Copper Nicus said:
This should be easy question:
What tank it is?
Note: I had to hide name written on the turret...
Though never deployed in battle, this tank did see service in the propaganda war. Captured documents after the war with Germany showed that they had worries about America's "Super Tank" and devoted time, effort, and money into the discovery of counter measures. At the time of concept and first production, this tank was considered the most powerful in the world. The M6, due to teething problems, would never see actual service in the American army though. Doubts existed as to it's mechanical reliability and there were fears that the tank was too heavy for actual operational duties. This was to be seen in the deployed German Tiger. The Tiger was a real battle winner when it wasn't:
1. broken down (Tigers had poor mechanical reliability and were hard to recover).
2. late to arrive because of low speed.
3. out of fuel.
4. able to get past rivers with bridges that could not support it's weight.
The M6 was in production at Baldwin Locomotive Works in December 1942 and was undergoing tests by the spring of 1943. Tests showed that the design was poor from the ergonomics point of view. Controls and weapons controls were awkward and inconvenient to operate. The M6 and M6A1 were identical except for the manufacture of the hulls. The M6 was cast and the M6A1 was welded.
The M6 and M6A1, with the exception of one M6A1 produced at General Motors Fisher Body Division, were all built by Baldwin. A total of 43 vehicles were built there (eight M6, twelve M6A1, twenty T1E1). At one point, 230 T1E1 were ordered, but this was cancelled as operational needs showed that commanders would rather have two 30 ton mediums than one 60 ton heavy tank. All important dimensions, like armor thickness and size were identical to the M6. The purpose of constructing a welded model was to test building this type for manufacturing plants that could not produce cast hulls.
A variation to the design was the
M6A2E1 in which only one was constructed (bottom row, right photo). This tank was built to a specific need: to break tough defensive positions in Europe. The T5E1 105mm cannon was used and the turret ring increased from 69" to 80". The vehicle's height went up to 11' 5" as a result of the new turret. and the length (with the gun) went to just under 37'. A goal was to build 15 of these monsters and ship them quickly to the European theater. European commands considered this tank and promptly rejected it. The thought of a 154,000 pound vehicle that could only travel 18mph was considered too difficult to deploy.
One T1E1 survives today and can be seen at the museum at Aberdeen.
