AFV Loss Rates in US 12th. Army Group

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Re: AFV Loss Rates in US 12th. Army Group

#61

Post by Username » 13 Apr 2008, 06:07

Michael Emrys wrote:
RichTO90 wrote:The cavalry was never intended as an offensive arm by itself, and there were real concerns that arming them too heavily would distract them from their primary mission, a debate about reconnaissance that continues to this day.
I think this is the key point to keep in mind in the present debate. It is not readily apparent to me that rearming M5 tanks with 57mm cannon, even if feasible, would make them significantly more survivable in combat. It might in fact, tempt the tankers to take risks for which they were not really capable of meeting.

Michael
As I said, I knew someone that actually fought in this org. He was in the 4th armored.

For starters, there was a drill for the simple 3 vehicle 'unit': one M8 AC and two jeeps (they called them Bantems). One jeep had a 30 cal and the other a mortar. The drill was for the MG jeep to make contact. It was perfectly OK to bail from the jeep but it was the drill to keep weapons and especially the radio. The radio called in the M8 AC. He was directed to blast whatever was suspected. If they needed, the mortar jeep (60mm) would chime in. If the lead jeep could, it would try to make it back to the other jeep and M8 AC. Nice on paper.

They would then involve other elements including deploying other squadrens along other routes. Also calling in 75mm indirect or direct (our hero the M8 GMC) and finally committing the M5 company.

Like I said, they fought with one leg out. M8 AC were also abandoned and the Germans used them. There was no easy way to turn them around. Unless there were real combat elements attached, anything more than a roadblock would stop them. Mines would kill M8 AC crews. They preferred to have the M5's upfront. My friend's father refered to the vehciles as follows (its been awhile but I believe this is correct): Jeeps 'Bantems', M8AC 'Cars', M5 'Tanks'. I do not recall a specific name he used for the M8 GMC. But he mentioned calling in 'thier guns'. He went through a Recon course after being trained in other courses. He did not like specific technical questions and just related many anecdotes about the crazy situations they got into. He said they drove crazily and more than once blew through a town while shooting at Germans running around inside.

Reports on M24: Most units praised the M24, even if it took till late in the war to recieve them. So, the 75mm was a mistake then? I see no real argument here. The troops disliked the 37mm in 1944. The same knuckle-headedness can be seen in the argument against giving Shermans better guns. The TDs were supposed to have the better guns. That was hog-wash also.
Last edited by Username on 14 Apr 2008, 01:59, edited 6 times in total.

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Re: AFV Loss Rates in US 12th. Army Group

#62

Post by Username » 13 Apr 2008, 14:32

Attempts to Provide a Better Tank

By 1945 the tankers urgently needed a more powerful gun than the 76-mm. Firepower was their first consideration. The second was speed. Armor came off a poor third, for most believed there was more safety in speed and maneuverability than in armor. Maj. Gen. Ernest H. Harmon, commander of 2d Armored Division and one of the foremost armored commanders of the war, spoke for the majority of his fellow tankers when he described the characteristics the tank should have as "First: gun power; Second: battlefield maneuverability; Third: as much armor protection as can be had after meeting the first two requirements, still staying within a weight that can be gotten across obstacles with our bridge equipment."30 The main reason the tankers welcomed the 200 up-armored M4 (M4A3E2) "assault tanks" (promoted by Army Ground Forces but opposed by Ordnance) that got into action in the fall of 1944 was that the tankers needed more armor in order to get close enough to the German tanks for their 75-mm, and 76-mm. guns to be effective.31

An attempt by the Armored Force Board in the fall of 1943 to provide the M4 with a more powerful gun, the 90-mm., had failed. Ordnance had begun development work on the 90-mm. antiaircraft gun to adapt it for use on tanks and gun motor carriages early in the war, after reports from Cairo had indicated that the Germans in Libya were successfully using their 88-mm. gun against tanks, and the new antitank 90-mm. was standardized as the M3 in September 1943. Thereupon, the Armored Force Board, believing that the M4 tank was the one tank that could be delivered in time for the invasion of

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Europe, recommended that the 90-mm. gun be installed on a thousand M4A3 tanks. Maj. Gen. Gladeon M. Barnes, chief of the Ordnance Department's Research and Development Service, refused to go along with the recommendation; and General McNair turned it down on the advice of his 6-3, Brig. Gen. John M. Lentz.32

Barnes had nothing against the 90-mm. gun; on the contrary, he and Col. Joseph M. Colby, chief of the Development and Engineering Department at the Ordnance Tank-Automotive Center in Detroit, had done everything they could to get it to the battlefield on a gun motor carriage, over the determined opposition of Army Ground Forces, whose New Developments Division continued to insist that 75-mm. and 76-mm. guns were adequate. Thanks largely to Barnes's efforts, backed up by the Tank Destroyer Board, the M36 self-propelled 90-mm. got to Europe in time to play its part in the Roer plain battles. But Barnes did not want the 90-mm. on the M4 tank. He believed that the gun was too heavy for the tank; that it produced "too much of an unbalanced design."33

