Armour

The Universal Carrier

The Bren gun carrier was a tracked vehicle with light-armour that was developed before WW2 to transport Bren light machine guns.  In 1940, it was upgraded to become the universal carrier, which was used in all theatres involving British Commonwealth forces throughout the war & afterwards.  By 1945, 57,000 had been produced & manufacture continued at lower levels until 1960.  It has been estimated that around 113,000 were eventually built, making the Universal Carrier the most highly produced armoured vehicle in history.

Its primary function was to transport troops & equipment, especially support weapons such as machine guns & mortars. 

The driver & commander of a carrier sat at the front, side-by-side. The hull in front of the commander’s position jutted forward to allow a Bren gun to fire through a slit; in this way, the carrier could act as a mobile machine gun platform. The crew were protected by armour that was 7-10 mm thick.  The engine was located in the centre of the vehicle, with space on either side to carry equipment or passengers.  The operational range was 150 miles & maximum speed was 30 mph.

British infantry battalions had carrier platoons, with three or four carrier sections, each with three universal carriers.  Every carrier was armed with a Bren & had a crew of four that included an NCO commander.   A 2-inch mortar & a PIAT anti-tank weapon were also typically carried by each section.   

M3 & M5 Light Tanks – The Stuart

Stuart was the official name given by the British to the U.S. light tank M3 and, from 1942, its improved derivative M5.  It was named after General J.E.B. Stuart, who fought for the Confederates in the U.S. Civil War.  It was also sometimes known as the Honey, apparently because it gave a ‘smooth ride’.  Nearly 14,000 M3 & nearly 9,000 M5 light tanks were built.

The Stuart weighed 16.5 tons & had a crew of four (commander, driver, gunner & loader). It was armed with a 37 mm gun & three .30 calibre Browning machine guns, one coaxial, one on the turret roof & one in the hull. The M3 had an air-cooled radial engine that had been developed for aircraft.  To relieve demand for radial aero-engines, the M5 instead used twin Cadillac car engines, which were quieter & cooler.  The M5 could travel at up to 36 mph on good roads & 18 mph off-road. Its armour ranged in thickness from 13 to 51 mm, depending on location.

Stuarts were first used in combat in 1941 by the British in North Africa & then by the Americans in the Philippines.  In neither case did they fare especially well, but this was primarily a reflection of inadequate training & tactics.  The British considered Stuarts an improvement on their Crusader tanks, which were slower & less reliable. The main drawback of the Stuart was its low fuel capacity, which limited its operational range to 75 to 100 miles across country, substantially less than Crusaders.

When Burma was threatened by the Japanese in 1942, the British 7^th Armoured Brigade was transferred to Rangoon, with 114 M3 Stuarts bearing the ‘desert rats’ insignia. They were important in allowing Allied forces to break out from Rangoon & they supported 17th Indian Division & 1st Burma Division on the retreat to India.  However, only a single Stuart made it into India.

Despite their limited firepower & armour, Stuarts were effective in the Burma Campaign.  Japanese tanks had lighter armour than Stuarts & were not available in large numbers.  On May 1 1944, a Stuart climbed up to the terrace above the tennis court at Kohima, but was quickly knocked out by a 3.7-inch anti-tank gun & the crew were lucky to survive.  The heavier armour of a Grant was needed on this exposed position.  However, the Japanese in general were not well-provided with anti-tank guns, most often relying on tactics requiring infantry to close with Allied tanks.  In such a context, the Stuart served its purpose well.  

The M3 Medium Tanks – Lee & Grant

The M3 Medium Tank was developed in the USA during the late 1930s to provide a battle tank with better mobility, protection & the firepower of a 75 mm gun.  Resources & technical ability were insufficient to mount this main gun on a revolving turret, so it was instead mounted in a sponson in the right front of the hull.  This was a major shortcoming, as it limited the gun’s traverse.  Nevertheless, the M3 was rushed into production as an interim solution, until the 75 mm gun could be relocated to the turret.

The US design had a crew of seven.  The British called it the ‘Lee’ & did not like it, but were desperate to replace the loss in France of their entire tank force.  Attempts to induce the US to build British designs were refused.  However, some modifications to the M3 were negotiated, resulting in a six-crew version dubbed the ‘Grant’. It had a larger turret than the Lee, with a bustle at the rear to house a radio. 

To reduce the tank’s height, the Lee’s machine gun cupola was replaced with a simple low-profile ‘manhole cover’. The presence or absence of the machine gun cupola provides the most obvious distinguishing feature between the Lee & the Grant.

The Grant weighed 28.5 tons.  Its maximum speed on roads was 28 mph & its maximum range was 108 miles.  The front of the hull had 51 mm of armour, but the sides & rear were only 38mm. The turret armour was also 51 mm, apart from the top which was just 22mm.  The Grant’s turret housed the tank commander, the gunner of a 37 mm gun & a loader, who also operated the radio.  In the chassis was the driver with the gunner & loader for the 75 mm main gun.  In the Lee, the radio operator was an additional crew member, who sat to the left of the driver.  Nearly 900 Lend Lease M3 Mediums, both Lees & Grants, were shipped to India from the USA.

In March 1944, 149th Regiment Royal Armoured Corps was equipped with 36 Grant I tanks, organized into two squadrons, A and B.  These were attached to the British 2^nd Infantry Division & served at Kohima.  Six of the Grants were lost at Kohima, including that of Major Ezra Rhodes, B Squadron Commander.  Rhodes’s Grant had been attacking Japanese bunkers on Kohima Ridge, but slipped from the track & slid down the hill until stopped by a tree. As Japanese infantry closed in, the crew jammed the triggers of the tank’s machine guns to fire continuously, set the turret to rotate & escaped, sprinting under fire to British lines.  This Grant has remained there ever since, as a memorial.

