4:38 "The Americans always liked machine guns. And they always stuck them on everywhere they could find a place for them" No truer words have ever been spoken about a military design doctrine.
Nika Rus Lol, the Brits were just as bad, except they decided to put every single machine gun into its own mini-turret, with the result that the machine gunner would be cooked in their cramped little turret. (Or frozen, in a theater with cold weather) Mr. Fletcher seems to have forgotten that little detail. 😂
Something that gets overlooked in discussions of the M3 is that in the Western Desert it wasn't so much German tanks that were beating up British armor, it was the anti-tank gun screens. Rommel was a master of writing down British armor by drawing them onto his AT guns, before releasing his own tanks. The 75mm on the M3, with HE rounds, could stand off and shoot up the PAK's, unlike the 2 pounder on most British tanks of the time. It was a compromised, stopgap design, but it filled a niche until something better came along.
_It was British use of tanks which was often flawed, not so much the tanks themselves_ Indeed. A great example of this line of thought is the AA gun use. During Operation Battleaxe from 15th to 18th June 1941 the Commonwealth forces are known to have lost 92 AFVs including 82 tanks to the I./Flak-Regiment 33, a Luftwaffe mixed flak battalion with 12 88s. The only other heavy flak battalion available to Rommel through 1941 was the identical I./Flak-Regiment 18. By the end of 1941 these two Luftwaffe flak battalions (authorised a total of 24 88s) had destroyed 264 tanks and 42 aircraft. During this period the Allied forces had over three times as many 3.7inch AA guns available as the Axis forces had 88s, yet the German and Italian tank crews probably never even got to see one.
Agree with comment of Charles, but not sure it is all about use of tanks. Almost all British tanks at time had 2 pounders, with solid shot. At 1 1/2 miles away facing a 88, what do you do if you have a tank armed with a 2 pounder? With a Grant and a 76, you drop HE on them. Yes, they have better gun, but no armor, so they need direct hit while you only need close miss. Also, you can move and they cannot, so you can find your range. Advantage Grant.
AT guns always get overshadowed. In a Russian tank commander's memoirs, he definitely saw AT guns as more of a threat than German tanks, including Tigers, because you could at least see the Tiger.
The British 14th Army used a large number of these tanks in Burma. I think the British and Indian Army used all of the Grant tanks from North Africa with a portion going to Western Australia for training and home defense. These Grant tanks had a high profile because the rear engine has a long drive shaft going diagonally to the gear box and final drive located at the front. The Grant/Lee tank performed well in the jungles of Burma seeing action in the Arakan, the battle of the Admin box, Imphal and Kohima including pushing the Japanese out of Burma in1945. The British and Indian troops in the Far East liked the 37mm gun that had an excellent canister shell for anti-infantry purposes. The Japanese were always entrenched in Burma and used suicide bomb squads to attack the Grants. The British and Indians trained infantry soldiers armed with automatic weapons, grenades, and bayonets for brutal close quarters battle killing hidden Japanese soldiers with satchel charges who only exposed themselves briefly from cover to try and blow up the tank. No doubt many British infantry escort soldiers got blown up too shooting down these suicide Japanese attackers. Anyway, when Japanese bunkers were located, the Grant 75mm gun was used to blast away camouflage with high explosive rounds and antiarmor shells were then used to destroy the bunker or the pillbox. The Japanese Army had no answer to the Grant tank in Burma except desperate suicide attacks that simply resulted in mass casualties. The Grant tank was a huge success in Burma. Most of this information can be seen in an excellent video on youtube from "the killer tank" series narrated by British military history scholars for the Discovery television channel in America. The U.S. Army was still using these Lee tanks during the Sicily invasion in 1943. I am not sure but very few U.S. Army divisions, if any would have been using the Grant/Lee tank in Italy with Sherman production in high gear. The Soviet Union received about a thousand Lee tanks using them extensively around Leningrad, Stalingrad, with a few surviving the Kursk battle. The Soviets called the Lee/Grant tank " a grave for seven brothers." Yet, the Grant was superior to the Soviet T-60 and T-70 tanks. Chrysler put track extenders to widen the track to help deal with the Russian mud and snow. Despite Russian complaints about the Grant/Lee, they used them in the infantry support role and in secondary fronts such as the Petsamo front in the arctic until the end of the war. No doubt the Soviet complaints were valid because their T-34 tank, though superior, could NOT be everywhere in sufficient numbers on a 2,000 mile front. A Soviet rifle company with a Lee tank supporting it was better off than having no tank at all. Some Lee tanks were said to go to the Far East in the Soviet Manchurian offensive in August, 1945 but I have not researched this statement enough to know if it is true or not. However, for a secondary fronts, or for infantry support roles only, the mediocre Lee/Grant tank was useful enough to free up other tanks for the main assault on more critical fronts right up until the end of the war. We must remember the great and utter haste that the War Department, the U.S. Army Ordinance Department together with Chrysler's tank facility in Michigan developed this tank only as an interum design. The pressure on American industry was enormous because the British were desperate for Lend Lease medium tanks with a 75mm gun after the fall of France and Dunkirk. American industrialists just did NOT have the time to develop a turret for a 75mm gun in 1940. This statement proves that a mediocre but adequate tank design, mass produced in large numbers can achieve extraordinary results in combat if employed away from superior enemy tanks or secondary theaters in the infantry support role. We should measure a tanks value by how many infantry soldiers get to go home after World War 2 because the Grant was there in useful numbers on the battlefield destroying dug-in Axis infantry positions. The U.S. Army and Marine Corps could have fought the Japanese in the Pacific mostly with Grant tanks and very few Shermans and still won the war in mid-1945.
