- 1 week ago
A captured American Sherman stunned German engineers not because it was the biggest tank on the field, but because it kept working when Germany’s own armored vehicles often did not. From Tunisia to Kummersdorf, the story follows War Daddy the Second, a Sherman driven 350 kilometers without a single mechanical failure, then taken apart by German specialists who discovered standardized parts, an auxiliary generator, powered turret traverse, and a gyroscopic stabilizer that helped the tank fire faster and survive longer in combat.
The video traces the Sherman’s path from the fighting in North Africa to German proving grounds, the Hillersleben demonstration, the Kursk disaster for the Panther, and the winter battles in Alsace where German crews climbed into captured Shermans and immediately understood how easy they were to drive and fight. It is a World War 2 history story about tank design, battlefield repair systems, final drive failures, and the industrial difference between a tank built for precision and one built for mass production.
If you enjoy WW2 stories, military history, tank documentaries, Sherman vs Panther comparisons, and narrated history about armored warfare, this is for you. It also fits searches for World War II tank story, captured Sherman, German tankers, Kummersdorf, Kasserine Pass, and WWII engineering history. Ideal for viewers who like detailed military history narration, battlefield technology, and long-form historical storytelling.
WW2 history narration, Sherman tank documentary, military history storytime, armored warfare analysis, and World War 2 tank stories all point to the same theme here: how American standardization, repairability, and fire control systems gave the Sherman an advantage Germany could see but never fully copy. For fans of WWII history, tank engineering, and battlefield logistics, this is essential listening.
The video traces the Sherman’s path from the fighting in North Africa to German proving grounds, the Hillersleben demonstration, the Kursk disaster for the Panther, and the winter battles in Alsace where German crews climbed into captured Shermans and immediately understood how easy they were to drive and fight. It is a World War 2 history story about tank design, battlefield repair systems, final drive failures, and the industrial difference between a tank built for precision and one built for mass production.
If you enjoy WW2 stories, military history, tank documentaries, Sherman vs Panther comparisons, and narrated history about armored warfare, this is for you. It also fits searches for World War II tank story, captured Sherman, German tankers, Kummersdorf, Kasserine Pass, and WWII engineering history. Ideal for viewers who like detailed military history narration, battlefield technology, and long-form historical storytelling.
WW2 history narration, Sherman tank documentary, military history storytime, armored warfare analysis, and World War 2 tank stories all point to the same theme here: how American standardization, repairability, and fire control systems gave the Sherman an advantage Germany could see but never fully copy. For fans of WWII history, tank engineering, and battlefield logistics, this is essential listening.
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LearningTranscript
00:00On the morning of April 14th, 1943, a German engineer named Wanner stood at the edge of a concrete apron
00:07at Kummersdorf Proving Ground, 20 miles south of Berlin, staring at something that should not have existed.
00:13It was an American tank. An M4A1 Sherman, serial number USA 306-7641. Cast haul, 75mm gun, olive drab paint
00:30still showing the desert dust of North Africa.
00:33Someone had chalked armor thickness measurements on every surface, front, sides, turret, mantlet, each number followed by the angle of
00:42the plate.
00:43The Germans had been thorough. They always were. But the numbers were not what stopped him.
00:50He climbed up onto the hall. The metal was cold under his palms.
00:55He lowered himself through the commander's hatch, feet finding the turret basket floor.
01:00And for a moment he just stood there in the fighting compartment, looking around.
01:06And that is when something changed. Not in the tank. In him.
01:13What this engineer saw inside that turret, what he touched, what he tested, what he wrote in his report,
01:19would quietly unravel everything the German armored corps believed about the enemy they were fighting.
01:26Not about American courage. Not about American numbers.
01:30About something far more dangerous than either.
01:34This is that story.
01:36If the story of what Americans built, and what it took to win, matters to you,
01:41hit subscribe and the like button.
01:43It helps this channel reach the people who care.
01:47The Sherman sitting on the concrete at Kummersdorf had a name.
01:51The Americans had painted it on the hull in white block letters.
01:55War Daddy II.
01:57It belonged to Company G, 3rd Battalion, 1st Armored Regiment, 1st Armored Division of United States Army.
02:05Eight weeks earlier, it had been fighting in Tunisia.
02:09To understand what that tank was doing in Germany,
02:11and why what the Germans found inside it mattered,
02:15you need to understand what happened at a place called Sidi Bouzid on February 14th, 1943.
02:23Valentine's Day.
02:24That morning, before dawn, sandstorms swept the plains of central Tunisia.
02:30Behind the wind, two German panzer divisions, the 10th and the 21st,
02:36came through the Fayyid and Mysella passes,
02:39aimed straight at the American positions around the village.
02:42The Americans had been in North Africa for barely three months.
02:47Most of them had never heard a tank gun fired in anger.
02:50The 1st Armored Division had trained in the California desert,
02:54run exercises with wooden markers representing enemy positions,
02:58and shipped out believing they were ready.
03:01They were not ready.
03:03By midday, 51 Shermans of the 3rd Battalion, 1st Armored Regiment,
03:08rolled out to counterattack.
03:09They moved across open ground, in daylight, toward German positions they could not see.
03:16The 10th Panzer Division was waiting with Mark IV tanks,
03:2088mm guns dug into the ridgeline, and Stukas overhead.
03:24The fight lasted hours.
03:26By nightfall, 44 of the 51 Shermans were burning or abandoned.
03:32Battalion Commander Colonel Hightower's own tank was destroyed.
03:36He walked back to Division Headquarters at Spaetla on foot.
03:40Over the next three days, the disaster widened.
03:43The Americans lost nearly 1,600 men, 100 tanks, 57 half-tracks, and 29 artillery pieces.
03:52It was the worst defeat the United States Army would suffer in the European theater.
03:56The name attached to it, Kasserine Pass, would become shorthand for American failure.
04:03And in the wreckage, the Germans found something they had not expected.
04:07They found Shermans that were intact, not destroyed, abandoned.
04:12Crews had bailed out from fright, or from minor damage,
04:15that an experienced crew might have stayed to fight through.
04:19Green tankers, panicking under their first real fire,
04:22had left their machines behind, with engines still warm and ammunitions still loaded.
04:28A recon troop from Schwere Panzerabteilung 501, a heavy Tiger battalion,
04:34found War Daddy II near Spaetla on February 22nd.
04:38The tank was undamaged, fully operational.
04:42The crew was gone.
04:44The Germans did something they almost never did with captured Soviet T-34s.
04:49They did not strip it for parts.
04:51They did not modify it.
04:54Instead, someone painted on both sides of the hull,
04:58Nicht ausschlachten, bestimmt für O-K-Ach.
05:03Do not disassemble.
05:05Reserved for high command.
05:07A German crew climbed in, started the engine,
05:11and drove it 350 kilometers to the port of Sfax.
05:15The journey took four and a half days.
05:18And here is the detail you need to hold on to,
05:21because it will matter later.
05:24During that 350 kilometer drive,
05:26across unpaved Tunisian roads,
05:29in a tank built by a locomotive factory in Lima, Ohio,
05:32by men who had never built a tank before 1942,
05:35nothing broke.
05:37Not the engine,
05:39not the transmission,
05:40not the tracks.
