WW II Myth - US Ground Forces Preferred the AP shot for the 57-mmBy Copyright 2015, J.D. Neal, All Rights Reserved

This isnt a myth as of yet, but it is a wonder someone hasnt glommed onto it using the typical piercing analysis one finds in military discussions. For those who do not know, the 57-mm M1 was a copy of the British 6-pounder that the USA built for the British and eventually issued to infantry units as their anti-armor self-defense cannon in place of the feeble 37-mm M3.The statement is simple:

US Ground Forces preferred the AP shot for the 57-mm M1 anti-tank gun.

The proof is simple:

In June 1944 US anti-tank gunners were not issued any ammunition other than armor piercing ammunition.

They will likely pull out statistics from the Army indicating how many rounds were fired and the type of ammunition they used albeit if they did that (and did a thorough job and did not prejudice the case by purposefully excluding numbers they disliked) they would bust their case.This sort of mindless circular argument serves no purpose in discussions. The U.S. Army did not prefer the AP shot over HE or other types; it simply failed to provide it until after the Normandy campaign. They were so obsessed with the 57-mm as an anti-tank gun that they didnt bother with other ammunition types. In this case, they pulled a page from the 1941 British playbook; early in the war the British were so obsessed with killing panzers that they overlooked the need for high explosive shot for tank and anti-tank guns. Given how the number one threat they typically faced was the German anti-tank gun, this was annoying to British soldiers. Once they were exposed to the US 75-mm gun in the M3 and M4 medium tanks, they adopted it because it fired both AP and HE rounds. Eventually the British got over the obsession with pure AP shot and they issued HE rounds to the 6-pounders. Which is where US crews got the HE rounds they needed until the USA began to supply it.In US Anti-Tank Artillery 1941-45 (Zaloga; Osprey; 2005) the author points out:

One of the most significant problems at the time of the 57mm gun's introduction into US Army service was the lack of ammunition types. Due to the sudden rush to put it into service, there was no production of ammunition types other than the basic armor-piercing round. The US Army in Tunisia had found that the best mix was a ratio of 85 percent armor-piercing, 10 percent high explosive, and 5 percent canister, but the later types were not ready when the gun was accepted for service in May 1943. Patton's Seventh Army on Sicily was critical of the lack of a high explosive round for the 57mm gun, since in many situations the weapon was used against targets such as buildings where an armor-piercing round was less than ideal. The T18 (later M303) high explosive round was authorized in March 1944 but was not available during the Normandy campaign. As a result, US units in France had to scrounge high explosive ammunition from British stocks for the first months of fighting in France. The T17 (later M305) canister round was produced in test batches in April 1944, but production did not begin until January 1945 and so the 57mm canister round did not arrive in combat in any significant numbers.

As you can see, US ground forces didnt want merely HE rounds, but also the canister round in effect an artillery-sized shotgun shell filled with steel shot that was devastating to infantry at close range and very handy for shredding underbrush and shooting snipers out of trees like a squirrel hunter. Eventually the US had a canister round for the 37-mm (most famous) to less famous uses in the 57-mm M1, 75-mm M3, and 105-mm M2 howitzer.Zaloga quotes various officers:

We sure need high explosive for the 57mm. It is the only weapon in the infantry regiment with the flat trajectory like the 88, but there is no high explosive for it except for what we borrowed from the British. As a result, in the absence of tanks but the presence of pillboxes, we haven't used the 57mm very much. He himself states Some idea of the use of the guns can be determined by their ammunition expenditure. In the case of the 57mm gun, about 20 percent of the 57mm ammunition used by the First Army from August 1944 to February 1945 was high explosive, while the remainder was anti-tank ammunition. Which someone might quote as proof that the AP shot was preferred but, again, U.S. 57-mm crews were not given a large supply of HE ammunition. When faced by a bunker or house, they used what they had available, which was AP shot.Another quote concerning and officer is He also noted that the 57mm gun was used as often as not for targets other than tanks, and recommended that the basic ammunition load be 25 rounds of armor-piercing, 25 rounds of high explosive and ten rounds of the new sabot anti-tank ammunition. Thus, you see the opinions based on experience favored HE ammunition more than any previous quote did.Thus, there is a big difference between what actual ground forces wanted and what they were given to work with by the upper staff. Anyone who has not read enough about the US Military during World War II likely has not become aware that the general staff had a We dont see any need for it. mentality that completely ignored the actual needs of the men doing the fighting. They constantly interfered with the development and issue of new materials for US troops because they saw ... no need for it. They often only changed their policies what they allowed and did not allowed only after some stink arose about them cutting the knees out from under the GIs doing the actual fighting.Everyone who was in command had a hand in this, from Generals like Patton to the War Department. Patton himself defended the 37-mm anti-tank gun (despite its obvious inferiority) with a statement that was all too common for commanders and which can be paraphrased as: GIs just gotta be a Sergeant York. They gotta trick the Jerries into walking up close and turning sideways and then bop them in thin side and rear armor. Unfortunately, the Germans were not stupid and many a soldier was killed because the commanding officers thought it fun some sort of minimalist philosophy, some sort of asinine mind game - to make them use inferior weapons.