Part two of the two-part tour of the tank. A lot of crew positions to go through, so it's going to be a long one. Americas Forum thread: forum.worldofta... Asia: forum.worldofta... Console: forum-console.w...
My uncle Russell served in the pac theater in ww2. He started in a lee (blown out of service by a satchel charge), another lee (same fate), another lee (ditto), a Sherman (ditto again), and finally a Sherman "zippo" model. He was the only survivor in each loss, being blown out through the commanders hatch. A tough little dutchman, old uncle Russ, lol
@Kenneth he did what he was told. Every example ran the same, sapper in a spider hole, tossed bomb through belly hatch as the offending tank rolled overhead. Russ got his next flying lesson. In the zippo he saw the same set-up, and treated the young Japanese fellow to a cozy bonfire.
Have to admit, despite it's faults, its one of my favorite tanks. Why you ask? simple, as an ex-tanker I remember the countless hours having to work on the M48 and having usually only two crew members handy to do the work. Seven on the crew sounds great to me, lots of hands to keep the vehicle in shape!
I read some interesting comments about the M3 Lee/Grant and it's effectiveness in Burma. Those who used it found it performed "admirably" and worked well in supporting the infantry. They liked its heavy armament and the ability to provide fire in many directions.
You'd probably enjoy the book Tank Tracks to Rangoon by Bryan Perret. Covers the use of allied tanks in that theatre quite well. Including a mention of that parking brake when trying not to slide off of ridges and such things.
@@thequeensowncameronhighlan7883 Thanks for that note on the book. I will indeed seek it out. Your comment about the parking brake reminded me of an incident when I was in the Army. A tank company was parked on a hill when a senior officer, possibly the brigade commander, landed in a chopper on the level terrain below said hill. One of the drivers didn't set the parking brake properly and as you probably guessed by now, it rolled down the hill and into his chopper. He was not terribly happy about that.
I have never heard anything but good about the M3 from the people who actually used it. It's the ones looking at it from today and laughing because it doesn't look the way they expect a tank to look who say most of the nasty things about it.
I would not be surprised it they just used a dash from a higher production vehicle that had a windshield with windshield wipers, and it was cheaper/faster to just utilize a module already in production with a useless switch than it was to create a custom dash for it.
The M3 had an optional windshield to be mounted in the open hatch which did indeed come with an electric wiper. To close the hatch it had to be removed first, which was probably a bit inconvenient when suddenly coming under enemy fire. Photo: pbs.twimg.com/media/DrSd6Q3U4AAycnA.jpg
I think more specifically, the Chieftain refers to being shot or having something critically, dangerously malfunction as a significant emotional event, since it definitely would be. :D
This was the tank that Humphrey Bogart commanded as Sgt. Gunn in the WW2 film "Sahara.' If you remember, in one scene they used the 37mm to shoot down a German fighter. This was said to be Bogie's favorite movie.
I can't praise this channel enough. Really must have 100x more subscribers and views. Also would love to see more "mythbusting" lectures like you did on M4. That really helped me to understand WW2 tank warfare much better.
Is anyone else loving the extended length and detail chieftains hatch episodes run into these days? I would love to see an episode inside a fully restored panzer IV, I've learned much about what allied tankers had at their disposal and would love to see the contrast with the main weapon fielded and depended on by the Germans.
Would love to see a detailed video on the M4 and variants. My grandfather was a tanker in an M4 in Pattons 3rd army and had "3 tanks shot out from under him" ( his words). Lucky for him (and my family) he had also gone through coms school and by Dec 44 had been pulled from the tanks to be a radio man for a battalion FO, so he rode half tracks and jeeps into Germany with several of those being destroyed with him surviving.
Cold start procedure with the radial should be: Hand crank to clear oil. Prime fuel some specified number of pumps. Fuel booster on. Engage starter. This is where it's going to get weird, because it's a tank. On a plane, you'd let the propeller swipe past a certain number of blades (IIRC, you count 7 blades on a DC-3/C-47 which means about 2 1/2 revolutions). So on a tank, you're going to probably hold the start switch over for about "two Mississippi" and then switch your mags to "both". You want to do this to get the engine up to proper RPM and prevent backfires that could start fires or damage the engine. Problem is, hold the starter over for too long before you hit the mags and you flood the engine and it won't start.
Moran showed the auxiliary engine and I thought I heard him say it would start the tank (if the battery was low) - once that itself was started using the hand-yanked rope. Is that true, can that little engine's magneto push enough current to turn the main engine's starter?