At the time, Barnes was in the thick of a fight, which he still hoped to win, to get a better tank than the M4 to the battlefield in 1944- The new T20 series tank, authorized by Services of Supply (later ASF) in May of 1942, was designed with more armor protection, lower silhouette, and more speed than the M4. By early spring of 1943, the Ordnance effort was concentrated on the T23. Wider, heavier, and lower than the M4, with wider tracks and therefore lower ground pressure, it had a rear drive and an electrical transmission, which made it much easier to operate. The T23 was highly maneuverable and could do 35 miles an hour, as compared with the 29 miles of the fastest M4; its frontal armor was 3 inches thick, about an inch thicker than that of most of the M4's.34 The design, according to an impartial observer, "would have kept the United States in the forefront of medium tank development."35 In April of 1943, ASF authorized Ordnance to procure 250 of these new tanks.36

Very early in the development work on the new medium tank, in the fall of 1942, Ordnance found that it was possible to mount the 90-mm. gun on the T23-Barnes was all for it, and was strongly supported by General Campbell, Chief of Ordnance; but Maj. Gen. Jacob L. Devers, then commanding general of the Armored Force, refused to go along, and in the end the T23 mounted the 76-mm. gun. In an effort to get more firepower, Ordnance produced a second design, the T25 mounting the 90-mm. gun; and a third, the T26, with the 90-mm. gun, an additional inch of armor, and tracks five inches wider. Ordnance recommended

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that 40 of the 250 new tanks authorized be of the T25 type, and that 10 be T26's, and ASF approved. All had the electrical transmission.37

Then began the battle to get the new tanks accepted by the using arms. Unfortunately, the electrical transmission laid the tanks open to some cogent objections. It added about 3,800 pounds to the weight, increasing the ground pressure and adding to the difficulty of getting the T25 and Ts6 over Bailey bridges (and on European railroads), even after the revision of AR 850-15 in August 1943, raising the Engineers' tank weight limitation for bridges to 35 tons. Also, prolonged tests of the T23 at Fort Knox, Kentucky, by the Armored Board indicated that the electric drive would require excessive maintenance. For these reasons, the T23 was ultimately considered unsatisfactory by Army Ground Forces for use in overseas theaters. Because of the weight consideration, the decision was made in August 1943 to convert the T25 and T26 to torquematic transmission; in this form they were redesignated the T25E1 and T26E1.38

Even with the weight objection removed, it seemed all but impossible to sell Army Ground Forces on the new tanks. Ground Forces was sold on the M4, so easy to ship and to handle; it was committed to the "exploitation" role of armor; it had not as yet had any experience with armored operations comparable to that of the Germans in Russia, which had led the Germans to develop the Panther and Tiger tanks. General McNair had no objection to "experimenting" with 90-mm. tanks, but felt that by supplying them AGF would be encouraging tank versus tank battles instead of giving antitank work to the field artillery and tank destroyers to which he thought it belonged. In October 1943 General Barnes's urgent recommendation for immediate production of 500 each of the new tanks, T25E1 and T26E1, and the T23 was turned down.39

The first breakthrough in the T25E1 and T26E1 program came a few weeks later when General Devers cabled from London a request for the highest priority for the T26. In January 1944, ASF authorized an additional 250. Though this was better than 10, it was only a fraction of what Ordnance wanted, and Barnes continued to press urgently for a thousand 90-mm. tanks. But General Moore of the New Requirements Division, AGF, continued to oppose the program; as late as mid-April 1944, AGF came up with the astonishing request that 6,000 T25E1 and T26E1 tanks be produced with the 75-mm. and 76-mm. gun. It took action by the European theater to get the 90-mm. tank program moving. Shortly before D-day, the theater asked that 75-mm. and 76-mm. tank production be stopped, and that in the future 25 percent of the tanks be armed with the 90-mm. gun and 75

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percent with the 105-mm. howitzer. Maximum production was requested with the following priorities: (1) the T26E1 (now redesignated a heavy tank); (2) the T25E1; and (3) the M4A3 with the 90-mm. gun or 105-mm. howitzer. By January 1945 the ratio of 90-mm. gun tanks to 105-mm. howitzer tanks had been reversed. The theater wanted four 90-mm. gun tanks to one 105-mm. howitzer tank, primarily because of the greater penetrative power of the 90-mm., but also because combat experience had revealed several deficiencies in the 105-mm. howitzer tank, most important the lack of a power traverse.40

After D-day, the disillusionment with the 76-mm. gun increased with further experience on the battlefield. Bradley noted that the 76-mm. often "scuffed rather than penetrated" the heavy armor of the German Panthers and Tigers. Aware that the British could pierce the thick-skinned Panther with their 17-pounder mounted on the Sherman, which they called the Firefly, he asked General Montgomery to equip one M4 in each U.S. tank platoon with a 17-pounder. This effort came to nothing for two reasons: first, Ordnance in England was overloaded with British orders; and second, the combat units were too short of tanks to spare any to send to England for the purpose. Bradley's solution for the time being was to use towed 90-mm. guns to form a secondary line of defense behind his Shermans.41

When Brig. Gen. Joseph A. Holly, chief of ETOUSA's Armored Fighting Vehicles and Weapons Section, returned to the United States in July 1944 to urge the shipment of more self-propelled 90-mm. guns, he looked into the possibility of getting a tank mounted with the 90-mm. gun. Obviously, the best bet for quick results was still to mount the gun on the M4, the tank already in large production. In Detroit Holly saw an M4 modified by Chrysler to carry the 90-mm. and thought it had "tempting possibilities." But the T26E1 production had been initiated already and had such high priority that no delivery of the modified M4 could be promised before January 1945. By that time the T26E1 would be coming off the production line in limited numbers: 10 were scheduled for October, 30 for November, 50 for December, 125 for January, and 200 for February. The decision, therefore, was to abandon modification of the M4 and devote all facilities available to furthering the production of the T26E1.42

