How good were M10 Wolverine and M36 Slugger?

[Schachbrett]

If anyone can share a brief comment on the performance of these tank destroyers? I`m particulary interested in how vunerable they were becouse of the open turret?! Were any destroyed by mortar fire? Think there must be a few cases becouse there was some kind of shield add-on for the top of the turret in early 1945. Thanks for your comments gents

[derGespenst]

Theoretically they could be killed by mortar fire, but that's quite a long shot. The real vulnerability of the open top was when they were in the presence of enemy infantry and not sufficiently supported by their own - not an unusual situation. The M-10 had quite a good gun, but its protection was on the order of stiff cardboard. Rather a waste in resources in my opinion, though not nearly as bad as the M-18. the M-36 did the same thing as the M-10 - put an excellent gun in an unlikely-to-survive chassis.

The whole American concept of tank/TD was warped. Tanks, in the American theory, were not supposed to fight other tanks. They were intended to penetrate the enemy's rear ares and raise havoc with supply, command and artillery positions. That's why the Sherman was considered to be a suitable tank. in theory, it wasn't going to fight Panthers and Tigers! That was the job of the TDs, though why those vehicles didn't warrant some kind of protection is beyond me.

[Schachbrett]

agree with you completely. if we put aside an obvious wunerability to infantry attacks with hand grenades and stuff i suspect that even a shot from small caliber at guns (like 50 mm pak) must have had at least stunning effect on the spg`s crew. even a he shell of any kind with it`s shock wave and detonation colud make the crew to pass out ! it wolud be a stupid situation that you have a full operational tank killer and knocked out crew in it! at least that`s my theory.

[Ernest Penfold]

I have an odd recollection that TD doctrine sacrificed armour for speed, which I suppose makes tank destroyers the land equivalent of battle cruisers.

[Reb]

Gentlemen

You'll find that by the time of the Ardennes most TDs had jury rigged over head cover. Most of the M-10s were in the process of getting phased out by the end of the war and replaced by the M-36 Jackson. The M-18 was doing just fine - very quick.

I find it interesting that some many people, not just you all, mock the US tank destroyers when actually they were quite handy. Unlike the German versions they had rotating turrets which gave them quite an edge.

Thin armour? yeah - but look at Stug and PzJag IV - not exactly Tigers. Jadpanther was very well armoured but not many showed up.

The strength of the US Army organization was shown at Bastogne - a light (a/b) div was given a M-36 bn, a bunch of artillery and trucks and mated with an armoured combat command (and elements / remnents of another) and voila - a super duper panzer grenadier div that could and did take on all comers.

Whenever I'm feeling critical of the US equipment or org, I juxtapose it to the German Army and try to match an equivilent - it starts to look much better. Reading German memoirs for instance - full of complaints about gas hog tanks that break down all the time. US tanks didn't have those problems but they were undergunned and underarmoured - they worked on that with gradual upgrades and the production lines never slowed down.

Think if Germany had settled on the PzIV and not built any panthers or tigers or all the pz jag and assault gun variants? That was what Guderian wanted.

One caveat about Jackson - even with that big 90mm I've seen a photo of a panther supposidly shot at 600 meters - six hits on the front glacis - only one penetrated. But then, one is enough. Ike was screaming for Jacksons not long after he encountered the first panthers. In retrospect perhaps, the TD concept was not so great. But look to the AFrican theatre where Rommel consistantly lured the Brits onto his TDs and then counterattacked with tanks. If its good when Fritz does it, why isn't it good when the US does it?

And Rommels best TDs where 7.62 Marder SPs. Open topped, and less well armed than Jackson!

Cheers
REb

[Schachbrett]

first of all noone said that the germans didi it right.
secondly, i find the open top concept was a mistake- period (that includes all sides in WWII). wasn`t it smarter to produce fully armored turret in the first place? they were forced to produce that add-on for the top later, clear proof of design flaw and theory flav if you ask me.

you mention bastogne. ok good results for yankee tds but you have to bare in mind that it was the kind of terrain that offered many opportunities for ambushes, you could camuflage quite succesfully etc ( it`s my theory, correct me if i`m wrong) and the main streinght of tds -the speed could be fully exploited here. on any other terrain, more open and less vegetation, the results wouldn`t be so good. again just a theory of mine. any comments?