05:42Not a single component failed.
05:44The German crew that drove it noticed.
05:47They did not yet understand what it meant.
05:49But at Kummersdorf,
05:51the engineers would.
05:53And what they wrote in their evaluation report
05:55would be one of the most quietly devastating documents
05:58to come out of the entire war.
06:00Not because it praised the Sherman,
06:02but because of what it revealed about Germany.
06:06Kummersdorf was not a place built for admiration.
06:08It was built for answers.
06:10The Proving Ground had been testing German weapons
06:13since the Kaiser's time.
06:15By 1943,
06:16it was the Reich's primary evaluation site
06:19for everything from V-weapons to captured enemy armor.
06:22The facility was methodical,
06:24clinical,
06:25and thorough.
06:27When War Daddy II arrived by rail from the port,
06:30the engineers assigned it
06:31Versuchsfahrzeug No. 259,
06:34test vehicle 259,
06:36bolted on a Wehrmacht license plate,
06:39and went to work.
06:40They measured every surface.
06:42They fired rounds into spare armor plate
06:45of identical thickness and angle.
06:46They ran the engine on a dynamometer.
06:50They disassembled components,
06:52weighed them,
06:52sketched them,
06:53and compared them to their German equivalents.
06:56And the first thing they wrote in the report
06:58was a criticism.
07:00American manufacturing employs loose tolerances.
07:04They meant it as an indictment.
07:06German tank production,
07:08particularly at firms like MAN,
07:11Daimler-Benz,
07:12Henschel,
07:13operated on a philosophy
07:14inherited from generations of precision engineering.
07:18Every component was machined
07:20to exact specification.
07:22Gears were ground to thousands of a millimeter.
07:25If a part did not meet tolerance,
07:28a skilled machinist filed it,
07:30adjusted it,
07:31fitted it by hand until it did.
07:34A German tank was,
07:36in a very real sense,
07:37a handcrafted object,
07:39each one slightly different from the last,
07:41each one requiring the specific parts
07:44made for that specific vehicle.
07:46The engineers at Kummersdorf
07:48looked at the Sherman's components
07:49and saw sloppiness,
07:51gaps where German parts would have none,
07:54surfaces that were smooth enough,
07:56but not polished,
07:58fittings that were functional,
07:59but not elegant.
08:01Then they tried something.
08:03They took a component from the Sherman,
08:05a road wheel assembly,
08:07and compared it to an identical assembly
08:09they had removed from a second captured Sherman,
08:11this one taken from a different American unit,
08:14built at a different factory,
08:16in a different month.
08:18The parts were not identical
08:20in the way German parts would be identical.
08:22The machining marks were different.
08:24The casting had slightly different grain.
08:26But the parts fit.
08:29Perfectly.
08:30Without filing.
08:32Without adjustment.
08:33Without a single tool
08:34beyond what a field mechanic would carry.
08:37They tried another component.
08:40And another.
08:42Turret fittings.
08:43Engine mounts.
08:45Transmission housings.
08:47Track links.
08:48Every single part from one Sherman
08:50slid into position on the other Sherman,
08:52as though they had been made in the same room
08:54on the same afternoon.
08:56They had not been.
08:58One tank was built by Lima Locomotive Works in Ohio,
09:01the other by Pressed Steel Car Company in Pennsylvania.
09:05Two factories 600 kilometers apart,
09:08neither of which had ever manufactured a tank before the war,
09:11producing parts so standardized
09:13that a mechanic in a field workshop in Tunisia
09:16could pull a wrecked Sherman's transmission
09:18and bolt it into a different Sherman
09:20from a different factory
09:21and drive away.
09:24Remember that.
09:25Because what the Germans were looking at
09:26was not a tank.
09:28It was a manufacturing philosophy
09:29that their entire industrial system
09:31could not replicate.
09:33In Germany,
09:34if a Panther's final drive failed,
09:36and they failed constantly,
09:38you needed a replacement final drive
09:41made for that specific Panther
09:42from that specific production run,
09:44often from the same factory.
09:47If the part came from a different batch,
09:49a mechanic might spend hours
09:51with files and shims making it fit.
09:54If the right part was not available,
09:56and by 1944 it almost never was,
09:59the tank sat,
10:01and sat,
10:02and waited for a part that might never come.
10:06But the engineers at Kummersdorf were not finished.
10:09They kept opening panels.
10:11Behind the driver's seat,
10:13mounted low against the hull,
10:14they found a small gasoline engine
10:16connected to a generator.
10:18It was a Homelite auxiliary power unit,
10:21a single-cylinder, air-cooled motor
10:23no bigger than a bread box.
10:25It ran the tank's electrical system
10:27independently of the main engine.
10:30Turret traverse, radio, interior lighting,
10:34all operational without burning main fuel
10:36or announcing the tank's position
10:38with engine noise.
10:39And then there was the heat.
10:41The exhaust from the little Homelite
10:43was ducted into the crew compartment
10:45in cold weather.
10:46American tankers in the Ardennes,
10:48in the frozen fields of Lorraine,
10:51in the December fog of the Hurtgen forest,
10:53they had heating.
10:55Not much, but some.
10:57German tankers had nothing.
11:00A Panther crew in winter
11:02sat in a steel box
11:03at whatever temperature
11:04the air decided to be.
11:06If the engine was off,
11:08the inside of the turret was a freezer.
11:10If the engine was on,
11:11it consumed fuel
11:12they could not replace
11:13and broadcast their position
11:15to every listening post
11:16within a kilometer.
11:18The engineers noted
11:19the auxiliary generator
11:20in their report.
11:21They did not editorialize.
11:23They did not need to.
11:25Because here is what was becoming clear
11:27to the men at Kummersdorf,
11:29even if they could not yet
11:30say it plainly.
11:32The Americans had not built
11:34a better tank.
11:35The 75mm gun was adequate,
11:38not superior.
11:39The armor was acceptable,
11:41not exceptional.
11:43In a duel against a Panzer IV,
11:45the Sherman was roughly an even match.
11:48Against a Tiger,
11:49it was outgunned.
11:51But the Americans had built something
11:53the Germans could not match.
11:55A tank that was designed
11:56from the first bolt
11:57to be produced
11:58by the thousands,
12:00maintained by boys
12:01who had been fixing Chevrolets
12:02six months earlier,
12:04and kept running
12:05in conditions
12:05that would turn a panther
12:07into an immobile pillbox.
12:09And on June 6th, 1943,
12:12exactly one year
12:14before another June 6th
12:15that would change everything,
12:17War Daddy II
12:18was loaded onto a flatbed
12:20and driven to a place
12:22called Hillersleben.
12:24Albert Speer was waiting.
12:26So were the men
12:27who ran every armaments factory
12:29in the Reich.
12:30And what they were about to see
12:32would force them
12:33to confront a question
12:34none of them wanted to answer.
12:37Hillersleben was an artillery proving ground
12:40on the Colbitts-Letzlinger Heath,
12:42northwest of Magdeburg.
12:4427 kilometers of shooting range
12:46cut through deforested flatland.
12:49Concrete roads
12:50connected firing positions
12:52labeled Platz A
12:53through Platz I.
