US Tank Destroyer History 

A lot of officers who were either proven incompetent in battle, or else, um, unethical (?), were re-assigned to training command duty. This is absolutely no surprise.

He was a “Band of Homies”

@Michael Smith seriously? I didnt know that he killed himself. Do you know if it was after the movie came out?

@Michael Smith actually, he didn't. He shot himself in 1970 and went blind from the wound, but actually died 17 years later in the VA hospital from malnutrition.

@Henryk Gödel that's how lots of insurgency get sustained. John Nagl, after writing his excellent book on COIN, went on to command in Iraq. In one of his presentation, he recounted a dilemma: the Iraqi police chief under his area of control was selling supplies, including body armours, sight, weapons, munitions to the insurgents. Partially it was corruption, partially it was threats on the police chief's family. Nagl never had a satisfactory answer of what was the correct answer. Singling out that man means losing what little local support they had, but that man's action was killing Nagl's men. Writing that book comparing the British in Malaya and Americans in Vietnam was a lot harder than commanding an actual COIN.

Trebuchet vs tanks??

Logistics was a problem...

Kind of reminds me of a story I hear about the French or somebody replacing the warheads in some guided weapons with solid concrete to avoid collateral damage by slamming through the tanks roof

@@CS-zn6pp you can procure rocks anywhere

@@connorsullivan7692 If you put one up within ~300m of a tank parking lot...that could actually work, they are fairly accurate, and I could imagine a tank could suffer some damage if you fling pumpkin-sized chunks of granite at it....

That would be cool

Actually I don't believe it was thrown. The idea was to jam it in a tanks tracks to immobilize it. That's also what happened to all the bent rifles on the same slide. Needless to say they weren't too successful.

So 'Rock, Jammed, Anti-Tank M1?'

+Wesley23 'M4' everything is 'M4'

William Magoffin If it's a British rock, would it breaking in the tracks make in a mkII rock, or a mkI* ?

oh my god thank you for saying this

haha hahaha lol

sharmagames same LmAo

HAHAHA I see it now!

Nicholas Moran is kinda tall

The Article in the description says "Stone, 5-Inch, Undesignated". Probably made up though

It is the L.M.P. model of 1889. A french weapon, designed prior to ww1

M1

for football mad countries, a foot-grenade-goes further

Acthung! Ist Jabo!

+Daniel Taylor Das ist die mächtig königstiger

Bismarck hello

Bismarck sup Bismarck

Gutan tag, Bismarck

To be fair to man 4, that is my solution to most problems.

@@Devin_Stromgren If that isn't your solution to most problems that is a bad thing.

Robert Lutece Guy 4 is most likely the only one with combat experience, because a rock is a big morale boost for the soliders around, and it can act as bodyarmour in case a bullet hits The ROCK

Meeting moderator points at Man 4 and asks "who invited the Marines?"

I would think they could have asked almost any engineer what happens when you shove a rock in to a large spinning metal thing, or to be hones almost anyone probably.

I agree. I love how he admits being a tank crewman, doesn't mean two fucks to being a historian.

Ive heard archives in general are a dysfunctional mess. I greatly respect anyone willing to wade into that mess in the name of history

I would!

I love the m18 and it's my go-to vehicle in WOT. Grinded to get the fast sniper and couldn't be happier.

MY UNCLE PVT. LAWRENCE BICKFORD -601ST TANK BATTALION. MIA, THEN KIA IN 02/1944.

My grandpa “Bud” Dick Nelson was in the 803d.

hey, it's fridaay !

SAME ITS FRIDAY FINALLY!

+aboomination picks up gun and shoots himself*

They later upgraded it to the antitank rock m1a1, which had laser optics.

It was 106mm, not 105mm It's nomenclature is the M40 and they were used all over the World, some still are. I saw I pic not too long ago of one in Syria.

@@cvr527 are correct, you stirred 4 brains cells and I remember the recoiless was 106 and howitzers 105. do you remember the M202 multishot? Arnold used one in a movie. it's a four shot flame weapon.

@@imjusttoodissgusted5620 Yeah, I have fired them both. The M202A1 Flash is a 4 round 66mm incendiary rocket launcher.

@@cvr527 As I recall, they were actually 105mm but were called 106 in order to not cause confusion with rounds ending up in the wrong places.

@@TheDutchRanger I had not heard that. I know for certain the rounds are marked 106mm, but didnt measure them with calipers, lol. Would not surprise me if that were true. Either way the correct and only designation for the M40 is 106mm. Interestingly, I just spotted one mounted on the back of Toyota Hilux in a video taken in Libya two days ago.

they suggested it in old videos of how to fight the japanese tanks in an emergency

Anti tank pommel.

