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welcome back to the militaryvehicle technology foundation and our tour, part 2,of an early model m4a1. ok it's a grizzly,but who's keeping track? now the first thing you'll noticeas you're looking at the turret is that there is no loader’s hatch, which is what you might calla surprising omission. in fact the reaction is“what on earth were they thinking?†now in fairness of themthey're still learning, and if you look at the m3 medium,that didn't have
a loader’s hatch either,but it was a smaller turret. the problem of course,you can imagine. if you've gotto get out of the tank in a hurry for some reason like,i don't know, the tank is on fire, it's a bit difficultif you don't have a hatch of your own. what is perhapsless excusable was it took a yearand a half of production, and about a year's worthof combat experience before somebody finallyfigured out how to drill a hole
in the roof of the turretand install a hatch. these started coming offthe production lines october 43. now, there wasa retrofit kit put out, so if you're in the fieldand you had a no-hatch sherman, you could get this kitthat would come, it will tell youmake a hole here in the turret roof and install this hatch the loadersbecame much happier, but still it wasa surprising omission.
also surprisingwas that the idea didn't die. if you look at the merkava iv,the israeli tank, the early models of that looks like they did not comewith loaders hatch. doubtless is proved unpopularas evidenced by the fact that after a very brief period of timethe tank started appearing with loaders hatchesit’s a structural weakness but you have gotto give the crew a chance. other features around the turret.
speaking of hatches,this is not the original hatch that camewith an early 75-millimeter tank. it was the originally the split hatch. simply two piecesof simple metal that came up, there would bea single rotating periscope in one of themand that's how you would see out. very unsatisfactory. it also had a mountfor the calibre 50 on the ring. now, what turned out happened wasthat the vision cupola
was the same diameteras that of the split hatch so it's actually very easyto take vision cupola and put in place of the split hatchand all of a sudden you have a much, much better hatch. so for example this onenow has an azimuth ring if you needed itfor some reason as well as the periscope. a simple, easy,hatch to come down. the split hatches kept goingquite a way through the war
they did startinstalling springs to make them easier to openin the middle of ’43. still, the grizzlies as nearas we can tell, all came out with originallythe split hatch design. there was alsothe british vision cupola, which was a very good design but obviouslythe americans didn’t use it. as we move further round pick up the mounting pointfor the calibre 50
which has now been movedback and left. the machine gun, of course,could only be fired really by somebodyat standing on the back deck so not really useful for the crew. this is a rest for the barrel so the gun will be restingforward and horizontally this way. latch it out of the way,put it down, and you can see the spotlight that could becontrolled from within the tank, the loader had a handle,or it could be discounted
and hand held in a pistol gripthat the commander has. if we move forward,we see the commander has vane site. this is usedsimply to gauge direction as he's telling the gunnerto spin onto a target he knows roughlywhich way the gunner is looking. speaking of the gunyou'll see that there are very large screws at the front. this was done for modularity. the idea wasthat you could turn the tank
into pretty muchany required configuration by simply swapping out the gun. undo the boltsand install module a, module b. not in the field.once it left the factory. the idea was it was the same thing, but you could very easilyswap it out on the production line, and these would be anythingfrom the 57-millimeter, 75 the 105, or they were hoping for the three-inch. didn't work out,
we'll come back to that storyat a future point. that's pretty muchthe outside of the turret roof so let’s go inside. i have moved inside to wherethe commander would be seated. i’m on a fold down seat: a very simple,lift latch, fold down. if i wanted to be seatedwith my head out there is actuallyan additional platform down here which i have folded it out of the way.
