this is the m3 medium tank
it's an American tank from the early
part of the Second World War when they
were supplied they were supplied in two
versions the basic American version had
a simple slab-sided turret with a
machine-gun cupola on top
whereas the British version had this
flatter more elongated toilet with a
bulge at the back to take the Wireless
said that's because in British tanks at
the time put in the wireless set in the
back of the turret was considered the
proper place for it to be in the
American tanks the radio was down here
in the hull and they needed a seventh
man as the radio operator to work it but
that's the only real difference
basically the tanks are the same they're
all powered by the same nine cylinder
continental layer called radial engine
which is mounted in the back and the
Nghe drives forward the driveshaft comes
under the fighting compartment so the
gearbox is in the front of the tank
makes the tank a lot easier to drive
from the drivers point of view but it's
not in many ways so efficient that's why
you've got drive sprockets for front
rather than the back on this tank which
makes it quite different so the drivers
sitting over the gearbox which makes
gear changing a lot easier but it's a
layout the British didn't like we like
to have the engine and gearbox
altogether in the back of the tank and
that the driver work out for himself
when to change gear that was just a fad
really the gallery layout is really
quite unusual it's really do as much as
anything else so the fact that the
Americans haven't developed a large
enough turret to put the main gun which
is this one up in the top they had to
put it down here in the hull the 75
millimeter gun dual purpose or a little
fire high-explosive and armor-piercing
shot and was quite effective by
comparison with what had gone before in
British service but it has a certain
amount of lateral movement as well as up
and down the real problem that all these
tanks was selecting a suitable hull down
position generally speaking what they
may
was that the commander wanted a position
he could hide his tank behind a hillock
or behind a sand dune so that just the
target was showing well there was no
good doing that with a grant because you
were hiding your main armament the main
armament needs to be aim so a lot of
tank was sticking up in the air an
invitation for the Germans to shoot at
when you were trying to defend yourself
with it the tanks effect has a crew of
six
that's a driver a loader and the gamma
for the 75 millimeter gun here plus
three more men and commander another
gamma and a load of in the turret so
it's quite a busy tank in that respect
the tank has a fairly simple suspension
its volume springs vertically hidden by
this thing here and working on these
rollers the tracks rubber block track
double pin jointed and generally
speaking the tank was very efficient as
a machine it would run beautifully and
run one of you wanted it to which is
more than you could say for many British
tanks which broke down to the fun of it
but in other this type of suspension a
chi was carried on into the Sherman into
other later developments but this is the
first time it really appears in this
size it had been started on the Stuart
but it's a bit bigger on the m3 and the
tanks are bolted construction it's all
flat plates or almost all flat plates
it's quite a well made design you'll see
it's got doors in the sides for the crew
to get in and out as roof hatches to get
on top of the hull but then there's
still the 37 millimeter turret above
that now that turret has the full 360
degrees of Earth it's armed with a 37
millimeter gun and a coaxial browning
because the tank actually for secondary
armament has two Browning's they're
quite difficult to see but they're
actually hidden away in the front of the
hull and they're fired by the driver but
they only find the direction the tanks
pointing at the time which is alright
except that the British didn't really
bother them very much intended to
eliminate them when they
could that the holes where they go and
so on and the mountains are still there
and worth a look that's one of the
things that's actually very distinctive
about these early tanks the Americans
always like machine guns and they always
stack them on everywhere they could find
a place for them the tank otherwise his
pretty little conventional it's um but
it was reliable I think that was the
thing really that set it apart from its
British counterparts because it would
always start in the morning it will go
old Dave if it survived the day you
could switch it off at the end and go
home it didn't have to worry about too
much servicing and that kind of thing to
keep it going
so that's the grant they were used for
about 1941 and desert 1941-42 up to the
Alamein by the Americans in Tunisia the
American tank which the British called
the Lee as distinct from the grant which
was a name for our own version the tank
they seem to behave quite well but once
the Sherman came along it eclipsed them
completely and they apart from in the
Far East where they did very well and
they were pretty well abandoned at that
time there's quite an effective tank in
many respects
you