How Bad Was The M3 Lee?
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 13 ก.ย. 2024
- A lot of weird and funny-looking vehicles were made during World War II. Since we just talked about one, the Jagdpanzer 38(t) Hetzer, I figured we could follow it up by talking about an awkward Allied tank. The M3 Lee / Grant medium tank is often derided as one of the worst vehicles made during the war, but I personally think it doesn't get enough credit.
Check the channel "About" section for the link to the creator of my profile picture.
Sources:
Sherman: A History of the American Medium Tank - R.P. Hunnicutt
M3 Lee / Grant In Action - Jim Mesko
Development of the U.S. Medium Tanks M3 and M4, July 1943
American Tanks & AFVs of World War II - Michael Green
M3 Lee / Grant Medium Tank 1941-45 - Steven Zaloga
M3 Lee Grant - David Doyle
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#warthunder #tanks #tankhistory
As one smart guy ones said: "Anti-tank gun, howitzer, ton of machineguns, door, some armor, some mobility, reliability, a whole family. This tank got it all.
"AT gun and howitzer"
Can't say the description is super wrong, but it's not so correct either. "AT gun and howitzer" armament package is more about the B1, T-35, Neubaufahrzeug, Type 95 or even the earliest of Churchills (all of their 70/75/76mm guns were of short barrel and low muzzle velocity). M3 had both guns designed for antitank use - and both successful in this role. Quite the same concept as SMK and T-100, the KV-1 rivals on Soviet heavy tank contest, had. One gun more suited for AT purpose, one more suited for anti-infantry and anti-pillbox, but it's about "more suited", not "dedicated"
The biggest problems of thies WW2 tank are poorly trained crew .
@@Geniusinventor Well in their defense they were rather new to it all.
@@bigblue6917 how can I not agree to that 😅
It also has an inbuilt oven...
“With enough barrel, all ranges become point blank”
Funny thing just was looking up the iowa class, they welded 2 or 3 barrels together to create a gun(s) to shoot stuff into space.
@@josephdedrick9337 Do you have a link? that sounds like a great read
@@hardcase722 Project HARP, or “High Altitude Research Program,” led by Gerald Bull. The projectiles didn’t go into space, but they did reach the upper atmosphere.
They welded two spare US Navy 16”/50 Mk 7 guns together and scraped off the rifling to turn it into a smoothbore
Bull is someone best described as “really into cannons,” with an almost tragic story about his pursuit of making bigger cannons that involve apartheid-era South Africa, Saddam Hussein, and possibly Mossad.
*barrel swordfighting intensifies*
@@classifiedad1 seems like they should have used 3 barrels
the thing about the Lee is that it was never meant to be "the tank to win the war" or anything like that, it was just meant to hold the line, and hold the line it did
Yes, that's the point, it was build, knowing it's outdated, but still capable enough to be the best stop gap.
It proved an adaptable base line chassis to standardize on. Not only did it provide a stop gap medium/heavyish tank but was also made into SPG howitzers, engineers tractors and heavy carrier kangaroo APCs. Even the soviets who used them adapted them into the first BMPs using them kinda like the Merkavas in the IDF.
American, British, French, Italian, and Japanese Tanks were all mediocre garbage and were absolutely cursed.
The Germans and Russians were the only ones who had actual damn tanks.
The Germans and Russians were also the only ones fighting a tank war.
The Eastern Front was a war of tanks.
The Western and Pacific Front was a war of ships and aircraft.
@@argaiththedeathknight5723 the russian tanks arent that good either, T 34s on paper was a good design comparable to the sherman, but production quality was poor, panzer 3s usually delt them easily, but the numbers of the t 34s along with german industry blown up led to a russian tank victory, even though t34s sucks in most aspects
@@charlestonianbuilder344
Lol what?
Why do you people continue to deny the truth? Allied tank design was mediocre and that’s just a fact.
The Germans and Russians built absolute monsters of war. Have you not seen the Tiger II or IS-3?
American tank designs lacked armor and firepower. The M4A3E2 Jumbo for example wasn’t even invented until like 1944. Why the hell did it take us that long to invent a tank with actual armor and firepower?
I used to think the M3 was horrendously bad straight from the start, until I actually started looking at the combat history of the vehicle and realized that it was actually a pretty successful stop-gap vehicle, and one of the most important vehicles of the war
Damn straight it is
DAMN RIGHT- I mean. Yeah, with the biggest guns mounted on german tanks for most of 1941 North Africa being the panzer 4s short 75mm with an APHE round that lacked the velocity to penetrate the M3 at ranges reliably, There it gave the Commonwealth forces both a great Firepower and Survivability advantage over what was fielded before
As stopgap solutions go it was one of the more successful one.
Bit like the Ferdinand, which was a highly successful tank destroyer, but the myth is that it was useless.
For me it's example of American pragmatism during the war. How to build a medium tank, while not having industry to build a medium tank, resulting in "that will do for now" tank. Imperfect but adequate tank on a frontline is better than a perfect tank that isn't here yet.
So in summary, it was a specialized stopgap tank that, unlike many other stop gaps, actually did that job perfectly fine.
