Britain's Tiger Killer - The 17-Pounder 

Remember if the 17 pounder dont fit... PUT IT IN SIDEWAYS!!!

Dad always told me he was very happy when the 17 pounder came out. Big morale booster, and solid game-changer.

Some people get incredibly upset that this gun is actually better than the 88 on the tiger one, and it made a Sherman a big cat hunter.

God bless British "fuck it, we ball" engineering

"Sir the boiling vessel won't fit!" "Cancel it and shut down production!"

My Uncle Gerry served in the RCA (Royal Canadian Artillery) during the war. He started out on the 2-pounder and eventually served as a Gunner for a 17-pounder. He always told me that it was such a deadly gun. He also gave me heck for joining the infantry. He sadly passed in December last year. Thanks for the great videos.

One of my Grandfathers served as a medic on Normandy, and after the link up with the British, his unit spent a lot of time in close proximity to British units, eventually developing a friend who remained a family friend until his death in the mid 2000s. Both my Grandfather and his friend would always talk about how much British and American troop's loved having Firefly tanks around, and how bad they felt for the Firefly crews who got pulled every direction because of officers mistaking hull down Panzer 4s for Tigers. They would also poke jabs at each other, how the Americans wouldn't advance without tanks or Air cover, or how the British would stop for tea at the exact same time every day to the point the Germans learned when they could relax.

The 77mm is actually a 76mm gun, but it didn't share ammunition with either the conventional 76mm or the 17 Pounder, so it was renamed to prevent confusion in the field. The gun was a bit shorter and the shells a little weaker, but they still retained more than enough power to ruin any tank it came across, while having superior ergonomics.

i think people really underestimate the effect of the smaller 6 pounder. it had a much faster fire rate and could pen pretty much everything up to a panther, but penning the tank isn't everything, often crews would bail out after one hit knowing that yet another round is incoming in short order. the main advantage of a six pounder is its hella manoeuvrable, you can slam that thing on the back of a universal carrier or a jeep and it'll get the battlefield much faster than a 17 pounder, which required a specialised tractor. great examples are postion 'snipe' in the second battle of el alemain where a 6 pounder section damn near destroyed 1/4 of the german tank force across a couple nights completely unsupported. *edit(maths)

5:50 Those puns packed quite a punch.

"Sir, the gun won't fit!" "We did this seven times in the comments already."

The amount of content you put on these short videos is amazing!

The Comet's gun was named the 77mm high-velocity (17pdr. being 76.2mm) to distinquish the two shells for logistical reasons and avoid confusion with sending the wrong munitions to the wrong unit. While the projectile was the same in both, the 77mm had a different, shorter casing to fit into tanks better. It's a bit like how .38 Special and .357 Magnum cartridges are pretty much the same, but they're given different designations to avoid confusion (and the .357 casing is just slighly longer to make it harder to fit into guns designed for .38 Special, while it's perfectly fine to put .38 Special into a gun designed for a .357 Magnum).

Easily my favorite AT gun of WW2. I just love the name 17-Pounder. It just sounds so powerful. And its use in the Sherman Firefly, Comet, and Centurion 1 helped make them some of my most favorite British tanks in history. And solid puns at the end of the video.

The challenger was the superior vehicle.. much liked by its crews.. it was very roomy and mobile... the armour was not an issue as it was deployed 1 tank to 3 Cromwell and sat back until called forward to engage at optimum deflection before moving back to reserve.. Britain defeated 5.5 panzer divisions in Normandy.. USA 1.5

My Grandfather fired one of theses things while doing an army instructors course on a range in 1943. He always talked about it being the most impressive weapon he ever fired.

You do a great job condensing so much information into these shorter form videos, they’re perfect to watch when taking a short break at work

The basic reasons the US REJECTED the 17 pounder as an Arment for the Sherman tank as a standard gun, was due to supply Logistics , and the internal layout of the turret in a Sherman firefly was deemed UNSATISFACTORY for US tank crews, better to have perfect later, than good enough now mindset. The CHIEFTAIN answered this question in one of his Q and A videos

"You know what they call a 17-pounder with cheese in Paris?"

