Tank Background
Firefly was one of the Allied tanks the Germans feared. Among the most potent and certainly one of the most deadliest version of Sherman.
It has a basic 75mm gun, it was excellent to deal with other tanks at reasonable ranges, fortifications and infantry. Facing the last versions of Panzer IV, Panther and Tiger was quite challenging, however they mated it with the Sherman, which became lethal and added its own weight to the Allied to secure victory.
The legendary 17 pounder gun, which was given a high priority by Winston Churchill himself in early 1944, was the first of many Royal Ordnance Factory cannons that came to fame postwar. The 17 pounder was a 76.2mm gun with a length of 55 calibres, it had a 880 m/s muzzle velocity with HEAT round and 1200 m/s with APDS and Ballistic Capped.
It was able to defeat armor in 12-208mm thickness at 1000m and up to 1500m.
The 17-pdr itself had a one-meter long recoil course,and the whole recoil system was completely modified. The main recoil cylinders were shortened and new cylinders added to take advantage of turret width. The breech was rotated 90º to allow the loader to sit on the left of it.
The Firefly was ready in numbers for D-Day, this was fortunate because the Allied intelligence did not expect the presence of numerous Panther on the battlefield which were formidable adversaries for the Sherman.
The Firefly was also present on Operation Goodwood. British and Commonwealth units had to face German armor deployed on Normandy, including the SS Panzer units around Caen.The Germans learnt to recognise the Firefly and became their 1: GUI - Diseño general del interface de juego priority because of the damage they inflicted on.
In response, the crews usually painted half of the barrel with an effective countershading pattern to try to disguise it as a regular Sherman. Their effectiveness rapidly became legendary as testified by the most enviable hunting scores of all Allied tanks.
In total, the 1900+ Fireflies were used in Normandy and north-western Europe, including Netherlands and Northwestern Germany.