After the production of the first ten T26E1's, tests showed that certain modifications were necessary, including the provision for more ammunition stowage. After these changes were made, the tank was redesignated heavy tank T26E3, and was standardized as the M26 (General

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Pershing).43 General Barnes insisted that of the first 40 off the production line, 20 be sent overseas simultaneously with the shipment of 20 to Fort Knox for tests. Army Ground Forces objected, urging that the tests be made before the tanks were shipped overseas; but Barnes (threatening to go to General Marshall if necessary) appealed to Maj. Gen. Russell L. Maxwell, assistant chief of staff G-4, and won his point. The 20 T26E3's were in Europe before the end of January 1945.44

The ZEBRA Mission of February 1945

As head of a technical mission (ZEBRA) to introduce the new tanks to the European theater, General Barnes, accompanied by Col. Joseph M. Colby of the Tank-Automotive Command, Col. George Dean of the Armored Branch, AGF New Developments Division, two Ordnance captains, a representative from General Motors, and a gunner from Aberdeen Proving Ground, arrived in Paris on 9 February 1945. First there were conferences with Eisenhower and other SHAEF and COMZ officers, including Sayler and Holly, at which it was decided to get the twenty tanks into action as soon as possible. Eisenhower assigned them to 12th Army Group, and Bradley sent them all to First Army, dividing them equally between the 3d and 9th Armored Divisions. By mid-February the tanks had been delivered to the 559th Ordnance Battalion at Aachen, training was under way, and Barnes had embarked on a series of visits to army group, army, corps, and division commanders.45

In addition to introducing the T26E3's, the purpose of the ZEBRA mission was to obtain as much information as possible on the performance of Ordnance materiel in Europe, especially such new materiel as the M24 light tank (armed with a new 75-mm. gun) that had begun to arrive in the theater in December 1944. Barnes was also very much interested in the performance of self-propelled field guns. As an improvement on the M12 with the M1918 155-mm. gun, which had given an excellent account of itself, he had sent to the theater one experimental model of a gun motor carriage, the T83, mounting the M1 (Long Tom) 155-mm. gun; and another experimental model, the T89, mounting an 8-inch howitzer. Both were sent to VII Corps for testing. Other items on which the planners in the United States wanted reports were bazookas and rockets fired from multiple rocket launchers. Before D-day, 4.5-inch artillery rockets (designed to be fired either from aircraft or from the ground) had been sent to the European theater. They were fin-stabilized, that is, stabilized in flight by fins that opened when the rocket left the tube. Two types of multiple launchers had been provided: the T27, an 8-tube launcher on a fixed framework mount, which could be fired either from the ground or the bed of a truck, and

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the T34, a 60-tube cluster to be mounted on the Sherman tank.46

In his conversations with the commanders in Europe, Barnes described new materiel that was not yet ready for shipment: a "supervelocity" 90-mm. gun, the T15, with which he said a large portion of the T26E3 tanks were to be equipped; and three heavy tanks, the T28, an "assault tank" weighing 90 tons with twelve inches of armor, mounting the new 105-mm. antiaircraft gun; and the T29 and T30, which were similar in chassis to the T26 series, but mounted, respectively, the 105-mm. gun and the 155-mm. Barnes also had photographs of the new 57-mm. and 75-mm. recoilless rifles and a wheeled mount for a multiple rocket launcher, the T66, which would fire a new 4.5-inch rocket that did not depend on fins, being "spin-stabilized"—rotated by a flow of gases through eight canted vents.47

The response to the ZEBRA mission showed plainly that theater needs could be summed up in two words: firepower and mobility. The commanders liked the T26E3 Pershing tank and would have liked it even better if it had carried the T15 90-mm. gun. They liked the light tank Ms4 very much. They had been converted to self-propelled field guns by the M12, and wanted large quantities of such guns of the Long Tom and 155-mm. howitzer type. They did not want the T23 tank with the electrical transmission. Most commanders were not very much interested in the very heavy T28, T29, and T30 tanks, for they did not see how these tanks could be got over roads and bridges. They were definitely interested in the recoilless rifles. On the performance of the bazooka, opinions varied. The general feeling was that it was good but ought to be better. One assistant division commander complained that "we're still using the model we started with" while the Germans have "taken our bazooka idea and improved upon it." The Germans had produced more deadly antitank weapons of this type in their Panzerschreck and Panzerfaust, both of which, however, were extremely dangerous to the user. The Panzerfaust, a recoilless weapon firing a hollow-charge grenade, would pierce seven or eight inches of armor plate. Some U.S. combat officers collected all they could get their hands on for their troops; one tank officer considered the Panzerfaust "the most concentrated mass of destruction in this war."48

The 4.5-inch ground rocket had been used very little. First Army, converting a 105-mm. howitzer battalion into a rocket battalion with the T27 launcher early in November 1944, had employed the rockets a few times in Hürtgen Forest in mid-November with "excellent results," accord-

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GENERAL BARNES, during ZEBRA mission.

