# Best Long Range Artillery Piece



## davebender (Jul 27, 2011)

*17cm Kanone 18*
17-CM KANONE 18 AND 21-CM MÖRSER 18 | War and Game
29.6 km Max Range.
68 kg HE shell weight.
23,375 kg Travel weight.
This artillery piece employed the same double action carriage as the 21-cm Mörser 18. Hence it was possible to convert to the shorter range but much more powerful 21cm weapon by changing the barrel. A handy feature for use against serious fortifications such as at Sevastopol. The USA more or less copied the concept during the 1960s with the M107 175mm SP artillery which shared a chassis with the M110 8" howitzer.

*155mm Long Tom.*
155 mm Long Tom - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
23.2 km Max Range.
43 kg HE shell weight.
13,880 kg. Travel weight.
Less powerful and shorter range then the German weapon. However it weighed half as much, making it much easier to transport. Perhaps this was a handier size for general battlefield use.

Other. Please nominate your favorite long range field artillery weapon (i.e. not siege artillery.)


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## fastmongrel (Jul 28, 2011)

Agree the 17cm K18 was probably the best long range piece of the war. However like a lot of German equipment it was expensive and hard to produce, the German army could have done better with a lighter, shorter range piece available in greater numbers.

In my opinion the best artillery piece of WWII the soviet 152 mm howitzer-gun M1937 (ML-20) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia not the heaviest shell or the longest range or the lightest piece but hundreds of these lined up almost wheel to wheel must have been a frightening and destructive thing


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## davebender (Jul 28, 2011)

Krupp produced weapons somewhat similiar to the 155mm "Long Tom" from WWI onward. In fact I think the U.S. weapon was inspired by the 15cm Kanone 16.

*15cm Kanone 16. Entered service in 1917.*
15 cm Kanone 16 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
10,870 kg weight. I think this is emplaced. Travel weight would be about 50% more.
51.4 kg HE shell weight.
22,000 meters max range.

*15cm Kanone 39. Produced for export to Turkey in 1939.*
15 cm Kanone 39 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
18,282 kg travel weight.
24.7 km max range.
?? HE shell weight. I suspect about 52 kg (i.e. similiar to WWI era weapon).

The German long range 15cm artillery pieces are a bit heavier then the American weapon but fire a shell that is considerably more powerful. Germany chose this type weapon for mass production during WWI but rejected it during WWII. I guess that's the difference Ju-87 and Ju-88 dive bombers make. CAS aircraft now performed some of the missions previously accomplished with long range howitzers. A relatively small number of the even longer range 17cm weapons were produced for special situations.


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## Juha (Jul 28, 2011)

Soviet Union also made excellent guns, for ex
122 mm gun M1931/37 (A-19) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
152 mm howitzer-gun M1937 (ML-20) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Juha


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## davebender (Jul 28, 2011)

I agree. However WWII era Soviet artillery ammunition had serious quality control problems. I suspect that largely negated the value of long range Soviet field artillery.


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## parsifal (Jul 28, 2011)

I actually think that in certain situations, the German K-18 was about the worst piece of artillery that could be wished for. As usual in these sorts of discussions, no account of the vastly different conditions and environments for artillery are being considered. 

The K-18 was heavy and relatively immobile. It had resuperators that did not work well, if at all in extreme weather conditions. An in rough terrain, like a jungle or mountain environment, it was basically useless.

There is no ideal long range artillery piece. The question needs to be refined in order to be satisfactorily answered


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## Juha (Jul 29, 2011)

davebender said:


> I agree. However WWII era Soviet artillery ammunition had serious quality control problems. I suspect that largely negated the value of long range Soviet field artillery.



I have read fairy much on eastern front campaigns and have not noticed that those in receiving would have been thankful for the bad quality of Soviet ammo, on the contrary, save the Winter War, when Soviet artillery had all kinds of problems, Soviet artillery was respected and feared. Even GHQ level its effectiveness was well understood, for ex Guderian complained in his memoirs that in 44 armoured reserves were situated too near to the main defensive line because of Herr Hitler's interference and so was badly mauled by powerful Soviet LR artillery strikes even before they got orders to launch counter attacks, that is confirmed for ex in the unit history of 6th PzD.

Juha


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## davebender (Jul 29, 2011)

If you get hit then it's bad news. The question is how many Soviet shells missed because they were unbalanced and therefore inaccurate? That problem would be inherently worse at longer ranges.

Soviet artillery pieces and mortars themselves were typically of good quality. Germany captured thousands during 1941 and 1942. After depot level inspection and modification they were issued to German units. For example at least one of the German artillery units which helped defeat Operation Market-Garden was equipped with Soviet manufactured 152mm howitzers.


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## Juha (Jul 30, 2011)

Hello Dave
definitely Russian/Soviet ammo for heavy naval guns was frst class, 
we had, still have at least one twin turret armed with these, have been inside, 12” L/52 Russian 12"/52 (30.5 cm) Pattern 1907
and Finns found them very accurate, both in our own shootings and while being their targets, patterns were very tight and accurate.
I also cannot recall any complains about poor quality of Soviet ammo for A-19 or ML-20, Finns used war-booty examples of both, some 25 A-19s and 64 ML-20s, using 6755 and 35469 shells respectively during the Continuation War (1941-1944)



Juha


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## parsifal (Jul 30, 2011)

I remeber reading somewahere that the trails of the 122mm were somewhat light, leading to the gun jumping around when fired.....affecting accuracy. But on the plus side, Soviet guns seem to be more mobile that their German counterparts .


I have not really heard that dud shells were that big a problem for the Russian Guns....their artilery was less flexible, counter battery not so good, but suppressive barrages very good. All these issue relate to the lack of experience and technical training for Soviet gunners, not any real inadequacy in the hardware....


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## davebender (Jul 30, 2011)

*Standard division level field howitzers.*
1,985 kg combat weight. German 10.5cm leFH18 howitzer.
2,260 kg combat weight. USA M101 105mm howitzer.
2,450 kg combat weight. Soviet M1938 122mm howitzer.

*Standard corps level field howitzers*.
4,150 kg combat weight. Soviet M1938 152mm howitzer.
5,530 kg combat weight. German 15cm sFH18 howitzer. First FA weapon equipped with rocket assisted ammunition to increase range.
5,600 kg combat weight. USA M114 155mm howitzer.

What makes you think Soviet artillery pieces were more mobile then German artillery pieces?


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## Juha (Jul 30, 2011)

Dave
sFH 18 was a division level gun. Soviet div level gun were 76mm F-22 USV field cannon and 122mm M-30 field how.


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## Shortround6 (Jul 30, 2011)

parsifal said:


> I actually think that in certain situations, the German K-18 was about the worst piece of artillery that could be wished for. As usual in these sorts of discussions, no account of the vastly different conditions and environments for artillery are being considered.
> 
> The K-18 was heavy and relatively immobile. It had resuperators that did not work well, if at all in extreme weather conditions. An in rough terrain, like a jungle or mountain environment, it was basically useless.
> 
> There is no ideal long range artillery piece. The question needs to be refined in order to be satisfactorily answered



No piece of artillery is ideal in all situations. For it's size and range it was a good gun. Just about anything that approached it in range had to moved in two or more loads (even for short distances) and took even longer to emplace or to get underway again. 

The advantage of long range artillery is that you can often position them in places that avoid the worst of the terrain and still have them reach the target. The lack of mobility of the 17cm K 18 may say as much about the lack of German heavy tractors as it does about the weight of the equipment. again, any allied gun with anything aprouching the range of the 17cm K 18 was equally useless in such terrain. 

Apparently the allies were often glad enough to use captured examples to shoot at the Germans with while the captured ammo lasted. Considering the crew needed and probable need to be part of an actual fire plan this is on a different level than some infantry company using picked up Mg 42s or 8cm mortars.


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## davebender (Jul 30, 2011)

I agree. German Army divisions had some organic 15cm howitzers from 1915 onward. Perhaps I should have said "division / corps level heavy howitzers".

IMO it's not easy to compare WWII era artillery pieces smaller then 10.5cm in size (i.e. 76mm field gun) as all sorts of different weapons could fill the same infantry direct support role. For instance Germany used a lot of 20mm light flak against ground targets. Germany and the USA employed some recoiless rifles. Britain, Germany and the USA fielded short range anti-tank weapons such as the Panzerfaust that were also effective against other ground targets. I think the Red Army was the only major European army to rely so extensively on 76mm field guns just as they had during WWI.


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## Juha (Jul 30, 2011)

Hello Dave
on F-22 USV, it was a good gun, shell was light but range was excellent, it was one reason for leFH 18M, it was annoying for Germans that the russian gun outranged their standard leFH, also German infantry feared it, the crash-boom, because of its high MV. One reason for it was Steppe, in plains range was more important than in more covered gently rolling country usual in Central Europe. All things have their reasons.

Juha


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## Shortround6 (Jul 30, 2011)

davebender said:


> I agree. German Army divisions had some organic 15cm howitzers from 1915 onward. Perhaps I should have said "division / corps level heavy howitzers".
> 
> IMO it's not easy to compare WWII era artillery pieces smaller then 10.5cm in size (i.e. 76mm field gun) as all sorts of different weapons could fill the same infantry direct support role. For instance Germany used a lot of 20mm light flak against ground targets. Germany and the USA employed some recoiless rifles. Britain, Germany and the USA fielded short range anti-tank weapons such as the Panzerfaust that were also effective against other ground targets. I think the Red Army was the only major European army to rely so extensively on 76mm field guns just as they had during WWI.



Now you are confusing direct fire weapons with "artillery". 

Even before WW I some artillery officers were figuring on getting the guns out of the direct fire role. Both the Russian-Japanese war and the Boer war had shown that exposing the guns to rifle/MG fire was bad tactics and that was using shrapnel shells let alone HE. The guns were much more profitably employed firing from masked positions. Not just camouflaged, but actually masked from return fire by terrain features or buildings. This meant indirect fire controlled by an observer. 
You can use short ranged, small howitzers for the "infantry support role" by assigning them to levels as low as a battalion. That doesn't mean a smart commander will have them shoot from exposed positions. It means the battalion commander controls them and he doesn't need to request fire from brigade or division headquarters. Response time is cut way down and fire support (limited by the number of barrels) is limited to the ammo available to the battalion. There aren't any surprises like requesting a fire mission and being denied by higher headquarters. 

It is quite easy to compare artillery down to 75mm if not smaller, just look at it's intended role and how it was used. 75mm AT guns were seldom tied into an artillery communications net. They were seldom provided meteorologic data several times a day like regular artillery units, and so on. 
Sure you could point a 75mm AT gun in the general direction of the enemy and bang away firing HE rounds but that is not real artillery support. Even using the telescopic sights ( and some AT guns were not provided with indirect fire sights) max effective range is going to be visual range from the gun itself. Several thousand yds unless there are extraordinary conditions. 

Russian 76mm guns could and were used to counter battery fire the 10.5cm howitzers. They needed to be organised and deployed as artillery batteries to do this and not dispersed as anti-tank guns however. 

One of the lend lease items that helped the Russians tremendously that gets little credit is the thousands of miles of telephone wire for field phones that was given to them, Russian wire tended to short out when it got wet. This allowed for the co-ordination of Russian artillery and increased the effectiveness of the forward observers.


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## davebender (Jul 30, 2011)

> Russian 76mm guns could and were used to counter battery fire the 10.5cm howitzers.


How common was that? I'm under the impression Soviet 76mm field guns were primarily used as direct fire weapons. Including the variant mounted in the Su-76.


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## parsifal (Jul 30, 2011)

davebender said:


> *Standard division level field howitzers.*
> 1,985 kg combat weight. German 10.5cm leFH18 howitzer.
> 2,260 kg combat weight. USA M101 105mm howitzer.
> 2,450 kg combat weight. Soviet M1938 122mm howitzer.
> ...



In the heavy artillery category, this post actually seems to demonstrate that German artillery was heavier than equivalent Soviet ordinance. In the category of Field Artillery, if we compare like for like, then we should compare 122mm to the German 152mm howitzer (not the SIG, the field piece). We should compare the 105mm to the 76mm Soviet Gun. 

But weight is also not the only issue for mobility. We need to compare the gun carriages and recuperator systems. German guns tended to use solid tyres, whereas the Soviets use pneumatic tyres. German guns tended to use old fashioned long trails whereas Soviet guns tended to use modernized trails more suited to motor transport. Lastly German guns tended to use recuperators and ersatz rubber seals and dust protectors, neither of which could be transprted once the remperatures dropped below a certain temperature (I think it was 
(-)30degC). This meant that German guns were immobilsed and unworkable in deep winter...wheras Soviet guns had a better operating envelope in the cold


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## Juha (Jul 30, 2011)

davebender said:


> How common was that? I'm under the impression Soviet 76mm field guns were primarily used as direct fire weapons. Including the variant mounted in the Su-76.


Hello Dave
why you think 76mm field guns had 13,2km range, a bit long for simple direct fire weapon, wasn't it? Soviets had also 76mm short barrel regimental gun, which was incl to infantry units ToE for same kind of use as the German 75mm infantry gun.

Juha


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## parsifal (Jul 30, 2011)

This is an extract by the US Army dated April 1943, comparing the 105mm of the German army to thatr of the US army


Lone Sentry: German Gun-Howitzer, Standard 105 mm (WWII U.S. Intelligence Bulletin, April 1943)


Also thought I might post a phot of the Soviet 76mm gun/howitzer to show its lightweight construction, truck friendly trails and obvious mobility


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## Shortround6 (Jul 30, 2011)

davebender said:


> How common was that? I'm under the impression Soviet 76mm field guns were primarily used as direct fire weapons. Including the variant mounted in the Su-76.



It was actually quite common. What was one (or two) of the things the Germans had to do when converting the captured Russian guns to Pak guns, aside from rechambering? 

One, fit anti tank gun sight.
two, cross over controls so one gunner could control both elevation and traverse. Field guns frequently had the elevation and traverse controls on opposite sides of the carriage. They weren't intended to track moving targets that often. 

In WW I even the French figured out in a few weeks that field guns use in the direct fire role didn't last long (minutes) if the enemy had anything that could shoot back.


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## davebender (Jul 30, 2011)

> In WW I even the French figured out in a few weeks that field guns use in the direct fire role didn't last long


A bit off topic but...

France and Germany both began WWI well prepared to fire field artillery indirectly. They had trained forward observers, ample field telephone equipment, artillery spotting balloons, proper sights for indirect fire etc.

Germany even had the world's first Beobachtungsanhänge (forward observer vehicle) which didn't work too well in practise. The French Army knew what they were and made them a priority target. 
Review of FSF's 1/72 Beobachtungswagen, WW1 German Artillery Observation Wagon


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## parsifal (Jul 31, 2011)

thought the main limitation of the 76mm divisional gun were the crews, rather than the gun, and the crews gradually picked up the ability to shoot indirectly as the war progressed.

The 76mm remained in service after the war for quite a few years, and certainly had no issues with indirect fire in its post war guise


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## Freebird (Jul 31, 2011)

davebender said:


> Other. Please nominate your favorite long range field artillery weapon (i.e. not siege artillery.)



I'm curious as to how the various CW field artillery compared?
Besides the 25 pdr (85mm I think) there was the 4.5 inch how, 60 pdr, 6" gun 6" how.


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## parsifal (Jul 31, 2011)

25 pdr weighed 7335 pounds, had a muzzle velocity of 1485 pounds, a range of 13400 yards and a practical ROF of 5rpm. It could penetrate 2.52 inches of hardened plate at 30 deg incline

The 5.5 inMk 3 gun weighed 12820 lbs, and a range of 17000 yds. It had a ROF of 2 rpm and a muzzle velocity of of 1675 fps. 

Both guns were modern in that they included modern wheels and trails. .


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## Shortround6 (Jul 31, 2011)

freebird said:


> I'm curious as to how the various CW field artillery compared?
> Besides the 25 pdr (85mm I think) there was the 4.5 inch how, 60 pdr, 6" gun 6" how.



25 pdr (87.5mm, close enough to *88*) was a good serviceable gun with some interesting features. While the shell was a bit light compared to the 105 how it was competing against it was bit lighter and handier. 

The other four you mention are, to varying degrees, Edwardian in concept and in origination and were obsolete by 1939. While rugged in design and construction and serviceable in their day they were short of range and cumbersome (lacking in traverse). The 6 in gun was cobbled together by mounting a 6in naval barrel (for all practical purposes if not actual fact) on an 8in howitzer chassis. The over loaded recoil mechanism was "assisted" by large ramps which the entire equipment rolled up upon firing and then rolled back down to the "original firing position"?? The 6in How was a good weapon in it's day and it's large shell and small size for it's shell allowed it to stay in use in the far east where the lack of Japanese field artillery ( in numbers of heavy guns) limited the Japanese ability to counter battery it. 

See: British 6inch 26cwt WW1 Howitzer

British 4.5inch QF Howitzer

The British British 60-Pounder BL Mk I Field Gun

ANd the 8in How

Welcome to Landships! - A site for WW1 Military Hardware WW1 Military Modelling

The 5.5 was a modern weapon with good abilities.

The British army spent very little money on artillery between the wars. Most of the money went to the RAF and the Navy.


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## davebender (Jul 31, 2011)

> 76mm remained in service after the war for quite a few years, and certainly had no issues with indirect fire in its post war guise


When employed for indirect fire it had the same shortcoming as all other 75mm artillery pieces. The HE filler was too small to be effective against field fortifications. That's why most nations stepped up to 105mm for division light howitzers as a result of WWI experience.


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## parsifal (Jul 31, 2011)

Whilst i agree that the 76.2mm was too light to be effective as the main Divisional field artillery piece, this needs to be considered against some of th other issues when comparing to the 105mm Gun Howitzer. Inferring that the 105 was able to deal with field fortification whilst the 76mm could not, is a gross misrepresentation of the facts. 105s were better able to cope, but still fell well short of being able to handle them.

The Zis-3 M1942 76.2mm Russian gun had many other characteristics that more than made up for its lighter shell weight and limited explosive capabilities. It was far more mobile, outranged the German gun by almost double. Had an effective ROF almost twice that of the german gun. German superiority in terms of bursting charge was not as significant as might be expected. Standard or usual HE ammunition for the 105 was called Type 6, which had a bursting charge of 3lbs, but the charge was of lower quality, so was equal to about 2.7lbs of russian explosive. The German gun was of little or no use in the anti-armour role, and was not really an operational piece in temperature extremes. the 76.2mm gun was much more MT friendly and more capable in rough terrain. because of its simplicity it could be used by almost anyone, and proved exceptionally reliable. To be fair, my opinion is that the german gun was more accurate, but not so dramatically so as your earlier posts would lead us to believe


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## Shortround6 (Aug 1, 2011)

Most nations went to war in 1939-41 with a mix of 75-76mm guns and 100-105mm how as division guns. In general the 75-76 would out range the howitzers. Even the Germans had designed and built a new 75mm gun between the wars, it had more than it's share of problems but they were not related to the caliber. The mix of guns varied from country to country, how many 75mm guns to how many 105 howitzers. The only major countries to not use the mix were England (and the BC) with their 18pdr/25pdr gun and the Russians who pretty much skipped the 105-107 caliber and went to 122mm. 
Given the limits of horse traction ( and the only fully motorized army in 1939 was the British) on gun weight, a 75mm gun would always out range the 100-105 howitzer (in many cases they were different barrels on the the same carriage). Horse transport of ammunition might have played a part to. A horse drawn wagon could carry double the amount (easily) of 75mm ammunition than it can of 105 ammunition of the same weight. 

