M4 Sherman

The M4 Sherman, officially Medium Tank, M4, was the American medium tank that the United States and its Western Allies used more widely than any other in the Second World War. It grew out of the earlier M3 Lee, whose hull-mounted gun and awkward layout pushed Army designers toward something simpler, and it was shaped around reliability, ease of mass production and standardized parts so that damaged tanks could be repaired quickly in the field. The first production tanks were completed in February 1942 and the run reached 49,324 units, making it the most-produced American tank of the war, and tens of thousands went abroad under Lend-Lease to the British Commonwealth and the Soviet Union. The British gave it its name, after the Civil War general William Tecumseh Sherman. It first fought with the British Army at the Second Battle of El Alamein in late 1942, where its 75 mm gun outclassed lighter German and Italian tanks, though by 1944 it was outgunned and under-armoured against upgraded German medium and heavy tanks and relied on numbers, reliability and air and artillery support. Seven main sub-types differed mainly in their engines, and the hull served as the basis for self-propelled guns, tank destroyers and recovery vehicles. Shermans kept fighting in Korea, the Arab-Israeli wars and other conflicts long after 1945.