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The first thing Kilbourn had to fix was the lack of a workable recoil system for the 17-pounder. The 17-pounder traveled 40 in (1.0 m) back as it absorbed the recoil of the blast. This was too long for the Sherman's turret. [8] Kilbourn solved this problem by redesigning the recoil system completely rather than modifying it.
A Sherman Firefly with the 17-pounder, South African National Museum of Military History, 2014. The 17-pounder outperformed all other Allied armour-piercing guns, and was quickly adapted for use on various tank chassis. However, few tanks were capable of carrying such a large gun due to the size limitations of their turret rings.
In the lead up to D-Day, Sherman tanks were fitted with the 17 pounder, creating the interim 17 pounder Sherman Firefly. Converting Sherman tanks was simpler than producing Challengers, so it was decided in November 1943 to terminate the A30 production run after the two hundred vehicles had been built, allowing BRC&W to concentrate on the Cromwell.
The 17 pdr SP Achilles was basically a modified M10, the principal difference being the gun. The main armament of the Achilles was the Ordnance QF 17-pounder, a substantially more powerful gun than the 3 inch (76.2 mm) M7 mounted on the standard M10. The single top-mounted .50 inch (12.7 mm) M2 Browning heavy machine gun was retained.
The 17-pounder was also much larger and had a longer recoil than the 76 mm, which required a redesign of the turret and despite this, made the turret very cramped. The 17-pounder also had a less effective HE round. The 76 mm gunned Shermans supplied to the British were only used in Italy or by the Polish 1st Armoured Division in north-west Europe.
It doesn't really make clear that the gun itself was a much-modified variant of the 17pdr, including a modified cradle and recoil system. Further, The gun itself was still too long to fit inside the standard Sherma/M4 turret so the radio was moved from inside the turret into a separate armoured box welded onto the outside back of the turret.
The use of these systems to control remotely operated gun turrets, as United24's video notes, speaks to the significant use of a variety of different technologies in this war, especially when it ...
According to an STT document dated April 1944, it was estimated that the British 76.2 mm 17-pounder (used as an anti-tank gun, on the Sherman Firefly tank, and self-propelled guns) firing its normal APCBC ammunition, would penetrate the turret front and driver's visor plate of the Tiger out to 1,900 yards (1,700 m).