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| Grant tanks of 5th Royal Tank Regiment on the move in the Western Desert, 17 February 1942. (Source) |
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| (Source) |
"So Sarge, what sort of crate are we getting, I heard something about it being a Yank machine? Are they in the war now?" Will O'Shea had relatives in America. They gave him nothing but grief in their letters for being in the "English" army. They were all fervent republicans. He often thought that if they were that bleeding passionate about it, they should have stayed in Ireland. In general, he had a low opinion of Americans.
"It's called an M3 Grant, named after a general in their Civil War. Supposedly it has a 75 mm gun, what's more, it can fire high explosive." O'Connell didn't tell them that the big gun was mounted in a sponson. The main gun, in the turret, was a 37 mm, didn't have the same punch as their old 2-pounder.¹ It was equipped with HE, but from what he'd been told, the round wasn't that effective against infantry. His stance was, "Better'n no HE at all!"
An open-topped Humber pulled up and the driver shouted out, "You chaps need a lift to the tank depot?"
"Right-o, let's go lads!" O'Connell climbed aboard last.
After a 30-minute drive they came up to the "tank depot," which consisted of a couple of maintenance tents, two Bedfords, and what appeared to be twelve tanks. All rather large with a small turret. The main gun was on the other side from where they dismounted.
A sergeant with a clipboard met them at the "gate" (which was simply an opening between the two tents), "You lads with 5 Royal Tanks?"
After checking his list and a short conversation with O'Connell, the sergeant pointed them to a tank sitting by itself. "That's yours right there, T333505. There's a chap working on it, says he's a member of your crew, just got out of hospital."
As they walked over, O'Connell saw a man slide into a hatch on the vehicle. Something about him seemed eerily familiar. As he turned to his crew, about to order them to mount up, the man popped out of the hatch.
"'Bout bloody time, ye daft Irishmen showed up. I cannae drive this bloody thing and man the fecking gun at the same time."
The crew sprinted towards the small Scotsman as he dropped to the ground. It was McTavish, their old gunner².
Panzer 413 lurched to a stop just to the northeast of Benghazi. The sun had gone down moments before and the shadows were gathering. Hoffmeister suspected that they were out of fuel. He'd reported his fuel state about 30 minutes before, but battalion had ordered them to press on. The fuel trucks would catch up when they could.
"Wir haben kein Benzin mehr!³" Fritz Weber reported over the intercom.
"I suspected as much." Hoffmeister answered. "Get out and stretch your legs boys, we might be here a while."
The other tanks in the platoon had halted when he did, over the radio he was going to order them to assume a defensive posture, but his crews knew their business. Most of them were probably running on fumes by now. But they formed up in line abreast, guns facing east, towards where the British were still running down the coast road.
Benghazi was theirs, again. But for the moment they were stopped, logistics were holding them back. Again.
Gefreiter Hans Decker woke up, groggy and in some pain. He looked around, unsure of his surroundings. The last thing he remembered was sitting at his gunner's station soaked in blood, shivering in the desert heat, and hearing his pilot asking if he was going to be all right.
He had passed out shortly after that, his ribs felt bruised, his mouth was dry as a bone, and his right foot itched. He needed to scratch that itch, but he was too groggy to really move any part of his body. He felt detached somehow, yet present at the same time.
He opened his eyes and blinked rapidly, he heard a voice ...
"Oberstabsarzt⁴ Wagner! Decker is awake."
Decker turned towards the voice, he saw an older man, a medical orderly of some sort, he guessed. As he tried to puzzle things out, he felt a hand touch his wrist.
"Ah, I see you're awake Gefreiter. Hopefully your nap was refreshing."
The staff surgeon was in uniform, from what Decker could see, the man had served in the Great War, he had an Iron Cross 1st Class from 1914 pinned to his tunic. He also had a 1914 wound badge, in silver⁵, which made Decker wonder, how did this man get wounded in the first war?
The doctor grinned, "I notice you're 'admiring' my decorations. I was an infantryman in the first war. I didn't become a doctor until after that war. Now rest easy for a moment."
The doctor held Decker's wrist while looking at his watch, he nodded. "Good pulse, you're young and healthy, your recovery should be fine. It's not many who can ..."