A rivet sticks out less than half an inch. If you are swinging your head that close to the solid armor plate of a tank hull that it might hit a rivet, you were already putting yourself in danger of smacking your head painfully. What, it takes a rivet head to hurt, the solid steel wasn't enough? That's also why they give tankers helmets to wear. It's the things they stick out where you didn't expect them that you hit your head on. Like do you typically hit your head on the side mirrors of your car? The door handle to your house? The drawer pulls on your kitchen drawers? The corners of picture frames? No? Because they all stand up slightly from solid surfaces and you have no need to bring your head on close proximity to them. Inside the tank they are more flush and if you aren't wearing a helmet you are a fool, because you are guaranteed to hit your head, especially if the tank is moving.
OK...; I am seeing on many of this guys videos how cramped he is in a lot of these tanks. And then I saw pictured of a crew getting in and out of an M-3 Grant and the driver came out of the little drivers hatch like it was a barn door. Then checked and found out that the average solder of WW-2 was 6 inches to a foot shorter than a modern america. Average height being only 5ft to 5 ft 5 inches and a hundred and 30 pounds. mostly to lower callery food imput back then. They were just kids compared to year 2,000 adults. Damn. Oh and i do love this guys videos. Keep it up.
Thanks so much, Chieftain! That bit about swapping the ammo for French artillery rounds and German 7.5CM rounds is fascinating. I found a reference from a tanker during the Pacific campaign mentioning that they would, _in extremis_ use 75mm artillery rounds in their M4 Mediums; I believe the quote was "They didn't seat right but they worked just fine". Anyway, this was another GREAT episode. Any chance we'll see some Japanese armor soon?
Great video, thanx so much. Now I'm gonna go watch Sahara with Humphrey Bogart again. That's a classic. Shot in B and W. If you folks haven't seen it you dont know what you're missing. And Lu Lu Bell the M3 Grant is the star.
I remember reading a story about George B. Jarrett and how he machined the turning bands on some captured enemy ammunition so that it could be used by the allies (and ignoring the possibility of arming the rounds). He was later head or the Ordnance Museum in Aberdeen, MD.
Really enjoyed this. Despite the fact that the Lee/Grant is a Turkey in WOT, historically it was an interesting and effective tank. Canadians only used them for training in England to the best of my knowledge
I am surprised that you are inside so many tanks without a helmet. Love the Grant/Lee. Yes it had its limits but man is it not cool looking. Great video. The info about the changing of the rounds was totally fascinating.
He’s an absolute mad lad for being an Abrams tanker and crawling around without a hard cover The amount of times I’d knock myself would be astounding and I doubt that wouldn’t hurt
@@looinrims , I was in an M113 for three years with my head on the outside 99% of the time and I still whacked my head on crap. And yes, sometimes without a CVC. Painful is an understatement!
@@KnifeChatswithTobias “tanks are designed to hurt people, don’t care who they are or how they do it” -The Chieftain Further confusing me with his lack of hard cover
My bet would be on standard mountings for periscopes. Noone would bother to make it un-rotatable just for one spot if you need 4-5 same periscopes more on the same tank with rotating mounts. Just a guess though.
Great video as usual . IRC the Lee / Grant had a plexi glass / glass window insert for the driver which had a wiper that you could plug in to the electrical system . The Sherman / M5 Stuarts had the same type of thing on their driver foul weather hoods . The Sherman used the same transmission only the driver sat on the left side . I think siting over the tranni in a M3 might have been a lot easier back in the 40s , remember a lot of those guys where farm boys used to spending hours at a time sitting like that on a farm tractor
The .30 helped. But yeah, it hadnt occured to me that the turret looks like a dual purpose turret on a cruiser until I thought about that scene. So maybe that was intentional. Maybe someone actually thought at one point that would work. Probably not to actually shoot down aircraft, but at least to discourage them. And that would help explain why they wanted the 37mm at all. Although I think the 37 wasn't as useless as people like to think. They say the coax MG was actually the most used weapon in most tanks, so I feel like there ought to be plenty of uses for a 37 if you have it, things that don't require a full sized shell but could benefit from something more than a .30. doesnt mean that the 37 is worth it, but use it if you have it.
I was wondering if you might be willing or able to do a tank review on a modern tank like an Abrams or Challenger 2 ect? Just so we know what a WW2 tank compares? Since you often mention things like the size of tankers in WW2 vs now, or how what looks like to us civees a horribly cramped space, you say is not bad vs modern. Thanks for your amazing videos and your work in making the WoT game awesome as well. (Although I think your videos might live on quite a bit longer than current videogames.)
