The Chieftain's Random Musings Thread

The_Chieftain: Can't say I'm particularly impressed by the response to the British Q&A on 17pr sabot accuracy.   The story of the 17pdr accuracy or lack of it is skewed by testing involving faulty ammo, a worn out gun and not a little bit of self-interest on the part of the testers (in the US). It was certainly plenty accurate enough for real life as many German tank crews can testify.     After Isigny, the British claimed it was a bad lot of ammunition, which the US accepted with some suspicion, but it is noted that the 'worn out gun' seemed to be reasonably accurate with APCBC, the British themselves concluded the effective range of APDS to be half that of APCBC, (The famous  WO 291/1263 and WO 165/135),  Indeed the claim about worn out gun and bad ammo is particularly problematic when one considers the Fort Knox tests conducted with a MkVII, and post-war ammunition. Then one has to explain why the Canadian pot sabot of 1946 was considered so much better than the British ammunition if the British ammunition was to spec, and why the British themselves after the war issued a retrofit to the projectiles which specifically did not apply to either the Canadian ammunition or the 77mm ammunition. The claim that the US was "self-interested" is unsubstantiated waffle. Indeed, without something to disprove all of the above, the claims about bad ammunition, worn-out guns, and American self-interest may well simply be British self-interest of their own. As to the round being plenty accurate for real life, I believe that many German tank crews can also testify as to the penetrating power of the American 75mm and 76mm/3" guns. Something can still be serviceable while less than desireable.