What was the standard 75mm Sherman ammo loadout?

[warspite]

What AP/HE/smoke split did it historically have? Did it ever have any special ammunition types?

[roqf77]

okay. fir the us army the stndard loadout was, approximatly 70% he, 20%ap and 10% smoke.

I got this from ospreys shermen medium tank book.

I believe the uk issued more ap but i dont know.

I have read a couple of sources tht qoute a apcr round manufactured for the 75mm gun. However it was used for training purposes only.

My sources for this however were a couple of web pages, so im not sure if its true.

[stoat]

I guess that special ammo would be the M66 HEAT round and the M64 chemical round (smoke, white phosphorus, gas). Other than that it carried the standard M48 HE, M61 AP, and M89 smoke.

The M4, A2, A3, A4 all could carry 97 main gun rounds. The M4A1, 90.

[roqf77]

or m72 ap.

[JasonC]

It is perhaps also worth noting that typical total ammo expenditure for US 75mm and 76mm ran about 10 rounds per weapon per day. That includes periods of heavy combat and quieter ones, of course. But it was not typical for a Sherman to fire off its full ammo load of 60-70 HE in a single 30 minute engagement, just because it could. Targets were scarcer than that and firing less frequent than we typically see in CM.

[stoat]

Never mind.

[John D Salt]

Originally posted by roqf77:

[snips]

I have read a couple of sources tht qoute a apcr round manufactured for the 75mm gun. However it was used for training purposes only.

My sources for this however were a couple of web pages, so im not sure if its true.

The T-45 HVAP round was developed, but never got past the experimental stage. It gets a mention in Hunnicutt's "Sherman".

"Looney" Hinde wrote a memo demanding the urgent development of 75mm APDS after the Villers-Bocage battle, but nothing ever came of it.

All the best,

John.

[John D Salt]

Originally posted by stoat:

I guess that special ammo would be the M66 HEAT round [snips]

M66 HEAT? I thought that was only available for the 75mm Pack Howitzer.

All the best,

John.

[stoat]

Yes, I got the 75mm howitzer (M3) confused with the 75mm gun (M3).

[warspite]

Is there any primary source on the typical ammo split in a Sherman?

[stoat]

If roqf77's percentages are correct, you would have a 68/20/9 loadout.

[ September 18, 2005, 03:21 PM: Message edited by: stoat ]

[michael_wittman44]

Stoat, it would also depend on what the tank crew wanted! Anyway weren't American tanks discouraged from knocking out enemy tanks, at least initially. The job of destroying tanks was meant for TD's or so I've read in several books that deal with ww2 tanks. A pity the sherman was given a bigger gun but I guess it would have needed modification for that.

[stoat]

I was just stating numbers according to the percentages. I think it would actually depend the most on what ammo was available. The only time there was a standard loadout would probably be before the unit saw action. In the following weeks of battle, the tank probably never had the same load twice. It all depends on your supply.

It would make sense for TDs to carry more AP rounds or for support vehicles to carry more HE, but tanks are dual purpose weapons. You can't design and build a tank and train it not to fight tanks (granted there were infantry tanks and the like, but these tactics soon changed). From what I gather TDs (American M10, M18, M36) were intended to defeat superior German armor, but if tanks were not supposed to fight tanks, there would have been a lot more TDs produced and used. The Sherman was always intended to fight tanks, but not monsters like Panthers and Tigers.

[michael_wittman44]

Just stating what I've read! Hmmm the book was Jane's Encyclopedia of ww2 armour or something similar. It stated that some members of the high command wanted Shermans to support infantry while the TD's knock out enemy tanks. One of these being General McNair (the highest ranked general killed in Normandy).

[stoat]

Originally posted by michael_wittman44:

Just stating what I've read! Hmmm the book was Jane's Encyclopedia of ww2 armour or something similar. It stated that some members of the high command wanted Shermans to support infantry while the TD's knock out enemy tanks. One of these being General McNair (the highest ranked general killed in Normandy).