12:55Somewhere on the grounds
12:56sat a hull plate
12:57from a tank
12:58that weighed 120 tons.
13:00The Maus.
13:01A machine so absurd
13:03it would never see combat.
13:05This was where Germany tested
13:07what it believed
13:08was the future of war.
13:10On June 5th, 1943,
13:12the day before the conference,
13:14Albert Speer
13:15and Joseph Goebbels
13:16stood before
13:1710,000 armaments workers
13:18at the Berliner Sportpalast
13:20and delivered speeches
13:22about the miracle
13:23of German production.
13:25Speer presented statistics.
13:27Munitions output
13:28up 600%
13:30since 1941.
13:31Artillery fourfold.
13:33Tank deliveries
13:34at 1,250%
13:36of baseline.
13:37The crowd interrupted
13:39with applause.
13:40The numbers were staggering.
13:42They were also a lie.
13:45Every figure was expressed
13:47as a percentage,
13:48not in absolute units,
13:49because absolute numbers
13:51would have shown
13:52that Germany's output
13:53was still a fraction
13:54of what the Americans
13:55and Soviets were producing.
13:57Speer had chosen
13:59his baseline year carefully,
14:00a period in 1941
14:02when production
14:03had been at its lowest.
14:05He was comparing
14:06a recovering patient
14:07to a man in a coma
14:09and calling it
14:10a resurrection.
14:13After the speeches,
14:14Speer and the industry leaders
14:16boarded generator-powered buses
14:17and drove through the night
14:19to Hillersleben.
14:20The next morning,
14:22on the firing range,
14:23War Daddy II
14:24sat on the packed earth
14:26between German vehicles,
14:27rockets,
14:28heavy guns,
14:29a Panzerwerfer
14:30on a Maltier half-track.
14:32A propaganda camera crew
14:34was filming.
14:35And beside the Sherman,
14:36for the first time in public,
14:38sat a vehicle
14:39that most of the men present
14:41had never seen before.
14:42A Panther.
14:44Ausführung D,
14:46the very first production model.
14:48It had been built by MAN
14:50in Nuremberg,
14:51probably in April.
14:52It weighed 43 metric tons.
14:55It mounted the long-barreled
14:5775-millimeter KWK-42,
15:01one of the finest tank guns
15:02of the war.
15:03Its frontal armor was 80 millimeters,
15:06sloped at 55 degrees.
15:08On paper,
15:09it was everything Germany needed
15:11to answer the Soviet T-34
15:12and overmatch anything
15:14the Western Allies could field.
15:17The demonstration was simple.
15:19Both tanks would attempt
15:20to climb a steep, muddy slope.
15:23The Sherman went first.
15:25It churned uphill,
15:27tracks clawing at the soft loam,
15:29engine straining,
15:30and slid back.
15:32It could not make the grade.
15:34The camera crew filmed every second.
15:37Then the Panther went.
15:39700 horsepower
15:40from the Maybach engine,
15:42wider tracks gripping the same slope.
15:45It climbed.
15:46It crested.
15:47The spectators,
15:49Reichsminister Speer,
15:51factory directors,
15:52senior Wehrmacht officers,
15:54watched the Panther conquer the hill
15:56that the American tank could not.
15:58The photographs went straight
16:00into Signal magazine.
16:01The captions were triumphant.
16:04General Sherman fell back,
16:06one read.
16:07His German contender,
16:09a new heavy tank,
16:11conquered the same obstacle.
16:13Tactical requirements
16:14and technical opportunities
16:15have been happily united
16:17in this mobile,
16:18heavily armored German colossus.
16:21That was the story
16:22Germany told itself
16:23in June of 1943.
16:26Now here is the story
16:27Germany did not tell.
16:29A week after the demonstration,
16:32Das Reich,
16:32one of the most widely read
16:34weekly newspapers in the country,
16:35published an article
16:37about the captured Sherman.
16:38The tone was not
16:40what you would expect
16:41from a propaganda organ
16:42reviewing an enemy weapon.
16:44The author called the Sherman
16:45one of the special accomplishments
16:47of the North American laboratories
16:49and described it as
16:50quite a praiseworthy product
16:52of the North American steel industry.
16:55Think about that sentence.
16:57A German propaganda newspaper
16:59in the middle of a war
17:00in a country where defeatism
17:02could get you executed,
17:04publicly complimenting
17:05the enemy's tank.
17:06Not its gun,
17:08not its armor,
17:10its steel industry,
17:12its laboratories,
17:13the systems behind the machine.
17:16Someone,
17:17an engineer,
17:18an editor,
17:19perhaps someone
17:20who had read
17:20the Kummersdorf report,
17:21was trying to send a signal
17:23through the noise.
17:24The Sherman did not need
17:26to climb that hill.
17:27It did not need
17:28to outgun the Panther.
17:30What it needed to do,
17:32it had already done
17:33350 kilometers of Tunisian road
17:36without a single breakdown,
17:37built by locomotive workers
17:39who learned tank production
17:40in months,
17:41with parts from a dozen factories
17:43that snapped together
17:44like children's blocks.
17:46And the Panther,
17:47the beautiful,
17:49powerful Panther
17:50that had just climbed
17:51the hill at Hillersleben,
17:52was about to prove
17:53exactly why that mattered.
17:56Five weeks after Speer
17:57watched it crest
17:58that muddy slope,
17:59the Panther went to war.
18:01On July 5th, 1943,
18:04200 Panthers of the 51st
18:06and 52nd Panzer Battalions
18:08rolled forward at Kursk
18:10in the largest tank battle
18:11in history.
18:13Within 24 hours,
18:15more than half
18:15were out of action.
18:17Not from Soviet guns,
18:19from mechanical failure.
18:21Fuel pumps leaked
18:22and caught fire,
18:23transmissions seized,
18:25final drives,
18:25the gearboxes
18:27that transferred power
18:27from the engine
18:28to the tracks,
18:29shattered under
18:30the tank's own weight.
18:32Crews abandoned vehicles
18:33in open fields
18:34because nothing could be done
18:35to fix them
18:36without factory-level equipment
18:38that did not exist
18:39within 500 kilometers.
18:41By the end of the first week,
18:43operational readiness
18:44in some Panther units
18:45had dropped to 16%.
18:48Out of every six Panthers
18:50that had rolled
18:50toward the front,
18:51five were sitting motionless
18:53somewhere behind the lines,
18:55waiting for parts
18:56that would not come,
18:57mechanics who were not trained,
18:59and tools that did not exist.
19:02Somewhere in Germany,
19:04War Daddy II
19:04sat in a shed
19:06at Kummersdorf.
19:07Its engine still ran,
19:09its transmission still shifted,
19:11every part still fit,
19:13and nobody in Berlin
19:15was talking about
19:15the hill anymore.
19:17Here is what most people
19:19misunderstand
19:19about tank combat
19:21in the Second World War.
19:22They think it was about
19:24armor thickness
19:25and gun caliber,
19:26whose shell could punch
19:28through whose steel
19:29at what range.
19:30And those things mattered,
19:33but they were not
19:34what decided most engagements.
19:36What decided most engagements
19:38was who fired first.
