The White Motor Company was an important
American truck manufacturer before the war. To meet the Army's requirement for
a high-speed scouting vehicle, the company offered an armoured version of one
of its commercial truck chassis designs. This was tested as the T-7, accepted
in 1938, and standardized as the M3 Scout Car in June 1939. Nearly 21,000 were
built and 3340 of the M3s, widely known as the White Scout Car, were supplied
to the USSR.
The White Motor Company was also
responsible for producing the first US designed half-track used during the war.
Based on a White commercial truck chassis, it had the body of the M3 Scout Car.
This was tested as the T-14 in 1939 and standardized as the Half-Track Car M2
and the Half-Track Personnel Carrier M3 in September 1940.
The USSR would eventually receive 342 M2
Half-tracks, 2 M3s, 421 M5s, and 413 M9s.The most popular of these was the M17
Multiple Gun Motor Carriage, which was armed with quad 0.50 calibre (12.7mm)
Brownings, and the M15A1 armed with a 37mm (1.46in) automatic cannon and twin
Brownings. The USSR was sent 1000 M17s and 100 M15Als. These vehicles were very
popular during World War II because they had no indigenous armoured
self-propelled antiaircraft gun. The United States also supplied 5 M5 Light
Tanks, 2 M24 Light Tanks, 1 M25 Heavy Tank, and 115 M31 ARVs. In addition to
the receiving the half-track based mechanized guns, the USSR was sent 650 T48
Tank Destroyers (TD), 5 M18 TDs and 52 M10 TDs.
The Soviet Army pressed into service many
captured enemy vehicles. These included StuG III assault guns, which were used
as a replacement for either the SU-76 or SU-122.An interesting modification of
the PzKpfw III, many of which were captured at Stalingrad, was as an SU-76
assault gun. A total of 200 of these vehicles were fielded by the Red Army
during the war. By the end of the war, so many PzKpfw V Panther tanks had been
captured that they equipped entire Soviet tank units.
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