Perhaps some one can answer better than I can, but the Soviets may have used a different organization with more artillery at corp or army level than at division level. Given the need for communications to make artillery effective perhaps they felt that a more centralized approach to the heavier guns/howitzers would make for an easier communications and ammunition supply. 

Parsifal, you keep going on about the German guns not working well in the Russian cold, I don't know if they did or didn't but it seems to me that most nations guns would have had difficulties (except for the Russian guns of course) because nobody else designed or tested their guns at such temperatures at the time. I wonder if British or American guns would have worked properly at such temperatures in 1939-42? I am not sure when the US started testing weapons in Alaska as part of their development program ( although I believe they started testing airplanes there in 1939 or 40?)


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## Glider (Aug 1, 2011)

Shortround6 said:


> The British army spent very little money on artillery between the wars. Most of the money went to the RAF and the Navy.



I admit that this wasn't my impression. The 25pd, 4.5 and 5.5 in gun howitzers were brand new, the 2pd as good as anything else at the start of the war and the 6pd was equal to the best that Russia and Germany could field in 1941. The 6pd pre war development was fine, it went wrong when production was delayed due to the losses in France. that 12/18 month delay cost a lot of lives.

For Heavy Artillery the British developed the 7.2in Howitzer, by no means the best gun around but pretty useful and nothing to be ashamed about. What they did lack was a long ranged heavy artillery piece.

Edit - Its my understanding that the USA used the 4.5in gun howitzer. Like the British they found that the shell was too light but they did use it in some numbers.


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## parsifal (Aug 1, 2011)

I cant really comment too much about the US 105mm and in reality my comments were about the limits of the german ordinance in harsh weather conditions. These were reported on numerous occasions by the Germans themselves, starting with the failure of Operation Typhoon and continuing throughout the war. I admit I am not entirely sure what was wrong with the, in entirety, but it appears many of the hydraulic recoil systems seized, the synthetic o-rings, flanges and the like just shattered. German guns were on the heavy side, which affected their mobility. Many mechaisms in the German guns were machined to too finer tolerances, meaning that bearings and sleeves and the like frequently just seized up in the cold. Many of their synthetic oils and lubricants just froze solid. Finally the solid road wheels often prevented them from being moved at all. So, as a piece of equipment in cold conditions, German guns were not a success. Superior German training meant that the Germans maged in spite of their equipment, not because of it. 

Now the 25 pounder was never really tested in cold climate conditions, but its predecessor, the 18/25 was used in Norway. Have not heard of any failures when used in that theatre. 25 pounders were used in cold conditions in Korea. AFAIK ther were no serious issues in their performance. British guns continued to operate, I think a lot of that was because of the simplicity of the design, which was a feature conspicuously lacking in German designs. But also the mkaterials used in the manufacture, the tolerances that the gun was designed to all showed no real signs of problem that I am aware of. The lighweight construction of the 25 pounder was a major advantage, as was the pnematic tyresd, which could have the tyres dflated to assist movement through the snow or mud. 

So my opinion is that if the British had been called to deply their divisional artillery into arctic subzero conditions they have continued to function 

Here is a link to an online book that may be of interst to those wanting to learn about the 25 pounder

New Vanguard - The 25-Pounder Field Gun 1939-72


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## davebender (Aug 1, 2011)

Most nations still had a bunch of 75mm weapons left over from WWI. Typically they were rebuilt with a modern gun carriage that allowed high elevation fire and faster road transport. However not many nations kept 75mm artillery pieces in mass production except as specialized weapons for use by mountain troops and cavalry.

Let's look at German field artillery production for 1939.
Production Stats on German Tube-fired Weapons 1939-1945
8 x 10.5cm K18. Not standard issue. Probably manufactured for export. Very long range.
15 x 15cm K39. Export weapons intended for Turkey. Very long range.

8 x 7.5cm leFK18. Cavalry weapons?
59 x 7.5cm Geb.Gesch. 36. Lightweight mountain howitzers.
483 x 10.5cm leFH18. Standard issue German light howitzer.
190 x 15cm sFH18. Standard issue German heavy howitzer.
58 x 21cm Mörser 18. Limited production weapons for use against fortifications.

290 x 7.5cm leIG18. Light infantry guns. 400kg. 
.....WWI era Germany employed the 608kg 7.62cm Infanteriegeschütz L16.5 for direct fire support. This is the replacement.
48 x 15cm sIG33. Heavy infantry guns. 1,800kg.
.....Too heavy to be man handled. Consequently they were mounted on obsolete light tank chassis from 1940 onward. The resulting inexpensive sIG33 SP weapon worked well.


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## Shortround6 (Aug 1, 2011)

The 25pdr was barely in production in 1939. The BEF in France used late model 18pdr guns rebarreled to use 25pdr ammunition. The 4.5in gun (not howitzer) and the 5.5in used the same carriage for a big savings in design cost and effort and in manufacturing. Niether shows up in numbers until 1941. The early 7.2in howitzer was another monstrosity that did work, but just barely. It could be quite entertaining to watch one being fired, of course the entertainment value goes up with the distance from the gun.

File:7.2 inch howitzer of 51st Heavy Regiment.jpg - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Notice the ramps both in front of and behind the wheels that will be pushed almost together when the gun is read to shoot. depending on the exact angle of the rear ramps, the charge used, the angle of elevation of the barrel and the normal deviation from shot to shot it was not unknown for the entire gun and carriage to go up and over the rear ramps. This was bad enough with the iron traction engine wheels but with balloon tire models bouncing around the gun pit after a a 3ft plus drop life could _VERY_ exiting for the gun crew. 
The later MK6 used a longer barrel on American supplied carriages identical to the US 155 gun and 8in Howitzers and were an altogether different proposition. Nobody was sad to see the last of the early MKs.  
Rates of fire were pretty low for these guns because they had to be relayed for every shot. They never ended up quite where they started from regardless of the placement of the ramps. 

The US did use a 4.5in gun. The barrel was mounted on the 155 howitzer carriage.


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## pbfoot (Aug 1, 2011)

the 25lb gun was manufactured in Canada and we get our share of cold weather , Shilo Manitoba is the main traing area for artillery and has been since WW1 the median temp in Jan is -19c


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## Shortround6 (Aug 1, 2011)

parsifal said:


> I cant really comment too much about the US 105mm and in reality my comments were about the limits of the german ordinance in harsh weather conditions. These were reported on numerous occasions by the Germans themselves, starting with the failure of Operation Typhoon and continuing throughout the war. I admit I am not entirely sure what was wrong with the, in entirety, but it appears many of the hydraulic recoil systems seized, the synthetic o-rings, flanges and the like just shattered. German guns were on the heavy side, which affected their mobility. Many mechaisms in the German guns were machined to too finer tolerances, meaning that bearings and sleeves and the like frequently just seized up in the cold. Many of their synthetic oils and lubricants just froze solid. Finally the solid road wheels often prevented them from being moved at all. So, as a piece of equipment in cold conditions, German guns were not a success. Superior German training meant that the Germans maged in spite of their equipment, not because of it.
> 
> Now the 25 pounder was never really tested in cold climate conditions, but its predecessor, the 18/25 was used in Norway. Have not heard of any failures when used in that theatre. 25 pounders were used in cold conditions in Korea. AFAIK ther were no serious issues in their performance. British guns continued to operate, I think a lot of that was because of the simplicity of the design, which was a feature conspicuously lacking in German designs. But also the mkaterials used in the manufacture, the tolerances that the gun was designed to all showed no real signs of problem that I am aware of. The lighweight construction of the 25 pounder was a major advantage, as was the pnematic tyresd, which could have the tyres dflated to assist movement through the snow or mud.
> 
> So my opinion is that if the British had been called to deply their divisional artillery into arctic subzero conditions they have continued to function



Many peoples guns and equipment had trouble in extreme cold. I am certainly not doubting that the Germans did. I am just wondering if many other nations would have done any better in the same conditions in 1941-43. Other nations with access to different materials for seals or fluids may have been better able to modify/adapt as time went on. 
Norway in March/April might be a bit different than parts of Russia in Jan/Feb. 
THere is a big difference in how things work at -10 to -20 C than how they work at -40. The British had 10 years to get the guns to work by Korea with plenty of examples to show them how. Changes in hydraulic fluid for different weather conditions might be noted in manuals but usually don't warrant a different MK number for the equipment.


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## Shortround6 (Aug 1, 2011)

davebender said:


> Most nations still had a bunch of 75mm weapons left over from WWI. Typically they were rebuilt with a modern gun carriage that allowed high elevation fire and faster road transport. However not many nations kept 75mm artillery pieces in mass production except as specialized weapons for use by mountain troops and cavalry.
> 
> Let's look at German field artillery production for 1939.
> Production Stats on German Tube-fired Weapons 1939-1945
> ...



The 7.5cm leFK18 was a standard field gun. it entered service in 1938, according to your source 96 were produced in 1940. Number made in 1938 is unknown. The cavalry used the 7.5cm FK 16Na. a WW I design/manufactured gun with new barrels in the early thirties. This gun was also used by some infantry units. 

Most of the rest of your list is specialty guns or heavy artillery. The 10.5cm K18 was a 10.5cm barrel on the carriage of the 15cm sFH18. it was not export. but it was a corp level gun and not division. 

Italy and Japan kept 75mm guns in production for the duration of their wars. Many smaller nations bought their guns from Britain, France, Germany, Italy or Czechoslovakia ( how many German divisions went to war with Czech guns?). 

Yes there were a large number of WW I left overs in use but but why make new 75s when the old ones are working and suit the tactical doctrine. While it did save money many of the WW I left overs had new barrels with fresh rifling and modernized carriages. In some cases (French and US) they used relatively new (or new) barrels on brand new split trail carriages suitable for motor towing. Just because it was a "French 75" doesn't mean it was manufactured in 1917.


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## DonL (Aug 1, 2011)

A simple question,

why don't you compare the soviet 76,2mm gun to the the 8,8cm Flak/18/36/37 with near the same duties in WWII?

THe 8,8cm Flak was Flak, anti tank gun, light field artillery and so on.

The 10,5cm howitzer is to my opinion not comparable to the 76,2mm and had totally other duties.
If you want compare a german 10,5cm gun I would choose the Schwere 10-cm-Feldkanone 18 as one battery of the division artillery.

Edit:



> Most of the rest of your list is specialty guns or heavy artillery. The 10.5cm K18 was a 10.5cm barrel on the carriage of the 15cm sFH18. it was not export. but it was a corp level gun and not division.



Sorry no!
The normal german mobile infantry division and tank division had 4 departmentalism a 3 batteries. The heavy departmentalism had standard 2 Batteries 15cm howitzer and 1 Battery 10.5cm K18 field gun.


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## Glider (Aug 1, 2011)

Shortround6 said:


> The 25pdr was barely in production in 1939. The BEF in France used late model 18pdr guns rebarreled to use 25pdr ammunition. The 4.5in gun (not howitzer) and the 5.5in used the same carriage for a big savings in design cost and effort and in manufacturing. Niether shows up in numbers until 1941. The early 7.2in howitzer was another monstrosity that did work, but just barely. It could be quite entertaining to watch one being fired, of course the entertainment value goes up with the distance from the gun.The US did use a 4.5in gun.
> The barrel was mounted on the 155 howitzer carriage.



I am not doubting the points you made here but was pointing out that thr British did spend money between the wars on Artillery. The designs were almost all new and production picked up. 

It is true that 25pd production in 1939 had just started and I do not question your figure of 111, but in 1940 production stepped up and by 1941 they were being produced in serious numbers, 4,000+. Its also wrong to belittle the 18/25pd conversions, they were not lashups, they were put together after serious testing and for the time were very capable weapons.

Had the USA found itself at war in 1939 their situation would have been very difficult. It says something that the USA had to use British 4.5in ammunition. I don't know if the M1 105mm ever entered production but my understanding is that the M2 didn't enter production until 1941, so the British were if anything ahead of the USA in Artillery.

The accepted exception being the Heavy Artillery where the 7.2in was a stop gap until given a modern mounting. Even here the US had 65 Long Toms in Dec 1941, had they gone to war in 1939 they would be using the WW1 derived 155mm 1917/18. again not a bad gun, but undeniably old.


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## pbfoot (Aug 1, 2011)

Shortround6 said:


> THere is a big difference in how things work at -10 to -20 C than how they work at -40. The British had 10 years to get the guns to work by Korea with plenty of examples to show them how. Changes in hydraulic fluid for different weather conditions might be noted in manuals but usually don't warrant a different MK number for the equipment.


Sure is a big difference but -40c is the same as -40f and Shilo manitoba is colder then Minsk by several degrees for an average winter temp. Suggestion don't clean your car windows when its -40 from personal expierience


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## Shortround6 (Aug 1, 2011)

DonL said:


> A simple question,
> 
> why don't you compare the soviet 76,2mm gun to the the 8,8cm Flak/18/36/37 with near the same duties in WWII?
> 
> THe 8,8cm Flak was Flak, anti tank gun, light field artillery and so on.



This is an often trotted out point but in reality not quite true. While the gun was used those roles it was not used interchangeably in those roles. If deployed as AT guns they were usually not hooked up to the AA director and were little better than a WW I aa gun. If used as AT guns for any period of time they tended to loose ( crews stripped) the AA equipment, like the automatic fuse setter, from the mounts rendering the guns near useless for AA work even if they were given back to an AA organization. Using high velocity AA guns for general bombardment is either a sign of desperation ( you don't have enough guns to begin with) or a sign of such overwhelming superiority ( the air force controls the sky so the AA guns have nothing to shoot at) that AA barrel life, much much shorter than field gun life, can be used up in a secondary role. 

But if you do want to compare the two guns a soviet 76.2 gun weighed 1/4 to 1/5 what an 8.8cm Flack gun weighed. Which also shows how uneconomical using Flak guns for field artillery work is. 


DonL said:


> The 10,5cm howitzer is to my opinion not comparable to the 76,2mm and had totally other duties.



Care to explain? Both weapons were designed as a basic artillery piece of the infantry division for indirect fire support. They fired HE and smoke for the most part. Any other role, including AT work was secondary. The Russians, with their drive for standardization used the 7,62cm guns as anti tank guns even though they weren't really that good at it. They were good enough considering the lack of heavy German armor until 1943 but they were about the lowest powered 75-76mm gun used in large numbers for anti-tank work and had a high profile due to their higher than normal for an AT gun elevation. This higher elevation helped give them the range desired for the field gun role.
If you want compare a german 10,5cm gun I would choose the Schwere 10-cm-Feldkanone 18 as one battery of the division artillery.


DonL said:


> Edit:
> Sorry no!
> The normal german mobile infantry division and tank division had 4 departmentalism a 3 batteries. The heavy departmentalism had standard 2 Batteries 15cm howitzer and 1 Battery 10.5cm K18 field gun.



You are correct and I was wrong about this. But 4-6 guns per division means it wasn't a common gun.


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## psteel (Aug 1, 2011)

Soviet employment of divisions and Korps was not the same as in the rest of Europe. I gather due to shortage of officers they employed echelons at a level below the western equivalents. So a Soviet Division was run as a 'Brigade' and Korps run as a 'Division'. So the proper comparison should be between Soviet Korps guns and German divisional guns.

To make comparisons more difficult; [Looking at data from TM9-1907] a shell landing at high angle [say 60°] usually has about 1.5 times the blast coverage as the same shell landing at low trajectory....which is why mortars infantry guns are so popular with infantry units. It also explains why Howitzers are preferable to guns for divisional artillery. Gun firing over obstacles usually have longer "no fire zones" than Howitzers again making howitzers preferable and Infantry guns/Mortars the best to employ as support in attack.

I also gather from the "USSBS" that the % of HE in German shells dropped late in the war, making comparison at that time difficult. Looking at data from TM9-1907, usually a 4" HE Shell has twice as much HE filler as a 3" HE shell. That suggests a 105 howitzer HE shell should offer nearly 3 times as much blast area as 3" gun He shell


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## davebender (Aug 1, 2011)

Italy and Japan had small GDPs relative to the size of their armed forces and operational committments. Consequently they couldn't afford to modernize.


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## Shortround6 (Aug 1, 2011)

Glider said:


> I am not doubting the points you made here but was pointing out that thr British did spend money between the wars on Artillery. The designs were almost all new and production picked up.



Money was tight in a number of countries in the 1920s and 30s, between the people who wished for peace and the economic times large sums of money for defense did not exist in many western nations. The US with it's isolationist policys and two large oceans to hide behind didn't start rearming until several years after France and Britain. Navies tended to get money for new ships because it can take years to build ships. around four for the big ones. The Air forces got money, they promised if war came it would not be like the nightmare of WW I. The promised that fighting could be done at a distance. They also promised what they could not deliver at the time. The promised they could defend against enemy ships, which it took them several years into WW II to actually do ( at least against moving ships) , they promised they could replace the expensive heavy artillery of the army, sucked some of the armies budget and spent it on planes that were useless for replacing the armies guns. Armies got the short end, they had lots of left over "stuff" from WW I. More than they could use with peace time manning. And every politician "KNEW" all you need for a large army was to draft a bunch of men, give them uniforms, rifles and a few weeks of training and you were good to go. SO they didn't worry about the army until the guns were about ready to go off. 


Glider said:


> It is true that 25pd production in 1939 had just started and I do not question your figure of 111, but in 1940 production stepped up and by 1941 they were being produced in serious numbers, 4,000+. Its also wrong to belittle the 18/25pd conversions, they were not lashups, they were put together after serious testing and for the time were very capable weapons.


 The early 25lbs would have been a decent gun if not the much better the gun the MK II was but they were still built on end of war or slightly post war carriages. They were not what was wanted but what the financial ministers would pay for at the time. 


Glider said:


> Had the USA found itself at war in 1939 their situation would have been very difficult. It says something that the USA had to use British 4.5in ammunition. I don't know if the M1 105mm ever entered production but my understanding is that the M2 didn't enter production until 1941, so the British were if anything ahead of the USA in Artillery.


