Smoked 3 Tigers in 12 minutes ! I don't care if he knocked out the Ace or not - to take on any 3 tanks ALONE is gutsy - let alone victorious. Great piece of history, thanks!
He was not alone as there were multiple Sherman's involved in this engagement and there is still debate if he was the tank and gunner to knock out Whitman and his tiger. There is another Sherman that also has a good claim to taking.g the credit for this and it was positioned in the farm house on the road beside where Whitman passed. It hit him also with flanking shots. This has also been researched and has been deemed to be the most likely tank to have taken out this particular tiger.
@@NinjaAO42 Hmmm. Now that I think about it... You're probably right! I forgot that the British are the kings and queens of sportsmanship so I guess they didn't wanted to end the war too quickly for the Germans
A shoemaker who stopped a farmer. Yes, Michael Wittmann was a farmer. He was born in a farm and worked in it until he enrolled in the army at the age of 18.
Rio Grande do Sul Ball No actually, most of the time on the eastern front there was allways misscounts and made ip Numbers by the commander due to them not following proper protocols
@@riograndedosulball248 perhaps in modern days, but back then I think it is safe to assume that some of the records may have been inflated for propaganda purposes.
"thank God it's not gonna be us today". Love the British spirit, not cheering because he just knocked out three tigers, just being happy he made it through
Hardly unique to British spirit. I've never met or heard of any tank crew cheering because they killed another tank. Those who are in the mist of battle up close and personal don't celebrate the killing. It's tinhorns sitting in safety miles away watching it or actors in movies who do that.
@@Weisior what I mean is Someone on RU-vid Making 2D Animation with a mix of 3D animation Unlike Channel like Simple History And Infographic Show that only use 2D
Sometimes, the people who make some of the greatest changes don’t get recognized while they’re still alive. Thankfully, Joe was able to get recognition for what he might’ve done. After all, I don’t think anyone can really be 100% certain what happed!
U guys, I'm are dumb no effence, it's just that the sher an firefly is meant to kill tigers, like the tank, not like the actual tiger ya know, its shouldn't really be a supprising fact,
@@bigcrowe9573 well the Tiger is a heavy tank, one of the hardest tank to destroy, and even with high caliber gun equipped, it isn't easy to kill( correct me if im wrong, all i know is its has a 88mm gun and had thicc armor)
@@BenFoulke The Tiger tanks were colossal failures, they broke down a lot and were mechanically inferior to every allied tank. The only redeeming factors were the 88 and the armor.
Hey whittman still had managed to locate where the enemy was (if the video is correct) only not anglinggot him killed (always angle ur tanks kid always oh phuk got revenge bombed)
"Wait a second... YOU HAVE KILLED MICHEAL WITTMAN?!!?" "Yes, sir." "Dang, son! You've earned the position radio operator with your talent congrats!" "..."
Colonel "You killed three tigers in a single battle?" Shoemaker "Yes sir" Colonel "My god! That will not do, that will not do at all" Shoemaker "Sir?" Colonel "You're stealing all my glory young man, I'm reassigning you"
More accurately: their maybach engines screaming in agony as they attempt to move a gigantic paper weight fitted with a modified anti air cannon up a gentle slope of 3 degrees.
They were anything but paper weights. Ask any tanker from that era, which tank they were would rather go to war in, Sherman (Tommy cooker) or Tiger. Guarantee, 9 times out of 10, it's a Tiger.
@@THE-BUNKEN-DRUM Shermans were meant to engage infantry and emplacements not fight tanks. Tigers broke down on their own and were just a huge propaganda machine that got destroyed constantly by planes as they broke down in fields helpless. They were not effective by any means and still struggled against a few much cheaper and effective T-34-85s. The Panzer V was the last good German Tank. Now stfu you Wehrmacht wannabe.
@Solipsil Near the end, Japanese military reassigned all their best airmen to defend Tokyo and by extension the emperor, instead of assigning them as instructors where their talents would have been better utilized. Not saying it would have turned the tide for them, but it was a stupid & myopic waste of rare & precious resources.