it is cozy in here. the breech recoil guardis taking up a lot of my space and i've had to place one legon either side of the gunner’s seat. not a good start. controls, as he's going around. well he's going to havean override handle here, push forward for left-back for right, and all this isa simple physical cable that goes all the way downand moves the gunners control handle,
which then movesthe rest of the system. very usefulfor getting your gunner on to target quickly,you don't have to yell at them to go and left, right,hey you missed it, you’ve gone too far,your other left. i'm sure you're familiar with that,some of you. as you start moving aroundunderneath is a pistol grip for the spotlightso you would dismount it from the positionon the front of the turret
and put it on hereand you can wave it around and see whatever it is you need seeing. to see out, speaking of seeing,the six vision blocks on the direct vision cupola. so again, early thanksdid not have this vision cupola, they had the simple split hatchwhich comes down with the periscope in the middle of it. this is far better. not ideal by modern standardsbut by world war two standards,
this was one of the best cupolasyou were going to get. as we move aroundto the back we see… rations. packaged by patent food products,chattanooga, tennessee. ration type k. use as a waterproof containerfor matches, cigarettes and other items. for security,hide the empty cannon wrappers so they cannot be seen. i’m in a 40 ton tankor, thirty-five ton tank and i’m worryingabout seeing wrappers.
the radio behind himis either an scr 508 528 or 538, all things dependingand this is a 20 frequency set. you can listen on 20 and speak on 10. they are selectable. your program,you spend your time ahead of time, programming your crystalsand then use the push buttons to select whichever frequency it isthat you want to transmit on or monitor. pretty similarto the way we have things today. that's pretty much itfor the commander’s seat,
and next i'm goingto move forward to the gunner. while we're herelet’s talk elephants again, and that means the gun. 75mm m3 was familiarfrom the m3 medium. it wasn't a low-velocity gun, it wasn't reallya high-velocity gun, it was sort of in the middle,general purpose, but still one of the best thingsthat the americans had at the time. in fact since it was developedfrom the 1897 gun
which was mountedon the m3 half-track, the tank destroyer of the time, and you end upwith the surprising-to-some situation that the sherman actually hada better gun to the tank destroyer. marginally, but there you go. that's another long storyyou'll see in my videos, but yes,tanks were supposed to kill tanks. now by this point of the warthe americans had started solving a lot of ammunition problems
that they had hadwith the m3 medium. so at this point now you havearmor-piercing high-explosive, you have shot,you have high explosive, you have smoke/white phosphorus. all very useful. the ap round, the m61,that was rated for about three point six inchesat muzzle of rha, or four inchesof face hardened under navy criteria. this in practice meantthat although you can knock out
a panzer 3 or a panzer 4,if you can hit it, pretty much at any range, unless you gota good flank shot on a tiger or, at least a reasonable shoton a panther, the best you could dowould just be to batter it into submission,which in all fairness, actually happenedwith surprising frequency. anyway that was the endof the options for the americans. they did try in august 1941starting a program
to mounta 3-inch high-velocity cannon. however, the gun wasjust too big, too heavy. solution b was to take the 76 millimeterwhich just been developed, found on the m18 hellcat,and put that in here. so they stuck it in, it worked,ordnance signs off on it, hooray, and an order of a thousandwas made and to be ready for the invasion of north africain late 1942. this was all well and gooduntil armored force actually got ahold of one of the prototypesand they took a look,
and said, no we don't want it,it is too cramped, it is too inefficient,the sights aren’t good, yadda yadda. so they nixed itand they told them to try again, and it ended upbeing the t23 turret which i hope to come across againin some future episode. on a late-model sherman. two exceptions did happen. one was the britishthat stuffed the 17-pounder into this.
you know, it's cramped enoughin here with the 75, i can't imaginewhat they thought of the 17 pounder, especially if they thoughtthe 76 was bad. the other was after the war, under the mdap program, the americans refittedsome of these tanks with 76 millimeter guns anyway,and gave them to allies. and crew efficiency be damned,they were going to get these tanks. they wanted some tanks.
the most famous of thesecan be found in the movie kelly's heroes.you look at them, they're 76mm shermanswith the small turrets. the loudspeakers are optional.so that's about enough on the guns we're going to come backto that probably as i say, in a future sherman episode,assuming i can find one, and the meantimelet’s move on to the controls. now the gunner’s seat itselfis actually quite comfortable. my left foot is comfortablyresting on the two-foot triggers,
my right foot a little bitunderneath the manual traverse, but it’s protectedby the skeletonized turret basket rim so it stops my feetfrom getting crushed as turret traverses. under power traverse, control,of course, being done here, a full circle would beabout 24 seconds. if you wished you could goto a manual traverse mode, you can seeit is now disconnected, by pushing downon this release lever.
