Quite recently, an interesting event occurred – specialists from the rescue squad of the Northern Fleet recovered 2 Shermans, it seems that they were a modification of the M4A2(76)W, from the Thomas Donaldson ship sunk by a German submarine.
The Thomas Donaldson was finished off on March 20, 1945 by the submarine U-995, and the first unfortunate ship with an American crew and more than 6 thousand tons of various equipment and cargo on board was torpedoed and damaged by another German submarine, U-968. It is noteworthy that both submarines remained intact after the war and managed to go to sea for some time under the flag of the Norwegian Navy.
The rescue squad conducts exercises, lifting equipment from the ship. This is not the first equipment lifted from the Thomas Donaldson; before that, two more tanks and several artillery pieces were lifted from it, including a very rare American 90-mm anti-aircraft gun, which could fire almost to a height of 18 km!
Without sophisticated computing equipment this would have been unrealistic, but the anti-aircraft gun had some semblance of an electronic “brain”.
Underwater digging is very interesting, because the sea is completely unexplored! They searched for the lost ship for several years, its location was unknown for a long time and the approximate search area was determined only after working with archival sources. It is very difficult for divers to work in the Barents Sea, because the sea is choppy, cold and there is only a short period in the summer when they can dive, so it is a great success that such a vessel was found so quickly. The lifting of equipment also occurs in a certain hurry, because the “digging” season is short, and a lot of interesting things can be lifted from the ship.
And this year 2 Shermans were pulled out of the water.
Shermans of the M4A2(76)W modification were delivered under Lend-Lease to the Soviet Union at the final stage of the war.
It was precisely this modification of tanks that “Thomas Donaldson” carried in the spring of the victorious year of 1945.
The weight of the vehicle was 33 tons, the tank was armed with a 76.2 mm M1 cannon, and had 71 rounds of ammunition. For example, an M62 projectile at a distance of 100 m at an angle of 90 degrees could penetrate armor 125 mm thick. A serious machine, but too high for effective combat against enemy tanks. Again, our own armor was almost cardboard, the armor on the hull was only 38 mm! For comparison, the side of the hull of the Soviet T-34-85 tank had 45 mm of armor, which was at an angle – it gave more chances for a projectile to ricochet, but here on the Sherman the armor is flat, well, this tank cannot be called anything other than a “steel coffin”, no matter what they showed in the movie Fury. The opponents had very different armor thicknesses, for example the PzKpfw IV modification of the Ausf. H had a hull side armor thickness of only 20-30 mm, and PzKpfw V (Panther) 50 mm.
The General Motors 6046 engine with 410 horsepower accelerated the steel car to a speed of 45 km/h, but how much did a tank need for that time? The engine was fed with diesel fuel.
And yet, despite all the more or less visible shortcomings, the Lend-Lease Shermans managed to fight the enemy on the Eastern Front, participated in the liberation of Belarus, Poland, and the capture of Berlin.
Khabarshchikov can be seen from afar. 🙂 And with such an interesting post on board. Whatever one may say, for a crew of 5 people, the Sherman was much more spacious than our T-34, and there were battles not every day. What does a soldier need? Closer to the kitchen and sleep.
Are you digging underwater? If not, then in vain, all the gold will go to the more active diggers.
Looking for more underwater and underground finds? We have a lot, see our “Finds” section! We publish the raised tanks in this thread .