BeachsideHank Don’t think it would have done much. The best for them is to relegate most of their aces to instructor role back in 1942 or 1943. Doing to so late wouldn’t done much for them, considering that it would take a long while to train pilots.
@Solipsil one of the justifications for the criminal bombing of Germany was sending fighters to prevent them bled dry the pilots so that on D Day there were few aces left. With Japan the pilots were also inexperienced so that kamikaze made sense because sending them against the US fighters and ships meant almost certain death anyway.
I love to listen to the old warriors tell their stories. He said it in the video - "There was nothing else I could do." Most of them would say that they weren't heroes - the heroes didn't make it home. God bless you old warriors - you saved the world, so that younglings behind computer keyboards could insist that THEY know what REALLY happened. Fortune passes everywhere.
@@thewarhawk8203 To think that any country fought Germany out of a sense of moral good is absolute delusion, this was a war of imperial ambitions. The "good" brits were busy starving 3 million Bengals to death, Russia starved 8 million ukranians to death. How exactly are they better than Germany?
@@gabrielborawski6739 Yes, that is very true. The firefly has heavy armor that can penetrate a tiger 1 shell/bullet. That's why it was the most powerful sherman tanks! That can take down a tiger tank
@@Dullification Actually any sherman with a 76 gun could pen the Tiger just as easily as the Firefly, and the Firefly had the same amount of armor as any other sherman (except E2s of course).
It takes guts to shoot at an enemy without backup. And skill to aim and land a shot that far given the possible dispersion. I am amazed at this man and wish I could meet him today.
SLYbox full on documentary on Discovery channel or some such that analyze this in detail, they come out in favour of the Canuck’s Sherman’s , either way his time had come.
Only thing is, he didn’t. Pretty well proved that while Ekins killed the three Tigers, Wittmann was killed by fire from the Canadian Sherbrooke fusiliers, who were closer to Wittman, and photographs of Wittman’s knocked out Tiger shows penetration on it’s left, the side facing the Canadians.
Holy shit this is better than Simple History, and it feels like they actually put effort in it instead of using the exact same animation hundreds of time. Amazing video! keep it up
Hey, don't need to downplay Simple History's work like that. They do produce videos with a lot more frequency, give em some credit. These are just two teams of people with different ideas in mind.
@@mpk6664 That might make sense for you, but in a business perspective it makes sense for quantity as well. And that sort of ensures the sustainability of the channel. You can choose which one you like more, and even in my opinion Yarnhub is qualitatively better, but I respect each teams content. All I was asking for is the respect for the content.
Idk why but it made me cry when I’ve heard about Soviet names there. Everyone counts my country as an aggressor and nazi nation… it’s even hard to imagine that someone was doing that for honour of our men…
It was pretty common, especially after Stalingrad - I know at least one Churchill tank that was named Stalingrad. Also King George ordered a Sword of Honour be made for Stalingrad en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sword_of_Stalingrad
@@KoishiVibin It's a bit more complicated then that. Ballistic performance is determined by several factors. Now a tank can only be so big before it starts running into problems, especially at WWII tech levels. This limited size meant a limited size turret which meant a limited size breech, which had to fit inside the turret. While you could fit a very large 100mm+ bore cannon on to a Sherman turret, the breech length would remain unchanged. Which means cartridge over all length does not change. Which means you go from firing a long skinny cartridge, to a short fat one, relatively speaking. While the short fat cartridge will hold more powder then the long skinny, the ratio of powder to projectile weight becomes skewed against the short-fat. Like a 5.56 versus a 12 gauge, roughly the same OAL, and the 12 gauge has twice the powder of the 5.56, but the projectile weight is several times more with the 12 gauge. Thus, it is much slower. All that said, the invention of APDS (Armor Piercing Discarding Sabot) made this issue irrelevant. The APDS design lets you shoot the same weight projectile (sub caliber projectiles) regardless of bore size. Since a larger bore size will let you fit more powder behind the projectile, larger becomes always better.