The Americans used a British designed shell because they actually used so few 4.5 in barrels it wasn't worth the effort to design a new shell and complicate the logistics. The Americans were already manufacturing the shell for the British. The M1 105 howitzer is a lot like the M2 except it was for horse traction and was standardized in 1928. 14 were made. by 1939-40 all the modifications had been made and the plans were gather dust on shelves waiting for congress to come up with the money. The American Army had come up with a number of new guns during the 30s and while few of them were outstanding in any one particular attribute they were solid designs that stood the test of time. The 4.7in gun may have worked or not, it was put aside in favor of the British 4.5 in for the above mentioned ammunition supply. With a 155mm howitzer, a 155gun and a 8in Howitzer the US also had covered a fair amount of the heavy field artillery range without getting into guns that needed to be transported in two pieces ( we got into those too and supplied the British with them but perhaps the less said about those models the better  


Glider said:


> The accepted exception being the Heavy Artillery where the 7.2in was a stop gap until given a modern mounting. Even here the US had 65 Long Toms in Dec 1941, had they gone to war in 1939 they would be using the WW1 derived 155mm 1917/18. again not a bad gun, but undeniably old.



Yes the US was little late to the party but again much of the work on the Long Toms had been done and the design standardized in 1938. Production, especially in peace does take time to get moving. The British army had not been doing much work on big guns because they had been sold a bill of goods by the RAF. When it was time to collect the goods weren't there and they had to scramble. Since a lot of production would have to be done in the US it was just as easy to use the big US guns.


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## Shortround6 (Aug 1, 2011)

davebender said:


> Italy and Japan had small GDPs relative to the size of their armed forces and operational committments. Consequently they couldn't afford to modernize.



True but I am not sure what you are getting at. The Italians did use a number of 100mm Howitzers they got from A-H at the end of WW I and they did manage to produce a few of their own 105 Howitzers from about 1938 on. Likewise the Japanese had designed , built and issued about 1,000 of the type 91 105mm howitzer starting about 1931.
Maybe the Japanese couldn't afford to modernize completely but they did design and build (at least in small quantities) a new gun in every major category between 1925 and 1935. Perhaps their continued production of 75mm field guns had less to do with economics than it did with a perceived need by the Army?


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## davebender (Aug 1, 2011)

> Japanese had designed , built and issued about 1,000 of the type 91 105mm howitzer starting about 1931


During 1940 the Imperial Japanese Army had 41 divisions, 39 of which were operationally deployed to Manchuria and China. Plus a bunch of garrison units scattered across China. 1,000 light howitzers is not enough for a force this size even if none got worn out or destroyed in combat from 1932 onward.


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## parsifal (Aug 1, 2011)

davebender said:


> Italy and Japan had small GDPs relative to the size of their armed forces and operational committments. Consequently they couldn't afford to modernize.



I agree with you here, but there were some rather odd outcomes that arose from those economies.

The italian artillery experience in WWII was generally an unhappy one. Their 75/27 was an old gun, with unsatisfactory ballistics for its shell, and a maximum range of only about 7000m except if a pit was dug for its long trail. not particularly mobile, slow firing rates. The really striking things about the italian artillery were

the age of the park
the multiplicity of types and ammunition
the lack of a coherent modernization plan leading up to the war
lack of mobility in the older guns

However those guns that were new or modernized had quite good performance. The 75/18 mountain gun had quite good performance and mobility, whilst the 149mm gun was considered the best piece of heavy artillery available to the Axis in North Africa.

Japanese artillery also suffered as you say, yet its 75/24 mountain gun despite its age and antiquated appearance is considered by many to be the best performing piece of artillery available for the jungle for eithr side. It was probably better than the US 75mm pack howitzer in terms of range and portability, and was superior to the baby 25pounder in terms of portability. Plus it was available from the beginning of hostilities

The Japanese Pistol Petes were a much respected piece of artillery in the Pacific, especially on Corregidor and in the island campaigns. 

Japanese got a lot out of their admittedly old artillery really, and the sort of war they fought didnt really require a lot of mobility. The Japanese suffered mostly from a multiplicity of types, and a lack of artillery, rathr than inneffective artillery


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## Shortround6 (Aug 1, 2011)

davebender said:


> During 1940 the Imperial Japanese Army had 41 divisions, 39 of which were operationally deployed to Manchuria and China. Plus a bunch of garrison units scattered across China. 1,000 light howitzers is not enough for a force this size even if none got worn out or destroyed in combat from 1932 onward.



You have said that the Japanese continued making 75mm guns because they couldn't afford to upgrade. They spent the money to design and tool up a production line for a modern 105 howitzer. They built 1000-1100 hundred of them. 105 howitzers and 75mm field guns are very close in cost. In many cases they use the same carriage. If the Japanese had wanted more 105 howitzers instead of 75mm Field guns they could have built them. While the Japanese did build only about 1000 modern 75mm field guns (which was nowhere near enough) they built two different designs which indicates they thought there was a role for the 75mm field gun and didn't keep them because all they could afford were WW I left overs.


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## parsifal (Aug 1, 2011)

a picture of the italian 75/27 in North Africa

http://www.ww2incolor.com/italian-forces/cannon-540144.jpg.html


And her is a link to an article, with photos of the main italian guns used during the war

http://www.flamesofwar.com/Default.aspx?tabid=112&art_id=1019&kb_cat_id=33

Finally here is a link to a page that summarises the main Japanese artillery types for th war

http://www3.plala.or.jp/takihome/artillery.htm


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## Shortround6 (Aug 2, 2011)

Getting back to the original topic the German 17cm was probably the best long range gun of the war. Perfect it wasn't but then nobody else had a gun over 155mm that came close to being perfect either. 

For long range I am considering guns that had ranges over 20,000yds. 

Most countries (if not all) that went bigger than 155 jumped to the 8in category (203-210mm) which put the total weight of the equipment too high to move in a single load and required hours to emplace or get ready for movement. The Americans could supposedly emplace their 8 in gun ( not howitzer) in about 2 hours but that required the services of a 20 ton crane with a clam shell bucket to dig the gun pit. The crane also made assembling the gun much easier than using the winches on the tow vehicles. 

Second best was was the American 155mm gun M1. It was faster in and out of action ( but long range guns are supposed to be a number of miles behind the front line) but fired lighter shells 5,000-7,000yds less distance.

No gun that fires shells that weigh over 33-35lbs and ranges more than 20,000yds is going to be much use in deep jungle or rugged mountains without near super human effort or mechanized assistance in building access roads or tracks. This why countries that had to operate in such terrain built special mountain or jungle guns instead of even regular field guns and becaseu of the weight limits imposed by such terrain, usually settled for 12-33lb projectiles and ranges under 10,000yds, in fact usually close to 6-7,000yds. 

The Germans had a couple of 15cm designs that could match the American gun for shell weight and range but took a lot more effort to move (two loads) and emplace and pack up. The K 18 also had limited traverse without resorting to a turn table move like the 25pdr used. Harder to do with a 12 1/2 ton gun?


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## parsifal (Aug 2, 2011)

what you are describing really are two categories of guns, each with definitive roles. K18s were Corps level weapons ideally suited to achieving or supporting breakthroughhs, or destroying fortified positions. Thats why they were never attached as divisional field artillery weapons. Field Artillery must necessarily combine firepower and mobility. Range is important, but less so than either of those first two. If your weapon is going to be used in counterbattery fire, you also need good accuracy.

In Jungle or rough terrain, which is about 50% of the time, or in conditions of poor mobility, like snow, or mud, or in desert conditions which decreases the usefulness of heavy guns even further, the issue of mobility becomes even more an essential item. This is something the germans got, but inexplicably did not develop in their artillery park. Americans were just not as attuned to the mobility issue, they always placed far greater importance on firepower, and as a result their otherwise exceelent artillery suffered in its usefulness and application. In particular getting mobility in rough terrain was something the Americans took a long time to appreciate. even as late as first part of Vietnam they were messing about thinking that artillery couldnt operate effectively in rough terrain. Eventually they did get the message, and now put great importance on the mobility of their artillery.

Super heavy artillery is very useful, dont get me wrong, but its application is limited. It really needs a massive logistic tail, and flat terrain to operate in. Because of its logistic needs, it cant really operate as it should anywhere except North america and Western Europe. The last great concentration of German artillery was at Sevastopol, and here it took three months to build up stocks of ammunition for an assault that lasted less than a week. 

,


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## davebender (Aug 2, 2011)

IMO the German 17cm wasn't developed to it's full potential. Nor was it produced in large enough numbers (338 total) to have much of an impact. The 1960s era U.S. M107 175mm SP gun shows what the German 17cm gun could have been if mounted on a Panther tank chassis and produced in quantity.

The American 155mm Long Tom equipped 49 artillery battalions (per Wikipedia) during WWII. That should have given us a huge superiority in long range artillery over everyone else.


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## Shortround6 (Aug 2, 2011)

Actually I was addressing your concern earlier that the 17cm K 18 was actually a good long range artillery piece.

from your post #6 "An in rough terrain, like a jungle or mountain environment, it was basically useless.

There is no ideal long range artillery piece. The question needs to be refined in order to be satisfactorily answered."

Nobody had a gun that would shoot 20,000 yds or better that was any good in jungle or mountains as I said. Claiming that a design was useless because it wouldn't work in areas it was never designed to work in and that nobody else ever came up with design that would work in those conditions, isn't addressing the original question. 
The other thing to remember about heavy artillery (which is not always the same thing as long range artillery) is that is available 24 hours day, 7 days a week in all but the absolute worst weather conditions. Something that certainly could not be said of air support in WW II and even for several decades later.


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## Shortround6 (Aug 2, 2011)

davebender said:


> IMO the German 17cm wasn't developed to it's full potential. Nor was it produced in large enough numbers (338 total) to have much of an impact. The 1960s era U.S. M107 175mm SP gun shows what the German 17cm gun could have been if mounted on a Panther tank chassis and produced in quantity.
> 
> The American 155mm Long Tom equipped 49 artillery battalions (per Wikipedia) during WWII. That should have given us a huge superiority in long range artillery over everyone else.



WHat would you suggest as improvements to the 17cm gun do develop it's full potential?
Heavy artillery is expensive to produce, Nobody ever had as much as they wanted. and quantity of production does not really make up for deficiencies in design. Mounting guns on tracked chassis helps a bit with mobility of the gun but doesn't do much for actual fire power without a lot of tracked ammunition carriers. The Germans didn't have any production capacity to spare for such schemes. They couldn't come up with enough ammunition transport for the SP guns they did have.


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## davebender (Aug 2, 2011)

> Mounting guns on tracked chassis helps a bit with mobility of the gun but doesn't do much for actual fire power


IMO the German 17cm artillery piece required no improvements in firepower or range. All it needed was mobility and greater production numbers so every German army corps could have a battalion of them.

I agree that Germany could never afford this under the historical circumstances. From 1939 onward most of the German military budget was consumed in warfighting rather then to procure new equipment and build munitions manufacturing infrastructure.


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## Shortround6 (Aug 2, 2011)

"From 1939 onward most of the German military budget was consumed in warfighting rather then to procure new equipment and build munitions manufacturing infrastructure."

Strange, that is not what the production figures you provided in the link you posted show. While the Germans may not invested in as much new manufacturing infrastructure as perhaps they should have they were certainly procuring new equipment. 

While the 17cm K18 was perhaps the best long range gun it was, as most long ranged guns are, a specialty weapon. To make use of the range you need targeting information. While the shells are heavier and land with a bigger bang, the extra size and weight of the shells means more transport problems (more vehicles to get the same number of shells.) AND, as with all long range guns, powder consumption was enormous. A full charge with the standard shell used 107.6lbs of powder. and extra 3 lbs with the light weight long range shell. The 15cm K 39 used 63.3lbs of powder for a full range shot while the 21cm Mrs 18 used just 34.25lbs for a full range shot. The 150mm sFH 18 used about 9.9lbs to fire it's 96lb shell 14,490 yds. Now, you can use a lesser charge on the long range guns but the lightest charge on the 17cm gun was 33lbs. This brings us to another fact of life with long range guns, short barrel life. If you use the range and heavy charges you are going to get a barrel life measured in hundreds of rounds instead of the thousands of rounds of the short range guns. If you plan on using 17cm guns as a replacement for some of the shorter ranged guns you better put an addition on the barrel factory to make replacement barrels for the carriages you do have. 

Another point is that many artillery pieces have several rates of fire. While they can be fired fairly quickly at times, rapid fire can burn out barrels if used too much. as an example the US 105 howitzer has rates of fire of 8 rpm in the first 1/2 minute (4-5 rounds in 30 seconds) 4rpm for the first 4 minutes. 3rpm for the first 10 minutes and 100 rounds an hour sustained fire. The 105s barrel could last as long as 10,000rounds using low charges and slow fire. In the ETO after D-day a fair number of them needed barrel replacements in under 5,000 rounds. Trying to use a weapon like a 17cm K 18 as a general purpose field piece only bigger creates many more problems than it would ever solve. Worn barrels not only loose velocity and range they loose accuracy and also can actually become dangerous. Worn barrels can lead to shells exploding prematurely in the barrel.


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## plan_D (Aug 2, 2011)

I don't know the answer to this question based on single gun vs. single gun because these are just numbers. From reading their operational experience it seems to me that the U.S. were dominant when using artillery purely down to their large numbers, and isn't this the important point of any artillery 'war'? The single gun is never going to be used, and a mildly inferior weapon in greater numbers is going to be supreme on the real-life battlefield. German accounts of Russian fire from almost undoubtedly their 122mm pieces highlights the overwhelming superiority of Soviet firepower (especially as the war went on) but gun for gun, I'm sure the Soviet equipment was considerably inferior to their German counter-part. (This does not take into account AT pieces, of which the Soviets built very capable weapons). And in the CBI , the British were using their 4.5 inch pieces in the jungle to great effect - it's great to be mobile, but sometimes fire supremacy is the winning card.


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## Shortround6 (Aug 2, 2011)

I think that is the trouble with a lot of these comparison threads. They get off track very quickly. 

As a "design" the 17cm K 18 was the best "long range gun". 
It was not the best heavy artillery design.
It was not the most efficient. 
It may not have been the best use of resources.
There were a host of other German guns it could not replace. has lost 

But if you needed or wanted a gun that could shoot to over 30,000yds and not be mounted on a railcar it was the about the best that could be done in WW II. 

Once you lower the range requirement down to 25,000yds it gets several rivals and if you drop the range requirement down to 19,000-21,000yds it has lost it's reason for being. 

No single artillery piece represents a countries artillery. By the end of WW II the British used what they called the "golf bag" approach. Instead of trying to use one or two guns to cover every situation they used a variety of guns and howitzers ( and mortars) , interconnected by extensive radio and field phone networks to bring down the right kind of artillery fire from the right number of tubes for any possible target, Up to and including every piece of ordnance in range if the target warranted it. 

I am not claiming the British artillery system was better than any other, only that by the end of the war nations artillery "systems" had evolved considerably from the start of the war and a nations artillery "system' involved not only a variety of guns but doctrine and communication systems. A good artillery system depends on more than just guns, however good or varied they may be.


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## parsifal (Aug 2, 2011)

Shortround6 said:


> Actually I was addressing your concern earlier that the 17cm K 18 was actually a good long range artillery piece.
> 
> from your post #6 "An in rough terrain, like a jungle or mountain environment, it was basically useless.
> 
> ...




So, are you suggesting that long range , efficient and heavy artillery is not required in all situations. Just because th parameters for long range and heavy in the jungle are measured to a different scalethan that employed on the central european plains, does not mean that such requirements are not important. in 1941-2, the concept of heavy artillery in the jungle only needed to be extended to the Japanese 70mm Infantry Gun, since no-one else had anything bigger than a light mortar that they could take into the jungle. From 1942, there was a race going on in the background that was no less fierce than the gunpower race for open terrain artillery. The point I am maling is that the thinking behind guns like the K-18 is so restrictive, so convoluted, that it is dangerous. it was a mindset that the Americans did not really overcome until well after the war. So it does not surprise that forum memebers from countries where mobility and adaptability of their artillery is not seen as the number one priority would be besotted by the sheer power of such a gun as the K-18. That its usefulness was so restricted, its mobility so limited, its all weather capabilities so dubious, are all explained away and lety go as issues to consider. All that matter s is the size of the shell and how far it can be thrown....that is probabaly a relevant standard for WWI, but we have developed warfare quite a bit since then. These pieces of "siege artillery" (which is basically all they were) were useful, and powerful, but they are not the only types of artillery that can have the term "Heavy" applied to them....it depends on the environment that the guns are operating in. 

And inferring that you are "getting the debate back on track" only serves to confirm the narrowness in the theory behind the thinking. I there is no satisfactory definition of "heavy artillery" because the environments that the guns operate dictate what is heavy medium and light.

Note should also be made of the thread title "Best Long Range Artillery Piece". The basis of my argument is that the concept of "Long Range" is relative to the environment that your artillery is working in....just because artillery operating in the Central European Plain can operate at more than 20000 yards with super heavy shells, does not mean that those conditions predetermine what is long range. As I pointed out, in the context of 1942, in the jungle, a 70mm gun with a range of 3000m was "long range" relative to its surroundings and the opposition it faced. The other part of the thread....what is "best" is not necessarily restricted to size of the shell, or how far it can be thrown. These are factors, but they are not the only ones. If the K-18 is useful in say 20% of battlefield situations, but a 25pounder can be used in 90% of situations, and is the "long range" piece of ordinance in say 40% of those situations, which is the better piece of ordinance? certainly the K-18 is the longer ranged, and the heavier gun, but its application is so limited that I would suggest that the 25pounder would be far better as a piece of kit. if i can have 50 25 pounders for every 1 K-18, and i can use the 25 pounder in 70% more situations, and of those twice as many occasions as the long range artillery, which gun deserves the mantle of "best","long range" piece of artillery????


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## psteel (Aug 3, 2011)

We are not discussing the best all round piece of artillery of the war, but the best long range gun. Artillery is often grouped into types based on role and there is a long range gun role. The 25lb doesn't fit into this category. The only criticism was the amount of resource wasted producing the ½ dozen other different designs that straddled heavy and super heavy guns.


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## parsifal (Aug 3, 2011)

PS

I agree, that in the narrow confines of clear terrain, with good lines of communication, such as occur in Central Europe, the concept of LR artillery is that represented by the K-18. But in probably 80% of other terrains (and situations), the K-18 does not represent best LR artillery, because it is unusable in that sort of terrain. And when you stop to think about it, Central Europe is really a tiny proportion of even WWII battlefields. In many, many situations the best LR artillery available was artillery we might refer to as light or mountain, or field, or similar. in those "other situations" the best LR artillery is not "Heavy" artillery at all, its something else. If Dave wants to amend the topic to read "best LR artillery with ranges above 20000m on the Central European Plain, and nowhere else, except maybe North America, in good weather and with good roads and communications" or something similar, then my argument falls away to nothing. But whilst ever the topic remains so broad, we have to consider the best artillery for all conditions, and that inevitably means we have to make allowances for mobility, terrain, weather and the like, and that means, almost straight away that these behemoths you guys are so fond of, become instantly redundant....


