US medium tank M4 Sherman

Could you, please, clarify what does a speed number mean? Did you mean a large tactical(?) number painted on the hull side? May be it was absent because of Caballero with rodeo mark on its place?

 

May be it will be a bit easy to dig the info about this tank as I found its factory number - 48966.
https://ru.pinterest.com/pin/fotos-ww-ii-bord-2--102738435237474227/ - experienced tank fans all over the internet prefer to mention the 6th AD for this photo…

 

Yes, the 6th Armored Division used large tactical numbers - speed numbers - on all its vehicles. If they took the time to paint CABALLERO and the bucking bronco cartoon on it, then they would have taken the time to paint the standadr division speed number on it as well.

It is definitely not the 9th Armored Division, so the most logical candidate then becomes CCB, 10th Armored Division. I suspect it is from Team O'Hara.(Company C, 21st Tank Battalion) or Team Cherry (Company C, 3d Tank Battalion).

 

Yes, from the R/N it is easy to interpolate the S/N for the Medium Tank M4 series. That does not make it easy though to gain more information from it though, because the vehicle registry cards, which identified where and when vehicles were in the war, were all destroyed postwar.

I do not much care what "experienced tank fans" think. In this case, they are almost certainly wrong. They are all keying off the spurious identification made by Jean Paul Pallud nearly 50 years ago. I place more trust in experienced researchers and photo interpreters like Leife Hulbert, who first questioned the identification. The biggest problem is that IIRC the 6th Armored Division was not at Longvilly. They were further south at Wardin and Marvie.

 

I meant they could paint Caballero and picture on the place of the speed number…

 

Yes, the careful research is always very important and very interesting! It is a pity that US vehicle registry cards were all destroyed after WW2 and not placed in the archive…I have the book by J.P. Pallud - «Battle of the Bulge: then and now”.

 

I got to ride in a Sherman 'a few years ago' (Sixty IIRC). There was this company that had "movie prop vehicles" including armored cars, jeeps, and one Sherman. Looking back I am surprised that the establishment was just west of St. Louis, Missouri, pretty much the geographic center of the US. Still, riding a flippin' tank was a blast for a 12 year old.

Has anyone not seen "Fury" yet?

 

Nice experience!

The number of M4 Sherman tanks that have survived to this day is quite large, about 1,000 units. There are many of them in museums, numerous memorials and private collections in the USA, in museums in Canada, Great Britain, France, Russia, Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, Israel (where these tanks, after modernization, were in service until the end of the 1970s).

 

The upshot of that trip was that when my 5th year class went on a field trip to Indianapolis and I got to climb around on an M-48. I gave ... tanks ... that year for some cool armor.

 

The question is then why? Why would the 6th Armored Division change its established marking policy for this single tank? Why would it be the single tank knocked out where they did not follow division policy? Why would it be knocked out at a location where the division did not fight?

 

Yes, Pallud is good, but he is not always correct and this appears to be a spurious identification. The tank is incorrectly marked, but also the location - Longvilly - is completely off. The first action by the 6th was by CCA on 31 December, east of Bastogne, seizing the high ground at Wardin. CT69 of CCA was on the left and secured Neffe.

On 1 January, CCA and CCB attacked abreast, CCA on the right and CCB on the left, through Neffe, Bizory, and Mageret. At the end of the period CT69 switched from CCA to CCB. On 2 January, CT69 outposted the high ground west and south of Arloncourt and was not seriously engaged. From 3 to 7 January, CT69 held the line Bizory-Mageret against German counterattacks. From 8-12 January, CT69 was engaged mostly defensively at Mageret.

On 13 January, CT69 advanced and finally secured Mageret. On 14 January, CT69 supported the advance east from Mageret by fire from positions south of town. On 15 January, CT69 seized Arloncourt. On 16 January, CCA seized Longvilly, with CCB to its northwest. On 16 and 17 January, CT69 supported the attack to cut the Longvilly-Bourct road in the area about one mile north of Arloncourt. On 18 January, CCB with CT69 withdrew to an assembly area southwest of Bastogne.

Company C appears to have remained with CT69 the entire time. It was never at Longvilly. The evidence is simply too strong, indicating the knocked out tank was probably not from the 69th Tank Battalion. The 15th Tank Battalion would be a more likely candidate...except again there is none of the very distinctive 6th Armored Division markings on it. The 10th Armored Division's CCB remains the likeliest candidate.

 

Thanks again, Richard, for detailed answer! But I need to say that in several sources (and I wrote this also, describing the tank above) the place of its destruction is mentioned as "close to Bastogne" indeed, not Longvilly exactly As for the Caballero and rodeo drawing - couldn't the crew draw it instead of the tactical (speed) number distinctive for tanks from the 6th AD on their own initiative? Was this too strictly monitored in the US Army in combat conditions?

 

Except it cannot be Company C, 3d Tank Battalion either, since they were not there! This is frustrating, because it is painted in the typical style of the 10th Armored Division. It must be from Team O'Hara's C, 21st Tank Battalion, so is actually from an area southwest of Longvilly.

 

No, the Division SOP's were pretty rigid. A single tank is not going to get away with not following it. Anyway, all the photos I see of 10th Armored Division tanks in its history Impact, appear to be M4A3 75mm and 76mm. The painting of the stars is very distinctive, one on each side of the turret and one on each side of the hull. The style and size of the stars also matches.

This must be a Team O'Hara tank from Company C, 21st Tank Battalion, near Wardin. It is the only thing that fits.

 

The ex armoured corps son of a friend and old military comrade had the brilliant job of acting as an armoured corps adviser to Brad Pitt in the filming of Fury. He saw more of Fury than most...

 

Agree, and the white stars on each side of the hull were larger than stars on each side of the turret, also the star in the white circle was painted on the front of the hull. Was it a common practice to paint also division and battalion numbers, as well as company letter and the tank's tactical number, on the lower front of the hull, flanking the star in the circle - for instance, 6△-69△ and C-50? Sometimes tanks on the photos don't have them, so it is very hard for us to identify their units exactly

 

Yes, bumper codes were always applied. The trick is, in some of the photos you cannot see them because there is crap in the way, usually stowage or ersatz protection. In some other photos you cannot see them, because some units realized that bright white paint contrasted really well against the dull background, which made it easy for some people to see it. So they used duller paints with less contrast. Or as in this case, you have snow caked on the front of the tank. And so on and so on.

 

There is an idea that those two photos were taken not directly on the battlefield, but at the US repair base after the tank was evacuated there already. On the left side, "Evac" is written in chalk, there is a towing cable in front of the tank, the headlights and bow machine gun are removed, the engine compartment hatches are opened, oil stains are clearly visible on the hull side (I hope it's not the crew's blood...). Perhaps, it was decided not to restore the tank, but to dismantle it for spare parts…What do you think? And the German shell penetrated the Caballero was probably from AT gun Pak. 38, 50 mm in caliber, if to compare the entry hole diameter with the diameter of the 75 mm Sherman gun barrel…

 

It is possible, but impossible to tell for sure. The right bogie assembly looks like it was intentionally removed, possible as a replacement for another tank. The track looks intact. It was not blown away, given that all the extended end connectors look intact. The cable may have been used to break track and then just left on the ground. Entrance and exits are hard to gauge. I suspect the entrance is on the left, and could be a 5cm or a 7.5cm penetration. Impossible to tell.

 

The shell most likely entered from the left side, since the hole on the right side is much larger in size, far away to be so accurately round and its jagged edges are curved outward...