A different armored doctrine

None actually, warfare and tactics change very fast being prepared for strategies used in 1940 was different when the US Army faced rommel in north Africa.
 
The idea that tanks are primaraly meant to fight other tanks, would lead to very different tank designs and not to OTL Shermans. The first tank designed primaraly to fight other tanks (as opposed to a tank destroyer or a cruiser/cavalry tank) was probably the Panther. It was fast, had most of its armor at the front for long range head on fights and the best AT gun available in its country that would fit. The US had all the needed parts to build such a tank, and I guess it would look more like a M10 with a closed turret and more frontal armor.
 

FBKampfer

Banned
The M6 would have to be reworked in order to be problem free, the M4 jumbo strained its suspension systems and made it slower while making it more survivable. The problem with the 9cm was the shells you'd still have to target the rear and sides.

In all the M6 becomes the pershing heavy Tank.

Actually the Pershing and the Panther are both able to engage each other from the front at over a kilometer.


The 90mm's performance was almost identical to the 88, while the Panther's 75mm had quite a significant edge in penetration at close range, before falling behind at around 2000m.
 

FBKampfer

Banned
That would make it quite practical against the Panzer IV and Tiger what would be the British reception of the tank?

The Brits would probably stick with their fireflies and later Comet tanks.

Heavies had proven rather unnecessary in Europe, where lack of fixed reinforced defenses rendered them less than optimal.

Especially with British practice of splitting them between Infantry and Cruiser tanks.
 
The problem which is ignored is that the US tank destroyer doctrine did not evolve in a vacuum. It evolved in response to the battlefield situations of 1940, when the Battle of France stunned American military observers and left them scrambling to figure out a doctrinal response to the idea of a rapid armored breakthrough as had happened at Sedan. The Americans designed their tank destroyers to provide units with the operational mobility to be able to plug exactly such a hole, and to be able to stop the catastrophe of 1940 from happening to them. Based on what happened in 1940, its an entirely reasonable idea and responds well to the disaster that the French faced, and for an army which had no experience in anti-tank warfare was hardly a bad idea. ...

There was a huge failure in US Army intelligence in this. Actually multiple failures. One was a gross misunderstanding of the number of tanks the Germans had. I've found Army publications from 1942 placing 12,000 tanks used in the assault on the Allied armies. Thats not a typo. The senior Army leaders were operating under the assumption the German armored forces were over three times their actual strength. Other problems were bad information on the actual nature of the battles. Things like the shortage of French AT guns was not known, the use of reserves, the attrition of the German tanks. These gross misunderstandings were aggravated by the results and interpretation of the large maneuvers the US Army conducted from late 1940 through 1941. These seemed to validate the ideas behind the embryonic TD doctrine that some parties were pushing. Doubts were raised as further large scale excesses tested the assorted Army doctrines in 1942, but the TD proponents got a boost in early 1943 when in Tunisia two TD battalions executed a text book TD operation (with a few flaws). This one action was used to validate the entire concept and doctrine as set out by the TD Corps/Branch.

As the corps and army commanders gained further experience in training in the in 1943 they ended up rejecting the underlying concept for the TD battalions & groups. When these generals deployed to Europe in 1944 they rejected the doctrine across the board, assigning the TD battalions to specific divisions. They did the same for the independent armor battalions. Ike, Devers, Patch, Clark, Bradley, Patton, Hodges, Simpson, and Kruger in the Pacific all ditched the TD Branch doctrine. The numerous group HQ for the TD and independent Armor battalions remained for the most part in the US, and were dissolved in 1944. The Army commanders said they did not need them and asked for more engineers, and infantry instead. The few TD Group HQ sent to Europe were not used doctrinally and eventually dissolved.
 
There was a huge failure in US Army intelligence in this. Actually multiple failures. One was a gross misunderstanding of the number of tanks the Germans had. I've found Army publications from 1942 placing 12,000 tanks used in the assault on the Allied armies. Thats not a typo. The senior Army leaders were operating under the assumption the German armored forces were over three times their actual strength. Other problems were bad information on the actual nature of the battles. Things like the shortage of French AT guns was not known, the use of reserves, the attrition of the German tanks. These gross misunderstandings were aggravated by the results and interpretation of the large maneuvers the US Army conducted from late 1940 through 1941. These seemed to validate the ideas behind the embryonic TD doctrine that some parties were pushing. Doubts were raised as further large scale excesses tested the assorted Army doctrines in 1942, but the TD proponents got a boost in early 1943 when in Tunisia two TD battalions executed a text book TD operation (with a few flaws). This one action was used to validate the entire concept and doctrine as set out by the TD Corps/Branch.