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## Shortround6 (Aug 3, 2011)

Why don't you start a thread for best artillery piece for all conditions?

Many people know what long range artillery is, what it is used for, and it's limitations. 

That is why most armies had a mix of heavy guns and even had mixes at different levels. Divisions had short range howitzers and longer ranged guns of about the same size/weight, Corp had both Howitzers and guns of a larger size (both shell and equipment) and range again with gun having a smaller shell but longer range than the howitzer. If the Army was big enough they had another pair of weapons for 'army' level (several corp) or independent heavy battalions to be assigned as needed. These were another step up in shell size and equipment size and in range. 

Your argument has fallen away to nothing unless every general staff of every nation big enough to a form a field army of more than a couple of Corp has had it wrong since about 1900 and you are the only one that is right.

Your geographical argument is on shaky ground too. The big guns (not just the 17cm K18) were use aplenty on the Russian steppes and in North Africa. The big guns were used in Italy and historically, big guns (in physical size if not range, 8in howitzers/6in guns and the like) were used in WW I on the Italian/Austrian front in the Alps.

While getting the right 'MIX" of guns is certainly subject to argument, the need for at least some long range guns is not. Once you have a 'category' of long range guns then it is quite proper to consider which is the best in that category, just as it is proper to consider best field gun or best mountain gun or any other category with just one or two adjectives. we don't need a paragraph long description to categorize an artillery piece. 

You have claimed that these big guns are siege weapons without ever defining siege weapon. What is the dividing line between a 'field' gun and a 'siege gun?

Is it weight of the equipment? or towing requirements? or time needed to emplace? Is two hours to emplace OK for a 'field gun' but 2 1/4 hours it is a siege gun? 

Obviously as carriages and towing equipment got better from 1914 to 1945 what had been siege guns turned into field guns. 

By the way, if all you have is great general purpose, use anywhere, light feildguns/howitzers and your opponent does get some longer ranged heavy artillery into a firing position, your guns are not only "instantly redundant" they are dead leaving your opponents smaller artillery to mop up your infantry without the inconvenience of counter battery fire.


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## davebender (Aug 3, 2011)

Isn't that the purpose of army recon aircraft such as the Fw-189?
Focke-Wulf Fw 189


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## Shortround6 (Aug 3, 2011)

Yep, but if it can't fly (weather or night) it can't locate targets.

And that is assuming that the enemy fighters leave it alone. 

Without such help the longest range gun is restricted to what the guys in the FO posts can see (which may include gun flashes) rather than the max range of the gun. Shells and barrel life are too limited just to fire off shells in the general direction of the enemy.

The US 175mm gun in Viet Nam was limited to 300 full charge shots before barrel replacement to begin with. This was latter changed to between 1000-1200 shots but it required better barrel inspection methods, and perhaps better barrel construction/materials and powder additives. normal rate of fire for the US gun was one round every 2 minutes but for short periods it could fire once every 30 seconds. It had a power shell lifting and ramming system that powered by hydraulics. Once you get much of 100lbs for shell weight you either need power equipment of you have low rate of fire.


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## parsifal (Aug 3, 2011)

_Why don't you start a thread for best artillery piece for all conditions?

Many people know what long range artillery is, what it is used for, and it's limitations. _

Actually, they dont. what they have are misconceptions based on national interpretations of the application of artillery. That those theories actually failed in a number of key situations does not seem to register, and neither does it matter to them, because they "know" what is the correct application of artillery.

Starting another thread may be a good idea, but that would not necessarily mean abandoning this thread to degenerating into a propaganda platform to sing the praises of firepower and range over all other considerations. Sorry to dissappoint, but this is where the action is, this is where the BS is being manufactured, this is where i will make my stand. 

_That is why most armies had a mix of heavy guns and even had mixes at different levels. Divisions had short range howitzers and longer ranged guns of about the same size/weight, Corp had both Howitzers and guns of a larger size (both shell and equipment) and range again with gun having a smaller shell but longer range than the howitzer. If the Army was big enough they had another pair of weapons for 'army' level (several corp) or independent heavy battalions to be assigned as needed. These were another step up in shell size and equipment size and in range._ 

I agree that armies have a mix of guns, and that having the right gun for a given situation is important to success. several people, including yourself, have commented along those lines. What is not so true is that divisions had mixes of guns. In the British army, the Australian Army, the Canadian Army, and many others, there was just one standardized piece of field artilleery at the divisional level and below. At Corps and army level the specialist artillery was centralized and held in reserve. 

A US division had 36 105mm howitzers and 12 155 Howitzers. The heavier Howitzers werent there for range purposes, they were included to give the division greater ability to put heavy firepower down onto a particular position. They were the divisional reserve, in effect, to give added firepower to the MLA of the Division. US Infantry in the ETO was admittedly more dependant on Corps level resources than a British Division, which by 1944, had 72 guns in the artilery brigades, plus an additional 4 guns attached directly to each Brigade HQ. In fact when you have a closer look at all the divisional allocations for just about every nation. The Germans, for example in their training and techniques did not place a greeat deal of weight on outranging an enemy, infact they stressed pushing their artillery as far forward as possible. this meant that their artillery could start responding earlier, made possible counterattacks at the local level and meant that the enemy guns were placed at greater risk from counter battery fire. This admittedly had some risk to it, but the germans never tried to engage the enemy guns or formations at ling range with their own guns. Neither did the Italians or Japanese. Strangely the British did introduce this type of thinking somewhat I suspect because their 25pounders could outrange the German field artillery. 

_Your argument has fallen away to nothing unless every general staff of every nation big enough to a form a field army of more than a couple of Corp has had it wrong since about 1900 and you are the only one that is right.

Your geographical argument is on shaky ground too. The big guns (not just the 17cm K1 were use aplenty on the Russian steppes and in North Africa. The big guns were used in Italy and historically, big guns (in physical size if not range, 8in howitzers/6in guns and the like) were used in WW I on the Italian/Austrian front in the Alps_.

Every nation needs a heavy artillery park. Im not arguing that. The thread is entitled "Best Long range artillery". It fails to take into account the differing conditions that render the big, heavy guns useless. In fact what I am arguing is that the concept of "long range" is not wedded to a single concept or formula, it is wedded to maxised flexibility and effectiveness, and that is much more than just having the biggest, heaviest, and longest ranged guns your industry can build. In other words the very thing you are arguing in your openeing paragraps are the things I am saying are essential. Of course that encouraging path to enlightenment evaporates quickly as soon as it is realized that the primacy of the heavy gun may be under some kind of threat, and hevaen forbid, we might have to thinnk about something other than gun size and range. 

As for me being alone in my criticism of the big guns, I can only suggest you do a little more reading. Try reading Colonel Tsuji, and Blamey for a start. The very things you are espousing , about how an army is only effective if it has the necessary heavy firepower to back it up, were major factors in the japanese run of successes throughout southeast asia, and why the US sucked at jungle warfare or indeed warfare in any rough terrain (you mention italy, we will look at the US performance in the mountains of Italy in a minute....but it is not a pretty picture I can assure you) until they learnt the lesson of not trying to apply the same formula interms of artillery support to every situation, and infact paying greater attention to the issue of mobility. To be fair, unlike the germans, the Americans at least always paid great attention to supply and logistics issues, which got them out of a lot of pickles during the war. l 

With regard to the use of big guns outside central eurpoe, again you are taking the issue out of context. I never said they were not used, but where were they decisive, and what were the difficulties that each side faced. For the germans, the last great concentration of their big guns on the eastern front was at Sevastopol. Big guns were not deplyed to any great extent at Stalingrad, because of supply difficulties mostly. The russians certainly used them, but it would generally take 6-12 weeks of painstaking stockpiling to prepare for an offensive, and the bigger the guns, the longer the build up. And, in every case of the Soviet build ups, there was a flurry of rail and road construction in the area where the offensive was to take place. Without that, the logistic support was simply not there to support the big guns. Put another way, the Russians had to create "central European" conditions in the locality where they were to attack, before they coulod successfully emply their big artillery parks. Where they didnt do this, their guns , or at least their heavy guns were not used. 

The US in western Europr had similar problems. Until the French railnet, and the French ports, could be built back up, the allies had to rely on road transport (the Red Bull highway????), and whilst this reliance on road transport existed, you will not find many instances of the allies using large amounts of their corps artillery assets on a large scale. Arhem was an exception., but this was achieved at the expense of other offensive activities, and even then some rail communications had been established by then and gues where those efforts were being directed. 

In North Africa, the big guns were only used by the allies where they had rail communications to support them (eventually this meant to Tobruk), and later still the light rail network around tripoli), and for both sides, the use of corps level artillery assets (ie, the big guns) was extremely limited. At Alamein, for example, there were 28 Regimental sized units attached to Corps units or above, however ther were only 8 regiments of 155mm or larger, and these units never left the Alamein once the pursuit stated. the British never bothered....they knew that it would be impossible to supply them....they dont reappear in the battle line up until after the fall of tripoli. So, for the allies at least, the heavy guns in north Africa are only used close to port in North africa, and only where there are rails, or at least short distance, and high quality roads. In other words, extremely limited opportunities to use them. For the germans, apart from some ex-french 155mm Coatal guns, that never left the ports regions, I can only identify three understrength Battalions of Heavy guns of 155mm or above that may have moved away from the supply sources, plus a further two batteries of heavy mortars that may have been used in the final assault on Tobruk. In other words, anything but a heavy use of heavy gunbs in the desert, by either side.


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## parsifal (Aug 3, 2011)

_While getting the right 'MIX" of guns is certainly subject to argument, the need for at least some long range guns is not. Once you have a 'category' of long range guns then it is quite proper to consider which is the best in that category, just as it is proper to consider best field gun or best mountain gun or any other category with just one or two adjectives. we don't need a paragraph long description to categorize an artillery piece. _

I completely agree with your statements here, however the parameters for determining "best" are flawed under your system, because no account for mobility or reliability is being considered. you seem to be basing your selection criteria on two things only...range, and weight of shell, and look out anybody who points out that in most situations these guns could not be deployed, and were there fore useless compared to less heavy guns. The concept of "long range" is relative to the opponent, and to what can be deployed, but this is something you appear most reluctant to acknowledge. We get these swqeeping statement about how the heavy guns were used across Europe with devastating effect, in the deserts of North Africa, and in the Mountains of the italian Alps, and yet, when we break it down, we actually see the effects of these heavy guns as quite limited in those TOs. I think the proper assessment is not to consider the theoretical potential of these guns, but rather to look at their actual applications, and their actual effects. And if you do that all of a sudden we are confronted with the fact that their effects were quite limited, as was their deployment

_You have claimed that these big guns are siege weapons without ever defining siege weapon. What is the dividing line between a 'field' gun and a 'siege gun?

Is it weight of the equipment? or towing requirements? or time needed to emplace? Is two hours to emplace OK for a 'field gun' but 2 1/4 hours it is a siege gun? _


Ther isnt a clear definition, but obviously is is linked to the mobility issue, also where were these guns actually used and where were they effective. As far as emplacement is concerned, a figure more like two months is a more realistic figure for their emplacement,and the build up of a logistic base to support them, as the experiences of the germans at Odessa, Sevastopol and Russians in all their major offensives show. where such preprations were not made, such as at Moscow, the heavy guns were inneffective (and therefore are not the "best). If you look at where German Heavy guns were effective, its was in siege situations, mostly, rather than in fluid mobile battles 


_Obviously as carriages and towing equipment got better from 1914 to 1945 what had been siege guns turned into field guns. 

By the way, if all you have is great general purpose, use anywhere, light feildguns/howitzers and your opponent does get some longer ranged heavy artillery into a firing position, your guns are not only "instantly redundant" they are dead leaving your opponents smaller artillery to mop up your infantry without the inconvenience of counter battery fire._

Can you give examples of that happening on a catqastrophic scale? I cant think of any occasions. If we look at Alamein for example....the British used an overwhelming park of 25 pounders, which were the longest ranged weapons except for a few 4.5 inc and 7.2 inch guns. They easily outranged the majority of German and italian guns deployed at the battle, which in any case were deployed well forward. I cant find any real evidence that the British massacred the Axis guns until after tha breakthrough. At Tobruk in the precedeing year, the defending Australian garrson was equiped mostly with captured 65mm ex-Italian guns with a range of about 6000 yards. they were enageaged by a superior number of heavier axis artillery, which far outranged them, but no great defeat of the Australian maned batteries ever occurred. The Axis assaults were rep[eatedly driven off. I am not saying that having a range advantage is not a benefit, but your asertion is that range advantage more or less automataically gurantees victory. id like to know where that occurred?????


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## davebender (Aug 3, 2011)

The Fw-189 flew at night. A few of them were even used as night fighters.


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## Shortround6 (Aug 3, 2011)

All Fw 189s flew at night or just selected units? 

To locate targets for artillery you have to be able to place the position on a map. While a night flying "intruder" can certainly bomb/strafe a target "west of a village" if it can't identify which village or how far west (2000meters or 2500meters) the sighting does no good to the artillery.


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## Shortround6 (Aug 3, 2011)

parsifal said:


> Starting another thread may be a good idea, but that would not necessarily mean abandoning this thread to degenerating into a propaganda platform to sing the praises of firepower and range over all other considerations. Sorry to dissappoint, but this is where the action is, this is where the BS is being manufactured, this is where i will make my stand.



Yes the BS does seem to being manufactured here and a fair amount does seem to coming from down under. 

Please refer me back to MY posts that "sing the praises of firepower and range over all other considerations".

I believe I have tried to point out a number of considerations that are negative to the big long range guns.




parsifal said:


> I agree that armies have a mix of guns, and that having the right gun for a given situation is important to success. several people, including yourself, have commented along those lines. What is not so true is that divisions had mixes of guns. In the British army, the Australian Army, the Canadian Army, and many others, there was just one standardized piece of field artilleery at the divisional level and below. At Corps and army level the specialist artillery was centralized and held in reserve.



The British Commonwealth was the exception that proved the rule at the beginning of the war and not quite even then. While some units in the BEF did have 25pdrs others had a mix of 18pdrs and 4.5in Howitzers. Granted it was due to lack of the 25pdr guns rather than doctrine but it shows the pairing. The flat trajectory field guns often had dead areas of ground they could not shoot into, not having adjustable charges like the 25pdr and howitzers. The Howitzers in most armies were to hit this dead ground in addition to providing shell weight. 
Had the US gone to war any earlier than it did it too would have had a mix of guns, again due to a late start rather than in equipping they they wished.
However both armies had the advantage of planning to use motor transport from some point in the 30s to tow their guns and haul their ammo. This meant their "standard" field gun/howitzer could be heavier than other armies who were still depending, in some part, on horse traction. These heavier "standard" field gun/howitzers could offer more performance than the lighter horse drawn pieces and could combine the light howitzer/light field gun abilities into one piece of equipment. 

The US 155 Howitzer could out range the German 15cm howitzer by about 1700yds (about 11%) so perhaps the Americans didn't feel the need for long ranged gun in division quite as much. The American 155 could also out range the British 5.5in (using 100lb shells) by a few hundred yds but nobody was surveying firing positions that closely. Call them equal. American divisions were also usually generously supported by higher echelon units which had the 155mm gun which could range to over 25,000yds. 
Germans divisions often had (as I was reminded) a 4 gun battery of 10.5cm cannon that could range to 20,000yds. Perhaps this was a mistake but it seems somebody thought that some degree of counter battery fire was useful. 

The Germans certainly put a lot of effort into trying to design/build guns/howitzers with longer range. From putting muzzle brakes on the standard 105s. to modified 15ch howitzers to new 105mm gun/howitzers and 12.8cm field guns. Most of this effort came up way short of providing any real results let alone being decisive at any point but it sure seems like somebody was tired of being out ranged? our were they just seduced by the glamour of the bigger guns? 

BTW, why did the British introduce the 80lb shell for the 5.5in gun? Better target effect only? The range increase of 1900yds had nothing to do with it? 



parsifal said:


> Every nation needs a heavy artillery park. Im not arguing that. The thread is entitled "Best Long range artillery". It fails to take into account the differing conditions that render the big, heavy guns useless. In fact what I am arguing is that the concept of "long range" is not wedded to a single concept or formula, it is wedded to maxised flexibility and effectiveness, and that is much more than just having the biggest, heaviest, and longest ranged guns your industry can build. In other words the very thing you are arguing in your openeing paragraps are the things I am saying are essential. Of course that encouraging path to enlightenment evaporates quickly as soon as it is realized that the primacy of the heavy gun may be under some kind of threat, and hevaen forbid, we might have to thinnk about something other than gun size and range.



Boy the sarcasm is getting a bit heavy here isn't it. I thought I was trying to be even handed but if it doesn't agree with your theory or point of view you come out swinging. An enlightened point of view might conclude that things are shades of gray. It seems that that is not so. One can either agree with you and be in the circle of light or disagree and be cast into the darkness. 

l


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## parsifal (Aug 3, 2011)

With regard to range, I think i already agreed with you that having more range gives an advantage. however, your position evolved to...."_By the way, if all you have is great general purpose, use anywhere, light feildguns/howitzers and your opponent does get some longer ranged heavy artillery into a firing position, *your guns are not only "instantly redundant" they are dead *leaving your opponents smaller artillery to mop up your infantry without the inconvenience of counter battery fire_.". I was curious to know of significant situations where having superior range led to the more or less instant destruction of the enemy force. Perhaps it is the scale we are talking about. Destruction of individual guns....perhaps, destruction of an entire enemy on a given battlefield....I cannot think of a single instance.

With regard to K-18 deployment in North Africa, i forgot to mention that just a single battery (either 2 or 4 guns) were deployed to North Africa. 

Not having an effective Howitzer was a a definite disadvantage for the British, though the 25 pounder could use plunging fire to a degree. I think being forced by expedient to have a menagerie of guns does not serve as any exception to the theory....as fast as the British could, they corrected their shortages,and adopted a standardised gun for their artillery. 

The point of contention her isnt that firepower or range wasnt important, they were, but so too were the other factors previously mentioned, and the big guns lacked many of these qualities. You havent commented on much on the limitations on Heavy gun deployment since this comment"_Your argument has fallen away to nothing unless every general staff of every nation big enough to a form a field army of more than a couple of Corp has had it wrong since about 1900 and you are the only one that is right.

