Challenge: Ram tank in combat...

MacCaulay

Banned
For those of you who may not know, the Ram was a medium tank designed and built in Canada off the M3 Grant chassis but basically modified beyond all recognition.

The tank was built in two Marks, the I and II. There were many subvariants inside the Mark II production run of the Ram, as the Canadians were looking into selling off their stocks of tanks after the war ended. See, the big sorry problem with the Ram is that it was never able to be used in combat: Canadian Armoured Divisions trained with it in England but ended up being equipped with Shermans instead. The Rams were sold to Belgium (I believe?) after the war.

Here's a picture of the old girl, the Ram Mk. II in it's OP form. One of only two armed types (the other was flamethrower) that made it to Europe:


BSC00255.jpg




While the tank disappeared from history, one of it's variants didn't: the Kangaroo made an amazing impact on the Normandy Campaign. It was a modified turretless version of the Ram, able to carry more than a squad of riflemen into battle. Teamed with a large number of so-called "defrocked Priest" transports, the Canadians road into battle in what are now being understood as the world's first Armoured Personnel Carriers.


But the Ram itself, whether with it's original 6 pdr (57mm anti-tank gun) or with the British upgunned 75mm, never made it into the battlefield of Normandy or the Falaise Gap.

What if it had? How would it have fared?
 

Sachyriel

Banned
Honestly I think flamethrower tanks would be great for urban combat. But then again I think flamethrowers are great for Christmas gifts.

In WW1 Canadians invented "Mouseholing" where instead of going through conventional routes like windows or doors in our house-to-haus fighting we blew open walls and stormed in that way. In WW2 we re-invent the term "Firefighting"... By blowing open the walls of a house then burning whatever didn't die inside!

However Tanks are really vulnerable in urban combat, so giving a tank an even short range weapon to work with doesn't exactly seem like a good idea. Did the ram flamethrower versions also have machine guns?
 

MacCaulay

Banned
However Tanks are really vulnerable in urban combat, so giving a tank an even short range weapon to work with doesn't exactly seem like a good idea. Did the ram flamethrower versions also have machine guns?

I think they did. I know there were defensive works in the north that the Armoured Divisions used the Ram flamethrower tanks to crack. The infantry would keep the bunker occupied to their front and the tank would drive to the side and then spray them.

Normally with tanks you want infantry there to guard things like riflemen hiding with anti-tank weapons. In this case it would've been 88mm cannons or Panzerfausts.

I know there were times in Normandy and Caen (especially Caen, when they were facing the 12th SS Panzer Division) that on more than a few occaisions the Canadians stuck PIATs through windows and just shot them into rooms to clear the floor, which is a decidedly...unCanadian thing to do, because you're basically coming to the conclusion that "there's enough High Explosive in this warhead to either kill whoever's in there or bring the house down on them."
Of course, they could also fire the things from one building to another because there wasn't any flash or explosion or anything when the round was launched. Those PIATs might not have been the most amazing thing when compared to the Panzerfaust, but they definitely had some neat quirks to them that made for effective close in fighting.
 

Sachyriel

Banned
So, if your challenge was to get the Ram into combat, why not just make the Shermans they used be deployed with some other unit, giving the excuse to use the Rams? It seems easy, a few logistics officers pen swipes different.
 

MacCaulay

Banned
So, if your challenge was to get the Ram into combat, why not just make the Shermans they used be deployed with some other unit, giving the excuse to use the Rams? It seems easy, a few logistics officers pen swipes different.

Well, you're talking about...(checking, checking, looking up, looking up)...4th and 5th Canadian Armoured Divisions, and the 1st and 2nd Canadian Armoured Brigades.

It's a lot of tanks going to different places there. Myself, I think it probably might have been done had the retreat from Dunkirk been alot less organized and the British basically just left with the shirts on their backs and nothing else. If they'd been the ones that needed the Shermans because they couldn't fill their home built divisions up by themselves fast enough, then the Canadians could easily step up and say "We'll arm ourselves with the Ram, don't worry about it."

Bing, bang boom: you've got a Canadian-designed and built tank taking part in some of the largest tank battles in history in Northern France.
 

Sachyriel

Banned
So, you want to go farther back and have France fall a bit more messily then we can have our own tanks?

What about Rams being used as replacements for any Shermans destroyed in the fighting after the landings have gone down?
 

MacCaulay

Banned
So, you want to go farther back and have France fall a bit more messily then we can have our own tanks?

What about Rams being used as replacements for any Shermans destroyed in the fighting after the landings have gone down?

I'll have to look and see which Shermans were used, but that would require a certain type of reinforcement procedure, most likely.

See, the Ram II used the 6 pdr cannon, which was also apparently a very successful anti-tank gun. I've got a book here that says they had the ability to take out Tigers if a crew was good enough on the aim, which was much easier with the 6 pdr than it was with the 75mm which is why the British kept some of them around: it was like having a less powerful rifle as opposed to the more powerful shotgun.

But there was a plan (and more than a dozen or so tanks made) to put the 75mm gun on the Ram II. The turret and turret ring could handle it: the thing to think about here is whether it could handle the 17 pdr gun that the British put on the Sherman Firefly. This would mean that the Canadians could come to the British and say that not only would they be providing their own tank, but it would be able to fit within the larger British ammunition logistics structure.
 