@@danielc6925 thats sorta what he was getting at the Japanese tanks were out classed by the m3 so the us tanks would have still come out on top without the m4 in the pacific However the Japanese tanks were only bad because of their age when they had initially been designed they were quite good however military politics sorta got in the way of development and the navy ended up with most of the funding
Which is smart because the Pacific was a Naval conflict. If you can prevent your enemy from staging a amphibious invasion then you don’t even need tanks! The Japanese failed on both fronts though, their tanks were inferior and their ships outnumbered by 1943.
The question you always need to ask is, "does the design become worse if you stick a machine gun there?" If the answer is "no," you slap another one on. If the answer is "maybe," you ask if you might regret not being able to shoot a dude from that particular angle, and if yes, slap one on. If the answer is "yes," see if you can bolt one on anyway before the engineers can drag you away: you can't always manage, but it is often worth a try.
Great chat! I visited the tank museum in 1983 (I live in the US). At that time the open doors were covered by plexiglass instead of a grill. It was difficult to take pictures because the flash reflected back, and the glass was covered with hand prints. The M3 is a favorite of mine because it is visually interesting with a busy exterior.
The Lee/Grant was perhaps the classic example of a stopgap war machine that, by intent or sheer luck, became a winner. Although ungainly, it was reliable, manueverable and hard hitting. Certainly, it was a nasty surprise to the desert Axis forces when it showed up and to the Japanese later on. Also, it was the father of the Sherman! Sometimes, these things just turn out right against all odds. Too bad that didn't happen for the guys who cobbled together the Crusaders and Covenanters!
i quite like this series... so glad this info is on internet and avalaible anywhere...i grow up in Peru..and for us WW2 was only seen on tv on black and white films...its a diferent thing to se the enormous tanks and their details today...
An M3 starred in an episode of Hogan's Heroes, playing the role of a new top secret German tank. Which it did very well. Montgomery had a command M3 for a while. The 75mm gun and basket was removed and a dummy wooden gun barrel was put in instead, so as to disguise it's real function. You can see it in the British Imperial War Museum in London.
I read somewhere that is was designed after the French Char B1 that had a very similar layout and was considered very cutting edge for its time. As and Army Engineer I never liked trying to keep up with M1 tanks that could go over 50 MPHs in a Vietnam era M113. Not fun. Nothing to do with this post of course but thought I would share.
When the M3 first appeared on the battlefield in the deserts of Africa it was considered to be far superior to the PzKpfw IV Ausf. F1 that the German forces were using. It wasn't until the F2 with Pak 40/L43 entered service that the M3 lost its edge.
I can see why they would be effective in the Far East since the Japanese tanks had thinner armor and lighter armament compared to the tanks in Europe. The 75mm on the Grant could take anything out that they had.
Apart from the very late designs that never even leaved the Japanese mainland (Mainly Chi-Nu and Chi-To which would have been roughly comparable to a M4 or a Pz4), the 37mm could penetrate all Japanese armor. Japanese actually found to their great displeasure that their smallest armored vehicles, scouting and utility tankettes, were even somewhat vulnerable to 12,7mm MG fire.
When the Grant was introduced into British service, the tanks they had were all terrible in comparison...and armed with 2 pounders. Compare the Grant to the Valentine III, Matilda II and Crusader II that were in use at the time and you start to understand why the Desert Army liked them so much. They were also mechanically reliable and basically designed to be easy to maintain. Not bad for a tank that was only ever meant to be a stopgap design.
@Dod o Both were terrible mechanically. The Crusader's armor was worthless, and it's gun useless, by 1941/42. The Matilda was too slow to be useful in mobile situations, again a useless gun, and the Germans had shells to deal with the armor. Neither had an HE capability, so were helpless against soft targets like AT guns and 88s...which really hurt because the British tactics were still basically combined-arms averse and overly specialized. The Grant wasn't perfect (look at the thing), but was worlds better than anything in the British tank inventory at the time.
