27 Aug 20 Garand Picture of the Day

[Mark in Rochester]

A Marine 37mm gun crew blasts Japanese positions on the slopes of Iwo Jima's Mount Suribachi from which the enemy has had poured a withering fire on the Leatherneck beachhead.

Information

Warning: This is a relatively older thread This discussion is older than 360 days. Some information contained in it may no longer be current.

[Surpmil]

What was useful about the U.S. M37 AT gun, as opposed to the 2Pdr (of 40mm) was it had HE and canister rounds, whereas the 2 Pdr. had nothing but solid shot until 1942. How many thousands must have died for the lack of those HE and canister shells is hard to imagine.

Even worse, the same folly was carried over to their use in almost every British tank until 1942: no HE or canister!

A triumph of the same blinkered minds that nearly lost the war by failing to provide a decent multi-purpose gun equivalent to the German 88mm Flak36, and then obstructing the use of the 3.7" AA gun in the anti-tank role.

Irony of ironies, the lack of a decent AT gun then meant 25 Pdr.s had to be diverted from their bombardment role into AT use; so much for keeping everything in its "proper role"!

All one can say in favour of the 2 Pdr. is it had a 360° traverse, an automatic breech block and a far better optical sight than the M37. Of course it was also much heavier, higher and harder to dig in. I doubt it could me moved "by hand" either the way a V trail gun could be.

Interesting how the top of the gun shield has been given an irregular profile - was this a local improvisation or a factory job?

Armoured dozer off to the right.

[browningautorifle]

What was useful about the U.S. M37 AT gun, as opposed to the 2Pdr (of 40mm) was it had HE and canister rounds, whereas the 2 Pdr. had nothing but solid shot until 1942.

I wondered about that very thing when I saw this, thinking they had only solids and what use would it be. The size of the projectile would hardly make it a super effective shell though...

[Daan Kemp]

Not knowing anything about the 2Pdr ATk gun and all the other firepower available, the comment about it seems a bit biased? Isn't solid shot what it should have for ATk?