PDF For Want of A Gun: The Sherman Tank Scandal of WWII by Christian Mark DeJohn in History

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52 of 63 people found the following review helpful. A MisfireBy Nicholas TumaIn "For Want of a Gun: The Sherman Tank Scandal of WWII;" author Christian DeJohn asserts that there was a large scale cover-up at all levels concerning the supposed inferiority of U.S. tanks to their German counterparts; and the United States' obstinate unwillingness to correct it. In writing; DeJohn sensationalizes the issue; and leaves out many critical elements that are important to know if the full story is to be understood.There is some truth to the general premise of the book. Due to the heavy tank losses during the Battle of the Bulge (700-800 U.S. armored vehicles and 600-800 German armored vehicles) the U.S. press published several stories in early 1945 criticizing the performance of U.S. armored vehicles versus their German counterparts. A congressional investigation was even called for; but nothing came of it before the war ended.DeJohn begins the book (and continues it) on a distinct negative slant; lambasting U.S. politicians and industry for producing large numbers of an "inferior" tank. The early parts of the book covering U.S. tank design after World War I and the interwar period are factually accurate. It is in the third chapter; about tank destroyers; where DeJohn begins to go astray. In the beginning; U.S. Tank Destroyer Force doctrine held that they were to be a purely defensive force; responding to massed enemy armored attacks using speed and ambush tactics. The head of the Army Ground Forces (the parent of the Armored Force and Tank Destroyer Force); Leslie McNair; is often maligned for his opinions on armored warfare (among them that the M26 Pershing heavy tank; or more generally; a tank that specifically fights other tanks; was unnecessary; that U.S. tanks should avoid fighting enemy tanks whenever possible; and that tank destroyers; particularly towed ones; were the best thing to destroy an enemy tank) but these were just opinions; doctrine was written and put into practice by the respective forces; and was often contradictory and not always used as intended.The Armored Force expected that one of the primary roles of friendly tanks; along with supporting infantry; was fighting hostile tanks when they found them in an attack; and the Tank Destroyer Force said that when tank destroyers weren't meeting a massed enemy tank attack; that they could be used in other roles because the arms they were supposed to support had adequate antitank firepower (implying that U.S. tanks could normally hold their own against enemy tanks). If you expect the enemy to attack your advancing infantry with tanks; why leave yours behind and make your troops vulnerable? The 75 millimeter gun of the Sherman was selected specifically for its anti-tank firepower; and even before the Sherman was standardized; work began on mounting a powerful 3-inch (76 millimeter) "hole puncher" into it; from the beginning; it was always intended that part of the Sherman's role was to fight enemy tanks.DeJohn uses many period accounts from veterans and military staff throughout the book. These do a very good job of fleshing out the story; and make it clear that armored warfare was a brutal; nasty business for all involved. The problem with this is that DeJohn does not do enough to call out blatantly false or potentially mis-remembered information and sometimes selectively picks quotes or uses his own emphasis in order to advance his opinion. The "G.I." opinion of the Sherman that he gives is almost entirely negative. This could deceive the reader who may not know much about tanks and bought the book just for the interesting title. Arguably the most suspect part of the book; DeJohn spends an entire chapter comparing the Sherman to the Tiger and the Panther; heavy tanks that only made up a minority of the overall German armored vehicle force. Although the author does acknowledge the glaring mechanical problems of these two vehicles; it only comes after he fawns over their big guns and thick armor for most of the chapter; along with emphatically noting the deficiencies of the Sherman compared to them; most of which are a given when comparing 45 and 60-ton medium and heavy tanks to a 30-ton medium multirole tank.The author repeats or fails to clearly debunk many myths and misconceptions that are age-old and commonly encountered when learning about U.S. armored warfare in World War II; such as;1. U.S. tanks caught on fire more readily or burned more fiercely than German tanks when hit; partially due to their use of "more flammable" gasoline instead of diesel. According to a British study; the Tiger; Panther; and Panzer IV had "burn rates" of 60; 62; and 80 percent; in comparison to the Sherman's 82 percent; another British study found that 56 percent of Shermans burned when hit; while a U.S. study said "60 to 80 percent;" 65 of 96 Shermans of the 743rd Tank Battalion that were lost were found to have burned. Diesel fuel is not "less flammable" than gasoline; and most fires were caused by improper storage of ammunition; a flaw which German tanks never corrected;2. U.S. tankers suffered "horrendous" losses. A U.S. First Army report found that out of 506 destroyed tanks; an average of 0.37 men died per tank; while 0.8 were wounded. Out of 49;516 Armored Force enlisted personnel deployed overseas; only 1;578 died in battle. U.S. tankers had lower casualty rates after their vehicles were hit than German or Soviet tankers; in part due to better ergonomics. In contrast; 18.5 percent of all U.S. infantrymen deployed overseas were killed in battle.3. The M4 Sherman was "obsolete" as soon as it was introduced; had particularly thin armor; was