The strange hybrid was called a ‘Duck’ and like its namesake it waddled low in the water in a way that did inspire total confidence. Diesel smoke blew across the passengers who all welcomed their arrival back on shore. Tom looked particularly green.
“Let’s not do that anymore.”
“Agreed,” the others answered at once.
Chapter 10 Tanks
“So how was the cruise?” Larry asked the pair as they entered the railcar in Miami. Hereford was silent, reserving his professional judgment of the Royal Navy.
“Nice change of scenery, lousy food,” Winston volunteered. “What’s new here?”
“We got orders.”
“To do what?” Winston felt something was up.
“Promotion orders.” He handed a folded sheet to the navy commander.
A broad grin broke across his face. “I’m rear admiral, they skipped captain altogether!”
Hands were shaken all around, Larry now revealing himself as a freshly-minted brigadier, Tom having to accept being a mere colonel in the junior service.
“Drinks are called for all hands, I think, what will you have?” Larry rang for a porter.
“Anything but champagne,” Winston said, “Churchill goes through the stuff like water.”
The railcar became a beehive of activity as a team of typists hammered out a long report of the mid-ocean meeting. Each point brought a pointed question from the White House or the affected agency.
Still, slowly a consensus developed.
The President had made the group his long-term guests at his private retreat at Campabello in Nova Scotia. They converted a large salon into a shared office that was soon a confusion of maps, books and piles of yellow teletype messages. As the liaison office in New York became operational, the workload increased as Winston and his handlers had to field information, and questions, from their British counterparts. The Americans vowed to support the British and adopt a Germany-first policy. A pool of patents was agreed to in order to reduce the confusion of licenses to produce weapons and equipment.
The Americans would enter the war on 1 January 1942, or sooner if Britain was in danger of defeat. The British relinquished control over their forces in and east of Singapore once America entered the war, agreed to share all wartime intelligence without exception. Both agreed to a single Manhattan Project with a joint decision required to use nuclear weapons.
These decisions took time, time that was marked by the collapse of the Republicans in Spain, the abdication of the British king, the slow recovery of the American economy.
It was a relief when Larry announced a field trip to Fort Leavenworth. Instead of the accustomed railcar, this time transportation was an Air Corps transport. Perhaps the most notable thing about the silver plane to Winston’s mind was the fact an American military plane operated in Canada so matter-of-factly. “Things are changing,” he thought.
Leavenworth was a hive of activity. New wooden buildings made formations, platoon barracks in a row headed by a company dayroom, overlooking a battalion command post on parade grounds dominated by a regimental headquarters. Soldiers were everywhere and the jeep ride from the airfield was slowed by heavy trucks and other vehicles on unknowable errands.
General Orbino was just one of a small crowd of dignitaries who waited around the tiny formation of armored vehicles. The Kansas wind blew through Winston’s heavy woollen coat decorated with the insignia of an Army captain. Once again, he noted things seemed to be changing.
George Patton was made of stern stuff and did not seem to notice the weather. “Good morning gentlemen, I am pleased to show you what the Armor Board has been doing for the past two years. This, is the Sherman family of vehicles.” He walked to the front of the tank, mounted it and continued his lecture looking down on his audience. “Here is a seventy-five millimeter main gun in a powered central turret. The gun is based on the old French design.” He patted the weapon’s snout. “The ninety can also be fitted. The driver, commander and loader all have thirty-caliber machine guns.” The cavalryman waved is riding crop toward the guns.
“Tell me about the engine.” General Castle asked, standing in front of Winston.
“An eight-cylinder intercooled diesel, basically a truck engine with some enhancements. The engine is mounted in the right front, next to the driver.” He indicated some air inlets. “There are two inches of high quality steel armor over the entire vehicle, more at critical points,” Patton explained. “In addition, they can be fitted with a grenade screen.”
“Grenades are a problem to a tank?” someone asked.
“Antitank grenades, like our bazooka. The screen just is to detonate the warhead prematurely, it reduces their effect significantly.” Climbing to the downward sloping rear deck of the machine, Patton led his listeners to the back of the vehicle. “The engine being in the front solves a lot of problems. We have the main magazine here, out of harm’s way where it can be loaded by a rear door.”
Winston poked his head through the elongated hatch and was confronted with a confusing array of racks, presumably to store shells.
Patton slithered down the side of the tank with practiced grace and walked to the next vehicle in line.
“This is the Sherman personnel carrier. It shares the same chassis and mechanicals with the tank, but is lighter, since it lacks the turret.” He walked around the vehicle, affectionately touching its slab sides. “In the rear we have an armored box that can hold a section of dragoons, they access their compartment by two doors.”
This time Orbino poked his head through the opening and then invited Winston to enter. The armor was cold as ice, but the little room was sheltered from the howling wind. “Comfortable, captain?”
“Very nice, sir” Winston smiled back.
“No overhead cover?” Orbino asked Patton.
“No sir, he replied. “Still the design is very flexible. Detroit is producing some command posts, ambulances and even a fuel tanker. But the ones we have down in the units are being modified by the soldiers themselves. Very flexible, sir.”
