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| Sherman Firefly vs Tiger: Normandy 1944 (Duel) | 
 enlarge | Author: Stephen Hart
Publisher: Osprey Publishing
Category: Book
List Price: $17.95
Buy New: $10.71
You Save: $7.24 (40%)
New (28) Used (7) from $8.99
Avg. Customer Rating:  8 reviews
Sales Rank: 66596
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 80
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.6
Dimensions (in): 9.6 x 7.1 x 0.3
MPN: OSPDUE02
ISBN: 1846031508
Dewey Decimal Number: 940
EAN: 9781846031502
ASIN: 1846031508
Publication Date: September 18, 2007
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: Brand New, Perfect Condition, Please allow 4-14 business days for delivery. 100% Money Back Guarantee, Over 1,000,000 customers served.
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Product Description
Sharman Firefly vs Tiger
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| Customer Reviews: Read 3 more reviews...
 Sunset of the day of the Tiger June 6, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
This book is easily four and a half or five star material, but I gave it four because it's not quite up to par with Panther vs. T-34. Panther vs. T-34 was written by a tanker instead of an historian and thus is a true rarity in books of the type in that it talked about things that only a tanker would think about. It convincingly shows why the T-34/76 was superior to the Panther, even though on paper the opposite appears to be true.
This book is very similar in scope and covers an almost contemporary issue, the quantitative comparison of the Tiger I opposed to the British modified Sherman Firefly. Again, on paper, the Tiger appears to have a slight advantage. It's 88mm/L56 gun was almost equal to the Firefly's 17 lb'er. In cross country mobility the Tiger's wider tracks appear to give it's greater bulk an advantage over the Sherman's higher ground pressure. The Tiger continued to have armor sufficient to defeat the majority of Western Allied tank guns at point blank range, while the Firefly's Sherman armor was easy fodder even for the lower velocity guns of lighter German vehicles. Again, getting away from the gun/armor/mobility consideration of the amateurs, Stephen Hart starts to point out why the Tiger was already starting to lose it's place of supremacy on the battlefield. The Tiger was a petrol guzzling maintenance nightmare at a time when the fuel starved German Army needed every available vehicle up and running. Most importantly, however, the fact remained that despite the Tiger's impressive armor, it was still vulnerable to the Firefly at normal combat ranges. By June/July 1944 the real advantage of the Tiger was in the fact that they were manned by Germany's best tank crews. As these increasingly fell to the attrition of the Normandy Battlefield, the Tiger's heyday was at an end.
The book has excellent graphics, as would be expected from Osprey Press, but the artwork is fantastic, even by Osprey standards. The pictures of the views from the respective gun-sights is a rare gem that is strangely absent from most books of tank warfare. The books high point, however is its meticulous reconstruction of Tiger ace Michael Wittmann's last battle. Here the author presents new and almost irrefutable proof that Wittmann's Tiger was dispatched, not by allied fighter-bombers, as has so often been speculated, but by the relatively inexperienced and unlauded crew of a Sherman Firefly. A great read in a few pages.
Focuses on Death of Michael Wittmann May 19, 2008
10 out of 10 found this review helpful
Sherman Firefly vs Tiger: Normandy 1944, by Dr. Stephen A. Hart, is the second volume in Osprey's new Duel series. This volume seeks to compare and assess the relative merits of the German Tiger I tank against the British Sherman `Firefly' tank in the context of the Normandy campaign in 1944. However, rather than looking at the tank vs tank battles in Normandy as a whole, Dr. Hart focuses most of the volume on a single famous action on 8 August 1944, that resulted in the death of the famous German Tiger `ace,' Michael Wittmann. This methodology has its advantages, in that it offers a more intimate account of a particular engagement and allows for a blow-by-blow explanation, but it also suffers from trying to extrapolate too many technical and tactical lessons from a brief battlefield `snapshot.' Overall, Sherman Firefly vs Tiger: Normandy 1944 is well-written and engaging, although the argument that it advances that this particular action demonstrated the Firefly's `moment of triumph' is a bit of an over-stretch.
The opening sections of the volume on design and development and technical specifications are decent, but tend to summarize information on these two tanks that are already readily available. On the plus side, these sections provide a good introduction and would be useful for readers who want to know a bit more about these famous weapons, but without drowning in technical detail. Graphically, the volume provides color profiles of each tank, with ammunition. The author provides three sidebars on individual tankers: Michael Wittmann, Otto Carius and Sergeant Wilfred Harris.
The next section, Strategic Situation, lays out an overview of the Normandy campaign up to early August 1944 and then discusses Operation Totalize and the British efforts to trap the German army around Falaise. Beginning in this section, readers will note just a twinge of British chauvinism emerging to color this account, which seeks to downplay not just American but other Commonwealth and Allied participants. The only really sloppy section in this volume is that on Combatants, which has several errors and misconceptions. The author writes that in Germany, "each military district [Wehrkreis] had at least one tank training school and panzer training units." Actually, most of the individual panzer training in Germany was centralized at just two schools, with several others such as Putlos for advanced gunnery training (which the author mis-labels as a `maneuver area.'). Each Wehrkreis that was home to a panzer division had a panzer replacement battalion that did some unit training, but very few of the Tiger units belonged to a division - they were corps assets. Indeed, throughout the volume, the author does not seem to appreciate the distinction - the Firefly was organic to British tank divisions but the Tiger was not organic to any German panzer divisions in Normandy except some of the SS ones (not Hitler Jugend). Finally, it is also clear that the author is a bit hazy on the life of a tanker, since he writes that cleaning gun barrels "had to be carried out on a daily basis" and infers that this was quite arduous. Actually, punching the gun tube is normally only required after firing the main gun, only you are in some very wet, muddy climate like Burma. Track maintenance is far more of a grind, requiring constant attention and many bruised fingers.
