July 24, 2024
Medium Tank M3 Grant Mk I, "Chicago", 3rd Squadron, Warwickshire Yeomanry.
The Grant was essentially the US M3 Lee Medium tank built to British Army specifications which replaced the Lee 37mm Turret with a lower profile turret large enough to accommodate the radio were the tank commander could operate it thus reducing the crew from 7 to 6 men and lowering the silhouette of the tank. The Grants entered service in Libya in May 1942 and first saw combat at Gazala where they gave the Germans a bit of a shock as the 75mm gun outranged all the existing German tanks at the time. The Grant had some undesirable features including the limited traverse hull mounted main gun, rivetted construction and a rather high silhouette. These flaws were accepted as the tank was a temporary stop gap until the M4 Sherman was available. Despite any tactical advantage offered by the Grant, Gazala was a route of the British due to poor tactics on their part and bold tactics by the Axis forces. The British fell back to Tobruk, then into Egypt finally holding a line at El Alamein. In the wake of this debacle, the 9th Armored Brigade was sent from Syria to Egypt and attached to the 2nd New Zealand Infantry Division and took part in the opening phase (Operation Lightfoot) of the British attack in October 1942 on the El Alamein Line (2nd Battle of El Alamein). This action cost the Brigade 102 of 128 tanks.