Sachyriel

Banned
Post War Question: If the Rams serve in combat, are the Canadians so quick to sell them afterwards? Keep them on for a longer time, improving on them and developing into a better tank design earlier?
 
While the tank disappeared from history, one of it's variants didn't: the Kangaroo made an amazing impact on the Normandy Campaign. It was a modified turretless version of the Ram, able to carry more than a squad of riflemen into battle. Teamed with a large number of so-called "defrocked Priest" transports, the Canadians road into battle in what are now being understood as the world's first Armoured Personnel Carriers.

Surely the German 251 or American M3 take this accolade? Germans rode into battle on 251s as early as Fall Weiss.
 
What I want to see is the Rams serving in North Africa before Shermans arrive... The Ram I wouldn't have been great, but the Ram II was, as you say, a good anti-tank tank, and would have been very useful.
 
I think they did. I know there were defensive works in the north that the Armoured Divisions used the Ram flamethrower tanks to crack. The infantry would keep the bunker occupied to their front and the tank would drive to the side and then spray them.

Normally with tanks you want infantry there to guard things like riflemen hiding with anti-tank weapons. In this case it would've been 88mm cannons or Panzerfausts.

I know there were times in Normandy and Caen (especially Caen, when they were facing the 12th SS Panzer Division) that on more than a few occaisions the Canadians stuck PIATs through windows and just shot them into rooms to clear the floor, which is a decidedly...unCanadian thing to do, because you're basically coming to the conclusion that "there's enough High Explosive in this warhead to either kill whoever's in there or bring the house down on them."
Of course, they could also fire the things from one building to another because there wasn't any flash or explosion or anything when the round was launched. Those PIATs might not have been the most amazing thing when compared to the Panzerfaust, but they definitely had some neat quirks to them that made for effective close in fighting.

In Anthony Beevor's battle of Berlin book, he had an interesting description of how the Russians where able to make use of captured Panzerfausts for street fighting. Basically, besides your standard knocking out enemy machine gun nests or armored vehicles deal; the Red Army would just use them to blow through walls of fortified buildings, so they could advance from unexpected directions

One of the nastiest tactics used by the 68th guards rifle division which was part of Chuikov's army when they came across a fortified building was to blow a hole in the side or rear of the building with a panzerfaust, and then toss in 20lb explosive charges which would collapse all of the upper floors; and or set the building on fire, allowing them to advance... this was done though only when the artillery was busy; cause normally they preferred to just roll up a 203mm howitzer and blast the building over open sites which I can tell you was extremely effective and demoralizing
 
Well, if its based on a Grant and has a 40mm and later a 57mm gun, its only a viable tank between 1941-1943. So that means it could only be used in North Africa and Dieppe.

Perhaps a Canadian armoured brigade (or regiment) is attached to the Canadian division at Dieppe? This would allow them some combat time.

Adding a Canadian armoured division or brigade to Anderson's First Army wouldn't be too difficult either. They'd do nicely until faced with veteran German tankers in mk III's and mk IV's and the first Tigers.

After that, it would be pretty much game over for a mediocre Canadian tank.
 
Surely the German 251 or American M3 take this accolade? Germans rode into battle on 251s as early as Fall Weiss.

The 251 and M3 were halftracks. The steering gear was wheeled, and their armour was only designed to resist small arms. The Ram Kangeroo was a tank with the turret removed, so fully tracked, and armoured as a tank.
 

Sior

Banned
Surely the German 251 or American M3 take this accolade? Germans rode into battle on 251s as early as Fall Weiss.

Your talking 13mm of armour (251 or M3) against 155mm of armour (Ram)
I know where I'd prefer to ride!
 
you'd think this would work only if the Canadians used their own ships to haul them over to Europe... the US logistics system was all set up for sending Shermans/American tanks and American ammo for them in massive quantities to Britain. Wouldn't hauling an oddball Canadian tank and ammo for it cause some problems?
 

MacCaulay

Banned
Well, if its based on a Grant and has a 40mm and later a 57mm gun, its only a viable tank between 1941-1943. So that means it could only be used in North Africa and Dieppe.

Perhaps a Canadian armoured brigade (or regiment) is attached to the Canadian division at Dieppe? This would allow them some combat time.

Adding a Canadian armoured division or brigade to Anderson's First Army wouldn't be too difficult either. They'd do nicely until faced with veteran German tankers in mk III's and mk IV's and the first Tigers.

After that, it would be pretty much game over for a mediocre Canadian tank.

Well, like I pointed out before there were versions modified to carry the 75mm gun. And it stands to reason that it's not out of the realm of possibility to put the 17 pdr on it. If you could match the same gun as the Firefly toted to it, then it's still able to make good kills.

And one could note that the 6 pdr gun it was using would be fine as a tank killer, considering that the British and Israelis were using it in the anti-tank gun form for years after that.

But myself, a Ram II with a 75mm or 17 pdr in Normandy would be amazing.
 
Ah, I see - so, while the 251 and M3 were APCs by WWII standards, the Ram Kangaroo was effectively the first APC built to modern standards of total protection.

Didn't the Tank Mk IX 'Liberty' (that never saw action in WWI) feature room inside it for a platoon of soldiers? Then again, WWI tanks hardly had more armour than a 251 anyway ;)
 
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