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tanks
Grant
Lee
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Crusader IIl
Churchill
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M3 Lee - Wikipedia
M3 Stuart - Wikipedia
Crusader tank - Wikipedia
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Guns
75mm
Other rounds fired by the 75 mm tank guns included the T30 canister shot for use against troops in the open at short range. This, which was essentially a giant shotgun shell full of large numbers of steel balls, was used primarily in the Pacific.
37mm
Canister rounds were often used to good effect against Japanese infantry in many battles, such as Bloody Ridge.[citation needed]
qf6 pounder
Limited availability of different ammunition types limited the efficiency of the gun in the infantry support role. Only after the Normandy Campaign did the HE round reach the battlefield, although before then US units were sometimes able to get a limited amount of HE ammunition from the British Army.[10] The canister shot was not seen in significant amounts until early 1945. Some British stocks of APDS were supplied to the US units, although APCR and APDS rounds were never developed by the US.
The KwK 37 used 75×243 mmR caliber.[2][3]
- K.Gr.rot.Pz. - Armour Piercing Capped,* Kt. Kw. K. - Canister, * Nbgr. Kw. K. - Smoke,* Gr.38 Hl - High Explosive Anti-Tank
Paul Adam
](https://www.quora.com/profile/Paul-Adam-13)
Former Chief Analyst at Cassandra Defence Consulting Ltd (2015–2019)4y
The M2 and M3 75mm guns, used by the Grant/Lee and Sherman tanks respectively, had the T30 canister shot available (mostly used for jungle fighting in the Pacific), and by 1945 the US was producing 57mm canister.
It was most effective in very close quarters, having an effective range of only a hundred yards or so - it was, basically, a large shotgun, firing a number of lead or steel balls at the target. Smaller balls gave denser coverage but lost energy and lethality quickly, larger ones were lethal at longer range but with fewer of them, spreading with range, targets were less likely to be hit (same issues as choosing shot size for a shotgun). It was also quite effective through foliage
Hence, it was primarily used for fighting in jungle terrain in the Pacific; in northwest Europe, ranges were (usually) too long to make canister particularly useful compared to HE shell or machine-gun fire.
Cannister shot declined over time to the introduction of several technologies. self-contained shells/bullets and riffling of the 19th and 20th century. HE is far more accurate and useful from medium to long range. Effectively a giant shotgun at point blank range nothing is more lethal. Armor penetration is low but a ball bearing sized shot can punch through multiple bodies just like a bouncing cannon ball. Canister shots also are far better at knocking down foliage which is why it was used in jungle fighting.