you now go intoan actual manual transmission which is fairly quick. let's go back up. elevation: of course you have the manualelevation control option here, reasonably quick,but better yet, just like on the m3 you can disconnectthe elevation gear and now your gunis very well balanced and can be usedin a stabilized mode.
and why would you do this? well, obviouslyso that you can get the target into your sights quickeras you're moving cross country. speaking of sights,originally the only one that came with the tankwas the periscopic one through the turret roof. it was periscope, m4,with telescope m38, and as you can see there’sthe wide field of vision on the left side,and when you have your target
more or less in the middleyou can then look with your right eye through the telescope,which is a x1.4 and has a reticle in it.fantastic. now, why would you do thisas opposed to having a direct vision scope such as this one? well, there are a couple of reasons. firstly, it allows you to havethat really wide field of vision which is very importantfor acquiring the target. he who sees the enemy first
will probably shoot firstand will probably win. the other advantage is that if your sightis going through the roof, you can spot the enemywithout exposing your turret. so you can stay hidden,keep an eye out, and away you go. however, there wasa couple of problems as well. the linkagesbetween the periscope and the gun, which has beenunfortunately removed on this,
they weren’t the most reliable,and it took a field modification to come out that really keptthe sights aligned. in the long runthe solution was to install a direct vision scope as well. this was originally the m55,it wasn't well-received, they updated it to the m70f. now, this gave youis some additional capability. firstly it was a x3 opticinstead of the x1.4, so arguably this would becomethe primary site de facto.
but imagine what this does nowfor your engagement speed. if you're in a turret-down position, in ambush waiting for the enemyto show up, you can be scanning aroundlooking with your periscope. you see a target,you lay on it, you're in stabilized mode.but you're still behind the berm, you cannot engage the targetbecause if you press ‘fire’ you're going to hit the dirtright in front of you. “driver, move out.â€you then move your head
to the direct vision sight,with the stabilizer engaged, as soon as the gun has clearedthe berm that you're hiding behind, the hillcrest, whatever,“driver stop.†you are already on the target. it’s in your sightsbecause of the stabilizer system. you now knowthat you have just cleared the berm, so you can shoot quickly,take the shot, probably fire a second shot,fall back behind cover, return to your wide view opticand start the process over again.
this was a level of capability that no other tankhad in the world in 1942, 1943. ok, 43 by the timeyou had these things in. indeed it was pretty much uniquethrough to until the korean war. centurion finally came along. other thingsin the gunner’s compartment. well, you've got the rheostatfor the stabilizer system, there's an azimuth indicatordown here for indirect fire, so this will give you the lineof bearing horizontally;
for elevationyou would use the gunner’s quadrant and simply place itonto the breech-block. other than that,this is a comfortable position. very ergonomically well designed, the gunner can getthe most out of this tank. that done, let's go onto what i'm going to assume is slightly less pleasant,the loader’s. as you come overto the loader’s side, there’s bad newsand good news.
the bad news,i’ve already mentioned: the lack of a hatch.in order to get here had to come under the recoil guardand i can only assume things get more difficultif the gun is in elevation. fortunately in depressionit gets much better and i thinkthat if your tank is knocked out, it’s probably more likelythe direction will be in. the good news thoughis once you're in here, it's actually very roomy.
i am sitting on his seat,it's not annoying at all, there's ventilation up hereand i have visibility through the rotatingand elevation-adjustable periscope. 2-inch smoke bomb throweris to his left. originally this wasa british request, the americanseventually got in. there used to bea pistol port back here. now this was deleted in april of 43,it wasn't deemed necessary. the crews objected to this,they deemed it was necessary
and so later on in productionthe pistol port was added back in againafter a brief absence. ammunition: ninety seven rounds of 75 millimeterwere available to him and it was stowed pretty muchall around the tank. the sequence of eventsfor taking the ammunition was firstly you took itfrom the ammo box under the gun then it will be the front-right sponson and then it will beunderneath the turret
then it will be the right rear sponson… and the idea wasthat the two or three rounds that were actually in clips.. there's no clips herebut there would be, they were extreme emergency only. the default was that you were goingto take it out of the box and that was deemedto be fast enough. you may questionwhether or not that is true, well actually it's not that bad.
