Armored Thunderbolt: The U.S. Army Sherman in World War II

Incredibly well written. This guy can write! Believe it or not, this book about Sherman tanks is very hard to put down. It has short chapters that make it a breeze to read. Not a boring page or useless information in the book. Reading the book also dramatically increased my respect for the Sherman plus it caused a paradigm shift in my thinking about the Panther. This book motivated me to write my first Amazon book review. I highly recommend it!

This book is an excellent counter to Death Traps: The Survival of an American Armored Division in World War II. Lt. Cooper was charged with finding and tagging destroyed tanks. He has very little good to say about the Sherman. Mr. Zaloga is a militarian historian who explains in detail the Sherman's problems and its strengths.

The Sherman had a bad rap as a "Tommy cooker". This tendency to burn after being hit was blamed on its use of gas rather than diesel as a fuel. Mr. Zaloga demostrates that the real cause was ammo storage. Once this problem was fixed the burn rate after being hit fell from 60-80% to 10-15%.

The Sherman's other main problem was that the Allies were winning. This meant that they were advancing. The most important factor in tank-vs-tank fighting is NOT technical superority. It is who engages first. Here the defenders obviously have the advantage. The Army found that when the defenders fired first, the attackers suffered 4.3 times more casulties than the defenders. So the Sherman tended to get the short end of the stick.

This explains why rear-area Lt. Cooper Death Traps: The Survival of an American Armored Division in World War II thought Shermans were death traps while Col Loza Commanding the Red Army's Sherman Tanks: The World War II Memoirs of Hero of the Soviet Union Dmitriy Loza thought they were much better than the German tanks.

It would be hard to overpraise this book. It is a masterpiece.

I met Steve at a military symposium in New York City in 1991 when I came down as an instructor from West Point to give a presentation on German World War II armaments production. Steve was in the audience and we shared ideas on the walk back to the train station.

I have read most of Steve's historical works and his understanding of the technology and issues surrounding World War II armored development is unmatched by few in the military history field. This book represents the first time someone has pulled together the entire story of the M4 Sherman tank's technology and production developments, doctrine, fielding,and combat experience in a single volume. It is a complex story that addresses the many personalities, opposing concepts, bitter debate, innovation and expedients surrounding the Sherman tank's compressed World War II service.

Steve handles that story masterfully, particularly the debate between LTG McNair's "battle need" (today what we call requirements-based procurement), MG Bruce's high-speed tank destroyer concept, and LTG Dever's more perceptive view that the "best enemy of the tank is another tank." Steve also explains the difficulty faced by the U.S. Army in meeting the demand for tanks to fight in environments around the world, be reliable, be simple to operate, and that could be produced in large numbers for the U.S. Army and all of its allies. The entire requirement was compressed into a three-year time span where technical intelligence of German Army developments lagged American production by months.

Steve, building on his previously published research, assembles supporting technical documentation of Sherman tank production, fielding, and deployed strength for the first time in one book. Steve is one of the few authors to accurately compare Allied and German tank losses in Normandy. Too many authors stand in awe of the Wehrmacht's Panzerwaffe and criticize Allied armored operations in Normandy and northern France, completely missing how devastating the campaign was to the German Army's tank strength. Allied tank losses were actually less than the Germans between June and September 1944. The reasons for the disparity are clearly spelled out in Steve's book.

The book is not without a few minor errors. These revolve around the American 90mm gun's capability compared to the German 88's and the British 17 lber. The chart that compares the M3 90mm versus the German KwK 36 and KwK 43 is invalid. The 90mm's standard M82 APCBC shell is compared to the 88mm tungsten-cored AP40 shot which has a higher velocity and was produced in extremely limited numbers (800 rounds in 1942 and 8,900 rounds in 1943. Of these only 5,570 were actually consumed by the end of 1943 and 1,600 rounds were returned for use in machine tools). Likewise the performance figures for the KwK 43's Pzgr 39/43 is for the higher performance tungsten-cored AP40 shot, only 5,750 were produced and fewer still were fired. (see Fritz Hahn's Waffen und Geheimwaffen des Deutschen Heeres 1933-1945) The correct comparison should have been the standard German Pzgr 39 APCBC shell, which for the KwK 36 gun penetrates 111mm at 500 meters while the KwK 43 gun penetrates 185mm.

