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There is a picture I found that is bothering me. It's of a M4A1 76mm tank and it seems to have the turret hatches reversed. On the early 76mm gun turrets, they had the one piece commanders cupola on the right side and the split hatch for the loader on the left side. In the picture, it appears that the split hatch is on the right side. I thought that maybe the picture had been flipped as some point, but the hull machine gun is on the right side where it should be. I have not found any info about 76mm gun turrets with the hatches reversed. But I did find a second picture of a M4A1 with the split hatch on the right side. I have no good explanation for this. Any one got any info on this?



4.bp.blogspot.com/-2n1...maller.jpg

The TC may have had the hatches reversed because he preferred the protection that the split hatch offered his upper body when he was maintaining situational awareness.

Two more pictures, found on the web (missing links?) some time back. Note that one appears to have applique armor blocking the hull MG.

- Garry_Redmon

The TC may have had the hatches reversed because he preferred the protection that the split hatch offered his upper body when he was maintaining situational awareness.

That sounds like a decent explanation. Does anyone know if the hatches on the T-23 style turret pretty easy to swap?

The two cupolas used a common hole pattern on the turret, so swapping them was not a specialized operation. There are a number of photos of tanks with swapped cupolas to be found if you know what to look for. One explanation I've heard was that some TCs preferred the split hatch cupola with the MG mount rather than the vision cupola without.

Another change was to remount the vision cupola to change the angle at which the hatch opened. Much harder to detect though.

KL