Posted on 05/06/2019 5:27:48 AM PDT by vannrox
We was assaulted by dem tigers in the the bocage country. I mean assaulted!
You are forgetting the M18 Hellcat tank destroyer, the most feared armored vehicle on the Western Front. Relatively small, fast and stealthy, when they weren’t ambushing and running with their accurate 76mm high velocity cannon, they were circle-strafing even the most advanced German machines to death.
And they truly were stupendously fast for tracked vehicles. Design top speed was about 60mph, but several are in the historical record as having been able to go considerably faster. At one point during the Battle of the Bulge, an M-18 and a Jeep suddenly had to relocate. Once on the roads, the Hellcat accelerated and left the Jeep behind ‘like it was standing still.’
The Germans feared the Hellcat because it could *always* flank them, the gun was accurate and unlike all other US tank destroyers, they couldn’t run from it. Anywhere a Panzer could go, a Hellcat could - and at a much higher rate of speed.
They *really* hated the Hellcat.
Ditto the Brit tankers who bought it in tommy cookers.
Glad someone else remembers the hellcat TD.
You have to be careful which Shermans (and T34s) youa re talking about!
The Easy 8’s with the 76mm high velocity gun (British made I think) was much more effect against the Panther and to some extent the Tiger. Still needed multiple Shermans (Not as many!), and the high profile, thin armor was still an issue. How problem wasn’t solved until the Pershing.
The standard Sherman was disgraceful not only did it have the thin armor & high profile. Its low velocity 75mm gun was nothing more then a somewhat modernized WWI French 75. It was kept in production way too long due. People blame poorly thought Army anti-tank doctrine and even Patton for that decision. A lot of young men died because of that.
Slightly different topic: I read somewhere that the 90mm gun was available early in the war. Like the 88mm it originally was an antiaircraft gun. However unlike the 88mm US Army “doctrine keepers” successfully resisted early efforts to try it out as any antitank gun. Probably proper shells was also an issue. However eventually it was crossed over.
Again slightly different: Don’t know if the story is exactly true but its interesting. I do know early in the war we had no way of mounting a gun large then a 37mm in a turret hence the weird Grant tank configuration.
Thanks
I heard the problem with the 90mm was handling the recoil in a vehicle. Large caliber AA guns were usually only used for home defense and the US didn’t need much of that.
Large caliber AT guns are usually deployed defensively and we weren’t doing that. We needed it to be on a vehicle. The Germans wisely deployed 88’s on trucks at the beginning of the war
To be fair, large war German armour alloys became increasingly brittle due to the lack of materials, especially Nickel, as the mines were overrun, and Imports were cut off.
That is supposed to be late, War, not large... iCorrect.
Audie was a Hunt Co Tx boy, I am on a crusade to have him recognized in a place of honor at VFW post 4011 in Greenville Tx.
The is a museum in Greenville, I think the Farmersville VFW claims him but he lived in both towns.
Audie did not drive tracks, He busted them :)
I have driven heavily modified Bradleys that would scoot 65 mph and turn on a dime till yer luck runs out and you throw a track.
I like the LAV, it will go 70 mph has independent suspention And it floats!
Anyone remember the floating Shermans?
Cool idea, except for the guys in it LOL
Considering, as stated the 152mm gun was a heavy artillery piece, I’ll state that there was NO tank produced by any country during WWII that would not have been destroyed by a direct hit from it.
And I recall during my days as an Army forward observer, that during one practice fire mission for my 155mm artillery battery (M109A1, C/2/27 FA) at the Grafenwoehr Training Center in Germany, one of the guns I was adjusting scored a direct hit on an M-47 and blew the turret into the air and it landed several meters away from the chassis....and that was a target tank with no ammo or fuel inside for secondary explosions.
The 76mm gun that replaced the initial 75mm on the Sherman tank was a modified 3 inch antiaircraft gun (possibly the one that was on US Navy ships) that was adapted for use as the towed 3 inch antitank gun and adapted to fit the Sherman’s turret. The 76 mm gun-armed Sherman, in the form of the M4A1(76)W was introduced during Operation Cobra. See these two Wikipedia articles:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M4_Sherman
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/76_mm_gun_M1
M-18
He used hardware on a busted one effectively. He held off the Jagdpanther platoon with the .50 cal pintle-mounted on an M10 turret. And said M10 was on fire at the time.
I assume this was on the E8 Shermans?
Thanks vannrox. During WWII, the USSR built at least 60,000 T-34 tanks -- considered to be the best, or in the top two or three tank designs of the war, by all parties involved -- but had perhaps 10,000 left by the end. Knocking out tanks was something the Germans were also good at. :^)
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