The German shermans

 Nazi Shermans

By Sol Mathews

Welcome back to the War Times Blog fellow War heads. Today we are shifting gears a little and talking about the use of M4 Sherman Tanks by the Nazi Panzer divisions. While you would think that the US army would make a point to scuttle their tanks like the Nazis did with the Tiger one tanks. To prevent the enemy from capturing their tech. even then sometimes things happen. For example during the US Army's africa camapign the inexperienced soldiers of the US Army were inexperienced and delivered less than stellar performances wich led to the capture of several M1A1 Shermman tanks to be captured. One such example of a less than stellar performence by the inexperienced soldiers lays in the the Battle of Sidi Bou Zid. After the battle the US army had left a number of tanks behind these ranging from the M3 Stuarts and M3 Lee even the new at the time M4A1 Sherman Tank. The battle was a German victory which is what allowed the 5th Panzer Division to capture these tanks and send one to the Wehrmacht’s weapons testing facility in Kummersdorf. During the testing the Germans were less than impressed with the armament of the 75-millimeter main cannon on the M4 Sherman. The 75 Millimeter KwK 40 L/43 that the German army equipped on the Panzer four medium tank.

The Germans didn't just stop at the M4A1 Sherman, they used all variants of the Sherman they could get their hands on, but they didn't stop there the German army also Used captured Russian T34 tanks, British Mark four Churchill heavy tanks, The M3 lee, The French Char D2 and B1, and the Russian KV 1, KV 2 and I.S 2. and that's just a portion of the list of the captured tanks. they even used captured Halftracks and armored cars too. Among those the M3 scout car and M8 greyhound from America. This practice of capturing tanks began in World War one when the first tanks entered combat and is still practiced by some smaller countries to this Day.