FYI: "Fury ", The tank portrayed in the movie is a Sherman M4 A3 E8, AKA the "Easy Eight". It was the last and most advanced model of the M4 Sherman Tank and served with the U.S. Army roughly from August 1944 until 1955 when it replaced by in U.S. service by the M26 Pershing and the M46 Patton (basically an improved M26 Pershing).
The 75mm M4 Cannon on the earlier models of M4 Sherman tanks couldn't penetrate the frontal armor on the German Panther medium tanks and Tiger heavy tanks. The M4 had a muzzle velocity of 2031 Feet per second (619 meters per second) with the 14 pound M72 Amor Piercing (AP) shell and could penetrate up to 88mm of armor at a 30 degree slope at a range of 100 meters. The trouble was the Panther tank had the equivalent of about 140mm of armor at a 30 degree slope on its front hull.
The 76mm M1A2 Gun on the Easy eight had a muzzle velocity of 3398.9 feet per second (1036 meters per second) with the advanced HVAP AP round. The HVAP had with a small diameter Tungsten penetrator encased in a larger diameter lightweight projectile; it acted similarly to the discarding sabot round except that the collar fell away from the penetrator only when the projectile hit the target. The HVAP would penetrate 157mm of armor at a 30 degree slope at 500 yards and 135mm of armor at a 30 degree slope at 1000 yards. This enabled the Easy Eight to compete with the Panthers and Tigers at normal combat ranges and enabled it to knock out the older Mark IV Panzers and STG III assault guns from any angle.
The M1A2 cannon fired a less powerful High Explosive (HE) shell than the older M4 75mm cannon, .9 pounds of HE filler as opposed to 1.5 pounds of HE for the M4 cannon. This made the 75mm M4 better able to demolish bunkers, pillboxes and buildings than the M1A2 76mm cannon. This made some in the Army leadership support keeping the M4 for fighting trough enemy defensive lines and it was thought that tank destroyers would handle engagements with the German Panzers. But after battles with large German tank formations the ability to pierce armor came to be valued more for all Armored fighting vehicles tanks and tank destroyers. In fact in January 1945 General Eisenhower ordered that only 76mm canon equipped Sherman Tanks be sent to the European Theater. The Easy Eight also was equipped with the Horizontal Volute Spring Suspension (HVSS) , i.e. wider tracks and road wheels so it could "float" over soft ground like the wide tracked German tanks. The Easy Eight mounted a muzzle break on the end of its M1A2 76mm cannon to attenuate the violent muzzle blast of the more powerful shell.
Fury looks like a well done war movie. Certainly the producer have taken great pains to ensure the authenticity of the uniforms and equipment used. Of course you are still likely to see some Hollywood "artist's license" over reality in the portrayal of the story. For example we have a fifty year old Brad Pitt in the lead portraying a WWII tank commander who in reality would probably have been half that age. Further it is unlikely that a tank crew that fought in Africa would still be fighting in Germany two or more years later. It's more likely that the entire crew would have earned enough rotation points through their combat duty to have been sent back to the states to a training assignment many months previous. Oh well.
Another good "tank" war movie is "The Tanks Are Coming" (1951) http://www.imdb.com/title/
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