Yeah, a stick grenade or MK-108 canon down the top.
Hi all.
Dose any one have a picture of the M10 Gun sight.
I think it was called [M.71 D, 5X mag / 13 degree FOV].
Any info on this would be excellant.
cheers Del.
I’ve definitly seen that on a web site, but absolutely cant recall the address. Sorry, get searching.
Most tanks (and those vunerable) had infantry support as well as other vehicles. It would be rare a tank destroyer like this would be such an easy kill. :mrgreen:
Actually, not as rare as you might think.
By late in the Normandy campaign, tank destroyers were being (finally, correctly) used as mobile anti-tank guns to screen infantry in place of towed anti-tank guns, whereas previously the field manual --that was fundamentally flawed and quickly exposed as unrealistic and unworkable in actual combat-- held that TDs were to be used as an autonomous mobile reserve to quickly counter armor breakthroughs along the lines. A role that made them largely useless in practice as once the Germans began breaking through, the tank destroyers were easy pickings in direct combat without infantry support and largely operating with little or no coordination with other combat arms and could rarely check the enemy’s momentum…
Tank destroyers were even used as a close support assault guns in the hedgerow fighting. Even by the end of the North African campaign, they were being used as company level indirect fire artillery, and that role gradually morphed into direct fire support as the tank destroyer battalions were essentially dissolved into support elements for infantry units as small as platoon level by Normandy. A role considered contrary to their assigned, previously conceived mission and contrary to their training which basically was devoid or combined arms theory and the tank destroyer crews were trained to almost see themselves as self-contained units independent from the rest of the army.
I think the bigger threat than grenades were snipers picking off the crewman exposed by the open tops though. The paradox is that the tank destroyers had to work closely with the infantry to protect themselves from enemy infantry, but they were more exposed and thus were more vulnerable than tanks because of the proximity of enemy infantry…
That’s just what I said, without all the extra fancy words! :roll:
The TD’s (meaning all of them) were not meant to be used against enemy infantry in an attack role, they were supposed to attack and take out enemy armor by surprise and heavy numbers if possible. They do not even have a hull mounted machinegun for defense against infantry, they were never supposed to be that close to them(some TD units did mount sockets on the turret on either side of the gun breech to mount anti personel MGs after this became a problem). So the worries were not about the possiblity of grenades but the need for a heavy gunned, fast, armored vehicle in the TD role. I think that the open top turret was because of the size of the naval AA gun used in the mount, it could not be worked in an enclosed turret, plus the open top provided the best observation platform. The open tops did not pose much of a problem until the TDs were later engaged in street fighting and the the Germans could shoot down into the open turrets. Statisically there were much lighter casualty rates in the TD battalions (mobile) than tank equipped units.
The TD doctrine was to have half the force be towed and the other half self-propelled, this mistake in judgement became blazingly clear when the towed TD units would get over run and lose their guns, many times over. The armor of an M10 was not that thick and it had a high sillouette but it was not meant to stand toe to toe with a Panzer and slug it out, but neither was the M4. Sometimes that happened and the US AFV usually lost that fight.
The M10 did start out with a diesel engine but those were left stateside for training and the Ford gas powered ones were used in combat. No diesel engined M10’s ever saw combat in WWII, as far as I know.
From “The Tank Killers” “A History of America’'s WWII Tank Destroyer Force” by Harry Yeide:
“FM 18-5 indicated that tank destroyer battalians would operate as mobile reserve and not as part of the front-line defense.” Tank destroyer units are employed offensively in large numbers,by rapid movement, and by surprise.
And as an added tidbit, Audie Murphy got his MOH firing the rear mounted .50 cal at attacking infantry on an M10 that was on fire…
No. More like Wespe : a Panzerjaeger.
Regards, Uyraell.
Got to disagree here. The “Wespe” (Leichte Feldhaubitze 18/2 auf Fahrgestell PzKpfw II, Sd.Kfz. 124) was an armoured artillery vehicle.
I apologise:
Yes, you are correct: Wespe was. Hummel, was the artillery variant of the Pz3/4 hybrid chassis.
Though, in honesty, I should have used Marder or Nashorn as a more direct comparison, as both of those are Panzerjaegers of the class I had in mind for comparison to the M10.
Respectful Regards, Uyraell.
why was this tank equipped with an open-topped turret?
