In message , Greg Hennessy
writes
On Tue, 8 Jun 2004 03:12:31 +0100, "Paul J. Adam"
wrote:
No insisting - the two-pound AT was a very good gun for its time and
could handily kill any Panzer that met it in 1940.

Of course.

Still doesn't excuse the lack of a HE round.

How much use was the 37mm HE, by the way?

IIRC the kiwis worked around this by putting a US 37mm shell into a 2
pounder case.

40mm Bofors. Wasn't much use as an area-effect round, though.

And at this point,
tanks either used MGs for anti-infantry work or

Not much use against anti tank guns or their crews.

Depends on the range. Worked fine against 37mm and 50mm PAKs - but not
against 88mm FlaK, which weren't particularly expected..

put howitzers in hull
mounts (M3 Grant/Lee, Char B, early Churchills)

Which of course meant one to be there at that moment in time to deal with a
threat which required HE rather than solid shot.

Interesting that if it was such a poor solution, it was so widespread.

or else armed a
proportion of the fleet with low-velocity large bore HE guns

Which AIR carried 30 odd smoke shells and 2 HE.

Think of the Panzer III / Panzer IV mix as originally planned. 37mm guns
firing solid shot for tank killing, 75mm L/24s for low-velocity HE.

It wasn't a contingency foreseen by that many, as shown by policy of the
time.

It was a silly decision, one which didn't take hindsight to see it for what
it was.

So why was it so widespread, if it was so obviously erroneous?

--
He thinks too much: such men are dangerous.
Julius Caesar I:2

Paul J. Adam MainBoxatjrwlynch[dot]demon{dot}co(.)uk