How Outgunned Shermans Destroyed 43 German Tanks in the Fog (WW2, Arracourt 1944)

19 September 1944, thick fog over Lorraine. Forty-two brand-new German Panthers roll toward a thin line of American Shermans. Tank for tank the Panther was the better machine: a longer gun, thicker armor. By nightfall the Americans counted 43 German tanks destroyed, for five Shermans and three tank destroyers of their own. This is the battle on a model of the real ground: the rule the Army wrote in 1942 for fighting a better tank, the fog, the four Shermans that raced eight Panthers to a ridge and won, and the four reasons the weaker tank won. 0:00 Fog, and a better tank 0:45 Patton's spearhead and Hitler's counterattack 1:49 The rule: Field Manual 17-33, 1942 2:58 The real ground 4:02 The night march and the first contact 4:54 Dwight's Hellcats 5:26 A few at a time 5:58 The race to the ridge 7:03 Réchicourt and Hunter's flank attack 7:42 The count 8:04 22 September: Juvelize and the P-47s 9:14 Hill 318 9:29 Why the weaker tank won 10:41 The rule in one line Sources Hugh M. Cole, The Lorraine Campaign (U.S. Army in World War II, Center of Military History, 1950), chapter V Maj. Richard H. Barnes, Arracourt, September 1944 (U.S. Army Command and General Staff College thesis, 1982); Christopher R. Gabel, The 4th Armored Division in the Encirclement of Nancy (Combat Studies Institute, 1986) FM 17-33, The Armored Battalion, Light and Medium (War Department, 18 September 1942), paragraph 37, "Tank versus tank action" National Park Service, on the 704th Tank Destroyer Battalion and its M18 Hellcats The ground is real: France's laser survey (IGN LiDAR HD), heights stretched five times; the fields are drawn from IGN's 1958 aerial photographs. Where each vehicle stood is our reconstruction from the Army's history. The counts of German losses differ, and the video gives both. Music: "Interloper" by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com), licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Terrain and maps: IGN (France), MNT LiDAR HD, BD ORTHO Historique (1958), SCAN 50 Historique - Licence Ouverte Etalab 2.0. Map data © OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL). Country outlines and rivers: Natural Earth. Map relief: Copernicus DEM © DLR e.V. 2010-2014 and © Airbus Defence and Space GmbH 2014-2018, provided under COPERNICUS by the European Union and ESA. Woods on the map: © ESA WorldCover project 2021 / Contains modified Copernicus Sentinel data (2021) processed by ESA WorldCover consortium (CC BY 4.0). 3D models (CC BY 4.0, Sketchfab), made into painted pieces: M4 Sherman by barking_dogo; Panther G by snrnsrk5; Pz.Kpfw. IV Ausf. H by Kai Xiang; M5A1 by LM3D; M3 half-track by D0K; Sd.Kfz. 251 by Pechacek; M7 Priest by AMAC35; P-47D Thunderbolt by vachtar; Willys jeep by jeandiz. The M18 Hellcat was built by us from photographs and its published dimensions. Sounds: Freesound contributors (CC0), incl. Craig Smith's vintage library. Portrait of Gen. Creighton Abrams: U.S. Army (public domain).