Really useful to see the innards and how it all works. It goes some way to reduce the view of the WW2 tank as a hostile robot. I'd read that the Grant was the preferred bunker buster for the Indians and British in Burma. Infantry encounter a Japanese log bunker, call up a nearby Grant (if available). Grant approaches slowly targeting the bunker's fire slot with relatively low-set 75 HE (Turret ready to suppress any enemy hostility. Friendly infantry forming up behind or to flanks. Once near burst range, the 75 switches to solid AP - "Posting" these through the bunker's slot. This avoid hazard to he supporting infantry. In real close (I assume there's a lot of return fire bouncing off the tank's front by now), it fires everything at the bunker while the supporting infantry close and eliminate in the traditional manner. The British and Indian crews apparently worked wonders getting the tanks up steep jungle paths and onto narrow ridges.
the manual may say 'pistol port' but the crews , whatever else they may have thought about it.. had what was probably the best VENTILATED vehicle in allied service... hopefully all those openings were weather tight against water and cold but in hot weather this must have been a truly beloved beast.. especially if someone managed to add a fan to that circuits of that APU... and an actual water tank for the crew ? along with a heater for the cold nights?
Canister shot. My favorite. They made canister shot for the 57mm recoilless rifle. I think its the only you can sholder fire. Making it the biggest shotgun you can sholder fire
Chieftain, about the German armour. Well the Germans by 1942 had thought up of a rather nasty trick to up armour there tanks. What they did was take there standard 30mm FHA plates on the Pz III aus H, 50mm on the Stug III aus G and Pz IV aus G and put another 30mm of FHA on top of this with bolts or welds. What they found out was that this made uncapped shells shatter. Not really strange that the Germans figured this out seeing as Krupp had done a lot of research into spaced armour in the 1930's for the German navy. Later they switched to 50mm of FHA armour and stand-off 20mm of FHA on the Pz III and a solid 80mm for the Stug III and Pz IV. This turned out to be completely immune to Soviet 76mm APHE shells and really any AP shell that does not catastrophically over match like 152mm APHE or just plain HE. This armour was intended to stop Soviet projectiles, them being either uncapped AP or APHE but it also worked wonders against the M72 AP shell. The reason the M61 worked was because this was an APC shell with a penetrating cap which could defeat the first plate, either 30 or 20mm thick and also defeat the second plate in most cases. Against such shells or against the rather excellent Pz.Gr.39 APCBC shells this type of armour actually is less effective than a pure 60 or 70mm thick plate or either FHA or especially RHA. FHA a was less effective against capped projectiles in general which helped out the Allies a lot until the Germans basically stopped making FHA somewhere in the summer of 1943 and went for RHA, mostly 80mm. By that point you get Pz IV and especially Stug III because of the lack of a turret with only 50mm who have just enough armour to cause issues for the 75mm armed M4's while sill being virtually immune to Soviet 76mm.
Well for the Panzer III the Ausf H was the first model to get the Zusatzpanzerung (additional armor), it was also the first model intended for the 50mm gun (the earlier models where retrofitted during production which caused delays), This was desided in late October of 1939 after Poland showed that 30-35mm of armor was not adequate to deal with 37mm AT guns. So the Panzer III Ausf H was modified to have an extra 30mm bolt on armor (among many other improvements). The first of these was done in October 1940, at around the same time orders was placed for all existing Panzer IIIs to be back fitted with improvements, including the 50mm gun and extra bolt on armor. Many Panzer IIs also got this Zusatzpanzerung around this time as well. In mid 1940 it was decided that the 8th series of the Panzer III (Ausf J) should be started as soon as possible and that the 7th series (Ausf H) reduced in numbers as much as possible, the 8th series was to have a "organically" strengthened armor plate (in the end only some 285 Ausf H were built of the original intent of 760). Though the decision to up armor the Ausf Js with 50mm of armor came a bit late for the earliest models. In mid 1941 with some reports from Africa and the use of tapered bore guns, Hitler directed that Vorpanzer should be installed (Vorpanzer = spaced armor), this was a 20mm armor plate placed some 14cm in front of the main armor, the first units being installed around November 1941, though production delays caused that the installation to be spotty until late spring early summer of 1942. From March 1941 to May 1942 some 1,600 Ausf Js where built, from December 1941 to October 1942 some 1,500 Ausf Ls where built, the major difference from early Ausf Ls and a Ausf J is the gun, all Ausf Js had a 50mm L42, all Ausf Ls had the L60 (like the Panzer IV F2 all Ausf Js with the L60 where retroactively relabeled Ausf L in May 1942)
So, based on the turret ring diameter, they really could have put the 57mm,6# on there. Wouldn't that have been interesting... Too bad they didn't like the lack of good anti-personnel/HE ammo. Must have been a production problem, but they still could have used the 75mm for that. (I've been gifted a bunch of back in time novels, can't help it. Harry Turtledove and others.)