As the corps and army commanders gained further experience in training in the in 1943 they ended up rejecting the underlying concept for the TD battalions & groups. When these generals deployed to Europe in 1944 they rejected the doctrine across the board, assigning the TD battalions to specific divisions. They did the same for the independent armor battalions. Ike, Devers, Patch, Clark, Bradley, Patton, Hodges, Simpson, and Kruger in the Pacific all ditched the TD Branch doctrine. The numerous group HQ for the TD and independent Armor battalions remained for the most part in the US, and were dissolved in 1944. The Army commanders said they did not need them and asked for more engineers, and infantry instead. The few TD Group HQ sent to Europe were not used doctrinally and eventually dissolved.

Those gross overestimates persisted through the war.

I have an official US Armed Forces history of WW2, given to the troops in 1945, shortly after the Japanese Surrender, that suggests the Allies shot down 1200 planes in Tunisia, when Germany didn't even have 300 planes in theater.
 
That's a logical reaction to the events of 1940. But that line of thinking also has another element of reactive human nature: to expect the same set of conditions in the next occurrence. How much anticipation of planning for offensive warfare went into the doctrine and weapons development?

A lot went into offensive doctrine/preparation. That was the core reason for the Armor Corps/Branch existence. As far back as the 1940 maneuvers the Infantry Branch leaders were leaning towards development of the offense. They retained the prewar doctrine that the defense serves as a preparation & enabler for the offense. The offense was the goal for reaching decisive tactical, operational, or strategic results.

The TD Branch was basically running against the current in US Army doctrine. While the emphasis was on aggressive tactics and operations the purpose was basically defensive, blocking and destroying attacking enemy tank attacks with local maneuver and superior firepower. This was fit into the larger scheme as enabling the Armored Force to concentrate on strictly the offense.
 
Those gross overestimates persisted through the war.

I have an official US Armed Forces history of WW2, given to the troops in 1945, shortly after the Japanese Surrender, that suggests the Allies shot down 1200 planes in Tunisia, when Germany didn't even have 300 planes in theater.

LoL I could dig out some documents I have on that. Summaries of the German records for what they lost in 1943 by theatre. It was very substantial. Toss in accidents and blown engines & abandoned aircraft and the January through April gross loss in the Med could have been three times that. The 300 number is probably what they had operational on the airfields in Tunisia January-March. They may have sent two to three times that as replacements. In April the loss rate forced them to halt most flights to or over Tunisia to attempt rebuilding strength. IIRC correctly the Allies had somewhere around a daily average of 5,000 operational aircraft in the Med theatre in April. Not sure what they had based in operating range of Tunisia. Possiblly the majority of that?
 
The idea that tanks are primaraly meant to fight other tanks, would lead to very different tank designs and not to OTL Shermans. The first tank designed primaraly to fight other tanks (as opposed to a tank destroyer or a cruiser/cavalry tank) was probably the Panther. It was fast, had most of its armor at the front for long range head on fights and the best AT gun available in its country that would fit. The US had all the needed parts to build such a tank, and I guess it would look more like a M10 with a closed turret and more frontal armor.

In the US case the tank vs tank design would be the T20 series first put on paper in mid 1942. That was the result of a pair of US engineers from the Ordnance Branch touring the North African battlefields in the winter/spring of 1942. Along with Brit tank leaders and engineers they examined hundreds of damaged/destroyed tanks and analyzed what ruined them and the tactical circumstances. The reports they brought back to the US resulted in a low slung hull with more armor on the sides than previously thought necessary. Ammunition storage was better laid out, the components kept simple. The turret was allowed to grow in width & depth, but kept low. The T20 was about the same weight and HP to weight ratio as the M4, but had wider tracks for better flotation & much better side armor arraignment. Eventually the T20 layout went into limited production as the electric drive T23. A version with thicker side and frontal armor but same layout went into limited production as the T26 & eventually as the M26.

I'd recommend Hunnicutts history of the M26 tank for a very detailed account of the origin & design. Zalogas book on the M26 has the short digest version.

The Brits used their observations from this tourist exercise to massage the design of what became the Centurion tank
 
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The idea that tanks are primaraly meant to fight other tanks, would lead to very different tank designs and not to OTL Shermans. The first tank designed primaraly to fight other tanks (as opposed to a tank destroyer or a cruiser/cavalry tank) was probably the Panther. It was fast, had most of its armor at the front for long range head on fights and the best AT gun available in its country that would fit. The US had all the needed parts to build such a tank, and I guess it would look more like a M10 with a closed turret and more frontal armor.