@@richardj9016 The 6-pounder was a good gun, even if by the time it was used the bloom was off the rose. But the Crusader still had poor armor, and was still mechanically hopeless. Before the Shermans were in use in numbers, the British in the desert only counted Lee/Grants when making their plans. Even if London had a hard time seeing how good they were, the troops at the sharp end recognized it immediately.
@@richardj9016 What's interesting to me is that British engineers could design and build good tanks (look up this history of the T-26 as an example). The problem was the Army leadership didn't know what a good tank design was. It's a case where theory killed hardware.
@@Ocrilat Yeah possibly, I never really understood why they introduced the cromwell without sloped armour. But I think later tanks definitely were on par with the cutting edge, case in point with the comet, and even though not serving, the Centurian as well. I think the Churchill was pretty good.
That's just typical british thing, being proud of british cars/tanks/ships/what have you while constantly complaining about the poor reliability. It's not like mr. Fletcher doesn't like british tanks, he's just loving them in a british way. If your first car was 20 years old rustwagon you can probably relate - it's constantly broken (or, at best botch-repaired to soldier on a little longer), it literally falls apart under your butt and you're calling it names nobody should say out loud in front of lady, but it's your first car. That bloody thing has soul. And you love this piece of junk no matter what. That's how brits love their machines and that's how mr. Fletcher loves british tanks. They might not make them to last, or to outperform rest of the world in every imaginable way or, god forbid, to be pinacles of reliability, but they were giving those heaps of steel and bolts a piece of soul of their own. And they know it damn well.
The early British tanks carried smaller caliber high velocity guns with only AP ammunition for taking out tanks. The M3 was loved because it carried the larger dual purpose 75mm gun which had high explosive ammo for it for dealing with German AT gun emplacements which was the real threat to Allied tanks. The Grant could also act as mobile artillery supporting troop advancements and be used to take out pillboxes and machinegun emplacements.
Not abandoned in 1943 but repurposed: this hull was then used as a self propelled artillery mount I believe the U.S. version was the Priest and the British version was the Sexton. I also think there were some "kangaroo" APC using the Lee/Grant hull but might be wrong so do double check prior to quoting me: TLDR -- hulls were not used for tanks but repurposed as self propelled artillery. Canadian Ram tanks were also repurposed as SPA and APC. That's why I'm unsure about Sexton versus Deacon, both of which were SPA converted from tanks.
Damned straight! I've got three on my bicycle! Two slaved to the handlebars, and the other one is pintle mounted to the luggage rack over the rear tire.
This is far more fascinating and comedic than watching influencers with a "I DROVE A TANK TO A WEDDING, GONE WRONG, GONE SEXUAL, IN THE HOOD" clickbait videos. Although the placement of the 75mm in the hull and the criminally high profile of the M3 turret was somewhat unpractical, it's still my favorite design amongst the WWII tanks. Great video!
Is that a clipped military moustache now allowed to roam? Or was he an engineer type who could always have a full Walrus? Either way David Fletcher is effortlesss in his inimitable bald delivery style.
One of Mr Fletcher's best vids, I love this guy so much! "Americans, putting machine guns on everything, wherever they can." And I'm sipping my coffee going yep, yep, yep! And the British tanks, breaking down for the fun of it. I about died! Love these vids. :D Can watch them on loop all day.
The Grant/Lee tank did the job it was intended to do, until the Sherman replaced them. The Americans built these tanks to be shipped overseas, had to be dependable, reliable and easily maintained. In actual combat use the British Army during WW2 probably had a longer experience with the Grant/Sherman and the American Army did? Thank you for your videos I always enjoy them.
I cant help but love unusual tanks like the Grant, and having two useful calibers on tap for inf. support was very handy. Just dont expect great results against an up to date german vehicle.
This tank was the product of an extremely hyper rushed development and manufacturing. The Americans (Allies) really wanted a big gunned tank NOW, lots of them and didn't have one. The M3 is that transition stop gap tank between what the Allies already had and the M4 Sherman they couldn't develop fast enough. It did it's job admirably given it's crude rushed design.
"It was very efficient. As a machine it would run beautifully and run whenever you wanted it too. Which is more than you can say for many British tanks which broke down for the fun of it!" Realizes I'm not subscribed: What a legend
I've always heard that its big drawback was its vertical silhouette. In An Army at Dawn, Atkinson quotes an Americsn commander (don't remember who) as saying, somewhat churlishly, that it looked "Like a damn great cathedral coming down the road". It gave way to shorter silhouttes, angled armor, and only 1 dual purpose gun, in a full turret. Love this series
Great Video, I dunno why, but I've always loved the lees and grants! I did notice one minor little error in the vid tho, this suspension had been used on the m2 medium before the m3 medium and they were the same size. For all intents and purposes the m3 mediums were m2 mediums with 75mm guns mounted in the hull. Otherwise great vid for a great vehicle.
