Picture of the day

Ganderite, I honestly have no idea what that valve is for but insides of that tank look depressing... It's so tight and uncomfortable. I've sat inside 3 of these things while they were moving. Not a pleasant experience. Only one I saw painted the same way was T34 in Ottawa War Museum. Operational ones were dark white/beige kind of thing on the inside.
 
MarkCNP said:
Uncramped:

M3-lee-camp-polk.jpg
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Soviet document outlining the problems they experienced with the M3 tank:

http://ftr.wot-news.com/2013/11/11/soviet-opinion-on-lend-lease-us-tanks/
179991_original.jpg


To comrade Mikoyan,


on the question of 1943 delivery of American tanks I report:

1. In 1942, we recieved two types of tanks from America: M3 Light and M3 Medium. Apart from that, 26 tanks M4A2 (medium type tanks) made it to the USSR with convoy 19.
2. In combat, a number of major issues appear on tanks M3 Light and M3 Medium, reducing significantly their combat quality.
3. The main issues are the following:

a) the tanks start burning easily when penetrated by shells
b) large dimensions with significant number of vertical armor plates make these tanks easily damaged from enemy anti-tank artillery fire of even very small calibers
c) little durability of the aircraft-type engines, installed into tanks
d) it’s impossible to shoot the sponson-mounted 75mm howitzer of M3 Medium tank, when the tank is in hulldown position, as the howitzer is located on ground level. It is also impossible to shoot two frontal machineguns that way for the same reason.
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DeadeyeDave said:
Picture of Musashi, the other Yamato class battleship. Apparently the Japanese tried to destroy all pictures and documents related to these BB's. This newspaper clipping has just recently been found.
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I was in Japan a few weeks ago when the photo was discovered, it was big news because it was a never before see image of Musashi, and probably one of the few or only photos of either ships firing their 18in guns.

When Yamato sunk, they said the sake (Japanese rice wine) stores were enough to get the whole ocean drunk.
 
Weren't the Japanese guns 18.1" so they could play the - "Mine's bigger than yours!" game with the Allies?

Michael Dempster said:
I was in Japan a few weeks ago when the photo was discovered, it was big news because it was a never before see image of Musashi, and probably one of the few or only photos of either ships firing their 18in guns.

When Yamato sunk, they said the sake (Japanese rice wine) stores were enough to get the whole ocean drunk.
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The M3 Lee/Grant was an interim tank that filled the gap until the Sherman got into production. It used the same drive train and suspension components. It was big, unwieldy and had limited traverse of the hull mounted 75mm gun as well as limited hull down protection while using the 75mm. Some of the same shortcomings were manifested in the follow on M4 Sherman (thin armor, low velocity gun, propensity to burn). The Brits were the first to use the M3 in N.Africa and actually welcomed it's dual purpose 75mm gun and automotive reliability over what they had been using. The 75mm HE rounds were useful against anti-tank guns and infantry and the 75mm AP round was useful against some of the earlier tanks that the Germans/Italians were using.
 
I believe that each numbered, successive round these large Naval 'rifles' fired was a tad larger than the previous round to make up for bore wear. The Germans were the first to note this in WWI with their large railway guns bombarding Paris.
 
fat tony said:
Soviet document outlining the problems they experienced with the M3 tank:

http://ftr.wot-news.com/2013/11/11/soviet-opinion-on-lend-lease-us-tanks/
179991_original.jpg
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The Soviets never missed an opportunity to b1tch and moan about the free gear they were getting.

The British had a more magnanimous stance - even if it was a crappy gun, it was still one more gun than they had before they got it. Even if it didn't shoot, it might just distract the enemy away from a gin that could shoot long enough for him to get another round downrange.

Not like uncle Joe or the Soviet high command were particularly worried about the health and safety of their own troops.
 
grelmar said:
The Soviets never missed an opportunity to b1tch and moan about the free gear they were getting.
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Yes and no.What they very quickly discovered was that Lend-Lease gave them fantastic opportunity to look-up,copy and adapt a lot US/UK technologies to their own uses.

Good example was Aircobra,B-25 Michell and A-20 Havoc.All of those aircraft were dissected and ideas,alloys and other technologies copied.

Results can be found in La-7,9,11 fighters, Tu-2 medium bomber and Il-10.Compare them with previous generation of respective aircraft-day and night difference.


I'm not into naval,tank or electronic soviet tech of WW2 but I'm sure they did the same thing there as well.
 
The Russians received huge tonnages of war material from the US incl tanks, aircraft, wheeled vehicles, railway rolling stock, petroleum products, clothing and foodstuffs. A lot of the Russian Army was fed on canned meats and even wore high felt winter boots made in the US. It only made sense at the time. The Russians were doing the lion's share of the fighting and dying against the Nazis and every German soldier and German tank killed on the eastern front was one less to be confronted on the western front. All of this was accompanied by a big PR makeover to show that "Uncle Joe" Stalin was a pretty good guy and a worthy ally. How quickly that all changed.

There were 4 major routes for lend lease to the USSR; the well known Arctic convoys, the North-west staging route for aircraft, rail and road transport from the Persian Gulf through Iran and Russian shipping from the US west coast to Vladivostok (Russia and Japan were not at war until mid 1945 so Russian ships could ply this route with impunity). Canada even got into the act by supplying Cdn built Valentine tanks and radios (anyone recall seeing the Russian language labels and the Canadian lend lease decals on the 19 sets).
 
anyone recall seeing the Russian language labels and the Canadian lend lease decals on the 19 sets).
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one set per crate and crates piled to the ceiling in an Armoury in Toronto (mid '70's). Funny thing is (years before) after we sold them off as surplus we discovered we needed them for Korea.. my father was stationed in Halifax at the time - prior to being sent to Kashmir - and went around to folks that had purchased them as surplus and negotiated a price to buy them back for the Army.
 
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How quickly that all changed.
There were 4 major routes for lend lease to the USSR; the well known Arctic convoys, the North-west staging route for aircraft, rail and road transport from the Persian Gulf through Iran
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Yes the Soviets caused the British (and Americans) quite a bit of heartburn when they occupied the cat's head and wouldn't leave for quite a while after the war... the British Navy had relied on Persian oil after they converted from coal... this issue was one of the early precursors to the cold war.
 
Seem to have read that the Soviets liked the Valentine tanks. They allegedly found them to be satisfactory. The UK engineers even managed to shoehorn a 6 pounder in a redesigned turret. Not bad. Any other reports on this? Many of the Lend Lease Valentine tanks were made by (?) CPR.

Like the M3, the Valentine was a "holy ####" we need 5000 of these yesterday! type of tank. The Valentine however hit the high notes. :)

New Zealand used a version of the Valentine with 3" howitzer.
 
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