19:41A study conducted
19:42by the U.S. Army
19:43after the war
19:44found that in the majority
19:45of tank versus tank encounters
19:47in the European theater,
19:49the side that got
19:50the first round on target
19:52won the fight.
19:54Not the side with the bigger gun.
19:56Not the side with the thicker armor.
19:59The side that saw the enemy
20:00traversed the turret
20:02and put steel on target
20:04before the other crew
20:05could do the same.
20:07And this is where something
20:08the engineers found
20:09inside War Daddy II
20:11stops being a technical detail
20:13and becomes a death sentence.
20:16Inside the Sherman's turret,
20:18bolted to a bracket
20:19on the right side,
20:21sat a compact hydraulic unit,
20:23the oil gear traverse system.
20:26It was powered
20:27by its own electric motor,
20:29which spun a hydraulic pump
20:30that could rotate
20:31the entire turret
20:32360 degrees in 15 seconds.
20:35The gunner controlled it
20:37with a hand crank
20:38for fine adjustments
20:39and a power switch
20:40for fast slewing.
20:42If the commander
20:43spotted a target
20:44at 3 o'clock
20:45and the gun was pointed
20:46at 9,
20:47the gunner could be on target
20:48in under 8 seconds.
20:50Now picture a Panther crew
20:52in the same situation.
20:54The Ausführung D,
20:55the model at Hillersleben,
20:57the model at Kursk,
20:58had a turret traverse system
21:00driven by the main engine
21:02through a power takeoff.
21:04When the engine was idling,
21:05the traverse was agonizingly slow.
21:09One full rotation
21:10took 60 seconds.
21:12If the Panther's engine was off,
21:14as it often was
21:15in ambush positions
21:16to conserve fuel,
21:17the crew had only a hand wheel,
21:20no power traverse at all.
21:22The later Ausführung A
21:24improved this.
21:25They got the full rotation
21:27down to about 15 seconds
21:29at combat engine speed.
21:31But then,
21:32Germany ran out
21:32of the raw materials
21:33needed for the electrical system,
21:35and in the final production variant
21:37of the Panzer IV,
21:39the Ausführung J,
21:40which rolled off the lines
21:41in 1944,
21:43they deleted
21:44the powered turret traverse
21:45entirely.
21:47The most produced
21:48German medium tank
21:49ended the war
21:50with its crew
21:51hand-cranking the turret
21:53like it was 1932.
21:55But the Sherman
21:56had something else
21:57the Germans had never seen
21:59in any tank.
22:00Something mounted
22:01to the turret
22:02alongside the traverse motor
22:03that the Kummersdorf engineers
22:05examined,
22:06sketched,
22:06and could not quite believe.
22:09A gyroscopic stabilizer.
22:12Built by Westinghouse,
22:13it used a spinning gyroscope
22:15and hydraulic actuators
22:17to hold the gun steady
22:18in the vertical plane
22:19while the tank was moving.
22:21It did not aim the gun.
22:23It did not replace
22:24the gunner's skill.
22:26What it did
22:27was keep the barrel
22:28from bouncing
22:28with every bump
22:29and dip in the terrain,
22:31so that when the tank stopped,
22:32the gun was already
22:33close to level.
22:35The gunner needed
22:36only a small correction,
22:38not a full re-aim
22:39from a wildly pitching barrel.
22:41In practical terms,
22:43a Sherman coming to a halt
22:44could fire an aimed round
22:46within seconds.
22:47A Panther coming to a halt
22:49needed the gunner
22:50to wrestle the long,
22:52heavy 75-millimeter barrel
22:53back onto target,
22:55fighting the momentum
22:56of the stop,
22:57compensating for the bounce.
22:59The difference
23:00was measured in seconds.
23:02In a tank engagement,
23:04seconds were lives.
23:06Not every American crew
23:08used the stabilizer.
23:09It was complex,
23:11it required training,
23:12and many crews
23:13in the rush of deployment
23:14never learned to trust it.
23:16But the crews who did
23:18had an edge
23:19that German tankers
23:20could not explain.
23:22After-action reports
23:23from the Western Front
23:24repeatedly noted
23:25that Shermans
23:26seemed to fire first,
23:27even when the German crew
23:29had spotted them
23:29at the same time or earlier.
23:32A Tiger commander
23:33could be sitting
23:34in a perfect ambush position,
23:35concealed,
23:36waiting,
23:37engine idling,
23:38spot a Sherman
23:39at 800 meters,
23:41order his gunner
23:42to traverse,
23:42and fire the first round.
23:44If he missed,
23:46and the 88 missed more often
23:47than the legend suggests,
23:49the Sherman's turret
23:50was already spinning.
23:52The American gunner
23:53had the target.
23:54Power traverse
23:55put him on line.
23:56The stabilizer
23:58had held his barrel
23:58close to level
23:59during the approach.
24:00He fired.
24:02And then he fired again.
24:04And again.
24:05Three or four rounds
24:07in the time it took
24:08the Tiger crew
24:08to reload and re-aim
24:10once.
24:11This is what
24:12the Kummersdorf report
24:13meant when it noted
24:14the Sherman's
24:15fire control systems.
24:16The engineers
24:17understood the components.
24:19What they could not
24:20replicate
24:20was the industrial base
24:22that produced gyroscopes
24:23precise enough
24:24to stabilize a gun barrel
24:25in a 30-ton vehicle
24:27moving over broken ground
24:28and produce them
24:30by the thousands.
24:32One for every Sherman
24:33that rolled off
24:34every assembly line
24:35in the country.
24:36Germany could build
24:37a handful
24:38of exquisite prototypes.
24:40Germany could not
24:41build 10,000 gyroscopes.
24:43And this was still
24:45not the deepest layer.
24:46Because everything
24:47the engineers
24:48had found so far
24:49the interchangeable parts
24:51the hydraulic traverse
24:52the stabilizer
24:53the auxiliary generator
24:54all of it pointed
24:56to a single idea
24:57that the German system
24:58had no answer for.
24:59Not a better tank.
25:01A better way
25:02to keep tanks fighting.
25:04The Americans
25:05had built something
25:06that went far beyond
25:07what sat on the proving ground
25:08at Kummersdorf.
25:10They had built
25:10a repair and supply system
25:12so fast
25:13so standardized
25:14so ruthlessly efficient
25:16that a Sherman
25:17knocked out on Monday
25:18could be back in the line
25:19by Wednesday
25:20while a Panther
25:21knocked out on Monday
25:22might still be sitting
25:23in a field in April.
25:25And by the summer of 1944
25:27that system was about
25:29to cross the English Channel.
25:30On the 5th of June, 1944
25:32the day before
25:33the largest amphibious invasion
25:35in history
25:35a fleet of ships
25:37sat in the English Channel
25:38carrying something
25:39that no army
25:40had ever attempted
25:41to deliver under fire
25:42on a hostile beach.
25:44Not tanks.
25:45Spare parts.
25:47More than 50,000
25:49individual Sherman components
25:50had been crated,
25:51cataloged,
25:52and loaded
25:53onto transport vessels.
25:54Road wheels,
25:56track links,
25:56transmission assemblies,
25:58engine blocks,
25:59turret rings,
25:59periscope heads,
26:01hydraulic lines
26:02for the traverse system,
26:04gyroscope units
26:04for the stabilizer.