Probably due to the weirdness of it, and how bad it is in some video games, thats why a lot of people think its a terrible tank.
@@HelghastStalker that's what made me hate it
@@HelghastStalker the one thing I like better about blitz, no lee to grind
@@TainyaGaming I actually loved the Lee in WOT, in fact I kept it even after I got the M4. Maybe it’s because I played the German TDs first, but the lack of a turret didn’t hinder me. The fast traverse and murderous DPM made me adore it.
The issue is people didn't treat it like a td. Do thay and she was not bad
@@HelghastStalker I love the m3 in War Thunder, it absolutely rocks everything at it's battle rating and even above. It's the most solid tank in my 2.7 lineup besides my Sherman 105.
I think the m3 is the most underrated American tank, the 75 was good for its time and was better than the German 50mm and short 75mm
I would say, that all american tanks were underrated.
Iir even german reports were a little praisatory of the m3, it's 75mm gun was definitely ok in 41, and tbh the rvets shattering does get a little overplayed, it's design mindset though was definitely closer to late 30s.
It was ok and was rightfully treated as a stop gap
@@imicz6409 except the m2 medium that thing was a abomination
@@omalley854 looks like an alien
The Grant was better then to Lee but that was because the British had more combat experience which they used to make changes to their version.
One thing I would say about the Lee was it showed of America's love of machineguns. Though why the driver needed two MGs in fixed positions is something of a mystery. It does not help if the gunner is all lined up ready for his shot and the driver suddenly decided he wants to join in the fun and rotates the tank to fire on his target.
Interestingly post WW2 the Soviets seemed to have caught the same 'more MGs is good,' bug when they decided to do they same with one of their tanks.
I’ve seen that the M3 gets a lot of hate when it isn’t just disregarded outright, but like you said: It hit hard, was well protected, and while it’s ergonomics and reliability were good but not equal to the Sherman - what was?
Yeah,people disparage the Lee but tanks that were better than it only started appearing in late 1942.
@@naamadossantossilva4736 By which point the Sherman was replacing it in frontline use.
Wartime tank development was hella fast, wasn’t it?
@@jamesharding3459 had to be fast out of necessity. All war sucks and all the soldiers just wanna be home with their families :(
@@justinkedgetor5949 More like technology was advancing rapidly and everyone had the pressure of an existential war to force them to develop and adopt whatever could give them an edge.
@@naamadossantossilva4736 M3 did it's job well: it gave American and Allied lots of tanks immediately
I’ve been wanting to make a video on the M3 for a hot minute now.
To me, the M3 was the US experimenting with the logistics and practicality of all the same elements that would later make up the M4. It was their first medium tank with the 75, it was one of the first larger tanks to be given out to Allies over seas in mass, and it was in many ways the test bed for all the upgrades they wanted to put into the M4, but weren’t quite sure yet.
The M3 was proof of concept, the M4 was the mastery of the craft. (If I can be a little over dramatic)
That’s the best summary of the M3 Lee I’ve ever seen.
ayo its the guy who made a sprocket vid
Soviets gave it s nickname.
" a coffin for 7 comrades "
Not kidding
@@yayeetmeoffacliff4708 that’s me!
@@viking9049 Thats hold over from their own less successful multi turreted tanks and the early days when they where getting a lot of tank crews killed regardless. Not kidding soviets used a lot of these right up till the end of the war and where the biggest operator. Red army used then late war as kinda the first BMP like how the IDF uses their Merkava MBT as an IFV.
German crews hated going up against the m3 Lee when it appeared on the battlefield. One german tank commander said every time they tried to flank a lee, the 37 would follow one tank and the 75 would follow the other. He said it was almost impossible to flank a lee using 2 tanks.
I remember reading an excerpt from somewhere where a German officer called the M3 the best tank in North Africa at the time.
Could take out their medium tanks from far greater ranges before being vulnerable to attack.
imagine having to go up against a turreted casemate and both the guns are actively searching
@@charmingcobra considering the options in North Africa at the time, I'd be inclined to agree. Italian tanks were really just garbage, and the bulk of the german panzer divisions were p3j's which I personally think were showing a lot of age by even 1942. Even outside of NAF, would you really want a p3j over even the original t34? or really over the somua s35 from the very beginning of the war
@@henryfisher9948 I would actually want the p3j for a few reasons. 1 its a bigger tank carrying more crew members. This allows for better division of labor making the tank more efficient when in combat, 2 due to the non sloped armor the interiro is roomy giving the crewmembers even higher efficiency as not only is labor better divided but each person has more room to do there job. 3 the P3j has excellent all around vision giving the commander the best possible picture of the battlefield around his tank. Lastly every single p3j had radio and therefore could communicate between mutliple tanks to coordinate fighting. Sure the Somua and the t34 1940 had better raw armor and guns but that doesnt matter when the enemy has a big enough of a gun to get the job done and unlike you can actually see, can call in support to take you out, and has a far better layout allowing for faster reactions . The story of the t34 tanking something like 27 37 mil shots before firing back isnt praise for the t34 because what it means is that tank was so fucking blind it couldnt find a person shooting at him 27 times just imagine if that had been a 75 mil gun.