Better muzzle velocity that the legendary "88", and for an anti tank gun velocity REALLY matters.

A most excellent choice,naturally biased, however, just watched ,Tankies ( 5th RTR ) on the BBC, by Mark Urban....cheers, Johnny...E...😊😊😊

While the Sherman Firefly was exceptionally dangerous to the Germans, it did make the tank the highest priority target for destruction compared to the regular Shermans, attempts were made to hide the distinctive long barrel by painting a third of the barrel or adding a fake muzzle break half way the barrel to fool long distance observers.

While APDS was capable of incredible penetration, they had serious accuracy issues. By Normandy tanker doctrine held that APDS was to be used at a maximum of 500 yards.

Amazing work keep them coming your getting better and better with every video

My father was in the Royal Artillery and told me at Woolwich arsenal he first saw the gun he told his captain who didn't believe a gun would have a breach as large as a tea chest, the story continued they sent out several guns to North Africa, the story went around his regiment the 17 pounder hit the first tiger going clean through and hitting the second German tank behind the tiger, perhaps a tall story to boost moral. It was a very powerful gun.

Excellent little piece Johnny. The development and deployment of the gun is very well covered in such a short time.

Just come back from a big open air market. One stall was selling what looked like metal detector finds. He had a lump of metal labelled as a 17 pounder shell. Looked like the back two thirds of it. I wondered what it hit to break off the front third. It was heavy.

The Archer was a very appropriate name considering that the APDS fires a tungsten arrow. And the Firefly was more that capable of dealing with the Tiger tank with one famously killing three in one engagement. In another battle one firefly killed four panthers and knocked a fifth.

The 1st Tiger tank knocked-out of the war was Tunisia on 31 January 1943. It was either done by a 6 or 2 pounder antitank gun by the 17th/21st Lancers of the British Army. Funnily a 2 pounder hit the turret ring that made the inoperable as the round was loaded in the bearings. A humble little (British Ordnance QF 2-pounder) with a contact angle of 30° at 500yards can piece 1.85 to 3.55 inches of armour depending on the round type used. Armour piecing high velocity was the best for this. All but a tiger II tanks Front hull: 100 mm (3.9 in) could be penetrated by a 2 pounder let alone a 6 pounder which could penetrate every portion of a tiger tank at 500yards. Don't underestimate small guns. The only real; draw back of the 2 pounder was (High-explosive tracer-HE/T Mk II) left a lot to be desired as 40mm diameter shell is a tad narrow for High explosive. 6 pounders 57mm shell solved this issue for anti personal role. Honestly 17pounder was over the top but great for moral as men knowing they had that going bang with a load boom is good for the spirit & disheartening for their foes.

17-pounters were also put in the Achilles tank destroyers. Also, the first time the allies encountered Tigers they were taken out by 6-pounders in Africa.

The British 17 Pounder had a shell case with almost twice the capacity of the US 76mm, the caliber may be the same but the US gun was totally outclassed. By the time of D-day landings the 17 Pounder was mounted in the Firefly and Challenger tanks and the M10 Achilles SPG. These successfully countered the German Army Group West around Caen. The Germans were stopped and were prevented from achieving any of their objectives, leading to victory for the Allies.

I find it funny how among British tank destroyer that armed with 17-pounder, the one on US hull is considered the best (M10 Achilles and M4 Sherman Firefly) at that tine the best hull from British is Archer with Valentine hull, its only later into near the end of war where British finally came with better 17-pounder armed tanks with Comet and early Centurion (and these are not classified as tank destroyer)

Great video johhny, keep up the good work!

Worth noting you can tell which British tank crew member operated a Sherman Firefly by paying close attention to the lack of eyebrows. Sherman Fireflies had a nasty habit of ejecting spent 17 pounder casings that still had enough hot gasses that will burn for some time.

