Quote:
Originally Posted by copeab
The Russians referred to the M-3 Lee/Grants they received as "a coffin for six brothers".
Although the sponson mount of the 75mm gun gave it very limited traverse and it was low-velocity, at the time it was the only allied tank to mount a 75mm gun (some British tanks replaced their 2-pdrs with 3" howitzers for close support work, but these had an even lower velocity than the M-3's 75mm gun and were not very useful for AT work).
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Not to mention that there was a complete lack of 75mm AP ammo in the Western Desert. So 8th Army Ordnance took captured German 75mm APHE ammo, ground down one of the rifling bands so that it would work in the US gun, mixed the old propellent and remeasured it (for more even ballistic performance) and then reissued it to the Grants.
The Brits also pulled the fuzes from the US HE ammo and replaced it with old French fuzes, these were fitted with a drift element that allowed a 0.3 second delay, a feature that the US fuzes lacked. This allowed the Grants to fire HE rounds just short of German antitank guns and "ricochet" and explode over the crew's heads.
Hmmmm, German projectiles on US shells....US projectiles with French fuzes.....almost sounds like a T2K game?