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This brings a question re the M3 halftrack. Did it bring the benefits of both types of traction or did it bring the worst parts of both? Having gone to the cost of building it why didn't they extend the tracks and get rid of the wheels.
Any ideas?
one versionThat Kangaroo was the M7 Priest, wasn't it?
Thanks for the inputs
Some questions:
How good were the half-tracks in following the tanks, off road?
Would it been better to have infantry traveling inside an APC, or as a tank-riders?
How frugal was building using the M3/M5 lights in 1943/44, 2 pdr tanks in 1942-43, 6pdr tanks in 1944, Pz-38(t) in 1942?
Ditto for Centaur, Valiant, Covenanter?
What was the cost of the Universal Carrier?
What happened with the tooling for the Vickers light tanks?
Weren't the light tanks mostly built away from dedicated tank factories?
And air support!...It also does you no good to have tanks and armored infantry if the artillery cannot keep up. Tracked artillery was probably more important than tracked infantry.
The medium tanks were too heavy to make really good APCs but they were available. Light tanks (of the WW II variety) make lousy APCs because they are too small. An APC needs to hold a normal squad or close to it. Using two or even three vehicles to move 10-12 infantry men is not only wasteful but gets really confusing at dismount time.
Extending the hull on some tanks can be done but only works so much. If the length of track on the ground exceeds the distance between the tracks by more than about a 1.8:1 ratio the vehicle becomes hard to steer.
Converted tanks are less than ideal because the rear engines mean the infantry have to dismount and mount over the sides. It was done but it is certainly less than ideal and causes injuries.
The Half tracks could keep up pretty well and tank riders are a really bad idea. Better than no infantry but carrying your infantry on surfaces that bullets and shell fragments can ricochet from may actually increase casualties. The Russians may have accepted such casualties but the western nations would not. Please note there is a big difference between giving infantry a ride up to the front or in rear areas and carrying them into gunfire on the tanks.
The continued production of some light tanks (in fact a lot of them) was a waste of resources. But an armored division only had about 100-300 tanks depending on army and time. You need at least 45-50 APCs for even a small Battalion of 3 companies each with 3 platoons allowing for headquarters units and such.
It also does you no good to have tanks and armored infantry if the artillery cannot keep up. Tracked artillery was probably more important than tracked infantry.
I agree. The difference is obvious if you look at vehicle pictures.M3 was more like 4x4 armoured truck with rear wheels substituted by a track system, fairly cheap system, German armoured h/ts were in essence fully tracked vehicles with longer forward body under which there were unpowered steerable front