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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

13. Shermans Often Outclassed German Panzers

When the M4 entered service in 1942, it outclassed German panzers, being more heavily armored and better armed. For example, the standard gun of the Panzer III was 37mm, whose shells the Sherman shrugged off. When Panzer IIIs were upgunned to 50mm, they still had to get very close to inflict damage on their American counterpart. In the meantime, the Sherman’s 75mm gun could kill every Panzer fielded by the Germans until the arrival of the Tiger.

Shermans got an unfair rap for being poor tanks, mainly because they had trouble with the heavier Tigers and Panthers that were introduced later in the war. However, Tigers and Panthers represented only a fraction of German tanks, and fighting other tanks represented only a fraction of the Shermans’ workload – a fraction the Shermans had never been intended to perform. In the grand scheme of things, Shermans seldom faced Tigers: throughout the entire war, only 1300 Tigers were built, a figure lower than the Sherman’s typical monthly production figures.

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.