DogDodger

Jeeps, very sorry but I somehow missed this post. I hadn't mentioned it or posted pictures because I was making a joke about the car I had just gotten, although to be honest its name was probably upwards of 20% of the reason I was interested in it... Anyway, since we're on the subject and since you'd probably be among the handful of people who would have any chance of appreciating the license plate I ordered for this German M4, here's a picture. Apologies for the off-topic post, but didn't want you to think I had been ignoring you and rest assured if I did somehow manage to buy an actual tank I'd be posting everywhere about it! Now back to actual tanks.

Why don't you knock it off with them negative waves? That's a mother beautiful tank!

Jeeps, very sorry but I somehow missed this post. I hadn't mentioned it or posted pictures because I was making a joke about the car I had just gotten, although to be honest its name was probably upwards of 20% of the reason I was interested in it... Anyway, since we're on the subject and since you'd probably be among the handful of people who would have any chance of appreciating the license plate I ordered for this German M4, here's a picture. Apologies for the off-topic post, but didn't want you to think I had been ignoring you and rest assured if I did somehow manage to buy an actual tank I'd be posting everywhere about it! Now back to actual tanks.

Why don't you knock it off with them negative waves? That's a mother beautiful tank!

That one took some digging, but I believe it ended up being the proposed howitzer version of the Canadian APC named after this guy:
.

The Goldthwait? 

Stansell and Laughling say, "At CDA [Chrysler Defense Arsenal], the glacis [applique] armor was first installed in early August 1943. The exact date of the introduction of the side plates is not known, but CDA's M4 composites starting [sic] getting theirs in late August 1943. It's safe to assume that they were installing them on the M4A4 line at the same time. It's also interesting to speculate that some M4A4s left the factory with front applique only." And later, "Once a vehicle was issued to troops--either stateside or overseas--it was rarely modified. Most, if not all, applique appears to have been installed by the factories or by the tank depots before issue or during a remanufacturing program." Chrysler rebuilt 1610 M4A4s destined for the British by October 1944, so it seems from their research that it might be rare for the applique armor kits to have been installed in Britain. On the other hand, if Chrysler started adding the applique armor in August 1943, over a year of M4A4 production had already elapsed, and 6173 M4A4s had been produced by the end of the second quarter of 1943, which would leave potentially 4563 tanks that were built before the applique armor was added to the factory line and which also didn't get run through the remanufacturing program. So bottom line: who knows?

Correct.
Also correct.
 
You got it. It's in the American Armoured [sic] Foundation Tank Museum in Danville, VA. I tried to hide the vehicle beside it since it's kind of iconic.

Oh wow it's too bad I just bought an M4 today.

Yikes. It took me a while to work through the confusion while going through the article:
But that picture is a Sherman, not an M7 tank. But the M7 tank was an International Harvester product, not ALCO. But the M7 tank was armed with the 75 mm gun M3, not a 105 mm gun. But that picture is of a howitzer motor carri...oh.

Yikes. It took me a while to work through the confusion while going through the article:
But that picture is a Sherman, not an M7 tank. But the M7 tank was an International Harvester product, not ALCO. But the M7 tank was armed with the 75 mm gun M3, not a 105 mm gun. But that picture is of a howitzer motor carri...oh.

Nice work! Cameos were made, lol. I'll be there again this year.

I cobbled this together from the video I took last September at the open house at the tank farm in Nokesville VA.  It made me realize how far I have to go in terms of working on my video camera and editing skills.
 
 

Sure. You can get the first book as a pdf here. The General Board reports are available here; Tank Gunnery is number 53.

I saw The Tanks of TOG by Andrew Hills thanks to a blurb on Walter's blog, and finished it a couple days ago. It was a much more sympathetic review of the program, and of Sir Albert Stern in particular, than I had been expecting, and therefore provided an interesting perspective. Both Fletcher in The Great Tank Scandal and Beale in Death by Design report that Stern got "The Old Gang" of WW1 tank designers together on his own volition, and they then thrust themselves upon the War Office with meddling and wasteful efforts. Smithers in Rude Mechanicals and Chamberlain and Ellis in British and American Tanks of World War Two posit that Stern et al were first approached by the War Office, whose specifications then they worked toward. Hills agrees with the latter two, saying the original rhomboid turretless TOG was not what the designers wanted, but what the War Office had demanded after work on a turreted tank had already begun. The travails of The Old Gang are reported in great detail, as well as the creation and modifications to the TOG tanks themselves. Assertions that Ricardo had a powerful diesel engine ready for manufacture, and that the TOG designs could have been the most heavily armored and armed British tanks to take the field (with, for example, the 17 pounder or more powerful guns and armor eclipsing the heavy Churchills) years ahead of the Centurion or Challenger--or even before the Churchill was reliable enough to not require an apology letter from Vauxhalls going out with every example--were certainly intriguing. Hills alleges that personality conflicts played a great role in the stymieing of TOG, and while this charge may be a bit overhyped, the work and designs that The Old Gang came up with do seem impressive compared with the contemporary state of British tank development, and also seem strangely ignored when projects like the A33 assault tank were floundering.
 