Your geographical argument is on shaky ground too. The big guns (not just the 17cm K1 *were use aplenty on the Russian steppes and in North Africa*. The big guns were used in Italy and historically, big guns (in physical size if not range, 8in howitzers/6in guns and the like) were used in WW I on the Italian/Austrian front in the Alps"_. (And im the one making insulting, aggressive statements....really?). I gave you some greater details about these deployments outside of central Europe (except for the usage on the italian Alps in WWI, dont have too much information for those battles.....but my meagre knowledge says that the usage of these big guns was not actually in mountain terrain, it was near it). 

So, the impasse I would suggest is this....I am maintaining that the definition of long range and heavy is relative to the terrain, and the opposition. If you are equipped with mortars and your enemy has nothing, you have the advantage of range and firepower.....I am further maintaining that guns like the K-18 have a purpose, and are good at what they do, but their applications are very limited, and as a result of that limitation (especially for the german gun) cannot be considered as best long range artillery. Youve argued with me a lot, we have exchanged some angry words, but this issue has not been addressed as far as I can see. Perhaps we should get back to that issue, and try and make some headway there.


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## Glider (Aug 3, 2011)

BTW, why did the British introduce the 80lb shell for the 5.5in gun? Better target effect only? The range increase of 1900yds had nothing to do with it? 

My guess and its only that, would be the 4.5 for all its faults was handy as a counter battery weapon with a good range 20,000+ yard range. Also the 80pd shell was more accurate than the 100 pound shell.


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## Shortround6 (Aug 3, 2011)

parsifal said:


> I completely agree with your statements here, however the parameters for determining "best" are flawed under your system, because no account for mobility or reliability is being considered. you seem to be basing your selection criteria on two things only...range, and weight of shell, and look out anybody who points out that in most situations these guns could not be deployed, and were there fore useless compared to less heavy guns. The concept of "long range" is relative to the opponent, and to what can be deployed, but this is something you appear most reluctant to acknowledge. We get these swqeeping statement about how the heavy guns were used across Europe with devastating effect, in the deserts of North Africa, and in the Mountains of the italian Alps, and yet, when we break it down, we actually see the effects of these heavy guns as quite limited in those TOs. I think the proper assessment is not to consider the theoretical potential of these guns, but rather to look at their actual applications, and their actual effects. And if you do that all of a sudden we are confronted with the fact that their effects were quite limited, as was their deployment



Care to point out where I made these sweeping statements "about how the heavy guns were used across Europe with devastating effect, in the deserts of North Africa, and in the Mountains of the italian Alps"

I said they were used, did I say with "devastating effect"?

How about a little less poetic licence in what you attribute to others. 



parsifal said:


> Ther isnt a clear definition, but obviously is is linked to the mobility issue, also where were these guns actually used and where were they effective. As far as emplacement is concerned, a figure more like two months is a more realistic figure for their emplacement,and the build up of a logistic base to support them, as the experiences of the germans at Odessa, Sevastopol and Russians in all their major offensives show. where such preprations were not made, such as at Moscow, the heavy guns were inneffective (and therefore are not the "best). If you look at where German Heavy guns were effective, its was in siege situations, mostly, rather than in fluid mobile battles



Let me see if I have this right. You can provide a several sentence long description of what a long range gun is (did I miss count the sentences?) but you have no definition of what a siege gun is or what characteristics it has?

yet in your post #58 you say"These pieces of "siege artillery" (which is basically all they were) were useful, and powerful, but they are not the only types of artillery that can have the term "Heavy" applied to them....it depends on the environment that the guns are operating in. "

Which seems like you know what siege artillery is. Maybe I am reading too much into that. 






parsifal said:


> If we look at Alamein for example....the British used an overwhelming park of 25 pounders, which were the longest ranged weapons except for a few 4.5 inc and 7.2 inch guns. They easily outranged the majority of German and italian guns deployed at the battle, which in any case were deployed well forward. I cant find any real evidence that the British massacred the Axis guns until after tha breakthrough. At Tobruk in the precedeing year, the defending Australian garrson was equiped mostly with captured 65mm ex-Italian guns with a range of about 6000 yards. they were enageaged by a superior number of heavier axis artillery, which far outranged them, but no great defeat of the Australian maned batteries ever occurred. The Axis assaults were rep[eatedly driven off. I am not saying that having a range advantage is not a benefit, but your asertion is that range advantage more or less automataically gurantees victory. id like to know where that occurred?????



You are right, a range advantage alone does not guarantee victory. 

I can find definitions at various times as to what field artillery was (usually in reference as tow what sized horse team was needed to move it.) with implications that larger or heavier artillery was siege artillery. As time went on some of the heavier weapons were classified as heavy field artillery. Some early definitions/classifications (that varied a bit from army to army) were that horse artillery had to be able to move at the gallop, at least for short distances, while carrying the entire gun crew mounted on the team (usually six horses) or riding in seats on the equipment. Field artillery used pretty much the same six horses but moved at the trot at best and might or might not have part of the crew walking/marching. Medium field artillery used more (and bigger) horses and moved at the walk. The usual definition of field artillery was that it could keep up with the army on the march. Literally as the infantry marched on foot. Siege artillery could be moved but could not keep up with the marching troops.
Obviously things changed as motor traction came into use. Heavier loads could be moved even if at a walking pace by early gas engined tractors or even steam tractors. Obviously a plentiful supply of ammo still presented a problem. Such machine traction was in short supply and horse drawn wagons were not a good way to move heavy shells.
If you think this is going too far afield please remember how many smaller armies were essentially horse drawn at the start of WW II. And How few years even the most motorized armies had been motorized. The US was working on a horse drawn 75mm howitzer in the late 30s. It used the 75mm pack howitzer barrel on a much larger, heavier carriage.
Also please remember that whatever the official TOE's show for the desired German infantry divisions as far as motor vehicles and guns go, many were not only under strength but equipped with Czech guns, From rifles to field artillery. 

As mentioned above the Americans ind British Commonwealth units had the motor transport to move slightly larger guns (often with higher ammunition allowances) at higher speeds than many other armies. This is not said to make the Germans look better for working under the conditions they did. They actually used some of the same advantages against the Poles in 1939. While even a regular infantry division marched they did have enough trucks to move not only the guns but a considerably larger tonnage of ammo for the guns than the Poles did. 
With motor transport as it existed in the early part of the war guns of 12,000-15,000lbs could keep pace with even motorized infantry units. Yes this is a generality and exceptions can be found. AS the war went on and even bigger trucks/tractors joined the transportation system even bigger guns could keep pace. Yes the bigger guns put a strain on the logistics system. One little fact I found though was that the Commonwealth 5.5in guns fired 2,610,000 shells in the northwestern Europe with Army group 21 between D-day and V-E day. That is over 104,000tons (short tons) of shells, not counting propelling charges. While it may not have been "decisive" that support must have helped.

BTW. your choice of using the 7.2 howitzer as an example doesn't really help your case. The 7.2in howitzer used at Alamein was a great example of how NOT to design a heavy piece of artillery unless you are really desperate. It had only a few hundred yd range advantage over the 5.5 and was shorter ranged by 3,000yds than the 4.5 in gun and that was using the #4 charge that bounced the gun around so bad that in 1943 it was decided not to use it any more as it made the rate of fire too low. The MK 6 gun used in NW Europe by the 21st army group used the same shell but just about nothing else was the same. 
While breack thoughs achieved by artillery alone may have been non-existant the larger guns (and range) did seem to play a role.


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## parsifal (Aug 3, 2011)

Your right that i should not try and put words in your mouth. Wasnt my intention, but thats the way it came across. My apologies.

My beef however is saying the K-18 is the best long ranged piece of artillery. I say that "Long Ranged" is a relative term, determined by terrain, and what the opposition has, not by an arbitrary number. If you have catapults and your opponent has rocks, your catapults are still the long ranged weapon.

And then ther is the term "best". by saying the K-18 was "best" is to deny its glaring weakness...namely its decided lack of mobility. I really buck at the notion that the K-18 was the best heavy artillery when ther are so many instances where it could not be used, and its mobility was so limited. Even in the genre of its own kind.....ie the big guns suited really only to flat terrain on static fronts, it was nore limited in terms of mobility than its competitors...not all of them, but some of them. I happen to think that range and firepower are subordinate to mobility. In this regard i have a lot of support in terms of the theory. Have a look at Deitchmann ("American Defence Policy', MIT Press 1964) which explores this issue in a fair amount of detail, and led to a lot of changes to US procurement and capability in the 60s and 70s.

To stop my criticisms, the terms of reference for the thread would need to be changed. If you want to limit the debate to a particular type of artillery, then modify the forum topic to reflect that. If you retain the current thread topic, i will never agree that the K-18 was the best LR artillery piece because of the limitations on it that have previously been mentioned. 

Not sure what you are getting at with your last para about the 7.2". Im not supporting the 7.2" as a piece of equipment. i think Brit heavy guns basically suck, for the record, especially the older ones. And really, only one regiment out of 28 deployed at Alamein were equipped with the 7.2in gun....most of the heavies used by the brits were either 4.5s or two regiments with 3.7 used as artillery. The majority of brit Corps and army level artillery at Alamein was 25 pounder (20 regiments out of 28). 

So, unless you can produce evidence that mobility is not an issue, or that the K-18 had mobility that we have not previously known about, please tell me why I am not justified in levelling criticism at it (the K-18) because of that lack of mobility. In my opinion, the only way that the K-18 can be argued as the best LR artillery, is if the mobility issue is downgraded or ignored. I dont think that is a valiad parameter on which to base the assessment.


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## Shortround6 (Aug 3, 2011)

parsifal said:


> So, the impasse I would suggest is this....I am maintaining that the definition of long range and heavy is relative to the terrain, and the opposition. If you are equipped with mortars and your enemy has nothing, you have the advantage of range and firepower.....I am further maintaining that guns like the K-18 have a purpose, and are good at what they do, but their applications are very limited, and as a result of that limitation (especially for the german gun) cannot be considered as best long range artillery. Youve argued with me a lot, we have exchanged some angry words, but this issue has not been addressed as far as I can see. Perhaps we should get back to that issue, and try and make some headway there.



I can agree to that. I actually don't think we are that far apart. 

While I think that your idea of trying to tie the mobility of a gun to it's range and shell power has some merit for trying to figure out a "best gun" overall or for some sort of value index, I think it is too hard to actually implement. There are just way too many variables. 
Consider jungle ( and you may have way more experience than I do).

IS it a highland plateau jungle? thick vegetation but some what flat and somewhat dry.
Is it mountain jungle? thick vegetation with steep inclines and somewhat dry
Is it swamp jungle? thick vegetation flat but half under water.

some jungles may be easier than others, same with desserts, soft sand vs rock. 

Climate. Russian winter or Russian mud season vs dry summer.

Now consider something like the the US 155mm gun. about 30,000lbs in action, a bit heavier with its towing limber 10 wheels in it's most common form.

How do we measure it's mobility any terrain without considering the tow vehicle/s. Do we just assume that all 30,000lb guns have the same mobility? 

Compare it to the US 155 howitzer. about 12,000lbs on two wheels. Better or worse mobility on soft ground? Needs a lighter tow vehicle. Shells weigh the same (100 shells weigh 5 tons) so the logistics of suppling the guns aren't that much different ammunition wise. 

Common tow vehicles for the gun include the Mack 7 1/2 ton truck that actually weighs just under 30,000lbs empty, has a 159hp engine, 6X6 drive, 10 forward gears, top speed of 32mph, max towed load of 50,000lbs and a 40,000lb winch.The other is the M-18 high speed tractor that weighs about the same, has a 190hp engine, tracks, a torque converter 3 speed automatic, a top speed of 35mph, max towed load of 38,700lbs and a 30,000lb winch. Another tow option is a M3 tank chassis. 
We are now comparing tow vehicles which, while affecting the mobility of the gun, have little or nothing to do with the gun design. An army unhappy with the mobility of a tow vehicle/gun combination can design/buy another tow vehicle and leave the gun alone. 
Now compare the mobility of one of these combinations (gun and tow vehicle) with the rest of the army, while it is quite true that the road network in Europe is much better than most everywhere else that WW II was fought it should be apparent that any of these combinations can do 100 miles in a 10 hr day on any sort of decent road in good weather which should keep up with just about any advance, they may be able to do better. 
What happens if the weather/ terrain turns to crap? they move slower, much slower but then how fast is the rest of the army moving? are the infantry carrying trucks humming along at 30mph (or even 10mph) while the gun towers are doing 2-5mph? 
Granted none of these tow vehicles are going to get a 30,000lb gun over the Owen Stanley mountains but then how big a gun can you get over a particular track over the Owen Stanley's? and how fast does ANYTHING get over the Owen Stanley's?

While a 75mm pack howitzer with 15 rounds of ammo in range of the enemy beats the heck out of a 155 gun 50 miles behind we don't need a complicated matrix or formula to tell us that. We can usually look at a class of gun at most points of time in history and take a guess as to how they would fare in certain types of terrain. Nobodies 30,00lb gun (or even 15,000lb gun or howitzer) was going to be mobile in the jungle or in the Russian mud season or in 4 feet of snow. Or on certain trails in the alps. Neither are a lot of 4-5,000lb guns although you can get them into more places. TO get into the really lousy places or handle the worst climate conditions (extreme cold is a thing of it's own) you need the mountain/pack (coming apart in multiple loads) guns meant for those conditions. 
It seems about 3,000lbs may be the max single unit load that can be shifted without power assistance in most circumstances. I am basing this of tales of the Germans leaving Pak 75s behind but claiming they could move Pak 50s. If this is true ( and it very well might not be) only the lightest of field guns has any mobility in bad conditions.

It is for these reasons that I believe, interesting as your idea/position seems as a technical exercise they are just too many variables/unknowns for most of us to make any headway with it. 

I would vote for simplicity. The 17cm K 18 is the best long range gun out of a bunch of extremely heavy, difficult to move, short lived guns in it's general weight class. 

The British 25pdr was one of the best ( and perhaps the best?) of the 4,000lb (give or take) Field guns considering it's weight, range, shell power, variety of ammunition (something the big guns didn't have, 1-3 different shells seems to be about it; also a generalization) ease of handling,etc.

The British didn't really compare the 25pdr to the 4.5in gun
The Americans didn't compare the 105 howitzer to the 155mm long Tom or 8in rifle (here is a gun that makes the 17cm K 18 look mobile) 
The Germans didn't compare the 105mm how to the 17cm.

Why are we?


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## davebender (Aug 3, 2011)

Bear in mind the 17cm artillery piece had a range fan of about 28km. It doesn't need to move as often as shorter range FA weapons. 

Assuming a Sd.Kfz.8 heavy artilery tractor is available, does anyone know how much time was required for the 17cm artillery piece to displace to an alternate firing location?


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## Shortround6 (Aug 3, 2011)

parsifal said:


> So, unless you can produce evidence that mobility is not an issue, or that the K-18 had mobility that we have not previously known about, please tell me why I am not justified in levelling criticism at it (the K-18) because of that lack of mobility. In my opinion, the only way that the K-18 can be argued as the best LR artillery, is if the mobility issue is downgraded or ignored. I dont think that is a valiad parameter on which to base the assessment.



I am not sure how to get this across, although I tried in the above post which crossed with yours. Unless somebody can come up with an example that I missed, once you get passed about 26,000yds in range EVERBODY'S long range artillery had major mobility problems. Ir was a generic class flaw. Once that is accepted you can discuss which one had the worst mobility and what other limitations they and the American 8in had some doosies. 

The idea of a 'variably' long range classifications is just too complicated for me. I mean lets look at it again. Let us say that gun "A" shoots to 14,000yds and weighs XXXX and gun "B" shoots to 8000yds and weighs 1/2 XXXX. Now in Europe in dry summer weather gun "B" would be a short ranged gun and Gun "A" a medium ranged gun? Now in the dessert in soft sand gun "A" bogs down much more often and can't reach designated firing positions while gun "B" does so with great regularity even if not perfect. Is gun "B" now the longer ranged Gun? What happens if we give gun "A" a tracked vehicle for towing and leave gun "A" with a truck, does Gun "A" now make it to the desert firing positions often enough to regain the long range title? No change in gun.
Then send the guns to Burma. Gun 'A' only gets to a useable firing position 10% of the time, gun "B" gets into firing positions 25% of the time. A 2,600yd mortar gets into range 90% of the time, is gun "A" now in 3rd place for range?

What kind of gun (what category) is gun "A". A medium range gun? a short range gun in certain conditions? an ultra short range gun in the jungle, even though it can still shoot 14,000yds from a coastal road or spots on a bulldozed path. 

What happens if we introduce Gun "D" 20,000yds range and weight 2 XXXX. there are no paved roads and it rains for 3 days, is gun "D" now a medium ranged gun and gun "A" the long ranged gun? 

What happens if the front doesn't move for 10 days and everybody has time to tow, drag, winch, take guns to pieces and bring in a part at time and rebuild in desired firing positions. what is the range order now?

Tell me the range of the gun, tell me the weight of the shell, tell me the age of the gun (introduced in 1904 0r in 1940) and I can probably make a WAG as to it's weight and another WAG as to how suitable it might be in different terrain.

Or just tell me how much it weighs and what the tow vehicle is. 

To try to sum it up, mobility is an issue, but if it is just as big an issue (or bigger) for any gun that exceeds it's range (or even comes close) why are we making such a big deal about it. It is just the nature of the beast. You want a land gun that shoots 30,000yds? it is going to be a Stone Bi*ch to move no matter who made it.


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## parsifal (Aug 3, 2011)

I agree that it become s a bit ridiculous to compare one class of artillery to another on a purely technical basis. There isnt really a lot of comparability between a 25pdr and a 170mm heavy gun. They each have differing roles, differing capabilities. but what is comparable is their basic purpose....to throw bits of lead and explosive at an enemy to destriy their ability to resist. Which one is better? As you say, hard to know.

If you want me to relent a little and allow the debate to proceed on a purely technical basis, then as a gun the K-18 was a very capable piece of kit. I have no argument with that. But, its lack of mobility is an issue, and compared to its main challenger, the US 155mm I am still inclined to favour the US gun. As far as I know the K-18 was never mounted on an SPG, at least not to any great extent, whereas the 155mm was so mounted on a relatively large scale. In this regard I found this article very interesting 

3rd Armored Division Artillery in WWII - by Col. Frederic J. Brown [LTG]

Any gun able to be mounted on tracks has a huge advantage in the mobility department, that more than makes up for any shortcomings in range and power. I guess thats a matter of opinion, but surely you agree that tracked mobility was a huge advantage for any heavy piece of ordinance.


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## davebender (Aug 4, 2011)

I agree. But what makes you think the German 17cm artillery piece couldn't have been modified for mounting on a tracked vehicle chassis? The Panther tank chassis was larger and considerably more powerful then the chassis employed for the U.S. 175mm SP gun. 