ing to General Hodges; but the artillerymen were not enthusiastic, disliking the inaccuracy of the rocket and the smoke and flash that attracted counterbattery fire. Because of the smoke and flash, a "shoot and scoot" technique was evolved, using the launchers on trucks, weapons carriers, or, preferably, jeeps. The need for more inherent mobility in the mount and better accuracy in the rocket led commanders to believe that the new T66 launchers on a wheeled mount, firing the new spin-stabilized rocket, would be quite valuable. As to the T34 launcher on the Sherman tank, First Army did not want it because of the disadvantages of mounting the launcher on the tank. One Third Army tank battalion that did employ the T34 briefly was appreciative of the morale effect of this great concentration of firepower, but recommended that the launchers be mounted on light tanks rather than M4's. They had found the difficulty of jettisoning the launchers resulted in the loss of the Sherman tank as a fighting vehicle.49

At the time of the ZEBRA mission, interest naturally was centered on the Pershing tank. Although the theater refused to subscribe to a blanket statement that the Pershing with the M3 gun was superior to the Panther or Tiger, all commanders considered it a step in the right direction and wanted all the Pershing tanks they could get as soon as possible. In the meantime they would settle for the M4 with the 76-mm. gun and as much HVAP ammunition as was available. They emphatically wanted no more M4's with the 75-mm. gun.50 When Colonel Colby tried to sell the battalion commanders of the 3d Armored Division on the Shermans they already had (being unable to offer them anything better on a large scale immediately), he ran into a hornet's nest. After the heavy casualties of the winter, they were beginning to regard the 75-mm. Shermans as deathtraps.51

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CONVOY OF PERSHING TANKS MOVES THROUGH A GERMAN TOWN

Before Barnes returned to the United States, he asked General Campbell by teletype on 5 March 1945 to ship immediately all the Pershings available, as well as all available HVAP ammunition for the 76-mm. and 90-mm. guns; and to expedite the production of the T15 90-mm. gun and ammunition and the shipment of the twenty-five T83 self-propelled guns produced in February. Campbell promised to do "everything humanly possible" to get the Pershings to the theater on the highest priority, and was backed up by ASF's Theater Branch after a personal cablegram from General Eisenhower to General Somervell on 8 March. But the tanks would not effect the outcome of the war in Europe.52

On 23 March, 157 Pershings left the United States and another 53 were at port or en route. By the time they arrived, the armies were on their way into Germany. When General Borden, on a visit to the theater, caught up with Third Army in Frankfurt on 8 April, he discovered that Patton had not yet received any Pershings. Ninth Army had received nineteen by the end of March but as late as mid-April none had been issued to troops because Ninth's armored units had been moving so fast that they had not had time to spare

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tank crews to send back for training. In the last two weeks of April, the Pershings began to arrive in greater quantity. Third Army, for example, had ninety by the end of the month. On V-E Day there were 310 in the theater, of which about 200 had been issued to troops. But because of the difficulty of transporting them, and the time required to train crews in maintenance and operation, it is safe to say that the only Pershings that got into effective action were the 20 experimental models that First Army had received in February.53

As to the T15 90-mm. gun, only one got to the theater. When Borden visited SHAEF headquarters on 2 April, the first question General Eisenhower asked him was when the tanks with the "super guns" would arrive. The earliest date Borden could give him was June. Eisenhower said he hoped to have the Germans licked by then.54

Lacking the Pershings, the war was fought with the M4 Shermans, which continued to pour off the production lines. At the time of the Rhine crossings, 7,620 were in theater stocks. About 40 percent were of the 76-mm. gun type, but attempts to provide HVAP ammunition for the 76-mm. were hampered by the shortage of tungsten carbide. Because of production difficulties, receipts of HVAP before 1 March 1945 were less than two rounds per gun per month. By January 1945 there were enough M4's to enable the 12th Army Group to make a last-ditch effort to provide better firepower by installing the British 17-pounder. Here again the limiting factor was ammunition. British 17-pounder ammunition supply could support only 160 17-pounder American Shermans and by the time the first of them arrived in the combat area, the war was ending.55

Shortly before the drive into Germany, the American press broke the story that American tanks were inferior to those of the enemy. Hanson W. Baldwin in the New York Times and the editor of the Washington Post demanded to be told why; and the story traveled to Europe.56 Questioned by American correspondents at a press conference in mid-March, General Patton publicly defended American tanks. He also wrote a letter to Lt. Gen. Thomas T. Handy, Deputy Chief of Staff, which the War Department released to the American papers, stating that while the Tiger would destroy the Sherman head on, the Sherman could usually manage to attack from the rear and avoid a slugging match; moreover, the Sherman was incomparably more reliable and long-lived, as well as easier to ship and handle, than the Tiger. Patton wrote the letter because he wanted

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HOW CARTOONIST BERRYMAN SAW THE TANK CONTROVERSY.
From the Washington, D.C., Evening Star, March 25, 1945.

to stop what he called "the foolish criticism" of American tanks which he believed was having a bad effect on the morale of the soldiers at the front.57 But privately he had stated to a visiting Ordnance officer, just, after the Battle of the Bulge, "Ordnance takes too God Damn long seeking perfection at the expense of the fighting men, and you can tell that to anyone at Ordnance." The officer believed that Patton was expressing the feelings of the

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using arms.58 It was natural enough for the tankers at the front to blame Ordnance for the heavy casualties they had suffered fighting in the Shermans.

