If that's not american i don't know what is

And this is why the grant was superior

The only disappointment i have is that they're not M2 Brownings.

@@kekkoinen Oddly enough the first post WW2 tank the Soviets designed they also decided to mount as many machineguns on it as they possibly could.

@@bigblue6917 but then decided to get rid of all that and install a vodka mini bar.

A 2 pounder is 40mm, a 6 pounder is 57mm. Imperial logic probably makes sense, but in an alternate universe.

Hahaha I did notice this! In field modifications making me look stupid…

​@@RedWrenchFilms American doctrine at the time was to cover their tanks with as many machine guns as possible, because.... reasons. The original M3 was even supposed to have two in the hull. I think they were still stuck on the idea of using them as infantry tanks or something. It was however evident to the British that having three machine guns for use against infantry were never going to get used and just took up valuable space and added weight. The M3 light tank actually had more machine guns than crew. There was however a desire for an anti-aircraft capability... which also proved to be completely ineffective because it is very difficult to shoot down a fighter-bomber that is coming right at you. It also turned out to be the case that fighter bombers were fairy ineffective against tanks, and the safest place to be was inside the tank behind its armour, not on the outside operating a machine gun. It was decided that there might be more possibility of shooting down enemy aircraft if tracer rounds were used. This didn't actually increase the hit rate by much, but did have a psychological effect. It turns out that German and Italian pilots didn't even know they were being shot at until the British started using tracer. So anti-aircraft guns suddenly became very effective, not because they shot down more aircraft, but once pilots saw lines of tracer coming at them, they were far less cocky and would keep a greater distance making them less effective. So a copula machine-gun turret doesn't make much sense, while an anti-aircraft mount does and was a feature adopted on most American built tanks, all of which, from this period, were influenced by Commonwealth combat experience. Another fun fact, it was the confusion caused by the Americans have an M3 light tank and two different M3 mediums tanks, that lead to the British naming them after Civil War Generals. Yes, the British named America's tanks.

Everyone experienced this getting mauled by AT guns. Lindybeige has a video how 21 6 pounders took on 100 panzers and won. You are right about the 75. After it was introduced the Germans had to develop a dedicated AT only carriage for the 88. The dual purpose AT/AA could be shelled into oblivion. At the risk of a glaring oversimplification the strategy is almost rock scissors paper with tanks taking on infantry, infantry trumping guns and guns dominating armour. Each branch has its mission.

Thanks for the added Info.

Having a Vet buddy who lived this and delt with AP and HE problems. My buddy told me the AP was "Plentiful" and HE was very Limited, so he "Learned!" to Shoot AP a little Low and Turn the EARTH into a Weapon of Shot and spall on relatively soft targets saving the HE for the "Right Time?" He Survived and was a 6'2" tanker.

I read one account that suggested the ratio might even be higher. The standard tactic for the Germans was a caterpillar movement. The anti-tank guns would be set up in a position to provide overwatch while the tanks would move forward to the next favourable piece of ground and hold it until the anti-tank guns could move forward and get set up so the process could be repeated. If the tanks came under fire while on the move they'd fire their guns but, lacking stabilizers, they were expected to miss. They did provide the distraction so that anti-tank guns, firing from stable prepared positions, could fire on the enemy with less chance of being spotted and coming under return fire. The result was a lot of allied tanks were reported as being destroyed by the tanks when they'd actually been killed by the covering guns.

@@silverjohn6037 It was a common German tactic to uses their tanks as bait to lure British tanks onto their anti-tank gun positions. Rommel, by way of code breaking, was well aware of British battle plans in advance and so could set traps. Thats how he got his nickname "Desert Fox".

lol

This was always a problem, in the pre-CGI era. If it was not for the Yugoslavians maintaining large inventories of Shermans and Sherman derivatives long past their prime, there would be no WWII tanks in films, besides T-34s, at all. "Tobruk" used M47 tanks for all nations' AFVs. "A Bridge too Far" used early Leopard tanks with flat plates to (poorly) disguise their cast turrets. As "Kelly's Heroes" only ever had one in the shot at any time, they could get away with a single mock up of a Tiger. A film out of the former USSR whose name escapes me needed an entire formation of German tanks, so they added sheet metal to give T-34 turrets the correct shape. If you thought substitutes for German tanks were bad, it was Imperial Japanese aircraft that suffered most, as few, if any, Imperial Japanese aircraft survived in presentable, let alone flyable, condition. Every Japanese aircraft was played by a military training aircraft, like the 'Texan".

It was actually am M7 Priest self propelled gun.

Yes I remember that. As I knew the difference, it annoyed me too.