Patton moved to the next three vehicles, “Now these are more specialized than a modified armored personnel carrier. These have factory-built modifications to the suspension, electrical system, whatever.”
He began by describing the recovery vehicle, with a folding crane that could pull a damaged tank out of the muck. The antiaircraft gun sported a pair of 40mm guns in an open turret that was powered by very fast electrical motors in order to track aerial targets. The self-propelled artillery piece shared the family resemblance, but included a wide spade that held the vehicle in place when firing.
“What sort of gun?” Orbino stopped Patton in his tracks.
“This is the 105mm gun-howitzer, sir, but the cannon-cockers can put the 155 or the new 175mm barrel in the same chassis in less than an hour. Even the little 75mm can be fitted, but I don’t know why you’d want to.” Patton walked backwards, stewarding the group along. He came to the final vehicle in the display. It seemed very different. “And here gentlemen,” Patton was addressing the general, “Is back where we started from, the Sherman tank, this time fitted with a swim kit.” He hit the side of the contraption with the palm of his gloved hand to produce a hollow sound. All the Sherman family can be fitted with these steel floats for river crossings.”
Each member of the group felt obligated to smack the side of the floats themselves. As he waited his turn, Winston noted the distinctive pill-shaped turret someplace in the center of the boat-like shape.
“How do they move?” Winston asked.
Patton did not acknowledge the questioner, but replied to the general, “They can waddle with the track providing some propulsion, but we are working on an external motor to mount on the back. The tracks are enough for Army use, rivers, but of course we have to think about our friends in the Marine Corps too. Now, if you gentlemen would follow me inside,” he came to a door of a large wooden warehouse, a pair of guards brought their rifles
to the salute.
The large room was dark, but the still air was a welcome change. In the center was a very large model of a tank, Winston guessed it was made of wood at quarter scale.
“Here gentlemen is the final model of the new Pershing, the layout is the same as its little brother, but about fifty percent larger in every way.” He produced a pointer and called attention to the gun. “All Pershings will mount with ninety millimeter gun, we may have a larger one available in a couple of years if need be. The turret is shaped like a boiled egg sliced lengthways, a very complex piece of casting I’m told.”
“Is that the bottleneck?” Orbino asked.
“That sir, and the supply of high-capacity diesels. Also there is the simple shortage of assembly lines, starting the Pershing will require slowing the introduction of Sherman support vehicles.”
Winston was fascinated by the detail in the model, “Will this also have an APC, and all the rest?”
Again Patton directed his answer to Orbino, “Yes sir, we can produce the whole family once we find capacity, still the tank has to come first.
“Would you give us a minute colonel, gentlemen? I need to make a few notes.”
Patton replaced his pointer, “I will be outside sir. He led the rest of the group to the door.”
“He’s from Virginia, you know.” Orbino observed.
“I could have guessed,” Winston replied deadpan. “Why are we going with both a 75mm and 90mm gun for the Sherman, wouldn’t the ninety be better?”
“There may be supply issues, the ninety is in demand. It is our standard antiaircraft gun. The navy is taking all they can get.”
“Tanks of my time used nonflammable hydraulic fluid, apparently it makes a big difference. Sorry I didn’t think of that before. Also both the Pershing and the ones outside are still in Olive Drab, haven’t we talked about camouflage paint?”
“A two-hour job when the time comes. Let’s not worry about paint. Also we will get rid of the white star insignia in combat and go for subdued colors.”
“He said the Shermans had thirty-caliber machine guns, make sure they remember the thirty is a better antipersonnel weapon than the fifty, it fires faster. This one should also have thirties. Also, the Sherman of my time was often cursed for getting stuck in the mud. I have no idea how wide the tracks were, but they should have been wider.”
“We call that ‘ground pressure’ in the tank business.” Larry nodded.
“Oh, I meant to mention that we need to look at some sort of night-firing capability. Some of our tanks used to mount a fixed mortar on the tank, you could pop a flare while still under armored cover and hope to get a shot off. Smoke generators and smoke grenades will be important if the Luftwaffe is going to make a game of it. But, tell me, what about supply of the armored support vehicles?”
“A matter of priorities, Winston. The powers that be have decided to field the tanks first and then switch over to APCs and all the rest.”
“Without the whole shebang we will not get the full effect of the increased mobility. Units move at the speed of the slowest guy. I am worried about that very much. By the way, what happened to the armored bulldozer?”
“Got filed under ‘too hard to do,’ some sort of problem with the track design. Bulldozers and tank tracks look alike, but work differently. The engineers will used a pretty-standard APC for now.”
“And also I do not see a large-gun tank destroyer. In my history we got the doctrine wrong, but the vehicles were worth having.”
“Not this time around. All the tanks can handle a real antitank gun either the ninety or the 105 when it is ready. There is still some talk about using the seventy-five as an antipersonnel weapon, but I bet that argument will soon be settled. As for the tank destroyers, we will use a recoilless rifle mounted on the APC to stiffen the AT belt where needed.“
“That reminds me, our most advanced tank at the time I left was the Abrams. It had something called a hunter-killer system. The commander had a wide-view periscope he could use to find targets, he could then swing the gun onto a rough bearing, the gunner would use his high-powered sight to hit the target while the commander was searching for the next target. I heard it increases effectiveness all to hell.”
