The Tiger Terrified Normandy. Then One Firefly in Five Answered

The Tiger Terrified Normandy. Then One Firefly in Five Answered East of Caen, in the summer of nineteen forty-four, a German Tiger could open a Sherman from most of a mile away. It could do it long before the Sherman's gun could reach back. For two years that reach was a wall. No crew in a Sherman had found the door. Where it turned: For two years no Sherman gun could beat a Tiger's ~4 inches of frontal armor at range. The flip point was one gun: the British 17-pounder, forced into an ordinary Sherman to make the Firefly. It rode in about one Sherman in a four-tank troop, ~1 in 5 across a regiment early on, yet it ended the Tiger's range monopoly. The 17-pounder was the smaller bore (76.2 mm vs the 88) and beat the Tiger's front on velocity, not size. The clearest proof: the loss of ace Michael Wittmann on 8 Aug 1944, most likely to a Firefly credited to Sgt Joe Ekins, though disputed. The turning point on Sherman Firefly vs Tiger is pinned up top. Subscribe for more, and drop the next battle in the comments. #WW2 #ShermanFirefly #Normandy #TigerTank #Wittmann