Great video, straight to the point and informative

Interesting Fact: The 17 pounder was one of first guns to use Armour-piercing discarding sabot or APDS rounds which could penetrate 256 mm of armour at 500 meters and 233 mm at 1000 meters. However it was less accurate fire at ranges beyond 500 yards due to less visible rounds when fired. Also, the greater penetration came at the expense of less damage to enemy tanks when penetrated.

Really enjoy your videos. Keep it up!

You're the best, Johnny. Keep it up!

One of the problems was that when using APDS, it was pretty inaccurate. At least that long ranges. Mind you, in Western Europe ranges weren't necessarily all that long. It also kicked up a huge cloud of dust when it fired which meant you couldn't spot the fall of shot. There is one of the remaining Comets at the Hong Kong Museum of Coastal Defence I think it was. I have a photograph of it somewhere. I think the gun on that had a very similar performance to the American easy eight Sherman's.

In Kelly’s Heroes Oddball is Happy to make the Germans believe his Sherman has a 17 pdr or 90mm gun,by adding extra barrel length.All that does is make your tank a shot-magnet.

Thanks buddy. Keep up the good work !

Ya know, for your next showing of a BoB scene, you should write at the top-left corner “Captain, are personal letters to be considered contraband?”

A bit of an ambush with the quick firing puns!

Getting to a church on a hill maybe a challenge. Thanks again, Johnny. Always appreciate

Ah yes the firefly gun (Also I did notice the video quality on these vids is amazing keep it up johnny :) )

Love the use of old historical footage!

Thanks for video 17pder 77mm guns Helped trun the tide👍

Always liked the wave pattern used to disguise fireflies as shorter barrelled shermans, even put it on my leman russ vanquisher models.

three puns at the end we eating good with this one boys

You forgot to mention the link with the Australian Cruiser program. Otherwise great vid

amazing bit of kit !!

The lack of explosive filler and HE is a sad face moment. crews preferred the 75mm over the 76mm in the shermans due to a similar issue.

When you realize the 17 pounder was a 76.2mm and was one of the most powerful Anti-tank guns the allies had (On the western front)

The 17 Pounder was quite effective as an anti-tank gun but it was in some respects too powerful for use as a tank gun. It had a massive muzzle flash which was one of the reasons the version mounted on the Sherman got the name Firefly but it both gave the tank’s position away and also could blind the crew so they couldn’t see where the shot hit, reducing follow up accuracy. Whole it did have a high explosive round it wasn’t terribly effective. In order for the shell to survive the powerful gun firing the casing needed to be thicker which reduced the amount of explosive filler it held. And while it was one of the first guns to use discarding sabot ammunition those had a reputation for being very inaccurate at range, so it was good that the regular armor piercing shell worked so well. It turned out the gun was so high velocity the alloy the sabot was made from would start to melt in the barrel. This meant that the sabot petals didn’t always come away cleanly, making the penetrator drift off target. The Comet tank used the same projectiles but with less propellant, the reason its gun was called 77mm instead of 17 Pounder to tell the ammo apart, and it didn’t have the accuracy problem. Post war the sabot alloy and its design was changed which also corrected the problem. And also a bit of trivia on why it’s called a 17 Pounder. It’s a holdover from the days of muzzle loading cannon and is similar to the gauge rating of shotguns. The name refers to the weight of an iron ball that will fit down the barrel, so in this case 76.2mm. Other common British gun sizes were 2 Pounder (40mm), 6 Pounder (57mm), and 20 Pounder (84mm).

He who aims well scores. Among the best arsenals.

That was quite the whopper of a gun. Thanks, Johnny, catch ya for another one.

Sure man, you put out great videos!!!

Hehehe not 1 but several puns at the end ,love it

l know about this amazing 17-Pounder from the War Collage many years ago.....Thanks JJ for the fine video your friend Old F-4 Shoe🇺🇸 in my 80's....

Love the puns at the end there.

