Question

Hi Michi,
Since we were both tank corps men in our past, I thought it would be right to share something with you that I call “Vision, Values, and Armor.”
I was a Sherman driver, and in the reserves I was a Sherman tank commander, and I also got to know different tanks.
Already during my regular service I submitted “streamlining suggestions” for upgrading the Sherman. I have to admit that my suggestions were based on complete ignorance of engineering…
About 15 years ago, when I was watching the History Channel about the armored battles of World War II, it became clear to me that the American armored commanders treated their soldiers’ lives cheaply.
The Sherman tank had a short 75 mm gun, which could not penetrate the armor of the heavy German tanks. But the Americans had lots of tanks, so they would send a platoon of Shermans against a Tiger; the Tiger would knock out 4 Shermans, but meanwhile the last Sherman would hit the Tiger from behind and destroy it.
Well then—the Americans had lots of tanks, and apparently the fate of their tank crews didn’t weigh on them all that much!…
In one of the reports it was claimed that the American commanders refused to install in their Shermans the British 17-pounder gun [76.2 mm], which was fitted on British Shermans. Why? Because it was English! Until about 20 years ago the Americans refused to adopt foreign technologies—
NOT INVENTED HERE — N.I.H.
Later, when the inferiority of the Sherman’s original gun became clear to them, even if belatedly, they nevertheless installed a 76.2 mm gun of their own manufacture.
I assume you know the Sherman’s tall silhouette. Its rear deck slopes backward, because we were told that this slope allows the gun to fire depressed backward. But the fact is that before and after the Sherman this slope was eliminated, so apparently almost no use was made of depressing the gun backward. So I asked myself: why didn’t the American armored commanders take advantage of the Sherman’s tall silhouette in order to replace the engine then installed in the Sherman with a bigger, more powerful engine?
I read a few articles on the subject, and it was explained there that this hull structure was dictated, among other things, by the use of a radial engine [R975], which is characterized by short length but large diameter. The output of this engine is about 400 horsepower, and that large diameter caused the tall silhouette. [Not only that!]
And I wondered [and still wonder!]—since the hull height had already been dictated in advance [attempts made in Israel to lower the Sherman did not succeed!], why not make use of this hull height, carry that height all the way to the end of the deck, and put in another engine—a bigger one and therefore a stronger one—which would have made it possible to thicken the armor [by welding steel plates] and increase the survivability of the crew and the tank without reducing speed.
I checked what engines existed in World War II, and it turns out there were suitable engines—long ones used in aircraft, some of them V engines.
In any case, the Sherman’s engine compartment had been shortened, because there was no need for the full length, so there was enough room to lengthen the engine compartment.
In short: the great vision was defeating Nazi Germany.
Along the way—another few American soldiers get killed [apparently there’s nothing to be done!…] and of course it’s no wonder that the bomber pilots who bombed the Wehrmacht’s fuel production facilities flew over Auschwitz and did not lift a finger to strike the extermination camps.
The main thing is the great vision… I felt a need to share this matter with you, since it is a conceptual failure that causes harm to the lives of many fighters, replicated across thousands of units [tens of thousands of Sherman tanks], when before it and after it no tank was developed that allowed depressing the gun backward.
I don’t know of similar cases [on the principled level] taking place today, but since it doesn’t seem to me that the human species is improving, because consistently,
on the way to realizing lofty visions we trample a few values, I estimate that even today there are quite a few cases in which it would have been better to stop and ask whether a certain move is indeed desirable and proper—or perhaps not?…
I’ve ground away at your brain enough. Thanks for being willing to absorb this nonsense.
All the best