Comments on: Swedish Tank Testing Video (Terrain Passability)

By: christopher watson

christopher watson — Fri, 17 Oct 2014 09:40:55 +0000

The Firefly Sherman has a Chrysler multi-bank that weighs almost 5300 pounds. A US Sherman would have a more powerful Ford GAA engine that weighs 1200 pounds. The later Shermans also would have HVSS suspension with 580mm tracks instead of the early war 420s. this changed their ground pressure from 13.5lbs to 11lbs. (I took the measurements from the same source… no one seems to use the same measurements so you can google it and come back with infinite different answers)

Also for snow or mud conditions they had Duckbill track attachments that added 2 inches a side to the track width.

By: pablozfzw

pablozfzw — Fri, 17 Oct 2014 08:17:39 +0000

I would also like to see t34 there, but i think it would perform similar to Panther rather than Sherman. T34 got Christie suspension, with 5 wheels on each side, and tank weight of 32t (34-85 variant), compared to Panther that got more wheels, but much more weight. According to Wiki T34-85 got 0,85 km/cm pressure, dunno about the maximum, but other thing to remember is that T34 was a Soviet design, and all soviet designs needed to perform outstanding in rough terrain, and also be idiot prof, otherwise they would be useless in hands of soviet soldier, on soviet ground.

By: Cayden Cailean

Cayden Cailean — Fri, 17 Oct 2014 01:10:23 +0000

Oh… so You think Panther had it easy on the Eastern front? ;)
http://tankarchives.blogspot.fr/2013/03/is-2-vs-german-big-cats.html

By: Anlushac11

Anlushac11 — Thu, 16 Oct 2014 22:18:30 +0000

I was beaten to it but the Sherman was a Firefly.

First thing I noticed was the box on back of turret, and the unusual muzzle brake.

The Sherman in the vid also had the VVSS suspension and thus had the 420mm wide tracks and not the 580mm wide tracks the HVSS equipped E8 used.

By: Anlushac11

Anlushac11 — Thu, 16 Oct 2014 22:15:32 +0000

Dammit beat me to it.

By: kui_blader

kui_blader — Thu, 16 Oct 2014 22:05:08 +0000

didn’t the Tiger II break down during tests?

By: kui_blader

kui_blader — Thu, 16 Oct 2014 22:03:55 +0000

Nice video. (that’s all, stop reading my comment now)

By: crazytony0

crazytony0 — Thu, 16 Oct 2014 21:31:02 +0000

I realy liked this one. Suprised the panther was this good, and that the sherman tanks where rubish. Now i wonder how the e8 would have done with wider rubber tracks

By: sp15

sp15 — Thu, 16 Oct 2014 16:53:29 +0000

Sweden knew the panther was a medium tank but it was the heaviest tank in the trials so it was called a “heavy tank” even though its not.

I dont know what was up with the churchill but possibly it wasnt used more due to it not being a medium tank, anyhow it was a incomplete tank sold to sweden for testing.

Sweden didnt have access to any IS or T34 and only got a barely functional Tiger 2 in 1948 i think.

The Czech export tank for Peru is actually the Strv m/41-SII which is the swedish version of the Pz38t and was built under license in sweden, it differed quite a bit from the german version

By: Mark78

Mark78 — Thu, 16 Oct 2014 14:34:21 +0000

That and the box on the bustle.