Illegal WW2 modifications

[Polydamas]

Originally Posted by mstlaurent

I remember my father telling me that whenever they got their tank out of depot maintenance the first thing they did was unbolt the pintel-mounted .50cal from the top of the turret and ditch it on the side of the road. Because nobody in their right mind was going to pop their head out of a perfectly good tank in the middle of a fire fight and try to use it, all it ever did was get tangled up in low-hanging branches and telegraph lines.

That is another thing where technological context matters. WW II AFV turrets did not whiz around like the turret on a modern armoured car like a LAV II, they were a lot more slow and ponderous. So if you were attacked by infantry at close range (or aircraft!) having a MG which could quickly swing in any direction was important. Popping out to use it was risky, but so was getting a bazooka or PIAT or Panzerfaust in the engine compartment from the sneeky b*****s who crept through a hedge on one side while you were suppressing the rest of their platoon on another side. And what got tangled up in Burma or Brittany was probably less likely to get tangled in Libya or Belarus.

[Rupert]

Originally Posted by Polydamas

That is another thing where technological context matters. WW II AFV turrets did not whiz around like the turret on a modern armoured car like a LAV II, they were a lot more slow and ponderous. So if you were attacked by infantry at close range (or aircraft!) having a MG which could quickly swing in any direction was important. Popping out to use it was risky, but so was getting a bazooka or PIAT or Panzerfaust in the engine compartment from the sneeky b*****s who crept through a hedge on one side while you were suppressing the rest of their platoon on another side. And what got tangled up in Burma or Brittany was probably less likely to get tangled in Libya or Belarus.

If you've got infantry in PIAT or Panzerfaust range of your tank, unbuttoning to use a cupola mounted MG is going to get you shot. If you're already unbuttoned, sure, use it but if you're buttoned up, no way (besides, rotating the turret might well be as fast as getting the cupola gun working).

[Polydamas]

Originally Posted by Rupert

If you've got infantry in PIAT or Panzerfaust range of your tank, unbuttoning to use a cupola mounted MG is going to get you shot. If you're already unbuttoned, sure, use it but if you're buttoned up, no way (besides, rotating the turret might well be as fast as getting the cupola gun working).

Well, yeah, what you use the pintle-mounted MG for is to get them dead or in a nice deep hole before they can get into range right?

I don't know current doctrines, I have just seen how scary fast the turret on a modern armoured car can turn. My impression is that tank crews today spend more time buttoned up than they did in 1941-1945, but that well-trained crew still pop out the top of AFVs now and then.

[Apollonian]

Originally Posted by Polydamas

Well, yeah, what you use the pintle-mounted MG for is to get them dead or in a nice deep hole before they can get into range right?

One thing that's not immediately obvious on most of the Shermans with pintle-mounted .50 BMGs is that the machine gun couldn't be used from the cupola. To operate it, the tank commander had to get out of the tank and stand on the deck, behind the turret. Since it was, as mentioned, intended for anti-aircraft use, this wasn't originally considered a design flaw, but I think the crews often disagreed.

IIRC, later models did have modifications that allowed a machine gun to be fired from the cupola without exposing more than the commander's head and shoulders, but I'm not sure on that.

E.t.a: presumably you could get a friendly infantryman to operate the gun for you if you had a proper infantry escort in built up terrain, but I don't know if that was doctrine or ever done - or even advisable.

[Þorkell]

Originally Posted by mstlaurent

I remember my father telling me that whenever they got their tank out of depot maintenance the first thing they did was unbolt the pintel-mounted .50cal from the top of the turret and ditch it on the side of the road. Because nobody in their right mind was going to pop their head out of a perfectly good tank in the middle of a fire fight and try to use it, all it ever did was get tangled up in low-hanging branches and telegraph lines.

This apparently was much more common with the British Army than the US one. The pinte-mounted .50cal was the highest point of the Sherman tank and the tank was already tall enough.

I think I've watched too many videos from The Chieftain to recall that fact just right away.

[Polydamas]

Originally Posted by Apollonian

One thing that's not immediately obvious on most of the Shermans with pintle-mounted .50 BMGs is that the machine gun couldn't be used from the cupola. To operate it, the tank commander had to get out of the tank and stand on the deck, behind the turret. Since it was, as mentioned, intended for anti-aircraft use, this wasn't originally considered a design flaw, but I think the crews often disagreed.

Now that is a detail I did not know! It came up in that recent movie Fury, i guess they had to get something right by accident.

The allies in Northwest Europe did not face serious ground-air attacks, so their tanks probably didn't need an air-defense MG.

[Michele]

Originally Posted by Polydamas

Well, yeah, what you use the pintle-mounted MG for is to get them dead or in a nice deep hole before they can get into range right?

I don't think so. "Pintle mounted" really means "this can fire up at the sky". In the case of the standard US caliber for such a mount, ".50" really means "overkill for firing at personnel and originally conceived as an anti-vehicular caliber". That's what you should have used it for, and the notion of discarding it only testifies to the fact that an actual tanker at the time did not feel it was necessary, either for its intended purpose (because of a shortage of German fighter bombers) or for what you say.

Enemy personnel at range, in any case, can perfectly well be engaged with the coaxial MG, which is also more accurate at range than any pintle mount. Important such targets (say, enemy personnel manning an ATG) will deserve a main gun HE round. Closer up, there's the hull MG.

Infantrymen coming closer and around you can't be engaged with that, and even turning around the turret has its down sides. Turning around the whole tank is slow and dangerous, and you really don't do that if you think you may have serious opposition to the front (as in, an unspotted tank or anti-tank gunner ready to shoot you in your thinner rear armor).

But that's one of the reasons why tanks did not go around alone. You have the rest of your platoon, including, usually, one tank that had the specific task of hanging back and covering your back. And ideally, you had friendly infantry trailing you and taking care of enemy Panzerjäger.

Naturally, other armies, by the late war, also had one-tank solutions. The Germans had the Nahverteidigungswaffe that could be quickly traversed 360°. The Soviets had a not-terribly-effective rear-pointing MG in the back of their late-war heavies.

[Rupert]

Originally Posted by Michele

Naturally, other armies, by the late war, also had one-tank solutions. The Germans had the Nahverteidigungswaffe that could be quickly traversed 360°. The Soviets had a not-terribly-effective rear-pointing MG in the back of their late-war heavies.

That was there from quite early on, and the last heavy of WWII (barely), the IS-3 did not have a rear-turret machinegun (or a hull mounted one for that matter).

[The Colonel]

Originally Posted by Michele

Naturally, other armies, by the late war, also had one-tank solutions. The Germans had the Nahverteidigungswaffe that could be quickly traversed 360°. The Soviets had a not-terribly-effective rear-pointing MG in the back of their late-war heavies.

Didn't know about the Russian late war MGs - I do recall the Japanese attached turret MGs in almost any configuration but coaxial in most of their models.

[Rupert]

If you want tanks with machineguns everywhere, check out US tanks from just prior to their entry into WWII, such as the M2 medium. Machineguns everywhere.