inordinately tall; or was not a match for tanks that were by definition out of its weight class.4. U.S. tanks were supposed to avoid fighting enemy tanks whenever possible; instead calling upon the tank destroyers; a mis-reading of a combination of tank and tank destroyer doctrine.DeJohn hardly considers the issue of logistics and how it figured into U.S. tank design decisions. To ship tanks to the battlefield; unlike Germany; the United Kingdom; or the Soviet Union; the United States needed to deal with crossing over 2;000 miles of land and 3;000 miles of water. In order to ensure tanks didn't sit idle at a dock once they arrived because they weren't needed or languished in a maintenance yard because they were too complicated to repair or lacked spare parts; Leslie McNairs concepts of "battle need" (Is there an enemy threat that warrants this vehicle? Will this vehicle be used in its intended role?) and "battle worthiness" (Is this vehicle easy to repair? Will it actually function under combat conditions?) were paramount. DeJohn also does not note that the M26 Pershing heavy tank was; even when deployed to combat after its testing was completed; considered a mechanically unreliable and underpowered vehicle with poor off-road performance. Many a vehicle was rejected by the Army Ground Forces for the sole reason that it was not mechanically reliable enough. After criticizing the statements of officials not actually involved with tank production; DeJohn asserts multiple times that the United States could have produced a markedly better tank or quickly and efficiently adopted foreign designs; but does not give any suggestions on how that could have been done.Tread carefully.11 of 13 people found the following review helpful. I would like to thank the author for his serviceBy homegrown scholarI would like to thank the author for his service. Being a tank crewmen is hard work especially considering everyone on the battlefield from infantry to close air support pilots are trying to kill you. Now that I have blanketed myself with this cloak as the author did several times in the book let me say stop whining. As a former enlisted and then commissioned tanker what did you want the officers in Egypt to do for you? Walk the track? Tighten end connectors? Perhaps check oil or transmission fluid for you? Your personal attacks questioning the integrity and motivations of people trying to win a global war were petty and low.The basic premise of your book is correct. The Sherman's firepower should have been improved prior to June 44. The British Firefly and the M36 Jackson proved it possible. A higher velocity 75mm with better armor penetration characteristics was; in 20 20 hindsight; a missed opportunity. But the M4 accomplished what it was designed to do to meet the fight the leadership envisioned. The flaws of the Sherman were rooted in doctrine and the absolute need for mass production. I liked chapter 7; 8; and 9 as they supported the author's premise but over all the book had the feel of a master's thesis more than an attempt to educate the reader on the issue.Your book has many straw man arguments. Send up gun kits to the field. Mounting a high velocity high recoil gun inside an armored turret is far different from mounting a light weight; low recoil 75 mm in a medium bomber. The British had to cut out the back of the turret; move the radio to an armored box so the turret space could physically absorb the recoil of the 17 pounder. The breach had to be mounted sideways to so the loader could service the gun at any firing angle.Fighting in the French bocage was close in actions that clearly favored the defender. Given the ranges and the quality of German anti-tank weapons; long honed on the eastern front; M26s would have been just as dead. Look at the losses of British Churchill's around Hill 112. The M26 was under powered and a gas guzzler. Patton's sweep through France wasn't stopped by Panthers and Tigers; it was stopped by the lack of gas. Perhaps you should write another book titled "For want of a gas can." I will not question anyone's honor for cutting off resources from Patton's very successful drive and giving it to Montgomery; a much more methodical commander. V-1 and V-2 launch sites were in the North and political decisions came into play.The last time I looked at history the Battle of the Bulge was a victory. A costly victory yet far from the disaster the author attempts to portray. The 6th SS and 5th Panzer armies had to be completely rebuilt and the original line restored in less than 2 months equals a crushing defeat...for the Germans. The author gets angry when German tank losses are quoted yet does the author really believe all the Sherman loss statistics he quoted were knocked out by German tanks.I will leave the potential reader with this; entire Soviet Guards tank units; their best; were equipped with Sherman's because of their automotive reliability. Something the Soviets needed pursuing the Germans in late 44/45. Finally; if it was all about better guns and armor how did the Soviet 1st and 2nd Guards Tank Armies; lavishly equipped with T-34/85s and JS II tanks; lose 2;000 tanks and AFV's in the battle of Berlin.I was very disappointed in the book; the author attempted to cast a wide net information to support his thesis yet it was only millimeters deep in knowledge.1 of 3 people found the following review helpful. Read the book for what it says not what others want to hereBy Joe NealThis is a thick; heavy; large format book roughly 9.5” wide x 12” long x 1.5” thick (24.1 x 30.5 x 3.8 centimeters). The first 12 pages are publishing data; introduction; foreword; and so on while pages 351 to 391 contain a dedication to the men who died; acknowledgments; notes (he actually annotated his sources unlike some more popular