The problem is that "tanks job is to fight other tanks" strikes me as bad an error as the idea that "tanks job is not to fight other tanks", as the fact that the Panther design failed attests. A tanks job should be to act as a general-purpose armored fighting vehicle, a category which includes fighting other tanks but not exclusively so. So while tank vs tank combat should be taken into account in the design process, it should not dominate it.
 
I think weighing down the infantry with towed AT guns would be very detrimental as a whole.
——————————————————————————
Agreed!
Towed AT guns are cumbersome and slow. Their only advantages are concealment and commonality.
Towed AT guns’ low silhouette makes them easy to conceal while while laying in ambush.
Wheeled AT guns can be towed by the same heavy trucks as the logistics branch.
At a bare minimum, you want portee guns with minimal overhang.
The practical minimum is something like the modern, French, Centaur, 155mm howitzer with a base plate that lowers quickly, hydraulically to the ground.
 
That's a logical reaction to the events of 1940. But that line of thinking also has another element of reactive human nature: to expect the same set of conditions in the next occurrence. How much anticipation of planning for offensive warfare went into the doctrine and weapons development?
Given the absolute disaster of what happened in 1940 and the incredible urgency to avoid it, developing a reactive strategy to avoid it was an important thing. Yes, it was reactive - but it was a threat which legitimately needed countering. As for offensive warfare - well, certainly the US proved proficient about that given its historical record, although I can't really say much about it.

The idea that tanks are primaraly meant to fight other tanks, would lead to very different tank designs and not to OTL Shermans. The first tank designed primaraly to fight other tanks (as opposed to a tank destroyer or a cruiser/cavalry tank) was probably the Panther. It was fast, had most of its armor at the front for long range head on fights and the best AT gun available in its country that would fit. The US had all the needed parts to build such a tank, and I guess it would look more like a M10 with a closed turret and more frontal armor.
A M10 with a closed turret and more frontal armor is a good way to describe the M4 Sherman with the 76 mm gun.
Furthermore US doctrine certainly did consider the anti-tank role for its tanks, as their own field manuals stress. The US army considered the Sherman's armament and design to be entirely sufficient against German tanks. Early in the war it was qualitatively significantly superior to the foes that it faced. It wasn't until 1944 that the US realized that the armament might not be sufficient, up to that point the 76 mm was considered to be enough to defeat anything the Germans had according to their intelligence. And even during the later war the Sherman actually did prove capable of doing anything the US needed and winning the war. If the US was designing a vehicle at the same time as the OTL Sherman but ignoring any other element save for fighting tanks, I am not convinced that they would have done much differently. Even the 75 mm gun was mounted on some initial tank destroyers.
This is leaving asides any problems with that approach because a tank manifestly does not fight only tanks and conversely spends most of its time fighting infantry and general battlefield objectives rather than fighting tanks.

There was a huge failure in US Army intelligence in this. Actually multiple failures. One was a gross misunderstanding of the number of tanks the Germans had. I've found Army publications from 1942 placing 12,000 tanks used in the assault on the Allied armies. Thats not a typo. The senior Army leaders were operating under the assumption the German armored forces were over three times their actual strength. Other problems were bad information on the actual nature of the battles. Things like the shortage of French AT guns was not known, the use of reserves, the attrition of the German tanks. These gross misunderstandings were aggravated by the results and interpretation of the large maneuvers the US Army conducted from late 1940 through 1941. These seemed to validate the ideas behind the embryonic TD doctrine that some parties were pushing. Doubts were raised as further large scale excesses tested the assorted Army doctrines in 1942, but the TD proponents got a boost in early 1943 when in Tunisia two TD battalions executed a text book TD operation (with a few flaws). This one action was used to validate the entire concept and doctrine as set out by the TD Corps/Branch.

As the corps and army commanders gained further experience in training in the in 1943 they ended up rejecting the underlying concept for the TD battalions & groups. When these generals deployed to Europe in 1944 they rejected the doctrine across the board, assigning the TD battalions to specific divisions. They did the same for the independent armor battalions. Ike, Devers, Patch, Clark, Bradley, Patton, Hodges, Simpson, and Kruger in the Pacific all ditched the TD Branch doctrine. The numerous group HQ for the TD and independent Armor battalions remained for the most part in the US, and were dissolved in 1944. The Army commanders said they did not need them and asked for more engineers, and infantry instead. The few TD Group HQ sent to Europe were not used doctrinally and eventually dissolved.
It certainly seemed that everybody had horrible over-estimates of the Germans strengths, French estimates ran up to 10,000 tanks for the Germans, and in some models they had 5,000 to 7,000 heavy tanks, despite of course the Germans having no model of such a type. Their divisional estimates were 205, rather than 157, and aircraft numbers for the Germans and Italians assumed from my recollections 12,000 aircraft with large reserves. And all of that supported by a very sustainable and long term war economy capable of massive mobilization. Certainly with such poor intelligence any army can make poor responses: I suppose we can be thankful that we got something relatively benevolent and unimportant out of it as a failing, instead of something like the French army changing around their battlefield operational plan in response and getting their country overrun as a result.
 
