Mac’s Motor City Garage presents yet another invaluable how-to feature: How to drive a Sherman M4 tank.
Car enthusiasts might not often consider it, but the Sherman M4 tank may well be one of the most important motor vehicles ever built, right along with the Model T Ford and the VW Beetle. After all, the Sherman was critical to the Allies in winning World War II, as much as the Jeep or the Boeing B-17.
A number of military historians have named the Sherman the best tank of the war from any country. While it certainly had its shortcomings, it was rugged, versatile, serviceable in the field, and perhaps best of all, it could be quickly manufactured in large numbers. Nearly 50,000 were produced, and as Joseph Stalin said, quantity has a quality all its own. One more important attribute: For a 30-ton armored fighting vehicle, the Sherman was relatively simple to operate, as we see in this awesome video courtesy of YouTuber Sofilein, a self-professed “tank dork.”
This Sherman is one of two owned by the Ontario Regiment RCAC Museum in Oshawa, Ontario. There were numerous M4 variants, and this one happens to be an M42E8, so as the operator explains, it’s powered by two engines (a pair of 6-71 Detroit Diesels known in unit as a GMÂ 6046). As the driver also notes, the Sherman drives much like a bulldozer of the period. Of course, the bulldozer has better forward visibility, and there are no guns or turret to operate. Few if any of use will ever get to drive a Sherman, but here we can get some small sense of what it was about. Video follows.
She’s the prettiest tank crewman I’ve seen.
Last year I drove a tank (technically an armored personnel carrier) at TankTownUSA.com in Morganton, Georgia. If you’re in the southeast, it’s a lot of fun. I got the deluxe package which included crushing a car with the tank, operating an excavator, and firing a WWII machine gun.
And as Sergeant Major Zack Carey (James Garner) said why he owned one in the movie “Tank”:
Reporter : Why would anyone want to own a Sherman tank?
Zack : Because it’s very hard to shoot yourself while you’re cleaning it.
Wow. Two engines. Novel idea.
Having driven trucks with 6V71’s as well as run equipment with the same engines, I can’t imagine sitting it what was basically a steel echo chamber all day listening to one, much less two, of those at full song. Earmuffs would be a requirement!