The main action, the duel between a British tank squadron and Wittmann's four Tigers on 8 August 1944, is the centerpiece of the volume. In a nutshell, Wittmann's Tigers launched a counterattack across open farmland and were ambushed by British tanks in an orchard that hit them with flank shots from about 800 meters. Three of Wittman's Tigers were destroyed and the author writes, "in the space of just 12 minutes, Gordon's Firefly had dispatched three Tigers with just five rounds." This section is accompanied by a color battlescene depicting the destruction of Wittmann's Tiger, as well as a sequence of gunner's views of the same event. Most readers (except perhaps Wittmann's next-of-kin) will enjoy this section greatly. However, the author notes that "the Firefly emerged Triumphant" in this last great clash of Tiger versus Firefly, which is a bit over the top. This action was an ambush, pure and simple, and if the roles had been reversed (as they often were in Normandy), Wittmann's Tigers would have brewed up a bunch of Fireflys in the open. Earlier, the author notes that one British unit lost 21 out of 34 of its Fireflys in one day in July 1944, so it is unclear how the situation was really changed by Wittmann's death. In short, the Tiger still had superior protection, while the Firefly still had better maneuverability and numerical superiority, and each had guns powerful enough to destroy the other. The author never addresses mechanical reliability, but the Firefly also had an edge in that category, which further amplified its numerical superiority.
The author provides several charts at the end of the volume, but these only provide numbers for the fighting on 7-8 August. The key question, such as how many Fireflys were destroyed by Tigers in Normandy and vice versa is never addressed. Based on known information, it is likely that the Tigers enjoyed a healthy `kill-ratio' in their favor, at least on the order of 3-1 or better, although they were outnumbered by at least that. The author also makes little effort to discuss opposing tank tactics and avoids gruesome moments for the British like Operation Goodwood, but the evidence indicates that the British generally didn't handle their tanks too well in Normandy. Even the famed 7th Armored Division was sub-par for much of Normandy and was badly shot-up by Wittmann at Villers-Bocage. In short, this duel was decided by attrition, not technical or tactical factors.
 Osprey's Firefly-Tiger 'Duel' Scores a Bull's Eye! May 17, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Osprey's new 'Duel' series scores a hit with Stephen Hart's Sherman Firefly vs. Tiger volume. Since the Firefly was specifically developed to take the measure of Tigers, a blow-by-blow comparison is entirely appropriate. Hart's book is an interesting, educational, nicely-illustrated look at how these two metal monsters were developed and then utilized in combat.
The Tiger had been dominating European battlefields for two years before the Brits fielded the Sherman Firefly model. As befits a wartime expedient, the Firefly had all the shortcomings of a Sherman but boasted the Tiger-killing 17-pounder cannon. In face-offs the Tiger had heavier armor and its 88m cannon versus the Firefly's 17-pounder, thinner armor but greater mobility and speed.
Hart does a marvelous job of relating each tank's history, strengths/weaknesses, tactics and battlefield exploits. I found it fascinating, for example, that the Firefly's back-blast was so bright that it temporarily blinded the crew, a failing that higher command accepted because of the cannon's tank-killing potential. Likewise, the 17-pounder's HE performance was so poor that British tank squadrons only wanted one or two Fireflies assigned to each troop despite the fact that the standard Sherman couldn't compete with the Firefly's Tiger-killing abilities.
As an example of how the two fared against each other, Hart uses the legendary 8 August 1944 engagement that pitted the WWII's greatest tank commander, Michael Wittmann, against a lone Firefly. It makes for fascinating reading.
Thus far, I have only read two 'Duel' titles. I was rather critical of the P-51 vs. FW-190 match-up but, if Stephen Hart's Firefly-Tiger volume is an example of what the series aspires to be, I'm definitely going to check out more of the titles. And so should you!
It's an excellent survey recommended for any library strong in the mechanics of World War II. December 2, 2007
2 out of 5 found this review helpful
The German Tiger heavy tank dominated battlefields of Europe and was one of the most feared weapons of World War II. Stephen A. Hart's SHERMAN FIREFLY VS. TIGER describes its design and deployment, with chapters offering plenty of technical construction information and analyzing strengths, weaknesses and the use of these tanks in war tactics. It's an excellent survey recommended for any library strong in the mechanics of World War II.
Great WW-2 Tank Warfare! November 27, 2007
9 out of 12 found this review helpful
The "Sherman Firefly VS Tiger", by Stephen A Hart, is a must read for military historians and students alike. The German Panzer tank commanders were used to having a field day, as their Panthers, and tigers would cut through the M4 Sherman tanks like swiss cheese. The german tanks were by far superior in armour protection and firepower. The American Sherman tank was no match for the tanks of the axis powers, but what it did have going for it was a vast majority in numbers built, and a better track record for reliability. The Sherman proved to be a more adaptable tank when changes were needed for every occasion. The British, in the summer of 1944 rolled out its first sherman firefly variation, equipped with a seveteen pounder main gun. For the first time, German tankers in their massive lumbering Tiger tanks, had something to fear about the Sherman Tank. The Sherman was much more agile, and usually did well in city limits, as opposed to the Tigers which were better suited for the open field. The 17 pound main gun finally made the tiger vulnerable, and the moral of the British tankers increased dramitically, as reports of Firefly's destroying Tigers was filtering through. Legendary Tiger tank Commander Michael Wittman eventually met his demise at the hand of the Sherman Firefly, during a fierce battle, that is well documented in this book. The firefly became the envy of every American Sherman Tanker, who still had to do battle with 75/76mm shermans. This book proves to be a captivating read, that is full of great rare photo's and paintings, as well as thoughtful insight by the author. I highly recommend this book as a must for anyones military library.
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