Myths Of American Armor With Nicholas Moran

Not true at all. The M3 was based on the M2/M2A1 Medium Tank which the US Army had about 100 of in 1939. Events in Europe (The Fall of France) demonstrated a need for a bigger main gun, but US industry lacked the capability for casting a turret large enough to accomidate a 75mm gun. The M3 was an interim model to get a big gunned tank into British hands rapidly while a suitable medium tank could be constructed.





There were a number of contemporary tanks, from several nations that had a large caliber gun mounted in the hull. This was in order to provide a good HE capability, the Grant/Lee differed in that the large caliber gun was to provide increased anti-armor performance. Look at the two above photos of an M2 and an M3, you can see the lineage. The T-6 medium tank that became the Sherman was an upgraded M3, not a Souma. The lower hull, suspension, engine and drive train were borrowed from the M3. By this time US steel manufacturers had overcome the problems associated with manufacturing large castings that met ballistic requirements and the new design gained not only a cast turret, but a cast upper hull. It was claimed that this would speed production time and save $3000. per tank. A welded hull model was also designed to for production options. We had the M4 and M4A1.

 

Someone in a documentary told it, David Fletcher or another british guy, as far as i remember. My English is not exact, the weren't copies, their design was influenced by the french tanks. And why not? Both were good tanks.

If you look at the M3 and M4, you can easily see that their layout is similar to that of the Char B and the SOMUA. Both were developped after the Battle of France in Summer 1940. This is nothing unusual, the Panther was influenced by the T-34. The SOMUA had cast armor.

The Panther was cheaper to produce than the Mk IV and more than 5000 were made in less than 2 years from mid 1943. The Mk IV was kept in production mainly because the production line exists and they needed tanks, and it was still useful with his powerful gun and resemblance to the Tiger. The Stug III was still in production to use the chassis of the Mk III tank.

 

Regretfully, they were in error. The M-3 was directly derived from the M-2 medium tank which was a scaled-up version of the M-2 light tank. Sorry, but the French tanks were never part of the American tank equation, either as a "copy" or as "influence."

If you are going by looks alone...Essentially, one tank looks roughly similar to most any other. As such, this is a very weak basis to make a hypothesis.

This too, is in error...As has been mentioned before, the M-3 medium was an evolution of the M-2 medium - which itself was a scaled-up version of the M-2 light tank.

In this instance, the US Army had been experimenting with mounting a larger gun in a hull mount on the Medium T5 Phase III(prototype medium M-2) hull. These experiments first began in early 1939, and lasted until February, 1940. The experiment mounted a 75mm M1A1 in the hull, with a .30 caliber machine gun in the turret, some hull machine guns were also retained. This testing proved the worth of such a modification, and it was given the designation T5E2.

So, now, we have a large caliber gun, mounted in what was essentially an M-3 hull...All before the start of World War II, and well before the Fall of France.

 

Here's the tank he is referring to. T5 with 75mm pack mount.

 

I have just browsed Moran's website, The Chieftain's Hatch (great name). I urge everyone interested in these debates, in WWII armor, and armor generally to take a look.

 

I've tried to find out where this dubious connection between the Somua S35 and the M4 Sherman came from, but have had no luck. There are a few websites out there that mention this, but they are not sourced. For example: http://www.tanks-encyclopedia.com
Their page on the S35 has this:

The other sites make it more a statement of "fact", as opposed to T-E's "It is said that..."
The basis for the argument that the S35 "influenced" the M4 Sherman's design -without any sources provided- appears to boil down to this: The Somua S35 had a cast hull and so did the M4 Sherman, therefore, the S35 must have influenced the M4.

Triton, feel free to correct me if this is in error.

However...After several Googling attempts and failures...Have I been able to find any person/book/website making the claim that the S35 "influenced" the design of the M3 Lee/Grant.

USMCPrice has kindly provided us with a photograph of the pilot M3


and now the Somua S35




Influence of the S35 on the M3...Pretty much nil.



Now, the Sherman pilot

and the S35


and here we see the..."They both have cast hulls, and the S35 came first so it must have influenced the S35" in action.


But...


There is always a "But" isn't there...


What about the M3A1?

