Sherman III and turret .50 MG Use Question

[Brad-M]

How popular was the use of the .50 MG on the British/Commonwealth Sherman III's? I don't see very many pics with them on the turret. Were they just not liked at all in NWE?

 

TIA

 

Brad

[Scimitar F1]

They were not supported in the logistics chain so the ammunition was not available. No idea why and this persisted to the 1990’s in the British Army where the only users were AIr Defence in the airborne forces. May have changed now.

 

The spotting guns in Chieftain were different. 
 

 

[Bullbasket]

In the Centrum series of books, there are several photos of NZ Sherman llls sporting .50 cal mg's, and from the same publisher, their book on the M4A2 shows many Polish Sherman llls with the heavier weapon. In fact it seems to be their weapon of choice.

 

John.

[AntPhillips]

I've read (but for the life of me can't remenber where) that in Italy at least, the .30 cal was preferered over the .50 cal as it was deemed both more accurate and also as the bow gun was the same only 1 ammo type was required to be carried.  

[Kingsman]

The M2 was a bulky weapon and quite difficult to operate in the ground role in the cupola, being intended for elevated AA use with essentially only the commander's head exposed. I'm not sure it is correct that 0.50 ammo was not in the supply chain. But having a single ammo type on board for 3 weapons would certainly be useful.

 

The M1919 was certainly handier in the confined space of the cupola and got in the way less.  The mount carried a 250 round box compared to the M2's 50-150, although it was consumed more quickly.  And yes the 0.30 was a more effective anti-personnel weapon with its higher rate of fire and easier control. However, the 0.50 had longer effective reach and could deal with semi-hard targets, notably AT gun shields and field defences.  Additional M1919s were seen on US vehicles too, in addition to M2s.

 

There has been a long-standing belief/rumour that there were British concerns that the 0.50 round fell under the 'unnecessary suffering' rules of the Geneva Conventions, Hague Conventions and St Petersburg Declaration and should therefore not be used in the anti-personnel role. I'm not certain there is any hard evidence for this.

 

A small number of M2s, maybe as few as 50, were retained in storage post-war and mounts were designed for some soft skin vehicles to carry them for AA use. They saw no use until 1982 when they came out of storage to arm ships deployed to the South Atlantic with AA CIWS. Some were deployed with ground forces for AA defence.

 

Since then the M2 has had a regular place as a vehicle and dismount weapon and some thousands have been procured since the start of operations in Iraq. These were Manroy-built weapons (now FN Herstal UK) and latterly had the quick change barrel invented by them and later copied by others.

[zigster]

"unnecessary suffering' rules"

Well, I would say - this saying is a modern invention from a bunch of goodie two shoes, peace loving, soy boys.... :-)))

If I remember correctly, M-16 AA 4x50cal was considered as a very good "meat chopper".

And white phosphourus ammo / bombs were used left, right and centre! That would (and did) burn anyone through.

Nice wars are in Hollywood only.

Zig

 

[Kingsman]

Without wishing to divert the thread much further nor enter into a debate on the ethics of war, which are subjects for another place............................

 

It's a finely judged issue and getting it wrong gets you a one way trip to The Hague.  Just because Bad Guys do Bad Things doesn't mean the rest of us should sink to that level.  I spent several years during Op Herrick buying all UK military and some police firearms and it was an issue that vexed us still even then.  Introducing the Combat Shotgun, for example,

 

In essence, if a 0.30 round will provide an incapacitating wound then a 0.50 is unneccessary overkill.  But if a 0.50 is all that is available at the time...............   And that was the essence of the argument.  Any projectile less than 400g should not contain any explosive or other harmful substance filler.  0.50 API breaches this, but is intended as an anti-materiel round.  Although in a fast contact the best ammunition to use is always the one you have loaded.  As for incapacitation, post-WW2 it was considerd that 80 Joules energy dump into the target would provide incapacitation or potentially prove lethal.  Latterly that has been revised to 200 Joules, one reason why 7.62mm is making a re-apearance for DMRs as 5.56 won't carry that energy much past 300m - 200m for an M4 or clone, maybe 100m for the CQB versions.

 

As for the quad-mount 0.50, German forces lobbied for its users in the ground role to be tried for war crimes.  But the victors make the rules...........  Indeed they objected to any use of the 0.50 in the ground role - it was apparently a frequent POW complaint - and made little or no use of their 13.2mm MG131 in the ground role in WW2.  Their WW1 13.2mm TuFG never made it into service in WW1 in common with the 0.50 Browning.  Of course that position ignores well documented use by German forces of the single and quad 20mm FlaK in the ground role, including with explosive rounds.

 

But back in the room to the original question.  The 0.30 was easier to use and generally considered more effective for close protection, the primary use of cupola weapons as the Luftwaffe was generally absent for close support in Italy and NWE.

