Going into WWII, the prevailing strategy of the US command was that
tanks were not to be used to engage enemy tanks in combat. Rather, tanks
were to be the armored spearhead to breach enemy positions. Enemy tanks
were to be dealt with by specialized weapons, aptly named tank
destroyers.
While the 3-inch weapon of the M10 was superior to that found on earlier
US tank destroyers, it was still found to be inadequate against the
ever-increasing weight of German armor. An even larger gun, the 90mm M3,
was placed in a new, bigger open-topped turret on 100 new hulls purpose
built for this, and by remanufacturing M10A1s, primarily from US-based
training units. As the supply of these chassis was depleted, additional
vehicles were created by converting Diesel-powered M10s, resulting in
the M36B2. The M36B1 was built from the ground-up as a tank destroyer,
using a hull based on that of the M4A3 but featuring a standard M36
turret. Examination of rare surviving vehicles indicate that the M36B1
hulls were manufactured expressly for this purpose, and were not merely
M4A3 hulls that were converted.
While US antitank doctrine changed, rendering all the tank destroyers
obsolete post-WWII, many of these vehicles were supplied to other
nations, and in fact some survived as combat vehicles into the 21st
century.
