M3A3 Honey's 37mm L53 gun

Hey guys,

one quick question: Can i use the Honey's 37mm main gun as an autocannon for aimed fire with small arms & machine guns?
The reason for my question is this:

In the rulebook on page 28 they say that heavy autocannons (37mm and 40mm) have a rate of fire of 8. If i follow these sentences the Honey would be a quite good anti-infantry vehicle with good suppressive and aimed fire capabilities against infantry.
And now, let's talk about my problem: On page 131 under 'Canadian guns' the 37mm L53 isn't listed as an autocannon, but as a 'very light gun'. Only 20mm and 40mm Bofors are listed as autocannons.

So what do you think? Can i use it as an autocannon for fighting infantry or do i have do playe the Honey's gun as a quite weak 'normal' tank gun and use it's HE-Ammo with it's poor HE effect against infantry?

Best regards,
Daedalus

It's not an autocannon. The reloading system of the gun is different to autocannons and it was developed as an anti-tank gun. So, its only the poor gun you find in the "very light gun"-section of the rulebook.
The 40mm Bofors as an example was designed as an autocannon.

The 37mm actually didn't have an HE round. It used a canister round (big ass shotgun) for anti-personnel. But, for game purposes the very light gun is a good representation for this.
Also it's not an AC due to the fact that it's ammo is individually load by the loader and not magazine or clip fed.

Actually the 37mm L/53 had two types of HE round, the M63 with 39 grams of TNT filler, and the Mk II with 27 grams - barely enough to blow your nose, but as stated above it also fired a very useful canister round with 122 steel balls which was extremely effective against personnel and broke up many Banzai charges in the Pacific

I hope there is a rule for the M3's canister round in the Pacific book. They used it a LOT there. The Sherman had one as well but they found the bag often tore when loading so it was largely ineffective because of this.

I stand corrected, I went back and looked at my resources and the 37mm did have HE rounds. Like what Stuart J stated. It just was not used much by the crews.

As others noted, the 37mm gun of the Stuart is NOT an autocannon.