26:06Every part stamped
26:07with a federal stock number
26:09that matched every other part
26:10with the same number,
26:11regardless of which factory
26:13had made it.
26:14Chrysler in Detroit,
26:15Fisher Body in Grand Blanc,
26:17Lima Locomotive in Ohio,
26:20pressed steel car
26:21in Pennsylvania,
26:22or any of the other
26:2311 plants producing Sherman's
26:25across the country.
26:27Behind the transports
26:28carrying the parts
26:29came something
26:30even more unusual.
26:31Floating repair depots.
26:34Welding equipment,
26:35machine lathes,
26:37engine hoists,
26:38all mounted on vessels
26:39that would anchor offshore
26:40and begin processing
26:42damaged vehicles
26:43within hours
26:43of the first wave
26:45hitting the sand.
26:46This was not improvisation.
26:48This was doctrine.
26:50The United States Army
26:51had designed
26:52a five-tier repair system.
26:54They called them echelons
26:56that started at the crew level
26:58and scaled up
26:59to full factory-grade overhaul.
27:01First echelon,
27:03the crew themselves,
27:04fixing what they could
27:05with the tools
27:06stowed in the tank.
27:08Second echelon,
27:10the company maintenance section,
27:11working in the field
27:12with slightly heavier equipment.
27:15Third echelon,
27:16battalion and regimental shops,
27:18capable of swapping
27:20major assemblies,
27:21engines, transmissions,
27:23final drives.
27:25Fourth echelon,
27:26division-level repair depots
27:28with overhead cranes,
27:30machine tools,
27:31and the ability
27:32to perform work
27:33that in Germany
27:33would require shipping a tank
27:35back to the factory.
27:37Fifth echelon,
27:39rear-area rebuild facilities
27:41that could take a hull,
27:42scorch black by fire,
27:43and return it to service
27:44as a functioning tank.
27:46And here's the detail
27:48that made the whole system possible.
27:50The same detail
27:51the Kummersdorf engineers
27:53had noted with disdain
27:54in their report
27:55on War Daddy II.
27:57Interchangeable parts.
27:59A Sherman destroyed
28:01by a panzerfaust
28:02in the hedgerows of Normandy
28:03could donate its turret
28:05to a Sherman
28:05that had thrown a track
28:07and been hit in the hull
28:08by an anti-tank round.
28:10The turret from the first,
28:11built by Fisher body
28:13in Michigan,
28:13would bolt directly
28:15onto the hull
28:16of the second,
28:16built by Chrysler
28:18in Detroit,
28:18with no modification,
28:20no filing,
28:21no fitting,
28:22no specialist required.
28:24From two dead tanks,
28:26one living tank,
28:28ready to fight
28:29in 24 to 48 hours.
28:31The Germans
28:32could not do this.
28:34Not because they lacked skill,
28:36German mechanics were superb,
28:38arguably the best trained
28:39in the world.
28:40But because every German tank
28:42was, at some level,
28:44unique.
28:46A transmission housing
28:47from a panzer built
28:48at MAN in January
28:50did not precisely match
28:51a panzer built
28:53at Daimler-Benz in March.
28:55A final drive
28:56from one tiger
28:57might require hours
28:59of hand fitting
28:59to work in another tiger
29:01from a different production run.
29:03And a panzer part
29:04would never,
29:05under any circumstances,
29:07fit a panzer4
29:08or a tiger.
29:10Three completely different vehicles,
29:12three completely different
29:14supply chains,
29:15competing for the same
29:16shrinking pool
29:17of raw materials,
29:19skilled labor,
29:20and factory floor space.
29:23Imagine a German maintenance officer
29:25in Normandy
29:25in July of 1944.
29:28He has 14 panthers
29:30in his battalion.
29:31Six are operational.
29:34Five are waiting
29:35for final drives
29:36that have not arrived
29:37from Germany.
29:38Two need transmissions.
29:40And replacing a panzer transmission
29:42required removing
29:44the entire upper hull
29:45and driver's compartment,
29:47a job that took
29:48a specialized crew
29:49with a crane
29:50the better part of a day
29:51in a rear area
29:52safe from air attack.
29:55One has an engine fire.
29:58He has no spare engines.
30:00He has sent four requests
30:02up the chain of command.
30:04The roads behind him
30:05are being bombed
30:06around the clock
30:07by American fighter bombers.
30:09Now imagine
30:10his American counterpart.
30:12He has 30 Shermans
30:13in his battalion.
30:1526 are operational.
30:17Two were knocked out yesterday.
30:19One is already back.
30:21The maintenance section
30:23pulled the damaged transmission
30:24in six hours,
30:25bolted in a replacement
30:26from the spare parts truck,
30:28and the tank drove back
30:29to the line before dawn.
30:31The other needs
30:32a new turret basket
30:33and gun mount.
30:34Fourth echelon work.
30:36It will be back in two days.
30:39By August of 1944,
30:42two months after the invasion,
30:44American armored units
30:45in France were running
30:46at roughly 85%
30:48operational readiness.
30:5085% of their tanks
30:52were running,
30:53armed,
30:53and ready to fight
30:54on any given day.
30:56German panzer divisions
30:58had dropped to 50%
30:59and falling.
31:01Not because the Americans
31:03were not losing tanks.
31:05They were losing them
31:06at ferocious rates
31:08in the hedgerows,
31:09in the bocage fighting,
31:11in the open fields
31:12south of Kahn.
31:13But the system behind them
31:15was replacing and repairing
31:16faster than the Germans
31:18could destroy.
31:19A Sherman burned out
31:20on Tuesday
31:21could be a rebuilt Sherman
31:22on Friday.
31:23A panther burned out
31:25on Tuesday
31:25was scrap metal.
31:27And the men who suffered
31:28most from this arithmetic
31:29were not the generals
31:31reading reports in Berlin.
31:32They were the German tankers
31:34sitting in their vehicles,
31:35watching the numbers
31:36change day by day.
31:38Fewer panthers
31:39in the morning assembly,
31:40fewer still by evening,
31:42the maintenance tents empty
31:44because there was nothing
31:45to maintain with.
31:46While across the hedgerow,
31:48the Americans seemed to have
31:49just as many Shermans
31:50as yesterday.
31:51Maybe more.
31:53Those tankers were about
31:54to get a chance
31:55to understand why.
31:57Because in the winter
31:58of 1944,
32:00as Germany launched
32:01its last great gamble
32:02in the West,
32:04German crews would climb
32:05inside captured Shermans
32:07for the first time,
32:08not as engineers
32:09studying a curiosity,
32:11but as soldiers
32:12fighting for survival.
32:14On the night of January 16, 1945,
32:19Obersturmfuhrer Erwin Bachmann
32:20sat in the sidecar
32:22of a motorcycle
32:23on a frozen road
32:24outside the Alsatian village
32:26of Herlesheim, France.
32:28He was 23 years old.
32:30He had been fighting
32:31since Poland in 1939.
32:33Six years,
32:34four fronts,
32:35more tanks
32:36than he could count
32:37destroyed or abandoned
32:38under him.
