Airborne armour at operation market garden

Deleted member 1487

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He's talking mortars, not recoilless rifles. I read it that way at first then realized that he was talking about mortars. The old M-2 4.2" was used by Chemical Mortar battalions.
Aren't you thinking of recoilless rifles not mortars?
Yes, I misread his post. I'm used to seeing them called 4.2 inch mortars or chemical mortars rather than rifled, so I jumped to conclusions.

I would have thought airborne units would have had some already.
 

Deleted member 1487

and the 4.2" were rifled...
Right, but I haven't seen them titled like that, so in reading it quickly with a line break my brain filled things in.

I've often wondered if the Allied AB divisions would have been better off with a largish group of the US 107mm rifled tube mortars? Relatively light, and very small deck coverage in the aircraft. Ammo was a bit lighter too. The trade off is less range but if you can put 50% more tubes in action perhaps theredis a gain?
With the corrections on my original comment, it appears that IOTL the 83rd Chemical Mortar Battalion did support both the 82nd and 101st Airborne at various points in the war:
https://home.army.mil/stewart/index.php/units/tenant-units/83rdChem

But chemical mortar units don't appear to have been intrinsic to any airborne division, British or American.
Which is really surprising and there isn't a good reason why not. The Brits even had their own version, not rifled though:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ML_4.2-inch_mortar
It even was towed by a Loyd Carrier
 
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The US Army did not have heavy mortars organic to their regiments or divisions in WWII. They preferred to have the short-barrelled M-3 105mm howitzer instead, they were part of the regimental cannon companies.
For whatever reason, the US Army preferred the howitzer to a heavy mortar at that time. The heavy mortar battalions were attached to the divisions based on the mission requirements just like tank destroyer battalions.
The US Army must have realized that the cannon company concept and the short-barrelled 105mm howitzer didn't quite live up to expectations and they were replaced by the Korean War with a regimental heavy mortar company using the 4.2".
 
Why go for a tracked vehicle, have the development of the Daimler Armored Car (the Dingo's bigger brother) Mk I CS ("Close Support") - Fitted with 76mm main gun, go smoother. Combine this gun with the Italian HEAT round (it often worked as an HESH round, due its bad fuse) and it can be make to fit the "box".
 
NOTE: In this scenario the weather remains clear, there are more transports available and the paratroopers land much closer to their targets.

Well, multiple PoDs are often considered as unsporty. That said, if they have all of that, they can simply succeed by loading those additional transports with more troops and towed AT guns and field guns.
 
surely you would be better giving the paratroopers a decent anti tank weapon and some decent light artillery.
 
surely you would be better giving the paratroopers a decent anti tank weapon and some decent light artillery.

They had both - 3 x 8 gun battery 75mm pack howitzers - 15 pound shell out to 8400 meters

2 x 24 gun Anti Tank batteries each with 4 batteries of 4 x 6 pounders (32 guns) and 2 batteries of 4 x 17 pounders (16 Guns)

So given that they were not expecting to have to fight any armor they took a fair amount with them
 
They had both - 3 x 8 gun battery 75mm pack howitzers - 15 pound shell out to 8400 meters

2 x 24 gun Anti Tank batteries each with 4 batteries of 4 x 6 pounders (32 guns) and 2 batteries of 4 x 17 pounders (16 Guns)
While the 75mm Pack Howitzer was able to be pushed around easily by their crews, not so with the 6 pdr, and certainly not the 17 pdr

The 75mm was 1500 pounds,but it's HEAT shell was almost useless, and travelling at 1000fps, hard to hit with, and not that effective, even when it hit. Still better than PIAT or Bazooka.

6 pdr QF was 2500 pounds, and little HE that was not very effective. AP was effective up to the Tiger 1 at suicidally close range.

These two you can move with Jeeps.

Last, the 17 pdr. It was 6500 pounds worth of excellent AP and terrible HE, and a beast to move with tracked 400hp Prime Movers.

Now the 25 pdr, that was 3600 pounds, and had decent HE and AP.

This is why small, self propelled 25 pounder would have been ideal.
 
While the 75mm Pack Howitzer was able to be pushed around easily by their crews, not so with the 6 pdr, and certainly not the 17 pdr

The 75mm was 1500 pounds,but it's HEAT shell was almost useless, and travelling at 1000fps, hard to hit with, and not that effective, even when it hit. Still better than PIAT or Bazooka.

6 pdr QF was 2500 pounds, and little HE that was not very effective. AP was effective up to the Tiger 1 at suicidally close range.

These two you can move with Jeeps.

Last, the 17 pdr. It was 6500 pounds worth of excellent AP and terrible HE, and a beast to move with tracked 400hp Prime Movers.

Now the 25 pdr, that was 3600 pounds, and had decent HE and AP.

This is why small, self propelled 25 pounder would have been ideal.

Well the 75mm's primary job was lobbing HE!

The 6 pounder was the smallest AT gun that could reliably hurt AFVs - no point taking anything lighter - the Job of the 17 pounder was to defend the LZs so it was no expected to have to have been moved around so much and it could pretty much hurt anything at range.

In the desert time and time again 25 pounder 'stonks' broke up armored attacks just using HE

The AP round was purely intended to be an emergency 'ohmygurdblitzkrieg' affair but would probably upset anything it was aimed at ( though it must be a bad day in the office if your Artillery is having to engage AFVs over open sights)

An SPG with a 25 pounder would provide a decent bonus to the Divisions firepower!

That being said a 6 pounder or 17 pounder is easier to hide than a SPG
 
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