Lend-lease M3 Grant WD serials

[KRK4m]

According to http://the.shadock.free.fr/sherman_minutia/index.html     there were only 1,686 M3 Grants ordered by the British Purchasing Commission - 685 from Baldwin, 501 from PSC and 400 from Pullman. Most of them (1,212) were riveted-hull M3 and the rest was composed of 381 riveted-hull M3A5 diesels, 83 welded-hull M3A3 diesels and 10 welded-hull M3A2 with aircraft radial engine. Whole order was covered by the WD serials from T-23504 through T-25188 plus one odd T-25589.

On the other hand both Tanks Encyclopedia and Wikipedia say that altogether Britain was allocated with 2,855 Grants, which leaves 1,169 vehicles for the Lend-Lease supplies. Is anybody able to give their variant details and WD serials?

Cheers

Michael

[Kingsman]

I've been looking into the same numbers and a precise conclusion seems difficult. Complicated by the fact that the Grants were originally cash purchases and those produced pre Lend-Lease therefore don't feature in Ordnance acceptances. The UK even funded PSC to reactivate their abandoned Hegewisch factory to build Grants, which the US govt then appropriated.

 

Once Lend-Lease was enacted, M3 production for UK and US was integrated and everything including Grants went through Ordnance. Here the Grant was just treated as its parent Lee designation, there being no separate US designation for the Grants. So differentiation between Lee and Grant within sub-type in Ordnance figures is effectively impossible.

 

Historically there was some confusion in older books about whether the diesel Grants were standard A3/A5 Lees, although it is now known that they were Grants. UK Grant designations were based only on engine type, not hull construction. All petrol were Grant I and all diesel were Grant II.

 

500 Grants were ordered from Lima too but production setup took so long that they became M4s under Lend-Lease.

 

And we received some standard Lee versions, all through Lend-Lease and as far as I can tell mostly riveted radial petrol M3s.

 

By a process of elimination, the M3 numbers allocated to US forces and Russia seem well known so whatever is left over must have been allocated to the UK. But dividing them between Lee and Grant with certainty seems impossible now.

Edited May 10, 2020 by Das Abteilung

[Kingsman]

Had a chance to look up some figures.  I had pulled together a litttle spreadsheet of the numbers I'd found.  BLUF - definitive numbers for petrol Grant Is are still effectively impossible: there's a lot of interpretation, assumption and deduction.

 

Most sources agree on the numbers of minor M3 variants, A1 to A5: both the absolute numbers and the numbers allocated to the UK.  The differences occur in the baseline M3 numbers, which of course includes the majority of Grants.  There were as you say 464 Grant II diesels, 381 based on M3A5 huls and 83 on M3A3.  The hulls on these were not strictly either A3 or A5 as the internal arrangements differred for Grants.  Not only was there 1 less crew member and the radio in the turret, but internal and external stowage differed between Lees and Grants.  So to call them A3 or A5 is really incorrect and is probably the source of the confusion I mentioned above.

 

Also agreed are the 10 A2-based welded petrol Grant Is.  At least one of these ended up in Australia, perhaps more.  BTW there were only 12 A2s built: very rare beasts and to have any service photos at all is surprising.  Part of the shift towards completing M3 production as diesels - the last 2 or 3 months' production at Baldwin were all diesels - was to clear the lines for petrol-engined M4s to begin production at Lima and PSC, the 1st 2 plants to produce M4s.

 

I worked out that 2,159 baseline M3 were supplied to the UK in total: a mix of Grants and Lees.  Deducting the 464 and 10 I concluded that there were probably 1,211 Grants and 948 Lees in the baseline M3 number.  That would make the Grant total 1,685 rather than 1,683.  Close enough for government work!  I believe the total of all M3 types supplied to the UK was 2,633.

