M22 Locust Tank

[user1000]

I honestly think the Locust did OK in the most recent battle I used them, slightly better than a M8 greyhound maybe and you can use it a bit closer, for there is no open top. Periscope for all 3 crew members in the tank and gyro for on the move accurate firing. I think spotting should be a little bit better in game. The locust gun isn't all that good but it does what you want to with half tracks and armored cars. Canister for clearing tough areas. Armor is terrible out of cover, but moving fast around edges of forests and hedges works good. Low profile made it hard to hit by soldier launched AT weapons my losses were all by AA/AT guns. Use to support troops or to soften up buildings and dense fortifications.

[Centurian52]

Honestly my feeling is that some tanks are always better than no tanks. The M22 Locust may have had weak armor and a weak gun. But those were acceptable tradeoffs for making it air transportable and giving airborne forces some armored support in my opinion. I don't think the reason it wasn't a huge success had anything to do with its armor and firepower being insufficient (again, better than no armor or firepower). I think the real problem is that there just wasn't a satisfactory way of delivering it to the battlefield. Trying to transport it by glider didn't work out very well. Some were lost outright due to accidents on landing, and I believe most of the ones that survived the landing were damaged to some degree.

[Anthony P.]

It has a cannon and it moves faster than a towed gun. That's enough for me!

Sure, the M22 itself wasn't enough of a success, partly because gliders turned out to be a dead end. But the concept of airborne AFVs lived on in e.g. the M56 and the M551, though I guess that could be judged to have been the dead end of airborne AFVs'.

[MikeyD]

For decades the armor standard for most-everything not a tank was proof against 7.62 caliber. By that standard M22 does as well as everything else. The problem comes from labeling it a 'tank'. When you call it a tank people will try to use it as a tank. Currently the army keeps repeating that the new M10 Booker is not a tank, its an MPF combat vehicle. They have a horror of people thinking of it as a tank.

[Anthony P.]

On 2/3/2024 at 8:00 PM, MikeyD said:

Currently the army keeps repeating that the new M10 Booker is not a tank, its an MPF combat vehicle. They have a horror of people thinking of it as a tank.

Ironic to name it "M10" considering the US Army's WW2 "tank destroyer" experience:

"We like the new tanks you sent us, open turrets makes communicating easier."
"It's not a tank, it's a tank destroyer used for destroying tanks."
"But... it's got tracks?"
"Yes."
"It's got a gun?"
"Yes."
"It's got a turret?"
"Yes."
"It's got armour?"
"Just a little."
"Still more armour than I've got. Does it have a machine gun?"
"Yes."
"...so it's a tank?"
"No!"
"Tomayto tomato, that's what I'm gonna use it as."

[Centurian52]

56 minutes ago, Anthony P. said:

Ironic to name it "M10" considering the US Army's WW2 "tank destroyer" experience

That's the problem with the US Army's 'M#' naming system. It leads to a lot of confusion. I know of at least two M16s (the rifle and the SPAA gun). As you've pointed out there are now at least two M10s (the WW2 TD and the modern not-tank). There's the M4 Sherman and the M4 carbine. The M3 halftrack, the M3 SMG "grease gun", the M3 75mm gun, the M3 Bradley. The M1 rifle, the M1 carbine, the M1 helmet, the M1 tank, the M1 Thompson SMG, etc...

Almost forgot. The M60 (tank) and the M60 (GPMG).

On 2/3/2024 at 11:00 AM, MikeyD said:

The problem comes from labeling it a 'tank'. When you call it a tank people will try to use it as a tank. Currently the army keeps repeating that the new M10 Booker is not a tank, its an MPF combat vehicle. They have a horror of people thinking of it as a tank.

There may be a need for people to understand that there are different kinds of tanks with different roles. The M10 Booker is most definitely not an MBT. That doesn't mean it's not a tank. As much as the Army wants to insist that it's not a tank, it is very clearly a tank. But it's not a kind of tank that can fight other tanks. It can destroy infantry, fortifications, and IFVs. But if they need to destroy enemy MBTs, the infantry need to get their Javelins out rather than putting their Bookers into a fight they can't win.

Edited February 5 by Centurian52

[user1000]

9 hours ago, Anthony P. said:

"It's got armour?"
"Just a little."
 

[Anthony P.]

I refuse to believe that your M10 has been hit by anything more potent than a potato cannon.

Really though, what hit it @user1000? I'd hazard guessing those are 37mm hits.

[MikeyD]

When the Army introduced the M18 'Hellcat' TD to the Italian theater the crews rebelled. M18 was just too porous to mg fire for their liking. I believe some units switched back to their old M10s until war's end. M10 had a slightly better reputation for shrugging off hits, plus it used Diesel fuel which greatly reduced the risk of fire.

[Centurian52]

24 minutes ago, MikeyD said:

plus it used Diesel fuel which greatly reduced the risk of fire.

How much of a concern was that really? I mean the risks of diesel vs gasoline. Fire is of course a huge concern. But the propellent charges for the ammunition are always by far the biggest fire (or catastrophic explosion) risk. Gasoline is of course a greater fire risk than diesel, but I can't imagine how either diesel or gasoline can compare to the risk already imposed by the ammunition.

