Soviet SU-152 damage to Nazi Tanks (during World War II)

EnglishRussia.com ^ | 7apr17 | tim

[GreyFriar]

I believe the E8 Shermans had the 76mm gun I spoke of that was introduced onto the M4A1(76)W that entered combat in July, 1944. Here is more info on it:

http://the.shadock.free.fr/sherman_minutia/manufacturer/m4a376w/m4a3_76w.html

and

http://www.theshermantank.com/the-sherman-tank-variant-page-pages-for-each-type-of-sherman-tank/the-sherman-m4a1-medium-tank-first-and-last-produced/the-sherman-m4a1-76w-this-first-76-sherman-into-combat-in-us-hands/

The E8’s came out a year or so later with that new suspension system and but the same 76mm gun as the M4A1 or M4A3.

[SunkenCiv]

It was a much better gun, despite the mere mm increase in barrel diamter. I suspect the modest diameter increase simplified field upgrades for existing inventory?

[GreyFriar]

Being an anti-aircraft gun, the 76.2mm had a larger propelling charge than the modified French 75mm gun that equipped the M-3 Grant/Lee and the early model M-4 Shermans.

The performance characteristics of both guns are explained in this Wikipedia article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/76_mm_gun_M1

And here is a good article on the various M-4 Sherman tank models: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M4_Sherman

During the war the Army’s 90mm anti-aircraft gun was also modified for use as an anti-tank gun first used on the M36 tank destroyer and, with modifications, I believe was used as the main armament on the M-26 Pershing and later M-46 Patton (Korean War) tanks.

[GreyFriar]

Also buried in the article is a statement that the Army named it a 76.2mm gun, so as to avoid confusion when requesting ammunition with that provided for the 3 inch anti-tank gun, whose shell was 76.2mm in diameter.

[cranked]

I have seen pictures of Su-152’s just as wrecked as these pictures of what an Su-152 victims...

Average tank in my opinion. Its gun caliber alone making it a brutal tank killer but a tank that could easily get wrecked itself.

[zot]

Wow! Those German tanks were really trashed. Thanks for the ping.

[GreyFriar]

yep, all the result of being hit by a 6 inch artillery shell in direct fire mode.

[dfwgator]

I thought it was the T-34 that really won the war for the Soviets.

Upon seeing a T-34 in the early days of Barbarossa, a German general remarked that if the Soviets could mass produce the T-34, Germany would lose the war.

[Squantos]

M-18 was a go fast ........ shoot’n scoot !

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks for both those replies.

[Reagan Disciple]

Very true. They had the “Maus” disease in that they wanted to deploy heavy tanks in a light tank theater.

You could have made a strong case for Czech Skoda pre-war as those light tanks were the best around then. Had they continued to exist (as a country that is), there was a good possibility they would have outdone even the Germans in design. It was the Pz 38t that was stolen to render the Pz II light tank basically obsolete into the invasion of France.

The technological leaps throughout WW II were fascinating - on all sides.

[Oatka]

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.

I as astounded to see that the M3 Grant/Lee was used until the end of the war. It was used in the Pacific and Burma theaters as the Japs evidently had poor antitank guns, let alone pathetic armor.

[archy]

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. ....

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.

The M319 76mm HVAP round was a late-war development, but was reasonably efficient against the MkV Panther ans MK6 Tiger I, which needed redesign into the *Kingtiger* to lose the easily HVAP-penetrated shot traps of the early Tiger Turret.

[archy]

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.

Worse: the Soviets had a postwar nuclear round for their 152mm howitzers, just as we had one for our 155mm howitzers and SP guns. I once saw a West German M109 battery fire their 155's direct fire on the *Table 8* tank gunnery range at Graf, firing concrete-filled dummy warheads, Yeah, they bcould hit, direct fire, at ranges of 1,500 meters and up.

[M Kehoe]

Tanks. I really appreciate tanks.

Just so you have air supremacy.

5.56mm

[archy]

I (w)as astounded to see that the M3 Grant/Lee was used until the end of the war. It was used in the Pacific and Burma theaters as the Japs evidently had poor antitank guns, let alone pathetic armor.

I knew a WWII M3 tank crewman whose saddest day was when his M3 light tank was replaced with an M5 for the invasion of Sicily. Until he found out the M5 had a gyro-stabilized gun, and could shoot on the move, sometimes a necessity for the crews in the light *Cavalry* tanks going up against enemy vehicles with bigger, but not necessarily better, guns, often at night when long-distance range didn't count for much.

Finishing the war as a driver, he missed shooting at people, and so had a 2.36-inch bazooka wired to the tank's barrel, fired by means of his horn button. He said it was great at night, but the backblast necessitated an immediate relocation at night- the flash gave away your position instantly.

[Spktyr]

Your image doesn’t seem to have made it.

Also, my comment regarding the 76mm being a high velocity cannon was in contrast to the 75mm fitted to Shermans prior to the M18 (M18s with the 76mm were rolling out months before Shermans were fitted with the “76mm gun, M1A1”) and not the HVAP ammo. Even without the HVAP ammo there was already the better part of a thousand feet per second muzzle velocity difference between the M18’s M1A1/M1A1C/M1A2 and the Sherman’s 75mm.

[Spktyr]

That would be because the SU-152 wasn’t a tank and it wasn’t originally designed as a tank destroyer either. It was supposed to be a mobile assault gun. The Soviets noted that their assault guns tended to do a very good job of blowing up German tanks due to their huge HE shells and pressed them into service as TDs. Then they started deliberately making them into TDs, with the ISU-152, etc.

[Spktyr]

Post war analysis has proven this wrong. Shermans actually did better than most Allied tanks in terms of crew fatalities per enemy tank kill and this only improved with the advent of wet ammo racks and the uparmor orders.

Most of the English language concept of the Sherman being a literal flaming POS comes from one US officer’s somewhat one sided view of Sherman losses due to his assignment and the book he wrote about it post war. Much like a Graves Registration officer could eventually (and many did) view every battlefield as a horrendous loss and unmitigated disaster even if it was a victory, this officer basically only saw the Shermans that had burned out and compiled his anecdotes into the Deathtraps book. He didn’t see the ones that were repaired and moved on, and some of the ‘facts’ he quotes in his book have been disproven by records, officers who were his contemporaries, and statistical analysis.

On other words, Deathtraps was about as factual as Omarosa’s book about the Trump Administration.

[GreyFriar]

I remember our M109A1, 155mm, battery going to a tank range at Graf to practice direct fire. I was a 13E, fire direction center, and was there in our M577 FDC track. I also recall many hours doing nuke fire mission calculations AND being trained to assemble those rounds.