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Buq-Buq · ***Power User*** Offline Joined: Mar 04, 2006 Posts: 87

While browsing an online photo collection of the Indian Ahmednegar Cavalry Tank Museum, I found photos of a surviving Grant CDL tank. The vehicle has been fitted with an extremely long gun: not a normal M2 or M3 75mm piece . . . possibly an M1 76mm gun, or maybe a fake gun tube altogether (although I notice that there is a bit of taper to it, making me think that it is genuine). The vehicle has the typical Grant CDL-style stowage bins.

The photo collection page:

www.bharat-rakshak.com...ankMuseum/

The Grant CDL:

www.bharat-rakshak.com...4.jpg.html

www.bharat-rakshak.com...5.jpg.html

There are several other very interesting vehicles at this museum, to include a DD Sherman, a Sherman Crab, and a vehicle described as an M3 Halftrack, but what looks to me to be a T48 57mm Gun Motor Carriage.

www.bharat-rakshak.com...1.jpg.html

www.bharat-rakshak.com...2.jpg.html

Mark

Hanno_Spoelstra · ***Power User*** Offline Joined: Jun 04, 2006 Posts: 185

- Buq-Buq

The vehicle has been fitted with an extremely long gun: not a normal M2 or M3 75mm piece . . . possibly an M1 76mm gun, or maybe a fake gun tube altogether (although I notice that there is a bit of taper to it, making me think that it is genuine).

Could it be a distored picture due to using a wide-angle lens?

Pzkpfw-e · ***Power User*** Offline Joined: Jul 21, 2010 Posts: 1202

In profile, a very big "nose"!
The one auctioned at Melbourne has a similarly impressive proboscis!

the_shadock

Mark,

this Grant CDL is already listed in this PDF file :

http://the.shadock.free.fr/Surviving_Lee_Grant.pdf

This is not a new vehicle to me, sorry.

However, like other members of this forum, I wonder why it has a longer barrel than other Lees/Grants (this barrel also seems original to me, it is obviously not a fake one).

Pierre-Olivier

Buq-Buq · ***Power User*** Offline Joined: Mar 04, 2006 Posts: 87

Pierre-Oliver, Guys:

Ah! I see! Sorry about that . . . I got all excited. I looked in my copy of the Lee/Grant Survivors PDF, but the one that I have is apparently from 2008 or so.

Sad

The CDL photo in the PDF is great to have, being from a different angle than the two on the Ahmednegar Museum site. Also, the turret is much more clear in this depiction.

Anyway! That gun is very unusual . . . and, now that you mention it, Pzkpfw-e, the M3A3 Grant shown in your lower photo looks to have a very similar gun. I had previously assumed that it was just an M3 75mm Gun, but perhaps the angle of the photo has deceived me. Is it possible that both vehicles mount a larger gun, perhaps a 76mm M1 or M1A1? I have never hear of it happening before, but then again, I also didn’t think that there were any extant Grant CDLs left anywhere, either.

Would a 76mm M1 Gun fit in the sponson of a Grant?

Where would the Australians and the Indians have come up with a 76MM M1 Gun? I am not aware of the Australians ever receiving 76mm-armed AFVs (the Indians did receive M4A1E4 and M4A3E4 Shermans via MAP at some point . . . 1950s?).

Then again, maybe these are just M3 75mm-armed Grants.

Pierre-Oliver, thanks again for the new link to the PDF; there’s lots of great new things in there!

Mark

Pzkpfw-e · ***Power User*** Offline Joined: Jul 21, 2010 Posts: 1202

A Lee with a big gun.

Doug_Kibbey

Wiki begs to be corrected. Wink

In the article on CDL, it states:

"A CDL equipped Matilda tank still exists as part of the collection of the Royal Armoured Corps Tank Museum at Bovington, Dorset, in Britain. It is the only one of its type known to exist. There are no Grant examples."

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...ence_Light

Roy_A_Lingle

Hi Folks!

I went back and looked at all the M3 Lees and Grants photos I have collected over the years. I remember thinking that a number of photos looked odd, but I didn't catch it. After seeing this thread, I took a longer look and noticed a number of long barrels. After that, I went and pulled out Hunnicutt's Sherman book and review the sections on 75mm guns. A number of the photos in that book have the long barrels also.

In a couple of the photos he calls them "T8/M3 Long barreled 75mm cannons (the same cannon that was installed in the Shermans). This has me wondering about all the shorter barrels without a counter weight. Are those M2s without a counter weight fitted?

Could Hunnicutt have missed something and there were THREE types of 75mm guns mounted in the M3 Lee/Grants?

The only thing I am sure of is those longer barrels are not 76mm cannons.

Sgt, Scouts out!

Doug_Kibbey

- Roy_A_Lingle

Hi Folks!

I went back and looked at all the M3 Lees and Grants photos I have collected over the years. I remember thinking that a number of photos looked odd, but I didn't catch it. After seeing this thread, I took a longer look and noticed a number of long barrels. After that, I went and pulled out Hunnicutt's Sherman book and review the sections on 75mm guns. A number of the photos in that book have the long barrels also.

In a couple of the photos he calls them "T8/M3 Long barreled 75mm cannons (the same cannon that was installed in the Shermans). This has me wondering about all the shorter barrels without a counter weight. Are those M2s without a counter weight fitted?

Could Hunnicutt have missed something and there were THREE types of 75mm guns mounted in the M3 Lee/Grants?

The only thing I am sure of is those longer barrels are not 76mm cannons.

Sgt, Scouts out!

Could some of those have been command vehicles with a fake gun welded on like an M31? Just guessing, 'cause the guns actually look "real" enough with functional elevation provisions.

Pzkpfw-e · ***Power User*** Offline Joined: Jul 21, 2010 Posts: 1202

The long barrels do look fully functional, not just rolled, sheet metal, like the M31's "barrel"
Are these the same 75mm M7 weapons that the M10/Wolverine touted?

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