Don't call it an assault weapon.

[gladium et scutum]

126. Maybe your should read

"Commanding The Red Army's Sherman Tanks" by Dmitriy Loza. He fought in Sherman's against both the Germans and the Japanese.
He was honored as a Hero of the Soviet Union for his actions against German armor in the capture of Vienna, Austria. You have to remember the Sherman was designed at a time when the biggest tank the German Army was a Mk-IV with a short 75 mm gun.
The Tiger may have been on the German drawing boards by wouldn't be produced for another 18 months. The Panther was not even an idea at the time the Sherman went into production. During the war the Sherman was adequate against the Mk-IV, (the bulk of German armor) through out the war. It was not a perfect tank, none of them were. The best medium tank of the war would have been a T-34 built in Detroit instead of Chelyabinsk. The Sherman was improved over the course of the war as was the Mk-IV and the T-34. You referred to the 3rd Armored Division. During the operations around Normandy 3AD lost 648 tanks, they destroyed 1023 German tanks in that campaign.