If we move to the commanders weapons station here, it also has the caliber 50 machine gun up top where the commander is. And it also has two m19, 1930 caliber machine guns. One is mounted with the main gun and the other is mounted here up in the front of the tank. And this one is manned by the battle gun. If you look at the battle gun, he can move it up and down. He can show you the way the ball turret works. This has the workings of the guns, his ammunition back there and a catch bag to catch the shell casings as they come out. If you look at the top of the hatch right over his right shoulder there, theres a parascope that goes in there. It fits up into that through that space and sticks up. And inside that parscope is a is a lens that has a rhett key in it. He uses that reticle to fire that machine gun. Now this one here, theres another machine gun on this side, this is the other m1919. This is not with the main gun. This one is controlled by the gunner. He has some switchology in his crew station to control fire the main gun, et cetera. Theres a switch to fire the machine gun. Hes ranging that through a similar setup that you can set up next to the helmet there. And thats how hes looking. One of the things youll notice with that is because theyre looking through a periscope, their field of vision is fairly limited. So the critical thing for the commander was, when he identified the target, he would have to lay that main gun on the target such that the gunner can see it in his field of vision, okay . So in a typical fire command, hell the tank commander will announce the engagement and what he does is the preparatory command, hes going to alert the gunner. He will say gunner. The next thing hell do is announce type of ammunition were going to fire, and in the case of an enemy tank, were going to fire what is armor piercing ammunition. That was called shock back in the day. And then hes going to give a target description tank or armored car or whatever it might be. While hes doing that, the gunner will yell identify. That means he now sees the target within his field of vision. Hes refining his aim point on the enemy target. The loader is now taking that shot round or that armor piercing round, loading it into nan gun. He gets that round into the main gun and arms the main gun, takes it off safe, he will yell up, and in that process, the commander will make an estimation of range, and as soon as he gets it, he will announce a range to the enemy target. And the gunner will use the appropriate reticle inside his sight to put the right sight for that range on the enemy target. So that was that sounds complicated, but it would happen between four to six seconds, would get a round off. Its happening very, very quickly. And a lot of the training and crew drill was to develop and hone those skills so they could get those rounds off that quickly. This is a tank thats now 75 years old. These days, its dramatically different. We now have laser range finders that we merely lay the end point on our enemy target, a laser beam light goes down and back in microseconds or milliseconds, thats automatically calculated and it all goes into computers. Everything like the range at the enemy target is moving down range, it factors all of that. But it was dramatically different for the soldiers that crewed these tanks during the Second World War. An interesting thing about these vehicles is most of the soldiers that were on these things were 17 to 20 years old, that were armor crewmen during the Second World War. And in fact, guys, 24, 25 years old were kind of oldtimers. And real oldtimers like me wouldnt have been on one of these things. But they were young men that did this. One of the important things about the Army Heritage center is this stuff is really great for people to see and its great to talk about, but the real focus of the Army Heritage and Education Center is the soldiers that served on these vehicles and in the case of world war ii, all over, from all across europe. They were first deployed in north africa and then moved through the italian campaign, went into europe. Of course, we had them in the South Pacific throughout the war. And thats really the focal point of this, is to try to convey the sacrifice of the soldiers that crewed these things. So thats really the important part. They are an interesting backdrop to the whole story. We use them to help convey that story to the visiting public. The sherman tank was one of the two most prolific tanks of the war in terms of numbers manufactured. The sherman series, there were over 49,500 of these tanks manufactured during the Second World War. The only production totals that exceeded this tank were the soviet t34 series. This series of tank was used by every one of the allied nations during the Second World War to include england, the soviet union, and even a nationalist chinese received sherman tanks result of the lend lease program. So it really was a vehicle that had a strategic effect on the war, just because of the numbers of those that were out there and a number of the allied nations that used them. This tank was infamously reliable. It actually had an operational rightness rate of about 94 . In other words, it was ready 94 of the time. As compared to some of the german tanks, which operational readiness rates usually hovered around 50 to 60 . So the tank was very, very reliable. This one has the earlier Suspension System. Its called the vvss suspension. And basically, what that means is, the shock absorbers are mounted vertically in these housings. The later Suspension System was a horizontal volume spring suspension, or the hvss. And the difference was the shock absorbers were mounted horizontally, and hence the difference in the name. The later system gave the tank a better ride. And more importantly, what that equates to is a better firing platform. Because as the tank is coming to a stop to engage a target, you get a lot less roll back and forth. But this is the earlier system. As we move around the tank, youll notice all of the equipment thats hanging on the outside. The tank has a crew of five. Up in the position here by the caliber 