Panzer Sloped Armor: M 10 Tank Destroyer

During WWII US Army had a peculiar doctrine about tanks combat, this was that tanks were designed to fulfill infantry support and exploitation roles but not to tank versus tank fight; the course of the war will demostrate that this was not correct at all, so tank vs tank encounters became more frequent as expected... But following this initiall doctrine and for this purpose a tank killer was developped, and this was the M 10 Tank Destroyer, also called "3-inch Gun Motor Carriage M 10". Lightly armored, quickly and well armed, this tanks had to stop "blitz" attack and destroy enemy tanks and other armored targets.

Built on a Sherman chasis, the M 10 had an sloped lighter armor, open roof turret and a powerfull 3 inch (76.2 mm) gun. Counter-weights and extended shapes on the rear part of the turret were built because of imbalance of the heavy gun. The M10 served in all fronts and demostrate to be succesfull against light and medium tanks, such as the German Panzer IV, but not against Panther or Tiger and heavy tanks. In the last months of war in Germany, the M 10 played a role as a tank itself more than a tank destroyer, because of the need of armored vehicles. Open turrets made them vulnerable to infantry, mortar and anti-tank weapons and the gun could not elevate so high as Sherman did, and this was a problem in urban fight, very common to take German cities...

A better improved version of this tank was the 90mm Gun Motor Carriage M36, that entered in service by the fall of 1944. With the appearance of the M26 Pershing Tank in the last days of WWII, a "real" tank that could play the role as a tank as itself and also engage and destroy all enemy tanks, the doctrine of an unique tank destroyer was abandoned.