Likewise the the comparison of the American 90mm with the British 17 lber understates the superiority of the American 90mm gun. First the American 90mm was a good all-purpose tank gun with an excellent high explosive round, a round used more frequently than armor piercing in combat. With post-war developments it was also used extensively in Korea and Viet Nam. Second, the 90mm M77 AP shot was capable of penetrating the Panther's front glacis out to 600 yards, the gun mantlet out to 1000 yards, and the front turret out to 1500 yards. This was demonstrated in the test shoot at Balleroy, France in July 1944 and Isigny in August 1944. The 17 lber could not penetrate the Panther's glacis with standard APCBC ammunition even at point-blank range of 200 yards. With tank versus tank engagement ranges in Western Europe averaging 800 meters the 90mm was gun was more than adequate. This was demonstrated in battles along the Roer in the Ardennes, and in Alsace wherever,the M-36 TD's were on hand.

Despite these minor discrepancies this is an outstanding book and one which should be on the shelf of those interested in understanding World War II armored combat developments.

Keith Wooster

It would be hard to add to the reviews already written here about this wonderful book. What I really liked about this book was that it puts the development and battle history of the Sherman tank into the proper context and perspective. Too many tank histories are so narrowly focused that you could almost believe that the tanks were developed and used in some kind of void or vacuum. To the contrary there are a myriad of issues that impact on weapons design. There are the questions of raw materials, available technology, size and capability of the industrial base, and the time available to field the new weapon just to name a few. When you add to these challenges the egos and ideas of engineers, industrialists, politicians, and generals all trying to come up with the right answer you begin to understand the complexity of the challenge. Like no one has done before, Mr. Zaloga ties all these elements together in a clear and understandable way in his history of the Sherman. For this reason alone the book is worth reading. The book itself is made of high quality materials, and the pictures are great. You can't go wrong with this book!

Armored Thunderbolt is a very well written account of the Sherman Tank and how it came to be the legend it is. It is essentially a chronological volume showing the development of the Sherman, the legend, the myths, and end results, of one of the most popular or unpopular tanks (if you wish) of the 20th century.

While it is not what you would consider a technical free for all type of book, it gives you the basic statistics and types of the venerable Sherman. The book describes the various types of the Sherman, while not getting too technical on the multitude of changes to production runs of the same series of tank. This means it is not going to tell you when a certain style of turret made its' appearance in the development, but it does give you a breakdown of the M4 series and the major advances or improvements made with the development of the Sherman over the span of the Second World War and on into the cold war.
Armored Thunderbolt in intended as a more general and understandable history of the Sherman without all the overwealming tech information. In depth technical Information is better retrieved from the R.P. Hunnicutt volume entitled the Sherman, well known as the bible for all Sherman enthusiasts.

There are many chapters in the book covering the use of the Sherman in the various theatres of war and how it was employed. It is quite interesting to see the differences in how the tank was used by the different branches of the services especially in how the crews stowed the tank with both personal and military equipment. While a tank in North West Europe may have been found to be covered in the crews baggage and war booty, tanks in the Pacific theatre of war had very little stowed outside them. This was due to the profound use of the tank in close combat with infantry where the stowage could easily be set alight by the enemy causing great difficulties for the crew.

A short section in the book also covers the use of the Sherman in the experimental role and its role as an armored engineer vehicle. This information is well received as it shows how the Sherman was adaptable to various uses throughout its' life. Armored Thunderbolt also gives you a good look into the changes made to the next generation of tank, The Pershing and how lessons learned with the Sherman affected its' development.

Armored Thunderbolt is a book well worth being in any military vehicle enthusiasts' collection with its excellent selection of photographs and informative text. Quite frankly, I had never seen many of the photos that appear in the book and I was truly impressed with the authors' exhaustive attempts not to reuse many photos that can be seen in other books on the Sherman. The reader must be aware though that this is a book on the American use of the Sherman and not one covering all the Allied armies use of it. While there are some photos of the Sherman in Lend Lease use but it generally sticks to American usage in all the theatres of war.

The author has been writing books on military matters for many years. Steve Zaloga is a well known historian as well as a military advisor having a wealth of in depth knowledge and superior access to various archives and collections throughout the world. He has given us a true definitive work on the history of the Sherman worth much more than the asking price of the book.