@@reaperking2121 yea I prolly took it a lil far on the French tanks, the single man turret has been proven to be doodoo. The p3j is really well designed in terms of everything BUT armor and gun. I’ve heard relatively good things about the 50mm, but it is still a 50mm at the end of the day. I do have to say, it’s odd that the p3 and 4 were both there from the beginning till the end, which makes me wonder why the Germans ever continued with the p3 as late as they did. To be fair, the Germans took the approach of turning a hell of a lot of 3’s and 3 chassis into the stug line of tanks which have been shown to be successful. I’ll say this, I’d rather have a stug3 than probably any early war medium tank
The M3 lee is one of my most favorite tanks because something about makes it look so darn cool! Maybe it's the multiple guns or the history behind it and the innovation in front of it, but it's such an awesome tank.
And it doesn't have 69 machineguns like the previous ones
I agree, it looks like a Sherman with a second gun, it’s a fun little tank
@@Ryan-0413 They weren't that little. They were an inch taller than a Tiger 2 :D
@@genghiskhan7041 haha true, they were some tall boys
The Grant did what it needed to do at the time and for the most part did it well. The only real drawback was that it could not fight in the hull down position as it had to move forward to fire the 75 mm gun which exposed the turret. It did make a very good SPG when it was fitted with the British 25 pounder gun howitzer.
I did read about when the Japanese tried to ambush some Grants when they were moving up a narrow track. I think the Grants were being used by the Australians. Knowing the 75 mm gun was on the right side of the hull the Japanese decided to attack the left side of the tanks as they were going up hill the track. The problem for the Japanese was that the tanks pushed through the ambush and carried on up the track until they came to a point where they could turn around. The Grants then went back down the track with the 75 mm gun now on the same side as the Japanese. I am sure you can guess the outcome for the Japanese.
@ger du When you are attacking then dealing with the anti tank guns the 75 mm firing H.E was very useful. I agree. But when it was in the hull down position dealing with tanks it was having to expose too much of the tank to fire its 75 mm. And that is the gun you will be using. The little 37 mm was useless against most tanks at that point.
And this was all noted by the by both the British and American tankers fighting in North Africa.
We both know that the M3 Lee/Grant was a stop gap until the M4 Sherman turned up.
The m3 can be included in the small group of stopgap projects that actually worked and did their job well. Thats really saying something for it
You forgot the most important element of the M3; it had five machine guns, allowing it to shoot at lots of things very fast.
Meh. Two of the machine guns were fixed firing forward, as if it was a fighter plane, and were pretty much useless. The machine gun cupola on top of the 37mm turret was cramped and not very useful either. It also made a very tall tank even taller. The M4 had a more effective machine gun layout.
@@GR46404 I think that would on whether you're PBI and it's coming towards you.
Useless in Europe, but probably invaluable in Japan lol
Later on, they used to spot-weld the rivets to fix the issue. An overall well-sorted machine that grew out of the American automotive industry. Riveted plated means they were treated to quite a high hardness level without losing the tank composition strength.
M3s where the products of the US and Canadian railroad industry, thus the rivets. the Automotive industry built a few shermans and chaffees but mostly jeeps trucks and plans.
@@logicbomb5511 Do not forget about Detroit Arsenal.
The fact that they had no idea how to make a tank that could fight other tanks and support infantry they did a good job with the m3 with how fast they designed it
Americans knew they need 75mm gun to fight other tanks, but they couldn't put it on a turret. So they tried putting a 75mm gun on M2 hull and it worked. Initially they wanted turretless tank but infantry branch still wanted 37mm gun so they put it on a turret
@@aslamnurfikri7640 Which in all honesty was a good call by the infantry. The m3 lee would not have had as good of a reputation without the 37 mil because thanks to that small gun it gave the m3 the sudden ability to engage two enemys as well as have 360 degree covering fire.
The M3 was coverted into the M7 Priest, which I read in "Spearhead", could use its 105mm Howitzer in a direct anti-tank role in '44 against Panthers. So it had a pretty good lifespan for a "stopgap vehicle".
Also Kangaroo APCs and a very unique canadian vehicle, the Ram, that was actually a very good tank design but wasn't brought to the front simply because the Sherman was better.
It does have a slight issue with getting optimal Hull down positions when I've tried playing it but it can be equally devastating at low tier if a player wonders into that frontal arc of fire unwittingly at close quarters.
It's absolutely fantastic at cornering, only around left turns though.
The M3 Lee is atrocious to use but when you get it lined up perfectly and get a kill it's a great feeling
It wot it was my highest kill match tank with 8 kills. It wt its not bad either
It's always great to pull off the ol' 1-2 punch on panzers.. Or in this case. The 37-75 punch
re-map the key for the 75
@@m3lee699 Does a lot better job of the 1-2 punch than the M6 does with the 37mm Secondary :( Half the time I am using it to either range shots, shoot at planes in addition to my MGs or because my 50s aren't finishing a Puma charging me fast enough. Have gotten legendary moments like penning sides of Panthers and T-34 turrets to save a friendly after my 76 was disabled though.
