Word: m3
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...first lesson concerned fire power. After having scoffed at the U.S. Army for the way it "overgunned" its tanks (a 75-mm. cannon, a 37-mm. cannon and four .30-caliber machine guns in the Chrysler M3, for instance), the British found that fire power is the first requirement of a tank-eating tank. Their own tanks, whose primary armament consists of the two-pounder gun (approximately the same as the 37-mm. cannon), were no match for German tanks carrying thirteen-pounders (roughly...
Last week some 200 officers, manufacturers, newsmen saw the Army's newest tank in action. It was an M3: a 25-ton armored hulk, abristle with four machine guns and two cannon, seven tons heavier than the few medium tanks already in service. The Army last week had only this one model, but within two or three months medium tanks should begin to roll from three new tank factories (Chrysler, American Locomotive, Baldwin Locomotive...
...Maryland clay was muddy underfoot. Colonel Christmas said that he would let the model speak for itself. Then he turned toward the tank, sulking 400 yards away on a slight rise, and waved his right arm. There was dead quiet for perhaps ten seconds. Then M3 turned loose a horizontal stream of red death, directed towards a silhouette target 900 yards away. From the muzzles of four .30-caliber machine guns spurted bright tracer bullets; from the turret, the shells from a 37 mm. cannon cracked into the faraway pines. Ordnance men from far & wide saw what they had come...
About 1,000 yards away, a radio-controlled, empty light tank lurched into view, quartered across the rough test ground. M3 set off in pursuit. Because the Army wanted to use the light tank again, Colonel Williams and his six-man civilian crew fired only their machine guns. Colonel Christmas explained what would happen to the light tank if Colonel Williams turned loose his 75: "We would send a dump truck out on the range and bring back a pile of old iron." As M3 gathered speed, a visible streak of .30 caliber bullets smashed into the hull and tracks...
...radical departure in tank armament, gave M3 tremendous fire power. Said Colonel Williams: "We weren't trying for top firing speed with the big gun. . . . We might get up as high as 30 a minute." Any such rate of fire would take some doing. Two men load and fire the 75. The loader has to kneel in a tiny steel coop. Between the breech and a bulkhead, he has about three feet in which to work. When the gun recoils, he has something less than two feet. At 30 rounds a minute, the loader must, every two seconds, extract...