Re: U S - T 34 Tank ?
- From: thornley@xxxxxxxx (David Thornley)
- Date: Tue, 22 Nov 2005 07:56:02 GMT
In article <438c82e3.6658734@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
Andrew Clark <aspqrz@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
>theatre, German tank strength was deployed primarily against
>21 AG (with 9th US Army), other than during the Ardennes
>counter-attack.
That's a rather big exception. How much is the comparison skewed
if we drop, say, all June Panzer activity against the British
army?
>Depending on the mark, the 17-pdr OQF with APCBC could
>penetrate between 120-130mm of armour plate at 30 degrees at
>1000 metres.
If it hit, which was a bit iffy in 1944.
>The Archer and Achilles were designated and used as SP AT
>guns, fired from cover by troops in a tactically defensive
>posture. Armour is not an issue for such guns. The US M-10
>and M-18 were designated and used (albeit briefly) as tank
>destroyers expected to go out and find tanks. Armour is very
>significant for such vehicles.
>
So why was the M18 so superior to the M10? It had essentially
the same gun, was more lightly armored, and was a lot faster.
Certainly speed can't be all that important for something that's
just a SP AT gun, given that the M10 had decent mobility.
>> BTW, there were "assault" and "infantry support" tanks
>> in considerable numbers in US service, the M8 HMC
>> and the M4 105mm. That you try to dismiss them
>> by apply the British definition to US doctrine is
>> questionable.
>
>The M8 was not a tank by *any* definition of the term (no
>turret, for a start),
You're confusing it with something else. The M8 HMC was based
on the Stuart, but had a turret with a 75mm howitzer. The armor
wasn't all that great, but it was useful.
>The M4 105mm was certainly an infantry support tank and I
>was wrong to omit it. On the other hand, being mounted on
>the M4 chassis, it was an inadequate infantry *close*
>support
>tank compared to the Churchill 75mm or the Churchill AVRE.
>
The spigot mortar on the AVRE was not satisfactory as an
infantry support weapon, since it had to be reloaded
externally. It was more useful as an engineering vehicle.
The "flying dustbin" could do a whole lot of damage where it
hit, but for infantry support a weapon with multiple shots is
better, even if the shots are much less impressive.
>Justification? The performance of the 17-pdr was
>significantly superior to the US 76mm. In fact, with APDS,
>it was probably the best tank killer of WW2 in
>
It was superior to the 76mm, but at least much less so to the
US 90mm. The 90mm was on the US M36 TD, which saw combat
beginning, I think, in October 1944. At that time, there was
a big push on to change the US TD battalions from the less
satisfactory towed and M10 configurations to the much more
successful M18 and M36 models.
>Hardly. The M4A3E2 was a M4A3 with applique armour welded to
>the hull front, sponsor sides and gun mount. That's a
>makeshift assault tank, especially given that the applique
>armour was nowhere near as resistant as homogeneous steel.
>
The combat reports I've seen imply that it was pretty good.
As I've mentioned before, most marks of the Churchill had
no hull armor, but relied on applique armor.
>The Challenger A30 was certainly a makeshift and far from
>ideal tank. But it was consciously designed only as a
>stop-gap pending the Comet (itself a stopgap pending the
>Centurion). The same cannot be said of, say, the Sherman
>76mm, which filled the same battlefield role.
>
Really? The US Ordnance Department was pushing for more and
more modern tanks. The Sherman with the 76mm gun was
a cross of the Sherman hull with the T23 turret, and the
Ordnance Department kept working. They designed the T25
turret with the 90mm gun, and were willing to ship it and
the T26 (later M26) in quantity in late 1944.
The only reason the Sherman with the 76mm gun was not
viewed as provisional was that it didn't have to be. It
worked well enough on its own.
The Challenger, on the other hand, was a mechanical disaster.
There's no point in mounting a powerful gun on a vehicle if
it's going to have that much trouble getting to the battlefield.
>> So that's why the armoured division was organized
>> with a separate armoured and lorried infantry
>> brigade that doctrinally were not supposed to
>> work together? In effect, the British took the
>
>The British intention in 1944 was to employ at tactical
>level self-contained all-arms battlegroups on the German
>style, while still maintaining the concept of the division
The teaming of the infantry and armoured (including the recce)
battalions and regiments was a good idea, but it was not
universally followed in 1944. The Normandy campaign might
have been over significantly earlier if Seventh Armoured
Division had not been operating in separate brigades at
Villers-Bocage. (Granted, it had other problems, but
more infantry up front might have at least alleviated them.)
>as the main building block of armies. This flexibility,
>shamelessly copied from the Heer, made armoured divisions
>somewhat different on the ground to their rigid and largely
>functional table of organisation.
>
However, they were used by brigade on occasion, and the
organization wasn't actually functional. If it had been,
there wouldn't have been a motor battalion in the armoured
brigade. The earlier US armored divisions had tank and
armored infantry regiments, which at least suggested that
it would be a good idea to mix the two.
>Now, this degree of flexibility did not happen in some of
>the more experienced divisions coming to NW Europe from
>Italy - 7th AD for example - until later in 1944.
While the US was doing that from much earlier on.
>> And the verbige with regards to the 76mm can
>> as easily be applied to the 17-pdr.
>
>The 76mm was not a reliable tank killer. That statement
>cannot be applied to the 17-pdr.
I don't think the APDS round can be considered a reliable tank
killer in 1944 at least. It was not accurate enough.
>The UK probably lacked the industrial capacity to get the
>Comet into service before December 1944, although it saw the
>need and acted on it to the best of its abilities. The US
>did not lack the capacity; it lacked the wisdom to see the
>need. Which is more culpable?
>
US armored doctrine worked reasonably well, at least until the
Ardennes offensive, when it was changed.
>> How massively? About the only difference was
>> the slight superiority of the 77mm.
>
>300% better armoured, 30% faster, and with 15-20% better gun
>performance
>
Huh?
>A34 Comet/Sherman M4A3 76 mm
>
>turret armour 102mm at 0/25mm at 0
Okay, where do you get this stuff? A moment's thought would
suggest that the Sherman's turret front was probably more than
an inch thick. (In fact, more like three inches thick.)
If these are the sorts of figures you're going by, I think you
need to do some research, then start figuring things out over
again. How am I supposed to trust anything you say when you
frequently come out with howlers like this?
--
David H. Thornley | If you want my opinion,
ask.
david@xxxxxxxxxxxx | If you don't, flee.
http://www.thornley.net/~thornley/david/ | O-
.
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- Re: U S - T 34 Tank ?
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