It’s amazing in my opinion, I once used it at a tier wayyyyy to high for it and the double cannon helped a lot. It didn’t bounce much but because of the amount of crew it survived a lot of hits.
I think it is fair to say that the M3 might not have been the best of tanks, but it did what it was supposed to do: buy the allies enough time to develop a proper medium tank in the form of the sherman
I truly believe World of Tanks has a decent bit of the blame for the modern misconception of the Lee being bad. Thanks for this video though as in reality it really was a pretty good tank; not the one anyone wanted, but one that served us all well until the M4 was ready.
If, back in the day, we could have used the 37 and 75mm guns, it would have wreaked so much.
Actually M3 Lee had a bad reputation among the Soviets in comparison to other Lend Lease tanks like Matilda or Valentine.
@@RotgerValdes Largely due to the terrain they were fighting in, if I remember right.
Since you had a whole lot of flat (but difficult) terrain over there, and you're basically driving something with the profile of a small building into battle. Absolutely nobody's going to have trouble spotting you in one and there's not much you can do about it. You lack the speed to run away and you lack the armor to just absorb hits from anyone who's serious about wanting to take you out.
@@saintcynicism2654 Also the Lend Lease M3s didn't have AP shells to the 75mm gun. Large silhouette, poor mobility and weak armour were other major drawbacks. There were some advantages though.
@@RotgerValdes I'm assuming being less cramped, improved mechanical reliability (*in general*, not across the board, since I know the Lee had some particular weak points in that regard), and greater ease of maintenance compared to things like the T-34 (especially the early models, and especially from certain factories) would be some of the advantages. Not directly tied to combat performance, so often overlooked, but still useful in their own right.
The M3 Lee was one of my favorite tanks in the kiddie league when I first started playing. Bouncing between turrets, looking at different targets, I had more than one match where I 1v16'd the entire enemy team, and still had at least one track working, squatting on the point. I even have the replays to back it up, but time has rendered them unplayable :c
I read a statement from a WW2 historian once. In 1940 the M3 was the terror of the battlefield. By late 1941 it's flaws were known and it was already obsolete being superseded by better designs. Many of the components designed for the M3 were incorporated into the design of the M4 Sherman. Since those parts were already in production new factories and the tooling for those parts was already in place. This greatly shortened the time it took to build and field the M4.
Ah, spookton here to cover the- BEST TANK OF THE WAR! A STOPGA- wait.. Damnit
DAMN M4s, TAKING MY SPOTLIGHT!
Yeah, tbf it'd hard to cover a stopgap without talking about its successor. Though tbh it's probably a good thing because if it weren't for the m4 us tank development in ww2 would look even more outdated.
At least we got 41 though, a time where the m3's 75 was actually pretty decent, and iir even german reports were decently praisatory of the vehicle
I feel like WoT ruined the perception of the M3 Lee. In WW2 and War Thunder, it's a monster in the right hands.
Funny thing in wot the Lee is my highest kill match tank with 8 kills.
I had great matches playing the M3 Lee in both WoT and WT. The problem with WoT was that they never used the multi gun system so the M3 Lee had a weird TD mode. In my experience, I never played the M3 Lee in WoT as a TD and that's what alot of players hated about it.
Ahhh. Good old days of WoT when all tanks were in tech tree and not in the new shop. Tier IV was full of those, even though it really sucked.
Tbf the only reason it's so good in wt is because the average engagement distance is nearly quartered. Tbf that's basically what causes all tanks to be so squishy.
I found this video and wanted to say this. You can only fire the 75mm and turning the hull engages WoTs "bloom" meaning you can't move the hull and expect to fire any time soon. In WT it's surprisingly versatile and the 37mm has excellent uses against armoured cars, AA, etc.
For me and without historic context, the M3 is bad isn't because of the look, is because of its depiction in games. In WoT, you can only use the main body mounted gun but it isn't an anti-tank unit like similar as expected of a tank with a body mounted gun.
In Warthunder it can be a beast, both guns can be shot independtly and reload on their own too! Having a key for each gun means even on tougher targets you can use the 37mm to destroy gun barrells and tracks (just like with the m6)
I find it a little ridicolous that you can unlock a 2 turreted tank in a game but you can't use the second turret, but it's world of tanks we are talking about, nothing great to expect honestly
Well, I think a lot of the stigma around the M3 comes from when it was lend-leased to the soviets, when it was thoroughly out of date and was going against more well-equipped german vehicles. It is a little sad to not see that mentioned in the video.
Yea, Soviet soldiers called M3 "brother grave for six men"
@@IonPerseus Soviet were dying in soviet tank like crazy but it was soviet so no nickname if you do not want to end up in Gulag or worse...
Typical lifespan of T-34 in combat was... two weeks! So kinda hard to invent a nickname in two weeks when your whole training was what 4 hours?
