57 mm Anti-Tank Gun

[gfgrant8443]

My father was an Anti-Tank Gun crewman and I have been trying to picture how this particular weapon was deployed to be most effective.

1) Was it used with a direct line of sight to the target?

2) Would it have been positioned on the forward side of a hill, for instance to cover a crossroads or an open area that you might expect tanks to cross?

3) Was the armor piercing round the only type of ammunition available?

4) Could it be quickly broken down and towed to another position since it seems like it would be used rather close to the actual fighting to be effective?

I hope my questions don't sound silly. but being a Navy vet I have never thought much about the tactics used in a land war.

Thanks

Frank Grant

[srpratt]

I have seen many references to this as well as had my dad tell of working with it prior to coming to the 106th were he worked with 105 and 155's I believe that it was a line of sight weapon often working at ranges closer than 100 yards. See description below

Anti-tank guns with a high muzzle velocity were a German specialty, such as the German 75mm anti-tank and the famous 88. The standard issue American anti-tank gun of World War Two, the Model M-1, 57mm, lacked the punch and penetrating power of its German counterparts. Yet the 57mm proved itself a useful weapon, except when confronted head-on with the latest German battle tanks like the Panthers and Tigers. A proof point is the ad-hoc field testing report, at the bottom of the page.

This mobile weapon featured a breech mechanism which ejected shell cases automatically, thereby increasing its rate of fire. A squad of 10 men manned each gun. The M-1 was a reworked British "6 pounder", so called because it fired a 6-pound projectile. Unimpressive in appearance, the weapon replaced the under-powered American 37mm anti-tank gun. In its day, the ballistics performance was good with a muzzle velocity of about 3000 fpm. An anti-tank (AT) round could penetrate 2 inches of armor plate at 100 yards.

British and American ammunition was interchangeable between their "6 pounder" and our Model M-1. Both high explosive (HE) and armored piercing (APC or AT) and High Explosive (HE) ammunition provided a weapon with multi-functional capability. Unfortunately only AT was standard issue to the Americans. The Yanks were thus denied a capable, direct fire anti-personnel weapon. To the Brit Tommies, it was much more than a single purpose anti-tank gun. When confronted with the demand to take out a position, like an observation post or a sniper in a church steeple, the 57mm did the job well. Its combined virtues of relative stealthiness, mobility, accurate direct fire with an HE round: Armed the Brits with a useful 'sniper cannon.'

Stan Pratt

[gfgrant8443]

Stan

Thank you for taking the time to fill in a lot of blanks for me on how this gun was used. My father passed away when he was only 49 from conditions that originated while he was a POW. It was before I realized that it would eventually mean a lot to me to find out about his time with the 106th and then suddenly it was too late, and his story was lost forever.

Frank Grant