50 machine gun, youve got the tank commander. Seated down inside the turret in front of him, youve got the gunner who operates and fires the main gun. And also inside the turret you have the loader, who as the name implies, loads the main gun. Down here in the hole, you have two. Youve got the bow gunner up here, seated down in the hole. And on his left down in the hole, youve got the driver. And youll notice that we have a lot of equipment right on the outside of the tank. And the reason is that those five soldiers lived in this thing, essentially, when they were in combat. And it was very important to keep the fighting compartment clear of equipment, because it is kind of cramped in there, and the more equipment you have, the more difficult it is for those soldiers to do their job, so typically in combat, youll see one of thoeese tanks with all sorts of things around the outside. If we move around the rear, we can take a look at the engine. This particular tank is powered by a 4gaa v8 engine. It was originally designed as an aircraft engine. It was aluminum block. There were a number of different engines that were placed in these earlier in the war, but this was probably the most common engine in a series throughout the world. Dual overhead cam, dual carburetors, and it generates about 500 horsepower, which will move this tank on along at about 30 to 35 miles an hour, terrain dependent. Obviously, the more difficult terra terrain, the less speed youre going to get up. If we sneak around the back here, one of the grille doors is open. You can kind of get a peak inside. Again, its a v8, so four cylinders on each side. And again, a very, very reliable engine. In this particular configuration of tank, the engine is in the rear of the tank. Theres a drive shaft that goes the length of the vehicle up to the front. And thats where the transmission and transaxle and the final drives are. The advantage to this setup is, should either the engine or the transmission fail, its easier to replace it. In a lot of the power plants, they were mated, so you had to pull the whole thing out if either component broke. And in this one, you can pull one or the ore. And these were actually very, very easy to work on, which contributed to its reliability. If we look again at the turret, the tank had a number of innovations that were kind of unique during the Second World War. And one of those was the electrohydraulic turret. The turret does have power. Of course, it can be traversed manually, but it does have a power system. Its electrohydraulic and it gives us the capability to rotate this turret 360 degrees in 15 seconds, which is very, very quick. And that contributes to the ability of the crew to lay the main gun on target and move from target to target and engage those targets. That was a pretty significant advantage. Another innovation in its day was something called stabilization. It had stabilization in the vertical plain that meant which meant you could actually engage targets on the move. The gun will track up and down. Again, that was really innovative. Again, as we compare that tank to german tanks, while this one could slew 360 degrees in 15 seconds, it could take those german tanks a minute to do that. Its a tremendous difference and gives a tank a tremendous advantage in terms of being able to engage targets. Again w again, infamously reliable. This one of the earlier versions. Youll see these applique armor plates. Theres seven of them. Two on this side, one on the port side. In the earlier versions of the tank, this is where the ammunition was stored, okay . In the upper hull. Really not a very good position, but they realized that it was kind of, they added these armored plates on the tank as a means to help protect that ammunition. Early on, when they made their combat debut, they debuted in north africa in british hands and he developed somewhat of a reputation of being death traps because of explosions. A lot of people attributed that to gasoline. It was actually the ammunition combusting when the hull was breached. Later versions, they took the ammunition, moved it from the upper hull and put it down in the lower hull. Theyre called wet storage tanks. The ammunition in those later versions is stored in a doublewalled metal box. Between the walls of those boxes is a solution of glycerin and water. What that does is, should the hull be breached in that area, it actually lowers the Kinetic Energy and the ambient temperature that the ammunition would no longer combust. And that improved the survivability of these to about 75 . Thats another interesting point about the sherman, it was a continual process improvement throughout the Second World War, okay . It was designed in the late 1930s, as the worlds powers started to see the advent of armored warfare on a grand scale, it was again designed in the late 1930s. And when it was designed, it was designed specifically to go up against the german medium tanks, their main tanks of the day, and it was actually very effective against those. But as the war evolved, some new technologies came out in terms of the german Armored Vehicles that did challenge it quite a bit. But they continued to improve the tank throughout the war. This version has the 75 millimeter. The later versions, they would ultimately field the 76 millimeter. And although that doesnt sound like much, it gave them capacity for highve lolocity ammunition which made it a lot more effective. One of the things i also like to point out about these is again, the production volume, over 49,500 of this tank in all variants produced, comparatively, all of german armored production in the Second World War, of everything they made was just about 49,000. And of the tigers and the Panther Tanks a lot of folks hear about, there were just over 660 tigers made during world war ii, so just over 1,600, and in the case of the panther, just over 6,600. And so collectively, if you compare those numbers and the aggregate german armor production to this specific tank, you start to get an appreciation that this tank had a strategic impact on the war. A lot of the tankers that were improved after the war, one