Favorite tanks

For some reason the looks of the Stugs always appealed to me.

Where were they used in the Pacfic?

 

In Britain, the M3 was the Grant.
The M3 had a riveted hull.
The M3A1 had a cast hull- but had no side doors in order to retain hull strength.
The M3A2 had a welded hull in order to save weight.
The M3A3 with 2 General Motors deisel engines, had 322 built, otherwise the M3A3 was identical to M3A2.

The tank was one big shot trap, but the 75 and other guns must have given some comfort to allied troops.

 

I'm well aware of the M3's limitations, but within those limits it was a very valuable vehicle during a critical time and it continued to give good service even after it passed from frontline use in Europe and the Med. If I was a British general in 1942 I'd have wanted all of them I could get.

 

For sure. They were very spacious and relatively comfortable compared to other Allied tanks at that time.
Not sure if the Grants had tea making capabilities, which would be great for moral.

 

Is there a really good, disinterested book about Allied armor in Soviet service? The numbers involved were not small. The Soviets seem to have concentrated their own T34s and KV/IS types in the best units and for the most critical tasks, leaving the Allied tanks for infantry support and secondary theaters, but I may not have heard the full story on that. The Soviet hierarchy routinely disparaged Allied aid and equipment, despite clamoring for more and more of it, but I would imagine it is harder to know just what the troops really thought. The one Allied tank the Soviets seem to have definitely liked was the Valentine, which I don't think is on anyone's top ten list.

 

Commanding the Red Armies Sherman Tanks has got a fair amount of favorable press and was written by a Russian General.
See
http://www.amazon.com/Commanding-Red-Armys-Sherman-Tanks/dp/0803229208
It's also worth noteing that they used them agains the IJA when they could have used all Soviet tanks. I seem to recall a number of guards tank units were equipped with Shermans. Somewhere I read that they liked to use them for exploitation as they tended to be a bit more reliable than the Soviet tanks but I'm not sure that's well supported.

Found a pdf of it:
http://archive.4plebs.org/foolfuuka/boards/tg/image/1366/70/1366701417638.pdf

 

We have a saying:
Never look a gift horse in the mouth.
Which means: if you recieve a free gift, do not look for imperfections in the gift. Just be thankful.

The Valentine was not a huge success as an armoured cruiser.
It was adapted for amphibious DD drive, bridgelaying, flamethrowing, minefield clearing.
They tried to make it fly with rockets.

The Valentine has its' rightful place in the pages of history.

 

Oh, the Valentine had its points, like many not-so-great designs. It was very reliable, more so than most British tanks of its time, and any commander will tell you that he'd rather have a full squadron of mechanically sound not-so-great tanks than a troops' worth of Panthers with all the rest under repair.

And where are you from, if you don't mind my asking?

 

Canada, eh.
edit
Alberta to be specific.

 

Whoops...:wacko: Bad wording on my part...:wacko: (was referring to all aspects of European theater)

 

There's a tendency in many places to forget the war in the Pacific at times, since it's a prime interest of mine I tend to tweak those lapses when I see them. Of course there might have been some, indeed I seem to recall reading that some of the earlier marks may have been used or at least considered by the Chinese and the IJA may have at least teste a MK IV.

 

Yeah, the little rollers under the big tank didn't look sexy. But it gave the Churchill fantastic mobility. That thing could climb over obstacles that defeated everything else on tracks.

Cheers,
Cliff

 

KodiakBeer, your post on the Sherman really struck a chord. As a kid, I spent 2yrs in Gibraltar, where - on a patch of waste ground behind our house - sat an obviously-inoperative M4 Sherman (no idea to this day what sub-type it was). But it had a cast hull, 75mm gun, and heaps of 50mm armour plates welded onto the sides. An open turret hatch gave access to the inside for adventurous boys, who could sit inside the crew compartment, man the (mercifully gunless) hull gunner's seat or the driver's seat, sit on the commander's seat in the turret, risk decapitation by the turret basket when your mate decided to rotate the turret by pushing on the gun barrel. Much more fun than swings & roundabouts. And yes, we went home bruised & scraped. Our loving parents said, "Serve you right - stop your whingeing!" (As they applied antiseptic whilst we ate our dinner.) Best days of my life.

Cheers,
Cliff

 

Got to agree with those choices: Tanks were always in a frenzy of development post-WWII. And the Crusader was a cool-looking, fast tank. Matilda was "Queen Of The Desert" until Rommel upped the ante. And Conqueror/JS3 were the apex predators of the late 50s/early 60s. My personal favourite, though, is the ageless Centurion. Loved the look of it, the firepower, protection, mobility. Australian Cent's in Vietnam were loved by the infantry on bunker-busting missions. :evil1:

Cheers,
Cliff