“One of those ideas that is obvious once you think of it. Too late for the Sherman, but maybe we can make it work on the Pershing.”
“The open top on the APC is also a bad idea.” Winston said.
“I was surprised by that. We will push to fix it. Benning doesn’t like the idea of their infantrymen being trapped in a steel box. We have to talk to them again. In fact, Benning is our next stop.”
“What is going on in Georgia?”
“Infantry school, they are handling the small-arms piece of it. The Chief of Ordnance was being a problem; Marshall took the rifles and stuff out his hands. So Benning is taking the lead.”
“Breaking the old branch chiefs like that was necessary. How did it happen?” Winston asked.
“You know what they say, friction is heat, heat is light, he caused too much friction, he felt the heat, he has seen the light.”
“Did you just make that up?” Winston chuckled.
“Read it someplace.”
The Infantry School at Fort Benning, Georgia was housed in a pink building across from the officer’s club with a statue of a three-legged dog between the two. The Commanding General greeted General Orbino warmly and talked about the training program, but being unable to break away from his office, asked his deputy to accompany the two to the firing range. The deputy was a Marine Corps brigadier.
Once again, Winston noted the change.
They took a little convoy of a half-dozen jeeps to the range, on the way they passed the three four-armed towers used to give paratroopers their first jumps. Soldiers marched along the road, slowing their progress.
The weapons were laid out on a number of long tables facing man-shaped targets at perhaps fifty yards. Obviously, it would not do for the VIPs to miss the targets. The Marine officer addressed the little group, “What we have are two distinct families of weapons, gentlemen. The first is based around a thirty-caliber battle-rifle.” He displayed what seemed to be an M-14 from Winston’s memory. “The M-4
is an air-cooled, magazine-fed gas-operated rifle for infantry use. It leads a family that includes a squad support weapon, basically the M-4 with a heavier barrel and a bipod. This replaces the BAR.”
“Automatic or semi?” Winston asked, forgetting his disguise as a mere captain.
“The general handed the weapon over to him, and indicated the safety switch. “The rifle is semi-automatic, but has a three-round burst feature. The support weapon can fire either semi-or fully-automatic. The M-4 is now replacing the M1903 unit by unit.” The Marine moved to the next table,
“Here we have a horse of a different color, the M-6 family. It is a more advanced design, using a very fast twenty-five caliber round, we call it an assault carbine. Then we also have the M-6 support weapon, like its big brother, the M-4 support weapon, it is fully automatic.”
Winston and Larry handled the weapons. They were heavier than they looked, the M-6 family looking cruder, lacking the fine wooden stocks of the more traditional weapons.
“The small ones are the ones causing all the trouble?” Larry asked.
“There have been some technical issues, they can’t used regular powder, they jam too much. We had to develop a true-smokeless, foul-less powder. More importantly the bigwigs simply did not want to go to the smaller caliber despite all the numbers. More than a little hidebound.”
“What do the numbers say?” Larry asked.
“The smaller rounds let the soldiers carry more of them. The smaller weapon is more suited to the Filipino soldier. It is also a better match for mechanized troops and of course Marines. Common sense is that bigger is better, but in this case the faster bullet will do the job just fine. Still, try to explain that to some people, nearly impossible.”
“What is
the fielding plan?”
“Both systems are being produced in huge numbers, the M-4s are going to the Army, the M-6 to the Marines and Filipinos. Still, you will see lots of National Guard people with the ’03 for some time to come.”
With that, the little group formed a firing party that blasted away at the helpless targets for thirty minutes.
Dining at a quiet side table in the Club, Larry asked, “What do you think?”
“I am not expert, but they look very good. The M-4 could be an exact clone of we called the M-14
developed in the 1950s or 60s. The M-6 looks odd, but ought to get the job done. Will enough ammunition be ready in time?”
“That was a weak argument some people used. In truth we need so much ammo that the amount on hand is simply meaningless, a drop in the bucket.”
“Any chance of getting a grenade launcher ready in time?”
“It is not ready yet, and I guess that means it is a nonstarter. We had people look at the problem but we couldn’t figure how to solve the recoil problem. Instead, we are going with ‘bullet trap’ rifle grenades.”
“What does that mean?”
“Bullet trap, they are fired with live bullets, not some sort of super blank cartridge. It is easier to use.”
“The new pistol?”
“Vetoed. The brass hats simply love the .45. They hung onto it like a terrier with a bone in his teeth.
We will produce lots of 9mm for the British pistols and machine pistols, but we are going to use the .45.”
“Too late to argue I suppose.”
“The clock is running down, no doubt about it.”
“How will the President handle Pearl Harbor? He can’t just let it happen”
“Thank God it is not up to me. I would just attack the Japs myself, but then I suspect FDR has something up his sleeve.”
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