I love the Grant. One of my favorite tanks. It's such a great example of, "What've we got? Okay, just put a bunch of guns on it. We'll fix it later, right now we just need something that kills bad guys." It's crude, ugly, and surprisingly effective when handled well.
I enjoyed this presentation. Since I don't have access to Sahara or its remake at this time I admit to some excitement while waiting for your tour of the interior.
This was a great tank for its time,so many good features compared to other tanks that were being made. Its high silhouette being the only thing working against it,thankfully the Japanese didn't have very good tanks.
Great! always wanted that in depth tour, built many of these models as a kid! Just wish your Real Tanks bumper wasn't so common in a video. Still love the info!
"You had spalling and significant emotional events..." LOL. Never been a tanker, but I bet that would be an emotional event!? And you have to be the tallest tanker I ever saw!
Have watched this video a number of times BUT just received the AirFix 1/35 M3 Grant with full interior , excellent kit so this video will be played a lot lol
Will you ever visit the museum at Saumur, France and take a look at the operational French tanks they have there such as the FCM 36, B1, or S-35? The FCM in particular I feel is a very underappreciated tank.
Good thing about a Grant in Australian service you could keep the hatches in the "I'm not getting shot at" position permanently , we never used them overseas ..... We where still using Matilda 2s in 1945 though
Oh I was wishing so much that from the outside I could have seen the maximum up and down and side to side of the 75 mm because it's hard to picture. Obviously another beautiful video that's the only thing I was really hoping for that did not happen.
The mismatch between the two manuals for the 75mm gun's range of motion reminds me of a similar disagreement for the M4's turrest traverse speed. Depending on source it's either 15 or 17 seconds to complete a 360 degree turn.
I've flown radial engined airplanes. You can spin the engine with the starter, mags OFF, to ensure there's no hydrostatic lock and after a couple of rotations just flip the mag switch to ON. No hand cranking needed.
Goofy looking outfit. Thanks for the information. I'd often wondered about the effectiveness of said machine. Those bolts hanging down everywhere looked like a sure concussion waiting.
That's why they issue helmets. Being in any tank without a helmet is asking for a head injury. Notice the hard steel plates surrounding you closely. The many handles and brackets and frames. The violent lurching while driving.
I am wincing just thinking about all the opportunities to knock your noggin. Waiting to see a video where the Chieftain gives in and dons a skateboard helmet before climbing in. Nonetheless a fascinating channel! That music loop is stuck in my head.
I feel like they actually had some wild idea that the 37mm could be used as an anti-aircraft gun. And the cupola MG as well. They are both designed to take unusually high angles, and the 37mm turret is shaped much more life the high angle dual purpose guns you find on combst vessels, with that angled front slope. I saw the scene in _Sahara_ where they shoot down the enemy "Messerschmitt" with a single 37mm round and a short burst from the .30cal, and i thought at first that was just some silliness by the writers, but maybe that was intentional and based on something the army told them.
After watching this video I am more convinced than ever than ever that the M3 was designed by a committee....A committee of drunken German spies.....But then of course what armored vehicle, or any other piece of military field/combat equipment of the "modern era" for that matter, has not suffered to one extent or another from committee involvement in it's development? Sometimes I wonder whose side those committees are on in the first place.
It was developed from the existing M2 Medium via the T5 Medium. It was always going to be an interim design with work on what would be the M4 Sherman also under way. So everything was a compromise to get the tank into use. British had input on design from 1940 after seeing at the mock-up.
It was probably the best tank of its time. It was well armed, easy to use and repair, and solidly cheaper, more reliable and more fuel efficient than any other comparable tank in any army.
It was originally designed with only the 37mm but before the ink was dry on the production contract it was discovered that the 37mm was useless against panzers. The 75mm casement mount was far easier to design than a 75mm turret so slide the turret to the side and install the 75mm casement mount. I have wondered if the design was from a pre-dreadnought battleship but it does appear to be something they had on hand.
