<h2>Armour</h2> When the Sherman first rolled off the lines its turret armor ranged from about an inch to three inches thick, with the front plate set at a 30&deg; angle to bump its effective thickness to nearly 3.5 inches. Early versions even had a rounded 2-inch rotor shield around the gun breach, and a small mantlet that left the coaxial machine-gun barrel exposed until a larger mantlet arrived later to cover both gun and sight. Underneath, the glacis plate started as 2 inches of steel sloped at 56&deg;, giving almost 3.6 inches of protection-though those distinctive cast 'hatchways' around the driver and bow-gunner weakened the slope until 1943, when 1-inch appliqu&eacute; panels smoothed things out. Side and rear hull plates stayed at about 1&frac12; inches, the roof at 1 inch, and floor plates varied from &frac12; to 1 inch, even featuring a bottom hatch that Marines sometimes used to pull wounded out under fire. Mid-war upgrades brought the new T23-derived turret to 76-mm and 105-mm variants, with side and rear armor beefed up to 2&frac12; inches and an 88.9-mm cast mantlet up front. Crews also got a second hatch over the loader's position from late 1943 onward, easing evacuations and improving battlefield survivability. In Normandy the Sherman's armor held its own against most Panzer III and IV tanks, but heavier guns like the Tiger's 88 mm and Panther's 75 mm could penetrate key plates at combat ranges. Analysis of knocked-out Shermans showed a brutal tendency to burn when ammo stowed in dry bins took a hit-up to 80 percent burned through-until 'wet stowage' flooded the racks and cut fire losses to around 15 percent. Field fixes like appliqu&eacute; over sponsons and the shift to hull-floor ammo racks turned the Sherman into a tougher customer by 1944, even as nicknames like 'Tommy Cooker' or 'Zippo' followed it into battle-some deserved, some exaggerated, but all proof that steel and stories go hand in hand. <h2>Firepower</h2> The Sherman's armament story begins at the drawing board, where designers built the turret to accept three different main guns: the stock 75 mm, a heavier 3-inch piece, or even a 105 mm howitzer. Early on they tested the 3-inch M7 from the M6 heavy tank, but its sheer bulk-borrowed from an antiaircraft mount-proved too unwieldy for the Sherman's turret. By autumn 1942 engineers shifted focus to a purpose-built 76 mm gun better suited to the Sherman's chassis, while parallel trials explored fitting the 105 mm howitzer M2A1. When that proved poorly balanced and cramped, they redesigned it into the M4 howitzer, beefing up turret traverse drives and ammo racks, and by February 1944 rolled out Sherman variants bristling with the hefty 105 mm. Meanwhile Sherman crews went into combat from 1942 armed with the reliable 75 mm M3, a 40-caliber gun able to punch through about 88 mm of rolled steel at 100 m and 73 mm at 1 000 m with its standard APCBC round, guided by an M38A2 telescopic sight. Facing Panzer III and IV tanks in North Africa, it proved adequate at typical engagement ranges. Despite early U.S. intelligence downplaying the Tiger I and Panther threats-relying on flawed tests and assuming low production-real battles soon exposed the limits of the 75 and even the new 76 mm guns against heavier German armour. Eisenhower later admitted he'd been misled about the 76 mm's 'universal' knockout power when no live Panther trials were ever done. All Shermans carried a coaxial .30-caliber Browning, a front-hull .30 operated by the assistant driver, and a roof-mounted .50 Browning for air defence. Early M4s even sported twin fixed hull machine guns-left over from WWI-era doctrines-before crews decided that point-and-shoot main guns and flexible turret mounts made sweeping the ground with fixed guns obsolete. <h2>Mobility</h2> When Allied planners sketched out the Sherman to replace the M3 medium, they set strict size and weight limits-no wider than 103 inches and under 30 tons-so it could roll across standard bridges, hop aboard most railcars and even load onto invasion craft without fuss. That foresight paid off in 1942-43 as Shermans poured into Europe, unhampered by logistical headaches. In spring 1943 a long-distance trial in Britain pitted gasoline- and diesel-engined Shermans against Rolls-Royce-powered Cromwells and Liberty-engined Centaurs. The verdict? Shermans weren't quite as spry over greasy, worn tracks, but reliability trumped all-'utterly reliable,' the British officer concluded, and worth any small sacrifice in cross-country smoothness. Across deserts and bocage the Sherman's rubber-block tracks and powerful engines let it dash down Italian hills that heavier German tanks couldn't dare. Albert Speer later lamented that on Italy's steep slopes, the Sherman outclimbed any German design, its power-to-weight giving it cross-country agility his experts had deemed impossible. Yet facing Panther and Tiger, that early agility waned. Those German giants rode on much wider tracks and interleaved road wheels, slashing ground pressure and boosting flotation on soft ground. Trials at Kummersdorf and by the U.S. 2nd Armored Division found Panthers faster on roads, dead-steady off-road, sharper in turns and better at hill-climbing, often leaving Shermans bogged down in mud that the Germans simply rolled over. To claw back mobility, American units began fitting 'duckbill' extended end connectors to widen the Sherman's shoes in late 1944. By war's end a handful of HVSS-suspended models with broad tracks arrived, but most Shermans in service still relied on those early narrow treads-proof that even a tank built for flexibility sometimes needed field fixes to keep pace with the enemy.

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M4 Sherman Tank