I’ve had a look through Jeffrey Plowman’s book about the NZ 2nd Division in Italy. I’m 99% certain that the New Zealanders didn’t use the Archer there. As for the Australians, I don’t have any books about their armour as such. I don’t think they had the Archer though. AFAIK they didn’t have any ground units in Europe at the time the Archer was used – and I don’t think they or the New Zealanders would have used it in the SW Pacific. I had a quick look at some Australian websites and I couldn’t find anything. Perhaps someone else knows more?
The Plowman book confirms that the 7th Anti-tank Regiment received 3-inch M10s in June 1944 and used them in combat in July. It also uses the photos of a NZ 17-pdr M10 that I posted above. Unfortunately it does not say when the 17-pdr M10s were introduced. It might have been October 1944 because the Regiment was reorganised at that time. This diagram shows a Battery sometime after the reorganisation.
The M10s and towed 17-pdrs were in Troops of four guns. The diagram seems to show a 17-pdr M10 (gun C2) with three 3-inch M10s.
When I was looking through the armoured units in the book I noticed that the New Zealanders used Shermans up-gunned with 17-pdrs. I would therefore like to suggest a couple more possible updates for the New Zealand OOB: (1) bring forward the availability start date for the
VC Firefly (spob15/ Unit 025) and (2) add the
Sherman Hybrid IC (spob07/ Unit 302).
The Plowman book says that the VC Firefly was “first received around October 1944.” They were originally issued to Squadron HQs. The book also says that the Sherman Hybrid IC was used before the VC Firefly “late in 1944” - without being more specific.