Night view of an M10 Tank Destroyer firing on enemy positions in the area of Mount Belvedere, Province of Bologna, Italy, 20 February 1945.(rudeerude)
Hello Stara.
It’s a little early in the morning here and I just had my first coffee, and I too am just getting over some sort of bug. But here is what I was recalling, imperfectly:
"The thirty-six three-inch guns mounted on (LTC James P.) Barney’s M-10s equaled the number of tubes found in three field artillery battalions. Moreover, the three-inch weapons complemented the 105-mm howitzers nicely. They could reach out to fourteen thousand yards-four thousand yards farther than the 105-mm.[35] The three-inch weapon was very accurate, and its shell arrived on target with little warning. The burst radius of the three-inch shell was about equal to that of the 105-mm, but its instantaneous burst reduced the amount of cratering sustained by roads in the path of friendly forces. Moreover, three-inch rounds were cheaper and, being smaller, easier to transport than 105-mm shells. These qualities made the three-inch tank destroyer gun ideal for long-range harassment and interdiction, freeing the artillery’s howitzers for close-range missions requiring heavier metal.[36]"
–Dr. Christopher R. Gabel
From: "Seek, Strike, and Destroy: U.S. Army Tank Destroyer Doctrine in World War" (pg. 40, 3rd para.)
Gabel goes on to list both the advantages and disadvantages of using TD’s in an SPG role. The disadvantages were of course that the 76mm gun tubes tended to wear out faster in a sustained, indirect fire role and that this mission interfered with TD training. But it boosted morale of TD crewmen and served to make them an effective contributor integrating them into the combined arms concept rather than isolating them from it as the TD Doctrine seems to have initially…