To Mr. Anderson ;
Having read your somewhat disjointed screeds, I noted you asked a rhetorical question of me,
In fact, the first self propelled Tank Destroyers ever built by the U.S. Army were the 75 mm Gun Motor Carriage T12 half tracks, armed with WW1 vintage French 75s mounted on pillow blocks. These were used in the Louisiana Maneuvers of 1941, in which three officers, one named Patton, one named Bradley, and one named Eisenhower, distinguished themselves. During the course of the Wargames, the experimental Tank Destroyer Doctrine ( Oooooh - There's that word you don't like again ! ) was tested, and despite the lack of success of the S.P Tank Destroyers, the orders were given to create a separate Tank Destroyer Force. A Field Manual was published, and orders were given for the production of more standardized half track T.D.s ( known as the 75 mm Gun Motor Carriage M3 ) and officers and men were recruited for ( or dragooned into ) the new Tank Destroyer Force.Would you mind telling me Mr. Ward, just which tank destroyers went to the Philippines to get "stomped"?
As soon as the Maneuvers were completed, the T12s were transported to the West Coast, loaded on ships, and sent to the Philippines, where, within a few months, they got a chance to test their flawed doctrine against the small, lightly armored and poorly armed IJA tanks. Amazingly, the T.D.s were defeated in one of the only engagements they fought against the IJA tanks, because the T12 could not depress it's gun below 5 degrees ( one of the drawbacks of the poorly engineered use of an obsolete field gun mounted on a half track ) and so, at short range, could only use indirect fire against the IJA tanks. Ooops.
You then went on:
OK, Mr Anderson. Here the ball is in your court. Find us a source that does NOT say that McNair was responsible for the heavy losses among U.S. armored formations due to their required use of obsolescent M-4s in the campaign of 1944. In other words, are there any impartial scholars who, having looked at all the evidence, feel that McNair was correct in his efforts to stall the M26 and keep the M36 from being shipped to Europe ?You forgot about surfing for an academic paper that agrees with your previously conceived point of view (AKA "confirmation bias") in order to achieve an aura of academic respectability.
By impartial scholar, of course, I mean somebody other than you.....
And you are repeating your calumnies about a serving armor officer whose experience in tanks I suspect is infinitely greater than yours, as is his experience in researching in the archival materials related to this subject.
So who are you flacking for?
Mr. Anderson, I'm not flacking for anyone. I have no financial interest in selling games or anything else related to WW2 ( Except the occasional rifle I restore and sell to friends ) What I do know is that I have personally spoken to men who served in the summer, autumn, and winter of 1944 in M-4 Shermans, and, to a man, they freely admitted that they were, as one of them put, " Scared Shitless of those Kraut Tanks ! "
And, as for directing calumnies at Maj. Moran, well, that last time I saw a guy in fatigues and a Cavalry Stetson with crossed Sabers on it, he was telling everyone that he " loved the smell of Napalm in the morning......."
Respectfully ;
Paul R. Ward