That's before you even consider that the ammunition is in the crew compartment. The fuel isn't (usually).

Edited February 6 by Centurian52

[Anthony P.]

I'm not entirely sure just how much diesel versus petrol was actually perceived to be a relevant risk back then.

It's certainly been made up to matter a whole lot in the succeeding decades, but most examinations seem to indicate that the difference was actually insignificant: very few hits directly sparked fuel fires. Rather it was ammunition fires which caused them and when things had reached that stage, it didn't make any difference what kind of fuel was sloshing about in the tanks.

Notionally safer diesel fuel didn't do a thing to prevent the T-34 from being a tank with a high likelihood of burning and usually killing most of its crew if the crew comparment was penetrated, whereas the average petrol fuelled Sherman on average only suffered one killed and one wounded crew in the same circumstances and rarely brewed up compared to other tanks once its ammunition started being stored safely.

[Vacillator]

10 minutes ago, Anthony P. said:

Notionally safer diesel fuel didn't do a thing to prevent the T-34 from being a tank with a high likelihood of burning and usually killing most of its crew if the crew comparment was penetrated, whereas the average petrol fuelled Sherman on average only suffered one killed and one wounded crew in the same circumstances and rarely brewed up compared to other tanks once its ammunition started being stored safely.

My view on this may have been skewed by an accident I saw at a small tank display on Weston-Super-Mare beach a few years ago.  A T34 and a Sherman were moving around close to the crowd when they collided.  The T34 moved away across the sand.  The Sherman however stopped and started giving off smoke from the engine compartment.  A brave (other descriptions are available) marshall ran over with a fire extinguisher and tackled the visible flames possibly just in time.

For some reason, that display was the last one allowed on the beach, can't think why.

[MikeyD]

T34 suffered from over-active propellant in the rounds. A burning tank would go off like a bomb. Russian tankers appreciated how Sherman rounds would just burn and pop in a burning tank compared to BOOM!!! from T34s. It rarely gets mentioned that PzIV was a notorious burner. Gas tank directly under the turret basket.

[Centurian52]

10 minutes ago, Anthony P. said:

I'm not entirely sure just how much diesel versus petrol was actually perceived to be a relevant risk back then.

It's certainly been made up to matter a whole lot in the succeeding decades, but most examinations seem to indicate that the difference was actually insignificant: very few hits directly sparked fuel fires. Rather it was ammunition fires which caused them and when things had reached that stage, it didn't make any difference what kind of fuel was sloshing about in the tanks.

Notionally safer diesel fuel didn't do a thing to prevent the T-34 from being a tank with a high likelihood of burning and usually killing most of its crew if the crew comparment was penetrated, whereas the average petrol fuelled Sherman on average only suffered one killed and one wounded crew in the same circumstances and rarely brewed up compared to other tanks once its ammunition started being stored safely.

Pretty much everything I know about crew survivability and brew up rates comes from Nicholas Moran, a.k.a. The Chieftain. So this is all coming from memory of various interviews, presentations, and videos I've seen him do over the years. So there are two potential points of failure for everything I'm about to say. The first point of failure is that I may be misremembering what he said. And the second point of failure is that something he said may have been incorrect (he is probably the #1 tank expert on the internet these days, but even the experts get things wrong from time to time).

The Sherman supposedly had a crew survivability rate of 85%. Meaning that for every Sherman knocked out, an average of about 0.8 crewmen were killed. The T-34 was exactly the inverse, with a crew survivability rate of 15%.

The Sherman did burn a lot when it first saw combat in North Africa, but not more than other tanks. The "brew up" rate for nearly all of the tanks in the war (Sherman included) was about 70%. The similar brew-up rate between different types of tanks was probably because all of the tanks were brewing up for the same reason, ignition of ammunition propellent charges stored in the crew compartment. Accumulated measures taken over the course of the war to reduce fires (including but not limited to wet stowage) meant that by the end of the war only around 10% of knocked out Shermans were burning.

The Sherman's gasoline engine did catch fire at a higher rate than diesel engines. But the rate of engine fires was still insignificant compared to the rate of ammunition fires. And in any case, engine fires were less of a hazard for the crew since the engine isn't in the crew compartment.

That's about what I can pull from memory on the subject of crew survivability and fires. Most of it pertains to the Sherman, since this stuff mostly seems to come up in the context of Sherman myths. I'm not sure how to connect any of it back to the M10, M18, or M22. Except of course to say that which vehicles had diesel and which vehicles had gasoline engines probably wouldn't have been much of a concern to anyone who knew the stats. Which is not to say that it wouldn't have been a concern for the crews. Soldiers believe myths about their own equipment all the time. So whether it would have been a concern for the crews depends more on which of these myths were present during the war, and which came about after the war.

[user1000]

On 2/6/2024 at 8:44 AM, Anthony P. said:

I refuse to believe that your M10 has been hit by anything more potent than a potato cannon.

Really though, what hit it @user1000? I'd hazard guessing those are 37mm hits.

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