Editing M3 Lee (section)

===Eastern Europe—Soviet service===
[[File:Soviet M3 Lee tanks of the 6th Guards Army Kursk July 1943.jpg|thumb|A company of M3 Lee tanks of the Soviet [[6th Guards Army]] advance towards the front line during the [[Battle of Kursk]], July 1943]]

Beginning from 1941, 1,386 M3 medium tanks were shipped from the US to the Soviet Union, with 417 lost when their transporting vessels were sunk by German submarine, naval and aerial attacks en route.<ref name="ww2-weapons.com"/><ref>{{citation |script-title=ru:Барятинский М. П. «Трёхэтажный» американец Сталина. Танк M3 «Генерал Ли» / «Генерал Грант». — М.: Яуза, Эксмо, 2011. — 104 с. — (Арсенал коллекция). — 1700 экз. — |isbn=978-5-699-49808-6 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=lufOAAAAQBAJ |language=ru|date=25 July 2019|publisher=Litres }}</ref> These were supplied through the American [[Lend-Lease]] program between 1942 and 1943.

Soviet Red Army personnel tended to refer to the M3 as the "Grant", even though all of the M3s shipped to Russia were "Lee" variants. The official Soviet designation for it was the ''М3 средний'' (''М3с''), or "M3 Medium", to distinguish the Lee from the US-built [[M3 Stuart]] light tank, which was also acquired by the USSR under Lend-Lease and was officially known there as the ''М3 лёгкий'' (''М3л''), or "M3 Light".<ref>[http://armor.kiev.ua/Tanks/WWII/stuart/stuart1.php Лёгкий танк M3/M5 «Генерал Стюарт» ''(In Russian)''], "M3/M5 General Stuart Light Tank" from (Baryatinsky M. Armored Vehicles of the USA 1939-1945 — Moscow: Modelist-Constructor, 2009. — 40 p. — (Armored Collection. 2009. № 1 (82)) via armor.kiev.ua</ref> 

Due to the vehicle's petrol-fueled engine, a high tendency to catch fire, and its vulnerability against most types of German armor the Soviet troops encountered from 1942 onwards, the tank was almost entirely unpopular with the Red Army since its introduction in the Eastern Front.<ref name="WinchesterDrury2011">{{cite book|first1=Charles D.|last1=Winchester|first2=Ian|last2=Drury|title=Hitler's War on Russia|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Gum6CwAAQBAJ&pg=PA138|date=20 August 2011|publisher=Bloomsbury Publishing|isbn=978-1-84908-995-1|pages=138–}}</ref> In the letter sent to Franklin Roosevelt (18 July 1942), Stalin wrote: "I consider it my duty to warn you that, according to our experts at the front, U.S. tanks catch fire very easily when hit from behind or from the side by anti-tank rifle bullets. The reason is that the high-grade gasoline used forms inside the tank a thick layer of highly inflammable fumes."<ref>{{cite web | url=https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/correspondence/02/42.htm | title=Correspondence between the Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR and the Presidents of the USA and the Prime Ministers of Great Britain during the Great Patriotic War of 1941 - 1945 }}</ref>
{{check quotation}}
With almost 1,500 Russian [[T-34]] tanks being built every month, Soviet use of the M3 medium tank declined soon after mid-1943. Soviet troops still fielded their Lee/Grant tanks on secondary and less active fronts, such as in the Arctic region during the Red Army's [[Petsamo–Kirkenes Offensive]] against German forces in Norway in October 1944, where the obsolete US tanks faced mainly captured French tanks used by the Germans, such as the [[SOMUA S35]], which to a limited extent was somewhat comparable to the Lee/Grant it fought against.