writers); a bibliography and index. A good deal of the content consists of pictures (color or gray scale/black and white) of the period as well as from modern museums and including plastic model kits the author assembled; black and white line drawings; stark black silhouette U.S. intelligence data layouts of some vehicles; cutaways of a few vehicles; shoulder badges; equipment; newspapers; hand written wartime reports and typed reports; and so on. Captions are in a pale yellow which makes them hard to read for someone who has never had eagle sharp vision. But the author also offers a lot of text.Having been so disheartened by the inability of so many writers to intelligently discuss the subject; I swore I would not buy this book until it came down used and cheap. That was before reading reactions on some internet web pages where the commentators routinely attacked the credibility of the author and publisher and in the process spewed something like nine sorts of nonsense. Some detractors have attacked DeJohn for attacking their beautiful; loving; 75mm armed M4 tank which was of course the best tank in the world and even a better cannon with decent ammunition would have turned it into a failure.Given that; I knew I had to try this book. DeJohn makes errors; but what I have seen in many online criticism is cherry picking the worst and half-reading the book. It has proven to be a handy reference book and learning tool for my purposes.Show me any book that does not have errors! My own frustration is that popular authors such as Zaloga and Green often as not get technical details wrong and hence people editing Wikipedia or posing as experts elsewhere on the net are gleefully putting the wrong data in place in articles. Zaloga's viewpoint has meandered slowly forward over the years; and rarely are notes given for sources to try to find out where the statements are made. They only parrot each other and add in conjecture and reveal secrets that were not secrets to the fighting men in 1944-45. Statistics are popular for some; but they represent the overall view. They are the general's viewpoint; not the fighting man's experience and do not reveal the problems underneath that (if tackled) might have changed the statistics radically.The subject of the book is exactly what the title says: there was a scandal around the United States M4 Sherman tank during World War II involving the inability and unwillingness of the high level men in charge to improve it - to mount a better gun; more armor; or even field a better tank. The apologists routinely defend them with such comments as; “If they had mounted a 90mm or 17 pounder on the M4 it would have fallen apart!” or “Allied landing craft sucked so badly they could not land a 40 ton tank!” and “It was far better to ship 320;000 tons of tanks overseas than 400;000 tons!” Lies and nonsense and ignorance and stupidity.The defense of the M4 made by Patton and Irzyk (an officer under Patton) both compare the M4 to the worst and least common German tanks (the Tigers I and II) and not the far more common German tank; the Panther; let alone Panzer IV. From then on misguided readers get the idea that a better tank would have weighed umpteen tons more and been impossible to ship let alone fight with. The fighting men did not want a Tiger or Panther (they captured any and all sorts of German vehicles and did not use them; except for a Panther used by some British troops; a StuG by a U.S. anti-tank gun crew; and a Panzer IV by one unit); they wanted a better M4! The issue was that fighting men wanted and deserved better guns and tanks; the massive industrial and technical capabilities of the U.S. was not put to that task by the men in control of it.The ground battle was won. There was no chance of loosing except by simply deciding to not fight. The Germans were outnumbered from the West and East and had no chance. But it was won by brute force; not finesse; through a war of attrition. As DeJohn points out; the M4 (and British Cromwell) briefly did take part in a sensational sally into Europe as ballyhooed by Patton - but only after the German Army was crushed in toe-to-toe fighting (and through the brute force of aerial bombardment). The famous Battle of the Bulge showed that if the U.S. actually had to fight the Germans head to head and in numbers; things could get rough. The Germans lacked the men and machines to sustain the battle; the United States had plenty of both.Casualties were not extremely heavy for the U.S. compared to other nations. And that sentiment epitomizes the attitudes of the officers in charge - that a few thousand more lives can be spent and a few more months can be wasted (during which lives outside their own Armies are lost by the hundred thousand) because there is no reason to try hard at assembling a better equipped army. When issues came up involving equipment; they need only demand that Ordnance turn on the magic machine that can pump out thousands of items a month in a week's notice - that way; one's own lack of foresight cannot be blamed because “It's Ordnance's fault!” Shift the focus elsewhere for the ignorant to argue over.After spinning in circles looking for the major culprits responsible for giving U.S. servicemen a tank that was not what they deserved; I finally realized they were all at fault. From the President of the United states to Ordnance to the Army Ground Forces commander to the Theater commanders and individual Army commanders - they all were too busy with their own petty nonsense to look after the fighting men. The generals ignored and stifled the fighting man's dissatisfaction with what they had to fight with for their own reasons. Military censorship was used to try to blind the public to the dissatisfaction of the fighting men.For example; authors have repeated that Ordnance performed faulty tests and misrepresented the 76mm gun; and even Eisenhower was said (by Bradly) to have said “Ordnance told me it would handle everything!”