Rants and Death Traps

The_Chieftain: I'm actually not sure which of the two is correct. There was a definite intent in early Sep 43 to cease production of the 75mm tank entirely, with an acknowledgement that there would be a surfeit of hulls hanging around waiting for turrets to be put on them. The Army also was not a huge fan of cancelling already agreed upon contracts, with the resulting cancellation charges they'd be smacked with for no assets coming from that cost. It's part of the reason they were so wary about issuing contracts for new equipment until they were damned sure the new stuff was what they wanted. However, in Sept 43, Fisher wasn't building M4A3s yet. The 'cease 75mm' for Fisher referred to M4A2s.   That said, there are annecdotal notes in the records about a subsequent change in policy, such as "General X stated at this meeting that a mix of 75mm, 76mm and 105mm was desired." I have seen nothing definitive yet, though.   However, as near as I can tell, the main reason for the continued production of the 75mm tank in the late war period was actually because customers other than the US Army wanted it: The US Marines and the British Army. The Marines saw no use for the long barrelled, high-penetration vehicles in the confined terrain and pathetically armoured tanks of Japan. Similarly, the British were still taking deliveries of Shermans, and they had no interest in the 76mm for ammunition compatibility reasons (and only 75mm turrets could be converted to Fireflies). The other primary reason may have been that Fisher was involved in a number of reconditioning and conversion projects, it may well have been that M4s coming in for reconditioning could easily have their suspension changed out as part of the process, but the turret may have taken a bit more work. Or that someone decided to do an extra contract to utilise capacity for hulls and also the turrets which were no longer required for the M32 recovery vehicles, which Fisher was converting at the time.