U.S. Army turned down the Funnies

Hi, Is there any truth that the U.S. army turned down the British request to equip its assault units with the various types of 'Funnies', I think they saved a lot of British and Canadian lives on D Day, Percy Hobart must have been bemused if this storie is true.

 

The DD Sherman was one of the "funnies" designed by Hobart that the US did use, and I think (don't hold me to it) that we also employed the "flail" tank for mine clearing.

The employment of the DDs was flawed, not the concept or the tank itself. The UK forces used experienced small craft pilots to guide theirs into shore, where the US attempted to teach tank commanders how to pilot ours. When the "target point" ( a church steeple at Omaha) was getting "out of line" due to wave, current, and wind forces the US tank commanders tried to continue toward it, which turned the craft "sideways" to the swells, and the side-boards were overcome.

Add to that the problem that the American Sherman was a shorter hulled unit, and drew more water when floating. This made a difference of about four inches in "free-board" between the two.

 

I would add that the surf conditions off Omaha were the worst of all landing beaches. An excellent combination for disaster.

 

The US was pretty sceptical about the Sherman Flail/Crab. They had previously asked for 'official' examples of British Flails and been refused, and used a handful in Tunisia, but when they finally got a chance to assess them properly in early '44 they were unimpressed (there is some suspicion they actually observed a Scorpion variant alongside a Crab, and assumed that the Scorpion was the perfected beast - which might indeed have misled them to being less than enamoured).
Various reasons were cited, from those technical reports of general unwieldiness and unreliability, to suggestions it was too slow, and even that Bradley just found it (and other funnies, excepting the DD) faintly ridiculous.

Whatever the reasons, they sadly lacked them on the beaches - a shame given their usefulness elsewhere on the 6th.
The US eventually adopted some flails after the landings, but it took seeing them in action while cooperating with UK/commonwealth users to provide the impetus.

~A

 

It is allways hard to overcome the 'It wasn't invented here, so we don't need it' bias, until you really see that yes, you do need it.

 

The flail had its issues. First, the vehicle stirred up alot of dust making it quite visible. It didn't always get every mine and could be prone to finding one the "hard way." The flails also represented a huge hazard to the crew in operation so they had to button up making staying on course difficult. The flails also tossed the occasional mine on the tank with unintended consequences. Lastly, it chewed up the ground pretty badly too and couldn't and didn't work on all types of soil.
For the most part the US found a wide number of mine clearing devices lacking in usefulness. The "Aunt Jemima" type using large wheels was also deemed a failure for example.

On the flip side, the British didn't make near the use of bulldozer tanks that the US did. The US found these invaluable in many situations. They could make ramps and even bridge many creeks and obstacles under fire. An antitank ditch that took hundreds of workers days or weeks to dig by hand was of little use versus a couple of bulldozer tanks that filled it in in a matter of a few minutes.

So, I think this sort of thing cuts both ways and even within services. After all, the US Army made little use of the Marine's LVTs in amphibious assaults too.

 

I think the most important AFV used by the British and Canadians was the many variants of Churchill tanks, I wont go into them all here, but I like to think that the Crocodile and the facine with the spigot mortar were very important, imagine the American troops on omaha using the spigot against the concrete barrier that held there advance (see the Longest day film is this is true) and having a AFV with armour so thick that it could have held its own against German fire.

 

No matter what...the yank dd crews were exceptional that day../seeing the dd go straight down knowing you were certain to share the same fate and still launching.Incredable bravery.

 

The most important funny that was ignored was the rug roller, which put down a rug to keep the tanks from sinking into the sand. Saved the UK a lot of trouble.
When it comes to testing, the US military was quite biased, which tends to happen in most militaries. It happens today, it happens all the time, so its should not be surprising that it happened back when people werent even close to open minded.

The worst case was actually not a REAL funny, but the firefly. The US tested the 76 HVAP next to a 17 pounder, and even though the 17 pounder won hands down, the engineers and officers reported that the HVAP was equal. They also planned to test the 17 pounder with the 76mm HVAP round, but it never happened. The only thing the HVAP really had on the 17 pounder was a slight increase in accuracy.
The same thing happened with the Soviet 100mm vs the 122mm, as the 100 won hands down in penetration, yet the head of the plant reported the 122 was a better choice. In reality he was probably worried about having to disappoint Stalin if he reported the 100mm was a better tank killer. UK post war testing of the 100 and 122 verified that the 122 penetration was far less than reported to the Russian leadership, while the 100mm lived up to or surpassed its reported performance. The performance seen by the British matched the field reports of the Germans, of a weapon which has serious deficiencies penetrating German tanks.

I know that seems way off topic, but Im just giving an example of how different mentalities can cause the same problem with choosing poor weapons.

 

Agreed.

The US was offered the 17 pounder in 1943 by UK but were flatly turned down because of faith in the US engineers developing the 76mm and the belief that the 17 pounder could not be fit in a Sherman turret. Its too bad because when Patton realized he had beeen decieved by the 76mm's reputation it was to late to equip the US army with the 17 pounder as it hadn't gone in mass production in the US as the UK wanted. There were only enough guns for the British, Canadians and Free Poles at a rate of around one per troop. I can only imagine how well Patton would of done had he had the Fireflys in his corner.

