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What a Sherman Crew Looked Like After the Tank Brewed Up

No Man's Land

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What a Sherman Crew Looked Like After the Tank Brewed Up

They said it torched its whole crew every time. The records say most men walked out. Here's what actually happened inside.

When an M4 Sherman "brewed up," the fire was as bad as anything in WW2 — but the death-trap legend it left behind was built after the war by a memoir, a movie, and a cigarette-lighter slogan from 1950. This is the forensic version: the propellant flash, the escape geometry, and the casualty data that turns the legend inside out.

Sources include US 12th Army Group and Allied tank-casualty studies, the Tank Museum, and Belton Cooper's Death Traps. Composite reconstruction — see pinned comment.

20 Comments

@NoMansLandChannel Creator 3 weeks ago Pinned

This is a composite reconstruction built from operational-research casualty studies and firsthand recovery accounts, no single Sherman crew's story, but every mechanism and number is sourced to the record. One correction we made in production: the popular "T-34 crews died 75% of the time" stat is false; the real figure is ~28%, against the Sherman's ~24.6%.

So where do you land? Was the Sherman a death trap that got lucky, or a survival machine with a PR problem?

@foreverpinkf.7603 2 weeks ago

A burnt-out tank is low-grade scrap metal and cannot be recycled, as the structure of the armour plates has been destroyed. It is now merely an exhibit.

@stepney56 3 weeks ago

I saw a documentary on the Desert Rats fighting Rommel. We lost masses of tanks in near suicidal attacks against the dreaded flak 88. It's shell could punch through the frontal armour of a Grant or Sherman at 1500 yds. Our tank crews were given drugs not unlike amphetamine. One tank Officer said bluntly 'seeing other tanks brew up left him dreading having to be washed out of his tank'. Those tank crews had guts, not only against the 88 but Panthers/Tigers and King Tigers.

@MajWMartin 2 weeks ago (edited)

I HAVE NEVER SEEN SO MANY DOCTORED PICTURES IN ONE STORY IN MY LIFE. Tanks with two main guns, broken tracks extending in front of a tank with full tracks visible, and hatches where there were none. Ammunition with primers on both ends. Please at least try to get close.

@steve4158 2 days ago

Soldier Cooper had an unimaginable job as he witnessed the deceased tank crews. God bless him forever.

@janverbanck 1 day ago

The Sherman tanks were in some way the land equivalent of the Liberty ships: rather hastily built in mass, not perfect, often fragile, seldom really praised but they did their enormous part in winning the war because at some point sheer numbers mattered more than perfection...

@rudysegura8780 2 weeks ago

Former 19Kilo, M1A1 tanker here. Mad respect for WWII tankers!

@paulgrimm 2 weeks ago

It was said they never got that smell out of them

@stephenbaker-lemay479 2 weeks ago

My best friends dad was tank recovery through Africa and Italy, though he never gave us full descriptive comments he said enough that taught us only repairable tanks were recovered, the recovery crews had to check for remains and mark the hulls whether clear or not, my understanding is remains were always parts of crews not whole bodies, tanks that had ‘brewed’ up were not taken from the field during operations, this was only done with quickly repairable tanks, if the damage was too much it was easier to just get another from the depot, mostly I think it was arms and legs that were left in the tanks, most crews got out and took their injured mates with them.

@bavery6957 12 days ago

Back in the 1970's, a former WWII tanker in a neighborhood adjacent to mine had a defunct, Army-surplus Sherman tank sitting in his front yard, with a flagpole waving the American flag behind it, and a flowerbed surrounding it.
It was a MAJOR draw for young boys with Spider bikes from miles around.
I met him a couple of times on Boy Scout 'paper drives', but sadly, I don't remember his name. RIP 🙏
🦾🥰😞

@davidlucas6701 12 days ago

My ex wifes late uncle, was a tank driver/mechanic. He fought against Rommell and all the way tgrough italy etc.
He said the shermans with radial engines were often brewing up!
He related a few stories of his time on tanks and amazingly survived to talk!
Many of his friends didnt...rip Jim.

@TJBrennan58 12 days ago

BTW, burnt tanks rarely returned to service. Heat takes the hardness out of the armor and all the wiring burns up. They were usually stripped for parts.

@lavictoire1960 2 weeks ago

Amazing they could fix those things enough to put them back into action. I don't think the ones that burnt were repairable, i think it weakens the armor.

@clanranald 3 days ago

The crews who were there confirmed that you would lose 5 shermans in order to eliminate one tiger. That means, using the commentators stats, you would lose 25% of 5 crews which a higher loss rate than he suggested, in actual battle.

@CGy3q5c 2 weeks ago (edited)

You cannot compare the German engeniering and the supply of parts in 1944 that the endless supply of parts provided by inferior engeniering but produced in a country that wasn't being bombed day and night.

@Mr.X.84-c8t 2 weeks ago

Lights the first time. Lights every time.

@JoeFerguson-g1x 2 weeks ago

These things were true for all nations who employed tanks in that war. The burn rate for Shermans was at 9 to 10 percent because they placed ammo in glycol water storage on the floor.

@nigelconnor6960 2 weeks ago

Inside of the Sherman had been 'rearranged' so had the crew in it.....love the WI images, but wish it would get the crew figures in perspective size! Intriguing, but some images, hatched, bonnets fictional. Great video, even British Challenger 2 has Kevlar anti spalling nets on the turret walls, so spalling still a threat.

@nigelconnor6960 2 weeks ago

Been in car where battery shorted out on chassis, smoke everywhere, thought petrol tank would explode...don't even remember jumping out, when your in that kind of situation....you act damned FAST, that I can tell you, car, tank, aircraft...whatever!!!

@eltsennestle998 2 weeks ago

No nation restored burnt-out tanks and returned them to combat. Too much work, too few parts, and degraded steel made them just scrap. Clean penetrations could be repaired, broken suspensions, simple things that simple field workshops could handle.