Traditional operating tactics held that US tank formations proceed in columns for a quick response to enemy action and offer lesser approaching targets to the awaiting enemy. Once the enemy was located, the column could then fan outwards and call upon a more uniformed response. With the Jumbo now in inventory, the heavily armored system was called upon to head up such column formations and absorb the first volley that the awaiting enemy had to offer - volleys that would have traditionally annihilated base Shermans in the same role.
Once in action, the Jumbo performed admirably well to the point that they were being requested by both commanders and tank crews. Even American General George S. Patton himself went on the request list. When the need went unfulfilled, he quietly gave the order to strip any non-functioning M4 Sherman (those with welded hulls) of its armor and upgrade existing Shermans to something like the new "Jumbo" standard. As such, the M4A3(76)W and M4A3(76)W HVSS systems in his stable were uparmored "in-the-field" thanks to the ingenuity of Army welders and those local European craftsmen hired by the military. Even armor from cast-off enemy German tanks was used in the endeavor, leaving these Shermans as a collective eclectic group of medium tanks with no original Sherman "face" to be found among them. These quick-field conversions went on to be known as "Expedient Jumbos" and some 100 existing M4s were converted to Sherman Jumbos in the short span of three weeks. Ultimately, the Jumbo did see her 75mm main gun give way to a more powerful 76mm caliber, completing her metamorphosis from medium tank to legendary war winner. The Sherman Jumbo proved instrumental in reaching pinned 101st paratroopers at Bastogne, Belgium during the Battle of the Bulge - the 101st having always denied the idea that they needed rescuing from Patton to begin with.
With the Allies advancing against Germany in the west and the Soviets taking Berlin in the east, Adolf Hitler committed suicide in his underground Berlin bunker in mid-April. While an air war still raged over the skies of Germany to an extend into May and pockets of German resistance still waged war, the war in Europe was essentially over, made formally so by early June. This left the world with the task of taking down the Empire of Japan in the Far East, to which the Sherman Jumbo, and all her fast conversions, were shipped back stateside in preparation for the ultimate invasion of the Japanese mainland out in the Pacific. However, Japan capitulated after a lengthy failed sea campaign, a determined Allied bombing effort that decimated morale, infrastructure and mar-making capabilities and the two American atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The surrender of the Empire of Japan in August of 1945 completed the Second World War in whole by September.
With the war over, production of most war-goods was curtailed or ceased altogether. Much of the war time equipment remained for training or was placed in storage. Some 96 Sherman Jumbos were still in the US inventory in 1948, this out of the 50,000 or so Shermans produced in all.
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