of whom was my uncle, who i spoke to. When i asked him about the tigers and panthers, he said, look, i never saw one. He said, the only ones i ever saw were blown up by the side of the road. They were not necessarily that worried about them. That said, they were great defensive tanks. And if youre coming across an open area and facing that tiger tank, its 88 millimeter gun or even the panther tank, with its vyingvelocity gun and its frontal armor, youre probably not going to have a good day. What they gave those tanks was something called standoff range. In other words, they can effectively engage us before we can engage them. That was the advantage. We certainly had numbers on our side. A lot of people would point to the fact that it would take five shermans to take on a panther or a tiger. What some of those folks overlooked is at our lowest level of organization, armored warfare was five tanks. That was the way we employed them. And another thing with the speed of this tank, the maneuverability, the ease of operation. Ideally, what a lot of the tankers did during the Second World War was to maneuver to a position of advantage where their armor was weaker and could be breached. Very easy to operate, very easy to train crews on. And all in all, a very capable weapons system. Do you have any stories from your uncle . He had some interest stories. Some of them, he was reluctant to talk about. He served through the breakout of the normdy campaign, through the battle of the bulge. I had a number of photos that he left me, and some of them were fairly interesting. Theres a picture of his tank and crew, with, for some reason, a base filled strapped to the side of that tank. Where they came up with a base filled, but they had base filleds on the side of his tank, as well. We try to convey some of that, if we walk around a tank here, youll see that weve got a case of wine bottles on the back here. Talking about soldier life onboard these things, essentially, the crews lived on these. So wherever they had an opportunity to get some fresh eggs or perhaps a few bottles of wine or whatever, they were prone to grab that stuff and take it with them. Youll see our coffee pots there, and a lot of it was just that crew interaction and that was really the essence of being a tank crewman during the Second World War. They truly became a family. And for this thing to run effectively, all five soldiers have to be on the same piece of music. They have to be working together to get this done. A lot of people dont realize the importance of the driver in these things, but if were moving across a piece of terrain and it comes time for us to engage that target, that driver also has to be sensitive to the fire command. And what hes doing is bringing that this tank to a stop and his ability to do that has a lot to do with our firing platform. And they would develop a knack that if they pulled back and break this tank too quickly, now that tank is crocking back and forth. So they would be keen to the fire command, too, and kind of ease it into a position, so that when were ready to engage, hes giving us the most stable platform possible. The bow gunner, very critical in terms of personnel targets. Any enemy personnel. Another thing that was done with this particular gun, we talked about ranging a little bit. Ranging was an important part of getting steel on target. We could also use this gun to range. The bow gunner could use his sight to put rounds out and help estimate range should we need to do that. That was another way to range. The primary purpose was antipersonnel. But again, that crew really had developed the affinity to work together. When these things were attacked and successfully engaged, the average loss was about one crewman. Every time we had a sherman hit, we typically would lose one crewman. It depended a lot on where the sherman was engaged. And in most cases, the other three would get out. But in the aggregate, the survival rates for the crews was pretty good. A lot has been made to say that the whole crew would be, you know, would go up. There are, of course, cases, where there were what we label a catastrophic kill, where the tank could combust and everybody would go up. But on average, when the tank was successfully engaged by an enemy vehicle, we would lose one crewman in the process and two to three would get out. But what were all wearing here, if you look at any photograph of u. S. Armored crewmen during the Second World War, it would be tough to find any two of those soldiers on the same tank wearing the same thing. There was a lot of variety. Im wearing one of the early sets of coveralls, which were very common for armored crews. This is a type i coverall. Weve got a gentlemen up top. Hes wearing a model 41 jacket. And then hes got a pair of trousers on, which would have been the basic combat uniforms, but typically youre going to see a lot of variety. Everything from coveralls to the twopiece uniform that was common for more soldiers. One of the things we have, this is the this is the armored crew helmets, which were unique to Armored Vehicle operations during the Second World War. And if youre familiar with football of the 1930s, they actually were designed by rawlings and you can actually see the rawlings logo in there. And it was really just a crash helmet. It was just a fiber shell on the outside, with a leather liner. It offered no ballistic protection. It was only like a crash helmet to protect your head inside the vehicle. Most importantly, it also included the Communications Gear that the crew would use to communicate inside the tank. That would consist of the headsets that you see here in the ear flaps. These cables would go and plug into a communications boxes. There would be five of those, one for each of the crew positions, and that would give the crew the capability to talk to one another inside the tank. So that the tank commander could tell the driver to go left or right, tell the gunner to engage targets, whatever. And again, this would have been a common piece of equipment for all Armored Vehicle crews during the Second World War. There were some other things that were avai