M6 Fargo

The 37 mm Gun Motor Carriage M6 was a hunter of American tank on wheels used during the Second world war.

History and use

Standardized in February 1942, 5.380 37 mm Gun Motor Carriage M6 were produced between April and October 1942 with the unit costs of 4.265$. At the time, the American military strategy consisted in giving to the tanks the role of support of infantry, the combat of the enemy armoured tanks being reserved to the Tank destroyers . The M6 Fargo were built-in within the 601st and 701st Tank Battalions Destroyer in Tunisia, of end 1942 at beginning 1943. This machine was hardly appreciated because of its weak Blindage, and of its ineffective gun against the last German tanks of the Afrikakorps. Some M6 joined the face of the Pacific of 1943 with 1944, where, vis-a-vis the tanks Japanese, it was relatively effective. With the arrival of the new tanks destroyers (M10 then M18) the M6 were gradually withdrawn from the face and were declared obsolete in January 1945.

Description

The M6 was a military version of the civil truck 4x4 Dodge Fargo, with addition of one gun in the place of the volulme of loading under cover. The gun, pointed towards the back of the truck in order to not be not gene by the cockpit. It drew from the ammunition AP M74 (AP = Armor Piercing: Anti-shielding), which could penetrate 36 mm of steel with 500 Mr. It also took along according to stock available, of APC M51 (APC = Armor Piercing Capped Ballistic Cape: Anti blaindage with point lasts) penetrating 60 mm of steel to 500 m but always of the HE M63 (HE = High Explosive, strongly explosive against the not armor-plated targets).

Not having secondary weapon, the crew often took along portable light weapons.

another use

After the Tunisian countryside, the gun of the majority of the M6 was withdrawn, giving again with the truck, a purely logistic role. These guns were then assembled on Halftrack m3 in order to improve the support of fire of the infantry. Several M6 was yielded to FFL and took part in the release of the France. In spite of its military inferiority, the FFL used all the vehicles which they found in order to compensate for their weak armament.

References

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