large numbers overwelming the tiger. But it got the job done

I reckon the tiger. If I were a tanker, I would rather have the better odds at surviving an encounter with another enemy tank. The pucker factor on those sherman tankers must have been pretty high whenever they had to advance into enemy territory.

Sherman armour wouldn't stop any of the main gun rounds the germans tanks fielded after '44, let alone an 88 on a tiger.

If I were a general who didn't have to worry about getting chewed up though, probably the sherman. To quote stalin 'Quantity has a quality all it's own'.

Tiger is superiour in gun and armor.
However, it lacks mobility and is heavy and slow.
But most importantly, it spends alot of fuel...
Many if not most of the abandoned Tigers didn�t get abandoned because they broke down. They simply ran out of fuel. And the fuelsupply was very low in Germany at that time. A keyword to tank warfare is mobility. Without mobility, spareparts and fuel they wouldn�t last long. They would be sitting ducks to planes.

Too expensive for such short time of action, but deadly effective under the right conditions and circumstances...

Since one Tiger tank costs as much as 3 x shermans and uses 3 times as much logistics, the comparison should be between 3 M4A3E8 and 1 Tiger .

The tiger was the better tank. The sherman was more manuverable and easier to maintain but , it didn't stand a chance head to head against the Tiger or the Panther. Numerical superiority was it's only advantage.

I dunno about the sherman being more more manouverable bign. It's a relative thing really. If I remember correctly, the ground pressure on a sherman was higher than on a tiger due to the shermans narrow tracks.

As such, it wasn't very good for cross-country. Also the suspension gave for a rougher ride than the christie type suspension on a tiger, which meant that it would have been very uncomfortable for the crew of a sherman to go racing around cross-country.

SHAEF should have just asked for the Pershing to go into full scale production.

If the crew of a Sherman could see a Tiger they were in range. The Tiger was far and away the best heavy tank used in WW 2. However it had very bad gas mileage and had a weak transmission which was prone to failure. With a 700 horse engine it was also underpowered. The Panther used the same engine and weighed fifteen to twenty tons less depending on which Tiger you are using for comparison with the Tiger II weighing nearly 68 tons. The Sherman was prone to catching fire and was undergunned but was of much simpler construction. Dont forget that while the Tiger was the better tank the Allies controlled the air and many Tigers were blown up by airfired missiles.

funny post

the tiger could smash a sherman before it would even be in range of shooting the tiger.
Even then they needed 5 Shermans to destroy 1 Tiger because it was the only way to shoot the tiger on it's flank the only part of the Tiger's armor the sherman's gun could pierce.even then a few shermans where blown to bits by the 88" gun of the Tiger.
The Sherman was a bad tank compared to it's German and Russian equivalents.

Allied tank crews we're just terrified of coming across a Panther or Tiger