26. The Myth of the Defective Sherman
The M4 Sherman was America’s main tank of WWII, and the most widely used tank of the Western Allies. Shermans were mechanically reliable, easy to maintain, durable, easy and cheap to produce, and thus available in great numbers: about 50,000 were built during the war. They had a large turret and roomy interior, a good gun traverse rate and excellent stabilization system, and routinely managed to get off the first shot in tank-vs-tank confrontations.
On the downside, early Shermans were notorious for brewing up when hit because of inadequate fire prevention measures in ammunition storage – a problem that was remedied in later models. However, the problem with the early Sherman models led to a myth that persisted long after the war and into the present, that the Sherman was a terrible tank, more lethal to its own crews to the Germans. In reality, Shermans were some of the war’s safest tanks.