Good morning. Im one of the volunteers here at the Army Heritage and Education Center. This is one of the most prolific tanks of the second world war. This is the m4a3 tank. Its armed with a 75mm gun. It also has the caliber. 50 machine gun and two m1919. 30 caliber machine guns. One is mounted coaxially with the main gun. The other is mounted here and is manned by the battle gunner. If you look here, he can show you how the ball term iturret works. He has his ammunition in the back and to the back to catch the bag to catch the shell casings. Right here, its a prismatic periscope that sticks up through that space. At the periscope is a lense that has a radical. He uses that this is another one on this side. This is not the main gun. This one is controlled by the gunner. There is a switch to fire the machine gun. His gutters periscope comes up to the inside his gunners periscope comes up for the inside. Their field of vision is fairly limited. The critical thing for the commander was, he would have to lay the main gun on the target so the gunner can see it. Typically, the tank commander will announce the engagement. He will do the preparatory command. He will say gunner. The next thing he will do is announce the type of ammunition. In the case of an enemy tank, it would be armor piercing ammunition. That was called shock. He will give a target description, tank or armored car or whatever it might be. Once it is yelled where the gunner can see, he yells that means he is targeting. The gunner is loading the main gun. When he arms it, he will yell up. In that process, the commander will make an estimation of range. He will announce the range to the enemy target. That was particularly important. There was no organic range and capacity. Based on the estimated range, the gunner will use the appropriate radical in his sign to put his sight on the target. That sounds complicated, but with a good crew, it would happen in about four to six seconds. A lot of the training was the hone those skills to get the round off that quickly. This is a tank that is 75 years old. These days, its dramatically different. We now have laser range finders. In microseconds, that range is calculated and it all goes into computers. The range at which the enemy target is moving downrange is all factored in. Was vastly different from the tanks of the second world war. Most of the soldiers on these things were 17 to 20 years old. Guys who were 25 were oldtimers. Real oldtimers like me would not have been on one. They were young men who did this. One of the important things about the Army Heritage center is that this stuff is great for people to see. The real focus of the Army HeritageEducation Center is the soldiers. In the case of wwii, from all over. They were first deployed in north africa and through the italian campaign. Thats the focal point, to convey the sacrifice. Thats the important part. They are an interesting backdrop to the whole story. The sherman tank was one of the two most prolific tanks for the war. The sherman series, there were over 49,000 of these tanks manufactured during the second world war. The only soviet tanks were the t34 series. One of these tanks was used by every allied nation during the second world war, including england, the soviet union, and even the nationalist chinese received german tanks. It was a vehicle that had a strategic effect on the war because of the numbers that were out there. This tank was infamously reliable. It had an operational readiness rate of 94 . It was ready 94 of the time, as opposed to some of the german tanks which usually hovered around 50 . This one has the earlier suspension orsystem. The shock absorbers are mounted vertically. The later Suspension System was the horizontal volume springs Suspension System. The difference is the shock absorbers were mounted horizontally. The later system gave the tank a better ride and a better firing platform. As a tank is coming to a stop, you get less roll back and forth. As we move on the tank, you will notice all of the equipment hanging on the outside. The tank has a crew of five. You have the tank commander seated inside the turret. You also have the loader who loads the main gun. In the hull, you have the ball gunner. And to his left, youve got the driver. Youll notice that we have a lot of equipment on the outside of the tank. Those five soldiers lived in this thing. Typically in combat, you will see one of these tanks arrayed with things around the outside. If we move over here, take a look at the engine. This particular tank is powered by a ford gaa engine. It was designed as an aircraft engine. Aluminum block. There were a number of different engine configurations included, radials and diesels. This was the most common. Dual overhead cam, dual carburators, and about 500 horsepower that would move the tank at 40 mileperhour, terraindependent. If we sneak around the back, one of the grill doors is open. That shows one of the two. Its a v8, four cylinders on each side. In this configuration, the engine is in the rear of the tank. There is a driveshaft that goes the length of the vehicle to the front. Thats where the final drives are. The advantage to the set up is if the engine or the transition fails, its easy to replace. A lot of them were mated, you had to pull out the whole thing. With this, you can pull out one of the other. A number of innovations are kind of unique. One of those was the electrohydraulic turret. It does have a power system. Its electrohydraulic and it gives the ability to rotate this turret 360 degrees in 15 seconds. It gives the crew the ability to lay into and engage the targets. It had stabilization in the vertical plane which meant you could engage targets on the move. The gun would track up and down. That was innovative. As we compare that to the m4 sherman. This one