@@Bialy_1 like what are you talking about, when even Germans were shocked with t-34 and kv-1 appearance. Yes, untrained crew and German overwhelming got many of them, but overall effectiveness was decent. Unlike m3, which appeared in USSR only in 1942 and was already outdated, and as the guy above mentioned.
@@Bialy_1 also whole documentation came untranslated, and numbers of m3 was not so big to create some formations, so whole experience of operating it was "trial-and-error"
The M3 Lee/Grant is one of my favourite tanks. I really like the awkward design and the idea of it as a tank that was never ment to be used for an entire war but to supply allied troops with a dire needed medium tank, until a better solution was ready. And the best part is, that it was really good for its time and could keep up with german tanks and dominate italian tanks. Sure it had it weaknesses, like the hull-mounted 75mm gun forcing the crew to turn the whole tank, when the target wasn't in the gun sight, but it didn't stop soldiers from taking a like for the M3 Medium.
Something I would like to add: not every american armour division swapped their M3 Lee tanks with M4 Shermans, when they were avaible. There were actually around two divisions, that used them until the end of the Tunisia Campaign and even took part in the invasion of Italy. The last M3 Lee tanks in the Europe Campaign were retired in mid-1943.
Well, in regards to M3 being cramped there is a wonderful soviet test report written in 1942: "The interior size of M3 Medium allows to put inside the tank, in addition to the crew, a squad of 10 sodiers, armed with submachine guns. It is still possible to use all armament of the tank while transpoting said number of submachine gunners".
Given that there were at least two documented occasions in 1942 when lend-lease "Valentine" were used en masse as makeshift APCs with three submachine gunners inside in addition to the crew (119th tank brigade used this method twice to breach german strongpoints in the summer of 1942. And it worked)... M3 Lee would definetely be a huge improvement.
So "cramped" is very relative
Stalin executed 40.000 officers before German ally backstabet them so do not expect any logical use or any proper tactics from Red Army in 1942 as Stalin killed everyone with brain or suspected to have any.
If you were also some higher rank officer with some experience then you were the first to go...
Soviets started war with more tanks and planes than all other countries combained and with that advantage they were not able to stop Germans until heavy winter and underground in Poland did not destroyed German ability to send food, fuel and suplies...
Ever since I was a kid, the M3 was my favorite tank. I remember seeing an illustration of it being ambushed by flamethrower troops in the desert and my brain immediately went "more gun = amazing". I honestly didn't think it was a stop gap, I just thought it was another type of tank.
You can only accurately measure a tank's worth by seeing how well it performed the role it was designed for. The M3 was designed to be a functional stop gap until the M4 was finished with development and trials. It managed to do this fairly well and then some.
Something I heard about the Lee, and the early Sherman's with the air cooled radial. Crews would open hatches slightly and let the air duct pull air through the tank allowing them to cool off slightly in the desert heat.
That'd also be one of the complaints the Soviets had about them.
Pulling in the outside air to cool off works great in the desert. Less so on the Eastern front. They figured out pretty quickly why the Americans kept sending them the thickest coats they could possibly fit inside the tank.
Something to be said too is noise. I was at an event and their radial could be heard a mile, possibly two miles away on an open field... by comparison, the Ford GAA wasn't much different than the track noise.
Tanks are big, but as long as they're quiet you can sneak them through without line of sight.
For being a stopgap tank the m3 is impressive for how much they did in short time and it working
That is absolutely the most accurate thing you can say about the M3, in my opinion!
The Russians Hated the M3 Lee, and called it "A Coffin for Seven Brothers". The M3 did O.K. in North Africa, before the better German tanks came out. Where the M3 Lee Excelled was in the Pacific Theater. The Japanese tanks were worse than the M3. Also, the M3 was a great Troop Support tank. So, was the M3 Lee a bad tank ? YES, in certain situations. But it held the line until the M4 Sherman could come out. Sometimes, a Stone Axe is better than Nothing !!!
"The Russians Hated the M3 Lee" is not entirely true, the main reason for that nickname was that by the time USSR got M3's through lend lease even on secondary fronts it was facing a superior opposition. On open plains against german long 75's it has almost no chance.
It was also called that mainly because they did not have the escape hatches anymore as they were welded or gone entirely. Also the trouble of logistics having missing the instruction manuals and having flammable material added on.
While it is defintely a strange vehicle, my feeling is that it suceeded in the philosophy of the Char B1, while mitigating that platform's many issues. Where the M3 had a large crew and decent mobility, the B1 gave too many tasks to too few people on a platform that was too slow, and yet the defining characteristics of both have more than a passing similarity.
M3A3 could make a cool premium for WT.
The m3 Lee is in my top 5 favorite tanks I'm so glad it got some positive things said about it instead of negative
I just wanna say, I would watch every episode or video you do, I just love the format/manner in which you talk about tanks
It was a decent tank in my opinion
The Vickers 6 ton would be interesting to hear about.
Looks like a T-26
@@Skip.8221 cause that's what the T-26 was. A 6 ton licenses built by the Soviets
@@josephheuer4540 Oh lol
When it came out, despite its limitations it was the best thing the Brits had in Northern Africa. And Commonwealth Forces continued to use it throughout the war in the Pacific, especially in Burma where the height was an advantage!