*M107 175mm SP Gun.*
28.3 tons Vehicle weight.
6.46m Hull length.
3.15m Hull width.
450 hp Engine

*Panther ausf G.*
45.5 tons Vehicle weight.
6.88m Hull length.
3.4m Hull width.
700 hp Engine.


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## Shortround6 (Aug 4, 2011)

First, thank you for Link. 

As an example of tracked mobility we have a test done at Fort Bragg in Feb 1942. They compared the T6 155mm self-propelled gun (later the M12) which used the 155 M1917/18 gun , max range 20,100yds) to a towed version of the same gun. the test was to fire, move six miles down a road (type not given) and fire again. The self propelled gun took 35 minutes. the towed gun took 3 hours. the towed gun weighed 25,900lbs in action. 

However, as Parsifal so rightly points out, mobility also includes ammunition supply. the M-12 carried 10 rounds of ammunition and was almost always paired up with an M30 ammunition carrier (same chassis as the M12) which carried another 40 rounds of ammo and some of the gun crew. 

The 17cm K18 was supposed to move as two pieces, barrel pulled out and transported on a separate wagon/trailer for long moves. For "short" distances (whatever that means) it could be moved as a one piece unit. There are pictures of it being moved this way in Russia. obviously there are going to be big differences in set up time depending on how it was moved. I am not going to try to figure out the longer mobility problem, one big load that can get stuck or two smaller, lighter loads either of which could get stuck but less likely to on an individual basis? 

The US 155 gun, the M1 model with the 25,400yd range, was not mounted on an SP chassis (M40) until later, production started in Feb 1945 and by the time they got overseas, just one example and one companion 8in howitzer version (M43) saw combat. These SP guns used modified M-4 tank chassis (wider than the normal tank). 

The Americans never used an SP 155 howitzer in WW II. (manufactured, yes, but again, not in time to see combat in WW II).

If we want to continue the debate on the technical merits of the various guns can we agree on the minimum range for a "long range gun"?

25,000yds gives up a rather short list to compare, 20,000yds bring in a number of candidates, 19,000yds may bring in a few more, going under that starts to get too confusing and with each major country represented at least once and with some minor countries aready represented I think that should cover the field.


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## Shortround6 (Aug 4, 2011)

davebender said:


> I agree. But what makes you think the German 17cm artillery piece couldn't have been modified for mounting on a tracked vehicle chassis? The Panther tank chassis was larger and considerably more powerful then the chassis employed for the U.S. 175mm SP gun.



True but the US chassis had *ZERO* armor, carried*TWO* rounds of ammunition and a fair number of the crew rode on a second vehicle. 

The Germans did have a prototype SP 17cm equipment under construction at the wars end, or started earlier and abandoned. They used a King Tiger chassis and stretched that. The American gun has under 2/3 the recoil impluse of the 17cm gun.

The M12 weighed 59,000lbs, the M-40 with the 155mm Long Tom weighed 80,000lbs. 

It could have been mounted on a tracked chassis, that might solve part of the mobility problem, it was still a large, heavy piece of equipment that needs lots of logistic support and needs replacement barrels at a ferocious rate if you actually fire the thing like a 150mm howitzer.


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## davebender (Aug 4, 2011)

My guess. 
The German 17cm artillery piece could be moved as a single unit to an alternate firing position in order to evade counter-battery fire.

My questions:
How long did it take to move the 17cm artillery piece to an alternate firing position 500 to 1,000m away if the proper towing tractor was available?
How long did it take to move the USA 155mm Long Tom to an alternate firing position 500 to 1,000m away if the proper towing tractor was available?


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## psteel (Aug 4, 2011)

The tiger chassis was selected because the German gun was not the same SP-Gun concept the Americans used. Instead of a ridged mounting with mostly elevation , the German gun was extended out the back with hydraulic jack and anchored in position off the rear of the chassis not sure how long this would take. From this point it had a 360° traverse.

Gw Tiger für 17 cm K 72 (Sf)

Geschützwagen Tiger für 17cm Kanone/21 cm Mörser

Grille Series (Cricket Series)

I believe the American gun needed a shovel on the back to be dug in for stability but retained a limited traverse of +/- 14° and elevation of 30° giving a range of 20,000 yards or 19km.


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## parsifal (Aug 4, 2011)

why would you move a gun 1000m in a mobile operation? Thats the problem for the German heavy gun park, and they repeatedly lost loads of such heavy equipment during breakthrough operations on the eastern front. 

Heres where major differences in the tone of offensive operations. In Eastern Europe, Soviet operations were punctuated by relatively long pauses between operations followed by rapid barrages and huge breakthroughs of th german line. Soviet Armour would pour through the gaps formed, and advance a minimum orf 100km in a sigle day. Typically a major offensive would result in penetrations of german territory of 2-300km. Inevitably, German artillery positions would be overrun and the materials lost. German artillery could generally not move quick enough to avoid capture. 

In the west, in 1944, th breakouts were still suden, but on a more sustained basis. The best rats of advance were by 3rd army into brittany, which achieved advances at an average of 25 km per day, with the best single day being 48km. On the other hand once the front became fluid the allies maintained a steady pressure on the germans on a broad front, for a sustained period. After the initial breakout, in contrast to the Soviets, Allied artillery remained in contact with the front and frequently provided fire support to frontline operations. The rapidity of reaction for unplanned support is quite astounding, for the Commonwealth reaction times were as short as 70 seconds after initial requests, whilst for the American forces reaction times were about 5mins (according to the RHA website). German reaction times for unplanned support wer about 3hours.

In Italy, the front dynamics were different again, with operations resembling the Eastern front....long periods of static warfare, followed by short periods of relatively rapid advances, rlatively large hauls of capture for the german forces. The only difference to the east was that Allied artillery, as always followed the front lines, ready to respond quickly to any situation at the front line.

All of this quick overview should demonstrate the glaring weakness in the german artillery systems. Not all of it was equipment based. German plotting systems were the most accurate of the big four, but called for a high degree of plotting acuracy, and this dictated that german artillery be deployed further forward than Allied (or Soviet) and dictated that response times were slower (because german guns would not fire until their FOs had a detailed firing solution based on measured survey techniques) . This meant that German responses to rapid breakthroughs were generally too slow to be effective in fluid situations, moreover, once a breakthrough was achieved, German artillery was too immobile to get away. They had to sit there and die, basically. So having the ability to move a mile or two, is not going to alter any of those essential battlefield dynamics 

I found this rather inteersting link that provides some photos of german guns and some of the ingenuity used by the germans in developing tracked artillery platforms 

Powered Artillery - WWII German Self-Propelled Artillery from Recognition Journal, 1944 (Lone Sentry)


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## pinsog (Aug 4, 2011)

Would you gentlemen agree that artillery gun and prime mover must be looked at as a single weapons system?

Example: The American 155 Long Tom was a very good weapon, especially when teamed with an M4 High Speed Tractor. If you remove the M4 and replace it with, for example, a team of horses, then the Long Tom loses much, if not all, of its effectiveness. Very much like the P51 airframe with a Merlin vs Allison, the power unit alone can make or break the system.

In earlier posts, mobility of artillery through mud and jungle was being questioned. For whatever it's worth, I have a picture of a 155 Long Tom being towed down a muddy jungle trail by a bulldozer in which the front blade has been replaced by what appears to be a 40,000 pound winch. Judging from the picture, I don't believe my 4 wheel drive pickup could negotiate the same trail and the bulldozer is in no way bogged down, nor has the winch been deployed. My point is, I don't believe artillery mobility in mud and bad weather was a huge issue for the extremely well mechanized US Army. If one machine couldn't do it, they just threw equipment at the problem until it did move. Same goes for feeding it shells and powder.


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## parsifal (Aug 4, 2011)

Some intersting pics of WWII heavy artillery, from Aberdeen PG

Tanks - World War II Artillery


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## davebender (Aug 4, 2011)

Geschützwagen Tiger für 17cm Kanone/21 cm Mörser










That's a bit different. Not sure why you would want to dismount the weapon from a SP howitzer.


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## davebender (Aug 4, 2011)

info on 194mm S:t Chamond French WW1 SP Gun






*1918 French SP Gun.*
Schneider produced 12. 220mm mle 1917 gun.
St. Chamond produced 38. 194mm GPF cannon or 280mm howitzer.
32.6 tons vehicle weight.
8kph road speed. 3kph cross country speed.
.....Data for vehicle armed with 194mm cannon.
80kg shell. 2 to 4 shots per minute.
20.8km range.

Slow and probably not mechanically reliable. However that's a respectable long range artillery piece even by WWII standards.


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## Njaco (Aug 4, 2011)

I agree, Dave. Why would anyone waste time using a tank chassis to set up a stationary gun??? One of Germany's definate misses.

Heuschrecke 10 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


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## parsifal (Aug 4, 2011)

I would think that having artillery on tracks for a nation on the stratgic defensive increases the survivability of the artillery, and enables it to redeply much faster, and also allows it to deploy into rougher terrain or muddy terrain. The mainly towed artillery park of the heer was always vulnerable to overruns and was less mobile in terms of all terrain capability.

Other big issue for the german artillery was its relative inflexibility. It opted for a fire control system that stressed accuracy at the cost of rapid response. Precise information on target location was the main focus, which meant that german unplanned battery and counterbattery fire was usually very accurate but slow to respond. By contrast, British fire control was essentially about directing all available resources to the general grid reference, using a simplified "flat terrain" plotting model. The idea was that a quick response, with approximate targetting data, using as many tubes as was possible, was a superior method to meticulously targetted artillery using a limited number of tubes. US system was a lot like Brit, but a little more targetted in its response data, and hence slighly longer in rsponse times. 

Overall, the british system was least accurate, but by far the quickest to respond...US was slightly longer in response times but quite a bit more accurate...German targetting was usually very accurate, but hopelessly slow. If you are countering a breakthrough attack, your artillery needs to respond immedialtey...not in three hours time.

As for the Soviets...well, they hardly ever provided artillery support on demand....it was nearly always preplanned barrages, planned and executed meticulously...just a product of their training. if they wanted fire support during a given combat, outside the preplanned fire zones, this was usually done over open sights as direct fire, often using the Su76 or similar

There are of course many, many exceptions to these basic doctrinal positions.


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## psteel (Aug 5, 2011)

Weapons are built to fit into a prewar doctrine, which is usually an attempt to redress deficiency and or enhance efficiency of previous wars. This really is the only way to judge the effectiveness of any particular weapon system. Did if help to fulfill doctrinal requirements?

Looking at German doctrine, which was termed Auftragstaktik, essentially the commander delegated authority to sub units to carry out missions toward common goal. He would then assign support to these units and leave the actual execution of their mission to that lower echelon commander.
Auftragstaktik

The other component in this doctrine was the commander retain an ‘elite unit’ in reserve to be able to intervene in the battle action at a critical time and place to sway the out come of the battle. Thus each unit from battalion on up; would have various troops organically included at the command level allowing the commander to ‘down attach’ some units to his subunits, but retain others to be formed into this elite reserve unit. In the area of artillery usually the commander had several ‘basic units’ and one ‘heavy unit’. The ‘heavy unit’ would be retained for the reserve, while the basic units would be ‘down attached’ to the sub units depending on mission. 

Provided the area to be covered was not too large, the ‘heavy unit’ need not be longer range. But if that was not the case, this heavy artillery had to be either longer range or have enough mobility to allow it to move with the elite reserve units and intervene in timely manner. Any employment of artillery was to be in short controlled fire missions of maybe 5 minutes because anything more than this was considered a waste. Which goes some way to explain the tight control of FO and the fire mission.

As you move up the ladder you see similar structure at the Divisional-Korps-Army levels; however this mobility-range issue for artillery becomes unsolvable past Korps level; since the areas covered, historically in WW-II, often exceeded any reasonable range for artillery, which is why mobility range needed to combined and improved. 

The long range of WW-II big guns and super guns hit a wall since even big naval guns could not exceed about 30-40km and to even get those extra long ranges, you needed a massive; slow firing, hugely expensive gun. This meant it would take the better part of a day to emplace such a gun or make it mobile again. Clearly the ‘law of diminishing returns’ took control. Such super guns were really designed prewar to reduce heavy fortifications like the “Maginot Line” and the only other reasonable utility beyond that, was emplaced coastal artillery.

The only way to move such large super guns around the country with any serious speed, was by specially built railway carriage. But even these became increasing difficult to employ since the 7” gun is about the largest you can mount on a railway carriage and still include full traverse. With guns like the 80cm Dora it took weeks to prepare the gun for action since special railway lines needed to be built and each gun employed 1300 troops to operate!


Some times the Germans were able to get around this problem with Stuka attacks but that became more difficult as the war progressed from a series of sequential campaigns with large enough regroup time in-between; to continuous ‘strategic war of attrition’. With the enemy increasingly gaining air superiority, such tactics could no longer fill the gap.

By the end of the war the combined allied air superiority and the allied advantage in recon/Intel through "ultra" gave them a 3-day advantage in locating enemy units. At the start of Barbarossa, the Germans were able to locate all soviet units within a day of their actual position. By 1944 this average had slipped to 3 days. That means on average their plots of Soviet units were on average 3 days old. So the soviets were able to maneuver sufficiently to accumulate local superiorities of 10:1 in some cases, which always ensured a surprise ; rapid and clean breakthrough maneuver leading to some considerable breakouts. They were rarely on the order of magnitude of 100km/day though. That would be the exception, not the rule.


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## parsifal (Aug 5, 2011)

great post, very informative.....

We should look at Soviet rates of advance you may be correct, it will be interesting to find out, if a little off topic


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## parsifal (Aug 5, 2011)

This is a narrative that I found on the web, describing one of the operations associated with Operation Bagration


"The Red Army’s 1-y Mechanizirovanniy Korpus (1st Mechanized Corps) formed the leading edge of the Sickle. Threatening Minsk from the south, the Soviet advance sliced just above the Pripyat Marshes hoping to cut off Minsk from the southwest. They harried the retreating German 9. Armee from the ashes of Bobruisk, on to Slutsk, and then finally to Baranovichi. 

The southern exploitation spearhead was lead by the Pliev Cavalry-Mechanised Group consisting of the 1st Mechanised Corps and the 4th Guards Cavalry Corps. The cavalry-mechanised groups were put together for their speed and mobility, a great advantage during the chaos of an enemy retreat where it would be speeding through the enemy rear areas. They raced west towards Baranovichi on 24 June cutting the southern flank of the fortress city of Minsk by 5 July. 

The 1st Mechanised Corps was formed in September 1942 from the 27th Tank Corps. It took part in the Battle of Kursk in 1943 and then during the Kharkov operations of August 1943, in which the corps was part of the 53rd Army. It then took part in the advance on the Dnepr as part of the 53rd Army and then the 37th Army. In January 1944 it went into reserve to refit before taking part in Operation Bagration as part of the Pliev Cavalry-Mechanised Group of the 1st Byelorussian Front.

During Operation Bagration the group was added to Rokossovsky’s 1st Byelorussian Front and led the exploitation towards Baranovichi, to the southwest of Minsk. Along with the 28th Army, the Pliev Cavalry-Mechanised Group was to drive west for Slutsk. It initially faced the German 36. Infanteriedivision, an under-strength unit due to its involvement in heavy fighting in 1943. 

Operation Bagration 

On the afternoon of 24 June the Pliev Cavalry-Mechanised Group was committed to the battle in support of the 28th Army against the German 129. Infanteriedivision of the XXXXI Panzerkorps. By the evening the tanks of the Pliev Cavalry-Mechanised Group had advanced 20km west. 

On 25 June the Pliev Cavalry-Mechanised Group moved through the gap opened by the Soviet 28th and 65th Armies. During the afternoon they quickly advanced pursuing the German 35. Infanteriedivision. At 1630 hours the group passed through the 28th Army and forward towards Glusk against little opposition. The group advanced 30km the first day and 40km on 26 June. They cut roads south and southwest of Bobruysk and crossed the railroad south of Bobruysk by the evening of 26 June. 

On 26 June the group, along with the 3rd Guards Corps forces, pushed the German 35. Infanteriedivision all the way back to the Ptich River, a distance of more than 40km. This left a 40km gap in the German line, which they quickly exploited. The gap split the lines of the German XXXXI Panzerkorps, driving a wedge between the 36. and 35. Infanterie divisions, south of Bobruysk. At 1500 the group had crossed the river north of Glusk, threatening to outflank both the 35. and 129. Infanterie divisions. The cavalry of the group took Glusk and continued to move west unopposed. 
The German 129. Infanteriedivision was forced to turn north to protect the northern flank of the LV Korps from the marauding Soviet mobile forces. 

27 June saw the 1st Mechanised Corps move into Glusk driving back the battered remnants of the German 35. Infanteriedivision. By 1700 Soviets were pouring through a gap north of Glusk towards Slutsk.

On 28 June the Pliev Cavalry-Mechanised Group broke through the German LV Korps. 

By the evening of 28 June cavalry elements of the Pliev Cavalry-Mechanised Group were on the outskirts of Slutsk, an important railhead for German units coming from the south. German Kampfgruppe Schirmer was attempting to delay the advance of the 1st Mechanised Corps and 28th Army, but by 2200 hours cavalry had crossed the river at Slutsk and the 1st Mechanised Corps had joined the attack from Glusk. 

On 30 June the Pliev Cavalry-Mechanised Group drove Kampfgruppe Harteneck out of Slutsk. Counterattacks by the German 5. Reiter-Regiment (cavalry regiment) retook the western edges of the town from the Soviet cavalry. After the town was taken the 1st Mechanised Corps was sent southwest towards Baranovichi. 

In the meantime German reinforcements had arrived in Baranovichi. The 4. Panzerdivision pushed down the main road to Slutsk to block it 20km from the town. The 1st Hungarian Cavalry Division and the German 28. Infanteriedivision were also on their way to help defend Baranovichi. 

As reinforcements streamed in to the Baranovichi area the fighting between the 4. Panzerdivision and 1st Hungarian Cavalry Division, and the Pliev Cavalry-Mechanised Group intensified. Kampfgruppe Harteneck, including the Hungarians, halted the advance of the 1st Mechanised Corps at Kletsk (20km south of Nesvizh). 


Other elements of the 1st Mechanised Corps were more successful further to the southwest where forces drove towards Baranovichi, threatening the rear of Germans around Stolbtsy, where they had thrown together a defensive line. 

The arrival of the Axis reinforcement had finally halted the advance of the Pliev Cavalry-Mechanised Group and 28th Army following behind to secure the mobile group’s flanks. *On average the group had advanced 20km per day, but the Germans finally stabilised the defence around Stolbtsy on 3 July. *

On July 3 the 1st Mechanised Corps continued the advance south of Baranovichi. The 4th Guards Cavalry Corps encountered Kampfgruppe von Vormann (elements of 1st Hungarian Cavalry Division, 4. Panzerdivision, 28. Jägerdivision and 3. Reiter-Brigade) at Baranovichi. By 5 July the Germans had been driven back and the Pliev Cavalry-Mechanised Group was on the road to Slonim further west. The arrival of German reinforcements made the Germans more willing to give ground to buy time, which inturn slowed the rate of the Soviet advance." 