All i remember about this gun, is that its emplacement was huge and difficult to fit into certain spots in Company of Heroes, but my god was it powerful.

1:04: Spinning right 'round, 'round, 'round, 'round... Was expecting Girls und Panzer, simply because. Did not expect, err, the third Lord of the Rings movie, of all things? Addendum: I wonder if those Archers will be used for St. Gloriana in Girls und Panzer das Finale?

Just shows how rugged the 25 pounder gun carriage was to cope with the recoil of the 17pdr.

Those ones are used at Market Garden. Baskey field VC. Look it up!

17 pounder ready~! - 17 pounder emplacement when selected

Firefly is so uncomfortable to be in from videos ive seen. Hope you dont mind hugging the cannon

Would be interesting to see the QF-32 Pounder (a derivative of the QF-3.7" AA Gun) covered.

This makes me proud to be British

Didnt the Fireflies even camo the barrels of the epic 17 because the Germans knew how deadly they were! 💪

Comet'ary on this pounding topic was a blast! 😅

Will a Panzer 4 video come out? It would be great to hear about its use in tv shows, especially Japanese kaiju flicks in the 60s-70s like Mirrorman, Izenborg, and Ultraseven

Man, I remember getting jumpscared by exploding panzer out of nowhere when playing company of heroes because of this big gun

Good video really surprising of this taking out the German 88mm gun and also other future videos and still waiting may want to do ones on SA-7, Stinger and any missiles against aircraft, AK-47 rifles, M-14 rifles, RPG-7, MIG Jets family and MI-24 Hinds are good candidates and also may think of those notorious German Nazi mines to think about like the S-Mine and Teller anti-tank mines to think about as well as M2 Browning and DSHK machine guns are good among others anyway many others to look into.

Standard everywhere i could get it in the old game "close combat: a bridge too far" Always the most difficult maps where when i had to use 6 pounders because the 17 wasnt avaliable. With clear line of sight, 17 pounders were taking out tigers fro. 1500-2000 meters.

Just want to add context for anyone who still wonders why the gun is pointing to the rear on the Archer->Recoil. It was tested with it pointing forward->Flip was the answer.

I would say that this video has but one Achilles' Heel

Can you do the dukw

You missed the Avenger. Very similar to the Challenger but with an open topped turret

the archer was good value ...a reliable chassis , good punch , a great hit and run vehicle for the $ ...even the russians loved that chassis

The 2nd best Gun the British developed, right behind the L7.

Hey Johnny, you didnt mention the Churchill variant "Black Prince" A43. It also used the 17-pounder.

Can you cover the Canon de 75 modèle 1897?

Whatever happened to Montgomery's vaunted 25 pounder?

I believe the Yankee designation for the 17-pounder is the Dr. Disrespect, if I've heard correctly.

I think my husband told me his favorite vehicle from his serve the Rooikat has a 17 pounder gun.

The puns…….. God!! Help!!!

Surprisingly enough, the 17 pounder was place on the British Sherman’s turret that turns into a Sherman firefly

Three tanks, one gun.

Never got the obsession with front on armour, tanks move and so hit the wheels/track and its a sitting duck. the idea its front on front combat has confused so much thinking about armoured warfare. (yes Uk english). Maximise deflection at the front , maximise penetration defence at the side. after that its lap of the gods.

In war Thunder they only used solid shot....but also sabot in upper tiers

Archer glad he brought up the 17 pounder?

My Ninja

The British really did come up with the dorkiest looking tanks.

What actually was the "17lb" bit? Was it the weight of the propellant bit or the weight of the projectile? Or the whole thing?

I wonder why Saunders University have a Sherman Firefly with a 17 pounder gun.

👍🏻🇨🇦👍🏻

Too bad you forgot about the avenger

This was a really good gun. But as far as I know, Archer was not very popular among their crews. The driver has to move out from his seat during shooting because recoil of the gun would smash him

They don't Like it up em .

Finally, a video about weapons without the stupid cartoons.