   Sergeant Wallace Hancock was the acting commander of a little group of five Sherman tanks stationed just east of St. Vith during the last day of the desperate American defense of that town. They had held their position but the fighting seemed to pass them by. So they sat in the dirt next to their tanks, waiting for orders or Germans. Neither came. Snow started to fall, blanketing them and their tanks, and they sat motionless under their blankets, trying to stay warm.
   In the silence and darkness of the snowfall, soldiers quietly trudged by the silent, snow-blanketed tanks. Nobody spoke; all were too tired. But then a flare went off somewhere and in its harsh light Hancock saw that the soldiers marching by them weren't retreating Americans; they were advancing Germans. He very quietly climbed into his tank and radioed headquarters.  They'd been forgotten in the chaos of the retreat from St. Vith. There was nothing to do but head west. They piled into their tanks, cranked them up, and headed for St. Vith.
   All was chaos in the town. Germans were everywhere; American stragglers, overjoyed at the appearance of friendly tanks, emerged from their hiding places and climbed aboard. Hancock gunned the engine and the little convoy blasted its way through town, scattering Germans and destroying vehicles. Somehow they all made it through the mess. Outside of town and danger, the tanks settled down to a normal road speed. With snow still falling, the GIs on the back of Hancock's tank sang "Silent Night" over the roar of the diesel engines.
/The Sherman Tank
   The American main battle tank during World War Two was the Sherman. This was a medium tank weighing 35 tons and armed with a 75mm, 40 caliber cannon. This gun was capable of punching through 3.7 inches of armor at 500 yards. The Sherman had an effective armor thickness of 2.8 inches in the front, 1.6 inches in the sides, and 1.4 inches in the rear. It carried a crew of five and had three machine guns.
   The Sherman was a poor match for any of the German tanks against which it fought. Even the Panzer IV, the weakest of its opponents, had a more powerful gun. Against the Panther and the Tiger, the Sherman was hopelessly outclassed. The Panther and the Tiger had frontal armors of 4.8 and 4.0 inches respectively; thus, the Sherman's gun could not kill either tank in a head-to-head encounter, even at close range. The German guns were more powerful than the Sherman's; they could easily penetrate the Sherman's frontal armor even at great ranges.
   The only chance a Sherman had against a Panther or a Tiger was to shoot it in the side or rear, where the armor was thinner. This required that the Sherman lay in wait and shoot its victims from hiding.
   But the Sherman possessed two less obvious advantages: reliability and simplicity. These may not be very exciting traits, but in the heat of combat a little thing like a sticky clutch can be disastrous. A minor breakdown during a retreat can result in the complete loss of the tank. Such problems were rare with Shermans. And their simplicity made it possible to manufacture them in astounding numbers. Over 49,000 Sherman tanks were built during World War Two -- more than all the tank production of the Third Reich for the entire war./