Lee I M3s were used in the other Medium Tank Regiments of the 50th Indian Tank Brigade, as well those of the 254th.  Corporal Arthur Freer, of 3rd Carabiniers, 254th Indian Tank Brigade, told an interviewer (IWM19822):    

“It was absolutely superb. Seven men in a tank with tremendous firepower & able to do all sorts of damage to the enemy. They had a 75 mm gun in the hull, which was a beautiful gun, very powerful, very accurate, very destructive.  We thought it was a wonderful gun & we did a lot of damage with it.”

INTERVIEWER: “Were anti-tank guns good against the armour of the General Lee?”

FREER: “Not at the front.  They were at the side.  They could penetrate at the side, but the front was four inches of armour & it was sloping. The metal on the sides wasn’t terribly strong.  The Lees we had were rivetted & not welded.  If an anti-tank shell hit a rivet, it could shear off the outside edge of the rivet so that the bit going through the metal sides & the inside of the rivet would fly around inside the tank doing all sorts of damage. And I’ve lost friends through being hit by rivets.  That was the only weakness that I could see, otherwise the armament was superb, you had all round fire in the turret. The 75mm gun was limited to about 15^o of traverse, if you wanted to turn more than 15^o, you had to turn the tank round. That wasn’t a problem. We were using it as a mobile piece of artillery, which had complete self-defence with the turret guns.  I think it was ideal.”    

The M3 Medium Brigades were withdrawn to India in April/May 1945, at the start of the monsoon season. The 50th Indian Armoured Brigade was re-equipped with Shermans & the 254th was re-equipped with Churchills.    

A 1945 Allied Land Forces South-East Asia report concluded that the M3 Medium Tank “has been very successful & has been well liked by users. It has shared with the Stuart…the greater part of the armoured fighting in Burma.”

Images & information about the M3 are from this page of the Sherman Minutia Homepage.

The M4 Medium Tank – Sherman

Despite the success of the Lee & Grant M3 Medium Tanks, their hull-mounted gun was considered a major limitation & prompted development of the M4 Sherman, in which the main armament, initially a 75 mm gun, was transferred into a fully traversing turret.  Shermans were used instead of Lees & Grants during the recapture of Burma in 1945.

The M4 Sherman proved to be reliable & relatively cheap to produce, so that over 49,000 were eventually built.  Its designers prioritized durability & ease of maintenance, allowing rapid repair in the field. Standardization of parts facilitated streamlined production & efficient supply of replacement components.  Making it compatible with existing shipping, roads, bridges & transport vehicles helped allowed efficient & rapid deployment.  Over 17,000 Shermans in various models were supplied to Britain through Lend-Lease.  In over 2,000 of these, the 75 mm turret gun was upgraded to a 17 pdr as Sherman Fireflies.  

The M4 Sherman had a crew of five.  It weighed 30 tons & had good speed both on & off-road.  In addition to the main gun, standard secondary armament comprised three Browning machine-guns: one in the hull that was operated by the assistant driver, one coaxial that was mounted to fire in parallel with the turret gun, & one on the turret roof for protection against aircraft.  The turret armour was 76 mm at the front, but only 25 mm elsewhere.  The glacis plate was angled to provide an effective thickness of 93 mm. There was a hatch on the hull bottom to dispose of spent shell casings & provide an emergency escape route.  This hatch was sometimes used under fire to recover wounded.  

Japanese

The Type 95 Ha-Go Tank

The Type 95 Ha-Go light tank was produced in greater numbers than any other Japanese armoured vehicle in WW2.  However, only about 2,300 were manufactured in total, as tanks were never a priority for the Japanese. Most steel production was instead used for warships. 

The Type 95 weighed 7.4 tons.  It had a 37 mm gun & two 6.5 or 7.7 mm machine guns, one in the hull & the other mounted in the turret, facing to the rear.  The hand-operated turret was small & extremely cramped for even the one man located there, the commander.  It was only able to rotate 45^o, leaving the rear to be covered by the turret machine gun.  In addition to the commander, who had to load & fire the 37 mm gun, the two other crew members were a driver & a mechanic, who operated the machine gun in the hull.  The thickness of its armour ranged from 6 to 12 mm.  Most of these tanks were not equipped with a radio. 

The armour, weaponry & road speed of the Type 95 was inferior to that of the M3 Stuart light tank, although their speeds across country were similar.  Nevertheless, the Type 95 sometimes performed well against the M3 Stuart in close range encounters in 1942.  However, Japanese tank development did not keep pace with that of the Allies. The Type 95 remained in use until the end of the war, but it was no match for the M5 Stuart light tank or the M3 medium Lees & Grants.

For example, early in the Battle of Imphal on 20 March 1944, seven Type 95 tanks ambushed a troop of three M3 Lee tanks of the 3rd Carabiniers, which was quickly joined by a second troop of the same regiment.  The clash was very unequal, with only one Japanese round causing any damage to a Lee, setting it alight after hitting its fuel tank; one crew member was killed & the other six injured.  In return, the Lees destroyed five of the Japanese Type 95 tanks & damaged another, which was abandoned by its crew & subsequently towed to Imphal.  Only one Japanese tank escaped.