Tetemovies4 Indeed sir. When thrown it destroys the entire universe.

You mean Anti-tank Nokia, which destroys the fabric of reality when thrown.

Declassified picture of an anti-tank rock. The anti-tank rock was at one point classified.

Yes. A better microphone and hence better audio would have improved the video by a lot. Or a pop filter.

agreed- the plosives are driving me mad.interesting TD info though.

The foam cover on most mikes will deal with the problem. Other than that, a great video.

should have scrolled down, i just made the same comment. I'd suggest a blue yeti.

I enjoyed the video but you need to get a real mic or some sort of audio level software editing . As you blew out my ears a couple dozen times with red sound levels. :(

Hahaha I did the same thing, don't look at the vehicle, look at the uniforms! :P

It's like Hans-Ulrich Rudel's kill record, which included a battleship, the Oktobrskaya Revolutiya, among his kills, described in Soviet records as "lightly damaged, and later raised" ('raising' being the act of refloating a ship after it was sunk).

DROP THE BASS if I do say so myself eh?

We did use some captured StuGs. www.ww2incolor.com/d/766332-2/image_007 The Tank Destroyer branch wanted something with a turret, they never liked the idea of a fixed gun with limited traverse. Most felt that design was more suited for an assault gun, which the Sturmgeschutz was. We used a turret-less assault gun in the form of the 105mm GMC T95

CPTANT The main thing the TD needed was speed. The Stug was great if you were defending, but the Americans were attacking.

Tank Destroyer Battalion Doctrine foresaw the TD being used in concentrated formation reacting to an enemy armoured column breaching the front. Speed and manoeuvrability was more important; thus they gave all TDs a turret. The turret was also of open-top design, emphasising situational awareness and shoot-first capability. In reality, by the time the Americans joined the fight, they were on the offensive and TDs saw use as infantry support tanks. Turret-less TDs were excellent on the offensive: taking an overwatch position and provide direct fire support. Turret-less design means they can potentially have better frontal armour than the tank and carry a larger gun. The downside is if a track is knocked out, the turret-less TD is useless. Normal, dumb, point detonated artillery rounds can destroy and damage tank tracks and roadwheels.

Probably because they produced so many M4 chassis it's probably cheaper to use those for TD designs and fail than to re-design a hull that'll fit the turret-less gun. Like the US is already confused what a TD is and what it should do, I don't think anyone convinced someone to design a turret-less TD.

self propelled anti tank, it's a tank destroyer. as for its effectiveness as a modern TD it seems to fill specific roles quite exceptionally, being faster and easier to transport (at least without the cage) means it can respond to armoured infantry threats much quicker and cleaner. though it would work best against lighter vehicles, APCs IFVs and SPGs, it can take out a few MBTs as well, in an open environment at least.

+that brit vamp chick Stryker MGS is quite decent as an all-round infantry support vehicle, but it is not very good as a tank destroyer. Its reduced-power underpowered 105mm gun makes it nearly useless against anything newer than T-55s and T-62s. A lightly armoured missile carrier would make for a much more useful tank destroyer. See the Tigr-based double quad Kornet tank destroyer. Or even the older BRDM-2-based quintuple Konkurs tank destroyer. Stryker MGS can carry more ammo, but the ammo is proprietary, so there is a high logistics burden just to employ the substandard gun.

Tiles Murphy substandard cannon that is still in standard use with most countries. It isn't a 120 or 140 but it is still a capable anti tank gun in the same sense that the 75mm M4 was. It will kill everything but the heaviest of armour.

that brit vamp chick Stryker cannot use full power 105mm ammo due to excessive recoil. Ammunition for it is proprietary.

You sure about that? A look at ATK's website (The ammunition manufacturer) seems to lump the same round in all variants of the M68.

no the anti-tank bricks were the premium ammo.

Still not better than soviet Anti-Tank dogs ;p

FYI the trained them by using t-34 as targets so...... yeah

Yeah the Soviet AT dogs was a story that is tragicomedy at it´s "best". :/

better than the frogs and there maginot line?

It would appear that for the volume/weight, at the time the gasoline/petrol engines were more powerful. See discussion starting here, 9:47. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-jgcM2uLUrxA.html

TheChieftainWoT Thanks a ton for the reply! I will check it out. Appreciate all the information you share, your content is some of the, if not the best out there!

