Hello, I wonder since I noticed it’s often quoted as a proof on the sherman being a bad tank (while at the same time, those who do that seems to forget memoirs/work like death trap shouldn’t be taken as gospel).
Thanks for your answers!
Very good points, also there is a bias with historians to criticize the Allies and thus they report on the negative things. People like the Chieftain really make a good point that the Sherman and T-34 were much better fit for purpose than the giant King Tiger. Also the survivabillity of Tank crews was statistically much higher than infantry.
So you are right just quoting the most attention grabbing quote doesn’t say anything. It sells books though I guess!
Best Regards and I hope you liked the 24 hour D-Day
I liked the 24 hours D day, rewatching everything because I couldn’t watch all of it yesterday. I think bad WW2 documentary are responsible for spreading myths on the sherman too (and maybe partly responsible for the ronson one, tho I’m notsure how this myth came to be).
Very good question:
I think that:
1 Most historians didn’t know tanks and just though bigger is better and kept citing eachother - Circular quoting or parroting is maybe the better word
2 Movies like to create heroes overcoming impossible odd, hence flicks like the Battle of the Bulge were the Germans are the supervillians and the American getting stuck with shot up tanks but still overcome. Makes for great movies but not realistic. Lots of Germans wave attacks were shot up and the Elsenborn ridge with Artillery shooting German infantry to pieces was not appropriate movie work, Thet also omitted the Germans murdering civilians which stopped them from getting help from even the German speaking Belgians. I can see that this movie was made to sell tickets but YES that is not history.
3 And then again some “historians” can’t stop drooling over wondertanks I guess lets not forget that the German 12th SS panzer was stopped by the Regina Rifles which consisted also of a lot off First Nation people which were seen as the lower race. The Germans made a lot of photos of themselfs there (they can still be seen) . But “early versions of Selfies” don’t win wars and instead of throwing the Reginas in the sea they had surprised and LOST.
See end of hour 11 ;-), the dad of my friend Nelson Bird was there,