KerbalX

As part of my War Thunder tech tree series

The M10 Tank Destroyer

The M10 Tank Destroyer, or 3 Inch Gun Motor Carriage, M10 as it was officially designated, was a lightly armored, heavily armed tank destroyer (as per it’s name). It was built on the M4 Sherman’s chasis (which by extension was based on the M3 Lee’s, the Lee’s was based on… and on and on. American Military Technology was always built on the tried and tested).

The M10 was built as a stop gap for the Tank Destroyer force. The Doctrine™ at the time was that the front-line tanks (Sherman and such) would spearhead the assault, and when heavier armor than expected was encountered, the highly mobile, lightly armored and heavily armed tank destroyers would mobilize to the front, deal with the enemy, and stay behind the front-line tanks. The M10 had an excellent main cannon, being a high velocity 3 in. anti-tank gun. However, it’s mobility was slower than what the Tank Destroyer force needed. It obviously was lightly armored, as it would be envisioned to maneuver and ambush the enemy with it’s mobility, and didn’t need to face direct fire.

There were some flaws in the M10’s design. The turret slew was completely manual, and as such, turret traverse is slow and manual. Another issue was that the twin diesel engine layout needed a lot of POL (Petrol, Oil, Lubricant). The gun had to be stowed during any movement, so whenever the M10 had to position or reposition, the turret had to be hand cranked 180 degrees every time.

Driving the tank…

…is just the same as all my other tanks
A and D turn the tank left and right
J and L slew (turn) the turret left and right
I and K elevate the gun

Turn on no crash damage

Turret slew is very slow on this one (10 deg/s). The MG is linked to the target angle, so you can use J and L to set the target angle, and use MG can be used to estimate where the turret angle will be. Rule of thumb is that the MG will always point forward, if turret isn’t moving. If turret is moving, the turret will move to the angle where the MG will point forward

A stock aircraft called 3 Inch Gun Motor Carriage, M10. Built with 1939 of the finest parts, its root part is roverBody.v2.

Built in the SPH in KSP version 1.8.1.

Details

• Type: SPH
• Class: rover
• Part Count: 1939
• Pure Stock