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Mustang said:
Of course, we're talking about the M4A3 medium-heavy tank here, which was only present in large numbers near the end of the war. Pit an early-model T-34 against an early model Sherman (like the M4A2), and there's no comparison. The early Shermans had a very short gun and weren't good for anything other than infantry support. They also caught fire easily, but it dosen't really matter because any tank is usually going to be destroyed by the first penetration anyway whether it catches on fire or not.
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Depends on which M4A3 and which M4A2 you are talking about. The M4A3 (75) was generally the same as the rest of 75mm Shermans concerning armour except M4A1 (75) with its cast hull. M4A1, 2 and 3 have received the M4Ax(76)W version with thicker hull, new turret and 76mm gun, but the M4A3 also evolved to M4A3(75)W with the 75mm gun and thicker hull, I believe (someone smash me over the head for lack of details and lack of respect to various M4AxEy zVSS thingies
).
The 75mm gun of the Sherman was roughly comparable both by barrel lenght and by effectiveness to the Soviet F-34/ZIS-5 76mm gun mounted on most T-34's and KV series and outperformed the older F-32 and L-11 76mm guns with barrel lenght of 30 IIRC. And atleast in armor penetration I believe the 76mm M1A1 gun was comparable to the 85mm gun of T-34/85.