Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2007/01/15

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Subject: [Leica] There's something about German design ...
From: marcsmall at comcast.net (Marc James Small)
Date: Mon Jan 15 12:18:49 2007
References: <45AB5497.2010403@gmx.de> <360981.88153.qm@web90402.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
 
At 05:35 AM 1/15/2007, Bill Smith wrote:
 >Tragically--the Shermans had the nickname of "Ronson lighters" due to
 >their tanks full of gasoline fuel.

This is an urban myth and has been parsed to 
death on the WWII Lists and on 
H-War.  Statistical analysis of losses reveals 
that fuel fires were a small problem.  Much more 
of concern was the tendency of the tanks to brew 
up from ammo explosions when hull or turret 
integrity was breached but the adoption of 
water-filled ammo storage bins in 1943 eliminated this problem.

I have interviewed several WWII Sherman 
crewmembers who survived turret penetrations.

Marc


msmall@aya.yale.edu
Cha robh b?s fir gun ghr?s fir!
Replies: Reply from raimo.m.korhonen at uusikaupunki.fi (Raimo K) ([Leica] There's something about German design ...)
Reply from stephen.s1 at comcast.net (Stephen Syrotiak) ([Leica] There's something about German design ...)
 In reply to: Message from douglas.sharp at gmx.de (Douglas Sharp) ([Leica] There's something about German design ...)
Message from wrs111445 at yahoo.com (Bill Smith) ([Leica] There's something about German design ...)