"Superheavy tank, American style" Topic

"During the years of WWII, American industry made excellent light and medium tanks. SPGs built on their chassis were no less excellent. The only field where American engineers encountered misfortune was the development of heavy tanks. Although the Heavy Tank M6 was built, and even entered service, it was quickly left behind. The tank turned out to be too heavy and insufficiently mobile, without a place in American tank doctrine. Nevertheless, work on American heavy tanks never stopped, and projects like the Chrysler K kept coming.

Superheavy tank, American style

Aside from the Ordnance Department and its composite offices, responsible for tank development, armoured vehicles were designed by private companies in the US. The most successful was Marmon-Herrington, the only company who managed to put several of its tanks into mass production. Mostly, these companies worked on light and medium tanks, but, according to correspondence with the Red Army GABTU, at least one company tried its luck with heavies. Of course, its chances of success were negligible, but such a risk often paid off in time of war.

On January 3rd, 1942, the People's Commissariat of Defense received a report from the manager of American department, Zarubin. It informed of negotiations in the fall of 1942 with Anatoliy Shelkin, a representative of the Leake Engineering Company, which, according to Shelkin, developed a large variety of heavy artillery tractors. An experimental prototype of one of these vehicles was shown to Amtorg representatives…"

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Amicalement
Armand

Ogre Mk 1 ;)

A 5th Wheel Tank. How awesome is that?

Looks like an accident waiting to happen … even before it gets to the battlefield …

Ogre Mk 1

I say nothing.

I see nothing.

I know nothing … NOTHING!

-Mark
(aka: Ogre)

A tractor trailer tank… now all I'm hearing is -

"Pig Pen, this here's the Rubber Duck. And I'm about to put the hammer down."

American heavy tank development was always handicapped by the fact that they would be built over here but somehow needed to be transported 'over there'. High-ranking generals like Leslie McNair were obsessed with keeping the shipping requirements of American units to the least possible.

We had this discussion here before I remember. I'm a firm believer that the US could of had the M26 sooner on the battlefield than it was. And that was as much to higher ups being concerned about transport/unloading and didn't think it was needed. That is why it wasn't deployed earlier … And probably some other things as well. Including US Armor doctrine influence, etc.

Would a better MBT could have brought the war in the ETO over sooner ? Maybe ? But more importantly, could it have saved some tank crews and reduce loses ? I'd say yes, but we'll just have to leave that up to another "what if" …

As noted, overseas transport was a logistical priority.
They went so far as to produce a paper comparing firepower ratios of the different sizes of equipment.
It should be noted how effective the Pershing battalions were once they were fielded.

Yes, AFAIK, the M26 was "better" in a tank vs. tank engagement generally than anything else in the US Armor inventory. But from a logistical standpoint, 2-3 M4s could be shipped for one M26, IIRC. Hopefully some of those M4s were packing 76mms …

One heavy tank at the Patton museum at Fort Knox had a crew of 6. I wonder how many this one had?

You mean the M6, with a bow mounted 37mm and with the heavier turret mounted 76 ? Yes, it had a 6 man crew. link … The M26 only had 5 crewmen link …

One heavy tank at the Patton museum at Fort Knox had a crew of 6.

You mean the M6, with a bow mounted 37mm and with the heavier turret mounted 76 ? Yes, it had a 6 man crew.

I can not speak for RudyN, but I expect it was not an M6 he was referring to. I personally never saw an M6 at Ft. Knox, either on the museum grounds or in the various old tanks storage areas (which I managed to explore a bit, but not exhaustively).

More likely it was a T30. This tank was prominently displayed on a pad on the museum grounds.

The T30 was on the same (almost identical) chassis as the T29 heavy tank prototype. But it had a 155mm gun in its massive turret. Not surprisingly there were two loaders in the crew, thus the 6 man total.

The M6 was an interesting example of how a nation that had no recent combat experience might design a heavy tank. The T1 heavy that preceded it was worse, but even after experimentation and study of enemy tank actions in the beginning of the war, the M6 was a rather remarkably bit of tank fantasy. A 3-inch main gun with a co-axial 37mm gun, showing a rather mixed mind about whether you needed a 3-inch gun for AT work, or a 37mm gun would suffice except in emergencies, or some such. Twin .50cals in the front hull for the hull gunner to use, because hull MGs are always more productive if you have more and they are bigger. Twin .30cals in fixed mounts for the driver to fire (which were retained in US designs up through the M3 and first prototype M4 mediums!) because hey, if the French can put them in the Char-B, so can we! (Nevermind that the Char-B had a better turning mechanism for the driver to use to aim them.) A .30cal MG in the commander's cupola, because 4 MGs ain't enough yet, and a .50cal AA pulpit of some sort (never seen the detail on it) for the loader because when you drive a battleship, you expect dive-bombers!

