"Medium Tank M3 Lee armament - 75mm M2 or M3?" Topic

Looking at the armament of the Lee for some homebrew rules and annoyingly the 75mm M2 and M3 stat up slightly differently, and that's the one detail I can't seem to suss out. What or indeed how many had an M2 or M3 fitted – best I can tell is that it depended on the availability of the different 75mm versions during manufacture. But does anyone happen know if affected all versions M3, M3A1, M3A3 to M3A5 equally or not?

Looking in the Hunnicutt SHerman book, it does not give specifics about how many were equipped with the M2 as opposed to the M3, but judging by photos it looks like all different versions were impacted, including Grants. And it looks like some M2s were not fitted with barrel counterweights either. That being said, the M3 was the only version used by the US Army in combat (and then only in North Africa). It also seems like the M3 Lee/Grant was the only version used operationally by the British as well. The Soviets may have used M3A4s in combat (with Diesel powerplants).

Damon.

I'm sure I've seen photos of longer-barrelled M3s in Burma.

Late production vehicles of any variant had 75mm M3.

Thanks. Assuming it was an issue with the supply of M3 75mm's then its not unreasonable that the effect was widespread and a bit random!

That is correct. M3 guns went primarily into shermans so there was an m3 gun shortage for lee grants. Iirc the m2 was still more common in tunisia.
Afaik absence of weights means early production.

They actually look pretty cool with the long gun

Afaik absence of weights means early production.

Almost correct. Largely correct as a general guideline, but not a proof.

Presence of a weight = late production
Absence of a weight = probably, but not necessarily, early production

The design intention was for the guns to be balanced at the trunions.

During early production, when the M2 gun was standard, it was balanced at the trunions. No need for a counter weight.

Later the longer M3 gun was chosen as the standard for production. The mount was re-balanced, so that the longer gun, with more weight out front, would be balanced a the trunions. All good and fine.

But then, they didn't get enough M3 guns. So they had to substitute shorter M2 guns, without so much weight out front, into the mount that was balanced for the M3 guns. That made the guns breach-heavy at the trunions. You would have trouble keeping the gun on target, it would want to aim itself upwards.

So when they put M2 guns into the mount for the M3 gun, they added a weight at the end of the barrel to make the gun balanced again.

So you would only see the weight on later production. But that does not necessarily mean the absence of the weight means early production. The weight might have just fallen off, or been taken off, or been improperly secured and sent downrange towards the enemy the last time the gun was fired, or who knows what.

And that is only on the shorter gun. It may also be that you are looking at a longer M3 gun, which never had a muzzle weight, and you just didn't notice it's length.

At least that's my understanding.

-Mark
(aka: Mk 1)

Well, um, yes. Kinda. Sort of …

After consulting the Book of Armaments, Prophets of Osprey, The Scrolls of New Vanguard, Verse 113 (M3 Lee/Grant Medium Tank 1941-45), page 9, paragraph 2 :

…And Zaloga said unto them :

" Owing to the rush to put the M3 into production, a string of improvements was needed. The M3 pilot tank was fitted with one-axis stabilizers for both the main M2 75mm gun and the 37mm M6 gun, but this was not fitted to the initial production tanks because of recurring problems. A barrel counterweight helped solve the balance problems: on the 75mm gun, this was fitted to the end of the barrel, while on the 37mm, it was fitted under the gun barrel on the mantlet. Serial production of tanks fitted with the stabiizer and associated counterweights began in November 1941 at the Detroit Tank Arsenal, and followed at the other plants in January 1942. Both the British Army and the US Armored Force desired a gun with better antiarmor performance, and a lengthened version of the M2 75mm gun was developed in 1941, the M3. It was adopted as standard in May 1941, and once it entered production, there was no longer a need for the counterweight. "

Cheers

"And the number of the counting shall be three. Unless the little people are real close, then shalt thou set the Beehive to Muzzle Action."

Thanks, all interesting.

Think I'm going to pretend there is no difference between the 37mm M5 and M6 (as far I can see it is pretty negligible in reality)

Coalburner:

Thanks for the info.

At least that's my understanding.

So now my understanding has been updated.

-Mark
(aka: Mk 1)

Mark 1:

My post was not directed at you specifically, but rather at the thread in general. Sloppy composition on my part. Apologies.

I have nothing but respect for you. Your posts are always among the most cogent, factual, and useful here at TMP and elseware. This time I had some info that you did not. How often is that likely to happen? You also do some very nice work in God's Chosen Scale.

Of late I seem to be spending an increasing amount of my work week interacting with man-bun affictionadoes and their …females. I think the nekulturny is rubbing off on me. Or maybe I need to switch to decaf.

CB:

My post was not directed at you specifically …. Apologies.

No need for apologies. No offense was taken, no grumpy protocols were adopted, no needs for remediation arose.

As much as we (meaning I) may offer pronouncements and explanations with full enthusiasm, that enthusiasm should be seen as arising primarily from the topic being discussed. In other words I love talking about this stuff. But I certainly do not have a working assumption that I am always right, and you shouldn't either.

You had better information than I. You shared that. Now I have a better understanding. That's points in my book.

And you used a Python-esque theme. That earns you bonus points, so now you have scored a touchdown and successfully scrambled for a two-point conversion!

-Mark
(aka: Mk 1)