Who was to blame? The Army Ground Forces New Developments Division criticized Ordnance for spending too much time on developing and promoting the T23 tank with the electrical transmission, which was not wanted, and the heavy tanks M6, T28, T29, and T30, which the AGF had turned down repeatedly because of road and bridge limitations.59 General Barnes and Colonel Colby maintained that the best American tank of the war, the Pershing, had been developed in the face of "bitter opposition" by the using arms. Colby believed that if AGF had given the go-ahead early enough, the Pershing could have been available in quantities for the beachhead landings on D-day; and the record supports his belief.60

The pros and cons of the tank controversy have usually been discussed in terms of the argument between Army Ground Forces and Ordnance tank designers in the United States. Ordnance officers in the European theater recognized a third point of view—that of many officers of the Armored Force, especially those in the theater. While it was true that the Armored Force officers could not wholly agree among themselves, there was a strong feeling among them that the Pershing could not (for whatever reason) be got to the theater in time to be of any real value, and therefore the first priority on tank development should be to eliminate the bugs from the M4 and then to modify it to take the 90-mm. gun.61 If only as insurance against the failure of the Pershings to get into action, this modification of a thousand M4's might well have been attempted when it was first proposed by the Armored Force Board in September 1943. In retrospect it seems to have been worth trying, and if successful it would in some measure have provided the tankers with the firepower they needed in Europe, from the breakout to the last defenses on the Rhine.
From...

http://www.history.army.mil/books/wwii/ ... rXVII.html


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Re: AFV Loss Rates in US 12th. Army Group

#63

Post by Username » 13 Apr 2008, 16:01

An interesting anecdote regarding Sherman shortages in the First Army during the Battle of the Bulge.
Every American tank that could be recovered and put back in operation was a triumph, because First Army units that bore the brunt of the first Bulge attacks had suffered heavy losses in armor. Every replacement tank in Ordnance stocks was immediately committed, but there was still a serious shortage—all the more serious because the First Army command felt that tanks would be the determining factor in restoring its position later. There was one resource within the theater—the plentiful Shermans held in reserve by Field Marshal Montgomery's 21 Army Group. On 19 December, Medaris, who knew how ample these stocks were, went to 21 Army Group headquarters at Brussels to appeal to Montgomery's "Q" (Quartermaster—in American terms, G-4) for the loan of a moderate number. He was turned down on the ground that every tank Montgomery had was vitally needed by his own group.54

The next day, 20 December, as a result of Eisenhower's decision to place all American forces north of the Bulge under Montgomery, First Army passed temporarily to 21 Army Group. The following morning, some 300 Shermans were rolling out of Brussels to the shops of Medaris' 72d Ordnance Group at Landres, together with a number of British 25-pounders with 30 days of ammunition. Then began a strenuous effort to get the tanks ready for battle. By friendly agreement between Medaris and the First Army Signal officer, Col. Grant Williams, Signal radio installation and repair teams were already operating with Ordnance tank maintenance companies. With their assistance and that of a few hundred Belgian laborers and volunteers from a battalion of Irish Guards, three Ordnance companies made the tanks battle-ready—U.S. radios installed, tanks combat-loaded with rations and ammunition, and duckbill tracks applied—in the remarkably short time of ninety-six hours. After the production line went into operation, tanks were being issued out the front door of the shop as fast as others came in the back.55

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Re: AFV Loss Rates in US 12th. Army Group

#64

Post by RichTO90 » 13 Apr 2008, 16:07

Username wrote:Most units praised the M24, even if it took till late in the war to recieve them. So, the 75mm was a mistake then? I see no real argument here. The troops disliked the 37mm in 1944. The same knuckle-headedness can be seen in the argument against giving Shermans better guns. The TDs were supposed to have the better guns. That was hog-wash also.
Yes, the troops in general believed the 37mm and M5 was inadequate in 1944, just as much as they thought it was the greatest things since sliced bread in December 1942 when the used it to take out Pz-IV Spezials in the first major action between US and German tankers. User perception can be a tricky thing. But you are mistaken if you think I was arguing that the M5 was adequate; I'm not sure how you could have gotten that understanding from what I posted?

The real question is whether or not there was a practical way something "better" could have been gotten into the hands of the trooops earlier? The candidates for that are the M7 Light Tank, the M8 "Modified", and the M24. Of those, the only practical possibility was the M7 Light Tank. It had the 57mm gun and was actually an exceptional design and would have made a great "cavalry" tank when completed in June 1942. But the problem was not "clowns" it was the engineers typical reaction to a good design....try to make it even better and then try to make it something it wasn't. :D Yes, it was a mistake, but of a variety that occurs constantly, in the military and in civilian engineering as well. The M8 Modified seems a much less likely candidate though. As a "design" it was essentially a "bodge-job" (given that the M8 HMC was so small it had to be provided with a trailer hitch to haul its ammo trailer, I rather expect ammunition stowage for the 57mm round may have been problematic). But even if it had been refined it was not an ordnance depot modification, the turret had to be factory produced, although once that was done final assembly probably could have been done by an Ordnance HMC (Tk)?