could move 360 degrees and 15 seconds, it would take that one a minute to do that. It gives a tremendous advantage. Infamously reliable. Again, one of the earlier versions, youll see these armor plates. Several of them. In the earlier versions, this is where the ammunition was stored. Not a good position. They realized it was they started adding these armored plates as a means to protect that ammunition. Early on, when they debuted in north africa in british hands. They developed a reputation of being death traps because of explosions. A lot of people attributive that the gasoline. It was actually the ammunition combusting when the hull was breached. They took the lighter ammunition and put it in the lower hull. Theyre called rec storage tanks. In the later versions, the ammo is stored in a doublewalled box. Between the boxes is a solution of glycerin and water. Should the hull be breached in that area, it lowers the Kinetic Energy of the incoming rounds that the an ammunition would no longer bust. That improved the conditions. They came in the 1930s. As the world started to see the advent of armored warfare on a grand scale it was designed in the late 1930s. It was designed to go specifically against the german tanks. It was effective against those. As the war evolved, new technologies came out of it. That challenged it quite a bit. They continued to improve the tank throughout the war. This version has the 75 mm, the light version. The 65mm. It gave them capacity for high velocity ammunition. One of the things i like to point out about these is the Production Volume of 49,500 of these tanks produced, comparatively to the german armor production, of everything that they made at just about 45,000. There were just over 1660 tigers for world war ii. With the panther, just over 6600. If you compare those numbers, in the aggregate of the german production versus 49,500 of just this tank, you have an appreciation that this tank had a strategic impact on the war. A lot of tankers were connected, one of whom was my uncle. I asked him about the tigers in the camp and he said, i never saw one. The only ones i saw were blown up on the side of the road. Whether its 88mm gun or even the panther tank, with its high velocity, youre going to have a good day. What that gave the tanks was something called standoff range. They can effectively engage us before we can engage them. That was the advantage. We had numbers on our side. A lot of people pointed to the fact that it would take five shermans to take on a panther or a tiger. Thats the way we employed them. With the speed of the tank, what a lot of the tankers did was maneuver to a position of advantage over the opposition. Do you have any stories from your uncle . He had many stories. He served for the battle of the bulge. I had a number of photos that he left me. Some of them were fairly interesting. There is a picture of his tank and crew with, for some reason, a bass fiddle strapped to the side of it. As we workalk around the tank, youll see that we have a case of wine bottles in the back. Talking about soldier life, the crews live on these. Whenever they had an opportunity to get fresh eggs or a bottle of wine, they were prone to grab that stuff and take it with them. You see the coffee pots there. A lot of it was that cool crew interaction. It truly became a family. For this to run effectively, all five soldiers had to be on the piece of music. A lot of people dont realize the importance of the driver. When it comes time to engage the target, that driver was sensitive to fire command. Hes bringing the tank to a stop. His ability to do that has a lot to do with our firing platform. If they pull back and brake too quickly, its rocking back and forth. They would be keen to the fire command and would ease into position. The personnel targets, another thing done with this particular gun we talk about ranging. We can use this gun to range. The gunner could use his gun to put out rounds and estimate range. That crew had to develop an affinity to work together. When these things were attacked and successfully engaged, the average loss was about one crewman. Every time that we had a sherman hit, typically we would lose one crewman. In most cases, the other three. Would get would get out. In the aggregate, the survival rate was pretty if you look at any photograph it would be hard to find any two of those soldiers on the tank wearing the same thing. There was a lot of variety. Im wearing one of the early sets of cover else which is very common for early crews. This is a type one cover all. I have a gentleman up top who is wearing a model 41 jacket. He has a pair of trousers on which wouldve been the basic combat uniforms. Typically you are going to see a lot of variety. Anything from coverages to the two peace uniform which was common. One of the things we have, this is the armored crew helmets which were unique to armored crew operations during the second world war. If you are familiar with football in the 1930s, they were actually designed by rollings. You can see the logo in their. It was really just a crash helmet. A fiber shell on the outside with a leather liner. It offered no ballistic protection. It was just 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 will consist of the headsets that you see here in the air flaps. These cables would go and plug into a communication box. There would be five of those, one for each of the crew positions. That would give the crew the capability to talk to one another within the tank. So the tank commander could tell the driver to go left or right, tell the gun or to engage targets, whatever. This again would have been a common piece of the equipment for all tankers during the second world war. There were some other things that were available. Depending upon the weather, there was a winter combat uniform that was very comment for the armored combat crews. Well lined overall, special tanker jacket. This is actually the top for the winter combat uniform commonly referred to as tanker jackets. Pockets blanket lining in them. A lot of units were issued these but they were most common among the armored crews. As we move around the side here we have some of the weapons that would have been common in the Armored Vehicles. Inside the armored vehicle, there were a couple of types of some machine guns that the crews were armed with if they ever had to get off the tank and set up an observation post to identify the enemy before they got close. This is the and through some machine gun. This is an and three a one. It was a 45 caliber machine gun. As you can tell by the look of it very easy to mass produce these things. They were a series of stamped tubes. 