It was natural enough for the tankers at the front to blame Ordnance for the heavy casualties they had suffered fighting in the Shermans. But privately he had stated to a visiting Ordnance officer, just, after the Battle of the Bulge, 'Ordnance takes too God Damn long seeking perfection at the expense of the fighting men, and you can tell that to anyone at Ordnance.' The officer believed that Patton was expressing the feelings of the using arms. Patton wrote the letter because he wanted to stop what he called 'the foolish criticism' of American tanks which he believed was having a bad effect on the morale of the soldiers at the front. Handy, Deputy Chief of Staff, which the War Department released to the American papers, stating that while the Tiger would destroy the Sherman head on, the Sherman could usually manage to attack from the rear and avoid a slugging match moreover, the Sherman was incomparably more reliable and long-lived, as well as easier to ship and handle, than the Tiger. Questioned by American correspondents at a press conference in mid-March 1945, General Patton publicly defended American tanks. Baldwin in the New York Times and the editor of the Washington Post demanded to be told why and the story traveled to Europe. Shortly before the drive into Germany, the American press broke the story that American tanks were inferior to those of the enemy.

Sherman tank battle of the bulge