After a short blurb historical events on entering Germany in 1944-1945, it comes to the big piece: the photographs. They are unique in several respects. This shows that Americans are quick to reactivate the captured German half-tracks, as does the 30th Infantry Division with the Sdkfz 251 3. Panzergrenadier Division in October 1944. We also note this photo showing the one of the first M4A3E2 equipping the 743rd Tank Battalion knocked out in November 1944 by four shells 88 (!). For another of the same unit it took 8 rounds of the same ammunition: only this version-armored Sherman is able to withstand such a pounding ... We also observe that in December 1944 the 2nd Armored Division, which lacks flame-throwing tanks against the German fortified positions, receives extra Crocodiles British tanks. The 6th Armored Division also receives LVT for amphibious operations, although the vehicles will, in the end, little used. Christmas 1944 also sees the arrival of the M24 Chaffee light tanks, which will replace the fragile M5 Stuart obsolete.
US tankers reinforce their own shielding their Sherman, considered too low. The 14th Armored Division and develops devices based sandbags piled up and connected to the tank. The 9th Army creates for its tank battalions with reinforcements caterpillars spare, sandbags and camouflage netting. At the 3rd Army of Patton, preferred cut armor plates on the carcasses of American and German tanks and thus strengthen 110 Sherman 4th, 6th and 11th Armored Divisions in February 1945. The 12th Armored Division chooses it, to flow concrete to strengthen the shield. Patton is also reset Sherman 75 with the 76 mm gun, but the massive arrival M4A3 (76) voids the measure, the guns will equip M4A3E2. In February 1945 landed in Antwerp the first copies of the new heavy tank T26E3, which will initially equip the 3rd and 9th Armored Divisions. 2 T26 of the 3rd Armored are also put out of action during the taking of Cologne, one of which, hit by a shell 88 of a Nashorn, definitely. This division also includes armed with a 76mm gun M4A3E2 the hundred has transformed the armed group.
In addition to the T26, it should be noted that Americans also have, since the fall of 1944, the Tank Destroyer M36 Jackson, also armed with a 90 mm gun, which destroyed many tanks in Germany. As shown in a photo p.58, after the battle of the bulge, the US Army modifies slightly its policy of racial segregation, and from February 1945 black soldiers find themselves in combat units alongside whites. Note also the resistance encountered April 11, 1945 in Braunschweig by the 2nd Armored Division, which is faced with a concentration of 67 heavy anti-aircraft guns protecting the steel plant Hermann Göring, to the southwest of the city. The 2nd Armored Division also received his first T26E3 end of March 1945 and the aligned when entering in Magdeburg April 18, 1945. There is also the strange picture of a Romanian StuG to the red star captured by the Germans before surrender and then by the Americans in Czechoslovakia ...
