Post by volkssturm on Jan 14, 2020 0:09:34 GMT -5
Just a little exercise in Monday Morning Quarterbacking, or How It Shoulda Been. One of my favorite quirky weird tanks is the US M2 Medium. It's one of those things that makes you wonder what Ordnance was thinking, and a reminder of how out of touch our military thinkers were in the prewar years. The M2 was basically an armored, rolling machinegun nest. It had two fixed .30 Brownings mounted low in the glacis and fired by the driver (the M3 and early M4 Shermans also had these, though they were usually removed and the feature was removed from production Shermans). The M2 also had flexible .30 Browning in each corner of the hull. Two more .30's were later added to mounts on the sides of the turret for AA use. Plans were for the M2 to go into combat with 12,000 rounds of .30 ammo. It also mounted the 37mm cannon in the turret but the concept was tha the M2 would exploit breakthrough by shooting up enemy trenches and rear areas.
tinyurl.com/re49pq5
The design was approved and a contract to produce 100 a month for a total of 1,000 was signed in August 1940. Meanwhile, the Germans had overrun France and on second thought, hey, this design is obsolete. So the contract was rewritten for the M3 Medium tank (still being designed) and only 112 M2s were actually produced, 94 of them being a slightly improved M2A1. The M3 medium finally went into production a year later. The M3 was based heavily on the M2 but with the sponson mounted 75mm gun. The M2s were used for training in the US. I maintain, with my 20-20 hindsight and knowledge of how the war played out, that cancelling the M2 was a mistake. Was the M2 obsolete by European standards? Yes. But were the European combatants using obsolete tanks? Yes. And the British were fighting a full on tank war in North Africa, which included PZKW I's and II's, early PZKW III's, the Italians' horrible tanks, British Mk VI light tanks, A9 and A10 cruisers.
Consider the strengths of the M2. It had the suspension, drive train and engine used on the M3 and the M4. It was very reliable, something many British tanks were not. The M3 37mm gun was roughly equal to the 2 pounder the British used, but had the advantage of an HE round which the 2 pounder did not. In 1940-41 the 37mm was still a capable anti-armor gun against all but the latest German tanks with increased frontal armor, and could take out any tank from the side or rear. The M2's armor thickness was equal to or better than that on the PZKW III up to the G model, and better than the British cruiser tanks or any Italian tank. The sloping glacis on the M2 was an improvement on the vertical surfaces common to most tanks of the time. Speed and range of the M2 was comparable to the PZKW III. The biggest drawback of the M2 would have been its excessive height, something the M3 and M4 also had. My contention is that an M2 stripped of the excess MG's and reduced crew would have been competitive in the desert battles of 1941.
What if production of the M2 had gone ahead, pending the approval of the M3. By mid-Summer 1941 the US would have had 1,000 M2A1's on hand. Improvements would probably have been incorporated as troops began raining with them. In real life the US began supplying the British with tanks beginning in mid-1941. The only tanks we had available in numbers were the M3 Light tanks. By Operation Crusader in November 1941 the British had deployed 300 M3 Lights, using them to make up for the shortage of cruiser tanks. The M3's were well liked because they were reliable and fast, but they were under armored and had a relatively short range, about 75 miles. The M2 Medium had a range of 130 miles. So, my premise is that if the M2 had gone into production, the US would have had sufficient quantities, with the M3 about to go into production, to ship the British M2's instead of M3 Lights, and still had sufficient tanks in the US for training. Would it have made a difference in the outcome of the North African campaign? Maybe, maybe not. But it certainly wouldn't have hurt.
Just my thoughts. Your opinion may vary.
tinyurl.com/re49pq5
The design was approved and a contract to produce 100 a month for a total of 1,000 was signed in August 1940. Meanwhile, the Germans had overrun France and on second thought, hey, this design is obsolete. So the contract was rewritten for the M3 Medium tank (still being designed) and only 112 M2s were actually produced, 94 of them being a slightly improved M2A1. The M3 medium finally went into production a year later. The M3 was based heavily on the M2 but with the sponson mounted 75mm gun. The M2s were used for training in the US. I maintain, with my 20-20 hindsight and knowledge of how the war played out, that cancelling the M2 was a mistake. Was the M2 obsolete by European standards? Yes. But were the European combatants using obsolete tanks? Yes. And the British were fighting a full on tank war in North Africa, which included PZKW I's and II's, early PZKW III's, the Italians' horrible tanks, British Mk VI light tanks, A9 and A10 cruisers.
Consider the strengths of the M2. It had the suspension, drive train and engine used on the M3 and the M4. It was very reliable, something many British tanks were not. The M3 37mm gun was roughly equal to the 2 pounder the British used, but had the advantage of an HE round which the 2 pounder did not. In 1940-41 the 37mm was still a capable anti-armor gun against all but the latest German tanks with increased frontal armor, and could take out any tank from the side or rear. The M2's armor thickness was equal to or better than that on the PZKW III up to the G model, and better than the British cruiser tanks or any Italian tank. The sloping glacis on the M2 was an improvement on the vertical surfaces common to most tanks of the time. Speed and range of the M2 was comparable to the PZKW III. The biggest drawback of the M2 would have been its excessive height, something the M3 and M4 also had. My contention is that an M2 stripped of the excess MG's and reduced crew would have been competitive in the desert battles of 1941.
What if production of the M2 had gone ahead, pending the approval of the M3. By mid-Summer 1941 the US would have had 1,000 M2A1's on hand. Improvements would probably have been incorporated as troops began raining with them. In real life the US began supplying the British with tanks beginning in mid-1941. The only tanks we had available in numbers were the M3 Light tanks. By Operation Crusader in November 1941 the British had deployed 300 M3 Lights, using them to make up for the shortage of cruiser tanks. The M3's were well liked because they were reliable and fast, but they were under armored and had a relatively short range, about 75 miles. The M2 Medium had a range of 130 miles. So, my premise is that if the M2 had gone into production, the US would have had sufficient quantities, with the M3 about to go into production, to ship the British M2's instead of M3 Lights, and still had sufficient tanks in the US for training. Would it have made a difference in the outcome of the North African campaign? Maybe, maybe not. But it certainly wouldn't have hurt.
Just my thoughts. Your opinion may vary.
