← Back to the front page

A Prank Led to America’s First Nominated Female to Office, and Other Lesser Known American History Facts

Khalid Elhassan December 13, 2019 33 min

15. The Underappreciated Sherman

When the subject of the best tanks of WWII comes up, the conversation often focuses on German panzers such as the Tiger or Panther tanks, or the Soviet T-34. However, a strong case could be made that the best all-around tank of WWII was the criminally underappreciated and excessively maligned American M4 Sherman medium tank.

The Sherman was America’s main tank of the war, and the most widely used tank of the Western Allies. Shermans were easy and cheap to produce, mechanically reliable, easy to maintain, durable, and available in great numbers: about 50,000 were built during the war. They had a large turret and roomy interior, a good gun traverse rate and an excellent stabilization system, and routinely managed to get off the first shot in tank-vs-tank confrontations.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.