was change headers: The Fate of VM was: Baby MVS 4408

That's actually a more accurate description of the M-3 Lee (Grant in British service). It was cobbled-together contraption with a 75 mm field gun in a sponson and a 37 mm gun in a turret. The armor was bolted on and that could be deadly to the crew because non-penetrating hits (even from a machinegun) that hit a bolt head could cause the other side to sly off and bounce around at high velocity inside the tank.

The M-4 Sherman was a much better design, but designed to fit into a bad tactical doctrine in which tanks were for infantry support and exploitation of breakthroughs. Tanks weren't supposed to fight other tanks, that job was left to the tank destroyers, a branch of the field artillery. So the M-4 didn't have very thick armor so as to keep weight down and speed and mobility up, and it didn't have a long, high velocity cannon (until much later). The tank destroyers were even more thinly armored and had open-topped turrets. They were supposed to use speed to maneuver, and use their guns at long range. It was a poor doctrine that failed the test of combat.

The M-26 Pershing was a much better tank, and equal to the German Panther in most areas. However, it was much wider and heavier than the Sherman (due to much thicker armor and long 90 mm gun), and some (like Patton) didn't like it for those reasons (narrow roads and bridges being common). Also, the change-over in production would've put a kink in the supply slinky, so it was decided to boost M-4 production and delay the M-26. Big mistake.

Actually, the French and British had more tanks than the Germans, and while they were better in some ways (on average, they had thicker armor and bigger guns), they had some serious deficiencies, too. While most German tanks had radios (high-quality FM sets), many French and British tanks did not. French and British tanks generally had one or two-man turrets, requiring the tank commander to double as either loader or gunner depending on the model, and sometimes also operate the radio (if present). That can cause a bane loss of situational awareness in combat. German tanks and buttault guns from the Pz-III chbuttis on up had five-man crews: commander, gunner, loader, driver, and radio operator-hull machine gunner. The main Anglo-French problem was doctrine: tanks were mostly for infantry support and dispersed in penny packets across the front. The Germans concentrated theirs in large formations at the decisive point. The Germans simply had a far better combined arms doctrine, better tactics, and better training.

-Larry