And BTW that 6th crewman was an ammo-handler. The loader was in the turret, where he might be useful loading the guns. But there was another handler in the hull to pass the ammo around, because your poor loader might not have enough free time to go fetch the various types of ammo spread all over the tank for all those guns.

I believe that the T30 that was on display at the Patton Museum moved with the US Army School of Armor. There is a T30 now listed as present at Ft. Benning, and I think it is the same one.

Could be wrong, though.

-Mark
(aka: Mk 1)

I count at least 6 hatches: Two up front, one on the MG turret on top of the 5th wheel hitch, and 3 on top of the big turret.

As big as that turret/rear hull is, there are probably another 3 guys hiding in there to pass ammo!

There is a simple reason the US kept the weight down on tanks.

US ports had very few if any cranes rated over thirty tons (and lacked the parking space for such a huge amount of rolling stock) The US army paid to upgrade facilities and add large capacity cranes, the same thing happened in European ports like Antwerp, where they served into the 1960's.

Ro-ro ships weren't exactly abundant and as a result tanks had to be hoisted into ships hence the need for suitable cranes.

So somebody could have overridden McNair and his stupid stipulations only to create a bottleneck in the ports.

If the M26 would have been available sooner, then you couldn't say the word or somebody would have complained about how it was a terrible tank, broke down at a worse rate than Panthers and was only available as a trickle.

To make a long story short the various precursors of the M26 were wildly different design studies, combined with the near mad scientist level obsession by Ordonnance for yet another novel type of transmission.

McNair did hold back the heavy tank because of the Battle Need doctrine. Short story, if McNair got word that a certain type of equipment was needed, he'd do everything to fix it. Problem is that the guys doing the fighting didn't have the time to sit back, evaluate the problem and give back the kind of feedback McNair expected as they were busy fighting. He did hear that tanks needed bigger guns and allowed the 3-inch/76mm to be introduced.

Devers noticed the problem and went directly to Eisenhower and Marshall behind McNair's back. They immediately greenlit the program. There was a lot of friction and attempts to overrule this, but McNair finally gave in. They finalized the version, but in the summer of 1944, it was declared that the tank didn't meet battlefield readiness regulations (it was a lemon at that point) So they rushed to fix most of the problems and finally began production in November 1944, the first tanks arrived in Europe January 1944 and allowing for crews to train with them were put into action in February 1944.

Compared to the typical German development cycle this was uncannily fast and Germans often had to do with even shorter training periods around the same time.

M26 was not fully developed, but was at least reliable enough for combat use.

M26 was late because the system designed to avoid overloading the army with useless equipment backfired as the right feedback didn't reach AGF, The information and assumptions they had were faulty ("German heavy tanks will be very rare at best !") and when it was finally pushed forward it wasn't ready for production, remember that they had to get through a steep learning curve going from the M2 medium to the M4 via the M3, those problems applied equally to the M26 (and several precursors that were tried, sometimes officially approved, but never used)

Rushing the M26 would have delivered a mechanically faulty machine and the "Johan Panzer" crowd would have a field day saying how the Americans tried so stupidly to introduce a heavy tank and failed miserably.

I saw it back n 1976. I did not make notes, though I did take photos. But I do not think those are around any more.
Great additional information guys. Thanks.
One question, the US Armor school is no longer at Knox? A surprise.

You may be correct in everything you posted there Mk.1. You are generally well read, etc.

As what you posted Patrick. But like many things, I've heard somewhat conflicting versions of the "story(s)".

M26 was not fully developed, but was at least reliable enough for combat use.

Again, that is what I understood. But as I often say, I was not there … so …

One question, the US Armor school is no longer at Knox?

IIRC the US Armor School has moved to Ft. Benning, GA. As it now designated as the Combined Arms Center, or something like that. As today both the Infantry and Tankers work very close together, i.e. combined arms. But Grunts & Tankers have known that for ages !

And IIRC, much if not all of the Patton Museum AFVs were moved to Benning at well.
I remember back in the 80's there were a number of AFV in front of the US ARMY Infantry Museum. There were even some old APCs in concrete pads around the US ARMY Infantry School back then. Like the M59 and even an old M3(?) Half Track …

The Shadock is a godsend for people looking for surviving tanks

PDF link

Be careful your jaw might drop seeing so many rare surviving vehicles.

Apparently a surviving T1/M6 is at Fort Lee in storage.

Well glad to see so many "so to speak" have survived.