And then there's the little fact that the M2 medium never actually saw action and was only developed in 1938 as something of a testbed as the rumblings from Europe got Rock Island Arsenal serious about upgrading their ability to design contemporary armor again..
I wish I could find the book I am thinking of so I could cite my source. Regardless, in this book is a photo of a company of American armor and right in the middle is an M3 Lee which the company commander used. I suppose it was as reliable as the M4s and had considerably more room. If I am remembering correctly the photo was taken somewhere in France.
Not a bad first attempt at an MBT-of-the-day. Britain has to be happy the US didn't mess up the design, delivered something very effective, and could supply a lot of them.
3:20 "...more than you can say for any British tank, which broke down for the fun of it."
I love Mr Fletcher's choice of words in these videos.
the hint of disgust in his voice when he said it too
gosh i wish, i would had him as a history teacher....i love his way of lecturing
His sense of humor is legendary
"if you dont like what i say, keep it to yourself"
That part tickled me to death. Loved his choice of words. 😂
@@xTheRealKestrelx British humor, dry as the African desert.
4:38 "The Americans always liked machine guns. And they always stuck them on everywhere they could find a place for them"
No truer words have ever been spoken about a military design doctrine.
Pretty much the M2 Medium Tank. So many machine guns for just one tank.
The RAF seemed to share the attitude, often foregoing autocannons to get more machine guns in their designs.
Nika Rus l,so, so true for the earlier war US tanks, like the M2, The Stuart, etc.
Well ... americans stuck to "tank in infantry support role" doctrine untill late in the war. And an infantry suppport tank need a lot of MG's.
Nika Rus
Lol, the Brits were just as bad, except they decided to put every single machine gun into its own mini-turret, with the result that the machine gunner would be cooked in their cramped little turret. (Or frozen, in a theater with cold weather)
Mr. Fletcher seems to have forgotten that little detail. 😂
"Which is more than you could say for many British tanks, which broke down for the fun of it." David is my absolute favorite presenter of anything.
Notice how there are no replies on this, but numerous salty Brits trash talking every gripe about an American tank.
Scallie You yanks built some good tanks... Not this one tough lol
British - roasted!
I'm waiting for his report on Prince Harry !
M3 Lee is probably my favourite tank.
Something that gets overlooked in discussions of the M3 is that in the Western Desert it wasn't so much German tanks that were beating up British armor, it was the anti-tank gun screens. Rommel was a master of writing down British armor by drawing them onto his AT guns, before releasing his own tanks. The 75mm on the M3, with HE rounds, could stand off and shoot up the PAK's, unlike the 2 pounder on most British tanks of the time. It was a compromised, stopgap design, but it filled a niche until something better came along.
_It was British use of tanks which was often flawed, not so much the tanks themselves_
Indeed. A great example of this line of thought is the AA gun use. During Operation Battleaxe from 15th to 18th June 1941 the Commonwealth forces are known to have lost 92 AFVs including 82 tanks to the I./Flak-Regiment 33, a Luftwaffe mixed flak battalion with 12 88s. The only other heavy flak battalion available to Rommel through 1941 was the identical I./Flak-Regiment 18. By the end of 1941 these two Luftwaffe flak battalions (authorised a total of 24 88s) had destroyed 264 tanks and 42 aircraft. During this period the Allied forces had over three times as many 3.7inch AA guns available as the Axis forces had 88s, yet the German and Italian tank crews probably never even got to see one.
Agree with comment of Charles, but not sure it is all about use of tanks. Almost all British tanks at time had 2 pounders, with solid shot. At 1 1/2 miles away facing a 88, what do you do if you have a tank armed with a 2 pounder? With a Grant and a 76, you drop HE on them. Yes, they have better gun, but no armor, so they need direct hit while you only need close miss. Also, you can move and they cannot, so you can find your range. Advantage Grant.
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Michael Moran with a grant and a 76? Grants had 76’s?????
AT guns always get overshadowed.
In a Russian tank commander's memoirs, he definitely saw AT guns as more of a threat than German tanks, including Tigers, because you could at least see the Tiger.
