Which American tank looks cooler - M4 Sherman or M1 Abrams?

M1 Abrams

Abrams looks way better. I like modern tanks and designs better than older ones. That might be because I am young though.

Was there a practical reason for the Sherman to have such high ground clearance?

Modern tanks in general just just look more beastly than the older ones in my opinion, even when you don't take into account performance.

It's just so sleek man. It looks like low slunk havoc! One of the coolest things that I ever got to do in the Army was we had some downtime and a tanker let three of my team drive his Abrams (about a hundred feet forward and them back, but STILL). My vehicle was an old modified M113 variant called a FIST/V (rumble clank clank grrriiinddd).

Mannn, you sit in the driver's hole of this thing and you rev it (it has no shit handle bars like a motorcycle) it sounds like a frigging jet engine right behind you. vvrrrroooOOOOsshhhhh and it takes off and moves like silk. No bumps, jolts, jumping have way out of your seat when you hit a fair sized rock. Almost made me wanna be a tanker....almost.

@heroup2112: I've heard if you were infantry you couldn't stand too close to the back because of the heat, is that true? I've heard some say it is and some say it isn't.

Abrams. Lower center of gravity and has a bigger penis.

I wasn't infantry (it's a little difficult. well, not difficult just kind of long, to explain what I was). I don't honestly recall how hot it was, but I do know that DATs(Dumb Ass Tankers. :) ) used to talk about standing behind the engines when it got too cold and said it was awesome.

This is a competition between an ugly old tank, despite it's dependability in a critical time in the world; and the other is a cool looking modern tank that is pretty decent looking.

The answer is obviously the Abrams. Which is why it is so far a unanimous 9 to nothing.

The Abrams is the better looking tank.. not... not even sure why these two are being compared...

@ughwhateverfine: Yes, they used an air-cooled aircraft engine. Was a great engine, but needed a tall vehicle [So the height comes because the back needs to be so tall to hold it] then add in its a front wheel drive and so a long drive shaft needs to run under the crew room floot and add in your other components like the clutch, rack, etc and you can see where its height would come into play. Better, smaller, engines were made later, but there was no reason to halt production for the time it would take to restructure and redesign for a shorter tank just to better suit the new engine.

I'll be in the minority here and say the M4 Sherman looks better on the outside physically, although the M1 Abrams is leagues above it in functionality and reliability.

To be honest the M2 Bradley looks more in common with the M4 Sherman rather than the M1 Abrams.

German TDs and SPGs leave these two in the dust.

M1.

Both have their own appeal in my opinion.

I build model kits and collect military miniatures and for me, Sherman had it's own "period/era" aesthetics.

Building scale models will have you appreciates such details and features.

If you play a lot of war games (table tops, video games), particularly those that have WWII setting you will eventually love the features of these old tanks and it will have you making "legendary" AAR stories about them.

Like wise Abrams have that "modern warfare" era appeal. Sleek and badass.

Do note that these sentiments all comes from design/engineerings perspective and their values as a war gaming pieces only.

Best answer so far!

Abrams.

The modern design was cooler than the original classic one