Though the tank was primarily utilized as fire support for the M4 (known as the Sherman to the Brits), the M8 had superior mobility due to being less than half the mass of the M4. The M8A1 first saw action for U.S troops in the Italian campaign where it provided an alternative to older, obsolete, semi-tracked, self-propelled guns. People praised the vehicle’s ability to “shoot and scoot” at high speed, while being able to swiftly reappear at other locations on the battlefield. The 1 st Battalion and the M18 Hellcats of the 705 th TD Battalion together destroyed at least 30 German tanks. Their objective was to capture a key highway and seize, among other objectives, fuel dumps. The unit only had four M18s of the 705 th Tank Destroyer Battalion helping them and paratroopers attacked units of the 2 nd Panzer Division. In two days, December 19–20, 1944, the 1 st Battalion of the 506 th Parachute Infantry Regiment supported Team Desobry, a battalion-sized tank-infantry task force of the 10 th Armored Division.
The M18 Hellcat was one of the deciding factors in the historic Battle of the Bulge.
The Hellcat was utilized in the Italian and European theatres of war, and, along with the Sherman Firefly and M10 Wolverine, gave the allied forces a decent boost to their mobile anti-tank arsenal that went up against newer German armored vehicles. Nicknamed “Hellcat” by Buick, the tank was able to reach these insane speeds by scaling down the armor, which was no more than one inch thick. Like a bat (or cat) outta hell, the M18 Hellcat was an American tank destroyer that was the fastest tracked, armored vehicle of World War II with a top speed of up to 60 mph. You’ll find tanks that have gone down as integral parts of famous operations, while others never made it past the drawing board, leaving them up to Wargaming to fully realize in-game. With the addition of the new branch of American tank destroyers, we thought it would be a great idea to discover some of the history surrounding a few of these iconic vehicles.
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