I love these outdated tank designs, they have a sort of mad steampunk feel to them
The British 14th Army used a large number of these tanks in Burma. I think the British and Indian Army used all of the Grant tanks from North Africa with a portion going to Western Australia for training and home defense. These Grant tanks had a high profile because the rear engine has a long drive shaft going diagonally to the gear box and final drive located at the front. The Grant/Lee tank performed well in the jungles of Burma seeing action in the Arakan, the battle of the Admin box, Imphal and Kohima including pushing the Japanese out of Burma in1945. The British and Indian troops in the Far East liked the 37mm gun that had an excellent canister shell for anti-infantry purposes. The Japanese were always entrenched in Burma and used suicide bomb squads to attack the Grants. The British and Indians trained infantry soldiers armed with automatic weapons, grenades, and bayonets for brutal close quarters battle killing hidden Japanese soldiers with satchel charges who only exposed themselves briefly from cover to try and blow up the tank. No doubt many British infantry escort soldiers got blown up too shooting down these suicide Japanese attackers. Anyway, when Japanese bunkers were located, the Grant 75mm gun was used to blast away camouflage with high explosive rounds and antiarmor shells were then used to destroy the bunker or the pillbox. The Japanese Army had no answer to the Grant tank in Burma except desperate suicide attacks that simply resulted in mass casualties. The Grant tank was a huge success in Burma. Most of this information can be seen in an excellent video on youtube from "the killer tank" series narrated by British military history scholars for the Discovery television channel in America.
The U.S. Army was still using these Lee tanks during the Sicily invasion in 1943. I am not sure but very few U.S. Army divisions, if any would have been using the Grant/Lee tank in Italy with Sherman production in high gear. The Soviet Union received about a thousand Lee tanks using them extensively around Leningrad, Stalingrad, with a few surviving the Kursk battle. The Soviets called the Lee/Grant tank " a grave for seven brothers." Yet, the Grant was superior to the Soviet T-60 and T-70 tanks. Chrysler put track extenders to widen the track to help deal with the Russian mud and snow. Despite Russian complaints about the Grant/Lee, they used them in the infantry support role and in secondary fronts such as the Petsamo front in the arctic until the end of the war. No doubt the Soviet complaints were valid because their T-34 tank, though superior, could NOT be everywhere in sufficient numbers on a 2,000 mile front. A Soviet rifle company with a Lee tank supporting it was better off than having no tank at all. Some Lee tanks were said to go to the Far East in the Soviet Manchurian offensive in August, 1945 but I have not researched this statement enough to know if it is true or not.
However, for a secondary fronts, or for infantry support roles only, the mediocre Lee/Grant tank was useful enough to free up other tanks for the main assault on more critical fronts right up until the end of the war. We must remember the great and utter haste that the War Department, the U.S. Army Ordinance Department together with Chrysler's tank facility in Michigan developed this tank only as an interum design. The pressure on American industry was enormous because the British were desperate for Lend Lease medium tanks with a 75mm gun after the fall of France and Dunkirk. American industrialists just did NOT have the time to develop a turret for a 75mm gun in 1940. This statement proves that a mediocre but adequate tank design, mass produced in large numbers can achieve extraordinary results in combat if employed away from superior enemy tanks or secondary theaters in the infantry support role. We should measure a tanks value by how many infantry soldiers get to go home after World War 2 because the Grant was there in useful numbers on the battlefield destroying dug-in Axis infantry positions. The U.S. Army and Marine Corps could have fought the Japanese in the Pacific mostly with Grant tanks and very few Shermans and still won the war in mid-1945.
The Japanese had even worse tanks, the Americans didn't win because they had Grant tanks...
@@danielc6925 thats sorta what he was getting at the Japanese tanks were out classed by the m3 so the us tanks would have still come out on top without the m4 in the pacific
However the Japanese tanks were only bad because of their age when they had initially been designed they were quite good however military politics sorta got in the way of development and the navy ended up with most of the funding
Which is smart because the Pacific was a Naval conflict. If you can prevent your enemy from staging a amphibious invasion then you don’t even need tanks! The Japanese failed on both fronts though, their tanks were inferior and their ships outnumbered by 1943.
That was very interesting thank you for typing all that
Yeah, I’d add my thanks, thanks for typing
The moment where you wish that Bovington had an U.S. American M2 MEdium, to llustrate the off hand comment of "many machineguns".
7 of them to be exact
one coaxial
4 in the hull (one each corner)
2 mounted to the turret for the hell of it
and 2 for the driver to use
Jan Witkowsky even now, an Abrams usually has 3 of them.
and two more in in front of the driver
Or the M2 light, with 5 machineguns fixed forward. Why? I dunno.
This guy could talk about how grass grows and I could still find it interesting, David Fletcher is a treasure!
Well Mr Fletcher you'd be a very welcome guest speaker in any Army Sergeants and Officers Mess I've been a member of.
David fletcher is awesome! I could listen to him chat about anything 👍
We still like machine guns...
DAKADAKADAKADAKA.