@@PitFriend1 Good to know. Regardless, the effect is similar to riding up on a cow and calling it a Lipizzaner stallion.

Well, it makes sense once you consider Tigers are extremely rare, extremely heavy, and much more complex. It's bothersome because, well, when you want to see a Tiger, you want to see a Tiger, and almost every other tank of the era looks like scrap metal in comparison. Even went tank technology surpassed the Tiger's square body, it had already cemented itself in as a legend. "Sir, our tanks can't defeat our enemy's armor!" "What can we do? The only gun we have is just this giant anti aircraft gun!" "Good idea sir!" :) Then there are such stories like from eastern front where, in early service, a Tiger withstood a barrage from soviet guns for, I think, over 2 hours, and was able to retreat under its own power. No tank can match the mystique around the Tiger.

The Australians didn’t use the Lee or Grant in South East Asia - they were left in Australia for training. The Australian army’s preferred tank was the Matilda II - because it had armor that could shrug off all the Japanese Army antitank guns and could punch holes in all the Japanese tanks with its 40mm cannon without difficulty.

The Australians didn’t use the Lee or Grant in South East Asia - they were left in Australia for training. The Australian army’s preferred tank was the Matilda II - because it had armor that could shrug off all the Japanese Army antitank guns and could punch holes in all the Japanese tanks with its 40mm cannon without difficulty.

@@allangibson8494 although many of the Matilda tanks deployed by the Aussies had the 2pdr replaced with the 3" CS gun, instead. At the School of Armour in Puckapunyal (near Seymour in my home state of Victoria), there is an example of every type of Matilda that Aussies used, including the flamethrower variant and the "hedgehog", with its rear deck-mounted bank of spigot mortars

The British Grants would have had a tea point there.

The 37mm canister round was a significant advantage in the Pacific. Given how close combat often was, the 37mm canister shell could be used relatively close to friendly troops. It's relatively small size and weight meant that they could carry lots of it and thus afford to use it against anything suspicious.

@@Crosshair84 Very true. US 37 mm gun M1 towed anti-tank gun was used extensively in the Pacific. A few canister rounds let loose into a banzai charge created a hell of a mess.

Many American sons and grandsons of Confederate veterans hated the name 'Sherman' and insisted it be called by its official US Army designation.😆

@@AnthonyEvelyn No doubt. Southerners of that era produced many die hard Confederates, not to mention pig headed bigots' under the guise of preserving "Southern Traditions!". I guess they could have always requested to be downgraded to crew the more advanced Light M3 version, the Stuart, as enlisted didn't have a whole lot of choice in those matters. 😁

@@AnthonyEvelyn Well screw them, they lost.

@@AnthonyEvelyn oh no did the poor little slavery lovers get their feelings hurt

Still used in Burma to the end of the war.

The canal defense lights were high powered lamps that used a high speed shutter to produce a strobe light effect that affected the defenders and the attackers. Those were pulled out of action but still useful for nighttime illumination of bridges and rail lines being repaired.

Thanks Neil!

I have read in some sources that very limited amounts of 6 pdr HE were shipped to Africa. Something to look into. 37mm cannister had a bad habit of scattering shot if handled roughly when moving from stowage to the gun. I have seen photos from Guadalcanal of damaged cannister rounds.

@@wacojones8062 My understanding is pre-war British tank policy. The tank's main gun was to combat other vehicles. Anti-personnel work was done by the machine guns. The support tanks were used to engage non-armor but fortified targets. Thus tanks only or mostly carried just AP rounds. This was valid pre-war when anti-guns had limited range, not much greater than machine guns. During the war though, the anti-guns grossly out ranged the MGs, making this doctrine obsolete. The tanks had to close before their MGs were useful while in full range of the AT guns. Doctrine is a bitch to change. When the British used Am tanks, a more feasible mix of rounds was carried.

It was always known that it was a stopgap. The M4 was the tank the US Army wanted, but until they could be put into production we needed something else. The M3, for all its obvious flaws, was the best western allied tank available in the summer of 1942.

Look up " The unipolar madmen leading us to Hell " on yT. Insightful and hypocrisy.......

@@cosmoray9750 Looks like some LibRight bullshit.

Early M4 Shermans actually had those dual .30 cals as well! But they were also soon deleted.

@@RedWrenchFilms As did early M3 Stuarts. In sponsons on each side of the cab. But their only use would be for ''Playing Chicken'' with Enemy Vehicles on a 2-lane road. A tactical situation that rarely presented itself in real-world combat.

It was thought that those fixed guns would be useful for suppressing fire on enemy positions during an assault.