Decker remembered, in a panic he sat up, there, at the bottom of the bed he saw ...
He still had both legs.
"So this beast has crew of six?" Fitzhugh asked as he studied the tank's interior. He was sitting in the gunner's seat in the turret, McTavish was seated next to the 75 mm gun.
"The other variant, the Lee, has a crew of seven. In this beast I get to load and fire this gun." McTavish patted the breech of the 75.
Shaking his head, McTavish said, "And you get a loader for the popgun. There's nae justice in the world, laddie."
O'Connell let the men blather on for a few more minutes as he familiarized himself with the commander's position. This damn thing sat up very high, that gun in the sponson, though of a useful caliber, couldn't be used when they were hull down. This would take some getting used to.
"All right lads, I suppose we should be getting orders shortly, when we do ..."
O'Connell heard someone rapping on the steel of the turret, "Anyone home?"
Popping his head out, he looked into the eyes of a very young lieutenant. "Sir?"
"Hullo, I'm Wellesley, your new platoon commander, you must be Sar'nt O'Connell."
"Yes Sir, yes, I am. Have we got orders, Sir?"
"Why yes, yes we do, we're to move up to Bardia. The brigade is reforming there, I reckon we'll push on to Tobruk after that, relieve the garrison and all that."
O'Connell had hoped to have a few days to work out the ways this tank could be used in combat. Looks like we'll be learning on the job, he thought to himself. But at the very least, it was good to have McTavish back. Damned good.
¹ The 37 mm gun on the Grant fired a shell weighing less than a pound and a half.
² Last seen in Riposte in the Desert.
³ We're out of petrol.
⁴ Senior staff surgeon, equivalent to a Major.
⁵ The silver grade was awarded for three or four wounds suffered in action.
Oi! A reunion Sarge, lost track of a few of these names. Whoever designed that M3 should have been kicked in the arse, what a mashup.
ReplyDeleteWell, it did get a 75 mm gun into an Allied tank before the Sherman got going. But yeah. The British liked it, the Russians not so much.
DeleteMcTavish and O'Connell are going to discover that the Grant does indeed have a loader for the 75 mm gun. My quick (and rather shoddy) research didn't notice that when I wrote this. Courtesy of Nicholas Moran's excellent "Chieftain's Hatch" series on YouTube, I know a lot more about the Grant than I did previously. Now I need to figure out how they missed the loader's position for the 75. (Bunch of junk stowed there? I really need to pull out the stops for this one!)
The Soviets weren't very gracious recipients of anything really. Yeah, they liked the P-39 and the B-25 but they weren't exactly gracious or effusive in their thanks and would go to great lengths to downplay, if not actively deny the massive amounts of material they received.
DeleteBoat Guy
And in reality, without US trucks and rations, the Soviets would still be holding outside Moscow. We mobilized and fed those ungrateful bastards. May Stalin rot.
DeleteWithout US trucks, tanks, planes, fuel and rations and British tanks, the Soviets would have lost Moscow and been pushed to the Urals. That's how much we westerners helped them. And, yes, ungrateful bastards. What did we get in return? Often our air crews were imprisoned if they landed in Soviet territory.
DeleteThe M3 Lee/Grant was an evolution of the M2 Medium. Which had, yes, a turret mounted 37mm gun and two sponsons in the hull, which carried machine guns.
DeleteIt was designed around the suspension and the radial motor that drove it. The same suspension and upgraded radial motor that drove the M3 Medium and... the M4 Medium.
The M3 Medium was a stopgap. We knew it was a stopgap, everyone else knew it was a stopgap. But it mounted a 75mm medium length gun before many others mounted anything but a 75mm short howitzer. It had radios in the hull (the Lee) or in the turret (the Grant.) It had decent armor, though most was riveted (so? so was most British and quite a bit of German.) It had a reliable engine, good power, good transmission, which is more than you can say for a lot of British and Russian tanks at the time.
