Customer Reviews

M18 Hellcat Tank Destroyer 1943-97 (New Vanguard)

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The M18 Hellcat was a very important tank destroyer used by the U.S. in WWII. Even though it was armed with the 76mm gun used by later M4 Sherman tanks, the Hellcat had a new suspension system, high maneuverability, and high road speed, which enabled it to outmaneuver German Panthers and Tigers where it could fire well-placed flanking shots at its targets. Steven Zaloga does a marvelous job of describing the development and combat performance of the Hellcat. He includes helpful information such as the production numbers and the armor penetration of the 76mm M1A1 gun (compared to the British 17 pounder and the German 75mm gun). What fascinated me the most was Zaloga's detailed description of the combat performance of the M18, especially against German Panthers & Tigers at the battle of Arracourt in mid-September 1944 and the Battle of the Bulge. Zaloga points out the strengths (its reliability and high maneuverability) and deficiencies of the M18 in combat (e.g. its thin armor, the lack of roof armor, and the lack of co-axial machine gun). He also writes about the performance of the M18 in the Japanese theater of operations and post-WWII service. The colored illustrations and plates by Jim Laurier are excellent as usual. If you want a brief but complete treatment of the M18 Hellcat, this is an excellent book to buy. Steven Zaloga is one of my favorite authors on tanks and AFVs.

This book was quite disapointing to me. The author did the usual competent job one finds in all the Osprey military books of giving us all the basic technical information on the type. Weight, horsepower, dimensions, top speed. All the manufacturing information including various dead-end predecessors and subtypes. Even a nice chart comparing the penetration of the gun with other rivals (17 pounder, German 75mm's etc.)

Thing is, all that basic data can be easily found in the internet from any number of sources. Even the ballistics info exists in every halfway decent wargame or WW II tactical computer Sim out there, and have been around since before the days of Squad Leader. Personally, I was looking for something a bit more in depth, and of this there was only the barest taste.

Anyone who has ever really plunged into the gritty technical details of the U.S. ground forces experience in World War II is well aware of this conundrum: looking at the data dispassionately, certainly on paper, virtually all of the U.S. tactical equipment, especially armored vehicles, seem to be MARKEDLY inferior to their German counterparts.

This is especially true later in the war as the US introduced new types at a snails pace while the Germans fielded one terrifying new ubertank after another. A Sherman wasn't just worse than a Panther, or a Jadgpanther, or a Tiger, even an 8.8 centimeter AA gun, it was COMPLETELY outmatched. Unless terrain was really to their advantage (allowing close-in fighting and lots of opportunities for point blank flanking shots) the Sherman, (and the various even more hopeless British types like the Crusader or the Cromwell say), were simply incapable of coping with German Heavy tanks or AT guns. Thats why events like operation Goodwood happened over and over again, where 30 and 40 Shermans got knocked out in a matter of minutes for no gain. And you simply can't attribute every single Allied victory to superior numbers or Air Support or even Artillery. There has to be something more to it.

One of the apparent secrets to allied successes appear to have been these relatively unknown U.S. Tank Destroyers, which seem in spite of a very flawed basic design policy and tactical doctrine (leading among other things to the lack of a bow or coaxial machine gun and extremely vulnerable open topped turrets... for essentially arbitrary reasons) seemed on several occasions to reverse the usual trend and knock out very large numbers of German tanks, including Heavy tanks, for relatively few losses.

The M-18 is one of the greatest among these mysteries. VERY lightly armored, with essentially the same gun as the other older M-10 TD and the later model Shermans, cursed with the infamous open topped turret, it's single remarkable attribute seemed to be it's extremely high speed and excellent automotive performance. And yet they were apparently loved by many of their crews (unlike Shermans!) and if U.S. statistics can be believed they seem to have done extremely well against German Armor, actually having one of the lowest loss rates of all US Armored vehicles. (Though I think these stats have yet to be cross-checked with German records even now...)

As a history nut and avid wargamer, what I was hoping to find in this book was some clue as to why it worked out this way, and precicely how this was done... exactly what tactics did they use, more specific than vaguely describing them as "hit and run...?" what kind of terrain did they prefer to fight in, we know their road speed approached 50 mph but how good was their cross country performance? Did it have any special gun sights? How fast was the turret traverse, what was the rate of fire of the gun, and how accurate was the gun? How did these factors compare to other vehicles of the day? How many shots did they normally fire before retiring, did they coordinate attacks from many directions simultaneously or rely on surprise to get their flank shots?

I found no ansewers to any of these kind of questions here, just a few more tantalizing statistics about more apparent Hellcat victories agains the Germans during the Battle of the Bulge and some other engagements. Instead, the Author seems to contradict his own data by insisting that the M-18 was a bad design and any successes were attributable to the great training and skill of their troops. Which is a nice patriotic thing to say and my hats off to all those guys, but it doesn't explain why Shermans seemed to suffer 5 losses for every one kill while according to his own book M-18's did perhaps 1 loss for 3 kills. Were M-18 crews better trained? If so, why?

The M-18 was a very contraversial design and the Generals in the increasingly discredited TD corps were basically drummed out of service for having so many bad ideas. But maybe they were on to something after all? It's a major mystery of WW II which has not been cleared up here, thats for certain. Personally if this book is ever re-issued or replaced, I could do without some of the stuff about M-18 use in the Pacific, or the never used one-offs, and a bit more about how it contributed to winning the war against the Germans in Europe.

DB