45 caliber. So it fired the same type of round as our pistols which was the am 1911 a one. Each crewmen would have that one of these. The grease got as it was common lee called or the m31a. Of course hand grenades. A lot of stuff that was used by the infantry it was common in the armored crews with special applications. If we walk around the side and take a look at some of the other equipment we have. Youll see an array of tools. What a lot of folks dont realize is that the tank crews spent more times maintaining these things and then fighting in them. Obviously by their very nature they required a lot of maintenance. Among the things that we would check on a routine basis was track tension. Track tension does a couple of things for you. It is just with maneuverability but most importantly its what keeps the track on the wheels here. If the track tension is not right you risk throwing track in other words the track comes off and that is not a good situation. The maintenance piece was a part of it. Virtually all moving parts on this thing need to be greased routinely. The turret rings. The gas cans obviously. This tank had a fuel capacity of about 264 gallons. It actually had four fuel tanks inside it. Two on either side, to on the port side, to on the starboard side. It would give it a cruising range of about 265 or so miles. In todays vernacular, its common to hear miles per gallon. In the case of these its gallons per mile. This would run about a gallon per mile. So it had a range of around 250 miles. When these things were refuelled, it would not be uncommon to have an entire battalion pull over on the side of the road and have a whole fleet of trucks pull up alongside and transfer the fuel from canned onto the tank. Pretty common display. The insignia here is unique. The unit that we represent is the 68 tank battalion during the second world war. A couple of our members are veteran tankers including myself who served in the 68 armored regiment in the u. S. Army. We got into practice here in bringing these vintage Armored Vehicles back to life. We Research Unit history and found it was the 68 tank battalion. This character on the side was the battalions mascot during the second world war. He comes from a wall disney cartoon in the thirties called the tortoise and the hair. His name was tobias the tortoise. When the battalion adapted him as the mascot, while disney studios modified him for that purpose on the side of the tank. The tenth crew helmet and goggles and boxing gloves. He was the battalions mascot during the war. Theres ample photographic evidence that shows totally prominently displayed on tanks during the war. That would have been on the tanks. The field phones. What we are representing here is a tank in an assembly area, what would be called a logger. We would circle the wagons so to speak, service our weapons. Service the tank. It would generally be a lull in the action. It would be common to wire the tanks want to another so they could communicate safely over field phones. They would have these linked tank to tank. One of the things that is also here is an amazing repository of combat after action reviews and government data, empirical that it to reference the engagements of these tanks. A wealth of information that has been published by a host of different authors. Not only the american vehicles but the german vehicles, british vehicles, etc. Theres a wealth of information out there about this stuff. One of the best repositories is right here at the center. They have a great cast of archivists that can actually help people to research this kind of stuff. And again, with their focus on the center, on the individual soldier. Its great they also offer the capacity for individuals to research their ancestors combat history during the second world war. Or the vietnam war. You can come in and find your relative or ancestor and track his or her experiences through combat in terms of where they were and what they did. A truly unique capability they have here. Were going to take a look inside here. To get an appreciation of what it is like to live inside or fight inside one of these things. Our crew up in the tory today we have major retired, lamb. Ron is a u. S. Army master gunner. We have jeff hart whos doing the honors as a loader today. You can see what it is like in here. This tank is deceptively large. The reason is the way it was deep milled is the breach was cut off of this. You would have main gun reach back into about here when this thing was seeing action. The bleachers would reload the main gun round. It contains the explosive force of the cartridge. This has all been taken out of the tank. As cramped as it may look, its even worse in a fully operational tank. Ron is in the gunners seat here. Well let you walk you through controls and such. This is an early production turret which is probably around 1942. The gunners position is right here. Manual elevation controls are here. This over here