. But after too many iterations of that rot; any self-thinking reader will realize there is a deep undercurrent of denial going on. Exactly how anyone could remain ignorant of the flaws of the 76mm gun (which had existed since 1942 and was a lighter variant of the 3 inch gun in use in combat since 1943) is unthinkable. Especially since reports concerning its abilities (or lack thereof) were circulated within the upper ranks and the concern for the lack of a better gun was a gnawing problem throughout the war among the upper ranks.The 76mm armed M18 was trialed in Italy in 1944 and hence part of Tank Destroyer equipment for D-Day in Normandy; the 76mm armed M4 was ignored and shunned and not used until forced to. The Armored Forces rejected the M18 as a light tank “because it was a Gun Motor Carriage” - open roof; thin armor; no internal machine gun. All of which could have been fixed. Most importantly; it mounted the dreaded 76mm gun and not the 75mm gun that the M24 Chaffee did which used the same ammo as the 75mm gun on the M4 Sherman. Thus; the Army bought a light tank that was obsolete before produced and arrived for combat only in December 1944 - six months after the better armed M18 was in use. The light tankers had to deal with their sucky little 37mm through most of the hard fighting because their commanders did not want the better armed M18!Why didn't the Armored Forces analyze the 76mm in 1943 and lay out demands for a better high explosive shell and muzzle brake and better allowance for wet storage to make it a 100% replacement for the 75mm by 1944? The men up top knew what the guns were but did not take steps to improve things. Doing so would make waves among the upper leadership circles and impinge upon their future careers. There were no technical reasons for not adopting the 17 pounder to bulk up firepowe starting in 1942. But there was an inherit fear of the infighting said effort would cause among all of the self-interested upper level command parties involved.They were all politicians covering their own butts with lies and more black lies. DeJohn does not simply baldly accuse the men of that; he provides the evidence; the reports wherein the men themselves speak of keeping it secret through direct orders; of claiming that the M4 was the best ever tank to the public and so on; of irate censorship of any hint that things might be not be what they were. When the newspaper reporters brought it out in 1944-45 George S Patton was among the others stepping forward to try to calm things down with the politician kit-bag of half-truths and exaggerations and distractions (“We could not have won if we had built and shipped Tigers to Europe!” as if that is what the fighting men wanted or needed).The M4 was not useless; it was a good design and could have been made even better to the point of even dominating opponents by technical stats aline but was not. The fact that (for example) the Panther was thinly armored on the sides and rear and hence could be taken out by any reasonable gun was not news to the fighting men in the war. They learned it quickly “on the job” so that later writers like Zaloga could “amaze” everyone with what was common sense to the men fighting the battles. Unfortunately the Germans were not stupid and tried to avoid letting that happen. The terrain; weather; and inability of the M4 to go off road under many conditions meant that such facts were poor medicine to men who just wanted a better cannon and better ammunition so they did not have to rely on situation for success. Let alone artillery and aircraft.Yes; anti-tank guns were a major threat after the Panzers were gotten out of the way. The 75mm Pak 40 was not a miracle gun and yet according to the statisticians it was the main tank (as the modified KwK 40 and StuK 40) and anti-tank gun in the German arsenal. More armor would have made it a minor threat. Of course; the M4 was such a shoddy machine it would only fall apart with more armor. Never mind the wider tracks and other mechanical changes needed to bulk up the M4 were delayed towards the war's end - and the Jumbo Sherman did quiet well despite being “grossly” over-armored and “massively” overweight (less than a Panther).Men died. They were going to die in war. The only way to prevent that would have been to prevent the war. (The pre-war politicians guaranted a war by gutting the Armies that could have stopped Hitler in Europe in 1939.) The men filling the coffins and seeing their fellows die in horrid; gruesome ways - living day on end with the terror of death at hand - did not like it one bit. It wilted the soul and ruined minds and lives. To ignore that callously was the bitterest pill to swallow.Grinning; common-man Eisenhower - who was liked by troops and who apparently disliked everyone else he met at the generalship level - entered politics after the war and eventually became President of the United States. That says it all. As with all smiling politicians one of his main concerns was his image; not the common soldier. He was looking towards a civilian career in politics not the military.Some readers will of course be irate because the men they hero-worship are not treated as the ultimate of heroes by DeJohn. The President and his Generals were flawed and self interested men; and “won the war” far less by skill or tact than numbers. “Throw a few hundred more tanks and ten thousand more men at it!” was their fighting style. Making a reputation on the blood and sanity of the men fighting for them. If the Germans had possessed the manpower and industry to fight a better war; the situation would have been far different!