The medium M3 tank that no one in their right mind would say was "influenced" by the S35, yet here is the M3A1 in all of it's cast upper hull glory. Perhaps, that is because only 300 hundred were built, before the move was made to the M3A2 & M3A3 which had a welded hull, before moving back to riveted hulls with the M3A4 & M3A5.


To conclude...Was the cast hull M4 Sherman influenced by the Somua S35, or was the cast hull M4 Sherman the logical conclusion of the cast hull M3A1 - once the Americans had developed the machinery necessary to produce such large casts in a mass-production environment?

I think we all know the answer to this...

 

I'm to lazy to spend much time in research where i've seen, that the french tanks influenced the american tanks. It is an opinion, just a logical conclusion, maybe the british army told them to build something like that.

Wikipedia usually tells the truth on popular items:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M3_Lee
Work on the design started in July 1940, not earlier. After an analysis of the tank battles in France. So everything i said is correct.
A 75mm gun was regarded as necessary. But they had no available chassis big enough for a turret with a 75mm gun so they had to place the 75mm anti-tank-gun in the hull of the M2. 9 of 10 tank designers would have designed a Stug-like vehicle, but the result was a tank with a layout similar to the Char B. Which was much more difficult to produce by the way.

 

Well early US tank design was surely influenced by French and British designs as I'm pretty sure we didn't have any home grown tanks make it into service in WWI. The French and British tanks used during that war would have been the foundation of US tank design. Not sure how much influence they had after the that though.

 

What percentage of those with a single hole brewed up or "changed shape"? The main reason for that rule was the fact that it was often hard to tell if a tank was taken out. Closer ranges and the lack of return fire or seeing the crew abandon the vehicle might well have superceeded this at times during wwII.

 

I use Wikipedia myself quite often, but this time the wording (bolded) is incorrect. The tank had actually been designed prior to that date and the prototype was "ordered off the drawing board" in July 1940. It was a modification of the M2 medium, the only place the Char B entered into the discussion or design process was that based upon the fighting in France, the tank should mount a 75mm gun, like the Char B1 or PzKpfw IV, so based upon your rationale it could be as easily argued that the M3 was based upon the PZ.IV. It was also, based upon the fighting in France, specified that the frontal armor should be at least 2" thick. The basic design of what would be the M3 was approved in June and on 11 July 1940 standardized. (Note: this is not when design began) The design was not however finalized and there was a good deal of argument over the final configuration, most of the revisions had to do with deleteing excess machine guns and MG barbettes that the Ordinance Department was apparently infatuated with.

 

deleted - duplicate post

 

The first paragraph in the discussion states that the proportion of brew ups is high. It states that anecdotally that 1st Battalion Coldstream Guards, in the period after 10 July report a much lower proportion of brew ups and attributed this to a policy of never stowing ammunition outside the armoured bins. Who would have thought that the wooden-tops would have taught the tankies a thing or two about tanks?

 

Never have heard/read where the French influenced any US tank design.
France had the 1 man tank turret, which overworked the commander and resulted in an inefficient tank.
Other than being able to make large casts, don't see any similarities between tank designs of the 2 countries.

 

If it is all the same with you, I will stay with R. P. Hunnicutt and his tomes on American armor.

No. All you have to do is ask yourself who is the intended enemy...

Are the United States and United Kingdom going to be fighting France? Or are they going to be fighting Germany?

Not to mention that the M3 was standardized in July, 1940, but design work had been going on before that. The most recent update of characteristics, before standardization, on the Medium M3 tank was OCM 15889, date June 13, 1940.

You have that reversed...

The had a big enough chassis for a 75mm turret - and had originally wanted a 75mm turret. The major problem was that they did not have a 75mm turret. Such a turret would take time to design, develop, and perfect, but the British needed a tank in quantity production immediately. As such, with many of the design problems of a hull-mounted 75mm already worked out with the T5E2, an M3 with a hull mounted 75mm could be put into production almost immediately.

Except that 10 out of 10 British and American tanks designers had not designed a Stug-like vehicle, nor was a Stug-like vehicle wanted or needed.