so if you'll bear with mefor a moment while i demonstrate, and you will note i am doing all thisfrom the seated position. come down,you lift up the ammo bin lid, so you probably do this onceat the beginning of the action. once that's out of the way you lift upthe etaining clips of the ammunition so i now have four roundseasily available to me. lean down, grab the round,i now have a 75 millimeter round.
place it into the breachwhich is closed on this tank so i can't actually do it, and then throw the roundall the way into the gun. now again this is… i can't remember the last timei was in a world war two tank like this and i could load the gunall eight ready rounds, plus the ones in the clips,so maybe ten rounds, from the seated position.this is wonderful. if only they had thought to puta damned door in the turret.
they actually are called doors,and we call them hatches by default, but technically they’re doors. also technically, the loaderis known as the cannoneer, although i've never ever met anybodywho refers to the loader as a cannoneer in routine operation. 4700 rounds of caliber 30would be fitted. of course, the caliber 30,coaxial to the main gun here and he has his control up herefor the spotlight that we talked about earlier.
that's pretty much itfor the loader’s side, this would be a wonderful positionto be in after october of 43. otherwise, the “oh my godthe tank is on fire†test i think immediately from thisis going to fail. and move to the front of the hull,the driver’s position. i am now in the up position,so i can drive open hatch easily enough,and of course, the seat will move down to a much more reasonable positionfor driving with the hatch closed.
alright, so this hatchunfortunately is not complete, it is not going to lockall the way down, but you can geta general idea of the situation. so my left foot, of course,is going to be on the clutch. it's a reasonably heavy clutch,unfortunately, on this particular tank. i've seen other tanksthat the club very light, so it seems to be a matter of, well,just how much is the tank used. i’ve driven shermans before,trust me, this is not normal. he has two optics to look out of.
firstly, he has the traditional rotating adjustable elevationdirectly in front. should something happen to this he can move to an auxiliaryfurther forward, but that doesn't rotateor elevate at all. for controls,the traditional two tillers and if you pull back,there is a rocker down here which engages and disengagesthe ratchets which also turn it into the parking brake.so pull back both tillers,
pull up on the rocker the parking brakehas now been engaged… and now disengaged. accelerator, low on the right,not a problem there, fuel pump. gear shift is now to its right. if you remember on the m3 medium,the driver sat astride the gearbox. no longer, on the m4. so he has quite a simple system, your traditionalmanual transmission on the right.
no particular issues there. you do see alsothey have here the windshield for the driver, so if he's driving ina low threat environment but it's wet or something like that,he puts up this drivers hood which gives him protectionfrom the wind and the rain. very nice, it even comeswith a windshield wiper to keep the rain off. the control panel on the left
this is pretty much typical with the light switchon the fair left-. fuel cut-off ishow you turn off the engine, the magnetosare left, right, or both. and of course you would boost and start. this control mechanismreally doesn't change throughout most of the army's tanksfrom the 1930s to the 1950s. in fact you still seeheadlight switches still more or less the same today.
auxiliary fuel pump,when you need it, and your additionalnormal array of amperes, voltmeter, rpms, tops outat 3,500 you see there is no red line. there should be a red linebecause it shouldn't really go, if i recall, over 2,800,but there is no red line. miles an hour, goes up to 80.there's optimism. temperature gaugelow oil pressure light, and of course, circuit breakers. this is an easy vehicle to drive.
