![]() ![]() ![]() This simplified wheel changes and also gave a better ride and manifested itself in the M4A3E8 or “Easy Eight”. The US was not one to rest on its laurels and so further improved the Sherman family by changing the suspension from the Vertical Volute Spring Suspension (VVSS) inherited from the M3 Lee (and, in turn, the M2 medium tank of the interwar era!) to the Horizonal Volute Spring Suspension (HVSS). The new hull gives a front armour of 7 and the wet stowage grants a remount of 3+, always nice! The Ford V8 gives a small boost to the terrain dash up from 12″ to 14″ which I quite like as it has a positive in game effect without invalidating the Chaffee, something that the old v3 “Detroit Finest” had a tendency to do as an M4A3 moved just as fast as a Chaffee but was better armoured! All Shermans in the HQ and core Sherman platoons start as M4 Sherman Late by default. In game terms those changes manifest as follows: Whilst not comparable to a Panther or Tiger on a tank basis (in terms of armour and firepower at least, it arguably outstripped both in some other factors) The M4A3 late was built as 75mm (retained mainly for its superior HE round compared to the 76mm), 76mm and 105mm variants, all sharing a common hull. The net result was a Sherman that fixed many of its earlier faults and breathed new life into the tank. Taking all the lessons from the fighting in North Africa, the USA redesigned the front of the hull to make the drivers hatches larger and smoothed out the glacis plate (removing the odd protrusions of the driver positions), replaced the open ammo racks with wet stowage to give the crews vital time to escape, added a hatch for the loader (still sucked to be the gunner – no hatch for you!) and replaced the second-hand radial Wright R-975 aircraft engine (or several lorry engines tied to a common crankshaft) with a dedicated tank powerplant, the Ford V8. The M4 (Late) in question is the M4A3 wet hull Sherman. ![]() At long last Bulge Americans is with us (or a review PDF at least) and its fair to say that it’s the book that gives the Sherman, the tank that arguably won the war*, a chance to shine.ĭuncan is going to be looking at the infantry lists in the book whilst this article will look at the lists centred around the tanks and tank destroyers and boy do we have more than a few to look at! M4 Sherman (Late) Tank Company ![]()
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