So you promote the idea of Marder-type modifications for the US Army, which they had, yet deride the idea of putting better guns into the tank destroyers as "hog-wash"? Which is it supposed to be? A good idea or a bad idea? Why is following the German example good in the one case and bad in the other, when in the American case they made the design more sophisticated and capable? Or are Panzerjäger supposed to be "different" than Tank Destroyers?

I'll get to the arguments regarding the M4 a little later, gotta do some yardwork. :D

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Re: AFV Loss Rates in US 12th. Army Group

#65

Post by Username » 13 Apr 2008, 16:32

Not from the 12th Army Group, but interesting anyway. The 752 Tank Bn used M7 in the HQ coy.
Assault Gun Platoon exchanges M7 Priests for 105mm M4A3s
24 December 1944
From...

http://www.752ndtank.com/index.html

Also interesting is that M24 were issued (very late)and then taken away (Given to 1st armd div). This brings up a question as to how M24 were issued (and WHEN). Were they given to 'D Coy' in tank battalions of armored divisions first? Were the independant tank battalions D company next supplied (752nd somehow getting them 'too early'?). Were the cav units M5 unit the last to get them?
Last edited by Username on 13 Apr 2008, 17:41, edited 2 times in total.

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Re: AFV Loss Rates in US 12th. Army Group

#66

Post by Username » 13 Apr 2008, 17:08

There were actually pre-D-Day 90mm designs...more than likely meant as mobile AA. But certainly could have been used against armor. Bradley ordered towed 90mm to back up his formations. They would have been better served with something along these lines.

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Re: AFV Loss Rates in US 12th. Army Group

#67

Post by Username » 13 Apr 2008, 18:06

From...

http://home.earthlink.net/~piglt/778tbn.html

It seems some M4/105mm were also used at the company HQ level.

HOW MANY TANKS IN THE BATTALION?

There were about 80 Tanks in the Battalion.

A-Co: 3 platoons of five 76mm M4 Sherman Tanks,
one 105mm M4a3 Assault Gun Sherman Tank, one 76mm M4 Sherman Tank
for the Company Comander, 17 MediumTanks (30 Tons).

B-Co: Same as above but 75MM M4 Sherman Tanks and 1 Assault Gun. 17 MediumTanks.

C-Co: Same as above 75MM M4 Shermans and 1 Assault Gun. 17 Medium Tanks.

D-Company: Same as above except they had a 37MM cannon in the turret. 17 Light Tanks (18 Tons).

Service Co: Tank retrivers, Tanks with dozer blades spikes, (for hedge rows and other obstacles),
Tanks with flails with chains (for land mines to clear our paths.

Hdq- Co: One Platoon of 3 Assault guns with 105mm M4A3 Shermans
and three M4 Shermand with 75mm Cannons. The assault guns
were for support and street fighting - they had larger guns
and inflicted more damage that the 76mm & 75mm guns.

There were three other tanks of Hdq-Co: one for the Battalion Commander,
one for the Battalion Adjudicant, and one for the Artillary Observer.
They never used these tanks and they were used as needed by other companies
or the men as temporary replacments.

George Nicholson was an Assault gun driver in Headquarters Company.

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Re: AFV Loss Rates in US 12th. Army Group

#68

Post by RichTO90 » 13 Apr 2008, 19:07

Username wrote:Not from the 12th Army Group, but interesting anyway. The 752 Tank Bn used M7 in the HQ coy.
Yes, the 752nd is interesting in quite a number of ways. Their website states that they were converted to a replacement unit, the 2652nd, due to a "classification error", which isn't exactly correct. What happened was that Eisenhower was convinced at the end of the Tunisian Campaign that the British concept of Forward Delivery Squadrons and "Wings" was an idea that should have been adopted by the US Army (he was probably right in retrospect). The March 1942 Armored Division TO&E at the time actually provided for a small version of such an organization as part of the Armored Regiment Maintenance Company, but there was no such theater-wide organization or one specifically available for the separate battalions. Anyway, Ike made the decsion to adapt such an organization in the MTO and, AFAIK, the 752nd was selected simply because it was the most recent arrival in theater. The upshot though was that the re-organization and inactivation was unauthorized, which resulted in a rocket to Ike (IIRC there is actually a chiding message from Marshall to him regarding the matter in the Eisenhower papers) and the eventual directive that the 752nd be reactivated. Of course notice that by that time the theater was convinced of the utility of the training organization and tried to sereptiously maintain parts of the unit inthat role, eventually to no avail, but it seems evident that they were always viewed at least in part as a training asset by the Fifth Army Armored Section.

And many of the battalions used other tanks to substitute for the M4 105mm between July 1943 when the organization was authorized and July 1944 when the actual equipment became available, the substitution was partly a theater-level decision. In the MTO and, evidently (the records are unclear) the Pacific, the typical substitute was the M7, which was unsatisfactory in many ways. After all, the assault gun was intended to be a heavily armed tank, not a SP field artillery piece, which is what the M7 was. Anyway, the choice made in the ETO was to substitute additional 75mm M4 until the M4 105mm became available; for D-Day the assault gun crews were utilized to man the tankdozers, supplemented by personnel from the engineer light equipment companies.
Also interesting is that M24 were issued (very late)and then taken away (Given to 1st armd div). This brings up a question as to how M24 were issued (and WHEN). Were they given to 'D Coy' in tank battalions of armored divisions first? Were the independant tank battalions D company next supplied (752nd somehow getting them 'too early'?). Were the cav units M5 unit the last to get them?
Of course they were issued very late, the first production was accepted by the War Department in April 1944, all one of them. :D By the end of May a total of 25 had been completed, enough for a single tank company and reserves, based on the replacement levels that were now becoming apparent. By the end of June it was 75 in total and by July 185. But no add the next problem that bedeviled US planning - getting them to the theater. Essentially it was found that although the planning factors anticipated at 75-day turnaround for heavy equipment from requisition to receipt by the unit in theater, the practical turnaround time was at a minimum 90 days and averaged something like 110 days.