Yes, any nation with the M-2 .50 will be sorely tempted to put them all over everything.
OI! DIS NEEDZ MOR DAKKA!
@@johnd2058 you betcha! Love the Ma Deuce!
The question you always need to ask is, "does the design become worse if you stick a machine gun there?" If the answer is "no," you slap another one on. If the answer is "maybe," you ask if you might regret not being able to shoot a dude from that particular angle, and if yes, slap one on. If the answer is "yes," see if you can bolt one on anyway before the engineers can drag you away: you can't always manage, but it is often worth a try.
Love these tank chats what a great series :)
Jumonkey Online I accidentally stumbled on to this channel and now I can't stop watching these videos hahaha.
Love this museum
David Fletcher is a treasure. He is a very good friend who you have never met in person...
I just can’t have enough of Mr. Fletcher !
Thank a lot Tank chats! Now when I discovered this channel, my work day is ruined and I will spend whole time watching all the episodes!
Thanks.
I love this guy
Theses videos are wonderful. Fletcher is a legend, everything he shows us is legendary.
I love his old British humor. Too funny.
It is refreshing to see an English gentleman to give a fair analysis of an American made tank.
Awww how could anyone dislike a video with that lovely old gentleman in. People can be so churlish, honestly.
"The Fletcher" has an understated yet simple elegance when it comes to sarcasm, and I applaud him for it.
"it ran beautifully and it ran when you wanted it to, which is more then you can say for many Britisch tanks" LOL
British.
Nico Meier - ". . . more than you can say for many British tanks which broke down just for the fun of it."
Love that bit!! :)
Great chat! I visited the tank museum in 1983 (I live in the US). At that time the open doors were covered by plexiglass instead of a grill. It was difficult to take pictures because the flash reflected back, and the glass was covered with hand prints. The M3 is a favorite of mine because it is visually interesting with a busy exterior.
The Lee/Grant was perhaps the classic example of a stopgap war machine that, by intent or sheer luck, became a winner. Although ungainly, it was reliable, manueverable and hard hitting. Certainly, it was a nasty surprise to the desert Axis forces when it showed up and to the Japanese later on. Also, it was the father of the Sherman! Sometimes, these things just turn out right against all odds. Too bad that didn't happen for the guys who cobbled together the Crusaders and Covenanters!
i quite like this series... so glad this info is on internet and avalaible anywhere...i grow up in Peru..and for us WW2 was only seen on tv on black and white films...its a diferent thing to se the enormous tanks and their details today...
i swear the people that disliked this video just did it "for the fun of it", or one of them was jingles >->
I love Mr. Fletcher's presentations
Good to have David back and none of that Jingles nonsens.
A interesting (if often overlooked) tank from the Desert War.
Love watching this guy. Literally laugh out loud at his commentary about some things.
Thank you Mr. Fletcher.
An M3 starred in an episode of Hogan's Heroes, playing the role of a new top secret German tank. Which it did very well. Montgomery had a command M3 for a while. The 75mm gun and basket was removed and a dummy wooden gun barrel was put in instead, so as to disguise it's real function. You can see it in the British Imperial War Museum in London.
Another great tank chat by Mr Fletcher!
This video bought back memories i didn't know i had of this being my favorite tank as a really small child. Cheers David and the Tank museum :).
i love these vids :D
The Iron Armenian aka G.I. Haigs I love your videos bro
Likewise, The Iron Armenian aka G.I. Haigs
I read somewhere that is was designed after the French Char B1 that had a very similar layout and was considered very cutting edge for its time. As and Army Engineer I never liked trying to keep up with M1 tanks that could go over 50 MPHs in a Vietnam era M113. Not fun. Nothing to do with this post of course but thought I would share.
See jingles even the tank museum says the grant/lee is a good tank
Against pz2s.
Gonna make Rita happy.
When the M3 first appeared on the battlefield in the deserts of Africa it was considered to be far superior to the PzKpfw IV Ausf. F1 that the German forces were using. It wasn't until the F2 with Pak 40/L43 entered service that the M3 lost its edge.
And 3's and low velocity mark IVs which were its primary adversary.
this was a very good tank for its time (not perfect), so good in fact that it recived the nickname: The Iron Fortress
I can see why they would be effective in the Far East since the Japanese tanks had thinner armor and lighter armament compared to the tanks in Europe. The 75mm on the Grant could take anything out that they had.
Also the 37mm could fire canister which was nice for foliage and tree clearing.
Apart from the very late designs that never even leaved the Japanese mainland (Mainly Chi-Nu and Chi-To which would have been roughly comparable to a M4 or a Pz4), the 37mm could penetrate all Japanese armor.
Japanese actually found to their great displeasure that their smallest armored vehicles, scouting and utility tankettes, were even somewhat vulnerable to 12,7mm MG fire.
