Question - how much authority did doctrine have within the RA in WW2? I know that prior to the 1930s(?) the battery itself was the primary organizational unit and that only changed to the regiment. My understanding is that Director of Royal Artillery was not what we would think of as a commander of the RA, either. On the ground, within anti-tank units, there are all sorts of cases of units with M10s using them not just to drive to their firing positions and establishing them, but acting in a more mobile capacity. But... that was against official doctrine.
"Development of Artillery Tactics and Equipment" is a good contemporary work on the subject. Not a straightforward 'doctrinal essay' but lots of examples of what the RA thought would be done and what they actually did do. It's available as a download from MLRS for a reasonable price, and as such takes up no bookshelf space whatsoever! Gary
Although various A/Tk SP equipments must have been in development at the time, the above book has the M10s as a stopgap solution to getting the assault divisions' A/Tk guns across the beaches to secure the beachhead. SPs were subsequently 'perpetuated' in the inf divs because the towed 17-pr was such a beast to move and dig in. The 'doctrine' - playing catch-up to the hardware - became 6-prs and SP 17-prs forward, with towed 17-prs further back as long stops. Obviously there was a different rationale for the armd divs.
Do you mean with regards to Valentine SPs? I think it's actually November 1944 in both Italy and NWE though I'd have to double check Italy. (It depends somewhat on whether we consider the 6 in Italy in September-October to be "issued" or "on trial". I think they were trial vehicles.) But none of this gets at the question I'm asking Was it considered "wrong" for a regiment to decide to use its SPs in a way that was not according to established doctrine? Was there any potential punishment for it? Let me dig up an example...
Huh, ok, the example of M10s in use that I thought one regiment was executing on, was actually just better worked out procedure for "use the M10s to get into position ASAP, get replaced by towed guns after". Had sensible stuff like "don't send M10s into the unknown". On the other hand, the regimental history of the 93rd Anti-Tank Regiment said - here we go - "with the M.10s, which we knew well, and the M.10C, which we were getting for the first time, we had really good weapons which proved invaluable in harrying the Boche." (My emphasis)
Re: Oct 1944 - what's not clearly stated is when and why 'Archer' development started, particularly in the context of operational experience suggesting even inf divs need SPs and 'Avenger' being slow to get off the ground. Obviously M10C was being developed before D-Day and the text implies 17-pr SP Valentines were gestating 'around the same time'. Oct 43 does sound a bit early but there's usually a lot more to the conversions than meets the eye.
I suspect it would have been 'wronger' for an SP troop commander to excuse himself from the fight on the basis that his was a purely defensive role. Beyond that, medals were won for sallying out in M10s, playing panzerjager and getting away with it. No doubt if it had gone wrong, the citation would have become a caution against departing from doctrine.
Ah - I see you've answered the development question in the production thread with the first Archers coming off the line in May 1944. That muddies the waters as they predate the 'inf divs need SPs' argument in the staff history. What else would they have been used for?
Idler - they were "insurance" in case the US could not provide enough M10s. In the bit you quoted, about the specification in September 1942 - design actually started before then, in the summer of '42, based on a request from (if I remember correctly) ACIGS Evetts to come up with designs for SPs based on existing tank chassis.
