Design an actual 2lb HE shell. The UK really needed this in the years up to 1942.
Rearm the British Infantry for WWII
- Thread starter Peg Leg Pom
- Start date
Truthfully, I would like a 6pdr from the beginning. The Soviets had the 57mm and rejected and then re-adopted it.
The downside is cost. With a finite budget and industrial base, every jump in size is less weapons. In the constant battle of gun vs armour, whatever you develop, the other guy will react. And the bigger and better, the fewer. The Germans fell into that trap with the big cat tanks.
Penetrating the front of tanks, is not the be all of AT guns. The 6pdr lived on because it could still penetrate the sides of the big cats. Taking on tanks frontally is generally suicide. Overwatch will quickly dispatch AT guns with HE /MG fire.
AT defence is channeling and ambush. The 25mm with 40mm/0*, will take out any light and side of medium in ‘39. (And Japanese and Italian tanks through the whole war). Cheap and cheerful! Enough for infantry defence to stop tanks rampaging through infantry positions.
Ideally, div AT Regts have 6pdrs, but even if you start 34, it takes 3 x as long to produce the bigger gun. Hence 3 pdr. And 6 pdr won’t fit in Valentine turret, etc, with loading crew member. 2 man turret is counter productive.
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They had one. Why should they repeat the effort to design one when they already had one?
JFYI
The 2 pdr was developed with AP shell, not shot. The tiny fuse and burster was given up on.
This was partly why 2 pdr was not given HE early on.
IIRC the HE content was equivalent in weight to a hand grenade.
HE direct fire is not really British doctrine, which is to use large volumes of 25 pdr HE and MMG fire to suppress defences until the infantry get in close. Lessons learned from WW1 that it it is difficult to kill dug-in infantry with HE, and that dug-in infantry are hard to spot at a distance.
Still doesn't deny they had one. The 2 Pdr, had a HE round early on from it's deployment. HE direct fire was actually very much a part of British "battle ethos" (they didn't have a "doctrine" per se until 1989). It was where their artillery developed their use of indirect HE from, after direct fire exposed the guns and gunners too much to enemy fire. 25 Pdr was never designed to "kill dug in infantry". It was designed to suppress them and prevent them from manning the parapets of their position. The British developed an ethos of "suppression" to allow their own infantry to approach the enemy's position.
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Namely, keep as much of the existing equipment for rifle and ammunition manufacturing intact, & introduce a rimless .303: in essence, a .303-'06 (using the .30-'06 case?). The .30-'06 case is extremely amenable to this kind of wildcatting, & tooling for manufacturing the cases is readily available commercially (if HMG won't buy commercial cases, which is another option, at least at first).
That kind of gets you the worst of both worlds. If you want rimless .303 you are looking at 7.65 Belgian Mauser realistically. Basically the same dimensions minus the rim, 30-06 is quite a bit longer meaning the receiver needs to be lengthened.
If you want a new round you don't basically keep your current one in a different case.
The idea behind adopting an existing cartridge is you can make use of the already established support network and weapons for that cartridge.
If you want a new cartridge you are doing it for specific reasons, such as going for an intermediate cartridge.
The problem with adopting any new cartridge is you need to retool completely as well as design new weapons. You do however get something more modern and suitable for the coming war. Mashing together 2 existing cartridges is a new cartridge and gives you all those new cartridge issues whilst being old fashioned still.
I get the Idea and it is sort of sound but has too many downsides to be a viable option.
Either
- keep what you have and make it work.
- Adopt something already existing so you have it's weapons and support ready to go meaning less development costs.
- Design a new cartridge from scratch so you get exactly what you want/need and eat the development costs as well as needing all new weapons.
New rifle calibre's are nice to haves I agree. If you can do it then do, if not don't waste the time or effort.
With hindsight a 18pdr/25pdr Stug/SPG is far better for the British army, than any mountain gun if you want to fight in Europe?
An early SU76 should be easy to build off the MK4 light parts?
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marathag
Banned
Or the 1920s Savage 300, near 30-06 in power for their Model 99 levergun, but shorter to fit that action. 150 grain bullet at 2630fps.
Was the parent case for 308 NATO.
Here, you use the British .312 bullets, and get near identical ballistics to 303 Rimmed.
They did have 3.7” mountain bty in each infantry brigade until ‘38. It was in many ways a dilution of concentrated firepower.
RA preferred the centralisation of artillery controlled at the lowest level, commanded at the highest.
25 pdr and 5.5” were both Gun-howitzers. Hybrid weapons with variable charge. In the unwritten doctrine of semi-direct and indirect fire.
18 pdr was a “gun” with fixed charge, rapid fire and modest velocity. Not the weapon for Anti-armour.
If you want a good AT gun, AA guns are the choice.
I also seem to recall reading accounts that the French had tungsten cored 25mm ammuniton.
With only 600 in the system, and it’s the only artillery the TA has, I would not be wasting it on AT work.
A better option is adapt a smaller, more concealable gun. If you’re not satisfied with 3 pdr, the other option is the 6pdr 10cwt naval gun. It is production in 34, and only needs a carriage, so allow for a year to get that produced.
It will have flatter trajectory, less lead and higher hit probably. APC will do anything an 18 pdr will penetrate. SAP will totally ream out any light tank or bunker. A long thin walled lobbed HE be about 9lb, and create lots of fine fragments, much better for APRES work.
Fitted to tanks (it should fit?), you have a reasonable multi-purpose gun, quickly. Not quite as good as the 6pdr army, but ready in time
Britain 6-pdr / 10cwt [2.244"/47 (57 mm)] QF Mark I - NavWeaps
P - Cartridge model 1934 with perforating bullet
To differentiate it from other projectiles, the bullet P is blackened to a height of 25 mm.
Brass flange socket mle 34, primer holder type F mle 1933 from 14/18
Load: approx. 140g of H 25 powder, higher load than that of the 25mm cartridge of the field weapon
High performance tungsten steel ball, brass jacket topped with a lead cap
Caliber 25 mm
Projectile weight 0.32 Kg
Initial speed 918 m / s
Armor penetration: 40 mm at 400 m