Most importantly, it allowed for the factories to be built that would produce the M4 Medium and that would produce the cast hulls and rolled armor plate and all the improvements seen in the M4 Medium. It allowed the factories that produced the M3 to learn how to mass produce medium tanks, to train personnel. It allowed the Army to train personnel, to develop doctrines around a 75mm armed tank, to deal with having a much bigger and heavier main tank (at the time of the M3, the M2 and M3 Light tank were the main tanks of the US Armored Corps.
It also allowed the development of specialized vehicles like the M7 Priest and a recovery vehicle based off the M3 Medium hull (minus the 75mm gun but keeping the 37mm gun, sometimes.)
And don't knock that 37mm gun. It was as powerful as the British 2pdr, could fire HE which was effective against soft-skinned and light armor, had the ability to punch through decent cover, and could fire cannister. A much more rounded gun than what the Brits fielded. Very high velocity, very flat trajectory.
Oh, yeah, it also allowed the Merchant Marine to develop methods to safely transport a medium tank. Can't forget that.
DeleteAll pretty good for just a stopgap vehicle, no?
Well Beans, good tutorial, I can't really add anything. One thing I will say, a number of sources indicate that the HE for the 37 mm was rather anemic, but hey, better than no HE.
DeleteNot great against infantry in the open, but far better than AP against infantry in buildings and fortifications. Cannister was for infantry in the open, as with the 75mm.
DeleteThe 37 had great elevation. They used it with canister to sweep Japanese snipers out of the trees in Asia. The Grant served to the end of the war.
DeleteYes, the 37 did have great elevation and pretty good declination. The tanks worked against comparable vehicles. And it was an excellent infantry support vehicle.
DeleteWhich was their intended use.
DeleteFor those techno geeks like myself, the Australian Armor Museum did a restoration of a Grant documented on Youtube. https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLWYZuCQ-NHUOIkUYupsLsLzK5AZZETh37
ReplyDeleteFirst off - Pogue! Long time no hear, good to see ya!
DeleteSecondly - The Australian Armor Museum's restoration videos are superb. No doubt the Grant that Nicholas Moran was in was the one they restored, he filmed the Grant videos there.
I’ve been lurking and enjoying your writing!
Delete😉
DeleteDitto the kudos for Aussie Armor "Workshop Wednesday" series on the Grants. Not just for the fine finished product, but for sharing the passion of collectors and historian who literally dig these beast out of forgotten fields and accumulate the bits and pieces to get them back to fighting configuration. It's one thing to look at an up and running tank, but quite a bit more appreciated when you see all those bits and pieces individually going into a stripped hulk and coming back to life.
DeleteIt's a special breed of crazy collector who has the drive, vision, and bucks to collect armor. There was a local guy here (among the top 5 tank collectors in the country!) who had over a hundred, including lots of artillery and wheeled vehicles, and a full time mechanic/restoration crew and multiple buildings for display, storage and workshops. When he died, a lot of his stuff ended up in DuBois, Wyoming and the Hudson, MA collections. These tank guys are sort of across between gun collectors who like weapons (usually worshiping "original rust", and car collectors who like "shiny, fully restored."
John Blackshoe
I love watching the restoration videos. There was one on the Panther which was pulled out of a river in Poland, then rebuilt. Fascinating stuff and I've stood next to that very vehicle up at the museum in Hudson, MA. A most excellent collection which I was introduced to by none other than Nicholas Moran (whose videos I can't get enough of!)
DeleteDubois, Wyoming you say? Hhmm, doubt I could convince The Missus Herself that a field trip there would be worth the candle. But hey, good to know, just in case I'm ever out that way. I checked their website, very nice. Way out at the back of beyond though!
Dubois and the country adjacent is really pretty! The museum is about ten miles out of town and HUGE. A bit overwhelming.
DeleteBG
It looks awesome.
DeleteBut it's ... but ... but ... it's a TANK, Lads! Yea! We're all here, and we have a tank!
ReplyDeleteYes, indeed. We're back in action and the gang is all here.
DeleteUS Army doctrine had tanks intended primarily for Infantry support, thus the sponson-mounted HE firing 75mm. Lots of lessons to be learned in armored vehicle design. Some of the early light tank designs were "quaint" as well.
ReplyDeleteAs htom notes "it's a TANK"; better'n no tank. Shouldn't look a gift-tank in the mouth as it were.
