This new modification was named M46 “General Patton”. The M26 transmission was also not entirely reliable, this deficiency was eliminated in 1948.with the advent of a new modification, the M26E2, which used a new power plant. However, its cross-country ability did not match the cross-country ability of a medium tank, due to the fact that the M26 had the same engine as the M4A3, while the M4A3 was lighter than the Pershing by about ten tons. Hence some of its features: in comparison with the average Sherman, the Pershing was a significant step forward, especially in the field of weapons and armor protection. In May 1946, in connection with the changed American concept of tank forces, “Pershing” was again reclassified into a medium tank. The Pershing was originally designed as a medium tank, but at the end of 1944 it was reclassified as heavy to boost the confidence of the crews. After the baptism of fire, the T26E3 tank was renamed M26. Efforts were made to accelerate ongoing development, but the tank, now called the Pershing, did not appear on the battlefield until February 1945 (the first battle on February 25 near the Ruhr River) and took a relatively modest role in World War II. It soon became clear that the doctrine of using tank destroyers was wrong, and that the Sherman tanks could not fight the Panthers on equal terms.
For all these reasons, the design of the new tank went very slowly.Īt the time of the Allied invasion of Western Europe during the Normandy landings in July 1944, Sherman tanks made up the overwhelming majority of their tank fleet. For these purposes, tank destroyers were used – more mobile armored vehicles, such as the M10 “Wolverine”. In addition, according to the army doctrine of the time, tanks were not created to fight other tanks. Tanks of this type made up half of the German tank power in Normandy…. However, the Panthers, with which the allies first met at Anzio, began to be produced in large quantities. With regard to the “Tigers”, the command’s assumption was correct: on the Western Front, these machines were really rare. Even with the appearance of heavy tanks ” Tiger ” and ” Panther ” in Germany, the opinion of the American command did not change, since they believed that the new vehicles would not be found in large numbers with German troops. However, under the influence of the initial, relatively successful use of the Sherman tank, the Army Command got the impression that there was no urgent need to develop a new tank. The T26E1 tank had a 90 mm gun, 100 mm frontal armor and a weight of 43.25 tons, which was 8.5 tons more than the M4 tank. The result of the project was the creation of the T26E1 model at the beginning of 1944. Unlike M24 Chaffee, on the M26 the drive wheel was located at the rear. The M26 received six road wheels and five track rollers. A torsion bar suspension was also used for the new tank. The powerful new engine allowed the latest model to reach a highway speed of 48 km / h. The engine chosen was a new Ford gasoline engine designed specifically for tanks. The creators also experimented with the auto-charging mechanism, but it turned out to be unreliable and had to be abandoned.
The electrical system was too heavy, so the developers settled on a hydraulic transmission with a torque converter from General Motors. The electric transmission developed by General Electric was tested on the T23. They used various options for weapons, transmissions and suspensions. Over the next two years, various prototypes were created: T20, T22, T23, T25 and T26.
cannon, frontal armor of at least 100 mm and a speed of at least 40 km / h. The main task of the project was to create a tank with a combat weight not exceeding 32 tons, 75 mm. Therefore, in the fall of 1942, the US Army’s weapons service began to develop a project for an “infantry-oriented tank”, whose design would be more versatile than that of British infantry tanks. Meanwhile, the infantry would have preferred to have a tank that was more armored and more powerfully armed, even if at the expense of reduced driving performance. From 1942 until the end of World War II, the M4 Sherman tank was used for two purposes. Just like the armies of other countries at the time, the US army envisaged the use of tanks for two main purposes: supporting infantry and breaking through enemy fortifications. From February 1945, ershing tanks took part in World War II and in 1950-1951 it participated in the Korean War. Developed as a replacement for the M4 Sherman. M-26 Pershing”- Named in honor of General John Pershing, who led the American Expeditionary Force during the First World War.
0 kommentar(er)