 

We are still waiting for a definitive book on the M3 series, akin to the Son Of Sherman for its M4 offspring.  The old Hunnicutt Sherman book is probably still the most reliable source on M3s and was compiled from original source data.  Hunnicutt's papers still exist in the USA for reference access and there have been no subsequent revelations that would call his data into doubt.

 

His figures for US Ordnance acceptances (so excluding pre Lend-Lease cash purchase Grants) between June 41 and December 42 are 4,924 M3, 300 A1, 12 A2, 322 A3, 109 A4 and 591 A5.

 

He says the Lend-Lease distribution (therefore still excluding some Grants) of these for the UK was: 2,653 M3, 49 A3 and 185 A5.  Now you begin to see the problem.  Not only are the 10 A2s excluded, but the numbers of A3 and A5 are too low.  So were the A2s all supplied as cash purchases?  Do the A3 and A5 figures represent a balance of Grants post Lend-Lease?  As there is no hard evidence that the UK ever received any diesel Lees, it must be assumed that these are post Lend-Lease Grants.  But that is only a wild-assed assumption.  But the baseline M3 number must surely include cash purchase Grants, otherwise we had something like 4,200 of the 4,500 built - which we clearly did not as US forces had over 2,000 and Russia 300.

 

Intriguingly, Hunnicutt mentions 77 A3 and 23 A5 supplied "elsewhere" - i.e. not to Russia, UK or USA.  Free French forces did not have M3s AFAIK and I cannot find any other users.  My conclusion is that these were possibly 100 tanks supplied directly to India or to Australia without passing through the UK or N Africa.  Most Commonwealth Grants and some Lees were originally supplied directly to N Africa.

 

Of the Grants still in service after the N African campaign (number unknown), 335 were subsequently converted to CDLs and the remainder mostly shipped off to the Far East and Australia.  I found a figure of 1,700-odd for the Far East inc Australia, but that seems unreliably high - even if it includes the stray 100.  That suggests that total losses in shipping and to enemy action were only about 500, which seems somewhat low.

Edited May 11, 2020 by Das Abteilung
Correction

[EwenS]

I carried out the same exercise a couple of years ago and my figures pretty much match your own. But did you find the Anzac Steel webpage? It has a table of Lee/Grant deliveries supposedly from official records that totals 2621. It also has the location they were to be "allocated" to.

 

http://anzacsteel.hobbyvista.com/Armoured Vehicles/m3ph_1.htm

[KRK4m]

1 hour ago, EwenS said:

http://anzacsteel.hobbyvista.com/Armoured Vehicles/m3ph_1.htm

There's a picture of great interest there - the Australian Lee tanks on a train. Why this one? Because the two Lees visible there bear the WD nos.  in T-260.. block that (according to Hunnicutt book) was allocated to the Lima-built M4A1 Shermans. And then I'm still not sure whether the T-28456 shown on the profile within the Tanks Encyclopedia can be true or is it just some licentia poetica....

Cheers

Michael

[Kingsman]

I don't find Tanks Encyclopedia to be fully trustworthy (sorry, guys). They don't do original source research but gather data from secondary sources. How much analysis they do is unknown. There are errors in data and some of the artwork is suspect. That being said, the number of threads regarding colours on this and other forums is legion and all artwork is speculative and subjective to a degree. They never state the source photo or research for their artwork, but are not by any means alone in that. I would like to see all such artwork in books, on websites and in decal sets routinely supported by the source photos and/or other rationale. Then we would all be able to judge.

 

A block of numbers would have been allocated by BPC to Lima for the Grants originally ordered for cash. It is perhaps a logical assumption that those numbers were allocated instead to the M4s that these became. However, by the time M4 production came on stream Lend Lease was active and all production received Ordnance numbers at factories with WD numbers being allocated at Ordnance Tank Depots by BPC staff. So quite possibly / probably a different number range. I believe that Baldwin over-produced Grants by 185, possibly to make up for the lack of Lima production: I believe the original order was for 500. So potentially some Lima numbers were transferred to Baldwin. Grants were outside the Ordnance numbering system as they had no Ordnance designation and so probably all had WD numbers allocated at factories rather than at depot. I'm not convinced therefore that any Grants went through depots, but that cycles us back to the Hunnicutt numbers.