They did a pretty shitty job as spies then, since this still dominated everything the Germans had available in Africa when it showed up, and didn't even have any competition until they started sending over Pz IVs with 75mm guns. Funny how the common theme with people who say stuff like this is that none of them have actually designed a tank themselves or dealt with realities of production and procurement. So maybe they would have snapped their fingers and designed and tested an American M60 20 years early, inside the 40 ton shipping limit, tooled up the factories and had them coming off the lines in thousands in less than a year with plenty of time to train all the troops up well in advance of the invasion of North Africa. But I doubt it.
Russians called it : "grave for 6 brothers". The biggest problem was thin and reveted armor, angle of the armors make it even more easy to penetrate and size of the tank ,(make it an easy targed) . As Chieftain said, good in jungle against Japanese.
The Soviets (not "the Russians") had dark and humorous names for most of the equipment they served in. Men died in all of them. It doesn't imply that they considered it an especially terrible tank, it was a comment on how many crew it used, and how many would be killed in a catastrophic loss. They liked the T-34 just fine and thousands of those were lost. It's "Seven Brothers" BTW, they used the American Lee version mostly. A bunch of their guys were still rolling around in BT-7s and T-26s, at least the M3 had a good gun and passable armor.
Check out this photo of an early version of the M3. It looks like the driver has a windscreen with wipers. www.theshermantank.com/wp-content/uploads/SC1666231.jpg
Not a tank but would very much like to see a video on half tracks, my grandfather told a story about having come into a german village and running into several king tigers with infantry there, taking a panzerfaust through the grill and running the halftrack wide open for about 10 miles to out run the germans. He said the motor was glowing by the time they made it back to safety and when they shut it down it litterally melted into a solid mass. They couldnt even seperate it from the transmission it had gotten so hot.
Not to call your grandfather a liar but that is not how engines work. Not at all. There is no chance that an engine will keep operating for miles while catastrophically overheating. The bearings will seize long before that and the pistons. You might get the heads red hot for a while before the gaskets totally fail, and before the air/fuel mix just starts to spontaneously combust before it reaches the cylinders. But it's very unlikely it ever gets that far because the heat will wreck the lower end and throw your rods through the engine block way before that. The bearings are soft metal and will fail quickly. What is much more likely is that they lost cooling liquid. The engine can run for a while that way especially when you are moving with air flowing, if you don't worry about wrecking it. And if the heat only reached the total failure point I can see the heads glowing dull red but the time they shut down, especially since they were mostly flathead engines at that time, which is just a solid metal block with valve seats in the side. The heat might have messed with the rubber insulators and , and it might have melted the bearings leading to a lot of knocking, but nothing close to "melting the whole engine down" or welding it to the transmission casing. Either he is telling tall tales (which old soldiers enjoy) or you misunderstood what he was saying, or both. Definitely didn't melt the engine into slag while it was still running.
"If the 37mm and caliber .30 doesn't do the job" - As we all learned from Saving Private Ryan, the only way to penetrate the front of a Tiger is with the .45 from a 1911
That didn't happen. He shot out the vision block. And if we know anything from Internet wehrboos it's that if the Internet data boards say "the frontal armor on a Tiger was immune to American 75mm shells over 500 yards" it means that absolutely under no circumstances could an M4 penetrate the front of a Tiger at 600 yards, and that every inch of the front was completely immune to enemy fire. If not the entire tank.
@@justforever96 I'm annoyed by wehraboos as much as the next guy, but c'mon guy I was making a joke about how the scene in SPR was cut to make it look like Tom Hanks final pistol shot blew up the Tiger tank
Sounds like the early HE described was the USA MK I (copy of the French Mle 1900 or 1915 but TNT filled). Neither the USA fuses (M46? M47?) nor French fuses were bore-safe. Later USA 75 mm HE was the M48 typically w/ the fuse M48.
Looks like a death trap for anyone going up against a Jerry MK III, or even worse a MK IV tank, plus small caliper anti tanks rounds looks like it would check it up too.
Maybe that's why you should read the facts instead of just assuming you can tell everything at a glance. This was far superior to the IIIs and IVs they had in service at the time, the 75mm was easily able to outrange them, and they got their asses kicked until they started sending them some of the new 75mm IVs that let them take them on in equal terms. Notice how the Germans _didn't_ kick the US army back into the ocean in Africa. Funny how that works.
Did the Soviets actually refer to it as a 'coffin for 7 brothers' though? I've never seen a primary (I.e. ww2) source for this so wondering if you have. Mr Zaloga claims it's a made-up post-war phrase.
