Troops of the 60th Infantry Regiment advance into a Belgian town under the protection of a Sherman tank. The cost and complexity both limited production and led to a high rate of mechanical breakdown on battlefields, which limited the impact such elite tanks could have on the war. Sherman tanks were well-designed for mass production and engineered with a rugged reliability that allowed them to keep rolling and fighting far longer than their German counterparts without breaking down. By comparison, 'overengineered' German tanks such as the Panther - Germany's main battle tank during the later phase of the war - were expensive to produce and difficult to maintain under battlefield conditions.

generally struck a good balance between quality and quantity despite the tank's relative weakness in firepower and armor, Zaloga notes in his book. 'Overwhelming adversaries through greater numbers is a viable strategy for technology competition, and was used successfully by the United States in World War II,' writes Paul Scharre, a fellow at CNAS, in a preview for the new report titled ' Robotics on the Battlefield Part II: The Coming Swarm. military that is considering whether to invest in swarms of unmanned drones and robots that could supplement or replace more expensive manned aircraft, vehicles and ships, according to a new report by the Center for a New American Security (CNAS), a military research institution in Washington, D.C. But finding a balance between quantity and quality could prove a useful lesson for the modern U.S. military that has usually emphasized having the best weapons and vehicles since World War II. The idea of overwhelming an enemy with quantity rather than quality may seem at odds with a U.S. 'Warfare in the industrial age requires a careful balance between quality and quantity.' 'In battle, quantity has a quality all its own,' Zaloga writes. The tale of the Sherman tank's road to victory represents a history lesson with implications for the future of warfare. Army Sherman in World War II ' by Steven Zaloga, a military historian and senior analyst at the Teal Group Corporation. strategy of mass-producing a reliable tank in large numbers should not be underestimated, according to the book ' Armored Thunderbolt: The U.S. Some historians and military history enthusiasts still scoff at the capabilities of Sherman tanks when compared with the German Panther and Tiger tanks that carried both more armor and more firepower. tank commander leading a five-man Sherman crew deep within Germany in the closing days of World War II. The armchair historian debate over the Sherman's war legacy could blaze up once more with the new war film 'Fury', starring actor Brad Pitt as a U.S.

from supplying tens of thousands of Sherman tanks to U.S., British, Canadian and other Allied forces, tipping the scales against the smaller numbers of elite German tanks on World War II battlefields.

British tank crews gave Sherman tanks the unflattering nickname 'Ronson' - a grim reference to the Ronson cigarette lighter's ad slogan 'lights first every time' and the unfortunate fact that Sherman tanks often burned after taking just one hit. Sherman tanks who faced an uphill battle against more powerful German tanks during World War II. Such a fact probably gave very little comfort to the five-man crews of U.S. Sometimes a 'good enough' military technology can achieve victory over better military technologies.

Sherman tank battles