By the Spring of 1945, the American army was at its peak in terms of experience and equipment. The trusty Sherman tank had seen the army through from the very beginning, adopting many variants along the way. Powerful engines, advanced track suspensions, and heavier armament was standard in the late models of the old US battle tank.

Sometimes this was not enough to counter the German weapons of the period, such as the simple-to-use hand-held Panzerfaust anti-tank launcher. To deal with these threats, US tankers made their own improvements to their Shermans, such as adding extra armour plating, sand-bag improvised armour, additional machine-guns, and taking aboard dedicated riflemen as tank escorts to keep the enemy at bay.

A special mission has rushed 20 of the modern M26 ‘Pershing’ heavy tanks to the front. The 9th Armored Division has created a whole platoon of M26 Pershings while 3rd Armored Division has given them out one per company.

Meanwhile, somewhere in a workshop the good old boys from 3rd Armored Division maintenance are showing American ingenuity by cutting out armour plates from German Panther tanks and welding them to a Pershing armed with a long 90mm gun. Thus they have created the unique T26E4 ‘Super Pershing’. Let’s now see how the Germans like it when the boot’s on the other foot!