Decker got mighty lucky in drawing his surgeon; whose motivation is obviously accompanied by skill. Still, recuperation is gonna take a lot of time. Perhaps this will be a 'Heimatschuss" in that regard and he'll get some time with his Frau (IIRC)
Thanks for another great installment, Sarge!
Boat Guy
Yes, early tank design was geared towards the tactics, which makes perfect sense. Decker has a long rehab period in front of him. Maybe, Hams Ulrich Rudel, a famous Stuka pilot (and unrepentant Nazi bastard) lost his leg below the knee and was back in the air within six weeks. As Germany began running short of manpower, ya never know. After all, why would a Stuka gunner need two legs? (Harsh, but life in Nazi Germany was no picnic.)
DeleteThe US armor doctrine really didn't get to Tank-vs-Tank until late in the war, with the introduction of the M26 Pershing. The way to kill tanks was with tank destroyers, anti-tank guns, artillery and air power. Considering by '44 the US could basically destroy a grid coordinate from long range, well, it worked.
DeleteIndeed it did.
DeleteYeah, a Tank with a gun that can rotate, what? 90 degrees (I'm being charitable,yet sarcastic, there)? Additionally, seems quite tall. And I bet the tank commander sits on the top deck, which, of course, would be the hardest to hide behind a dune.
ReplyDeleteI'm in agreement with Nylon, swift kick in the pants. Followed then by a mandatory deployment to the desert, where he'd be assigned to the lead tank in the top of the tank.
Just me being charitable.
juvat
According to Nicholas Moran, the tank manual give different traverse values for that gun than the manual for the gun itself. But plus or minus 14 degrees is about it.
DeleteBut as BG mentions above, American doctrine did not envision tank versus tank combat, that's what tank destroyers were for. It all seems rather inflexible on the part of the US Army to assume that, but, it is what it is. It was perhaps okay for its intended purpose, but yeah, coulda been better.
It was too tall.
Tanks were another case of weapons technology and tacticians not quite getting their acts combined. The Gatling guns were viewed as some sort of "artillery" weapon, since they came on wheeled carriages, but when and how to employ them was a contentious issue. 1st Lt John Parker, with a bit of help from ordnance officer CAPT John T. Thompson (later inventor of the eponymous submachine gun) managed to get aboard the transports at Tampa deploying for the Santiago campaign. Once ashore there, Parker managed to get his Gatlings in position to support the attacks on San Juan Hill. It was not until lighter machine gun designs (Browning's "potato digger" and Maxim, Benet Mercie/Hotchkiss, and later Brownings) got the guns off wheeled carriages and into the hands of grunts that they found their true role. (The Rough Riders had a 7mm Browning potato digger, privately purchased, but it was not really used in offense.)
DeletePatton, a leader in all things armor, and Eisenhower who was deeply involved in tank training at Gettysburg at the end of WW1 had figured out a good role for tanks, but apparently some of the tank designers/builders were stuck in the British WW1 concept of "male" tanks with a 6 pounder (57mm) gun for an attack role, and "female" tanks with multiple machine guns for a defense or supporting role. The Grant/Lee was probably seen as a marriage of the sexes (or trans-tanks?) with a big gun and smaller guns to fill both roles instead of having two separate tank designs. But, "a tank" was indeed far better than "no tank." Many of the mechanical components of the M3 Grant/Lee were used in the M4 Sherman with basically the same 75mm gun in a turret for 360 degree coverage, and lower profile.
JB
The British liked the reliability, something which Detroit forgot for a while.
DeleteWhen I first saw the tank picture I wondered about the two guns, didn't take long for you to explain it! Thanks.
ReplyDeleteI wanted to get an M3 into the story, North Africa was a good place to do so.
DeleteAh, shades of one of my favorite Humphrey Bogart movie, "Sahara." Though that was a Lee and not a Grant (see my explanation up above, and the Lee had the 37mm gun in a turret and the commander manned a turret on top of the gun turret that had a machine gun, with a radio man in the hull (assistant driver.)
