Robert D*ck (rereading my last post I see we have nanny software here, so hopefully you can figure his name out this way ) in his book Cutthroats said they also carried a mix of shells that included canister shot in the PTO.  I wonder if anyone knows if canister shot was regularly carried in Europe, and if so how often it was used?

Only about 10% of the tank shelled fired in France were against other tanks, most times they fired HE shells against infantry targets.

Cool, I've got a pile of books by Zaloga here. In one of the videos he talks about US TDs having a 3 to 1 kill ratio vs. German panzers - interesting since I've always been told that they like the Sherman were death traps...

I know what you mean there, when the standard IJA medium, the Type 97 was basically equal to M3/M5 Stuart. And on top of that most ended up dug in and used as artillery instead of using the tanks biggest advantage- it's mobility...  

Gamera, that is a great video!  Actually, I have read Zaloga's book Armored Thunderbolt, and I walked away from it with the conclusion that his stance on the subject is the right one.  He basically posits that the M4 of course was inferior to the Tiger and Panther and such, but comparable to the Panzer IV.  And the Panzer IV and Sherman roles were more in line with each other.  The Tigers and Panthers were meant more to confront tanks and heavier obstacles, and the Panzer IV and Sherman were meant more for direct troop support....basically as he stated in the video.  It is funny he mentions the life span of the tanks being longer in the Pacific because I just got through re reading (yeah, been reading my way through my WW2 book collection lately) Cutthroats by Robert ***, and it struck me how long they made it through combat in the tank originally issued them.  They made it through Leyte without a scratch, were issued M4A1's at the end of the conflict, and made it most of the way through Okinawa with that one.  I guess it does make an interesting observation I guess (and proves Zaloga's points) that in Europe the M4's lifespan was short where Panzerfaust and heavier tanks were common, but long in the Pacific where satchel charges and the Japanese 47 mm anti-tank gun.

They're good stuff, the first few videos are pretty much History 101 stuff but the later ones are interesting. I found fascinating that Zaloga couldn't find any reference to any name applied to the M36 in the Second World War and comes up with the theory that Tamiya seeing how well their 1/35th Shermans, Grants, and Stuarts sold slapped the name Jackson on the M36 to make it sexier... 

Thanks for sharing that Gamera. Cool stuff.

No expert here but as I understand what the Germans had was being shipped off to the Eastern Front and didn't have much petrol for what they did have in Western Europe. Most US/UK tanks weren't knocked out by German tanks but some guy hiding in the bushes with a Panzerfaust.

Steven Zaloga talks about it a little bit here at 17:17

I also started this book about 10 days ago. He gets some of his info wrong, I quess from writting a book 50 years after his war experience. Patton had nothing to do with the M26 and that tank was developed about as quickly as possible according to other books I have read about it. The M26 was not the only heavy tank program the US had.

Of course the Allies are going to lose more tanks, they were attacking prepared defensives. The Tiger and Panther were better armored and higher firepower, but were a maintenance nightmare. Most M4s had more then double or tripled the hours and mileage that the German tanks, and still were running.

I think the Allies would have been slower with the M26 and M4, since they would have to carry parts and ammo for two totally different machines. They had a hard enought time keeping parts for the M4 on hand as it was.

The Allies might have been better off to get more M24 Chaffees into battle earlier. These would have helped encircle the Germans after the breakout of Operation Cobra.

If the M4 was such a bad tank, why did the US Army use it into the Korean War and other countries until the 1990s?  I think Cooper bases all his opinions on see some many M4 destroyed in the Battle of Normandy. But that goes back to the Allies attacking and the German;s defending. The attackers always has more casualties.

Now if the M26 was the only tank the Allies were using, then that is a different story. They would have geared the supply operations  to support only one tank, like they did with the M4. Sure it would have helped with tanks loses, but they still would have lost a lot attacking. But they use more fuel and the Allies had a hard time keeping M4 fueled up, so that might have slowed the battle across France.