M4 Sherman: Firepower

All too often we read that during the Second World War the United States fielded vehicles with inadequate firepower to deal with the comparable units fielded by the Axis militaries; most notably Germany. Nearly all U.S. vehicles are targets for this criticism, but there is one tank in particular that continues to live on in legendary infamy for its supposed inadequacy and inability to destroy enemy armor. That, of course, is the Medium Tank, M4 – otherwise known as the “General Sherman.”

In the years following the end of the war many historians have written innumerable works of literature describing and comparing the various armored fighting vehicles of the period. Whenever the topic of the M4 comes up, it is nearly always little more than a rant by the author about how much he or she hates the tank with a passion. It has become one of the laws; something etched in stone like a biblical commandment that the firepower of the M4 Medium Tank was just not up to par with its competitors at the time. Anyone who dares to refute this is looked down on with immediate scorn by his or her peers.

Was this really the case, though? After all, it seems hard to believe that one of the most industrially powerful nations in the world at the time would be incapable of putting a viable weapon system in their primary medium tank that was intended to be their premier armored fighting vehicle upon appearing in theater. What we will attempt to do, here, is take a look at what weapon systems were prominent on wartime samples of the M4 from an objective perspective.

The M4 Sherman is often inappropriately compared to the Pz.kpfw VI “Tiger” pictured above. This comparison is entirely unqualified on principals of sheer weight class.

Keep in mind that I will not compare the armaments of the M4 with the weapons of tanks such as the Pz.Kpfw V “Panther” or the Pz.Kpfw VI “Tiger” as these tanks significantly outweigh the American tank and are in a class all their own. Note that this can be debated when discussing the Panther, but that’s not a topic I intend to get into with this article. Also note that I will refer to the M4 Medium as the “Sherman” rather than its official designation (except where appropriate) in order to avoid confusion with some of the associated weapon systems all of which also begin with ‘M’.