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Why did the British not covert their 3.7 A/A to an anti-tank role ?

J

jeffmorgan

Member
Hi All. I'm a new convert and this is my second post, I'm a member of a Military History Society based in Fremantle, Western Australia. One night the question was posed as to the mystery of why did the British army not convert their excellent 3.7

anti-aircraft gun to the anti-tank role as did the German army. I understand that the 3.7 was on a par or even superior to the much vaunted Krupp 88.

I'm sure this very question has done the rounds on this forum many times, I understand that the British introduced the 17 pounder later in the war in the a/t roll and also used in the Sherman Firefly, but was this a derivative of the 3.7

I have a rare photograph showing the Australian 27th field regiment deploying a 3.7 dug in the horizontal position along with 25 pounders at the battle of Tarakan, Borneo, June 1944.


I read also that the Americans after suffering at great cost from the 88, converted their 90 mm A/A to the A/T role and did great execution to Russian supplied T 34's during the Korean war.

I would appreciate your comments and would also like to pass them on to my fellow society members.


Being introduced to this excellent website has been very helpful for my research into future society presentations, I shall pass your site address onto the membership. Thanks. Jeff Lloyd.
 
Intresting question which i also wondered about. Although not the the correct answer you are looking for, it would seem that the high command in the British army and the powers to be didn't think using a 3.7 AA as an AT sporting enough or as the the old boys network would say not the rules of cricket, the same attitude to the way the Tommy gun or Thompson was percieved as a gangster gun earlier in the war and the reason why we were still using bolt action rifles as opposed to the American usage of semi auto rifles. My answer would be attitude from the powers to be.
 
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I wasn't at the meetings, but some of the things that would have been discussed would be the size of the turret required for the longer 3.7 inch rounds and the required storage space for those rounds, the structure of the tank to withstand the recoil of the huge gun, the priority of having a foundry make up the hulls and chassis for a new tank of that size when resources were so short in the U.K. among others. There would also be the need for more brass for the larger cases, and a more advanced projectile than the available Shot-T round.

The 17pdr mounted on the Sherman Chassis outright Killed Panther tanks. The 17Pdr with tungsten APDS rounds was the only Allied tank to penetrate the front slope on a Panther. If you follow the German's development of the King Tiger, they spent a lot of time deciding which round to use, the FLAK 41 or the Kwk 43. The length of the rounds determines the size of the turret and how much storage space is required for ammo. The 17Pdr is a 3 inch diameter, considerably smaller than the 3.7 inch. The British had solid shot ammo for their 3.7 inch AAA guns already.

The U.S. had manufacturing ability to mass produce Sherman tanks but no Tungsten. The U.K. had ample Tungsten but limited manufacturing resources, so the Firefly was the best of both, which made up for the POS gun on the standard Sherman. Of course the U.S. didn't use the 17Pdr because they didn't invent it and had no Tungsten. That is why they went to the 90mm, plus it was 2mm larger than an 88. These are just some of the reasons.
 
There were many instances of the 3.7” being used in the direct fire role especially by the antipodeans.
However, it was primarily an Anti-Aircraft weapon. It was unsuitable as an Anti-Tank weapon as it was big and heavy, it weighed in at 20,000 lbs – 10 tons, which hampered battlefield manoeuvrability, especially in forward positions. Another problem apparently, was the mounting and recuperating gear suffered from prolonged firing at low elevations.
The crews weren’t trained - apparently up until 1938 all anti-aircraft gun crews were trained in the direct fire role. However, with war looming it was dropped from the syllabus to save time and money. Furthermore, the 17-pdr anti-tank gun was introduced in 1942 negating any need for conversion of the 3.7”

TimG
 
The 3.7 was used as a field gun in italy. In the north Africa campaigns where ATK was vital there weren't enough 3.7" to be used in static defence positions.
 
In the heat of the moment I think any field gun or Anti Aircraft gun was used against tanks. There were even instances where the massive 5.5" was fired against German tanks..... H.E shells without fuzes but with the fuze plug still in place were guaranteed to lift the turret from any German tank.
 
All UK artillery was expected to be able to defend itself against tank attack, this self-defence was the secondary role and was conducted from its primary role position.

In UK service 3.7 HAA regiments were only found in AA Brigades. Typically in the field army an AA Bde would be assigned to a corps and used to defend the rear areas against air attack. Divisions had their own LAA regiment.

3.7 was big and expensive ie required considerable manufacturing effort, and needed a chunky towing vehicle (Matador), this combination was highly unsuited to use in the forward areas.

Its useful to remember that the first Tigers to be engaged were by 6-pr, successfully. Once 17-pr appeared there was no need for anything bigger. Once the German air threat reduced then using 3.7 in the indirect fire field role, primarily for counter-battery fire, was eminently sensible although some changes and re-training were needed.
 
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