RC Tank Warfare community hobby forum

Thanks, I may leave for now as it'll give me too many (more) ideas for builds....

jarndice wrote:It does make it even harder to understand why the American Army were not interested in a relatively easy conversion of an M4 into the "Firefly" and instead waited for their own tank destroyer to be produced..
Shaun.

I don't think the Firefly was all sunshine and lollipops. There is a very good episode of The Chieftains Hatch on YouTube where he demonstrates just how cramped it was inside a Firefly turret and how awkward it was to crew and maintain. It was very good against other tanks but not very good at all the other things tanks are used for. The amour was no better than a regular Sherman and it was a bit slower so the Americans probably decided they were better off sticking with existing tank destroyers.

If the US Army were so unhappy with the 76 mm Sherman's ergonomics that they delayed its introduction for nearly two years to redevelop it into something usable by the crew, it's no wonder they rejected Firefly outright. Not to mention the additional logistical strain of a new ammunition type (manufactured by another country!) that the 17 pdr would have necessitated.

Raminator wrote:If the US Army were so unhappy with the 76 mm Sherman's ergonomics that they delayed its introduction for nearly two years to redevelop it into something usable by the crew, it's no wonder they rejected Firefly outright. Not to mention the additional logistical strain of a new ammunition type (manufactured by another country!) that the 17 pdr would have necessitated.

The research and field trials had been done, Dan, by British Boffins from 1942 onwards. The Americans were privy to that body of work, as they were to our Radar, and Jet Engine technology..but economics aside, I think they just didn't want a British gun in an American tank. As for limited space, I believe it was better to be a person of diminished stature, or a contortionist, as much in 76mm equipped turrets, as it was in the Firefly. On the face of it, though..cramped or not, it was probably better to be huddles up, and able to knock out a Tiger, than to end up medium rare