Reminds me of the Sherman tanks... in WW2 they were inferior to the German Panzer... so we mass produced them and turned every tank battle into 10+ Sherman’s vs. 1 Panzer
The inferiority of the sherman is a myth which bugs the hell out of me, the early shermans were roughly on par with the Panzer 4, which formed the main bulk of german armored divisions up to the end of the war. While the shermans were theoretically inferior on paper to the tiger and panthers, that particular matchup very rarely happened, given how rare the big cats were in the first place.
Also, the US army found after the war that most tank engagements were decided by whoever fired the first shot, which gave a large advantage to the sherman, as the shermans came with (admittedly fairly shitty) gyroscopic stabilizers and periscopic gunner sights. A gunner in a sherman can search and aim while compeltely hidden behind terrain, pop up, and fire immediately, while a gunner in most german vehicles had to expose at least the turret before they could even begin to look for a target. The sherman was also much, much easier for the crew to fight in compared to a tiger or panther. People forget that tanks, like guns, need people to pull the trigger, and in the case of the big cats, the crews were often times fighting their own vehicle as much as they were the allies.
The “5 shermans to kill a cat” myth came from the fact that 5 shermans was the smallest element in the US army, and you wouldn’t be bringing any less in the first place. 5 was what you had, not needed.
The highly flammable sherman is also a myth, early shermans didn’t catch fire any more easily than any other tank in service at the time, and the burn rate was actually well below average for later variants with wet stowage. The nickname of “ronson” because it caught on fire so often is highly dubious, as most troops at the time used Zippos, not Ronsons. Even more damning, the phrase “lights first time, every time” coined by Ronson actually came into being after the war, and could thus not have been used to describe the sherman, unless time travel was a thing.
Cooper’s book Deathtraps, being one of the main contributors to this myth, comes from the point of view of a mechanic, not a tanker, which means that the only thing he saw was damaged/destroyed shermans, which makes for a hell of a case for survivorship bias. Good read, but it’s hardly the best source for the Sherman’s performance.
Still, the analogy fits, as the new signs are hardly inferior to the original.
Reminds me of the Sherman tanks... in WW2 they were inferior to the German Panzer... so we mass produced them and turned every tank battle into 10+ Sherman’s vs. 1 Panzer
The inferiority of the sherman is a myth which bugs the hell out of me, the early shermans were roughly on par with the Panzer 4, which formed the main bulk of german armored divisions up to the end of the war. While the shermans were theoretically inferior on paper to the tiger and panthers, that particular matchup very rarely happened, given how rare the big cats were in the first place. Also, the US army found after the war that most tank engagements were decided by whoever fired the first shot, which gave a large advantage to the sherman, as the shermans came with (admittedly fairly shitty) gyroscopic stabilizers and periscopic gunner sights. A gunner in a sherman can search and aim while compeltely hidden behind terrain, pop up, and fire immediately, while a gunner in most german vehicles had to expose at least the turret before they could even begin to look for a target. The sherman was also much, much easier for the crew to fight in compared to a tiger or panther. People forget that tanks, like guns, need people to pull the trigger, and in the case of the big cats, the crews were often times fighting their own vehicle as much as they were the allies. The “5 shermans to kill a cat” myth came from the fact that 5 shermans was the smallest element in the US army, and you wouldn’t be bringing any less in the first place. 5 was what you had, not needed. The highly flammable sherman is also a myth, early shermans didn’t catch fire any more easily than any other tank in service at the time, and the burn rate was actually well below average for later variants with wet stowage. The nickname of “ronson” because it caught on fire so often is highly dubious, as most troops at the time used Zippos, not Ronsons. Even more damning, the phrase “lights first time, every time” coined by Ronson actually came into being after the war, and could thus not have been used to describe the sherman, unless time travel was a thing. Cooper’s book Deathtraps, being one of the main contributors to this myth, comes from the point of view of a mechanic, not a tanker, which means that the only thing he saw was damaged/destroyed shermans, which makes for a hell of a case for survivorship bias. Good read, but it’s hardly the best source for the Sherman’s performance. Still, the analogy fits, as the new signs are hardly inferior to the original.