[Niall]

The 50 cal mounting on the Sherman cannot be fired by the commander from inside the turret. He has to stand on the engine deck. The British rarely used a AA MG on their tanks, the only Shermans seen with 50 cals generally were the Sherman Crab, were it was used to shoot mines exposed but not detonated by the flail.

 

On the use of quad HMG AA mounts being a war crime, this is because the Haigh Convention of 1899 banned the use of explosive ammunition on guns under 20mm calibre being fired at troops. As AA guns the quad 50 cal mount used HE-incendiary ammo. As tank mounted 50cals were issued with ball or AP ammunition this would not be an issue.

[Scimitar F1]

1 hour ago, Das Abteilung said:

Without wishing to divert the thread much further nor enter into a debate on the ethics of war, which are subjects for another place............................

 

It's a finely judged issue and getting it wrong gets you a one way trip to The Hague.  Just because Bad Guys do Bad Things doesn't mean the rest of us should sink to that level.  I spent several years during Op Herrick buying all UK military and some police firearms and it was an issue that vexed us still even then.  Introducing the Combat Shotgun, for example,

 

In essence, if a 0.30 round will provide an incapacitating wound then a 0.50 is unneccessary overkill.  But if a 0.50 is all that is available at the time...............   And that was the essence of the argument.  Any projectile less than 400g should not contain any explosive or other harmful substance filler.  0.50 API breaches this, but is intended as an anti-materiel round.  Although in a fast contact the best ammunition to use is always the one you have loaded.  As for incapacitation, post-WW2 it was considerd that 80 Joules energy dump into the target would provide incapacitation or potentially prove lethal.  Latterly that has been revised to 200 Joules, one reason why 7.62mm is making a re-apearance for DMRs as 5.56 won't carry that energy much past 300m - 200m for an M4 or clone, maybe 100m for the CQB versions.

 

As for the quad-mount 0.50, German forces lobbied for its users in the ground role to be tried for war crimes.  But the victors make the rules...........  Indeed they objected to any use of the 0.50 in the ground role - it was apparently a frequent POW complaint - and made little or no use of their 13.2mm MG131 in the ground role in WW2.  Their WW1 13.2mm TuFG never made it into service in WW1 in common with the 0.50 Browning.  Of course that position ignores well documented use by German forces of the single and quad 20mm FlaK in the ground role, including with explosive rounds.

 

But back in the room to the original question.  The 0.30 was easier to use and generally considered more effective for close protection, the primary use of cupola weapons as the Luftwaffe was generally absent for close support in Italy and NWE.

Very interesting angle. I know there were concerns with 30mm APSE. We had 120mm Smoke, which unlike Artillery Smoke was Phosphorus. Very nasty.

[Brad-M]

Thanks all. Niall, that makes perfect sense. Lets leave the other stuff out of my thread please.

 

Thanks

Brad

[Bullbasket]

Just to show that Sherman llls did carry the .50 cal. MG, here are a couple of photos. The first one is of some NZ Sherman llls in Egypt.

 

.......and this one is of a Polish lll in Italy.

 

John.

[Kingsman]

I think we're clear that Shermans of all types could and did carry the M2 in Commonwealth service. Each tank was supplied with one boxed in the On-Vehicle Materiel along with 2 unmounted M1919s. But as the war progressed the M1919 is increasingly seen as the bulk and unweildiness of the M2 became apparent. Tanks delivered direct to theatre in the Middle East all seem to have been issued with an M2. In the early days of Sherman in the desert the Luftwaffe was still a considerable threat, diminishing after Alamein.

 

I think there is perhaps a question as to whether tanks delivered to the UK and prepared at depots here were routinely issued to units with the M2.

 

It is interesting that the 76mm turret introduced the rear stowage location to dismount the weapon out of the way, although the weapon is rarely seen stowed here.

 

In an interesting opposite to the Sherman, every Grant was issued with an M1919 on a cupola mount but this is only occasionally seen in photos. With its unique and somewhat clumsy ammo belt spool mounted above the gun it too was quite obstructive to the commander.

 

The cupola MG calibre debate in the British Army settled on 0.30/ 7.62mm as the post- war standard until very recently when some CR2 began to be fitted with RWS mounting 0.50. And if you look at the various UOR protected mobility vehicles bought or adapted for Iraq and Afghanistan there are more armed with GPMG than with HMG or GMG.

 

The caption in the top photo is interesting as the author comments on the similarity of the camouflage without understanding that there were specific camouflage painting diagrams for each tank type which were supposed to be followed. So they should indeed look the same!

[Bullbasket]

I think that there are many examples of Sherman llls mounting the heavier calibre weapon in the early years of the war, and in Italy. Where they are more scarce are in NW Europe, after D Day, except on US tanks.

 

John.