Quote:
Originally posted by T. A. Gardner:
The British 17pdr also suffers from excessive barrel wear and has poor accuracy compared to the US 76mm for example. It's short post war life demonstrates this quite clearly.
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The 17 pdr was only less accurate than the US 76mm when firing the early APDS ammo. The early APDS ammo SABOT casings caused problems with accuracy, which the British later cured. The short post war life is more to do with the British up gunning their tanks with the heavier 20pdr and 105mm guns in order to deal with the heavy Soviet tanks then coming into service, than any fault with the 17pdr.
The British had made the mistake of not up-gunning their tanks quickly enough in WW2, they weren't going to make the same mistake again