I would add one extra note to the Chieftains comment. Hunnicutt (This book was just recently republished, but otherwise you can take a look at it via interlibrary loan) looks at the diesel version of the M4 that could actually be deployed in WWII, the M4A2, which basically used 2 heavy truck diesels to run. In 1942-43 these were tested and found to be automotively superior to the R975, the Chrysler multi-bank and at least competitive with the Ford GAA in the M4A3. The caveats were that they were very dependent on quality of its air filter, but more importantly since most everything else ran on gas, for logistic purposes it was best to keep the tanks on gas. (Page 147-148) So since it was impossible to replace every engine with diesel, the gas engines had a advantage. Note however despite this, the diesel M4A2 was used extensively by the UK, and the USA used diesel M10's, honestly considering that the US used diesel M10 I believe that using M4A2's would not have been that big a problem, but the logistical concerns were valid enough.

And I just noticed that the decision to limit US vehicles (Somehow the M10 was ignored here.) to gas engines was a March 1942 order from the War Department, while the testing on final M4A2's was done in February of 1943 (Page 148 and 152.) So the M4A2 was also somewhat the victim of bad timing.

***** Oh I was wondering why they used it, and when you said that it made perfect sense.

It has already been tried, the Finns did that during the winter war, jamming a log in the track and throwning molotovs/charges on the engine deck, i have never read about them using smoke though, but that might simply have been because they did not have any smoke granades...or very much of anything.

Of course the Finns had several things in their favor. They were operating in forested terrain where it was possible to get close to the tanks, and they were facing relatively light, under powered tanks like the T-26, where a log in the tracks would stop it.

The KV:s where tried out during the winter war aswell. And there where forrests on the ithmus before the artillery barrages, after that not as much, have a look at the numbers in that war.

I've seen Marine trainees at Fort Benning break an Abrams track on a tree so that may be a possibility.

Sheered the idler wheel clean off.

as a new consumable

Ted Piasecki that would be perfect

Daniel Dildine i would buy it

Why isn't this implemented in WOT and if it was NERF it

"Nerf rock, paper is fine" - sincerely, scisors.

+BRITISH SWAGG add it to heroes and generals

+piritskenyer that needs to be a meme lol

Now they do make high velocity ATR's that are fired from a rubberized strap called a "sling-shot". The more you know.

I was taught how to make one in Infantry School in the 80's.

They definitely taught soldiers how to make them. The British actually built and issued them, mostly for 1941. Just because you have a reserve force that can deal with massed enemy armor attacks doesn't mean the infantry in the front lines don't need some way of dealing with armor. Just telling them "so if the enemy attacks with tanks you're pretty much screwed, and don't stand a chance, but it's okay, we have reserves that will stop them after they overrun you" isn't really great for morale. They need to feel like they have some chance of fighting back. And they still have cases where they only have a few enemy tanks on a local engagement, you need to deal with them. Of course bazooka and rifle grenades were a much better solution, but magnetic or adhesive charges were one solution, and they were taught how to make them for emergencies. You can't always get a bazooka or AT gun, and you need something that can stop a tank. But it definitely wasn't a thing that was used often. Pretty much a desperate last ditch thing, and extremely dangerous to use, since any properly employed armor has infantry support exactly so you can't use stuff like this on the tanks. Because what most people don't realize is that tanks are extremely vulnerable to infantry when they aren't supported. It's to easy to go to and blow them up or set them on fire, they can't see what's going on, and they can't shoot in all directions at the same time. With proper support, you can't get close to them to destroy them and they can stand back and hammer you where you can't touch them.

Let's be fair any high calibre cannon that can point forward and down would in reality make a half decent anti tank gun. I mean that's how the Nazi's realised their 88 flak guns were actually better anti tank weapons then aa guns. The 88 got used as an aa gun, an artillery piece, anti tank gun, and even found itself slapped into actual tanks.

yup, and thus the S-tank is definitely a fixed gun turret-less mbt and not a TD as it was designed and used as an mbt XD And it also makes the A-10 Thunderbolt2 a fixed wing aircraft TD along with the AT attack helicopters :P

not necessarily, depends on the type of gun, in a technical sense "gun" refers to a high velocity cannon in the old sense, while "Howitzer" refers to low velocity cannon, these days the distintion is generally forgotten but low velocity Howitzerr are in effective against tanks when firing AP since they lack the energy to penetrate armor, firing HE has mixed effect. the 88 was technically not an "artillery gun" since it was not used by the Artillery branch but by the anti-air branch

MR.Chickennuget 360 Technically is a term for the history books and useless ivory tower types. The 88 flak gun was a far more effective ground support piece and anti-tank gun then it was ever a an anti-aircraft piece. Considering it's max ceiling was only 9000 feet or so. Below the high flying bombers of the allied forces. On the off side though being able to punch through 84 cm of armour at 2 kilometres makes the Flak gun more less better suited in the hands of the likes of Rommel then Goring. But I guess them Luftwaffe boys preferred the blue over the gray ya know.

