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Sherman's and 50cals.


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This might be a question for the hardcore treadheads. Anyway, in CMBN, most of the Shermans had the TC's fifty mounted in the entirely sensible front and center position, right where he could pop out of the hatch and use it. As far as i know, this  was originally a field modification. But I've started to notice that this arrangement is much rarer (I can't recall which models because I don't cherry-pick armor) in CMFB. Not only is the ideal rare, but it has been replaced by the useless (literally, since it won't fire on aircraft) rear-facing AA mounting in most cases, with only the occasional loader's fifty arrangement.

 

Can someone explain this to me? And tell me how to get the commander to use the AA fifty for anything at all?

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Contemporary reports said the .50 cal AA pintle mount was indeed all but useless in combat. A lot of those field modifications you see in wartime photos date from 1945 when the US went field mod crazy.

This reminds me of the BMP personnel carrier in the modern titles. People complain when the troops disembark the BMP loses its commander and its fighting & spotting is severely diminished. Yeh, that what actually happens. Its as big a pain in real life as in the game.

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51 minutes ago, LongLeftFlank said:

A related discussion came up fairly recently though it doesn't furnish an answer to your specific query.

Thanks. I missed that thread because the search feature doesn't really work for me on this forum.

1 minute ago, Erwin said:

Need an "Audie Murphy" mod, where the brave CO stands on the rear hatch and fires the 50 (esp if the tank is burning under him).  B)

I initially figured one possible way to get the rear-mounted AA fifty into was to have troops mounted, thinking they'd act as the gunner. But it didn't seem to work, at least not any way I tried. Which is strange, because the code is clearly there; it works for half-tracks and scout cars to have passengers manning the fifty cal.

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1 hour ago, Sgt.Squarehead said:

If you study the thread that LLF linked to and follow the various links there you will find all the information you need on Shermans. 

It shows that a ring mount was built into the late model hatches, but this doesn't function in CMFB for whatever reason.

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11 minutes ago, TheBog11 said:

Isn't there a sequence from a recent movie/series (it might be Band of Brothers, or *maybe* Fury) that shows the Sherman TCs actually standing on the rear deck of the tank as it advanced, shooting the .50s? It seemed pretty improbable to me.

It was a real thing done by tankers, not sure if it was necessarily the TC though. Fury showed infantrymen on the track Manning the gun during their rescue mission and later it was instantly manned by the loader when they struck a mine. The Carentan episode showed tankers doing it in Band of Brothers, as they first arrived to drive off German armor but I don't recall any other scene. And ofc Audie Murphy got the Blue Max for said feat on a burning TD in Italy. I also think it featured in the movie To Hell and Back, but it has been a long time since I watched it.

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If you're a tanker 600m away from a SMG squad holed-up in a barn you could not only climb on the rear engine deck and fire your .50 cal with impunity, you could stand on the road and do a hula-dance if you wanted to. Because effective range of MP-40 was only 200m. But most of the time you're not facing MP-40s. You're facing snipers and Mausers and MG-42s and mortars, all of which make standing in plain sight on a tank's engine deck somewhat less appealing.

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2 hours ago, SLIM said:

It does seem strange to see weapons mounted in a place not easily accessible. Seems to defeat the purpose.

As originally conceived, the .50s were intended as AA protection. Assuming that attacking aircraft would be approaching from the rear, the original placement of the MGs would allow the weapon to be operated by the TC from inside his open hatch.

I don't know how much of this you already knew, but just for the record I thought I'd mention it.

Michael

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14 hours ago, MikeyD said:

If you're a tanker 600m away from a SMG squad holed-up in a barn you could not only climb on the rear engine deck and fire your .50 cal with impunity, you could stand on the road and do a hula-dance if you wanted to. Because effective range of MP-40 was only 200m. But most of the time you're not facing MP-40s. You're facing snipers and Mausers and MG-42s and mortars, all of which make standing in plain sight on a tank's engine deck somewhat less appealing.

...meanwhile there are guys facing all that with nothing more than their field jackets between them and hot steel. I'm sure it wasn't a good thing to do in every situation, but I'm pretty sure standing up with about thirty tons of steel to crouch behind wasn't much more dangerous than walking into the same. And like @jtsjc1 wrote, it was a two-way street. Shooting that dude riding the rear deck didn't do a damned thing to stop the tank's other weapons from functioning.

8 hours ago, SLIM said:

Don't forget, in '45 tankers started re-mounting their .50cals as COAX machine guns, so they could use them with the hatch closed.
I saw photos in Steven Zaloga's 'Armored Thunderbolt'.

It does seem strange to see weapons mounted in a place not easily accessible. Seems to defeat the purpose.

As coax MGs? How did they fit a fifty in the space cut out for a 30cal?

Edited by Apocal
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4 hours ago, Apocal said:

...meanwhile there are guys facing all that with nothing more than their field jackets between them and hot steel. I'm sure it wasn't a good thing to do in every situation, but I'm pretty sure standing up with about thirty tons of steel to crouch behind wasn't much more dangerous than walking into the same. And like @jtsjc1 wrote, it was a two-way street. Shooting that dude riding the rear deck didn't do a damned thing to stop the tank's other weapons from functioning.

As coax MGs? How did they fit a fifty in the space cut out for a 30cal?

I'll see if I can find a picture.

"The Third Army's modernization effort included other improvements as well. The tankers wanted a more powerful coaxial gun than the usual .30-cal machinegun, so some .50-caliber aircraft machine guns were "liberated" and fitted to many tanks. The newly arrived M4A3 (76mm) tanks had a new oval loader's hatch, but in the process, the .50-caliber machine gun was moved to a pintle mount awkwardly positioned behind the tank commander's left shoulder. The tank commander or loader had to fire the machine gun by getting out of the turret and standing on the rear engine deck behind the turret, which was obviously neither safe in combat nor particularly convenient. Some units simply remounted the pintle forward. Other units also added an additional .30-caliber machine gun in front of the commander for added firepower to deal with panzerfaust-wielding German infantry."

pvxxtI8.png

"The Third Army's Sherman upgrade package impressed Bradley's 12th Army Group headquarters so much that it became the preferred solution to the Sherman's armor problems. This M4A3E8 was used as a model for upgrades in the ETO. Besides the armor improvement, it also included the added .30-caliber machine gun more conveniently located for the commander and a coaxial .50-caliber heavy machine gun in place of the .30-caliber light machine gun."

tdMaih5.png

The book doesn't show an internal view that I can find, but as has been mentioned previously, the US Army went "Field-Mod Crazy".

Also note the additional glacis plate armor scavenged from other knocked out Shermans.
Patton apparently wasn't a fan of sandbags and concrete used by other units.

Edited by SLIM
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Those doubled-bow Shermans weren't 'field expedients' so much as part of a significant assembly line operation of impressive scope. The were considered 'substitute Jumbos' and were parcelled out to platoons in the same ratio that Jumbos were fielded. Ack! I have detailed info on that somewhere but I can't locate it at the moment. Anyway, they didn't show up before March at the earliest. Which means late war CMFB module.

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On 2017-07-08 at 6:39 PM, jtsjc1 said:

Agreed, but I'm sure a sniper or a rifleman with a Mauser doesn't want to be on the receiving end of .50 BMG especially when your cover gets torn up by .50 cal slugs.

Which would make them highly motivated to pick off the easy target of the guy standing in the open on the back of the tank. :D

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