That 75 mil in the hull had a field day against Japanese tanks easily overmatching their tin foil armour
@@glamrockchica909, even the 37mm could prove devastating.
That was a well thought out and interesting video. You make some excellent points. Well done!
As i'd say it: As a Tank it wasn't very good. But as an Emergency Solution, which it most definitely was, it was a stroke of genius.
The Grant was an improvement getting rid of several mgs, reducing crew number etc the M3 was an effective stop gap in north Africa opposing Italian tanks and the odds and sods of the DAK. later it served in Burma as a fire support vehicle , any Japanese tanks encountered were no threat to it there
Usually hastily-designed and rushed into service, "stopgap" vehicles don't typically perform well. The M3 Grant/Lee was an exception. Like you said, it's time in the sun was brief, but it was instrumental in holding the line as the Allies got their tank game together. An honorable old warrior.
The M3 Lee was not only very useful in the Pacific, but overall it was reckignized as a great infantry support tank. Having the 75mm, 37mm and lots of mgs was one thing, but the main advantage was being able to shoot in three directions at once, making it very hard for enemy infantry to flank it and destroy it with some kind of at grenade.
I like how you fully avoided mentioning soviet experience with this vehicle and the fact that welding the doors shut basically did f//ck all in terms of improving hull armor rigidness, but made escaping this vehicle very problematic.
Once again, it's nickname isn't mentioned by you in the video. By this point my wish for you for 2022 is to become a fan of french tanks. At least it'll be interesting:D
My source material didn't talk about the Soviet experience, and I don't think it's entirely relevant. The M3 medium was designed first and foremost to buy the western Allies time in Africa, not to act as a primary battle tank for the Soviet Union. Furthermore, the Soviet experience with the M3 is blown way out of proportion. Their only complaints were with the M3's size and the unsloped side armor, and I don't think the latter is fair criticism given the Soviets immediately went back to flat side armor after the T-34. They had favorable feedback regarding the M3's layout and reliability. The M3's combat reputation in the Soviet Union was dragged down by issues that were solved easily, such as an initial bad batch of ammunition and a lack of steel tracks (which were already being developed). They also continued to operate the M3 well past the point of obsolescence. The supposed nickname "Grave for seven brothers" was created as propaganda during the Cold War, in order to deride the quality of Western armor.
@@Spookston again, people had to escape these tanks in combat conditions well before Cold War. With side hatches welded shut. Remind me with how many hatches per person? The bar is raised by your own videos.
I always liked the M3 Lee; I got the impression that it was essentially a mobile pillbox.
And that’s how I used it when I used to play hero’s and generals lmao. The amount of infantry slain was tremendous.
Excellent vid, brought up quite a few facts I didn't know about this unloved beast. Ty!
Definitely one of the supporting reasons for its replacement was the fact that troops in Africa found it nearly impossible to get into a hull-down position because of the low mounted 75. Obviously, this wasn't the only reason for it's demise, but it was definitely a contributing factor.
Didn't help the ones in charge of the M3s there did not use them strategically.
I always liked the tank ever since I played the game series called Blitzkrieg. They portrayed the thing being something to fear quite well for the first few missions you encounter it.
I always thought the ideal thing to do with an M3 was to remove the 37mm turret entirely, and use it as a casemate TD/assault gun, just lie the Stug, SU-100, etc. You immediately reduce the weight, price/complexity, profile, and crew and while retaining a decent gun. Might even be some room for upping either the armor or cannon.
Probably my favourite tank of all time. They needed something quick and didn’t have time to carefully weigh out compromises, so they just put it all on and god is it a beauty.
Honestly I love the M3 Lee/Grant. It's my favorite, bar none, mainly due to how silly, but also just its whole role was a stopgap, and that it was
1:20 startling that Puma was priceless my guy👌
My first encounter with the m3 lee was heroes and generals, you had to have 3 players to utilize all 3 guns but it was suprisingly effective as a multi purpose tank when manned right. So i wouldnt be suprised at how good it is as a support tank with all those guns making it worth 2 tanks in actual combat
For all you military modelers out there, Tamiya issued, a few years back, a pretty detailed, 1/35 scale model of the M3 Lee version, one of which sits on my shelf- although you might have to go to ebay to find one. It's worth the trouble however.
Hobby Lobby recently had some M3 models that looked good.
Finally a video giving the “best” tank of all time it’s true glory
I think it's actually worthy of a lot of praise. For a very rushed stopgap tank that was the successor to the hopelessly-flawed-and-outdated M2, the M3 was an effective, generally reliable, and highly competitive tank against all of the armor and threats it went up against during the time period in which it served as a stopgap until the M4 became available. That lone would have made it a total (and impressive) success. That it remained quite useful in the Pacific theater until the end of the war, as well as served as the basis for modifications into various utility vehicles, marks it as one of the *best* tanks of the war, all things in consideration.
