On the M36 Jackson, were the turret lids used in WW-2 combat or were they removed ? They dont look like they would have given very much protection. And would have taken up room!

TIA,
Garry

There was only one unit that used these lids in WW2 (can't remember which one, and I don't have my reference handy), and I have not seen any pics of M36s mounted with these in WW2, only M10s. Strangely, the AFV Club kit of the M10 that comes with these lids does not provide proper markings for a vehicle from that unit...

These lids were far more widely used in Korea, so if you want to build a WW2 vehicle, I'd leave them off.

And you are right in saying they don't offer much protection, but they do stop small arms fire, which is pretty much the only thing US tank destroyers were designed to withstand. They had even less armour than a Sherman.

To the best of my knowledge, most, if not all, did not use them.

Garry
There were some Jackson units that built their own turret lids.The front halves were similar to the production units but the rear parts were in 3 sections,usually with only the centre section down.
Try doing a google search of the site for "M36 Jackson" that should find you the thread.
HTH
Pete

Perhaps the roof didn't offer much combat protection but I'll bet it sure kept the sun off your heads

On page 385 of Hunnicutt's Sherman book, there's a picture of three M36's with roof armor in Germany. They belong to the 628th TD Bn which was attached to the 5th Armored Div.

Chris "toadman" Hughes