Okay, so this topic has been dead for over a month but I was
compleeled to answer.
First of all, the Sherman firefly was a British variant of the
Sherman (american name was M4) which used an 88mm tank cannon as
opposed to the M4s standard 75mm cannon. This made it as well
gunned as the German Tiger and Panther which could laugh off the
hits of a standard Sherman. A famous quote from the time was that
you needed 7 Shermans to kill one tiger, and they would have to all
drive toward it to get around it asss and put it down. But that you
would lose 6 of the Shermans doing it.
Someone was talking about the fact that the Churchill wasn't as
manouverable as a Panzer 3/4. True, but a churchill was far more
mobile and very well armoured. It typified the cautious nature of
the British that put protection of the troops at its forefront.
Hence the cruiser tanks designed to support infantry whch got
mashed by the German forces spearheaded by the panzers when the
blitz into the west finally came.
In reagrds to the pacific theartre and the American island hopping
tactics, you shelled the crap out of the island. You then landed
amphibious troops (marines) with armoured support and they had to
take the island. Every time was like a mini operation overlord and
caused massive casulaties to the Americans. (with the famous ones
being Iwo Jima and Guadacanal) Once the beach head was secured they
just had to advance across the island until any obvious resistance
was crushed. Then you could move out leaving a guard force and go
the the next island. Estimates of an American invasion of Japan had
causaulties over 1 million dead. The A-bomb was used to stop the
unthinkable happening. The greatest weapon the Americans had was
the flamethrower in a jungle operation, and flamethrower shermans
proved utterly deadly as the Japs had almost no way of stopping a
Sherman. (a tank which the Germans had little fear of as they went
on fire very nicely most of the times they were hit)
When Vientnam was mentioned, to be fair, as a military operation it
was a failure, however in the field the American troops acquited
themselves well and did superior, and in fact the South vietnamise
forces terrified the Viet Cong, wo avoided them like the plague. It
was the political will that was lost, not the combat.
Japanese tanks were not designed specially for forests, they were
just poor quality. Like the Italians they produced worse equipment
than the Germans, but the Japs had an astoundingly powerful nazy
and airforce, but they were controlled by the army at the capital
who told the emperor and prime minister what to order. ATGMs would
not work in a forest with such short ranges. ALthough there are
greater ambush positions, prepared positions with cleared forests
would work better for a technically superior army who could engage
at longer ranges. Using the terrain to funnel enemy units into
bottlenecks and then hitting them would also work as a forest would
not provide the most satble route for an armoured advance (even if
the Germans pulled it off in the ardennes, but the flatter European
geography may work better for that than a smaller contained
geography that would be likely more hilly. With so many ambush
points an advance would be very costly and would be an attackers
nightmare and would probably eat up manpower, maybe not in death,
but just in trying to find the defenders giving them a great
advantage in time.
Just remember the blitzkrieg was designed for a short sharp attack
which caused an intense panic. It would not work through a well
prepared and highly motivated defending army like in the later
attacks made by the Germans against the allies and Russians which
no longer had the same potency.
While aircraft cannot win a war they would be incredibly important
for backing up the armoured forces on the ground. But the main unit
will always be the foot sloging infantry man =P[/quote]