The M3 was even more than it needed to be at a time when one would have expected it to be difficult to get something that was even adequate, and it proved to be much more than a stopgap in the broader context of the war. At a time when the British were relying on Crusader tanks in North Africa--thinly armored, weak gunned, AP rounds only, reliability problems in the desert (though good operational range and speed)--M3s were well-armored, had the most firepower of any tank in the theater, were reliable, and had excellent HE shells for use against infantry and other soft targets.
And one other thing: I imagine it gave the Allies some much-needed confidence that if America could make something this respectable and capable as a rushed stopgap, then America would probably deliver something quite good when the stopgap was no longer needed. And they were right: the M4 was a superb tank and everything the Allies needed at the time, serving as a flexible jack-of-all-trades platform that also allowed for British-designed tanks to specialize a bit more into niches (heavier tanks, for example). Like the P-47, the F6F, the P-40, or the M3/M5 Light Tanks, American vehicles before the late-war period were excellent in the ways they needed to be: logistically and mechanically friendly, capable enough to do its job well, cheap enough to be mass produced with ease, with well-rounded characteristics that made them suitable in the myriad theaters of war.
the crusaders were upgunned to 6lbers when the lees arrived and had the capability to fire HE, the reliability issues were heavily exaggerated and even the lee had troubles in the desert as every tank did. britain had good tanks, perhaps better than the m3 however not enough of them
The puma you hit in the opening? I think that was me. If you look closely, it begins a veer hard to the left just before your shell hits, not after, and the driver never regains control.
The reason was that a very cute black cat had jumped on my keyboard, put a paw on the "s" key, and by the time I returned him to the floor and looked back up, my car was toast.
Still, I finally made it to one of your videos!
Lmao that’s a funny way to get killed
@@leboi8528 worse has happened. I once spawned directly in front of a volley of Japanese torpedos..... 😁
@@scottmcdivitt2187 bruh lmao
The M3 is one of the best tanks of the war. It was made for a specific role and it filled that role perfectly and probably saved Britain in NA.
I would want to see the M3A1 and M3A2 Lee’s in War Thunder
Yeah the ingame model is an extremely early version still mounting the mgs in the hull that were never used and the m2 75mm that was quickly replaced with the m3 75
In North Africa crews apparently preferred the Lee over the crusader even though the latter was faster and smaller. The anti tank performance wasn’t an issue, the crusader lacked an HE shell and the 75mm had a very effective one.
I love it in warthunder, you can catch so many new players off guard because they aren't used to the two cannon set up.
The M3 Lee played a starring role in the 1943 movie Sahara, with Humphrey Bogart. I've seen it many times. It's one of my favorite movies.
Very nice video. I saw/heard in a documentary that the british general and commander Montgomery liked the M3 Grant, one reason was that he could stand upright inside the tank.
A year later he makes a video breaking the game with the M3Lee
Soviets didnt liked this tank too, they even called it "the coffin for 7 brothers"
The hull of one with a plug gun in the bottom turret was sitting out front of a steel yard near where I grew up. My buddies and I play tanker in it in the 60s. Had no clue how bad they really had it. We always won
Very underrated.
It held the line in Africa well, and actually was quite an effective tank at longer range engagements, having the same 75mm gun later used on the Sherman with the punch to rip through German armour.
Yet it's armour was effectively the same thickness as the M4 Sherman (except for the rivets). Overall, quite capable against those early war German and Italian tanks.
Overall, it's limitation of not being able to rotate the 75mm gun wasn't that big an issue at the time. If it was up close enough to be brawling and the inability to traverse the 75mm, the 37mm was quite capable of taking out the earlier panzers.
What it should be considered as, both in real life and in War Thunder is a beta test of the Sherman.
At such a low battle rating the Grant and Lee usually dominate in my hands.
The single biggest problem is how darn tall and easy to spot they are, which is why losing a bit of height and losing a machine gun was actually a good idea.
Enjoyed the little Ian cameo
When doing some research in the archives at the Tank Museum in Bovington I came across a report that basically said that M3 tank crews were to be aware of Japanese assaults coming from the left. Due to the main gun being on the right of the tank the crews attention was shifted to a right looking bias. The Japanese had caught onto this and would attack i.e. one man suicide charge, from the left of the tank to disable it.
My great grandfather drove an m3 in the pacific and he said he loved the ability to reach up and fire the hull gun if the other guys didn't see something he did.
You made a video called "the M3 is all you need", and I was disappointed that it wasn't 3 minutes of the M3 Lee smashing up Tigers. I think one of the underrated features of the M3 was that it was there when they needed it to be, and that was exactly what it was designed to do
The M3 was good enough when good enough was all we had.
I’ve always thought that the M3 could’ve been quite useful given the correct armored doctrine, glad to see I wasn’t totally wrong about that
I really like the M3.
And you hit the nail on the head; the M3 was actually quite good. Not nearly as good as the M4, but in the desert during early war they punched hard and in the Pacific theater, they were almost purpose built for jungle fighting.
I have often wondered about the corner mount for the big gun. Thank you for explaining the reason for it.
