Alternative artillery of WW2

Driftless

Donor
The US could have done without the 4.5" gun. This was a rework of the last in the series of 4.7" guns the US Army experimented with from 1900 through the 1930s. Circa 1941 the cannon was redesigned with the smaller bore and modified breech to make use of British 4.5" ammo. I corresponded with a US enlisted man who worked in the Fire Direction Center of a battalion of these weapons. He told me they invariably fired the entire battalion of 12 guns on a single target or aim point. After looking at the ammunition effects tables & the size of the explosive charge in the HE projectile its clear why. The ammo was underpowered compared to the US 105mm & 155mm cannon ammo. While the 4.5" gun had excellent range it had little destructive power. Comparablly the effects tables show 3-4 of the US 155mm guns, the Long Tom, had as great a destructive power on a target as a dozen or more of the 4.5" guns given the same time length of fire mission.

Another was the 3" AT gun. This was a version of the 3" gun used in the M10 Tank Destroyer, but mounted on a single axle towed carriage. Compared to the 57mm AT gun the 3" had poor tactical manuverability & was even worse compared to the M10, M18, & M36 TD vehicles. The towed 3" ATG was of course much more vulnerable to light counter fires like MG, mortars, light field artillery, and even tank guns.

With your knowledge of artillery in US WW2 use; what's your assessment of the 57mm Gun M1 (Ordnance QF 6 pounder) and the 75mm pack howitzer M1/M116? With the 57mm, was it mostly the US got caught behind the development curve and that weapon was the superior available choice at the time?
 

Redbeard

Banned
You dont fire a field gun at 4 to 6rpm for more than about 10 rounds or the barrel will get too hot and start losing accuracy. Keep it up for say 5 minutes and the barrel next to the breech block will literally glow bright red and you will have shot the lands out. Prolonged fire is 60 rounds per hour you can bang off say 10 rounds in 2 minutes but then you have to let the barrel cool for say 10 minutes. 17rpm or similar rates are possible but only for the training ground to impress visiting politicos and journalists.

Fieldgun yes, but a howitzer with a much lower MV can keep a much higher RoF without overheating. Anyway "prolonged" can be many things and my point was that the 105 mm LeFH 18 with its sliding breech and semi-fixed ammo wasn't significantly different in practical RoF than other divisional artillery pieces of similar calibre.

I agree on the very high RoF being of limited usefulness (as already said in the first post), but under some circumstances could be useful. I recall we had an "anti-invasion-fleet" barrage, where the whole battalion fired at imaginary lines in the water as fast as possible. When the landing boats passed out of the fall of shell you shifted to a line closer until reaching the beach. Have tried it a few times with live ammo and it raised quite an impressive "wall" but thousands of shells were to be stocked at each battery (IIRC 1800 105mm) and the guncrews indeed were exhausted.
 

Saphroneth

Banned
It seems inevitable that a 3" AT gun would be inferior in manoeuvre to a 57mm AT gun - the two are, after all, very different sizes of weapon. The projectile weight triples going from a 57mm to a 76.2mm (witness the British 6-lber and 17-lber, the former of which actually is the US 57mm gun).
 
With your knowledge of artillery in US WW2 use; what's your assessment of the 57mm Gun M1 (Ordnance QF 6 pounder) and the 75mm pack howitzer M1/M116? With the 57mm, was it mostly the US got caught behind the development curve and that weapon was the superior available choice at the time?

I regard it as a excellent weapon, & the best choice of the moment for supporting infantry battalions. The US had a good basis for a heavy AT gun in its old 1920s T7 prototypes. That & its testing became the basis for the 3" AT gun used on the M10 TD & the towed 3" AT gun. However the heavier 3" was best when matched to a tracked vehicle, and it was better used as a AT weapon for the the division in general vs down in the weeds as a inf battalion or regiment weapon.

The 75mm Pack howitzer had its utility as a light artillery weapon. By 1945 its was near obsolecence. In 1940 it was a proven design & in production. It did ok in many roles until the ordnance engineers caught up in their design work for more modern cannon.
 
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It seems inevitable that a 3" AT gun would be inferior in manoeuvre to a 57mm AT gun - the two are, after all, very different sizes of weapon. The projectile weight triples going from a 57mm to a 76.2mm (witness the British 6-lber and 17-lber, the former of which actually is the US 57mm gun).

Indeed. Brit ordnance engineers did well & the 6lbr is but one proof. I'm still unsure of what was behind the decision to field the towed 3" AT gun. Guess a look at the books again might help.
 

Saphroneth

Banned
Indeed. Brit ordnance engineers did well & the 6lbr is but one proof. I'm still unsure of what was behind the decision to field the towed 3" AT gun. Guess a look at the books again might help.
Probably the desire for the better penetration in the roles AT guns had had up to that point - they're genuinely useful for emplaced defence, for example. It means you can have anti-tank capability on the order of the 17-lber or a Wolverine without having a really big vehicle constantly there.
 
