M3 Lee

The Medium Tank M3 was an American tank used during World War II. In Britain the tank was called by two names based on the turret configuration and crew size. Tanks employing US pattern turrets were called the "Lee", named after Confederate General Robert E. Lee. Variants using British pattern turrets were known as "Grant", named after U.S. General Ulysses S. Grant.

Design commenced in July 1940, and the first M3s were operational in late 1941. The U.S. Army needed a medium tank armed with a 75mm gun, and coupled with the United Kingdom's demand for 3,650 medium tanks immediately, the Lee began production by late 1940. The design was a compromise meant to produce a tank as soon as possible. The M3 had considerable firepower as it was well armed and provided good protection, but had certain serious drawbacks in its general design and shape, such as: a high silhouette, an archaic sponson mounting of the main gun, riveted construction, and poor off-road performance. Its overall performance was not satisfactory and the tank was withdrawn from front line duty — except in the remote areas of the Asian Theater where it was used by British forces until mid-1944 or possibly later — as soon as the M4 Sherman became available in large numbers. In spite of this it was considered by Hans von Luck (a Colonel in the Wehrmact and author of Panzer Commander) superior to the best German tank at the time of its introduction, the Panzer IV.

Lee

Lee may refer to:

People

Given name

  • Lee (English given name), a given name in English
  • Surname

  • Lee (Chinese surname), several Chinese surnames
  • Lee (surname 李) or Li (Hanzi ), a common Chinese surname
  • Lee (surname 利) or Li (Hanzi ), a Chinese surname
  • Lee (English surname), a common English surname
  • Lee (Korean surname) or Rhee or Yi (Hanja , Hangul or ), a common Korean surname derived from the Chinese (, Li)
  • List of people with surname Lee
  • List of people with the Chinese family name Lee
  • List of people with the Korean family name Lee
  • Geography

    Great Britain

  • Lee, Devon
  • Lee, London
  • Lee-on-the-Solent
  • Lee District (Metropolis)
  • The Lee, Buckinghamshire, parish and village name, formally known as Lee
  • River Lee - alternative name for River Lea
  • United States of America

  • Lee (RTA Blue Line Rapid Transit station), a station on the RTA Blue Line in Cleveland, Ohio
  • Li (surname 李)

    Li (Chinese: ; pinyin: ) is the second most common surname in China, behind only Wang. It is also one of the most common surnames in the world, shared by 93 million people in China, and more than 100 million worldwide. It is the fourth name listed in the Song dynasty classic text Hundred Family Surnames. According to the Sixth National Population Census of the People's Republic of China, Li takes back the number one surname in China with a population of 95,300,000 (7.94%).

    The name is pronounced as "Lei" in Cantonese, but is often spelled as Lee in Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan and many other overseas Chinese communities. In Macau, it is also spelled as Lei. In Indonesia it is commonly spelled as Lie.

    The common Korean surname, Lee (also romanized as Yi, Ri, or Rhee), and the Vietnamese surname, , are both derived from Li and are historically written with the same Chinese character, 李. The character also means "plum" or "plum tree".

    According to tradition, the Li surname originated from the title Dali held by Gao Yao, a legendary minister of the Xia dynasty, and was originally written with the different character, 理. Laozi (Li Er), the founder of Taoism, was the first historical person known to have the surname and is regarded as the founding ancestor of the surname.

    Lee (English given name)

    Lee is a given name derived from the English surname Lee (which is ultimately from a placename derived from Old English leah "clearing; meadow"). As the surname of Robert E. Lee (1807-1870), the name became popular in the American South after the Civil War, its popularity peaking in 1900 at rank 39 as a masculine name, and in 1955 at rank 182 as a feminine name. The name's popularity declined steadily in the second half of the 20th century, falling below rank 1000 by 1991 as a feminine name, and to 666 as of 2012 as a masculine name. In the later 20th century, it also gained some popularity in the United Kingdom, peaking among the 20 most popular boys' names during the 1970s to 1980s, but it had fallen out of the top 100 by 2001.

    Lee is also a hypocoristic form of the given names Ashley, Beverly, Kimberley, and Leslie (all of which are also derived from English placenames containing -leah as a second element; with the possible exception of Leslie, which may be an anglicization of a Gaelic placename).

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