WW2 USA Armor Personnel Weapons?
Ok, I'm at a loss here. Alpine has released a 1/35 figure, a US Tank commander with an M1 Carbine. Is this correct? I know the inside tank weapon later in the war was the M3 Grease gun but was it the M1 Carbine & 1911 before the M3 came out????
Thx
David
PS-Anyone have an answer?

This might help...

http://www.theshermantank.com/tank-accessories/the-small-arms-of-the-us-army-tanker-what-they-were-issued-and-what-they-carried/

I'm not an expert expert on the subject of personal weapons used by US Tank crews, but there is enough photographic evidence to show that (a) the 1911 Colt pistol was the standard side arm of all tank crews and (b) that along with the M3 Grease gun, the M1 Thompson and M1 Carbine were also used by tank crews,though more often than not, the Grease Gun or Thompson for their high rate of fire, also Garand manufactured a short barreled version of the M1 specifically for tank crews but this weapon never quite caught on. Being that the Grease Gun, Thompson and Carbine were shorter weapons than the M1 Garand, and could be stored better, they would have been prefered by tank crews. I hope this is helpful for you.

It is very likely that the Sherman had stowage clips for the authorised small arms, probably around the hull somewhere. I've had a look at some images on line and I can't readily spot them. There are many assorted clips and clamps for stowed equipment. As the M1921/M1928/M1 was replaced by the M3 it is likely that the stowage clips changed also, and equally likely that no mod kits were produced for tanks already built. Any weapon not able to be firmly stowed would be a loose object within an already-crowded interior. Not ideal.

Everyone's Favourite Film "Fury" shown the lead character clutching an StG44 at every available opportunity. Nowhere inside a Sherman turret to park anything that big. And awkward to get through the hatch with magazine fitted. And here we come to why M1 carbines may have been preferred. Easy to get through a hatch with 15 rounds attached and 30 rounds in the butt pouches. And the mag pouches could easily be worn on a belt: not much bigger than Colt mags. M3 is an ungainly thing with the mag on, and the over-shoulder mag pouch equally so. No-one wants to bail out with an unloaded weapon and towing several pounds of mag pouch dead weight!

Not just a WW2 problem. When current UK tank crew weapons were changed from full-size L85 (SA80) to the short L22 carbine, they didn't then fit the interior stowage and had to be stowed in the external bins. There may subsequently have been a modification to move the barrel clamps closer to the butt cups.

The ever-resourceful Israelis solved that problem by stowing Uzis on the outside next to the hatches. At least until they got into more asymmetric warfare when they became just as likely to be grabbed by the Bad Guys.

Never underestimate a soldier's, especially an American soldier's. ability to scrounge and carry whatever he wanted to. In Band of Brothers we see Lt/Capt/Maj Winter's carrying an M1 Garand. In fact he carries an M1 that had been modified by "Shifty Powers' to fire on "automatic", or as automatic as you could get. What did the manual say he should carry? In addition to his .45 he should have ben carrying a carbine. My Dad, a Lieutenant should also have been carrying a carbine but at least for part of the war he lugged around a BAR. Now admittedly neither my Father nor Winter's were in a tank but I see no reason why tankers wouldn't scrounge what they could. No room in a Sherman for an M1 or a German assault weapon? Well, it may have been a little ungainly and the quarters are somewhat close but trust me, they aren't THAT close. Frankly the biggest thing mitigating against that was the simple fact that to be in a position to use the sidearm you would have had to have bailed out of the Sherman and frankly I think if you're bailing out of a Sherman that's about to "brew up" you're most likely to get out first and worry about side arms later. BTW the M3 Greasegun was used as standard equipment at least into the 1960s.