It did what it was intended to do pretty well. It wasn't made for long term use
Never forget that an M3 Lee once took out a Jagdtiger by luring it into a storm drain, just moments after taking out a Ferdinand by Kellys Herosing it
i love this thing, i have a soft spot for it, and the m6a1. they are so effective when piloted by one person who can pick targets and decide what gun to use when. the m3 lee currently sits at a good be (in arcade) and is a blast to play.
Props for using a forgotten weapons Pic with Ian maculum
The War Department hired Chrysler to design the M4 and the machinery along with the factories to produce them. Their engineers were still working on a suitable turret ring design when Ordnance gave them rough drawings of the M3 design to get something usable to the training bases and experience making large castings of the turrets and upper hull sections. Chrysler made mockups out of wood that was shellacked since the finish was easily scratched. That way they could see where parts and sections didn't fit quite right. Chrysler wanted everything to drop in place ready to be bolted on or welded to speed up assembly. Chrysler set up a test track outside their tank plant with reviewing stands to show off their first assembled M3. It came racing out of the factory and showed off it's abilities for one hour while the plant workers assembled the second M3. It came charging out of the plant chasing after the first one firing blanks at it. The viewers in the stands were impressed to no end since both being run thru the gears at top speeds for hours without breaking down.
I love how the British passive-aggressively renamed all their M3s to Grant, and the M4 the Sherman, which actually stuck. Suffice to say they were not fans of the confederacy :)
They also named their original version of the M3 the Lee, americans didn't name their tanks at all till very late in the war, it would be noted that they named the much better version to Grant which backs up your central thesis however
I love the m3! I knew about the cast hull variant but I didnt know about the welded one. Thanks for the info!
For a hasty and stop gap veichle the M3 Grant/Lee, was very successful at holding off the time's recent breed of German tanks, the Panzer, and Japanese theatres full of type 95 Ha-go and others, and after finishing the M4, the M3 Lee/Grant was still used elsewhere, like Australia after that, it went out of military service.
What's rather telling to me is that the Sherman was the first mass produced cast hull tank, which was not riveted together like the Stuart and the Grant. The US Army of the 1930's was horribly underbudgeted, so it is pretty amazing how far US tank technology did progress during WWII. My .02-John in Texas
Gun Jesus cameo!
A movie was made about this tank and released during WW II. It stared Humphrey Bogart and a lot of other guys who were just starting their long careers. The movie was called "Sahara" it was about combat in north Africa against Rommels Afrika Korp. The tank was named Lula Belle after Boggies cavalry mount. The movie was essentially a remake of an early Russia war movie.
0:15
let's take a moment to be astounded by that tunnel vision
I just started playing and I'm going through the German tech tree, the M3 has been 85-90% of my deaths
The m3 lee is one of my favorite tanks for sure. Just got sent in and got the job done with honors.
Not-so fun fact: Soviet troops who got their hands on M3s nicknamed it the Brotherhood's graveyard.
I also heard the "Coffin for seven comrades" variant but unfortunately I haven't seen any historical sources for such nicknames.
In War Thunder, M3 Lee is a cool looking, but difficult to use tank for me. Because it is necessary to make a quick decision between surviving by angling against the enemy, but taking the 75 mm howitzer out of position or risking the explosion in order to use the 75 mm howitzer.
However, the M3 Lee has protection against aircraft with its upper turret, which can face 60 degrees upwards, and the commander's machine gun. I noticed that upper turret could lift 60 degrees while fighting with an airplane, and it surprised me.
I think the russians have the best description of it - "The coffin for 7 brothers". They hated it and it was renegated to the most suddern part of the front where the chanse of armor was minimum.
I believe they actually called it "Crematoria for 7 comrades" as it had a habit of brewing up when hit, like early model Shermans, aka "Tommy Cookers"
First, the M3 was fighting PZKPFW 4s armed with Long 75mm on open plains, not in the desert, this bad and it was already outdated when it was given. Two, the Russians also concluded that M3 with it's room and machines gun, made a makeshift APC that can load 10 men.
Three, this is for the Luft, I don't know where you get the Crematorium part but the M3 Lee brew up just like any tank when hit, and the Early war Shermans too, having the same burn rate of contemporary medium tanks of 60%, British 80% because they overload in ammunition.
Fourth, the Shermans' name of Tommy Cooker was given because of the tank being used by British, in the desert....on the open fields when the sun is above. Every British tank was named Tommy Cooker.
When I was 14 years old I was LUCKY enough to talk with a British Veteran of the Desert War who told me they LIKED the M-3 as "it had that big gun that could penetrate the German tanks" unlike the majority of their own tanks of the era!! He also said they were MOST afraid of the German 88mm, he said they were so accurate "they could land a shell in your back pocket if you weren't careful"!!
Lol every time you say "Anyway" I get the feeling thag you're just rolling your eyes
I am unsure why I'm even a little surprised but it's cool to know that you also watch Forgotten Weapons.
Still can’t believe we don’t have the later variants in war thunder as surely even the little improvements would make a massive difference in how it’s played
Never thought that spookston use ian 37mm video 😂
The M3 shined in North Africa where the Jerrys had very little that could penetrate its armor.