@@petesheppard1709 The problem was they couldn’t be pointed at the opposition with any accuracy as they were bolted to the tank hull. The Australian AC2 Sentinel had a similar concept but the water cooled Vickers could be aimed by the co-driver.

@@allangibson8494 They were controlled by the driver by pointing the tank at the intended target. As we all know, the idea didn't pan out, though the Soviets also tried it in the T-54.

@CipiRipi00 I was mostly referring to British tank development as a whole

Semovente was generally a term for self propelled guns including some similar to the Stug, not just truck mounted artillery.

@@youtubemodsaresnowflakelef7692 I see the confusion that sentence could make, but I meant the M series tanks were followed by actual truck mounted artillery (such as the Lancia ro 100/17 or Lancia ro 90/53) or the Semovente (specifically the 75/18).

@@OneLastEcho fair enough

@CipiRipi00 The Murricans had to learn the hard way at Kasserine Pass and the aftermath, and they were extremely lucky that by this point the Heeresgruppe Afrika (Army Group Africa, by this point, not "Afrika Korps" it was only that initially with two UNDERSTRENGHT divisions, that sent the vastly superior Brits running, but then became Panzerarmee Afrika and finally Armygroup Africa) was only a mere shadow of what it had been, was barely getting supplies anymore & simply didn't have the strenght, supplies/logistics etc to follow up on their success. Or they would've learned an even harder lesson, and a much more costly one. But the Brits were oven slower learners, and it took them getting swept off the continent not once but TWICE + multiple defeats in Africa and Asia, to finally learn theirs. Without all the weaponry shoved up their bungholes by the Murricans, they probably would've learned WAY too late.

Lee represented tank warfare better than Grant. The tank and Lee stood for mobility and tactical initiative.

@@tims2501 but grant out maneuvered lee in the end…

@@tims2501 you know what the Grant, the Union, and the U.S.A. Represents? More quality stuff beats less stuff.

@@peterni2234 "Tons more serviceable stuff beats a tiny drip of quality stuff." There, fixed it for ya! 😁

Both were great generals. Lee was a superior tactician. But grant understood logistics. Lee almost joined the union if I'm not mistaken. It was his home state that decided the internal conflict.

I'm just shocked that they didn't stop for a cup of tea

At a time like that the Commander probably passed gas and the guys in the hull who couldn't see what was going on were screaming "Plug Him UP!"

"A moving foxhole attracks th'eye." - Bill Mauldin's Willie and Joe, on being infantry vs. tankers. ='[.]'=

They weren't what anyone really wanted, and they were clumsy, inelegant machines that were quickly and easily improved upon. But they were there when they were needed, and they remained useful up to the very end of the war. The Japanese and Italians were never capable of countering them, and even the Soviets found use for them in the very different circumstances of the Eastern Front (in the Arctic particularly). To tweak a famous quote: "Better to be on hand with ten Grants/Lees, then be absent with ten thousand Shermans".

Thank you so much for your comment Bert! Hopefully will see you in the next one.

Thanks Phil it means a lot :)

Mark Felton presents…

That would be ration tinned cheese aka ‘cheese possesed’ or ‘tinned soap’.

@@RedWrenchFilms that dude cracks me up sometimes lol!

Don't forget the cup of tea. He was English, so he'd have needed to stop halfway through, and have a brew.

And since this is before Boiling Vessels, there is a chance that that’d get shot up while making the tea.

They didn't mount the big gun in the rotating turret because they where still making the factory machines that could make turrets large and strong enough to withstand the recoil

It seems to a SP howitzer with a AT gun in a turret on top. 37mm was a common size for a AT gun leading into WW2 using AP projectiles.

I've read in a number of different sources that at the time they were producing the Lee/Grant, there was some problem with making a turret large enough to mount a 75mm gun, and that's why they went with a sponson mounted gun instead. But, none of those sources ever elaborated on exactly what that problem was. So, either they lacked the facilities to make such large castings, they lacked the machine tools to cut a turret ring of the required size or perhaps both. Of the two, it strikes me that cutting the turret ring was more likely the problem, but that's just a guess.

@@silentotto5099 I know the French two-man tank had a rotating turret but it only had a 37 mm gun in it. I think mounting the 75mm gun was also a big problem trying to fit it into the turret

@@rudyyarbrough5122 I suppose designing and manufacturing a suitable mounting for the gun could have been the problem too. I've looked around the net on numerous times over the years trying to find the definitive answer, but so far I've been unable to find out for sure.

Aw cheers Pete I appreciate it

I think he used an M3 Grant actually! The tank, “Monty”, is on display at the Imperial War Museum I think?