[AAA]

Somebody mentioned open top and mortars ... the open top would be less than pleasant near trees or buildings where artillery/mortar rounds may air burst. Wouldn't have been such a problem in wide open spaces of North Africa or the south half of the ostfront though ...

[Reb]

Shacbrett

Open country is bad for any armoured vehicle since the AT fire can get at them pretty readily. But as far as open tops - doesn't make much difference in that terrain.

Max Hastings in Overlord quotes an Achilles crewman talking about scraping a crew off the floor of a TD - a mortor went straight in - adicos muchachos. Mortars are more dangerous than commonly admitted - the Germans were very good with theirs and in the turn, very annoyed by ours - particularly the so-called "chemical mortars," the 4.2". A good mortar man can put a round down the chimney of a house. ( I think I'm making your case!)

The key to understanding the TD concept - for US, Brit, German or USSR - is to see the advantage in placing a larger gun in a vehicle that normally couldn't be so upgraded. Admittedly, the US went overboard with the concept but the Germans found that their more lightly armoured (and much cheaper) pz Jagers actually knocked out more enemy tanks than the panzers did. I'd guess its the same for US.

Overhead Armour or not - if you have to face a panther would you prefer to be in a Sherman or a Jackson? I rank gun first, mobility second, and armour third - while admitting the combination is what counts ultimately.
But a Marder (based on an obsolete Czech tank) could knock out a T-34 where a pz III and short barrelled pz IV found it very difficult.

cheers
Reb

[Darrin]

Motor rounds were the least accurate guns during WWII. Every round fired has a natural dispersion pattern that depends on the ammo and arty tube qaulity not to mention several other less important factors. It does not take a genius to find out the mortar tubes and rounds had the worse production standards of any other arty. The one type of arty that was even worse for dispertsion was the rocket arty.

If someone had enough ammo which the US might then by pure chance a motor round might go through the chimmey of a building. But a less stantionary object like a tank the chances were miniscal. Then the ground burst of the motor rounds would shielded the TD crew by thier side turrent armour.

As to not being able to upgun thier tanks. The brits upgunned thier 75mm sherm into 17lb in time for normandy. This gun had similar pen to the panthers and M36.

[Darrin]

While the US TDs might appear more vulnerable the open top was their to allow the crew to have greater all around 360 deg visablity. Whatever the theory in practise the TDs were no less likly to be des then the shermans.

[Darrin]

The panzer's being gas guzzlers is not very obvious ether. The panzer IVs were roughly TWICE as eff in thier gas milage then the sherman tanks.

The ger problem was not so much that their tanks consummed gas. But that the US alone produced 20 times as much oil as the euro axis did including all synthtic oil. This allowed the US to field a much larger number of gas gussling tanks and trucks to haul this gas around. Not to mention all the other supply needed to get hauled arouund in more gas guzzling trucks.

[Reb]

Darrin

It wasn't the pz IV that made our Shermans so vulnerable. Panther and Tiger were the big problem but they tended to lose most runners during fluid action when maint and petrol weren't available. Had they been as mobile as Pz IV it might have gone a different way. The Falaise and Seine compaigns certainly showed that to be true - more Tigers for instance, were abandoned than destroyed in action. Same with Panther..

The Germans only wished they had the trucks to haul petrol, and indeed, the petrol to haul, that the US troops had to deal with. Each US Infantry Div went into action the equivelent of a full strength early war pz Grenadier Div - fully motorised with a bn each of tanks and assault guns / ps jager. (often outnumbering actual panzer divs in both men and armoured vehicles)

By late in the war German armoured superiority had become meaningless - the panthers and tigers were sitting in fields next to the Jet fighters, unable to move for lack of fuel.

