How truly effective was the US M1 76mm gun?

No doubt it put the Sherman on par with the Pz IV, but what about its effectiveness against the Tiger and Panther, especially when using HVAP ammunition, was it capable of punching through the frontal armor of both the German "big cats" any range?

 

A British report.




These contain more detail. As always the devils in the details.
http://worldoftanks.com/en/news/21/chieftains-hatch-us-guns-vs-german-armour-part-1/?page=1


http://worldoftanks.com/en/news/21/The_Chieftains_Hatch_Firefly2/


http://worldoftanks.com/en/news/21/The_Chieftains_Hatch_Firefly3/

 

Thanks Pacifist!

 

We must remember that HVAP ammo was based on some sort of carbon tungsten steel sub-caliber penetrator. This ammo was in short supply in in all the combatant armies except the USSR. From what I can tell from my reading, there was never enough of it to go around. Most governments thought that carbon tungsten steel was better used in machining weapons than being expended in AT ammo.

 

You might find this link interesting, I did:

forums.spacebattles.com/threads/us-firefly-17-pounder-vs-90mm-vs-76mm.285284/

Sorry something is messing up here, I can no longer post a link, started about a week ago . You will have to copy and paste the above..

Gaines

 

We had a new fellow on here commenting about these gun comparisons...Chieftain something. He has his own armor website and really knows his stuff.
As I recall, the US Army was less than enthralled with the 17 pdr and its APDS ammo because neither was sufficiently accurate. This assessment was based on tests conducted in France in the summer of 1944. Ordnance felt the 76mm was more accurate and hence more useful despite lesser penetration; what use is greater penetration if you can't hit the target?

I do know that Ike among others was very disappointed in the 76mm. The 76mm gun was oversold at first because it had been tested against US armor instead of German face-hardened plate, giving an overestimation of its penetrating power.

 

Are you pasting the URL in the text box (à la posting a YouTube video), or are you using the linking tool in the toolbar? I usually do the latter and have not had a problem.

 

TerryD: The British APDS ammo had accuracy problems due to the fact that they couldn't get the sabot to come off without interfering with the accuracy of the projectile.

The original 76mm might have been just the weapon we needed. However, to make the Sherman and TDs easier to ship and to get around, 15 inches was taken off the barrel. Almost always, when you shorten the barrel you get a reduction in muzzle velocity. Had they retained the full-length barrel they might have had a gun that equaled the Firefly's and the Panther's gun.

Actually, by the summer of '44 the Germans had gotten away from face-hardened armor. Face hardened armor was good against the early-war AP rounds put out by most countries. As other countries adopted the same sort of capped projectiles as the Germans used, the Germans changed to homogenous armored plate, which worked better against the more sophisticated projectiles.

 

Yet from what the report that Pacifist and Gaines provided says, the 76 and 17 pounder seemed to have been on par with one another, and the testing that was conducted seemed to have been very well constructed and honest, so I'm going to side with the conclusion that the 76 was a capable gun that didn't get the opportunity to prove itself. I hope my reply didn't come across as confrontational in any way, I'm just basing my opinion on the results of the Isigny test.

 

Not a bit, at least not to me.

Edit:

The the 17 lber wasn't a panacea. It was very difficult to reload in the Sherman and the loader had to stand on the wrong side of the gun. Ammo stowage was limited and they lost the bow gun. The jury rigged sideways mount in the Sherman wasn't very stable.

I've never accepted the 'not invented here' theory against the US Army. Off the top of my head I can name the 30-40 Krag, 1903 Springfield, 155 mm M1917, M1917 Enfield, 75mm M1917 and Packard Merlin as European designs.

 

Even the 17 pounder was unable to penetrate the Panthers frontal armor either unless it was at close range or using the APDS ammunition, so it's kinda unfair that only the American 76 gets criticized for this.

 

USS Washington, certainly not to me either. I think it is good to bring up reports, opinions, issues, questions, etc. Most of the smokeless powders of the 44 era were slow burning....most still are ! But to develop full velocity
that lost 15 inches really hurt. If you look at truly modern ammunition design the cases are fatter, shorter and the actual shape of the powder grains allows faster flame propagation =faster velocity. During WW2 the US Ordnance Corp was conflicted by fight with what we can produce quickly and know versus new weaponry....a balance with advocates on both sides. I view the 76 as a pretty good gun that easily could have been better but I sometimes forget that they had to fit as many as possible in the hold of a ship. I still think if the gun was lowered in at an angle it could have worked.

In the end lots of Sherman's and T-34's won. I thought once at great human cost but even Goodwood with 400 or so British tanks knocked out many tank crew survived. The dreamer in me wishes a good medium tank, with torsion suspension, a big V-8 diesel which would have lowered the silhouette, somewhat more sloped armor, an a 15 " longer 76b would have been the ticket but with the M-4's reliability and mobility, it's nice quick rotating turret, good radios ! A Chaffee on steroids !!! But I was only 4 in 1944 and all my letters to the Army were returned !

TD Tommy, until a few weeks ago I was just copying and pasting in the text and a live link cam up, still does on Gmail. I will go and investigate. What I do not know about computers is a lot !!!!! I did assemble my last one with NewEgg components this this one is a bought Dell desktop.

 

I'm glad to hear that.