 

AFAIK the UK did not habitually recover and recycle unused numbers once allocated, hence the many sequence gaps, and did not change allocation to entirely different vehicle types. Different Marks of the same type from the same source, yes.

 

While Hunnicut is still probably the most reliable M3 data and is from original sources, there are some clear discrepancies with his numbers.

 

I hadn't seen the Anzac Steel page. Most interesting. The date disconnect for ex N African vehicles going to the Antipodes had intrigued me as it didn't make sense. This puts it straight. But raises again the question of the 100 'other' M3s in Hunnicutts figures.

Edited May 11, 2020 by Das Abteilung
addition

[KRK4m]

My problem with WD numbers concerns not only Grants, however. Today I have received a factory-fresh Crusader Mk.II kit from IBG (#72067). And one of the schemes included is T15779, which IMHO belongs to the Mk.I block, as the earliest Mk.IIs were T16...., then T43..., T44...., T45...., T46.... and perhaps some (145?) within the T123.... block. The Matilda II and Valentine WD serials are still more unclear to me 😢.

Cheers

Michael

[John Tapsell]

39 minutes ago, KRK4m said:

My problem with WD numbers concerns not only Grants, however. Today I have received a factory-fresh Crusader Mk.II kit from IBG (#72067). And one of the schemes included is T15779, which IMHO belongs to the Mk.I block, as the earliest Mk.IIs were T16...., then T43..., T44...., T45...., T46.... and perhaps some (145?) within the T123.... block. The Matilda II and Valentine WD serials are still more unclear to me 😢.

Cheers

Michael

The box art for the IBG Crusader II kit shows a later Crusader Mk I (the IBG Crusader I box art shows an early production Mk I). I don't know whether you can build a Crusader II from the kit without comparing the parts. The markings may be correct for the kit in the box but it may be that the kit is really a Mk I rather than a Mk II.

 

1/72 isn't my scale but I'm building a series of Crusaders in 1/48 scale so I've been researching the differences.

 

Regards,

John 

[John Tapsell]

At some point in 1943, the British ordered a further 252 M3 hulls from the USA specifically for conversion to CDLs. As I understand it they were re-manufactured hulls rather than new hulls and may or may not have been supplied with turrets. I have some information of the census numbers of tanks going through the CDL conversion process but it is fragmented and very incomplete. The interesting thing is that the data clearly defines hulls as either Lees or Grants.

 

Regards,

John

[Kingsman]

M3 production had ceased by the end of 1942 so anything supplied in 1943 is likely to be second-hand, potentially refurbished.  As far as I know there was no M3 remanufacture programme.  However, the possibility of some undelivered new-build tanks still in depot exists.  Grant production actually ceased in about July 42, and only 1 was retained in the USA.  So it would seem that any M3s supplied in 1943 would have been Lees, not Grants.  A lot of US M3 series had already gone for conversion as M31/2/3, something over 500 petrol and 400 diesel.  Plus almost 500 petrol for conversion to T10 Shop Tractors, AKA CDL, inc some M3A1.  The use of A1s not otherwise considered combat-worthy implies a shortage of petrol M3s.  It is perhaps surprising that the 109 M3A4s weren't put to better use.  With the UK receiving M4A4s throughout 1943 there would have been mechanical compatibility with using the M3A4 for CDL.

 

There were 335 UK CDLs built so would it be logical to infer that 252 were on the additional Lee hulls and the balance on Grants already supplied?  There were Grants in the UK which had ceased to have any real purpose for training etc by 1943.  Differentiation would be important if for no other reason than the need to relocate the radio and operator's position into the hull in Grants.  It was already there in Lees.  Potentially the Lees needed the driver's periscope fitted.