32:40He was the battalion adjutant
32:41of the 1st Battalion,
32:4310th SS Panzer Regiment,
32:45Frunzberg Division.
32:47He had four
32:48operational Panther tanks.
32:50Four.
32:51That was his entire
32:53armored force
32:54for the night's attack.
32:55Operation Nordwind,
32:57Germany's last offensive
32:58in the West,
32:59had been grinding forward
33:00for two weeks,
33:01trying to break through
33:02American lines in Alsace
33:04while the Ardenne offensive
33:05bled out to the north.
33:07Fuel was scarce.
33:09Replacement vehicles
33:10were non-existent.
33:11Bachmann's regiment
33:12had started the war
33:13with over a hundred tanks.
33:15Now he was planning
33:16an assault on an
33:17American-held village
33:18with four.
33:19He did not know
33:20what was waiting
33:21inside Herlesheim,
33:22but a patrol had reported
33:24American armor
33:24in the streets,
33:25tanks from the
33:2643rd Tank Battalion,
33:2812th Armored Division.
33:30How many,
33:31the patrol could not say.
33:33Before dawn
33:34on January 17th,
33:35Bachmann led
33:36two of his Panthers
33:37into the village
33:38from the south.
33:38The streets were narrow,
33:40the buildings close.
33:42He positioned
33:43the two tanks
33:43at a crossroads
33:44and set up
33:45Panzerfaust teams
33:46in the doorways.
33:47Then he waited.
33:49The first Shermans
33:50came around a corner
33:51at close range.
33:53Bachmann's Panthers
33:54opened fire.
33:56Two Shermans
33:56burst into flames.
33:58Then a third.
33:59The American column,
34:01caught in the tight streets
34:02with no room
34:03to maneuver,
34:04stalled.
34:05Bachmann dismounted
34:06from his motorcycle,
34:08picked up a Panzerfaust,
34:09and personally destroyed
34:11a fourth Sherman
34:11at point-blank range.
34:13In the chaos
34:15that followed,
34:15the American tankers,
34:17many of them
34:18green replacements
34:19who had been in France
34:20for less than a month,
34:21found themselves surrounded,
34:23cut off from their battalion,
34:25low on ammunition,
34:27unable to back out
34:28of the narrow streets.
34:30Sixty American soldiers
34:31surrendered.
34:33Twenty German prisoners
34:34held in the village
34:35were freed and rearmed.
34:37And twelve Shermans,
34:38twelve M4A3 75mm tanks,
34:42fully armed,
34:43fully fueled,
34:45undamaged,
34:46were captured intact.
34:48Their crews had climbed out
34:50with their hands up.
34:51The tanks sat in the street
34:53with engines idling.
34:55What happened next
34:56is the moment this story
34:57has been building toward.
34:59Bachmann's men,
35:01Panther crews,
35:02tankers who had trained
35:03on German vehicles
35:04who had lived inside
35:05German steel for years,
35:07climbed into the Shermans.
35:09They had to fight them
35:10immediately,
35:11drive them back
35:11the German lines
35:12before American artillery
35:14found the range.
35:15There was no time
35:16for manuals,
35:17no time for instruction.
35:18They sat in the driver's seat,
35:20put their hands
35:21on the controls,
35:22and discovered
35:23what the Kummersdorf engineers
35:24had written
35:25about two years earlier.
35:26The transmission
35:27had synchro mesh
35:28on four of five gears,
35:30no double clutching.
35:32The stick moved
35:33like an automobile gear shift,
35:35slot to slot,
35:36smooth, predictable.
35:38A Panther's transmission
35:39was powerful,
35:40but demanded technique.
35:41Miss a shift under stress,
35:43and you could strip the gears
35:44or stall the engine.
35:45The Sherman forgave.
35:47A 20-year-old
35:48who had driven
35:49a delivery truck
35:50before the war
35:50could drive this tank
35:52in 10 minutes.
35:53The turret.
35:55They reached
35:55for the traverse control.
35:58The turret swung.
35:59Fast.
36:00Smooth.
36:01Electric hydraulic.
36:02The whole mass
36:03of gun and mantlet
36:04and armor
36:05spinning on the ring
36:06like it weighed nothing.
36:08Their Panther's traverse
36:09was good
36:09when the engine
36:10was running
36:11at combat speed.
36:12The Sherman's traverse
36:13was good always.
36:14Even on the auxiliary generator.
36:17Even with the main engine off.
36:19The seats.
36:20Padded.
36:21Adjustable.
36:22The fighting compartment
36:23was tall enough
36:24that the loader
36:25could stand and work
36:26without crouching.
36:27The periscopes
36:28gave wide-angle views.
36:30The instruments
36:31were labeled clearly,
36:32logically,
36:33as though someone
36:34had asked a crew
36:34what they needed to see
36:35and then put it
36:36exactly there.
36:38And the engine started.
36:40Every time.
36:41The first time.
36:42In the January cold
36:44on a frozen street
36:45in Alsace,
36:46an engine built
36:47by Ford in Michigan,
36:48the GAA V8,
36:50500 horsepower,
36:52dual overhead cams,
36:53no belts,
36:54no chains,
36:55everything gear-driven,
36:57turned over
36:58and caught
36:58without hesitation.
37:00Bachmann's men
37:01drove the 12 Shermans
37:02back to Offendorf.
37:04They radioed ahead
37:05to make sure
37:06their own side
37:07did not fire on them.
37:08American silhouettes
37:10in German hands.
37:12The tanks arrived intact.
37:14Every one of them.
37:16350 kilometers
37:17of Tunisian road
37:18in 1943.
37:20A frozen nighttime drive
37:22through Alsatian villages
37:23in 1945.
37:25The Sherman did not care
37:27where it was
37:28or who was driving it.
37:29It ran.
37:31The 12 captured tanks
37:33were formed
37:34into the 13th company
37:35of the 10th SS Panzer Regiment.
37:38German crosses
37:39were painted
37:39over the white stars.
37:41No other modifications
37:42were made.
37:43None were needed.
37:45And here is the fact
37:46that tells the whole story.
37:49German tank units
37:50that captured Shermans
37:51never modified them.
37:53They never upgraded
37:54the armor,
37:55never changed the turret,
37:57never replaced the gun
37:58with a German weapon.
38:00They used them
38:01exactly as the Americans
38:02had built them.
38:03When they captured
38:05Soviet T-34s,
38:06they often modified them,
38:08added German cupolas,
38:10changed radio equipment,
38:12adapted the fittings.
38:13With the Sherman,
38:15they changed nothing.
38:16Because there was
38:17nothing to fix.
38:19Six days after
38:20Bachmann's men
38:21captured those 12 Shermans,
38:22six days,
38:24the men who ran
38:25Germany's entire
38:26armored production
38:27gathered for a meeting
38:28that would lay bare
38:30just how deep
38:31the crisis went.
38:33And the words
38:34spoken in that room
38:35are among the most
38:36quietly devastating
38:37of the war.
38:40January 23, 1945.
38:43Six days after
38:44Herlesheim.
38:46A conference room
38:47somewhere in the
38:48German military bureaucracy.
38:50The men gathered
38:51around the table
38:52were the Panzer Commission,
38:53senior officers,
38:55engineers,
38:55and industrial
38:56representatives
38:57responsible for
38:58every armored vehicle
38:59Germany produced.