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I agree on the very high RoF being of limited usefulness (as already said in the first post), but under some circumstances could be useful. ...

High RoF for a minute or two can be extremely usefull under some circumstances. When firing at a exposed target you want the maximum weight of ammunition in the first 30 to 90 seconds. Thats when the majority of losses/casualties occur in the beaten zone. This is because targets tend to 'unexpose' themselves as the attack continues. Vs the same target a rapid burst of 20 rounds per gun from 12 cannon will cause more loss to the target than twice that amount of ammo from four cannon shot out in five or six times the minutes. That is 240 rounds hitting a target in two minutes will cause more casualties than 480 rounds dribbled in over 12 minutes. (of course you are very seldom going to have 480 extra rounds on the deck to wing off on a single target from just four guns. Thats more than the basic ammo load for a battery in anyones army.)
 
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Indeed. Brit ordnance engineers did well & the 6lbr is but one proof. I'm still unsure of what was behind the decision to field the towed 3" AT gun. Guess a look at the books again might help.

NcNair, again.

McNair was originally a Red Leg, so never got over his attraction to towed guns.

General Bruce(who wanted more M10 TDs) was overruled by McNair to deploy the 3" AT gun. It was the T9 tube from the AA gun from WWI, and was no lightweight. So the M5 3' gun came to be. It was over 200 pounds heavier than the towed 17 pounder, that itself was no lightweight. The PaK40 was 1500 pounds lighter.

General Devers while still at Armored Force, tried to get the 76mm T2 AT gun in its place, that had the same performance as the 3' gun, but over a thousand pounds lighter. One again, out maneuvered by McNair, the 76mm development was paused after he left AF.

Tank Destroyer Battalions would have a towed component, converting self-propelled units to towed, on March 31, 1943 using M3 halftrack as Prime Movers.

By time of D-Day there were 11 towed AT battalions and 19 self-propelled. The towed TD battalion was often permanently attached to an Infantry divisions on a one for one basis, SPs attached as an as needed basis
 
The 3" towed was pushed by General McNair. IIRC, he favored it for cost, low profile and ideology. A good discussion of this can be found in Zaloga's excellent book Armored Thunderbolt, starting around page 72. I have the book but it's at home. If you don't have it, I was able to re-read much of this on Google Books.

Indeed. Brit ordnance engineers did well & the 6lbr is but one proof. I'm still unsure of what was behind the decision to field the towed 3" AT gun. Guess a look at the books again might help.
 
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The 3" M5 deployed to Europe were used as field artillery on occasion. ie: they were part of the preparatory fire plan for Op Cobra. Looking at the fire plan I'm guessing they probablly shot off more ammunition that day than they shot at German tanks for the remainder of the war.

The M10 were seldom held in reserve as per TD Doctrine. The Army & corps commanders farmed them out to the Divisions the same as the independant tank battalions. The divisions usually used them the same as the tanks, as direct fire support for the infantry. This effectively brought the large gun turreted AFV strength of the US ID to 50+ tanks & 30+ TD. As much armored fire power as the average under strength German armored div.
 

Redbeard

Banned
High RoF for a minute or two can be extremely usefull under some circumstances. When firing at a exposed target you want the maximum weight of ammunition in the first 30 to 90 seconds. Thats when the majority of losses/casualties occur in the beaten zone. This is because targets tend to 'unexpose' themselves as the attack continues. Vs the same target a rapid burst of 20 rounds per gun from 12 cannon will cause more loss to the target than twice that amount of ammo from four cannon shot out in five or six times the minutes. That is 240 rounds hitting a target in two minutes will cause more casualties than 480 rounds dribbled in over 12 minutes. (of course you are very seldom going to have 480 extra rounds on the deck to wing off on a single target from just four guns. Thats more than the basic ammo load for a battery in anyones army.)

Many years ago I was attached to a Royal Marine unit where most of the personel had been in action at the Falklands. They told about the final storm on Port Stanly. The Argentines were in fairly good field fortifications but when the first artillery shells fell the ill-trained conscripts left their foxholes and started running. That was when the British AOs ordered "fast fire" (don't recall the NATO English expression) and most of the Argentine casualties happened.

In a more normal tactical situation it would usually be the first salvo that take the most casualties, as many in the target area will have taken cover or moved before the next.

Concerning arty ammo it indeed is a major logistic burden, and a moving field unit would not be able to "fast fire" very much for that reason alone. But in the example I told about above it was coast defence batteries in fixed positions considered expendable in the invasion defence of Zealand - Die and/or win. The "die" was certain but the "win" optional and probably not happening before the Mechanised Brigades counterattacked over our dead bodies :cool:

Anyway IIRC at least three "normal loads" of ammo was expected to be supplied in the battery positions, and each "normal load" of 600 rounds.
 
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