@@caseyb1346 what about heat shells, a larger bore means more explosive can be packed behind the copper cone, and muzzle velocity does not matter as much since the shell explosion is triggered on contact and does all the penetration.
As a Polish, I pay huge respect to the memory of Mr. Joe. Not only for his perfect shooting skills but because of his morale and unique personality, too !!!! >> RIP Joe Ekins - a great British tanker +++
Thanks for the story - again a new one to me. A great many old soldiers never spoke about it afterwards, usually for very good reason. My late father, a veteran of PQ17, said the lucky ones were those who didn't come back - those who did suffered for the rest of their lives.
I'm an American who just turned 45 years old but I also lay claim to killing the black baron. Wow, everybody and their mom claimed to destroy those tanks. Thank you shoemaker for your service and to all who sacrificed to save the world. You are the greatest generation
the tank museum is cool, especially the fact that you get in for free as a member of NATO, and only pay once a year if you have been in the military and left. i'm a german tank commander and i approve of this video.
I am a researcher in naval but research on local news about new discoveries like 3 kids found a sunken t-34 Russian tank in a swamp just seeing its turret
with this visualization style and history contents , this is the most underrated channel about history with only 90k subs, believe me you'll be big one day if you keep up this quality story telling.
Wittman was still riding the heels of "Villerss Bocage" victory where he had completed suprise. This time the Canadiens and British had surprise (the didn't know about each other) . With the British blowing up Wittmans platoon to his right, he never saw the ambush to his left.
The lone surviving Tiger when home and told Panzer Meyer HJ 12SS what happend.. they made a search party to search and bury Wittmans crew remains.. the were clear that he was killed by Shermans, but Goebbels said it was the RAF.
Thank you for noting that the 17 pounder was quite a handful when fired. I've read a number of articles describing how, in their tank manuals, Firefly TCs were told to stand outside the tank to effectively direct their fire. This was due to the ridiculous muzzle flash created by their main armament. What a well done story that tells of one man in battle, merely doing his job. His job that day was to take out Wittmann and two other Tigers- that he survived and received the credit he deserved was a happy ending! (Unless you're a Wittmann fan obviously) SUBSCRIBED!
I always love hearing those old-timers talking about the war. They tell their stories with a refreshing humility. They just got on with it, never complained and never asked for, nor expected, any acclaim. True heroes.
What a great video, YarnHub. The animations, the narration, the origianl audio. Congratulations. You, Simple History and Oversimplified are my favorite history channels in RU-vid.
You my friend are improving. I remember your first vids; they were on 2D. Now youre animating tanks. TANKS in 3D. Keep it up. This will totally set this channel apart from other historical channels.
Not long ago i watch a documentation where they reconstructe the whole situation and comes to the conclution that the only ones who was in the position to explain the damages on Wittmann's tank was the Canadians who hide left sided of the Tiger tanks. They comes to the conclution that it was not possible that it was the Brits who take him out...
The Germans lost 5 tigers, and several PZIV and Stug IV that day.. while is possible that the Canadians might have shot Witmman or.that Witmann tank might have been shot by the Canadians and Ekins from two directions at.the same time, Ekins did bag 3 Tigers and one PZ IV that day. 😊
@@koinodiscoqueen it doesn't, the only reason that phrase became a thing is because sherman were in platoons of 5 in the US army. Hell the us army were very happy with the 75mm even for engaging tigers.
It was very warm to read Velikie Luki on a board of that firefly , because all town was a mass killing point itself in ww2. It was a revenge literally for thousands killed there.
Joe Ekins: Loader load shoes!! Loader: WAIT WHAT!? !? Joe Ekins: Shut up just load it Loader: Ok ok *_Velikiye Luki fires and knocks out enemy tank_* Joe Ekins: You see loader thats what shoes are for...
@@andypaulmanguiat5115 Except that the Americans didn't even bother bringing the 76mm Shermans they had on D-Day because they were having no issues in Italy.
The allied doesn't need excellent tank to beat the tiger. Sheer number alone is enough to make the tiger gone extinct. 1000+ tiger against +80,000 sherman tanks is already a losing war for the German armor.