and weigh down the infantry with lots more towed AT guns, like the excellent 57mm six pounder, or the too heavy 3" towed AT gun.

Another brainstorm from McNair, adding more towed AT after Tunisia In the battles between him and Dever, that was another loss, as he wanted the lighter AT, based on the 76mm than the M5 3"

McNair wanted mobile AT to be only with the TD Branch, and killed a number of non turreted GMCs with 3" & 90mms
 
The M6 would have to be reworked in order to be problem free, the M4 jumbo strained its suspension systems and made it slower while making it more survivable. The problem with the 9cm was the shells you'd still have to target the rear and sides.

In all the M6 becomes the pershing heavy Tank.

Thing was, the M6 was ready for full production by time of Pearl Harbor, ahead of the Tiger

any tank that heavy would have more breakdowns, there was no way to make the M6 (or any other heavy tank) as reliable as the Sherman. Poor reliability of the M6 was still more reliable than any of the German Cats

As was pointed out, the performance of the US 90mm and the 88 was near identical.

But this was the Zenith upgrade path for the M6
us-m6_30a.jpg

105mm HV gun.

Otherwise, the 3" gun and the 90mm had near identical weight as the 3" tube
 
Thing was, the M6 was ready for full production by time of Pearl Harbor, ahead of the Tiger ...

250 were built. Just with that three battalions could have been set to Tunisia, leaving a company for training replacement crews and 100+ for spares.

The Germans sent all of 30 Tiger I to Tunisia. I wonder what they'd thought had they found 150 M6 there?
 
So first M6s are used during the Tunisia campaign - equipping 1 independent and 2 Infantry Division attached Heavy tank Battalions namely the 813th Independent and 701st + 601st - each with 36 x M6A1 Tanks

Early M6s would I expect have benefitted from a better turret layout and been armed with the M7 3" gun, 1 x 50 cal AAMG on the commanders hatch and 1 x 50 cal Coaxial with 1 x 30 cal AAMG on the loaders hatch and 1 x 30 cal MG bow mounted weapon.

Later M6s would be upgunned with the T7 90mm gun in a revised turret but would not completely replace the earlier 3" gun armed variants until late 44 in NW Europe (the US Heavy tank units in Italy continued to use the earlier 3" gun armed tanks until the end of the war)

The M29 heavy tank would deploy over Christmas 1944 / 1945 (rushed into operational units following the capture of Tiger IIs at Normandy) with most Divisional Heavy tank battalions replacing 1 of their 3 tank companies with the new heavy tank by the wars end - giving most US Infantry Divisions a dozen or so

Mounting the T5 105mm gun the tanks actually did very little actually fighting Tigers and Tiger 2s (who was vulnerable to the T5 at 1000m except for the Front Gun mantle- although testing on late war poor quality armour on late production models ensured that this might not have been the case had they actually met in combat) but where used to spearhead dangerous assaults were their very heavy armour was useful when ambushed by AT guns.

Also while they tended to spearhead assaults they were generally the last to cross a river due to their heavy weight.
 
An M6 with a 105 extraordinary, the M6 would have been than match for tiger both can knock out one another. German tank crews would be wary of running into an M6, however it comes down to commanders the famous German tank ace would've simply killed one.

Post war would see a super pershing with a 105mm the Israelis would snap a few up regardless of price.
 
An M6 with a 105 extraordinary, the M6 would have been than match for tiger both can knock out one another. German tank crews would be wary of running into an M6, however it comes down to commanders the famous German tank ace would've simply killed one.

The German Tank Manuals handed out to the Panzer crews for familiarization, listed the M6 as the
'M1 Dreadnought'
iPaPBvO.jpg


Seems they expected them to be used, check the date on the above
 
The German Tank Manuals handed out to the Panzer crews for familiarization, listed the M6 as the
'M1 Dreadnought'
iPaPBvO.jpg


Seems they expected them to be used, check the date on the above

Must have been surprising to run into M4s instead, dreadnought sounds like a fitting name for the M6.
 
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