M10

"Wolverine, on the prowl."

– Company of Heroes

The M10 Gun Motor Carriage, 3 inch, also called the Wolverine by the Tea Drinkers, was an allied Tank Destroyer in service from 1943 to the end of the war.

3-inches of fuck you, all in a single package.

Mid War

The stats

IRL

The M10 was developed in anticipation of fighting the German Blitzkrieg tactics, using the American Tank Destroyer doctrine of light armor, but a big fuck-off gun (or at least, it was considered to be a "big fuck off gun" by the military at the time, but with things like Churchills, Tigers and ISes around the corner, that estimate proved to be inadequate). To accomplish this, a 3" gun was strapped into an open turret on top of a modified Sherman hull for the prototype. The hull was given sloped armor along with a pentagonal turret to add some extra defensive capabilities to the vehicle. Since engineers had no prior experience with tank destroyers, it had... questionable decisions like putting a 1 ton counterweight at the back of the turret. The final 300 vehicles were given 90mm guns to give them better performance over the 3" M7. An M2 MG was strapped to the top for additional anti-aircraft and anti-personnel defense.

The Wolverine performed adequately but was found to not conform to the American Tank Destroyer doctrine of WWII due to its heavier hull. The Army in the Pacific hated the vehicle due to the open-top making them vulnerable to Japanese zerg tactics, while the few Soviets received literally by accident, learning of M10's existence by looking through technical documentation of M4A2 in 1944, were used in 2nd Tank Army primarily as self-propelled artillery. However, there is a record of one M10 taking out a column of German vehicles, including three tanks, from an ambush near Lublin. The Free French were supplied with them, and most notably killed a Panzer V during the Liberation of Paris. The British developed their own variant called the Achilles, which put a QF-17 Pounder in the M10 chassis. Audie Murphy earned a medal of honor using the MG on the rear of the vehicle to hold back German soldiers while using the radio to call in artillery barrages.

Near the end of the war, the M10 was increasingly obsolete, and desperate attempts to keep the vehicle viable in combat service included strapping sandbags and lumber to the outside for extra protection. It also had a hand traversed turret, something that was increasingly obsolete in the latter part of the war against the modern and more efficient electrically traversed Panzers, with a notable exception of poor Pz IV Ausf.J. It was largely replaced by the M18 and the M36 by the end of the war, but was kept on due to the sheer number of them and ease of repairability.

Some were exported to nationalist China, but those were quickly lost to advancing People's Liberation Army.