http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M18_Hellcat
Found this reference to the M18 Hellcat. You could put a few Tank Destroyers in with your Shermans. I need to check further to see how many could be in a Div Unit. Most seem to be deployed in the Italian Campaign.
Check out a good gaming hobbyshop. Theres a great set of tanks ,halftracks and six bys for a WWII game they have Theres also a set of british fighters, cool ,but a little small I think.Also not cheap. Trouble is I can’t remember who makes em.
Well, no you really can’t. Hellcats and Shermans were built at different factories, so you wouldn’t see them in the same string of flat cars. As for divisional structures and quantities, it depends on the week and the division you’re talking about. Most (virtually all) Hellcats were assigned to tank destroyer companies and battalions, which had completely different roles than tank units. Tank destroyer units were designed to destroy enemy tank units, and mostly spent their time attached directly to infantry regiments. Tanks were NOT supposed to engage enemy tanks according to US Army doctrine, but were to exploit holes in enemy lines and disrupt the rear areas. As Hellcats were lightly armored but very fast, they spent most of their time acting as armored cavalry, scouting the flanks of divisions and destroying enemy armor when possible. On the battlefield, Hellcats and Shermans rere rarely within a mile of each other.
It does not look good, all of the Roco Mini-Tanks models that Walthers lists on its web site are either sold out or discontinued when sold out. There is no sign of them on Horzion Hobby’s website.
I went to the Mini-Tanks website refereced earlier, which does have an English version. So far, I have not seen anywhere on there on how to order.
I think 4 Tanks = Platoon
12 Tanks = Company
36 Tanks = Battalion
Three Battalions = Regiment
Three Regiment = Division
Roughly 350 tanks. HUGE amounts of related manpower, logistics, vehicles and HQ equiptment.
I could be having errors or mistakes so dont take my numbers as absolute fact. They could be wrong.
Shermans were called Rosion (Spelling?) Lighters because they tended to burn very easily when hit. They needed two or three shermans to occupy one Tiger or equivilant German Tank long enough for a seperate sherman to manuver into positon on the flank or rear to kill it. It was not until the Pershing Tank was created that we had something that had anything like a fair chance against the Tiger’s 88mm gun.
I think in this modern age, the era of rifled tank weapons to kill other tanks is about over. Missiles stacked onto a armored vehicle can engage a variety of targets; including other armor according to TRADOC.
I think that the correct spelling of that was Ronson - Shermans were known, accurately, as deathtraps for several reasons.
The first of these was that they were gas powered instead of diesel, like the German tanks. That’s why they burned so well.
The second was that they weren’t as heavily armored.
The third is that, unfortunately, the artillery folks were in charge of specifying the main gun on it, and while it no doubt would have made a fine 75mm artillery piece, as a weapon needed to blow up German tanks (who didn’t read the American doctrine saying that they shouldn’t engage other tanks) it really sucked - it tossed the shells out much too slowly. This made the gun last longer, but since the tank was usually destroyed within a couple shots, this really didn’t make much of a difference.
If anyone is actually interested enough in this to have read this far, check out "Death Traps: The Survival of an American Armored Division in World War II" by Belton Y. Cooper. I’d put up an Amazon link, but I think that would be considered advertising.
You’re thinking modern TO&E. During WWII, it was actually FIVE tanks per platoon. Past the platoon level though, things got murky. The US Army had both heavy and light armored divisions, with either 390 or 245 tanks in each. Light divisions far outnumbered the heavies. Add indipendent tank battalions (organized under the heavy structure) attached to various divisional structures, or combat commands stripped away from various divisions and attached to other units, and the nominal TO&E strength varied wildly.
This was mostly true of the earlier Shermans, which had the shell stowage placed on the sides of the hull. Later Shermans (especially the “Easy Eights”) had “wet” storage hoppers (literally, water tanks surrounding the shells) that reduced the incidence of catastrophic fires significantly.