I would say, as purely a guess, so the crew could fire at incoming infantry since the tank itself didn’t have a supplementary machine gun. Though I’m sure others will tell you the actual reason.
American policy regarded Tank Destroyers as offshoots of the Gun Motor Carriages.
As such, since GMC’s (Brits would name them Self-Propelled Guns) were assigned support roles, open-topped turrets were considered sufficient protection.
As Nickdfresh says earlier in this thread, putting an enclosed roof over the M36 Jackson for example would have turned it into a reasonably good tank, which role it came to be used in, in any case. Granted, some modification of the main armament mounting may be necessary (as had been done in the case of the Churchill NA75 for example), but it would not have constituted a great problem, and could easily have been accomplished at relatively little cost.
The basic reason for the open turret comes down to Doctrine not regarding a fully enclosed turret as being either necessary or desirable for a Tank Destroyer vehicle.
While this can perhaps be excused in the case of the M18 Hellcat, there is much less validity for an open turret in the case of the M10, Achilles (M10 equipped with Brit 17pdr), or M36.
Certainly, in the case of the M36 a roofed version could easily have supplimented the M26 which was initially available only in small numbers. But in mentioning that, we get back into the M26 Thread, which details the often acrimonious debates between Ordinance, Ground Command, and Armoured Command regarding the employ of the 75, 76, and 90mm main guns.
Regards, Uyraell.
The short answer: Because it wasn’t a “tank.” It was a “tank destroyer,” and it had limitations much like the German Stugs and Jagdpanzers…
The open top was meant for observation by the crew as it was believed an enclosed turret was not needed because these vehicles would THEORETICALLY rarely encounter enemy infantry. This became a problem when TDs were used as infantry support assault guns in Normandy…
Incidentally, the M-36 Slugger did have an enclosed top, it had a flip top armored lid that could button down the turret almost making it effectively a heavy tank…
pictures are very good
It enabled them to fit a larger gun in the turret without increasing the height.
As far as I know, the main reason for the open turred was that it gave the crew a better view of the battle field.
Later during the war, the M-36 Jackson and M-10’s were given a thin armoured cover, with large hatches. In my opinion, the crew would be more vurnable to machine gun fire and artillery, then to handgranates.
As said before, these vehicles were supposed to find and destroy enemy tanks, not infantry. And if they met German infantry, these would flee away if they didn’t have a Panzerfaust to shoot at it. A regular German soldier would mostly not see that the tank was open, or know this… To a regular German, the M-10 must have been like a Sherman. It takes a lot of courage to run up to a tank to trough a granate in, and these vehicles would usualy be supported by infantry, so it wouldn’t even be possible, while a panzerfaust could be fired from a little further away.
There were 3 tank destroyers in the ETO in 1944-45
The M-18 Hellcat with a 76mm canon,
The M-36 Jackson with a 90mm canon and,
The M-10 with a 3’’ (±76mm) canon.
There were two types of the M-10, the M-10 and the M-10 A1.
The M-10 was based on the M4A2 Sherman, while the M-10 A1 was based on the M4A3. Also, the A-1 had a larger turred, and better counter weights, in the shape of duckbills.
The British updated their M-10 A1’s with the 17 pounder anty tank gun, called Achilles, and from june '44, these were replasing the regular M-10’s in commonwealth service, aldough not all were replased.
Cheers,
Joppe
If you read my preceding posts in this thread, the TD crews biggest problem, when they were inevitably used as assault guns in Normandy during the hedgerow fighting, were German snipers…
In British use the M10’s were attached as needed to units
When attached to Infantry tank units in the attack they tended to be used for long range sniping (although on occasion they were caught up in close in fighting) while the I tanks advanced with the infantry
Ofcource, you are right…
I however was more pointing to the anti tank point of view, rather then to anti personel. Indeed, for tankers, especialy commanders, and TD crews, the German snipers were a real threat.
In British armoured Divisions, an anti tank regiment usualy had two batteries with M-10/Achilles’, and two with towed 17 pounders. They were widely used to cover the flanks of an advance. The towed batteries usualy were assighend to the Infantery brigade, the self probelled batteries to the Armoured brigade.
Atleast some British and canadian Infantry divisions also had M-10’s/Achilles’, but I am not sure if every Infantery division had these on hand. I do know that later in the war, the 15th Scottish and 43th Wessex Infantry divisions had some Archers. These were 17 pounders fitter rearwards on a Valentine tank chassis…
Cheers,
Joppe