As to mortars - I suggest you read some more personal accounts from WW2, talk to vets or simply watch a good mortar team in action. In the example I used the mortar hit right inside the open turret. The better mortar men I've known could literally put it down a chimney. Just as an MG guy knows how to work his "cone of fire" so too do the mortar boys know their ordance.

Is the mortar the best choice for such work? Hell no - but it will do in a pinch and was the primary reason our guys put overhead cover on their TDs.

As to upgunning Sherman - the US didn't have 17 pdr guns and our 76 was kind of limp by German standards.The Brits only had enough 17 pdr ordance to upgrade a quarter of their Shermans by Normandy.

The 90 mm on the Jackson was way too much for a US tank until Pershing arrived on the scene. And even with some anecdotal exceptions - a big advantage of assault guns, pz Jager, SU, TD etc was that a bigger gun could be mounted on a tank that otherwise couldn't take it..

With the US that purpose was less obvious due to the obfuscation of our ill concieved TD organization but ultimately it shook down that way with Jackson. The TD theory went to hell but the Jackson was a success in that it became our primary "animal killer."

cheers
Reb

[Darrin]

During falise more panzer IVs were put out of action for non combat reasons as well.

The US inf divs were never like full str panzer grendier div. First of all they were inf in the truest sence of the world they marched to battle. The trucks were just enough to carry all that extra supply the US divs used and could carry with horses which was the ger main supply source.

The brits were prefectly willing to give the 17lb gun to the US but for some reason they failed to take the offer. The 76mm gun on the M10 and M18 was just as good as the 75mm L48 gun on the Panzer IV the gers main couterpart to the sherms.

[Reb]

Darrin

The Americans also turned down Pershing and under-rated Jackson until it was too late to make a serious difference in the Normandy compaign. I reckon they took their cavalry like doctrine just a bit too seriously and ignored certain battle field realities.

They just didn't think the US tanks would be fighting German tanks. Being wrong can be plenty costly. Given how fast our Army had to grow to participate in a two front war I'm surprised they got anything right but they actually were pretty spot on in most cases - particularly artillery. In the case of armoured doctrine they weren't and the GIs paid the price. Its a shame our equipment didn't match our org - the US oob for an armoured div was pretty sweet.

cheers
Reb

[Don C]

The tank destroyer concept was a failure by wars end. I would have to say it was in no way helped by the lack of foresight by the US army, ordanance and the tank destroyer command into the future german armor threat. If the Jackson had been available 3 or 4 months earlier(as i understand it, the perceived lack of need is the only factor that stood in the way of this), the tank destroyer force perhaps would have had much more credibility through the rest of the war and the TD might have been remembered as a much more critical unit on the battlefield.

Considering what was available at the time, a TD could very well be handy. Like Reb said, it indeed had a much bigger gun in the same size chassis than a tank could have because of the armor and/or turret sacrifice. The german Marders put a 7.5 cm pak on a chassis that could never have fitted it in traditional tank form. With the sherman 75mm you had the M10 3inch. The M10 turret was made with plenty of room in it with provisions for a bigger gun. The availability of the m36 could have been as early as a year or more before the Pershing was. As it was, it came out 6 months eariler. The cost to make these platforms were also less to make than the corresponding tank. I want to say the M10 cost 2/3 what a sherman did(please correct if anyone knows the exact figures).

I have to say though, Reb, on the M18, that while it was an outstanding automotively, it probably was a huge nail in the coffin for the Tank Destroyer concept. It was the flagship TD that the TDC wanted but had too little gun and no provisions to grow, all its eggs were in the "speed" basket. I do believe the 705 td battalion at bastogne was equipped with m18s(not 100 percent). A lot of the US TDs success is attributable to the crews training and combined arms.

Schachbrett, Bastogne wasnt the only success for US tds. the 899th in north africa El Guettar and then vs. panzer lehr at le deseret are actions that come to mind. also US m18s and french m10s in lorraine campaign were pretty successful. A very diverse range of terrain. I would say though that what US TDs success there was was attributable not to the specific equipment though but to the crews training and combined arms.