Make it right hand drive...With you're hacking that much of a Sherman up there might be time to swap the driver's position. The Aussies moved the Grant's driver position to right hand drive when they made the Yeramba SPG.

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Make it right hand drive...With you're hacking that much of a Sherman up there might be time to swap the driver's position. The Aussies moved the Grant's driver position to right hand drive when they made the Yeramba SPG.

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The gun mantlet would block both hatches, so there is no advantage to moving the drivers controls.

Another solution would be to made a hull side hatch ALA Churchill. Actually, that would be a lot easier. On the new build the added armor on the hull side will be verticle like on the M4A3E2's. Ok, problem more or less solved.

Any other ideas?

Side escape hatch weakens the side armor, I'd say that's a no go. Why I suggested swapping is now you have the escape hatch unblocked by ammo racks.

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Make it right hand drive...With you're hacking that much of a Sherman up there might be time to swap the driver's position. The Aussies moved the Grant's driver position to right hand drive when they made the Yeramba SPG.

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The gun mantlet would block both hatches, so there is no advantage to moving the drivers controls.

Another solution would be to made a hull side hatch ALA Churchill. Actually, that would be a lot easier. On the new build the added armor on the hull side will be verticle like on the M4A3E2's. Ok, problem more or less solved.

Any other ideas?

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Side escape hatch weakens the side armor, I'd say that's a no go. Why I suggested swapping is now you have the escape hatch unblocked by ammo racks.

Re: The Side Hatches- The Initial Sherman, the T6, had Side Hatches, and they were deleted because:

a) Side Hatches WOULD have weakened the integrity of the side armor, and

b) The deletion of the Side Hatches simplified production

I am now going to open my big mouth again-

For your now-"1948" project, mightn't a Mid-to-Late M4A3 or an M4A3E8 at least help to alleviate the Drivers' Hatches situation? After all, the 'flat-faced" 47-degree "Big Hatch" Hulls were designed for better Crew entry and egress, and also to further simplify production, as opposed to the more complex to manufacture 56-degree welded Hulls. The Drivers' Hatches of the 47-degree Hulls, (both cast and welded), were situated a bit more forward than the 56-degree Hulls', so wouldn't you have a bit more room for Hatch clearance? I don't have the measurements handy, as I'm not building an M4-series Tank mounting a Panther Main Gun set-up...

There again, since the scenario has now "fast-forwarded" itself into 1948, mightn't the US Armor "mucky-mucks" have established that the M26 needed some drastic improvements, thereby accelerating the M46/M47 programs..?

It actually didn't happen until 1949 that the Army directed that 1160 M26s be converted into M46s with new Engines and Transmissions, but hypothetically speaking, seeing that the deteriorating situation in the East was fast becoming a new "war-scenario", couldn't the M26/M46 have swelled into full-scale production by 1947/1948..?

As I've said repeatedly before, this project is all conjectural, so have fun with it!

Re: Drivers

Good ones are hard to find. You generally don't want to lose them if you can get away with it.

Re: Hatches

1. It's not outside of reason there'd be a modified hatch that pops up just a little and swings (like the current Abrams driver's hatch), or even just making positively sure the floor hatch is still reachable. I'd argue the floor hatch most strongly simply because it's the most useful of all options (it was quite popular for letting tankers go to the bathroom while still armored, dumping trash etc).

2. The T-34 has some of the best fan club of all time, but in terms of protection, firepower etc it's broadly similar to a Sherman in performance...and grossly deficient in other ways (as an example, in Korea it was found that when knocked out T-34s tended to average 75% fatalities vs the 1 KIA/WIA per Sherman disabled). The front hatch would also be very tricky to cut into some of the toughest armor on the tank.

I think again a modified top hatch, or even a new floor hatch would be an easier and more likely go.

In another life...I use to design retrofits for Utility and Industrial Circuit Breakers, and the last thing you wanted to do, but sometimes you had to, was cut the Original Breaker housing too much. Usually you flip things, or feed the new breaker backwards first, that was why I suggested making it a right hand drive, it keeps the original hatch and hull in one piece.


Also on the 76mm versusthe 17pdr here's some post war US Army Tests.

http://worldoftanks.com/en/news/pc-browser/21/The_Chieftains_Hatch_Firefly/
http://worldoftanks.com/en/news/pc-browser/21/The_Chieftains_Hatch_Firefly2/
http://worldoftanks.com/en/news/pc-browser/21/The_Chieftains_Hatch_Firefly3/

I does really come down to the ammo, and the smaller guns, which is funny, the Panther, Firefly,76mm, and 3in were all the same base diameter. You're right the 17pdr does have a certain look to it.

Do they have to be US Army per say...the builds fit better in the narrative of the British Army. The REME worked with German Manufacturers to make some Panthers and Jagpanthers right after the war. The British tended to like the casement TDs more so than the US Army. Where their forces ended up was near the factories, their's were damaged or unable to produce as much as the US output, and they had a bunch of M4's, M4A1's, M4A2's, and M4A4's at the end of the war and didn't mind modifying them as Firefly, BARV, ARV etc.