So in this case the first issues in theater in the ETO of the M24 occurred in mid-December 1944, when one of the V Corps mechanized cavalry squadrons began to receive them as one-to-one replacements for their M5 (I forget which squadron it was and don't have the ddocumentation here at home to look it up, it's in my office files - remind me tomorrow if you are interested in who got them and exactly when and how many). But exactly who got them was a theater/army group/army-level decision, at the theater-level there was simply an "entitlement" to X number of each type of vehicle based on total TO&E and reserve requirements (and yet another problem inherent in planning was the reserve requirement was based upon an inadequate reserve factor derived from an initial guesstimate that had been "proven correct" based on low-intensity experience in Tunisia, Sicily, and Italy, and that utilized the 75-day turnaround factor, so two erros compounding one another). So why Fifth Army chose to initially issue the M24 to the 752nd and then be Indian givers and turn them over to the 1st AD is unknown, although there may be a memo explaining why somewhere in the records of the Fifth Army Armor Section (which, frustratingly enough are very complete, but only through July 1944 after that they are more than a bit perfunctory and unenlightening :cry: ).

So the simple answer to your question is yes, all of the above. :D Some went to cavalry squadrons, some went to the separate tank battalions, some went to the armor divisions, I have many of the allocation memos for the ETO, but haven't gone through them to try to derive a rationale yet, and I'm not sure there really was one, although partly it appears to have been a matter of how many were allocated at a time. So, for example, if 17 or 18 were allocated to an army the army would probably chose to use them to re-equip a cavalry mechanized squadrons tank company - a staright one for one. But if they were given an allocation of say 50+ at once, they might chose to re-quip the tank companies in the tank battalions of a single armor division and then replace those in its cav squadron in the next allocation. All of those examples appear to have occurred (partly it was a maintenance issue, they did not want to have a company-level unit, the 1st maintenance echelon, with two types of vehicles to maintain).

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Re: AFV Loss Rates in US 12th. Army Group

#69

Post by RichTO90 » 13 Apr 2008, 19:10

Username wrote:It seems some M4/105mm were also used at the company HQ level.
Yes, there has been some confusion about that over the years. Many seem to assume that the six M4 105mm allotted the battalion were in the assault gun platoon of battalion headquarters company. But, in fact, only three were, the other three were actually allotted one to each medium company, where they were the second vehicle in company headquarters.

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Re: AFV Loss Rates in US 12th. Army Group

#70

Post by RichTO90 » 13 Apr 2008, 19:29

Username wrote:There were actually pre-D-Day 90mm designs...more than likely meant as mobile AA. But certainly could have been used against armor. Bradley ordered towed 90mm to back up his formations. They would have been better served with something along these lines.
Those are actually two variants of the same idea. The first is the T53, developed as an SP AA gun from a concept drawing dated 29 June 1942 and tested in prototype in August 1942 at Aberdeen. It was then shipped to the Tank Destroyer Board at Camp Hood for tests as a possible TD.

As an AA gun the evaluation was:
firing tests showed that the carriage was too unstable to be effective against high flying aircraft. It also was apparent that the gun mount should be located over the vehicle center of gravity for tank destroyer use.
(Hunnicutt, Medium Tank, 390)

As a TD gun the evaluation was:
it was completely unsatisfactory as a tank destroyer because of its high silhouette, inadequate mobility, lack of armor protection, and insufficient ammuntion stowage. They recommended that efforts to develop a dual purpse tank destroyer and self-propelled antiaircraft gun be abandoned
(Hunnicutt, ibid)

The second appears to be a photo of the T53E1, which was a development design approved 27 October 1942, based upon the previous evaluations, despite what the evaluations had to say, along with procurement of 500 in 1942 (mind you procurement in the financial term, it wasn't expected in October 1942 that 500 would be delivered by the end of the year :D ) with an additional 3,500 planned and with two prototypes completed in December 1942 and January 1943. Road tests however showed that the bolts holding the shield together tended to come apart as the vehicle moved :D and after further extensive evaluation during 1943 highlighted the same problems found in the T53 the project was universally recommended for cancellation, which was finally approved 25 May 1944.

BTW, I almost forgot, they were "better served", by something along the lines of the M36 GMC. :D

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Re: AFV Loss Rates in US 12th. Army Group

#71

Post by Username » 13 Apr 2008, 22:50

You need to remember when the M36 entered combat then. The troops were served by 90mm AA weapons till then.

Your use of Smilies lends a special touch to this thread.