Don't get me wrong sir, I share your views on the reduction of the M1s barrel length, I was just saying that from the Isigny tests, it still remained competitive with the 17 pounder, esepcially with HVAP ammunition(3400 fps, wow!), though from reading the wikia page on the M1, I had always thought that reducing the barrel length of the gun was meant to counter balance issues, which was finally resolved by mounting a turret designed for the T23 tank, rather than due to a need to make the M4 easier to fit aboard ships.

(1)And well trained crews as well as excellent tactics helped to level the playing field, Arracourt being a prime example.

(2)That would certainly have been a great tank, but thankfully the M4 Sherman served the Allies very well historically.

 

Thanks, I had never read about the long 76 and balance issues. something fun to look into.

I enjoy looking at the Israeli modifications to the M-4's they got after WW2. First they mounted a 90 on an M-4 then a French 105 main battle tank gun. They had to cut the barrel shorter, sound familial, then shorten the breech block which meant a new shell csee but the outcome was quite good. the did add a bustle to the turret back . Look up super Shermans or M-51's.

I agree the M-4 turned out to be a pretty solid tank.

 

It's also impressive that they were able to compete with more modern tanks of that time period as well, this snip from the wikia page on the Super Sherman was quite right:

"In combat against the Arab armies, the M-51 proved itself capable of fighting newer, heavier tanks like the Soviet-built T-54/55/T-62. The M-51's 105 mm gun could penetrate these adversaries using HEAT ammunition. The M-51 served well during its time, and is regarded as an excellent example of how an obsolete tank (the Sherman) can be upgraded beyond the limits of its original capabilities."

 

While it's a known fact that the M1 76 had a less powerful HE shell compared to the M3 75, that didn't necessarily mean it was completely useless in the infantry support role though, did it, and how did the HE shells of the 17 pounder, 75mm KwK 40/42 compare?

 

This is a fallacious argument.

There is more benefit in having a gun which can penetrate the target if it hits and one which cannot penetrate even when it does. The British had played that game in the Western Desert and were very happy to have the 17 Pdr, big and heavy though it was. There was a big downside to giving an enemy the ability to hit you from ranges at which they knew they were immune.

If the zone of 17 pdr weapon was such that only 20% of well laid rounds will hit the target at 1500 yards, the answer is to fire five times. One solution is to have more guns. . The benefits of having 17 pdr armed M4s is that sooner or later one of them will hit. This may be an artilleryman's answer, but was played out in Normandy. E.g on 8th August 1944 south of Caen when Wittmann's five remaining Tigers charged the best part of two Armoured Brigades.

The big benefit of the 17 Pdr was that it WAS made available.Despite the sniffy comments from the US Ordnance board 17 Pdr shot was effective in killing tanks in Normandy. It could provided tank crews with the comfort that they had a weapon which could kill any German tank. However, given that the US Army did not fight Tiger tanks or many Panther tanks until after the break out the 76mm armed M4 , was of limited use before September 1944.


The Royal Artillery were happy with the less than stellar performance of the 3" gun in the M10. There was little official distinction between those which mounted the 3" and the 17 pdr guns.

 

Hi Sheldrake,

It is also a very incomplete argument. The actual findings to the test, signed off by both the British and American officers present, was that the 17-pdr APCBC was better than the 76mm APCBC in terms of penetration, both were outmatched in those terms by 76mm HVAP, while the 17-pdr APDS gave the best penetration of all, but NONE could reliably penetrate Panther front glacis. OTOH, 76mm HVAP was considered the most accurate round of all, followed by 76mm APCBC, 17-pdr APCBC, and finally APDS, which was grossly inaccurate. While that problem was originally blamed on a poorly manufactured lot, postwar tests definitely showed it was caused by incomplete sabot separation and was a design issue.

Unfortunately the "artillery solution" is inappropriate here given that the inaccuracy was inherent in the round rather than the aiming, so the probability of hitting at range wasn't a matter of firing enough rounds till you hit - each round fired had the exact same odds. It's like thinking if you buy one million lotto tickets each with a 1 in a million chance of winning you are sure to win.

Indeed, yes, 17-pdr was effective killing tanks in Normandy, but not with APDS; it was unavailable until late September, unlike 6-pdr APDS, which was more common. But 3" and 75mm was also a tank killer in Normandy.

The real "solution" for the "problems" with the 3" and 76mm were increasing the propellant load while decreasing flash and smoke, and increasing the quality of manufacture for the APCBC projectile. These were all things well understood by the US Navy ordnance establishment, but were new experiences for the Army ordnance establishment. It may not have been a case of "not invented here" US versus Britain, but NIH US Navy versus US Army. The lessons were finally learned in late 1944, but the solutions weren't developed (T30 and T33 projectiles) until early 1945, which meant the first lots arrived just as the war ended in Europe.

BTW, the RA AT did distinguish between M10 3" and M10 17-pdr, initially the corps AT regiments in the NEPTUNE assault forces was allocated the M10 17-pdr, while the rest of the divisional regiments used the M10 3" until more conversions could be done.

Cheers!

Rich Anderson

 

Was fin stabilization possible for the APDS ammunition at that time, and was it ever attempted?

 

It could have been, but it would not have solved the problem of incomplete sabot separation. The US Army Ordnance establishment, through New Mexico Tech and others, attempted to develop sabot technology 1942-1945 without success, which is partly why the alternative of the composite rigid projectile in the HVAP round was used. It was simply a less elegant and slightly less effective solution that had the virtue of working.

Cheers!

Rich Anderson