Hey Chuck, @uscusn
It's always good to hear from you. I hope to be getting some work done on the new tool Tamiya Jagdpanzer IV Lang / 70 very soon... I'll be posting some pictures of it here so you can see where the decals have come in very handy. Thanks again for that !
Here's a quick break down on the various Sherman suspensions. There were a few other differences, but these two here are the biggest changes.
The original type of suspension used was called a VVSS suspension, which stands for Vertical Volute Suspension System. This type had a single road wheel at each end of the "truck" assembly. The spring that gave the tank it's working suspension was mounted vertically, henceforth the name...
Later Sherman tanks had what was called a HVSS system. Here the spring was mounted horizontally inside the round cylinder. This type of suspension had 4 wheels per unit, two on each end. It also offered a better ride for the crew.
This next picture shows the two side by side.
The main reason they changed the suspension was not for crew comfort... although it did help.
They did this so a wider track could be installed on the tank. They found out that the early Sherman's were not as "agile" as hoped for. The "skinny" tracks were getting bogged down fairly easy in mud.
The German Panzer III and Panzer IV tanks could outmaneuver the Sherman...this was found out using captured examples.
So they put a band aid fix on things and added "duck bill" end connectors to make the track a little wider to help reduce ground pressure.
This didn't help as much as they hoped for, (but it did help some), so a new design was made, the HVSS type. Here in this next picture you can see just how much wider the HVSS tracks were.
The early style "skinny" tracks that were used on the VVSS used an end connector that also acted as a track guide. The guides are used to keep the tracks in place. Here's a picture showing how they went together on the full scale version... notice the different style cleats... there were a lot of them !
On the HVSS the track guide was moved to the center of the track, which is exactly how modern day US tanks are...This next picture shows how this style of track went together.
There were also differences in the cleats on these too. Steel T-66, T-84 rubber chevron and T-80 steel chevron types.
Finally, these last two pictures show just how much wider the HVSS was...
VVSS tank with T-74 tracks.
HVVS tank with T-80 tracks. You can definitely see how much wider the tracks are on this one. The wider tracks reduced the ground pressure, and allowed the Sherman to maneuver much better... which is a good thing.
I hope this helps to answer some of your questions, and it might even tempt you to start building yours... 🙂 I'd like to see that Chuck.
I found most of this information on a website called "The Sherman Tank"... there's a lot of good info on the type over there.
Thanks for looking !
