Sherman Firefly Turrets...........

[Tim Bell]

Fireflies were hugely modified... loads of things were changed.

To the man in the street, the obvious changes are the gun and the radio box... maybe for the keen observer also the loader's hatch.

As Adrian says, whilst the original gun Shield was used, the Firefly had its own gun cradle, recoil, breech ring, block, firing mechanism, elevation mechanism, mantlet, gun telescope and mount.

Whereas the 17pdr AT gun has a vertical sliding breech block, the 17pdr Tank gun is horizontal... and from what I can tell, most 17pdr Tank had a different breech ring to accommodate a different recoil assembly...the only commonality being the breech block and firing mechanism.

The gunner's foot pedals are the same to operate the 17pdr manually and electrically, and the 30 cal coax electrically, though the gunner also had a firing switch on the traverse handle.

The turret basket is also not as deep - to accommodate the 17pdr ammo boxes underneath.

There are a load of other changes... too many to list here.

Tim