39:00General Wolfgang
39:01Tomale opened
39:02with a report
39:03from the front.
39:04He did not soften it.
39:06From the front,
39:07there continues
39:08to be serious
39:09complaints regarding
39:10final drive breakdowns
39:11in all vehicle types.
39:13He read the numbers.
39:15500 defective final drives
39:18on the Panzer IV.
39:19The workhorse.
39:21The tank that had been
39:22in service since 1939.
39:24The one vehicle
39:26they were supposed
39:27to have mastered.
39:30370 defective final drives
39:31on the Panzer.
39:33The tank that was going
39:34to win the war.
39:36The answer to the T-34.
39:38The machine that had
39:39climbed the hill
39:40at Hillesleben
39:41while the Sherman
39:42slid back.
39:44Roughly 100 defective
39:46final drives
39:47on the Tiger.
39:49Nearly 1,000 tanks.
39:51Sitting in fields,
39:53in repair depots,
39:54on roadsides.
39:56Not because the enemy
39:57had destroyed them,
39:58but because the gears
39:59inside their own
40:00drivetrains
40:01had chewed themselves apart.
40:04Tomale said something
40:06that no German general
40:07had ever said
40:08this plainly
40:09in an official meeting.
40:11In such circumstances,
40:13an orderly utilization
40:14of tanks
40:15is simply impossible.
40:18Then he added
40:19the sentence
40:19that the Kummersdorf engineers
40:20could have written
40:21two years earlier,
40:22if anyone had been
40:24willing to hear it.
40:25The troops lose
40:26their confidence
40:27and in some situations
40:28abandon the whole vehicle
40:30just because of this problem.
40:33Abandon.
40:34Not because of enemy fire.
40:36Not because of fuel shortage.
40:38Because the crews
40:39no longer believed
40:40their own tanks
40:41would move
40:42when they needed them to.
40:44Think about what that means
40:45for a tanker.
40:46You are sitting inside
40:4843 tons of steel
40:50in a frozen field
40:51in East Prussia.
40:53You can hear
40:54Soviet artillery
40:55walking closer.
40:56You press the ignition.
40:58The Maybach engine
40:59turns over.
41:00Maybe.
41:02You put the tank in gear.
41:04The transmission engages.
41:06You release the clutch,
41:08apply throttle,
41:09and the tank
41:09lurches forward.
41:11And then something
41:12inside the final drive housing
41:13makes a sound
41:14like a bag of hammers
41:15thrown into a cement mixer.
41:16And the tank stops.
41:19Dead.
41:20You and your crew
41:22are now sitting
41:22in an immobile steel box
41:24with Soviet shells
41:25falling around you.
41:27You do not have
41:28the parts to fix it.
41:29You do not have
41:30a recovery vehicle
41:31to tow it.
41:33You have two choices.
41:34Stay and die
41:35or climb out and run.
41:38German tankers
41:39were climbing out
41:39and running.
41:40Not from the enemy.
41:41From their own machines.
41:44Now hold that image
41:45and set it beside this one.
41:47Six days earlier,
41:48at Herlesheim,
41:50Bachmann's men
41:50sitting inside
41:5112 captured Shermans.
41:53Engines that start.
41:55Transmissions that shift.
41:56Final drives
41:57that do not shatter.
41:59Turrets that traverse.
42:01A tank that does
42:02what you tell it to do.
42:03Every time,
42:04without negotiation.
42:06The Panzer Commission
42:07knew the numbers.
42:09Germany had produced
42:10roughly 6,000 Panthers
42:12since 1943.
42:13Fewer than 1,400 Tigers
42:15of both types combined.
42:17About 8,000 Panzer IVs
42:19still in various stages
42:21of serviceability.
42:22The Americans,
42:23in the same period,
42:24had produced
42:25over 49,000 Shermans.
42:2849,000!
42:30From 11 different factories,
42:32many of which
42:33had been building
42:34locomotives,
42:35car bodies,
42:36and steel railcars
42:37three years earlier.
42:39But the number
42:40was not the worst part.
42:43Germany could have accepted
42:44being outproduced.
42:46What it could not accept,
42:47what the Panzer Commission
42:49was now confronting
42:50in that room,
42:50was that the American tanks
42:52worked,
42:53and the German tanks
42:54did not.
42:56A Sherman's final drive
42:57used herringbone gears.
42:59Angled teeth
43:00that distributed load evenly,
43:02reduced stress,
43:03and lasted thousands of kilometers
43:04without failure.
43:06restoration crews
43:07working on Sherman's
43:08decades after the war
43:09have pulled final drives
43:11from tanks that sat in fields
43:12for 40 years
43:14and found them
43:14still mechanically sound.
43:16No corrosion
43:17in the gear teeth.
43:18No play in the bearings.
43:21The Sherman's final drive
43:22gear ratio
43:23of 2.84 to 1
43:25had been engineered
43:26with so much margin
43:27that the entire drivetrain
43:29could absorb the weight increases
43:30of later models.
43:32Up-armored jumbos,
43:3376-millimeter gun variants,
43:36without modification.
43:38A Panther's final drive
43:39had 75 gear teeth,
43:41where the Tigers had 209.
43:44The engineering stress
43:46on each individual tooth
43:47was more than five times greater.
43:50The gears were made
43:51from chromoly steel,
43:52when Germany could get molybdenum,
43:55which, by 44,
43:56it often could not.
43:58The French army,
43:59which inherited 100 Panthers
44:01after the war
44:01and operated them
44:02until 1949,
44:04documented that the final drive
44:06had an average fatigue life
44:07of 150 kilometers
44:09under combat stress.
44:11150.
44:13A Sherman could cross
44:14most of France
44:15on a single set
44:16of final drives.
44:17A Panther could barely make it
44:19from one French village
44:21to the next.
44:22And there was no fixing it.
44:24Not with better steel.
44:25Germany had reached
44:27the metallurgical limits
44:28available to it.
44:29Not with more teeth.
44:30The housing was too small.
44:33Not with a new design.
44:35There was no time,
44:36no factory capacity,
44:38no engineering bandwidth.
44:40The Panther's final drive
44:42was a problem
44:42baked into the vehicle's DNA,
44:45and no amount of German precision
44:47could engineer a way out.
44:49The Sherman's loose tolerances,
44:51the sloppiness
44:52that the Kummersdorf engineers
44:53had noted with such disdain
44:55in their 1943 report,
44:57had been the right answer
44:58all along.
44:59Build with margin.
45:01Build for forgiveness.
45:03Build so that a farm boy
45:05from Iowa
45:05can fix it with a wrench
45:07and a manual,
45:08because the alternative
45:09is a master machinist
45:10who is already dead
45:11on the Eastern Front.
45:14Somewhere in Alsace,
45:16the 13th Company
45:16of the 10th SS Panzer Regiment
45:19was still fighting
45:20in its 12 captured Shermans.
45:22And every morning,
45:23those tanks started.
45:25In the last week of April, 1945,
45:29Soviet tanks reached
45:30the outskirts of Kummersdorf.
