Thicker armor does not necessarily mean better armor, slope has a lot to do with penetration, mechanical reliability is important, but tank to tank superiority trumps that. Getting to the fight does not equate to winning the fight. I really can't put a percentage on tank v tank and tank v infantry engagements. Id like to know where you came up with that figure. Ergonomics and crew comfort don't really mean anything if the tank is filled with holes. Pz IV and T-34's are the rough equivalent of the M4, but by 44 and 45 they were grossly outdated and under gunned too. The difference is the enemy and the Soviets evolved, the Americans did not.
" 3rd Armored Div. entered combat in Normandy with 232 M4 Sherman tanks. During the European campaign, the Division had some 648 tanks completely destroyed in combat and we had another 700 knocked out, repaired and put back into operation. This was a loss rate of 580 percent." Belton Y. Cooper,
Death Traps
Its bad reputation also comes from American service men who saw the results of combat. I have no idea what a wehraboos is.
Taken from:
https://militaryhistorynow.com/2017/09/12/tank-busting-blowing-up-the-myth-of-the-mighty-m4-sherman/
"I am a tank platoon leader, at present recovering from wounds received during the Battle of the Bulge. Since I have spent three years in a tank platoon doing everything, and at one time or another held every position and have read everything on armour I could get my hands on during this time, I would like to get this off my chest. No statement, claim, or promise made by any part of the Army can justify thousands of dead and wounded tank men, or thousands of others who depended on the tank for support."
To Corporal Francis Vierling of the
U.S. Second Armored Division, “the Sherman’s greatest deficiency lies in its firepower, which is most conspicuous by its absence.”
He continued:
"Lack of a principal gun with sufficient penetrating ability to knock out the German opponent has cost us more tanks, and skilled men to man more tanks, than any failure of our crews- not to mention the heartbreak and sense of defeat I and other men have felt when we see twenty-five or even many more of our rounds fired, and they ricochet off the enemy attackers. To be finally hit, once, and we climb from and leave a burning, blackened, and now useless pile of scrap iron. It would yet have been a tank, had it mounted a gun."
Had America and the Soviets squared off with each other post WWII, the Soviet armored columns would have made minced meat out of American armor. There is no doubt in my mind. Also, the Soviets did not have the same problem the Germans had, they had no shortage of armoured vehicles especially of the heavy variety: IS 1, IS 2, ISU 122, SU 152, ISU 152, KV 2, and potentially the KV 1. Also there are probably more I am leaving out. The Sherman is utterly incomparable and woefully inferior to any of those AFVs.