This rate of advance compares to an average rate of advance of 15 Km per day for 3rd Army in Brittany. The best ratre of advance in a single day was 40km per day, with the best two day average being 35km per day. Soviet rates of advance were affected by a general slowing from the 28 June, when German reinforcements forced a slow down for the Soviets. Its probabaly valid from this example, to assert peak sustained rates of advance for Soviets were about 40km per day, whilst average sustained rates of adavnce wer about 35km per day. The overall average rate of advance was about 20km per day in a straight line, but a little further when detours are considerd. 

certainly not 100km, but reasonable to claim 40km per day. this is still beyond the capability horsedrawn artillery to avoid capture. Motorised artillery might retreat 40-50 km per day, provided it had fuel. Not sure if artillery is mechanised, whether retreat rates would be greater than that.


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## davebender (Aug 5, 2011)

Nations produce all sorts of prototype weapons that are not placed into mass production. He-100 and Fw-187 fighter aircraft. Ju-288 bomber aircraft. Panzer VIII (Maus) super- heavy tanks etc. 

The 10.5cm SP "Wespe" and 15cm SP "Hummel" were conventional in layout and worked well. So is the modern day 155mm SP PzH2000. The Geschützwagen Tiger für 17cm Kanone/21 cm Mörser was a complete departure from other German Army SP artillery designs. Makes me wonder if this design would have been serious considered for mass production.


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## Juha (Aug 5, 2011)

Hello Parsifal
Quote:” certainly not 100km, but reasonable to claim 40km per day. this is still beyond the capability horsedrawn artillery to avoid capture. Motorised artillery might retreat 40-50 km per day, provided it had fuel. Not sure if artillery is mechanised, whether retreat rates would be greater than that.”

I really cannot understand you claim, the maximum speed for 15 cm sFH 18 for motorised towing was 60 km/h, so I’d say that mot. artillery could easily retreat 400-500 km per day, provided it had fuel.

Hello Dave
15 cm sFH 18 was the first artillery weapon even equipped with rocket-assisted-projectile (RAP) ammunition to increase range. However German interest to this special ammunition didn't last long when dispersion with this early RAP-ammunition proved too large to accept.

Juha


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## Shortround6 (Aug 5, 2011)

"the maximum speed for 15 cm sFH 18 for motorised towing was 60 km/h, so I’d say that mot. artillery could easily retreat 400-500 km per day, provided it had fuel"

This might be true for a paved road, dirt roads would be slower, However even at 10km/hr you can move 80-90 KM in a 10 hour day (or night) even allowing for a break or two. 

As an example the Modern US M198 155mm howitzer of 7163kg id given "nominal" tow speeds of 72km/h on improved roads, 40-48km/h on secondary roads and 8km/h cross country. 

The nominal tow vehicle being an M813 5 ton truck that actually has a curb weight (equipped but unloaded) of 9,190 kg, a 240hp diesel engine, 10 forward gears and a top speed of 84km/h. 

Please note the top speed of the truck and the "nominal" tow speed of the gun do not match. While tow speeds may be increase if being shot at or in danger of capture, bouncing the gun around too much by a high speed tow may result in a broken gun. 
Other 155 howitzers with the same ballistic performance may have different towing limits due to different carriages.


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## Shortround6 (Aug 5, 2011)

davebender said:


> Nations produce all sorts of prototype weapons that are not placed into mass production. He-100 and Fw-187 fighter aircraft. Ju-288 bomber aircraft. Panzer VIII (Maus) super- heavy tanks etc.
> 
> The 10.5cm SP "Wespe" and 15cm SP "Hummel" were conventional in layout and worked well. So is the modern day 155mm SP PzH2000. The Geschützwagen Tiger für 17cm Kanone/21 cm Mörser was a complete departure from other German Army SP artillery designs. Makes me wonder if this design would have been serious considered for mass production.



It was not a complete departure, it was actually quite consistent with German "DESIGN" proposals and other prototypes. The 10.5cm SP "Wespe" and 15cm SP "Hummel" were actually the exceptions to this design path and were manufactured as an expedient while proper "weapons carriers' were developed. The picture of the SP 105 German howitzer in an early post shows this, the entire turret was supposed to be dis-mountable by means of the beams on either side of the superstructure and left as a self contained 360 degree rotating weapon while the chassis trundled off to do something else, what or why I have never figured out


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## parsifal (Aug 5, 2011)

These figures on vehicle movements are fine and valid, if you have 1 or 10 vehicles moving across the same piece of road, But we are talking about the movement of thousands of vehicles, more or less at the same time, and using roads not designed for that amount of traffic and not in sufficient density to handle it at anywhere near that speed.

The truck speed has virtually nothing to do with it, especially on ther eastern front. trhe critical issue are, as shortround says it depends on the condition of the roads. Even more important, it depends on the density of the roads, and given that road densities in the Soviet Union are very low you are going to be attempting to put a lot of vehicles along very few, and very poor road systems. 

A German Infantry Division consisted of 800 vehicles directly attached, and about 6500 draught animals. If supported by a Corps and Army logisitcs net, you can double all of those numbers. For unsealed roads, if you put many more than about 2000 vehicles per day over the surface, the road surface will rapidly deteriorate especially if you have had some recent rain on the surface. And Soviet roads were not properly constructed, so tended to fall apart even quicker than that. Roads with deteriorating surfaces may, or may not be usable, but assuming they are, you might get and average speed of 2-5km/h over them if you are lucky. moreover, if you want to preserve the surface, you certainly wont be allowing military vehicles to race over them at 60km/h. If you have tracked vehicles, or hard axelled vehicles, you tear up the road system even quicker. The average life expectancy of a standard unsealed road is about 2000 vehicle trips, using light commercial and domestic vehicles only. Rigid trucks above 3T tare cause about 5 times the amount of damage as a standard automobile. (How do I know all this....part of my job is to design roads...i do it for a living) 

In a big city like say Sydney, NSW, there are four or 5 major arterial roads, each providing 4 or 5 lanes of traffic, on fully sealed, fully controlled road systems. On average, during peak hour traffic, there are about 40000 vehicles per hour travelling on these 20-25 lanes of traffic. The average speed on those roads on a typical day is just 8kmh. Now, if you have a military situation in Russia, the average frontage held by each division might be 1 Div every 15km. In Russia, the density of intercity arterials is far less than in western Europe....even today its only about 1 arterial per 50km (roughly) Say the Soviets are attacking along a 300km front. That means you are trying to get 20 divisions, with over 30000 vehicles and about 100000 horses along maybe 6 unsealed roads that are not properly controlled. Add a shower of rain, or a wrecked bridge or two, or some partisans, or some Soviet air interdiction. How do you think your 60 km/h is looking now?????

In fact the US army did a lot of research about advance and retreat rates during and after the war. I will dig it out for you, if you still think the Germanb army could move enmasse at even 15km/h. under conditions of retreat, and not take heavy losses. In fact the movement rates for an unmotorized army in a situation similar to the one I just described is, on average, about 20km per day, whilst for a motorised force that remains engaged, but undertaking a retreat is about 30-40km per day. Like I said, I will dig these figures out if I can find them.

No-one in wwII could retreat at 60kmh and retain their force structure intact. Its the stuff that fantasy is made of I am afraid. I think, from memoruy, the best rate of advance on a sustained basis was 250 km, in a week,(or about 30km in a day) achieved in 1941 during Barbarossa, and that resulted in the near destruction of the rRd Army at that time, as well as a massive breakdown rate for the wehrmacht. we havent even started yhet to look at breakdown rates

60kmh under retreat conditions....give me a break!!!!!!


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## pinsog (Aug 5, 2011)

parsifal said:


> These figures on vehicle movements are fine and valid, if you have 1 or 10 vehicles moving across the same piece of road, But we are talking about the movement of thousands of vehicles, more or less at the same time, and using roads not designed for that amount of traffic and not in sufficient density to handle it at anywhere near that speed.
> 
> The truck speed has virtually nothing to do with it, especially on ther eastern front. trhe critical issue are, as shortround says it depends on the condition of the roads. Even more important, it depends on the density of the roads, and given that road densities in the Soviet Union are very low you are going to be attempting to put a lot of vehicles along very few, and very poor road systems.
> 
> ...



Excellent post.

Another good example is when they evacuate an area of the southern US for a Hurricane. Multiple 6 and 8 lane highways that run in both directions, all rerouted to leave the area only, are clogged with vehicles that will run 100mph plus, and are all actually moving at less than 10 mph.

Also, even though the top speed of a German halftrack may be 30 mph(downhill with a good stiff tailwind). There is no way a 23,000 pound Sd.Kfz. 7 towing a 12,000 pound artillery piece is going to maintain 30 mph with a 140 hp engine. I would guess actuall towing speed to be around 15 mph on level ground and good roads and drop rapidly down from that on hills, poor roads, or difficult terrain.


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## Shortround6 (Aug 5, 2011)

There may also be a difference between a horse drawn artillery piece with wooden or metal spoked wheels and metal "tires" and metal wheels with solid rubber tires and metal wheels with pneumatic tires in the speed you can tow them without shaking the gun apart. 

I other words they may be a difference in "horse traction", "motor traction" and "high speed tow".


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## parsifal (Aug 5, 2011)

Its actually worse than even Ive painted. It must be remembered that for the germans, they were generally short of fuel and supplies in the latter part of the war. Typically a division has on hand about 5 days of supplies....they are called units, but if the division is engaged, or moving its consumption of ammunition and fuel in particular just shoot right up. A German Infantry Division typically carried a five day load of ammunition, or 1902 tons, however in heavy operations, upwards of 200 tons per hour could be consumed. The fuel issue was 207 tons...enough to move the divisions trucks 100km. 100km might sound more than enough to get the division out of trouble, but remember its not a one way journey, its not even a two way journey....the trucks are really busy moving supplies forward, materiel and personnel back, dodging obstacles and whatnot. In reality that 100km fuel isse will equate to about 25km straight line movement, before re-supply will be needed. but re-supply will be all but impossible, if a large section of the front is attemting to retreat. In miltary emergencies the road system is not going two ways, its all in one direction, until the supply situation at the front dictates that the retreat stops, and the trucks start hauling supplies back to the front line troops. 

For the horses, the situation is a little better, but they still need about 250 tons per day of imported fodder.

6 years in officer training including nearly two years of training at staff college, and a further stint in tactical warfare training taught me that retreats are by far the most difficult operation to carry out, mostly because as the defender, your side does not have the initiative, and is reacting to the initiatives of the enemy. If all resources could be directed to pulling back, it would be relatively easy for a division to disengage and pull its forces back. unfortunately it doesnt work that way....unless you are prepred to lose your personnel, whilst your trucks, your command, your artillery is pulled safely back, you have to somehow juggle the need to get out of harms way, with the more immediate needs of keeping your defending force effective, by keeping it supplied and as well supported (by artillery etc) as can be provided. In practical terms, that dictates how fast your division can retreat more than anything, and for an unmotorized Infantry Division, that places an upper limit at the retreat rate at about 10-15 km per day. Any more than that, and the formation will inevitably start to fall apart. Motorized formations are considerably more flexible....provided the terrain is right. If they can effectively disengage, they can probably move more than 200 km in a day, but if they cannot disengage, they can probably retreat about 40km per day,depending on the level of motorization, without significant attritional losses. 

If these rough retreat distances are not adhered to, it becomes almost inevitable that the formation will take heavy losses, and even risks annihilation.


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## davebender (Aug 5, 2011)

I'm not surprised. New technology often requires some time to perfect.

Any idea when accurate RAP ammunition began to enter service?


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## pinsog (Aug 5, 2011)

Shortround6 said:


> There may also be a difference between a horse drawn artillery piece with wooden or metal spoked wheels and metal "tires" and metal wheels with solid rubber tires and metal wheels with pneumatic tires in the speed you can tow them without shaking the gun apart.
> 
> I other words they may be a difference in "horse traction", "motor traction" and "high speed tow".



You are absolutely correct. Farm machinery is the closest example I can think of. A non-suspended solid-tired piece of machinery(a towed rotary bushhog is a great example) had a top speed on a paved road of about 15 mph. On an unpaved but maintained dirt road it drops to less than 10 mph without shaking the machine and the tractor both to death. Non-suspended pneumatic tired machinery(a large towed scraper) can be pulled pretty fast on a smooth paved surface, on a dirt road, speed is cut substantially,(down to about 15mph) again due to shaking the machinery to death. Suspended, pneumatic tired machinery has no speed limit except for rated limit of the tires.


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## Shortround6 (Aug 5, 2011)

davebender said:


> Any idea when accurate RAP ammunition began to enter service?




About 2016.

5 years from now.


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## davebender (Aug 5, 2011)

Are you saying that modern day RAP artillery ammunition isn't accurate either?

M107 Self-Propelled Gun - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


> The M107 was also used by the Israel Defense Forces in the various Arab–Israeli conflicts. When these guns were outranged by rocket fire from Tyre, they were upgraded with the addition of extended range, full bore ammunition and new powder supplied by Gerald Bull's Space Research Corporation. This allowed operations *over 50 km with increased accuracy*.


What type ammunition is this that increases the range of Israeli M107 SP guns by about 50%?


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## Shortround6 (Aug 5, 2011)

First, you believed Wiki again with out checking other sources. 

Second, the phrasing is strange. If the original ammo could only reach 32.7km how could any type of ammunition*INCREASE* the accuracy at 50km? there was no standard of accuracy to compare to since the older shell's didn't go that far. 

Third, there is nothing in that quote that says anything about *RAP* ammunition. 

Fourth, Increases of 40% or more in range have been made by using extended range, full bore ammunition in other guns. Longer shells with much more streamlined ogives and very little parallel body section (shells are stabilized in the bore by long but very short fins called nubs) are used, usually with boat tail sections and sometimes with base bleed units. Small pyrotechnic units (or junior rockets or propellant) that actually provide little or no thrust, they are gas generators that burn just fast enough to provide a gas to fill the low pressure area behind the projectile to reduce drag by providing the equivalent of a very long boat tail. 

AS examples the standard American M198 howitzer could reach 22,100 meters with a M107 projectile. It could reach 26,000meters with the ERFB (extended range full bore) ammunition. It could reach 31,800 meters using base bleed. 

There was also an ERSC (extended range sub caliber) round developed by Gerald Bull's Space Research Corporation for the 175mm gun. Range was at least 40,000 meters but being a sub caliber (and Discarding sabot round) the shell was lighter than a full bore 175mm round and carried roughly 1/3 the explosive. 

Fifth, please note that none of the above are *RAP* projectiles and development of RAP projectiles has not been very widespread in the last 20-30 years. 

Sixth, RAP projectiles have three major problems with accuracy. One is that the rocket doesn't ignite until a number of seconds after it has left the barrel. *ANY* difference in timing of the rocket ignition (even by 1/100 of a second) is going to affect the trajectory and impact point. Two is that you need absolute consistency in length of rocket burn and thrust. even a few tenths of 1% are going affect accuracy. Third, all shells wobble (yaw) in flight with nose describing a small circle around the flight path. Depending on where in the Circle the nose is pointing when the rocket kicks in greatly affects where the projectile lands. 

If you can come up with a guidance package for artillery shells with pop out fins or some such then RAP shells a poised to make a comeback.


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## psteel (Aug 5, 2011)

The Waffen-traggers were based mostly on the a scaled up version of the Hetzer chassis with more width and length. It was to become the universal carriage that all weapons platforms were to be mounted on. It was also proposed for Grille , SP Flak and APC versions. The reason was to replace all the Zg semi tractors [ 5 different weight variants ranging from 1 ton to 18 ton] with a basic ‘easy to manufacture’ Waffentragger. The upper limit on production of Zg tractors was around 17,000 per year, while trucks converted with ¾ tracks and ¼ wheels [Maultiers] where easy enough that tens of thousands were being built every year by 1943-44, however they could only haul about 2-3 tons. 

The basic armored Waffentragger weight in at 13 tons and could be made to mount 150mm howitzer and still make 35kph. The 8-12 ton un armored towing tractor which was needed for the 150mm howitzer, weight in at 11-12 tons and cost as much as a light tank. 

BTW march speeds were rarely much more than 15kph. These Waffentragger SP Guns could function as SP Howitzers but with traverse of only +/- 30° for the bigger guns like 128mm gun and 150mm howitzer. The smaller guns like 88 Pak and 105Howitzer traverse was 360° when mounted on these AFVs. It gave the commander options to dismount some of the heavier artillery if he felt that could work.


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## pinsog (Aug 5, 2011)

Just curious, how much did an anti-tank 88mm weigh when it was ready for a road march behind prime mover? Nevermind, found it, 16,000 pounds

Another thing, this thread has gone entirely German(which is fine, I don't care), with talk of weapons dropping down as far as 76 mm Russian and has seemingly settled on self propelled artillery now, and no one has yet mentioned the M7 Priest.

Would the M7 Priest qualify as the best all-round 105 of the war? A good 105 howitzer mounted on, arguably the most reliable, full tracked chassis of the war. What's not to like?


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## Juha (Aug 6, 2011)

Shortround6 said:


> "the maximum speed for 15 cm sFH 18 for motorised towing was 60 km/h, so I’d say that mot. artillery could easily retreat 400-500 km per day, provided it had fuel"
> 
> This might be true for a paved road, dirt roads would be slower, However even at 10km/hr you can move 80-90 KM in a 10 hour day (or night) even allowing for a break or two.
> 
> ...



Hello Shortround
I know, but when Russians were on your heels, one didn't take too many breaks, so at least 18 hours driving per day and with appr 25km/h average driving speed one got 400 - 500km per day.

Juha


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## Juha (Aug 6, 2011)

Hello Parsifal
I'd say cool down. During advance, German infantry was capable to march while following motorized troops 50km per day so it should be possible in retreat 40km per day in good conditions. Of course in good blizzard nobody moved much not even Soviets and when thawn set in Soviets had an advantage but it also hindered them, so IMHO at those conditions their advance speed was lower than max they achieved. And on Russian roads, I have experience on those and even tracks.

Juha


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## Shortround6 (Aug 6, 2011)

pinsog said:


> Would the M7 Priest qualify as the best all-round 105 of the war? A good 105 howitzer mounted on, arguably the most reliable, full tracked chassis of the war. What's not to like?




We do tend to wander off track 

The US 105 was a good piece of artillery, towed or self propelled. It was not long range artillery. In fact the M-7 may have had slightly restricted range compared to the towed gun. It's maximum elevation was 35 degrees compared to the towed guns 65-66 degrees. 
Max range usually being obtained with an elevation of a bit under 45 degrees. 