As to more difficult to produce...In a little over a year, the Americans produced some 6,000 M3s, during the same year Germany produced some 800 Stug IIIs. Looking at it another way: During the little more than a year that the M3 was in production, the number of M3s produced either equaled or slightly exceeded the entire German tank production for the same time frame.

 

The M3 gets little respect from many people, but I think it was a very important design and very valuable to the Allies at a critical time. It was the first battleworthy medium tank the US Army ever had, and it was designed and produced at great speed. It was a good example of cooperation between the US and the British in arms design, and with all its obvious limitations it played a sterling part in the Western Desert battles. The M3 was so important technically and tactically to 8thArmy that it was sometimes referred to as "Egypt's Last Hope." Even after it was phased out of frontline service in the German theaters in favor of the M4 it did fine work against the Japanese in Burma and elsewhere. Not bad for a slapdash improvization.

 

Finally got around to watching Mr Moran's lecture.
Delightful.
A few bits I might take issue with, but on the whole a splendid stance against that dangerous concept; 'common knowledge'. And he even uses 'the real world' bless him.

It is sort of a shame he has to play this game of countering so much confused commentary in the area, but I can only applaud the effort. Maybe the fight-back against mythology is starting to enter the mainstream, though even a reply or two here (I'm looking at you, Triton ) show that there's still a way to go.

Finally World of Tanks is beginning to contribute more to the field than some rather weird forumage.
Thanks for the heads-up, Markus.

 

This is the myth:
[video]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xBCZrMVVI2M[/video]
Don't you think it is plain ridicilous that someone who has just seen Sherman tanks in museums thinks a captain of a Sherman maintenance is telling fairy tails?

When you just go for looks, it is hard to believe that the archaic and cumbersome M3 is a far better war-machine than the sleek and modern looking Crusader it replaced. The problem of the M3 was: You take one look and you know his faults. The height, the main gun can only shoot to one side, the armor is riveted. When you look at the Crusader, you don't know that it is terribly unreliable, undergunned and poorly armored.

As a stop gap, it was a great tank and his reliability was a surprise to everybody. Just look at the german improvised vehicles when they met superior tanks. They built the Marder and it took 2 years ta answer the T 34 with the unreliable first Panthers.
Not to mention the british efforts, which were even worse.

 

Your first problem is using a "History Channel" documentary for a source. Years ago they put out some decent stuff, now it's more shock and entertainment value than attempting give an accurate account. Every time I watch one of them I'm amazed at just how many well established facts they get wrong. Others here have provided you with good academic or military sources that don't support what the documentary is trying to portray. Belton Cooper's job was to retrieve and repair damaged tanks, so yes his view is going to be skewed, because that's what he saw on a daily basis. It doesn't make him correct.
They again repeat the "gasoline" engine myth. There was a diesel Sherman, the M4A2, the US Army opted not to employ it. Was this the wrong decision? Well let's look at the tanks they faced, gasoline engines. Then the "Patton" determined armor development and acquisition myth. And how do you explain similar brew up rates to penetrating hits with the tanks they faced? It's very well established that most fires were caused by ammunition and not fuel, and that's why there was the change to "wet" stowage.

Here's an article on some of the flaws of Cooper's book:

http://tankandafvnews.com/2015/01/29/debunking-deathtraps-part-1/

 

Afternoon, all

I was specific with the verbiage. The document I came across drilled down to MOS. I do not say that 4th ID lost the division's strength seven times over, but that the riflemen specifically had an absolutely horrific attrition rate and, of course, riflemen are never the majority of anything. There were a couple of units which had higher than 100% for riflemen, but it was 4th ID which stood out.

There was always the M36 series, and particularly M36B1. However, I've come across an Armored aboard document where Ordnance stated that they could not get 90mm guns into production any faster than M26.

Not really, no. I'm not about to tell Mr Cooper he's wrong when it comes to something he has reason to know about, such as how easy it was to repair a Sherman. When it comes down to things that he has no reason to know about in the course of his work, however, which is an unfortunate proportion of his book, he person who's done the research is more credible. And no offense to Cooper or his ghost writer, but he hasn't done research. For more of my thoughts on this matter, see the second half of this article. http://worldoftanks.com/en/news/pc-browser/21/The_Cheiftains_Hatch_Sherman_PR_Bigger_Cooper/