the fact you don't needto double clutch is very nice. it's not quite as goodas an automatic transmission, but if you've got to have manual,and i do like driving manuals, this is a lot of fun. that is pretty much everything i’m going to sayabout the driver's side, i will now move overto bow gunner. moving over the bow gunner,and the first thing i will note is that the hatchactually works on this
so it's easily enoughlocked into place by using this screw system,no particular problems there. we'll come back to that. his primary toyis the browning 1919a4 in a simple ball mount. to aim it, he simplyfollows his tracers by use the periscope,either the rotating elevating one in the bow gunner’s hatch,or the fixed one further forward. i note that there's a coupleof spare periscopes
mounted around as well of course,should they get shot up. the utility of the bowmachine gun is questionable. it looks like it was retainedsimply because when the tank was moving,it was the most accurate system on the tank,if you didn't have a stabilizer, and the stabilizeri’ve gone into before. the stabilizer actuallyworked very well if you happened to bea member of the crew who know how to use it.unfortunately,
it was so secretthey didn't teach anybody how to use it.go figure. other parts around the tank. there is ammunitionstowed on the right here, behind this little plate. further forward where we nowhave a storage compartment, would otherwise goan scr 506 radio if this was a command tankin american service. now, down at my feetis one of your big indicators
of a grizzly versusan american-produced sherman. it is a small hatchwhich is designed for deployingthe snake anti-mine system. don't ask me what it isbut that is what it is for. the canadian tanks had this,the american ones did not. there is a proper escape hatchfurther to the rear and as far as escapehatches go at the period, it's not small.it's a reasonable size. compared to, saythe matilda from earlier,
or even the t-34,this is something you can probably get out ofeven if you're wearing winter kit, so point there. the transmission oilis checked down here through this little filler port and that's pretty much it. there remains one more test this is again the small hatch sherman. now, the thing about sherman's is
although they have a reputationof being death traps, they weren't. on average,the americans found they lost maybe point 6 of a personper killed tank and the survivability ratingof this tank is higher than pretty muchany other tank on the battlefield per knocked out tank, and part of the reason for itis once they fixed the loader's hatch issue,which i think i mentioned before, getting out of the shermanis really, really easy.
and bear in mindthis is the small hatch sherman so i will try the “oh bugger,the tank is on fire†test with a small hatch shermanand we’ll let's see how i do. now one last pointi'll note before i conduct the test is that there is a minor cheat. in 1943they started issuing spring kits. before that, in the tankto open up the doors, you were fighting againstthe full weight of the hatch. however, come 43 someonedecided “let’s put springs on itâ€
and make it much easierto open and get out, and this is oneof these retro fitted tanks. of course, off the production linesthey were added as well. so, without further ado, oh bugger the tank is on fire. try doing that in a t-34 or a comet.won't work. so now i’m out, let's close up. firstly, a note on names. it is of coursewell known that the british,
specifically churchill, came up with the name shermanfor the tank. however, it wasn'tuntil late nineteen forty-four that us army ordnancefinally decided to give it a nameof general sherman. the troops fighting on the front linesdidn't really care what us army ordnancethought the tank should be named, and they just continuedto call it the medium, or the m4, it wasn't until after the warthat the name sherman
began in american parlance to be commonly associatedwith the m4 medium. when it came out in 1942this is arguably the best tank in the world,however there werea couple of glitches. the turret hatches,the optics were the main ones. still, by 1943they had started fixing these and it really was an excellent tank. you can argue best, not best,but it was definitely very good.
technology progress quickly, however. what was world-leading in 1942was much less so in 1944. fortunately, by this point the improved shermanswere coming off the production line and there wereentirely different beasts. i do hope to do one of thesein a future episode, so we'll come back to that then. about 33,000 of the tankswere made plus an additional 4600with 105 howitzer.
of these about half of themwent to the uk and an additional 2,000went to the soviets. that's not bad for a countrythat in five years prior to the war had only builta hundred medium tanks. that was the m4a1 medium,we'll see on the next one. right proudly high over dublin townthe hung out the flag of war. ‘twas better to die‘neath an irish sky than at sulvaor sud-el-bar. and from the plains of royal meath
strong men came hurrying through. while britannia’s hunswith their long-range guns sailed in through the foggy dew… and unfortunatelywe are short for time so we’d better get back to work.
