Any ideas on this Achilles wireless setup

[David Dunlop]

Jack, that American M10 aerial looks suspiciously like a High Frequency item from their extensive line of signals equipment. They did not make much use of the 19-Set, so an installation point for a B-Set aerial on their M10's would likely be irrelevant to the crew. The B-Set was for inter vehicular communication between tank crews at VERY close range. For a Commonwealth M10 crew, it would probably not take too long for them to realize with open turrets, it was likely far easier to yell or hand signal intensions to adjacent crews.

As for the turret traverse causing aerial damage from the gun barrel, that also may not have been a serious problem. the M10 turret, if I recall correctly, was manual traverse only with a 360 degree travel rate on the order of 80 to 90 seconds. Pretty slow.

I think the M10. both 3-inch and 17-pounder, also had longstanding issues with either gun being too heavy for the turret and several attempts at counterbalancing were made throughout the service life of the M10. If the vehicle was traversing a slope, there was serious risk the turret stops could fail and the weight of the barrel suddenly swing the turret to face the low side of the vehicle. Not good for crew moral.


David

[Jakko Westerbeke]

Originally Posted by David Dunlop

the M10 turret, if I recall correctly, was manual traverse only

Correct, the traversing wheel almost directly operates on the rack mounted in the hull, around the turret opening — see the TM. No traverse rate seems to be indicated in the manual, though.

[Jack Geratic]

Thank you Jakko for that manual link.

The Dennis Oliver publication also does not mention the speed at which the turret could be rotated by hand, but was certainly a disadvantage of the design. Wiki footnotes on the M10 attribute Steve Zaloga giving approximately 80 seconds to rotate the turret a full 360 degrees.

About the sloped terrain effects on the function of the vehicle, Dennis Oliver only mentions it made it difficult to rotate the turret when parked on a slope of more than four degrees. This problem was the main reason for adding weight to the turret rear. Initially the counterweight was about 3700 pounds. When a new turret was designed to afford more space to the crew, a new counterweight was also introduced and was lighter at 2500 pounds.