Mate the highest a 88 could throw a shell was 9000 feet. The B-17 could cruise at 35,000 feet and typically could do daylight precision drops at 10,000 feet. Tell me mate where in all that time does a B17 even come close to being threatened by a 88 flak gun?

T28 Super heavy tank T95 GMC Two different designations

+Valentine T95 105mm gmc

ya no. its name is T28/T95 GMC. because when they first made the T28 it had problems, they added on tracks and renamed it to the T28/T95 GMC. which allowed the artillery men to crew the thing. because those guys already worked with those size shells.

There are only two doom turtles remaining. One is on a display outside and I think it's off limits and the other one is somewhere idk. So he can't do a inside the hatch on that one

Hi blaster.

Tegan Carr you guys are like vegans. Jeez..

Sorry, this has NOTHING to do with gaming. It may be a surprise, but some of us actually enjoy history for its own sake.

With Coastal guns, you can mount very heavy armor and earthworks to protect the gun, as well as mounting the heaviest gun your nation can produce without having to worry about the affecting the balance of a ship or fitting it into a 360% rotating turret. Also since you will usually mount a CD gun into a hillside, your powder storage and ammo storage rooms can be deep below ground, making them impossible to be hit. And while you mention the location of the Gun being fixed is a negative being a bad thing, that's not correct. by having your location fixed you can presight ranges years in advance and likely have multiple rangefinders located in your gun battery allowing for much faster target acquisition than a shipboard rangefinder

That all might be well and good, but when four battleships comes into range and you have 40+ 400+mm rounds coming to your head when you are just starting to compute position, direction and velocity of the enemy, this won't help you very much.

They had devices called stadimeters for rangefinding and bearing was simple enough(the two functions of radar)... speed was done from a reticle in the stadimeter based on range and time. Same stuff on submarines but using MUCH slower projectiles, and they worked just fine... especially after the US fixed their torpedoes.

Yeah but the amount of errors you have on these measurements is staggering. Even today it's not easy to have relatively accurate, fast and reliable rangefinding.

Think of it this way; would you rather be on the sidewalk shooting at a moving car, or in a moving car shooting at someone on the sidewalk? Drive bys are notorious for hitting everyone but who they are shooting at.

I would watch the shit out of a TD history mini-series; an episode covering each WWII-fighting nation. I would even patreon that.

If you look at most of the German Tank destroyers, they were built as ambush weapons. They weren't meant to engage in mobile contact with the enemy. Reading a few summaries of employment for multiple types of German weapons, they used them in set positions, then drew the enemy into the kill zones to use them. Soviets on the other hand, seemed to use their vehicles in a more flexible role. That's probably why a lot of the Soviet weapons are labelled as assault guns rather then tank destroyers. The US looked like they used the designated TDs in multiple roles as well when they weren't able to act on their original function, but more as artillery. So, you have three countries with three different situations, using vehicles with the same primary function in three different ways. One country was mostly on the defensive, using its guns in the same way normal AT guns were employed. Another country was on the offensive for a good part of the war and used its assault guns to not only take out tanks, but to destroy enemy hard points. Finally, the third country used its TDs as a quick reaction force and artillery or for infantry support. In my opinion, its not really relevant to compare who had the "better" doctrine. Because, if situations changed, each country would do something different then it did. For example, the US didn't employ very many, if any tank destroyers in the Pacific, because they weren't needed. Large tank formations and employment in many regions of the Pacific was not practical. Both the Japanese and Americans knew that. If there was something like a Tiger or IS-3 in the Pacific, it would be useless over much of the terrain and very vulnerable to air attack or naval gunfire. So, comparing three different situations and usage by countries to play the "who had better" game is pretty pointless.

Did you actually watch the video? He goes into a pretty significant amount of detail on how "anti tank weapon" and "tank destroyer" are not interchangeable terms, and how the latter is a product of doctrine not just of being a weapon designed to take out tanks. The Germans and the Soviets didn't have a "tank destroyer history" because they didn't have "tank destroyers". They had other techniques that were designed to deal with enemy armored pushes.

HOrseshoeM a stug is not a TD it’s an assault gun.

Stalinium It was built as an assault gun but it filled both roles later on when it was discovered to be good as a TD.