I'm gonna page in Paul M. Weir, resident doctor of AFV-ology on the GS Forums.
Hi all, Jon just alerted me to this thread, possibly to no avail. I have no idea whether the Soviets got canister with their M3s. Quite honestly I have no idea which ammo types and in what ratio they got other than they got 37mm ammo.
OK, I'll try to construct a chain of events, could very well be wrong, but my best attempt at sense.
While some M3s might have come from UK LL stocks, especially early on, I believe/suspect that most came from straight from US stocks. That would very strongly suggest that they would come with US type ammo loads, unlike the British who did not see the importance of HE early in the war.
That reminds me about AP ammo. The M6 gun on the M3/M5 series had 2 types, the M74 AP-T and the M51 APCBC-T (Armour Piercing Capped Ballistic Capped - Tracer). The M74 could only manage about 40 mm (one figure gave 36 mm) at 0° at 500m while the M51 managed about 60 mm (61 mm). Whatever about the exact figures which vary a bit by testing conditions, that would equate to an ASL TK of 9 and 11 respectively. You could legitimately use a
37LL TK of 9 for early M3 usage. I think this is what is somewhat reflected in SSR 7 in U2 "Sweep For Bordj Toum Bridge". I have read comments that the M6 gun was inferior to the British 2lbr and ones that it was superior. Both would be true if you allow for the strikingly different performance of the M74 and M51 rounds.
The Soviets did produce Canister for many of their guns, especially their smaller guns, so was canister would conform to their doctrine. As I said, most M3s were likely from US stocks and thus likely have US ammo loads.
Now let us look at the ASL counters. The US M3A1 (Yanks 2) has
C7, the Soviet M3A1 (HP) has
C6. I maybe misremembering, but the RB said that Special Ammunition numbers should be reduced by 1 when used by an allied nation and the Soviet M3A1 follows that pattern. So it's not a simple copy of the US vehicle and I deduce from that that the back room Rule Book people definitely did intend for the Soviet version to have canister. So whatever about the Soviets in real life getting canister, ASL Soviet M3A1 definitely get canister.
So if you are concerned with the game representation, then Yes, with history, then Maybe.