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Re: AFV Loss Rates in US 12th. Army Group

#72

Post by RichTO90 » 13 Apr 2008, 23:42

Username wrote:You need to remember when the M36 entered combat then. The troops were served by 90mm AA weapons till then.
Um, no, I don't believe so. I cannot actually recall any instances in Normandy where the 90mm M1 (the M2 was a fairly rare beast) was used as an antitank weapon? Although they certainly were used intermittantly there as a counterbattery weapon, a role they proved their worth in previously during the Italian Campaign. The problem with the M1 was that it was primarily designed, like the British 3.7-inch AA, as an antiaircraft weapon and made a poor antitank gun in terms of mobility, maneuverability, ease of concealment, and time in and out of action. One of the few instances where it can be confirmed that the 90mm was in fact engaged as antitank guns were the two guns from the 115th AAA Battalion near Stoumont Station during the battle of the Bulge on 19 December (coincidentally my fathers first battalion assignement after he was commissioned in April 1943).

BTW, the first M36 were in action just after 21 September 1944 and by 20 October 1944 there were 170 in action, with two having benn lost. So I'm not sure I need to remember it? :D

In any case the idea that the M4 were being "slaughtered" by German "Cats" in Normandy falters in the face of hard evidence. Many like to point to the 167 lost 6-20 June and the 187 lost 6 June-1 July as "proof" of that, ignoring that 100 were lost on D-Day, without a German tank about. Or don't understand that for the sample of 32 knocked out and examined in June the cause of loss was found to be: ATGL - 9 (28.13%), Mines - 4 (12.5%), Mortars - 1 (3.13) percent, "AT Gun" - 18 (56.25%), and "Artillery" - 1 (3.13%), to which could be added the 45 "sunk" on D-Day? (In this case it is important to know that inthe US Army categorization at this time an "AT Gun" was a 57mm or smaller and evidently the same criteria was applied to these reports, so the only possible candidate for being a "tank" gun is the "artillery" a rubric that included field artillery and what was considered to be equivalent to "tank destroyer" guns, i.e., 75mm and bigger. But as a caveat, that count didn't include the widespread destruction caused by the 8.8cm Pak 43/41 in WN 61, which is part of the peril of drawing too many conclusions from such data. :) )

And of course we could get into what was being done to the Germans as well. :D

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Re: AFV Loss Rates in US 12th. Army Group

#73

Post by Username » 14 Apr 2008, 00:42

But the problem was not "clowns" it was the engineers typical reaction to a good design....try to make it even better and then try to make it something it wasn't.
Exactly who were these engineers?

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Re: AFV Loss Rates in US 12th. Army Group

#74

Post by RichTO90 » 14 Apr 2008, 01:30

Username wrote:
But the problem was not "clowns" it was the engineers typical reaction to a good design....try to make it even better and then try to make it something it wasn't.
Exactly who were these engineers?
Aargh! You keep dragging me away from things I should be doing, but this is too interesting! :D But now I can't even recall what context I said that in? (Sorry, my head is filled with JUNOS, GOLDS, SWORDS, and Funnies right now :D ).

Part of the problem for the US Army early in the war, was that those engineers, the design engineers of the Tank Automotive Department of the Ordnance Corps, were so few. It's significant that one of the major delays in the initial production of the M4 was that there weren't sufficient personnel in Ordnance to both redo the M2A1 Medium drawings as the M3, even though that was done in record time, and simultaneously prepare plans for the M4 prototype. So although the concept for the M3 and M4 were contemporary, the M4 prototype didn't appear until about five months after that of the M3. And, unfortunately, most of their names, unlike those of the general officers making the decisions, have gotten lost in the shuffle. Even Hunnicutt for all of his digging has little to mention regarding their names, but I'll see what I might find?

But engineers as a class seem to have a penchant for perfectionism and to seek "elegance" in design. One of the saddest things about the M7 Light Tank was that it would have been a very good light tank and possibly one of the simplest maintenance designs of the period (the entire powerpack and drivetrain slid out of the rear end on rails for maintenance and replacement, very ahead of its time in that respect), I think it actually would have fit your bill very nicely....but instead it was turned into a monstrosity, partly due to a wrongheaded attempt to make it something it wasn't, a medium tank. And the same penchant characterized US Army decision making on many vehicles, not only was utility and combat capability considered, but it is impossible not to get the sense that the elgance of the design was another criteria. For example, the 90mm in the M4 was studied and eventually rejected for very good reasons of their own, but one of the reasons given was that it was simply too much of a a "rush" job and needed refinement, which was true, but also a little bit odd in the context of a world war being fought. It was also the same reason for the rejection of the initial M4 76mm project, the M4A1 (76M1); too many corners were cut, too much bashing and fitting was done, and so on. In retrospect it seems needless perfectionism, but given that many of these officers probably had experience with the similar "rush jobs" of the Great War that resulted in disaster (it would actually be charitable to describe what happened to US artillery design in that war as a colossal fuc% up, it was worse :oops: ), its actually understandable.

But that isn't "clownish".

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Re: AFV Loss Rates in US 12th. Army Group

#75

Post by Username » 14 Apr 2008, 02:57

As an Engineer, you gave me a laugh.
But engineers as a class seem to have a penchant for perfectionism and to seek "elegance" in design.
Engineers would have designed to the vehicle specifications. As seen by the cluster-f#@k with getting 90mm guns into the ETO (see the thread), it was not engineers but rather the Generals that screwed things up. Go re-read it.

You are a gardener?

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