M10 GMC, When Good is Enough | Forged for Battle

Wow! Thank You for mentioning the unit my father saw action with in Italy. The 3rd platoon of the the 3133 Signal Corps, Special - the "Blue Devils" sound deception unit.

The whole US tank destroyer doctrine was flawed and the TDs useless unless you had massive numerical superiority.

At a time when “drawings” were actually hand drawn drawings … how these proposals and revisions were made and finalized in time to start actual production

The proof, as they say, is in the pudding. While flawed they were useful and for the most part effective.

Bob semple tank patches would be awesome 😂

My favourite American tank
I don’t know what draws me to TDs so much other other tanks but outside of the StuG and Hetzer they really don’t get a lot of love and attention they deserve

Canadian "Try to make the Ram II relevant" Challenge! (Impossible)

The M10 confuses me. Its lighter armored than the M4 Sherman, but evens out with sharply sloped frontal armor. It has an early 76mm, but its only around 20% better in armor penetration. Its barely better than the M4 Sherman, kind of worse actually, but its partially responsible for the myth that the M4 Sherman wasnt intended to fight tanks.

Both he M18 Hellcat and M36 Jackson make more sense as tank destroyers. The M18 was highly mobile while the M36 was armed with a 90mm that was almost twice as effective as the M4 Sherman's guns.

The Patton Museum at Ft. Knox has an M10 on display. Pretty neat place to visit. My son and I hit it and the museum at Ft. Campbell a number of years ago.

M10 sucks because wtf is that traverse rate 💀

If you enjoy playing the M10 you are lying to yourself

M10 was my favorite "tank" as a kid. It always gets overlooked by the m36 and m18

I wonder why the brits didn't give the M10 the name of an American general like they did with all other US tanks in UK use?

Any other jokes?

If it works, it ain't stupid. M10 crews did their best, and the vehicle did the mission it was asked. Regardless of other opinion it did its job.

Maybe the name Wolverine is it came from Michigan ?

Our group, WW2ARMOR, have a few different GMCs

The creation of the tank destroyer arm was an unfortunate attempt by the artillery arm and its senior proponent, General Leslie McNair, to limit the importance of the tank arm. McNair also was instrumental in preventing American tanks from being up gunned to the 90mm gun. Without the interference of Army Ground Forces, McNair's command, M26's could've been in combat in Normandy. For the rest of the war, US advances could be stopped by even small groups of Tigers or Panthers Because the thinly armored and under gunned Shermans could not deal with them and the TD's, designed as defensive weapons, were not with the spearhead when needed. Most US combat commanders did not use the "tank destroyers" as they were intended but instead attached them to tank battalions to give them added antitank ability. Many people do not know that 76mm armed Shermans were available for use in Normandy but were turned down by US commanders whose troops were trained on the 75mm. Several US Armored divisions did not even receive any 76mm Shermans until the main fighting in Normandy was over. I am not trying to denigrate the service of the men of the TD branch. They did what they were ordered to do to the best of their abilities. However, the M10, without power turret traverse, was far less than it could easily have been.

And they still used them as tanks in some battles with predictable results. They were good as TDs but terrible in the tank role.

I thought wWolverine was what the Canadians referred to their M10s as...
No?

Much mention of the M10s providing indirect fire. But, the actual projectile, used also in the 76mm US Weapons, was vastly inferior to the M4 'sherman' 75mm. And lacking MGs, it would be a very poor assault weapon for infantry support.

IIRC, 'Wolverine' was the nickname given to the Canadian M10s. (Hence no American sources...)

In retrospect , the Tank Destroyer concept was a waste of time. The ordinance department should have been developing a heavy tank .

Was the 17-pounder significantly heavier than the M10's original gun? Because in War Thunder, it feels to me like the Achilles has drastically reduced turret teaverse speed compared to the M10

I think you're confusing this with the Achilles, the American 76 on the GMC could not pen anything, where as the British 76 could literally pen anything the Germans had!

"Good enough right now" is (most times) better than "Amazing Later"!

re: wolverine... I can only add that My dad served in the 601st, and always referred to the M10 as wolverine. I have no evidence other than My memory, but they will always be wolverines to Me... as an edit, they had a VERY unofficial motto as well... rather than seek strike and destroy, they seemed to prefer 'hit sh!t n git'... so there's that

The American TD concept was flawed by insufficient armor and retention of a questionably useful turret (turrets would have been justified if their TDs could accurately fire on the move, which they COULDN'T.) And the "speed" requirement was spurious - tracked vehicle offroad speed was limited in any case. The Germans had the TD concept right: Heavy frontal armor and forward-firing powerful gun - in essence self-propelled heavily armored AT guns. The proof is that German STUGs destroyed more enemy tanks than any other of their weapon systems.

M10 A reasonable temporary vehicle. Not perfect, but it moved well, in general its main gun could deal with the majority of German tanks and it was pretty reliable (just like the tank it was built from).

If the hellcat sherman firefly is that good why it not been use in Korean war?

Like this tank-easy frag. Just one hit with HE, no matter where(end of the barrel or track works) and one hit kill all the crew.

any ally tank: "forged for battle"
any axis tank :"cursed by design"

yeahrite 😭

It ends up with BT-5 or Matilda being "forged for battle" and the Pz.V ausf. G or Type 97 being "cursed by design"

At the time it entered service the M10 was a lethal threat on all the fronts it was deployed. It was even capable of knocking out a Tiger I frontally at normal combat ranges. Conversion kits which consisted of a M36 turret with gun, and the necessary parts to complete the conversion were issued so that as M10's came in for overhaul they could be converted to M36's. The problem was the M10's sent back were so worn out from constant use it was decided not to convert them. To fill the need for replacement TD's the M36 conversion kits were instead installed on M4A3's pulled from the motor pool to create the M36B1's.

Why even put the turret on her💀🤣

Bruce: WWHHYY!!!??!??!

The TD Crews themselves: "It's good enough..."

M10 is an awesome self propelled anti tank gun. Very low setup time to keep pace with a maneuver battle. Hull down from crest of hill driving along the reverse slope to evade artillery.

You failed here by belittling the amount of impact it had over the Sherman. My great-grandpa would cuss you like a dog right now if he heard you. The GMC's of the war had a HUGE impact everywhere they went. It was a successful failure. Do more research while you have time...

Thanks. Just to note, no Elephants were used outside of Italy and the USSR

One of the coolest looking turrets

Needed power traverse for the turret

M10 is my favorite American fighting vehicle. 😘👌

you missed out on the Yugoslavian use of them during the 1990's

The US Army ran on gasoline. It must have been a logistical complication to supply diesel for the M10.