45:32The proving ground
45:33where War Daddy II
45:34had been measured,
45:36tested,
45:36and cataloged
45:37two years earlier
45:38was now in the path
45:40of the Red Army's
45:41final drive toward Berlin.
45:43The facility that had tested
45:45the mouse,
45:45the panther,
45:46the tiger,
45:48the V-weapons,
45:49and one olive drab Sherman
45:51from Ohio
45:51was about to become
45:53a footnote
45:53in someone else's victory.
45:56In the chaos
45:57of those final days,
45:58the Germans had scraped
45:59together a unit
46:00they called
46:01Panzerkompany Kummersdorf,
46:03a tank company
46:04assembled from
46:05whatever still moved
46:06on the proving ground.
46:08It was a museum
46:09of desperation.
46:10One Tiger II,
46:12one Jagdtiger,
46:13several Borgward
46:14remote-controlled
46:15demolition carriers
46:16mounted with machine guns,
46:18an Italian heavy tank
46:20that had no business
46:21being on a German battlefield,
46:22and two American Shermans.
46:25The same machines
46:26that had arrived
46:27as curiosities,
46:28as objects to be studied,
46:30measured,
46:31and dismissed,
46:32were now the last line
46:33of defense.
46:34German crews
46:35climbed into American tanks
46:37to fight Soviet tanks
46:39on German soil.
46:40The war had begun
46:42with panzers rolling
46:43through Poland
46:44in disciplined columns.
46:45It ended with
46:46a locomotive company's tank
46:48from Lima, Ohio,
46:49guarding a proving ground
46:51south of Berlin.
46:53War Daddy II's exact fate
46:55is not recorded.
46:56It may have been
46:57one of the two Shermans
46:58in that final company.
47:00It may have been destroyed
47:01in the Soviet advance.
47:03It may have been buried
47:04in rubble
47:05when the Red Army
47:06shelled the facility.
47:07What is certain
47:08is that it never went home.
47:11Erwin Bachmann,
47:12the 23-year-old
47:13who captured 12 Shermans
47:15at Herlesheim
47:16with two Panthers
47:17and a Panzerfaust,
47:18survived the war.
47:20His 13th Company
47:22fought with those
47:22captured American tanks
47:24through the retreat
47:24across the Rhine,
47:26through Pomerania,
47:27all the way
47:28to the final days.
47:29They never ran out
47:30of ammunition
47:31for the 75mm guns
47:33because the advancing Americans
47:35left enough behind.
47:36In May of 1945,
47:39near Göttingen,
47:40Bachmann
47:41and what was left
47:41of his men
47:42drove west
47:43and surrendered
47:44to the British.
47:45He went home.
47:46He lived quietly.
47:48He died on February 18,
47:512010
47:52and was buried
47:53in Göttingen.
47:54He was 88 years old.
47:57The Chrysler Detroit Arsenal,
47:59the purpose-built factory
48:00that produced more Shermans
48:01than any other facility
48:03in the country,
48:04kept building tanks
48:05after the war.
48:06M-26 Pershings,
48:08M-47 Pattons,
48:11M-48s,
48:13M-60s,
48:14eventually,
48:16M-1 Abrams.
48:18The factory
48:19that K.T. Keller
48:20built for $5 a year
48:21in executive salary
48:22lived into the 1990s
48:24before Chrysler Defense Systems
48:26was sold to General Dynamics.
48:29The assembly line
48:30never really stopped.
48:31Fisher Body
48:32in Grand Blanc, Michigan,
48:34produced 11,385 Shermans
48:37between 42 and 45.
48:40After the war,
48:41the plant went back
48:43to making car bodies.
48:44The workers
48:45who had built tanks
48:46went back
48:47to building Buicks.
48:48The skills
48:49were the same.
48:50That was the point.
48:52That had always
48:53been the point.
48:54Lima Locomotive Works,
48:56the company
48:57that built
48:57War Daddy II,
48:59had been making
48:59train engines
49:00since 1870.
49:02They made Shermans
49:03for 18 months,
49:05turned out
49:051,655 of them,
49:08and went back
49:08to locomotives.
49:10A factory
49:11that had never
49:12seen a tank
49:12before 1942
49:13produced machines
49:15so well built
49:16that German engineers
49:18across the ocean
49:19were writing reports
49:20about them
49:21in language
49:21that read
49:22like a confession.
49:23And here is where
49:25the story comes to rest.
49:27What stunned
49:28German tankers
49:29inside captured
49:30American Shermans
49:31was not the armor.
49:32It was not the gun.
49:34It was not
49:35any single component
49:37that a German engineer
49:38could point to
49:39and say,
49:39this is better
49:41than what we build.
49:43What stunned them
49:44was the ordinary things.
49:46A part that fit
49:47without filing.
49:49A gear that shifted
49:50without force.
49:52A turret that moved
49:53when you told it to.
49:55An engine that started
49:57in the cold.
49:58A generator that gave you
50:00heat when everything
50:01outside was frozen.
50:03A tank built
50:04by locomotive workers
50:06and car mechanics
50:076,000 miles away
50:09that worked
50:10simply,
50:12reliably,
50:13every single time
50:14while their own tanks
50:16built by the finest
50:18precision engineers
50:19in Europe
50:20fell apart
50:21under their hands.
50:23That was the verdict.
50:25Not spoken in a conference room
50:27or written
50:28in a formal report
50:29but felt
50:30in the fingers
50:32of a German mechanic
50:33who picked up
50:34a Sherman road wheel
50:34and watched it
50:35slide into place
50:36without resistance.
50:39In the hands
50:40of a driver
50:40at Herlesheim
50:41who put the Sherman
50:42in gear
50:43and felt the synchromesh
50:44catch like a Sunday drive.
50:47In the silence
50:48of a Panther crew
50:49sitting in a dead tank
50:50in a frozen field
50:51knowing that across the line
50:53every American tank
50:55was running.
50:56The Americans
50:58did not build
50:58the best tank
50:59of the Second World War.
51:01They built
51:02the best system.
51:04And the men
51:05inside the captured
51:06Shermans
51:06were the first
51:07to understand
51:08what that meant.
51:09Not as a statistic.
51:11Not as a production chart.
51:12But as the feeling
51:14of a machine
51:14that worked.
51:16Built by a country
51:17that had figured out
51:18something Germany
51:19never could.
51:20How to make
51:2150,000 of anything
51:23and make
51:24every single one
51:25of them right.
51:28Thank you for staying
51:29with this story
51:30for the last hour.
51:31If it moved you
51:32or taught you
51:33something you did not know
51:34a like genuinely helps.
51:37It tells the algorithm
51:38that this kind
51:38of deep history matters
51:40and it helps
51:41these stories
51:41reach the people
51:42who want to find them.
51:44If you are not subscribed yet
51:45I would be honored
51:46if you joined us.
51:47Hit subscribe
51:48and the bell
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51:50a new investigation.
51:52I would love to know
51:53where are you
51:54watching from today?
51:55And if someone
51:56in your family
51:56fought for the allied cause
51:58in the second world war
51:59a father
52:00a grandfather
52:01a great uncle
52:02who helped build
52:03that victory
52:03tell me about them
52:05in the comments.
52:06Their service
52:07deserves to be remembered.
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