Hi again
Can anyone confirm the use of the M4A1(75) large hatch variant during the D-Day landings by the 70TB?
To the best of my knowledge they were few and far between and used as DD Shermans?
Thanks for any insight
Brad

Hi Brad
I had a similar question on M/L.
Here is the link.

here it is

I had a tweaks list from Shawn Ferguson that I can send you.
Cheers

Tony

Great link. There is a nice pic of a CLY tank with a loaders hatch. That picture of the M4 large hull hatch is good. The only other copy I have seen was much smaller. Very likely it is a true 75 gun version.

Sorry Brad, I came up empty on the 70TB.

Here's the part of the photo in question
Credit archivesnormandie for the image...



It is one of the poorer quality images, so this is as good as I could muster...
It appears to be a 70TB marking in the top centre of the mantlet, and it clearly has large hatches... There weren't Hybrid/Composite hulls used as DDs, were there?

Are markings on the mantlet possibly an indicator of DD use?

David

The Bison decal set has the 70TB (or more accurately 70, then a triangle) positioned on the left side of the mantlet as viewed from the front, and the company and vehicle number on the opposing side...but their research may not have shown this central position? There looks to be a tank nickname on the side of the turret. The Bison decals have an option for one of the DDs which has a nickname in the same place (But mysteriously they give you the option of 2 nicknames for the one tank, which are quite similar and leads me to believe it's 2 interpretations of the same nickname...May have been tough to read!)
Company 'A' IIRC were the only DD company...
And to answer your question finally David, I would say yes

I have just found another pic showing an abandoned A company DD which is a small hatch, and clearly shows the 1AD marking on the left, company and vehicle number on the right, and the centre marking is obscured by the guntube, but one can now assume it is the 70TB marking, and thus the Bison decals have them in the wrong place?? Looks to be A-5, a DD tank featured in the decal set...

Hi Brad

See the other thread for my MA3 ID :-)

Both A and B Companys of the 70th had DDs, the only deep wading company was C. According to the ML thread I pulled this pic from, this is Cannonball of Company C, which doesn't have the tac numbers on the mantlet.



EDIT: I think that I can see head pads in the crew hatches in the hull!!!!!

David

Nice pic David
This has the attachment on the right turret side for the whiz bang rocket launcher, which it didn't end up using for the landings...
If I remember rightly, someone made a nice vignette of this tank in it's predicament on ML...
Oh, and did you have to mention the head pads!?! :-)

Brad,
There are several know US Army large hatch M4A1 DD tanks. One was lost during a training run when the crew forgot to put in the drain plugs and was later recovered and is on display in England. The tank recovered and on Display is featured in the After The Battle magazine Number 45. The tank has a high bustle turret, but the loaders hatch is closed. The tank was put on display over looking the Slapton beach training area.

Another was lost on or around D-Day, can't remember exactly where the tank ended up. I'll do some looking later as I have time.

Well, I made it worse, or better. On page 21 of the book D-Day Tank Warefare Concord 7002 is a picture of 4 British DD tanks. 2 are clearly large hull hatch M4A1's. So, right tank, wrong army.

Thanks for the reminder about the Slapton Sands tank.

Sherman DD

Shows the DD idler quite well.

David

Thanks Randall for the info, and thanks David for the image...
Sure looks to be a barnacled affair huh! Or is it very rough casting?
Is one to assume the DDs fought with this idler until replacement was necessary?