Wow! Really great presentation by the chap. He certainly knows what he’s talking about. Well done mate!
When the Grant was introduced into British service, the tanks they had were all terrible in comparison...and armed with 2 pounders. Compare the Grant to the Valentine III, Matilda II and Crusader II that were in use at the time and you start to understand why the Desert Army liked them so much. They were also mechanically reliable and basically designed to be easy to maintain. Not bad for a tank that was only ever meant to be a stopgap design.
@Dod o Both were terrible mechanically. The Crusader's armor was worthless, and it's gun useless, by 1941/42. The Matilda was too slow to be useful in mobile situations, again a useless gun, and the Germans had shells to deal with the armor. Neither had an HE capability, so were helpless against soft targets like AT guns and 88s...which really hurt because the British tactics were still basically combined-arms averse and overly specialized. The Grant wasn't perfect (look at the thing), but was worlds better than anything in the British tank inventory at the time.
@@Ocrilat The Crusader tank did get a mounted 6 pounder gun later on which was more than capable though.
@@richardj9016 The 6-pounder was a good gun, even if by the time it was used the bloom was off the rose. But the Crusader still had poor armor, and was still mechanically hopeless. Before the Shermans were in use in numbers, the British in the desert only counted Lee/Grants when making their plans. Even if London had a hard time seeing how good they were, the troops at the sharp end recognized it immediately.
@@richardj9016 What's interesting to me is that British engineers could design and build good tanks (look up this history of the T-26 as an example). The problem was the Army leadership didn't know what a good tank design was. It's a case where theory killed hardware.
@@Ocrilat Yeah possibly, I never really understood why they introduced the cromwell without sloped armour. But I think later tanks definitely were on par with the cutting edge, case in point with the comet, and even though not serving, the Centurian as well. I think the Churchill was pretty good.
"Americans always liked machine guns"
why yes, yes we do
TheBugMonster not so much the love of machine guns, but the dislike of enemy infantry
Glad to see you back Mr. Fletcher!
*There's not one video where he doesn't mention that a particular British tank is crap and useless lol*
*Gotta love the honesty!*
JoeDurobot The Crusader was good.
That's just typical british thing, being proud of british cars/tanks/ships/what have you while constantly complaining about the poor reliability.
It's not like mr. Fletcher doesn't like british tanks, he's just loving them in a british way.
If your first car was 20 years old rustwagon you can probably relate - it's constantly broken (or, at best botch-repaired to soldier on a little longer), it literally falls apart under your butt and you're calling it names nobody should say out loud in front of lady, but it's your first car. That bloody thing has soul. And you love this piece of junk no matter what.
That's how brits love their machines and that's how mr. Fletcher loves british tanks. They might not make them to last, or to outperform rest of the world in every imaginable way or, god forbid, to be pinacles of reliability, but they were giving those heaps of steel and bolts a piece of soul of their own. And they know it damn well.
JoeDurobot This is not even a British design
well he mentioned that british thanks loved to break down just for the fun of it.
You must know him very well
What was the first tank the museum ever received/rescued ?
It would have been a series of British WWI tanks, probably also including the "Little Willie" prototype.
ziggy ashton D
I love this narrator's presentations.
I love listening to this guy.. this guy's awesome
We always like David Fletcher's Tank Chats!!!
Love his basic outlook and honesty
David you are a star, i thoroughly enjoy your reviews.👍
Another great video, Thsnks Tank Museum and Mr. Fletcher!
One of my favorite tanks ever.
Gotta say, I love this series
dont we all just LOVE how great this tank is in world of tanks
The early British tanks carried smaller caliber high velocity guns with only AP ammunition for taking out tanks. The M3 was loved because it carried the larger dual purpose 75mm gun which had high explosive ammo for it for dealing with German AT gun emplacements which was the real threat to Allied tanks. The Grant could also act as mobile artillery supporting troop advancements and be used to take out pillboxes and machinegun emplacements.
Super as always thanks
These are the best videos on TH-cam.
thank you.
Great vid David as usual. All the best for 2017.
Not abandoned in 1943 but repurposed: this hull was then used as a self propelled artillery mount I believe the U.S. version was the Priest and the British version was the Sexton. I also think there were some "kangaroo" APC using the Lee/Grant hull but might be wrong so do double check prior to quoting me: TLDR -- hulls were not used for tanks but repurposed as self propelled artillery.
Canadian Ram tanks were also repurposed as SPA and APC. That's why I'm unsure about Sexton versus Deacon, both of which were SPA converted from tanks.
Not gonna lie us Americans love putting MG's any where we can.
I want a machine gun on my lawn mower.
My children say they are always bumping into them when they are climbing in their car seats.