That's because the TDs were better suited to dealing with armor. But more often than not, the Shermans at the point of the spear with the infantry had to deal with the enemy tanks. It has been said that no plan survives contact. This one is no different and I doubt it was ever used as battlefield doctrine.

[michael_wittman44]

True, the Pershing was good tank especially the Super Pershing version, but I'll always like the German vehicles because since I was a child they just seemed to look better.

[Michael Emrys]

Especially after Normandy, there were so few German tanks that the TD battalions were mostly employed in infantry support roles the same as the tanks, a job for which they were not well suited, but needs must sometimes.

Michael

[roqf77]

just a few points to add,

1.

my percentages were from an osprey book, so they are rpimary so to speak. But they are an average and not typical load out!, this is important to note.(so stoat and michael both your points are correct).

2.

The super pershing, was never produced in any real number, nor did it see any action(or very little).

The pershing itself had problems with relaibility, atleast in korea. Where it broke down so much that many tank crews opted to return to there shermans.

Although this was fixed, as the patton tank was actualy a pershing but with newer suspension and a better engine i think.

3.

On stoats point about shermans having to run into enemy tanks as the spear of an engagement, i have this qoute from opsreys 76mm sherman medium tank 1943-65.

"while it is conceeded that the primary objective of our armour is to engage the enemy infantry, artillery, and rear installations, experience has shown that the enemy will always counter ana rmoured penetratiomn with his own armour. Therefore, in order to operate successfully against remunerative and desirable enemy installations, we shall first have to defeat enemy armour. to do this, we must have a fighter tank which is superior to the fighter tank of the enemy. available information on characteristics of german compared to those of our nation show that no american tank can equal the german panther in all-round performance"

USA armoured command at fort knox april 17th 1944.

[Michael Emrys]

Originally posted by stoat:

I was just stating numbers according to the percentages. I think it would actually depend the most on what ammo was available. The only time there was a standard loadout would probably be before the unit saw action. In the following weeks of battle, the tank probably never had the same load twice. It all depends on your supply.

Partly, to be sure. For instance, the suppy of HVAP in tank units was always slim to none. Tankers would sometimes try to wheedle HVAP rounds out of TD units which were better supplied with them. If that failed, they might resort to outright theft.

The other thing is that unit commanders, and even individual TCs, would alter the proportions of their ammo according to what they anticipated facing in the day ahead. They might also carry onboard extra rounds above the official limit. This was a dangerous step and forbidden by regs, but still happened at times.

Michael

[MikeyD]

From what I've read/heard the ammo mix shifted over time, especially for the 75mm gun. HC smoke use spiked because neither AP or HE were much use against a Panther & Tiger much beyond 600 yards. I read one report of a Tiger kill in Italy in '45. The 75mm gun Sherman started the fight with its ammo ready rack almost half-filled with smoke rounds! That's an ammo loadout you would've never found in June '44.

[stoat]

On this note, I have heard of King Tigers being constructed poorly enough that if they were hit with a smoke shell, the smoke would circulate throughout the tank and the crew would bail out, thiking that there was a fire.

That was a long sentence.

[JasonC]

If the smoke was WP, the tank hit was on fire.

[stoat]

No, standard smoke that entered due to poor construction.

[MikeyD]

"I have heard of King Tigers being constructed poorly enough that if they were hit with a smoke shell, the smoke would circulate throughout the tank"

Not exactly poor construction but design. I believe* the big cats ran the vehicle heater off one of those circular exhaust fans (the Panther's raised exhaust fan reversed the flow for improved crew compartment heating?). The Tiger 1 also had problems with exhaust from the tail pipe blowing back over the engine deck and dumping carbon monoxide into the fighting compartment. Plus they abandoned Nebelkurzen (sp?) smoke candles on the outside hull when small arms fire set off a candle and made the Panther uninhabitable. Basically, they didn't even try to seal up tanks for NBC (smoke being a chemical munition) attack back in those days.

[stoat]

I will try to find the source, but if I remember correctly, it presumes that impressed labor purposefully sabotaged the vehicles and when hit with smoke, the mentioned fans would suck the smoke into the vehicle through gaps in the hull.