From: ddoyle9570@aol.com
Date: Mon Jan 20 2003 - 06:52:43 PST
Steve is absolutely correct about the differences between guns and howitzers, which translate directly to why there were Howitzer Motor Carriages, and Gun Motor Carriages.
The US Army's change in nomenclature from "____Motor Carriage" to "Self Propelled _____" occured between February 1948 and July 1951. Since the classification system for U.S. tanks changed on November 9, 1951, it is not unreasonable to suspect the field pieces changed at the same time. (Prior to Novemeber 9, 1951, tanks were classified by weight ie light, medium, heavy subsequent, they were classified by main gun size Tank, 76mm gun. The Pershing based M45 was "tank, 105mm howitzer." Not to be confused with the M41 based M45 155mm howitzer, which was mearly the tube and mount installed in the M44 155mm self-propelled howitzer.
The previously mentioned M8 Howitzer was not in fact a M3 chassis with different turret. While sharing many components with the M3, the hull was different. The crew entered and exited through the open top turret, there were no hatches in the hull for the driver and assistant driver.
Despite the terminology often used by the media, off the top of my head I cannot think of any Self Propelled Guns used today by the U.S. Army, they are all Self Propelled Howitzers. I believe this have been the case since the M42 Duster Self Propelled Gun was phased out. Of course, in an earlier era the M42 would have been considered a Multiple Gun Motor Carriage.
Hope this further confuses things,
David Doyle
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.4 : Wed Apr 23 2003 - 13:25:01 PDT