You have to remember that Shermans were designed as part of the US Army’s doctrines at the time, which were to NOT engage in tank vs. tank battles. It was the job of artillery, aircraft and tank destroyer units to destroy enemy tank formations. The role of tanks in the US Army was to break through a weak point in the enemy lines and disrupt their rear areas, a job traditionally held by medium cavalry (exploitation, rather than engagement). The US Army didn’t WANT heavy tanks that could slug it out with Tigers and Panthers, since those sorts of engagements tended to slo
Having spent more than a little time in the game, I 've always wanted to have a train with armored vehicles on the layout. But how to avoid the mentioned problems of time warp?
Thats where OMS comes in. Yes folks, Overseas Military Sales! The answer to the Third Worlds firepower problems. Neighboring warlord or clan chief trespassing? Trying to affect your “free” elections? OMS has the answer, with the best in refurbished armored equipment, at resonable prices…cash and carry only! (oil futures and Blood Diamonds accepted)
I’m building a depot level renovation plant for overseas sales. This justifies having all types and ages of vehicles, now you could include Soviet vehicles acquired during our play in the sandbox. It’s good for loads in (damaged units) and loads out (spiffy new and upgraded units). It also allows for many other car types for deliveries (ie boxcars for parts and tank cars for paints and solvents).
Besides, you can use all those neat little toys you just had to buy.
Tilden
He’s not the yo yo. The bidder/winner will be the yo yo. He realizes there are a lot of yo yo’s out there waiting to be plucked. LOL
Jon [8D]
“…the era of rifled tank weapons to kill other tanks is about over.” I’m picking a nit here, but I think most tank main guns are smoothbore today, not rifled. Ed
They can be smoothbore or rifled. However Rifled Tank Barrels are a better way to kill at a distance than the smoothbores.
Once we get power supplies in sufficient capacities and small enough, rail cannons using very small amounts of material between magnetic tracks will render both rifles and smooths out of work.
I recall we experimented with a Crusader type artillery vehicle that mixed chemicals in the required amounts very quickly by computer. The cannon was able to put about 12 rounds onto a target that was probably in the same time frame as one 155mm cannon shot. It blew up during testing really bad and I dont know if they continued that little program.
One would think that perhaps our armored tanks would go the way the French Knights did when they ran into the new Musketry centuries ago.
When the day is ended, it is a great honor to our Fathers who fought in the Lee’s and Shermans knowing that they are not as good tanks against the feared Tigers and others.
Sorry, but you obviously have no clue as to modern MBT main gun technology. Back in the good old days (early 1980s) the NATO 105mm rifled main gun was THE best tank gun on the market. Then one day the Germans and Brits reverse-engineered the newfangled Soviet T-72 main gun, which was a 200mm smoothbore. The new NATO standard soon became a smoothbore gun that fired SABOT rounds: a long, thin dart (with fins) that was encased in a drop-away “Sabot” (shoe). The dart has twice the effective range of a conventional kinetic projectile and more than twice the nominal accuracy. Add modern fire-stabilization controls and FC computers and optics, and a smoothbore tank round can fly through a small window at a mile and a half, while the tank is doing 25 mph over a cornfield.
But a gauss gun or rail gun is STILL a gun firing a solid projectile. The propulsion system will be the only thing that will have changed, from chemical to electric/magnetic energy.
The Soviets and Israelis played around with both “squirt” propellants and auto loader systems. The Soviets bankrupted themselves before they discovered what the Israelis discovered and what the US Army figured out in the 1960s: that autoloaders and fancy premixing systems have a horrible tendency to
This is actually very true jondrd. However, I am not one of those that jumps at the first thing he sees, and will go to great lengths to save a few bucks. Most people that know me call me the world’s greatest tight wad… When I first joined the forum, I created a topic about an ebay seller that was selling items for three times the price I could get them for at my local hobby shop. The next thing I know I’m being chewed out by a forum member that told me it was a free country and that if I didn’t like the prices I didn’t have to buy the items… As it turned out, he was the ebay seller that I was complaining about. It offended him so much that he couldn’t keep his mouth shut. After that, everyone on the forum started jumping his case… I loved it!. Tracklayer