"M10 Additional Armour " Topic
9 Posts
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Tango01 | 24 Nov 2017 12:18 p.m. PST |
"Major Berg, who you might remember from the Hellcat article, worked on the GMC M10 as well. The applique armour, the mounts for which are a distinguishing mark of this vehicle, were his idea…"
Main page link Amicalement Armand |
Lion in the Stars | 24 Nov 2017 4:53 p.m. PST |
I suppose the impertinent question is how many sets of applique/spaced armor got made and how many got used? |
Andy ONeill | 25 Nov 2017 3:13 a.m. PST |
Effectively, none. There's one single war memorial m10 with this stuff fitted and the consensus is that it was done post war. The mounts were omitted on late war vehicles, which is kind kind of a clue. There are some pictures showing plates attached to glacis and or turret front in the field. These are like the sherman mods simply cut from other vehicles. The m10 was never really going to be a tank and the whole idea of up armouring is a bit dodgy. |
Tango01 | 25 Nov 2017 11:13 a.m. PST |
Thanks!. Amicalement Armand |
Rudysnelson | 26 Nov 2017 11:50 a.m. PST |
So were M10 fielded with this armor that were part of the massive military aide programs of the post war and 1950s era. |
Mark 1 | 26 Nov 2017 12:56 p.m. PST |
So were M10 fielded with this armor that were part of the massive military aide programs of the post war and 1950s era. I don't believe ANY M10s were provided in the post war military aid programs. Could be wrong, but I am pretty confident on this point. Post-war aid programs did not focus on weapons that the US Army already considered obsolete by 1944. At least not most of the aid programs, which were created to support countries that the US considered strategically to be allies. There may well have been some "sell off the surplus" programs that included a few M10s. But these would not have been updated or modified vehicles, but rather just scrap that was diverted to second-line use. If and when M10s were updated in any way to be provided as military aid, the first update was turning the vehicle into an M36 (whether M36 or M36B2). But even there, almost all available (ie: not already worked to death) M10s had been converted by war's end. All available M10A1 hulls (which were training vehicles in the states) had been converted into M36s by the end of 1944. As more M36s were required, the inventory of un-issued M10s were converted into M36B2s. The bolts for attaching the add-on plates were dropped from the M10 hull and turret construction by about the second quarter of 1943, to my understanding. Early production hulls had already been in service for 1-2 years, and so were not considered economical for re-building into new vehicle types. The M36B2s were built on late-production M10 hulls from un-issued inventory, not old, used, battered M10s from front-line units. These M36B2s were the TDs provided in the military aid programs. Some M18s also were provided, but by then these were viewed more as light tanks / scouts than tank destroyers. Upgrading the gun from 3-inch to 90mm, so that the vehicle could deal more effectively with Panthers and Tigers during the closing months of the war, or T-34-85s and IS class tanks in the early cold war, was considered far more important than adding 14mm of armor so the vehicle was more effectively protected against 37mm to 50mm AT guns. Or so I understand. Wasn't there at the time. -Mark (aka: Mk 1) |
Rudysnelson | 26 Nov 2017 3:52 p.m. PST |
Mark, research says that in 1949, the Nationalist Chinesereceived a little over 50. They were said to be missing main guns, so they could have been used as other than TDS. One reference says that some were used in the 1948 Arab-Israeli war. Italy got some but I do not know how long they used them after the war. Poland, France units in the war used them. Britain used them for the Achellies. Russia got some too. Speculation to whether they were part of the US lend lease given to the Red Chinese or North Koreans. But as you said, I saw no evidence of them as part of aide programs. |
Andy ONeill | 27 Nov 2017 12:10 p.m. PST |
The additional armour was supposed to be installed for unspecified "special missions" and removed afterwards. I have no idea what these 37mm gun resistant missions would be. I think it's likely that the ( half inch ) armour was never put into production and only the prototypes made. Even in 43 I can't see defeating the 37mm atg impressing anyone. |
Mark 1 | 27 Nov 2017 1:41 p.m. PST |
RudyNelson: I don't know of the vehicles you have discovered. I have done a bit of searching for M10s in Taiwanese / Nationalist service, but so far have not found anything explicit on the matter. I'd be interested in seeing what you have found. It may well be that we are confusing multiple issues. My comment was specific to US post-war aid programs. But there were other paths by which US-made armored vehicles came into possession of various armies in the post-war era. Most notably, as the US Army down-sized, re-organized, and shipped troops and gear home, a large quantity of kit (of all sorts) in the various combat theaters was identified as surplus to requirements. As there was no identified need for it, there was no reason to pay to ship it to the US after the end of hostilities. In the case of AFVs, they were usually sold for scrap in the theater of operations. The equipment was usually de-milled (ie: MGs and radios were removed, and main gun breaches were torch-cut to be unusable). This could be a potential explanation for vehicles without main guns. For instance most of the U.S. armor used by Israel in the 1948 and 1956 conflicts came from scrap dealers. Some also came through brokers who bought it as surplus from other nations that had received armor from the US during the war, but were now both downsizing their own militaries and receiving modernized kit through US aid. In that timeframe Israel did not receive any aid directly from the US. Most of the materials were purchased by the Israelis from Eastern European or Italian dealers, and had to be re-built to become usable again. In the case of Taiwan there was more deliberate US aid to the Nationalist Chinese. So I suppose it is possible that kit which was considered obsolete by US standards was provided, and I could be easily convinced by explicit info on what/where/when. But my going-in assumption is that the costs of shipping from Europe to China would out-weigh the economies of using surplus obsolete gear -- it would cost no more to ship M36s, and the conversion program was already in place to turn running M10 hulls in US Army inventories into M36B2s. So if there were in fact M10s in Taiwanese service, I would expect that they came there through any of 3 different paths: 1) Provided during the war to the Nationalist forces. This makes some sense, as the dearth of modern Japanese armor caused a lot of kit that was considered obsolete in ETO to go to the Far East, or 2) Obtained through scrap dealers in de-milled condition, or 3) Obtained from another nation which received M10s from the US during the war. Could be wrong on this, and would find it interesting to see how they did come in to Taiwanese service. -Mark (aka: Mk 1) |
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