I'm trying to put a machine gun on that statement lol.
Damned straight! I've got three on my bicycle! Two slaved to the handlebars, and the other one is pintle mounted to the luggage rack over the rear tire.
I always thought the Grant looked like something I drew when I was seven. Nicely done Mr. Fletcher.
A great video, thank you for posting it.
This is far more fascinating and comedic than watching influencers with a "I DROVE A TANK TO A WEDDING, GONE WRONG, GONE SEXUAL, IN THE HOOD" clickbait videos. Although the placement of the 75mm in the hull and the criminally high profile of the M3 turret was somewhat unpractical, it's still my favorite design amongst the WWII tanks. Great video!
Is that a clipped military moustache now allowed to roam? Or was he an engineer type who could always have a full Walrus?
Either way David Fletcher is effortlesss in his inimitable bald delivery style.
Acidcasualty it's fun to watch it bounce up and down
It's like it's his co presenter.
I could sit down and listen to Mr Fletcher all day, granted I get to have my usual cup of espresso and the odd cigar...
Thanks David!
Good to see thank you for the video.
One of Mr Fletcher's best vids, I love this guy so much! "Americans, putting machine guns on everything, wherever they can." And I'm sipping my coffee going yep, yep, yep! And the British tanks, breaking down for the fun of it. I about died! Love these vids. :D Can watch them on loop all day.
The Grant/Lee tank did the job it was intended to do, until the Sherman replaced them. The Americans built these tanks to be shipped overseas, had to be dependable, reliable and easily maintained. In actual combat use the British Army during WW2 probably had a longer experience with the Grant/Sherman and the American Army did?
Thank you for your videos I always enjoy them.
David could describe how paint dries, and still make it interesting.
Pretty successful tank for a stopgap measure.
I cant help but love unusual tanks like the Grant, and having two useful calibers on tap for inf. support was very handy. Just dont expect great results against an up to date german vehicle.
Many British tanks which broke down for the fun of it" Another gem from my favourite presenter
Another great video! Keep it up guys!
This tank was the product of an extremely hyper rushed development and manufacturing. The Americans (Allies) really wanted a big gunned tank NOW, lots of them and didn't have one. The M3 is that transition stop gap tank between what the Allies already had and the M4 Sherman they couldn't develop fast enough. It did it's job admirably given it's crude rushed design.
"It was very efficient. As a machine it would run beautifully and run whenever you wanted it too. Which is more than you can say for many British tanks which broke down for the fun of it!"
Realizes I'm not subscribed: What a legend
Another great video. Very interesting tank fact
About the radios.
i love these videos, thanks for making them
i love tank chats
As he said at the end, what with its smaller size and tall build, I can see this tank being very handy in jungle environments.
I love this man
this guy is the best.
This tank took part in preventing the Japanese from occupying my state.
Next time I am in England I really need to check this place out.
Like the camo paint
good job man...
I've always heard that its big drawback was its vertical silhouette. In An Army at Dawn, Atkinson quotes an Americsn commander (don't remember who) as saying, somewhat churlishly, that it looked "Like a damn great cathedral coming down the road". It gave way to shorter silhouttes, angled armor, and only 1 dual purpose gun, in a full turret. Love this series
watch "sahara" staring humphry bogart. the star of the movie is an m3
Great Video, I dunno why, but I've always loved the lees and grants! I did notice one minor little error in the vid tho, this suspension had been used on the m2 medium before the m3 medium and they were the same size. For all intents and purposes the m3 mediums were m2 mediums with 75mm guns mounted in the hull. Otherwise great vid for a great vehicle.
I think DF is referring to the M3 Stuart light tank which came into service before the M3. It had a smaller version of the same type of suspension.
And then there's the little fact that the M2 medium never actually saw action and was only developed in 1938 as something of a testbed as the rumblings from Europe got Rock Island Arsenal serious about upgrading their ability to design contemporary armor again..
I would love the BBC to design a show around this man, a national treasure,
great vid
This M3 is in a really good shape :)
Great show David Pete. Uki
It wasn't completely abandoned after the desert campaign. I've seen a video of US troops advancing on St Lô in 1944 with M3s.
Might be worth mentioning that Field Marshall Montgomery rode from Egypt to Italy in a M3 named "Monty".
That very tank is still on display at Duxford.
I wish I could find the book I am thinking of so I could cite my source. Regardless, in this book is a photo of a company of American armor and right in the middle is an M3 Lee which the company commander used. I suppose it was as reliable as the M4s and had considerably more room. If I am remembering correctly the photo was taken somewhere in France.
Not a bad first attempt at an MBT-of-the-day. Britain has to be happy the US didn't mess up the design, delivered something very effective, and could supply a lot of them.