Difference between revisions of "M40 106mm"

In 1944 the US Army developed their first recoilless rifle the M18 57mm, impressed with the design work started on larger 75mm and 105mm versions. The M20 75mm was deployed in the closing days of the war but the T19 105mm was still in development when the war ended and was soon after cancelled. With the outbreak of the Korean War the M18 57mm and M20 75mm recoilless rifles struggled to penetrate the armour of the North-Korean T-34/85 tanks, so work on the larger 105mm version was restarted and the T19 was rushed into production as the M27 105mm in 1950. Once deployed into the field it was found that that the M27 suffered from reliability problems and several other issues, so work on an improved version was started. By 1952 all the problems had be resolved and the M40 106mm was put into production. The M40 was called an 106mm weapon but it was really 105mm, this was because the ammunition for the M27 & M40 looked nearly identical but was not interchangeable between the two, so to help differentiate them the M40 and it's ammunition was classified as 106mm. The M40 went on to became the standard anti-tank weapon of America and it's allies, the M40 has also been mounted on many different vehicles ranging from Jeeps to tanks.

References

• Wikipedia