J_S

 

There were questions about it being produced in sufficient numbers in time as well.

Patton's being "decieved" would have had little impact.

If it had been decied that a more powerful gun than the 76mm gun was needed the fastest and best approach would have been to start producing one of the T series turrets with a 90mm gun. They could have fit on the Sherman and we could have had them in production even faster. Another alternative would have been to increase the number of Sherman's with 105's and make sure they had enough HEAT rounds.

 

Absolutely, the Sherman 76 could have been armed with the 90mm, if only they had chosen to do so. The 90mm was designed specifically to fit into the same mounting as the 76mm in the T-25 turret.

I think if there is any kind of ignorance in the production of the Sherman, it would have been how they decided to go with the 75mm and reduce performance from the 6 pounder. They had already been producing the 6 pounder as the 57mm for some time by that point, it seems really illogical that they would have not designed the Sherman from the beginning with the 17 pounder.
Even if that was not possible, it seems odd to me that they never made a Stug like version of the Sherman, with a 17 pounder or 90mm. The stug was the most effective armored vehicle in history, more kills than all other tanks combined, so it only makes sense to copy the doctrine.

 

At the point the Sherman was being designed the 75mm gun was quite adequate as an AT gun and much better with HE than the 57mm gun.

It seems "illogical" that they didn't design it from the beginning with a gun that didn't exist from a foreign power that they weren't allied with at the time? You have a funny idea of "logic" if that's the case.

Well they had the M-36. And they had the M-4 (105). I'd be inclined to take either over a stug.

 

The Stug is very effective on the DEFENSE, where it can use it's low silhouette to find a good hiding spot and pick of enemy tanks. However, it's offensive capability is somewhat less, being as it is out in the open and visible. The lack of a turret, means that a formation of moving Stugs cannot cover their flanks as they advance.


So, the Stug is a rather poor weapon for the Allies, since they were not planning to be on the defensive much. It remained a viable weapon for the Germans, who spent the end of the war defending their ever shrinking territory.

 

Thats only a half truth, the gained a small increase in HE capability with a lethal 20% reduction in AP performance.

The 17 pounder absolutely existed, and your own logic makes no sense seeing as we were already producing their own 6 pounder guns. Which is it, were we not allied, or were we producing their own weapons?

This isnt about the M-36, its about the Sherman. This is another post which makes no sense. We are talking about the Sherman here, of course everyone would have rather had an M-36! Also, the 105 was only about equal to the 75.
The German equivalent of this conversation would have been "The Panzer III is not good enough, Id rather have more Stugs" And you respond "screw that because I will only drive a Tiger". The Tiger is not a variant of the PzIII, you cant answer which variant of the PzIII you think is best by naming a totally unrelated tank. Get it?
In place of a 75 sherman, a Stug like sherman based vehicle would have been superior in tank killing.

 

Didn't this thread used to be about Funnies?
...Just askin'...
I could rattle on about how the Sturmartillerie excelled in the attack, as was it's original intention, but this perhaps ain't the place? There's hardly any shortage of threads about 76/17/tankiness etc.

A-n-y-way, not specifically about US adoption or not, but my favourite (funniest?) Funny:
Churchill Great Eastern Ramp

Rocket-powered bridging at it's best!
Though as far as I know, the only actual 'In-theatre' deployment was one being fired off to celebrate the German surrender... :tennisclap:

~A

 

Since we're talking "funnies", it's funny that I always thought that the M-10 and M-36 were built on a Sherman chassis and therefore a variant of the Sherman, just like the Stug was based on the Pz III.

M-4

M-36


M-36

But now that you've pointed it out I see that there's no resemblance.

 

M10 & M36 are indeed Sherman based mate. M4a2 & M4a3 under there, no matter the differences in 'bodywork'.
But... neither are 'Funnies', or the Firefly, Pz.III, Stug, Tiger etc.

Sir percy would be frowning.

~A

 

USMCPrice & Von Poop are correct, the M-10 & M-36 are based on the Sherman.

IIRC Hunnicutt, a little under 200 M-36s were direct M4A3s(known as the M-36B1), the rest were converted M-10s(M-36B2) & M-10A1s(M-36). Now the M-10 is based on a slightly modified M4A2 chassis, and the M-10A1 is based on the M4A3 chassis.

While Jadgermeister doe not say it in so many words; the M-10 & M-36 are not "Stug variants" of the M-4 Sherman, but they are "Jagdpanzer" variants of the M-4 Sherman.

IMHO, a proper "Stug variant" of the M-4 Sherman would be the Sherman "Jumbo". However, the "Jumbo" also fits into the "assault tank" idea of the Tiger.

So, who is to say what is what...

 

I'm saying none of the above are Funnies.

A Postwar descendent of the Funnies that eventually found it's way into American acceptance:
Churchill Toad goes to Jacques Littlefield Collection


~A