SCOUT TANKS The M24 Chaffee's role was to go ahead of the main attack to scout out the location of enemy units, report their location, call down an artillery barrage or air attack and leave without engaging heavily armed enemy tanks.
BRITISH CHAFFEE TANKS The British Army ordered 842 M24 Chaffee tanks but received less than 400. The 7th Armoured Division (The Desert Rats) used them in their reconnaissance squadrons. In June 1945 they still had 28.
HATCHES The M24 Chaffee had enlarged driver and assistant driver hatches compared to the Stuart tanks they replaced. Each had a rotating periscope built in. An emergency escape hatch was located in the hull floor behind the assistant driver's seat.
PATTON'S CHAFFEES In April 1945, Patton's 3rd Army allocated M24 Chaffees to F troop, 2nd Cavalry Reconnaissance Squadron for their advance towards Bavaria, Southern Germany. A blue disk with a white trim and the letter A was painted on their turrets.
The US Army's M24 Chaffee light tank was the replacement for the M3/M5 Stuart light tanks and was a leap forward in light tank design, greatly improving the concept in all directions.
It had modern torsion bar suspensions, completely revised welded steel armour, improved protection and, more importantly, a much more potent lightweight 75mm (2.95in) main gun. The Stuarts only had 37mm (1.4in) guns mounted in their turrets. A few Chaffees arrived in Europe just before the Battle of the Bulge started on 16 December 1944. The tank was found to be efficient, simple to use, reliable and rugged.
この記事は History of War の Issue 111 版に掲載されています。
7 日間の Magzter GOLD 無料トライアルを開始して、何千もの厳選されたプレミアム ストーリー、9,000 以上の雑誌や新聞にアクセスしてください。
すでに購読者です ? サインイン
この記事は History of War の Issue 111 版に掲載されています。
7 日間の Magzter GOLD 無料トライアルを開始して、何千もの厳選されたプレミアム ストーリー、9,000 以上の雑誌や新聞にアクセスしてください。
すでに購読者です? サインイン
NAUMACHIA TRUTH BEHIND ROME'S GLADIATOR SEA BATTLES
In their quest for evermore novel and bloody entertainment, the Romans staged enormous naval fights on artificial lakes
OPERATION MANNA
In late April 1945, millions of Dutch civilians were starving as Nazi retribution for the failed Operation Market Garden cut off supplies. eet as In response, Allied bombers launched a risky mission to air-drop food
GASSING HITLER
Just a month before the end of WWI, the future Fuhrer was blinded by a British shell and invalided away from the frontline. Over a century later, has the artillery brigade that launched the fateful attack finally been identified?
SALAMANCA
After years of largely defensive campaigning, Lieutenant General Arthur Wellesley went on the offensive against a French invasion of Andalusia
HUMBERT 'ROCKY'VERSACE
Early in the Vietnam War, a dedicated US Special Forces officer defied his merciless Viet Cong captors and inspired his fellow POWs to survive
LEYTE 1944 SINKING THE RISING SUN
One of the more difficult island campaigns in WWII's Pacific Theatre saw a brutal months-long fight that exhausted Japan’s military strength
MAD DAWN
How technology transformed strategic thinking and military doctrine from the Cold War to the current day
BRUSHES WITH ARMAGEDDON
Humanity came close to self-annihilation with the Cuban Missile Crisis, Broken Arrows’ and other nuclear near misses
THE DEADLY RACE
How the road to peace led to an arms contest between the USA and USSR, with prototypes, proliferation and the world’s biggest bomb
THE MANHATTAN PROJECT
Einstein, Oppenheimer and the race to beat Hitler to the bomb. How a science project in the desert helped win a war
