History 28/02/20 Why Soviet tankers abused American tank M3
Among the models of Western armored vehicles supplied to the years of the great Patriotic war on lend-lease to the USSR, was dvukhtochechnye and bizarre monsters, called the Americans in memory of Confederate General Robert E. Lee 1861-1865 gg. In the Soviet Union they officially called M3-C (average) – not to be confused with light M3 “Stuart” (also named in honor of General southerners, other).
About the tank “General Lee” in the red army sang this ditty to the tune of songs from popular pre-war Comedy “Volga-Volga”: “America Russia / gave em tri es. / The big hat, no cattle, / the growth came out to the heavens”. Indeed, if not considered obsolete by the beginning of the war, however, was still in 1941 in the service of the red army of the Soviet towered tanks T-28 and T-35, our tankers did not have to fight on more whimsical and less adapted to the conditions of the Russian theater of the Second world war machine than “General Lee”.
Too fancy
the United States had virtually no experience in the use of tanks in the First world war. Their engineering design thinking in this area before world war II was guided by more of their own fantasies. However, they sometimes give wonderful results. So, in the late 20-ies of the designer John Christie built a high-speed wheel-track tank. The US army is not interested in them, but the Soviet Union immediately bought a few samples and based on them created a whole family of tanks BT (“fast tank”), a long time in the course of the great Patriotic war served as the basis of the Park light Soviet tanks.
When the prospect of US entry into world war II with its massive ground battles became inevitable, the American designers were concerned about the creation of a medium tank, not inferior to British, German and Soviet vehicles of the same type. And experience are createdAI was not available. It was clear that the 37-mm gun is clearly insufficient for a successful battle with German medium tanks. But American industry in 1940 still did not know how to create a rotating tower with a gun of larger caliber.
the Designers came out to genius just. They have established 75-mm gun directly into the hull. The result is the most important and, in theory, a formidable weapon of the “General Lee” had a limited angle is only 30 degrees. The pivoting of the tower were all the same small-caliber 37-mm gun. But that’s not all. True to his habit to install in the tank as many machine guns, American engineers stuck in the “General Lee” four 7.62-mm machine gun, and one of them was placed in a rotating turret on the top turret.
as a result, the tank acquired a strange three-story construction and at the same time, due to the large number of pieces of weapons, was operated by a crew of seven people (on some machines had one gun less, then the crew was six people). His booking was quite decent for a medium tank: the forehead corps – 50 mm depth – 38 mm. But with a maximum speed of 40 km/h the tank was very vulnerable due to its altitude (312 cm) exceeding the width (272 cm). Because of this, the M3 “Lee” was still weakly stable when moving over rough terrain. But the need every time to turn the tank to fire from the main gun, made him unfit for combat with medium tanks of the enemy in the open field.
the Battle ground for American technology
lend-lease served for the military industry and the US army a perfect testing ground, where combat was revealed strengths and weaknesses of the American military equipment. Unwitting victims of such experiments have been hundreds of British (North Africa) and thousands of Soviet soldiers.
However, in North Africa quality of the M3 medium tank (series, shipped to England, was called “General Grant” – in honor of another General that the civil war, but the North) was recognized as quite satisfactory. There it was the best tank not only in the allied forces. For his fighting qualities he was not inferior to the best German tanks almost to the end of 1942, especially in defense, where “Grant” worked as an excellent self-propelled anti-tank gun.
Otherwise was the case on the Soviet-German front, where the natural conditions are much more varied and insidious than in the Sahara desert. And the tanks used by both sides in 1942, was often more powerful than the “General Lee.”
Much depended on the ability
However, there affected another drawback, common to all the equipment supplied to the USSR under lend-lease. It is, as a rule, have been in use much more complicated Soviet. But the Soviet authorities, dogovarivalis on the supply of overseas technology, never cared about how to translate technical documentation into Russian language, to organize proper training of crews, and especially to prescribe trainers. Often untrained people was planted by the technique, and the technique rushed into battle. However, the same thing was done with the Soviet machines. As a result of loss of foreign tanks in the red army was higher than could be more skillful in their use – again, it has to be said about the use of domestic equipment.
Soviet tankers in abbreviated form called “General Lee” BM or SH with the addition of numbers depending on the number of crew members: WG-6, BM-7, etc. Deciphered this abbreviation is very gloomy: BM – a mass grave, VG – certain death. However, again, in the hands of skilled crews, even a “up to heaven” clunky tank could bring many benefits. There is evidence about how the battle of Kursk “General Lee” at times successfully operated from ambushes against the German medium tanks. For example, in the village of Cherkasy in the band of the Voronezh front 39 of these tanks with 20 ACS domestic production for 5 July 1943, held back the advance of the 3rd German division.
In the Soviet Union was delivered more than 1300 tanks M3 medium. A significant proportion of them were tragically destroyed in the convoy PQ-17 sent and not arrived in Murmansk in July 1942. All the Soviet Union was little less than a thousand units of this tank. Most of the “Generals Lee” fought in 1942-1943 in the army of the Transcaucasian front, where the tanks were supplied directly through Iran.
Yaroslav Butakov
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© Russian Seven
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