is the hydraulic system for traversing the turret. That traversing mechanism is partly missing from this tank. It wouldve been an upside down horseshoe type of affair traverse left and right. The manual traverse is right here. This has a breaking system on it. You squeeze this and traverse the chart slowly by arm. This gives you a Reference Point once you have a specific point to aim from, it can give you degrees in mills, where you are and relationship to that aiming point so you can fire accurately. Power switches up here, gonna switch down, pedal for the firing mechanism under my left foot. Basically it was an electric solemn noise that slapped the rod and mechanically fired the round. The rounds had primers in them. The tank additionally had stabilization in the vertical but not horizontal. It was probably one of the first thanks to have stabilization along with the stewart light tank. The gunners site, this is an early production tank, the gunners site was a periscope that was mounted right here. It was linked to the main gun. The or the site had a problem with magnification. What the gun was looking through is what it looked like in terms of sites. He could not magnify anything. They were a little difficult to operate. Further modifications to the gun was a telescope mounted right over here and would have had a separate gun sight with articulated radical. Each one of the crosshairs had a range number on it. When the commander estimated the range, the gun would lay on the crosshairs at that range and fire. As we go over to the lower side, this is the loader station. What you see along the floor, along the perimeter, would be the amarok. When you are in action, you would have a variety of shells depending on the likely targets he would encounter. Armor piercing, high explosive, white phosphorus, etc or some combination of the above. They would be a raid around here. Pretty easy access. Again when he is loading, you can imagine that breach that is coming back about this far. What happens in the firing seat when the tank commander gives a firing command. Each of the crewmen in this position as well as the driver would play a critical part in the firing solution in this tank. The round is fired, once it is fired the breach is going to drop and the spent shell casing will come out automatically. It will slam up against the back of this church pretty violently. The breach will remain open and then the loader will have another round ready to throw into the breach should you need to reengage the target or take on another target. Surprisingly enough its louder on the outside of the tank than the inside. A lot of it is muffled. A lot of the concussed of force and the sound goes out the front. When the breach drops, the round flies out, the turret is inundated with the smoke coming off the round. Its kind of a violent thing until you get used to the rhythm of it. One thing important to point out about these turrets. When this turret is potentially slowing or moving 360 degrees in 15 seconds. Were standing in this compartment here. You can see theres plenty of opportunity to do this with your foot or have a piece of equipment. If you do that when this turret is moving, you will probably have the foot torn off. This, your foot will not stop this tank. Its a confined space. Potentially unless everyone in the dirt is situational aware its potentially a very deadly space. Not only is it confined its a hazardous operating environment. What we have in the back of the church while here is an array of radio sets. This is the auxiliary unit, this is the main unit. These are sc508 radio systems. In the american tanks typically everybody in the crew could talk to one another. So the tank commander could talk to the driver. The ball gun or, the loader, every one of the crew could hear the firing commands from the tank commander. Only two of the tanks in a platoon had the capability to transmit to the other tanks. That wouldve been the platoon leaders tank and the platoon sergeant. Everybody else is listening, they can here but they cannot transmit. These radios giving that capability. Each one of these stations, most of them have been removed from this tank but there is an intercoms box that would be mounted here. Helmets that have some cabling but go to the intercom boxes. What they also wear is a throat mic. It fastened around your throat. There were two microphones on either side of the adams apple. That is how we would pick up your voice and transmit. Youre not using microphones. Theres a lot of storage that isnt evident. These are all storage drops. Typically, you see a. 50 caliber can there. This thing would be chock full of throunds. It was g. I. Proof. Most of these positions are marked with what should have went there. Ammo, fire estate which are, extinguishers, canteens had their place. There is a lot going on here, and at the pace that it is going on, keeping the fighting department compartment clear is very important. That is a brief look inside a sherman tank. A lot of the guys in our organization, our veteran army tankers are retired. I enlisted in 1978, commissioned in 1980, and retired in 2009. I started on the m48 tanks, which was not much different in many respects, and i finished on the m1 tanks. For us, its a labor of love to keep these things alive. To tell the public about the experiences of soldiers, to be on them again is special for us. Most importantly, to convey the experience of these soldiers who served. This weekend on the presidency, former Bush Administration officials describe their roles in george bushs 2007 decision to increase american troop levels in iraq. Every july for 25 years, the Gettysburg Anniversary Committee has hosted a civil war reenactment and living history village depicting camp life. We visit a union army surgeon and and ballmer and