ReplyDeleteThe M3 Medium had good speed, good handling characteristics, good armor, good guns (lots of guns) and was reliable. Big? Yes, so? It could hit tanks at long range and withstand long range fire from anything but an 88mm Flak36.
The M3's armor wasn't quite that good. Still better than some.
DeleteIt was better than the British cruiser tanks of the time. As good as a Pzkfz III or early IV, way above the Italian stuff. Good for the time and against most of the enemies' weapons.
DeleteThe only gun the Italians had that had a decent chance of penetration was the 75mm on the Semovente. The 47mm on the M13/40s could penetrate side armor but not front armor unless a lucky hit on the vision slits.
The German short 7.5cm on the Mk IVs stood pretty much no chance of penetration, and had to rely on concussion damage unless at close range. The long 5.0cm had a reasonable chance at close to mid range against the front armor, but not a long range shot. The mid-length 5.0cm not on the front except at close range.
So, well, good enough.
Good enough to equip the Brits and turn the tide at Tobruk, taking the material advantage and training advantage away from the Germans and the good Italian troops.
Against later Mk IVs with the medium to long 7.5cm, yeah, a death trap. Same against the 8.8cm.
Okay, yeah, there's that. The cruiser tanks were not good tanks.
DeleteBut they were, the British cruiser tanks, very good looking.
DeleteI had a model of one as a kid, still love the way thy look.
DeleteCatching up, Sarge - good updates as usual. If they are in Benghazi (horrible memories now for a different reason), Tobruk should be coming up soon.
ReplyDeleteFor the record, I will note that I am gone for a mere week and somehow Juvat has injured himself, you have back problems, and Tuna is taking a vacation. It is like I cannot leave you all to yourselves for a minute...
That'll teach you to go on vacation. 😉
DeleteTrust me. I will be keeping a close eye on all of you for a while - as in "The Eye of Sauron" close.
Delete🤣🤣🤣
DeleteRead a book on the desert war.
ReplyDeleteI regret that the name escapes me. One thing I do remember is that the British had gotten a hold of a quantity of German 75mn AP rounds.
Their armorers took the projectiles from the German shells and used them on some of the British munitions.
This provided a better round than would have been otherwise available.
Paul J
The Brits were woefully lacking in decent AP guns and ammo. The introduction of the 6pdr (57mm) was a shock to the Germans as it could kill most of the German vehicles at the time. But the 6pdr didn't get introduced until after the tide was turned. At which time the Germans introduced the later uparmored Mk IVs and the Tiger 1. But by that time we were in the war with overwhelming artillery and air support.
DeleteThe Brits probably used the 75mm AP heads on 'captured' Italian 75mms . Though in Russia they captured enough 76.2mm anti-tank guns that they set aside a whole production line to produce AP and HE ammo for captured guns. And their AP was far superior to the Russian AP.
Paul - Nicholas Moran mentions that in his videos on the M3 Grant (two of them, one covering the outside of the tank, the other the inside). I also recall them swapping out the fuses on the Grant's 75 mm HE ammunition because they were using artillery fuses which depended on the round coming in nearly perpendicular to the ground. Someone discovered that the fuses from the French 75's HE rounds could be used as that gun fired on a flatter trajectory.
DeleteCaptured stuff is often useful.
Beans - Don't recall them using captured Italian AP projectiles, I thought they were German.
Deletemeant rearming Italian 75mm round with German AP ammo. I could be confused once in a while.
DeleteAh, copy. Confused is my way of life some days.
DeleteAnother excellent example of the wordsmith's art. Skillfully easing off the tension while at the same time building it back up.
ReplyDeleteEven better are the informed and intelligent comments.
Re the supplies to Uncle Joe, a most unpleasant supply run https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6454549/Stunning-photos-reveal-brutal-conditions-faced-sailors-protecting-WW2-Arctic-Convoys.html
As I recall, Lex's Dad made that run during the war. Nature made it tough enough, then throw in the U-Boats and the Luftwaffe!
DeleteJoe Lovell - If you have never read it, HMS Ulysses by Alastair MacLean gives a very good description of this run. The weather plays heavily in the book as an antagonist (MacLean himself had served on the run).
DeleteFor that matter, read damn near anything by him, a great storyteller!
Delete