David,
The pre-war and early war standard tanker's weapons were the M1911 and Thompson Sub-machine gun. But, I imagine like anything else, tankers could use whatever they wanted or what suited them, or what they could get ahold of. The M1 carbine would be a good choice, especially the folding stock variety, but this was probably hard to come by being reserved for airborne troops and aircrew. The M3 "grease gun" wasn't available until late 1942, and then only for OSS use-- the first 1,000 or so were developed as 9mm "throw-away" weapons. The .45 M3A1 didn't see widespread issue until it was adopted in late 1944, although there were some available earlier. As a young Armor Lieutenant, I had to "familiarize" (not qualify) with the M3A1 grease gun in 1976. We didn't qualify with them because they were incredibly innacurate weapons-- we used to say they were for combat "inside" the tank! The tactic we were told to use it for was to hold the pistol grip with one hand, the magazine with the other, and reaching above our heads outside an open hatch, to "spray" the outside of the tank in case we had to dismount in combat! As an aside, the Academy Hellcat, and I think the M10 and M36 come with Thompsons as additional equipment, in the Hellcat it's mounted over the radio rack. On the other hand, the Bronco Piper L1 comes with a folding stock M1 carbine for the observers fuselage wall. There's an M3 Stuart with the driver's compartment hatches open here at Fort Lewis. On the rear firewall there's still a location label with "sub-machine gun" marked. Since it's an M3A1 Stuart it would have been produced before 1942. Hope this helps a little.
VR, Russ

The rack and brackets that held the Thompson were not hard to adjust to hold M1 carbines. The racks in a M20 armored car were made to fit M1 carbines but enterprising folk found ways to put Thompsons in them. The tank came with a Thompson and the crew members each had a pistol. If the crew was sourced from another branch as a replacement they could have other personal weapons like carbines. And there were always weapons they picked up as needed.

By the way Thompsons in tanks were often carried with the wooden stock detached. That way it was smaller than a carbine.

With all the nooks and crannies in a tank there have always been plenty of places to put things you really shouldn't have or that the tank was not built to carry.

Photos abound of tankers with carbines, but not Garands (too damn big) M3 smgs were a late war thing and only came with the M4A3 (wet) hulls and later M4A1 76. And even one or two guys with Stg. 44 assault rifles. I like it, I want it, so I'll make it fit over here. After all a Luger doesn't really fit in a M1911 holster but Oddball found a way to make it work.

By the way I was a tanker around the time they finally realized M3A1 smg were useless and they tried to fit M16A1 rifles into an M60 tank. There were places to put it if one used their imagination.

That's still the common practice whenever the hatches are open. The TC and the loader store their personal weapons (M4) in racks right next to their hatches.

Bear in mind that the rationale for crew personal weapons inside the tank (as in official CES kit and not what one or other blokes managed to blag) was not necessarily to give them firearms when baling out. When the unit is in leaguer someone needs to do sentry duty and tank units don't contain troops whose sole purpose is this - crews are required to stand sentry and need weapons other than pistols for this. Therefore stowing the butt separately from the weapon is not as much of an issue as it would be if someone was expected to grab it during an emergency evacuation.

A lot longer than that. I was my unit's armorer and I had nine M3A1 Grease Guns in my inventory. They were issued to the company wrenches (two spares) when they were still assigned to line companies. It was standard TO&E throughout USAREUR through at least 1985. I always signed one out for myself during FTX's.

M3A1 grease guns were in Desert Storm. I was trained on them in Fort Knox in 1988. They were standard on M60s and only finally went away when the M60 tank finally left the inventory. As said before it was good for hosing the exterior before sticking one's head out the hatch.

I have pictures from the 1950s and 1960s of National Guard tanks where the loader often had an M3A1 in hand. Once upon a time it was SOP for the loader to always have it whenever he dismounted the tank.

By the way, didn't some WW2 German tanks have regular KAR.98 rifles stowed in them for drivers and loaders stowed on the wall in the driver's compartment and in an upright rack on the turret basket for the loader?

I saw tankers carrying grease guns in Berlin in early 89 when
I rotated stateside. We had m60's in Berlin tho the Abrams were only in the zone (West Germany).

The real problem with using a Stug44 would be ammo supply. It was a limited issue weapon for the Germans and fired a non-standard 7.92mm short round that was very similar the the round fired by the later AK47. So whatever rounds Brad Pitt scrounged from the original user would be all he ever had unless he stopped to scrounge more from bodies.