[pmulcahy11b]

Let me reiterate the experience of the late Michael March, my next-door neighbor and former Sherman crewman (started as a driver, and eventually worked his way into the TC's hatch). He got to Europe about two weeks after D-Day, and his crew was given a "reissue;" the Sherman had been hit a short time before and the entire crew was killed or wounded. The repair troops patched the Sherman up, but weren't very effective at cleaning up the mess inside. Mike told me that every time they started up the vehicle and the engine started getting warm, you could smell the previous crew.

He (and other Sherman crewman) were told straight out that in fight with a Tiger or Panther, they would lose four Shermans in the process of knocking out that German tank. The Shermans were inferior technology, but the Germans couldn't match our production rate. Given a hypothetical WW3, NATO would find themselves on the opposite side of equation -- The Warsaw Pact would mob us with tons of inferior tanks and vehicles, inferior tech aircraft, and troops that have been taught to rock and roll instead of using aimed semiautomatic fire.

The only thing that might save us is superior technology that is so superior that it equalizes the fight. And, in another parallel to the Nazis, we had a lot of wunderwaffen, but not enough to be an equalizing force. Another thing that achieve a partial equalization might be the large amounts of B-52s and B-1s that we still had in the 90s.

Unfortunately, I fear that what would happen is that a lot of Pershings would unwrap...