Tag Archives: 75 mm Gun Motor Carriage M3

Drive it, send it!

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A battery of the 319th Airborne Field Artillery Regiment has been documenting their testing of the Mandus Group’s Hawkeye Mobile Weapon System over the past few weeks. I first noticed the platform back in 2012. The system blends an M20 howitzer, capable of firing all NATO standard 105mm semi-fixed ammunition, with an HMMWV chassis. Using an automated digital fire control system, Hawkeye has what Mandus calls “soft recoil technology” while still coming in lighter than legacy systems according to the propaganda.

It looks pretty swag to tell you the truth, although unarmored.

More on the system (including videos!) in my column at Guns.com.

 

The 105mm Hawkeye System

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The Mandusgroup has come up with a solution searhcing for a problem in the 105mm Hawkeye system.

While its neat, fast and groovy, it lacks any armor to survive on a contested battlefield. While light, it is still heavier than a towed L16 105mm light howitzer pulled by a hummer or Jeep-type prime mover (or leapfrogged by helicopter, paradropped out of C-130s)

Click to access Hawkeye_105mm_Brochure.pdf

 

It doesn’t look that much more radical than the WWII Era 75 mm Gun Motor Carriage M3. The M3/75mm was a United States tank destroyer and self-propelled artillery piece of the World War II. It was the most numerous tank destroyer in United States Army service, during critical battles in North Africa and the Philippines, and continued to be used in more limited numbers in Sicily, before being declared obsolete in early 1944. The GMC M3 was then used by the regimental weapons companies of Marine regiments in 1944-1945 at Saipan, Peleliu, and Okinawa.

The 9-ton M3/75 carried a 75mm M1897A4 Gun with 59 rounds but had the luxury of a     6-16 mm (¼-⅝ in) armor plate and rear wheel tracks for off road tasks. Considered obsolete by 1945, its a wonder what Hawkeye is going to be used for.

Still, it looks cool as crap and I wouldnt mind  having one.