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Originally posted by FV623
Arrrrgh, wouldn't want to upset the Dutchman, he's bigger than I am. . . . . . . . . 
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Fear not, I don't hit old people
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Now, Carl (Gas-Axe) Mulitbank-Brown's M4A2 and the T55-Tiger got a long airing on TV last night, the essence was a comparison of the Sherman vs Tiger. At least the SFX people didn't have to rig either for smoke. . . . . . . . . . . . . .
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Cool - did you tape it?
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At one point the presenter rolled up in an old Ford V8 Pilot and said the Sherman was so successful because it used common car parts and could therefore be readily repaired from stocks, even the (car) engine was used in the Sherman he said. Now even Mrs. Notton looked a bit surprised at this statement; surely they haven't confused the titchy old 95hp flathead V8 with the somewhat larger Ford GAA ?
Trying to be positive, I wasn't aware that the flathead even did duty as an aux generator and seeing how the weeny Morris 8 in derated form serves a Cent, it seems unlikely that 95 aux horses are needed in a Sherman.
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On second thought - ditch that tape. Common car parts, huh? Indeed the manufacturing of the Sherman was done with mass production principles, which Henry Ford pioneered for car manufacture. Ford developed a V12 aero engine which wasn't as succesfull as the RR Merlin, so he hacked off 4 cylinders to create an 18-litre 500 hp V8 tank engine. Other than that, Ford's contribution to Sherman tank production was not terribly impressive number-wise. They did manufacture the initial version of the M4A3 Sherman (1,690 examples between June 1942 - Sept 1943) and M10A1 SP guns, introducing a lot of improvements to the design to make it more suitable for mass production.
The Sherman's auxiliary generator was a Homelite single cylinder, 2 stroke engine with a 30 Volt 1500 Watt output. Nope, that titchy old 95hp flathead V8 did not come near the Sherman - they were all used to power that other tracked icon, the Universal Carrier.
McSpool