37 mm Gun M3 - wow!

[Yaab]

I have never noticed that this gun has anti-soft rating of 16! On average, it has better stats than 75-81mm pack guns/mortars, though its range is inferior. I remember those guns used canister rounds during Guadalcanal campaign. By the way, US Divisions have 59 such guns in it TOE! Other Allied small calibre AT guns seem to shoot AP rounds only. Nice touch.

BTW, so Japanese had no canister rounds for their 37-45mm AT guns?

[wdolson]

I believe canister was only used on US built 37mm. It basically turned the gun into a giant shotgun, though I believe it caused a lot of barrel wear.

The Japanese did develop a canister type shot for the 18.1 inch guns on the Yamato class for AA. It was only used once by the Musashi with no effects.

Bill

[Yaab]

Thanks. I can hardly imagine a Jap shock attack against a US division packing 59 of those guns. The defending units gets additional round of fire during shock attacks. Come to think of it, upgrading 37mm M3s to 57mm AT guns is a trade off, as the latter has anti-soft value of 2 but higher anti-armor rating.

[crsutton]

ORIGINAL: Yaab

Thanks. I can hardly imagine a Jap shock attack against a US division packing 59 of those guns. The defending units gets additional round of fire during shock attacks. Come to think of it, upgrading 37mm M3s to 57mm AT guns is a trade off, as the latter has anti-soft value of 2 but higher anti-armor rating.

When you upgrade American infantry units you get so many other upgrades to your anti soft firepower that I would not worry about the loss of the firepower of the 37mm gun. The 57 mm pretty along with the arrival of the bazooka which boosts the AT value of your squads pretty much negate the influence of any Japanese armor on a battle and I think that is of greater importance in the long run.