The editing could use some work, as there were instances of repeating paragraphs, confusing sentence structures, and ideas restated shortly after their introduction, but overall I consider this a worthwhile read.
 

I saw The Tanks of TOG by Andrew Hills thanks to a blurb on Walter's blog, and finished it a couple days ago. It was a much more sympathetic review of the program, and of Sir Albert Stern in particular, than I had been expecting, and therefore provided an interesting perspective. Both Fletcher in The Great Tank Scandal and Beale in Death by Design report that Stern got "The Old Gang" of WW1 tank designers together on his own volition, and they then thrust themselves upon the War Office with meddling and wasteful efforts. Smithers in Rude Mechanicals and Chamberlain and Ellis in British and American Tanks of World War Two posit that Stern et al were first approached by the War Office, whose specifications then they worked toward. Hills agrees with the latter two, saying the original rhomboid turretless TOG was not what the designers wanted, but what the War Office had demanded after work on a turreted tank had already begun. The travails of The Old Gang are reported in great detail, as well as the creation and modifications to the TOG tanks themselves. Assertions that Ricardo had a powerful diesel engine ready for manufacture, and that the TOG designs could have been the most heavily armored and armed British tanks to take the field (with, for example, the 17 pounder or more powerful guns and armor eclipsing the heavy Churchills) years ahead of the Centurion or Challenger--or even before the Churchill was reliable enough to not require an apology letter from Vauxhalls going out with every example--were certainly intriguing. Hills alleges that personality conflicts played a great role in the stymieing of TOG, and while this charge may be a bit overhyped, the work and designs that The Old Gang came up with do seem impressive compared with the contemporary state of British tank development, and also seem strangely ignored when projects like the A33 assault tank were floundering.
 
The editing could use some work, as there were instances of repeating paragraphs, confusing sentence structures, and ideas restated shortly after their introduction, but overall I consider this a worthwhile read.
 

Although the Duke boys' new machine wasn't quite as fast as the General Lee, Rosco was nonetheless presented with an entirely new set of problems.
 

Sure. You can get the first book as a pdf here. The General Board reports are available here; Tank Gunnery is number 53.

Sure. You can get the first book as a pdf here. The General Board reports are available here; Tank Gunnery is number 53.

Sure. You can get the first book as a pdf here. The General Board reports are available here; Tank Gunnery is number 53.

Sure. You can get the first book as a pdf here. The General Board reports are available here; Tank Gunnery is number 53.

Sure. You can get the first book as a pdf here. The General Board reports are available here; Tank Gunnery is number 53.

I think it's not a myth, and classification apparently had little to do with it. Green, Thomson, and Roots, in The Ordnance Department: Planning Munitions for War (first published in 1955): "...reports from overseas indicated limited use of the gyrostabilizer in combat. In 1943 an officer returned from the fighting in Sicily stated that despite very careful maintenance no one used the gyrostabilizer to good advantage. He believed that it had possibilities only if it were simplified and if extensive training were given the troops on its operation. All told, he thought gyrostabilizers not worth the effort to put them in tanks; accuracy of fire was so important that tank crews preferred to halt before firing. Again, a report on the ETO in late 1944 stated, 'experience has proven that tank crews have no faith in gyrostabilizers and will not use them. No amount of training seems to  convince the tank crews of the value of firing while moving. The gyrostabilizer is an expensive piece of tank equipment never used, and it could be left out of tanks scheduled for theaters of operations.'  Consistent evidence in the same tenor finally moved Ordnance to recommend the abandonment of stabilizers, a step that would have permitted a reduction of both maintenance time and expense. But that recommendation was disapproved, and the stabilizer remained. Intensive training of troops in its use made its mark at the very end of the war. In mid-August 1945 AGF reported, 'many tank battalions are using gyrostabilizers extensively.'"
 
More authoritatively, from the Tank Gunnery report of the General Board, United States Forces, European Theater:
"99. Gyro-stabilization.
     "a. Although a few units reported extensive and effective use of the gyro-stabilizer, on the whole, it received only limited employment. It is believed this was due to the following reasons:
          "(1) Lack of familiarity and confidence,
          "(2) Many units had received their training on the old stabilizer which was much less efficient.
     "b. Most interviewees stated there were occasions when they would have used a stabilizer in which they had confidence. Only a few felt that future development should be discontinued..."

Although the Duke boys' new machine wasn't quite as fast as the General Lee, Rosco was nonetheless presented with an entirely new set of problems.
 

Although the Duke boys' new machine wasn't quite as fast as the General Lee, Rosco was nonetheless presented with an entirely new set of problems.