@@RedWrenchFilms Yes, search IWM M3A5 General Grant II (Monty's)

Thanks for watching!

Thanks Salame!

Thanks Adam!

Thank you so much!

Thanks Mike!

Thanks!

Such a nice comment, thanks so much.

Thanks!

Thank you very much for the kind words - hope you’ll stick around for any new videos!

I’m glad you enjoyed Robert! I did a relatively short video on the “M26 Jumbo” a few weeks ago and should’ve included this!

@@RedWrenchFilms I will look for it. Thank You again

@@RedWrenchFilms I just hope they don't name a tank "The Westmoreland". Thanks Again

You know what. Canada should name their tanks american generals. While america Canadian generals

The Black Prince, Edward, was the eldest son of Edward III, so he would have been Edward IV if he kept his name.

@@watcherzero5256 Thanks! His death shows why you shouldn't operate a ship while drunk!!!

@@watcherzero5256 I believe he drowned in what is called the White Ship Disaster....

@@timengineman2nd714 He died in 1376 after suffering a 10 year illness, it was recorded at the time as Dysentery but may to modern medicine have been more likely to be Malaria, Typhoid or bowel disease. The White Ship disaster was in 1120.

@@timengineman2nd714 The one who died in the White Ship disaster was William Adelin who was William the III or IV Duke of Normandy depending on the scholar and would have been if he lived William the III of England.

Thanks 😊

Thanks Clive

If i had to guess, the problem with it might have been that unlike most turretless tank destroyers, the M3s gun was mounted in the bottom half of the tank, so it could get blocked by terrain when more than half of the tank was still visible.

The stug was intended as a defensive vehicle. It wasn't a "tank" as such. It was used as mobile artillery and as an anti tank weapon. It wasn't designed for combat over open ground. It's very low silhouette made it easy to conceal and its high powered gun made it a killer. Shortages of materials in late war Germany meant that tank manufacture was at a premium and you could build three stug's for every tiger. Ironically it probably wouldn't have been much use in the desert where the M3 initially did so well.

@@fus149hammer5 I don't see why a stug would do worse in the desert than something like a panzer 4. A stug would be horrible at urban combat due to the lack of a turret, but lacking a turret doesn't put you at any more of a disadvantage in an open area. Since oyu can easily see where the enemy is, so you can just face them, and your lack of turret is no longer an issue.

@@jojomaster7675 If you are in the middle of a tank battle in the Western Desert with two hundred tanks kicking up a sandstorm in every direction you don't have the luxury of time to pivot your tank round to take aim at a moving target. You need a turret you can traverse quickly over a wide arc to attack targets of opportunity.

@@davidjones332 Seems oyu don't understand how battles are fought in the desert. There aren't "tanks every direction". Unless you've been ambushed and are surrounded, enemy tanks are likely going to be in one direction, which should be your front. And since it's an open desert with huge visibillity, tank battles are going to be fought over distances of multiple kms. So in the end, you should be able to position yourself in such a way to make all the enemies you're engaging stay inside your gun's firing arch. And it's very likely that if the enemies are moving, they're gona be moving towards or away from you, not side to side. So that likely won't be a huge factor either.

Thank you!

Thanks Steve!

No problem, as long as it's named after a Union Army General... as it SHOULD

Thank you so much 😊 I’m glad you enjoyed - any feedback?

@@RedWrenchFilms no active feedback, but I do appreciate the lack of music. It's informational, clean, and engaging. being a drachinifel fan I'm probably biased

@@m.streicher8286 haha thank you - the thing is there is actually music on this one it’s just too quiet to hear! The next video will have louder music so I’d love to hear what you think when it comes out tomorrow.

Thanks David!

Cheers William!

Thank you Mr Jelly B!

Thank you so much Nigel it means a lot

Thanks so much Michael!

Thanks Paul!

IIRC, there were Tiger I's in Africa in 43. Not many.

And without the Lee there could be no Grant

@@rexblade504 True

My pleasure Alfred! Glad you enjoyed

Inside the Chieftain's Hatch: M3 Grant. Part 1 kzfaq.info/get/bejne/iK-af9dy2ZfeeX0.html

Nope. It absolutely was a stopgap. The M4 was the tank the US Army wanted, with a 75mm in a turret. They settled for the M3 explicitly as a stopgap until the M4 could get into production. It was difficult to produce that big cast turret for the M4. That was the bottleneck. The US and USSR led the way in fielding medium tanks with dual purpose guns (the T-34 and the M4 and, to a lesser extent, even the M3) Everyone else followed.