While the M7 was good it was slated for replacement by the M37 or at least to be supplemented by the M-37 had the war gone on any longer. 

While mounting a gun on a motor chassis certainly improves it's mobility (as long as you are not crossing a small bridge or river) and drastically changes it's 'into' and 'out of' action times. it does nothing to change it's ballistics (except in some cases to restrict range) and only lowers it's rate of fire for certain mission. 

The US 105 may have been the best 105 Howitzer of the war even when towed ( since neither the British or the USSR built 105 howitzers it does tend to limit the competition).


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## Shortround6 (Aug 6, 2011)

A few questions on mobility of big guns. 

Much has been made of the lack of mobility of the big guns in retreat. While this is true I am not sure there is any way to avoid it. Given the time to get the big gun out of action and hooked up to a tow vehicle it is never going to be at the head of a retreating column. Even if you give it a 400hp tractor and let it ride on 10 pneumatic tires it is not going anywhere if the only road out of Dodge has 2000 horse drawn wagons in front of it. (Ok a bit of exaggeration but still??)

how mobile is mobile enough?

For the British and American armies, which marched the least of all the armies, high speed motor traction was a must. For armored thrusts the SP guns were needed to keep artillery support in range of the forward tanks. While a long ranged heavy SP gun might have been a nice thing to have ( under 74 M12s in theater? not every unit that wanted them had them?), it may have been possible to give 155 support by leap frogging the towed 155 guns. from 10km behind the start line it could provide support 12km into the advance. Which is about the distance a 105 how could do sitting on the start line. By leap frogging a pair of 155 gun batteries one battery should be able to keep in range of the point most of the time. with support form the more numerous 105 SP guns and towed 155 how eigher filling or alternating with the 155 gun support. 
An example (and it may be bad) both batteries start 10km behind the front line, once the penetration is made Battery A stays in place while battery B packs up and moves to where the front line was This takes 3 hours or so. Battery B no takes over the heavy support mission and can fire 22km into enemy territory. How far has the penetration gone in 3 hours? Battery A packs up and leap frogs past battery B 8-10km past the old start line. The packup and set up time are the same as battery B, only the travel time has changed. Is battery A ready to resume firing 7 hours after the attack has started? It can now provide fire support 30-32km from the old front line. While battery B packs up and starts it's move. 

Please note that the above example makes no mention of enemy aerial attacks disrupting the advance and likewise none of our retreat scenarios mention it either. Many moves on the Russian front were only made at night which is going to slow things down considerably.
Is a particular gun a bad design because the supporting air force lost control of the air and the gun can only be safely moved at night? A big mobility restriction. 

I think we may be confusing the actual abilities of the gun/howitzer itself with both the tactical deployment and "support" the gun/howitzer was given.

Abilities of the weapon include not only range and weight of shell but covered arc, ease of moving the covered arc and rate of fire. Ease of set up and coming out of action may be more accurately described as an an attribute or characteristic? as would be weight and size. 

The capability of the tow vehicles assigned to a particular piece of artillery, while definitely impacting the mobility and usefulness of the weapon are IMO more related to the "support" given the weapon. As is the ammunition supply. If a gun/howitzer is limited by supply to only a dozen shots per day there is no way it can reach it's potential for impacting the battle field. Now perhaps this shows the foolishness of building guns you can't supply but does it mean the gun itself was a bad gun or a poor design? It may have been a poor choice for an army with limited production capability to back it up which is not quite the same thing. 

I may have mentioned it before but the 21st army group fired off over 104,000 tons of 5.5 in shells from D-Day to V-E-Day. A good reliable gun with average performance and lots of ammo is going beat a good reliable gun with super performance and little ammo just about every time (never say always  )


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## parsifal (Aug 6, 2011)

Juha said:


> Hello Parsifal
> I'd say cool down. During advance, German infantry was capable to march while following motorized troops 50km per day so it should be possible in retreat 40km per day in good conditions. Of course in good blizzard nobody moved much not even Soviets and when thawn set in Soviets had an advantage but it also hindered them, so IMHO at those conditions their advance speed was lower than max they achieved. And on Russian roads, I have experience on those and even tracks.
> 
> Juha



Im fine, no need to cool down, but thanks for the concern. I would really like to know where your source for 50 km per day for an advance comes from and 40km for a retreat, and what good conditions represents. Are you saying that german Infantry, on a sustained basis, in engaged condition can advance 50km. Thats amazing, I never knew they were such invincible supermen.....that means they are marching at a rate of about of about 5kph sustained, as well as fighting...each and every day....even SAS can only advance at half that rate over broken terrain. Amazing........ 

My main source for my information is TM101-10, The US Army Staff officers Field Manual (1941). It was published by the Army as the "Bible" for the army, and provided Staff Officers with a Field Manual, for the Organization, Technical,
and Logistical Data on nearly all US Army field operations. In the preamble it says "This manual and FM 101-5, Staff Officers' Field Manual The Staff and Combat Orders, are compilations of information and data to be used as a guide for the operations in the field of the general staff or a similar staff group of all units in peace and war". 

Chapter 2, pages 79-148, you will obtain the relevant data for field marches. The material is detailed and meticulous, and entirely consistent with how I was trained. In fact the computations and values are similar to the british model, as inferred in the British Army Regulations, entitled Infantry Training Manual -1937 

However a basic summary is set out below, in the context of this discussion 

According to US Army doctrine, the average rate of march for trained infantry under favorable weather conditions is 2-1/2 mph over roads and 1 mph cross country. A normal foot march covers 12-20 miles per day. But thats under conditions of disengagement, and assumes clear weather, and full visibility. For conditions of night, or if the formation is in contact with the enemy, or the terrain is more broken, or wooded, the march rates are about half that (typically). According to the US manual, infantry travelling on foot, over open country, which is what should be assumed for Russian conditions (and Ive been there too, incidentally) in an unengaged state, the expected sustained rate of movement for unengaged leg Infantry in 1941 was 12-15 miles per day, but for enaged Infantry, or wher difficulties might be expected, the average rate was about half that rate, or, in metric terms, about 10-15 kms per day. If you try to push your Infantry much above that your sickness rates will go up, typically for example, in unengaged conditions if you increase the march demands to say 20 miles per day (30km per day), you are statistically going to force onto the sick list, about 5% of your Infantry every day that that occurs....if the forced marching continues for more than three days, your attrition rate will double for every three day period after that. Since the situation is a retreat, with the enemy assumed to be applying maximum pressure on your forces, any men reported as unfit, will basically be lost.

I think the mistake you are making is that you are measuring performance on that applicable to a single man or small group on a hiking holiday, with regular rest stops, hot and/or regular meal stops and light loads to be carried. In wartime we are looking at large groups of men, irregular meal breaks, poor rest stops, intermittent combat, and relatively heavy loads being carried. These factors will all have an effect, and are worked out for us in TM101-10.

For the Germans, they did, on isolated occasions, achieve rates of advance of 30km per day for their Infantry. This happened in Belgium in the advance to Antwerp, but it was only over a two day period. By contrast, the leg Infantry following Gp Kleist through the Ardennes took (from memory) 5 days to cover the roughly 50 kms to the front, and that was unengaged. Similar examples can be found in 1941, in the East, but each time their Infantry performed those feats, they either needed rest or they accepted casualties from fatigue. Not as serious when you are atacking, but almost certain to lead to a more serious casualty list when retreating. After Smolensk, for example, the Infantry formations attached to AGC were reporting Infantry strengths of about 40%, on average.....German Infantry formations had fought so hard, and advanced so far, and were exhausted by that time.....it was reported the Heersgruppe to Hitler that it would take the Infantry 6 weeks to recover, so to keep the pressure on the Soviets, he ordered his panzers south in an ill-considered decision.

If we widen our search somewhat, the most celebrated sustained march rate that I know of comes from the napoleonic era, where in the lead up to Austerlitz (I think) the Guard is reported to have marched 70miles in two days,and then gone straight into battle. We do not know how many men had fallen out due to fatigue, or how long they were given to recover, but it does show that in isolatred instances in conditions of being unengaged, it might be possible for a few units, on a very tempoorary basis to reach the march rates you are suggesting


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## parsifal (Aug 6, 2011)

I agree with your basic understanding of mobility for heavy guns. And your example of two batteries working together is exactly how artllery is meant to support a retreat....move back by stages, never leave the frontline without support.

Problem for German towed artillery was that it could not undertake this fall back by stages nearly quickly enough (different story completely for their SPGs). Besides the mobility issue, German artillery relied on wire rather than radio to a much greater extent than the Allies, and also had a much more meticulous method of achieving firing solutions. As I said, the time needed to get from unlimbered state to being ready for counterbattery condition was about 3 hours....far too long in a fluid situation. By comparison, British guns (field artillery) that had been unlimbered would be ready for counterbattery or fire support tasks within minutes....same for the US guns. But both the US and British plotting systems were a lot less accurate

But I still happen to think that the German guns compared to their allied counterparts at least were still slower and harder to move, mostly because of the carriage arrangments and wheels. Might be a different stoery once you get into the really heavy Allied gear like their 240mm guns and the like


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## Shortround6 (Aug 6, 2011)

I think that again, comparing artillery "systems" which are very complicated and interdependent on a number of factors and imposing the restrictions/penalties of the "system" on the equipment (guns) isn't a fair way of comparing the guns. 

I don't know but I would guess that part of the German desire for more accurate plotting may come not only from the German characteristic of being more precise but from a chronic ammunition shortage. If you are going to fire a limited number of shells you had better make sure they are on target. And if you are going to revel your firing position to an enemy who has the ability to reply with a much larger "blanket" of shells to mask his imprecise plotting you had better get it right the first time before you are forced to move and start all over. Of course this starts to become a self perpetuating circle. 

The US (allied) gear about hit the limit with the 155 M1 gun. The US 8in Howitzer on the same carriage was so good it out lasted the 155mm ( shell weight and variety of shells) and the British 7.2 howitzer that was mounted on the same carriage seemed to have potential but didn't get the development of ammunition that it needed to compete with the 8in howitzer. Anything bigger doesn't seem to show any advance or advantage over the German guns of the same size/performance. The American 8in gun being mounted on the same carriage as the 240mm howitzer. Taking 1/3 of day to emplace without extra construction equipment depending on soil. I mean, does it matter if it takes 9 hours or 12 hours to emplace? These are weapons that are lucky if they can keep up with the speed of the advance even in marching order and certainly cannot be emplaced or picked up to follow a fluid situation.


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## parsifal (Aug 6, 2011)

Gotta remember as well that from 1935 right through to the end, the Heer was forbidden to train or study techniques for retreat. These were standard studies for the allies. The Germans never really developed SOPs for their artillery whilst giving ground, as a result Germans tended to stand and fight, but when the time came to bug out (and the situation developed fluidity), didnt really have a procedure in place. My opinion is that their artillery procedures were designed to either hold ground (ie, a static situation) , or take ground (ie take out enemy position in a measured, meticulous and carefully planned way) but they were not so good when being pressured to give ground....they tended to accept a rout under those conditions, and their artillery was pretty well tailored in the same way.


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## davebender (Aug 6, 2011)

The M7 was very capable but also very expensive. 

Product prices
$46,465 M7 Priest.
$19,691 (49,228 RM) Pz II. 
$6,560 (16,400 RM) 10.5cm leFH18 howitzer.

The German Wespe consisted of a 10.5cm howitzer mounted on a modified Panzer II chassis. Unfortunately I don't have a historical price for that vehicle. However it's probably safe to say it cost half as much as the U.S. M7 Priest.


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## pinsog (Aug 6, 2011)

davebender said:


> The M7 was very capable but also very expensive.
> 
> Product prices
> $46,465 M7 Priest.
> ...



Price really didn't matter to the US at that time. We were GIVING airplanes, tanks and trucks away as fast as we could build them.

Were the German machines you referred to being built by slave labor? (this of course has been widely discussed on the airplane forum) If so, that would certainly lower the cost.


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## Juha (Aug 6, 2011)

Parsifal
if you would read what others write I wrote “German infantry was capable to march while following motorized troops 50km per day” so while FOLLWING the panzer and Inf. division (mot.), so along the roads which were first used by panzer divisions and their artillery and supply columns. And source is the Finnish translation of von Tippelskirch’s history of the WWII. V. Tippelskirch happened to has been the CG of 4th A during the destruction of AG Centre in summer 44. And of course such forced marches were hard to infantry.

And pre-war western allies manuals are only that, not necessary apply to divisions fighting in the Eastern Front as seen for ex. the western rule of thumb that a div after 30% casualties was no more capable to normal combat operations, when in the East much more depleted divs had to fought and fought even successfully.

Quote:” I think the mistake you are making is that you are measuring performance on that applicable to a single man or small group on a hiking holiday, with regular rest stops, hot and/or regular meal stops and light loads to be carried. In wartime we are looking at large groups of men, irregular meal breaks, poor rest stops, intermittent combat, and relatively heavy loads being carried. These factors will all have an effect, and are worked out for us in TM101-10.”

Really, IMHO you are totally lost, I’m thinking units doing forced marches and knowing that the speed is their only hope to avert death or very grim PoW camp in Siberia.

For example it seems that German 4th A would have made it if the Soviet flanking units would not have had 2 days – 3 days head start because of interference from higher up. And 4th A was retreating in very bad conditions, almost uncontested enemy air superiority (3 weeks after D-Day in Normandy which had attracted was majority of LW fighters in the West), using rather bad road network through swampy and forested areas with lot of partisans harassing them while especially north of them a Soviet pincer was advancing along the Smolensk – Minsk highway, and regular enemy forces attacking constantly their rear and flanks, but some of its divs could march 30-50 km per day, even 85km per day parts of 110. Inf Div on 3 Jul 44, source Das Deutsche Reich und der Zweite Weltkrieg 8

Juha


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## davebender (Aug 6, 2011)

I agree. 

Historically most of the U.S. Army wasn't committed to combat prior to June 1944. Hence we could spend a relatively large portion of the military budget on new equipment rather then funding ongoing combat operations. If most American Army divisions had been committed to combat from 1939 onward it would be a different matter.


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## pinsog (Aug 6, 2011)

Shortround6 said:


> I think that again, comparing artillery "systems" which are very complicated and interdependent on a number of factors and imposing the restrictions/penalties of the "system" on the equipment (guns) isn't a fair way of comparing the guns.
> 
> I don't know but I would guess that part of the German desire for more accurate plotting may come not only from the German characteristic of being more precise but from a chronic ammunition shortage. If you are going to fire a limited number of shells you had better make sure they are on target. And if you are going to revel your firing position to an enemy who has the ability to reply with a much larger "blanket" of shells to mask his imprecise plotting you had better get it right the first time before you are forced to move and start all over. Of course this starts to become a self perpetuating circle.
> 
> The US (allied) gear about hit the limit with the 155 M1 gun. The US 8in Howitzer on the same carriage was so good it out lasted the 155mm ( shell weight and variety of shells) and the British 7.2 howitzer that was mounted on the same carriage seemed to have potential but didn't get the development of ammunition that it needed to compete with the 8in howitzer. Anything bigger doesn't seem to show any advance or advantage over the German guns of the same size/performance. The American 8in gun being mounted on the same carriage as the 240mm howitzer. Taking 1/3 of day to emplace without extra construction equipment depending on soil. I mean, does it matter if it takes 9 hours or 12 hours to emplace? These are weapons that are lucky if they can keep up with the speed of the advance even in marching order and certainly cannot be emplaced or picked up to follow a fluid situation.



It is hard not to compare long range guns as a weapons system including their prime movers and associated equipment(such as the crane that traveled with the American 8inch gun and 240 mm howitzer) if you include mobility as part of the equation.

If we leave out mobility, then we need to just line them up side by side and see who shoots the farthest, fastest and most accurate, with the biggest boom at the target, which would probably leave us with the biggest guns such as the American 8 inch and 240 howitzer and all of their counterparts in other countries.

If we include mobility, which I think we should, then we HAVE to include prime movers and any other equipment that a particular army would send along. For instance, the US army sent a 6x6 crane along with its 8 inch gun and 240 mm howitzer. If the Germans did not posses such a vehicle, and it took them 10 hours to set up their weapon of equal size and it took the Americans 2 hours because they sent a crane, then that would definately sway the argument in favor of the US. If the Germans prime mover for their 105 howitzer is a team of 6 horses, and the US 105 is pulled by a halftrack or is an M7 Priest SP howitzer, again I would think that should weigh in on the argument.


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## Shortround6 (Aug 6, 2011)

And the Wespe was of much less value than an M7. It had less than 1/2 the ammo needing extra vehicles to haul the ammo. It had fewer gunners and room to work so the rate of fire was slower and it had a smaller covered arc which meant that it had to be started and pivoted in place to cover targets on the edges of it's covered arc that the M7 didn't have to. 

four M7s could carry 276 rounds of ammunition. four Wespes plus 1 ammo carrier had 218 rounds in the five chassis. The M7 had two extra gunners to adjust charges in propellant cases, pull transport plugs and fit fuses to projectiles and set fuses before loading.
so if you want to keep firing for more than a few minutes the M7s have a firing rate closer to the towed guns than a Wespe does. How many Wespes to equal 4 M7s?

Cheap is not always better.


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## davebender (Aug 6, 2011)

If you insist. 

*Schwerer Zugkraftwagen 12t Sd.Kfz.8*





185hp Maybach engine.
51 kph Road speed.
$18,400 (46,000 RM)



*M4 Tractor.* Same chassis as the M2 light tank.




210hp Waukesha engine.
53 kph Road speed.
Cost ??
The M2 light tank was superceded by the M3 light tank which cost $55,244. An M4 Tractor probably cost less then the tank. However I'd hazzard a guess the American made towing tractor still cost quite a bit more then a German made Sd.Kfz. 8 towing tractor.


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## pinsog (Aug 6, 2011)

davebender said:


> I agree.
> 
> Historically most of the U.S. Army wasn't committed to combat prior to June 1944. Hence we could spend a relatively large portion of the military budget on new equipment rather then funding ongoing combat operations. If most American Army divisions had been committed to combat from 1939 onward it would be a different matter.



Most of the US army may not have been engaged, but we were fighting a 2 front war with the Navy and Marines starting on December 7, 1941, PLUS we were supplying everyone in the world that we weren't actually trying to kill with weapons. That being said, we had US dollars flying out like dust in a sandstorm. But, we, unlike Japan and early war Germany, commited our entire nation to total war once we had been brought in. We had all the material we needed, and cost simply wasn't a factor to us, at least at the time.

And again, how do you figure slave labor in on the cost of a piece of equipment?

Nice pics. I have always loved the look of the M4 HST. Don't forget, we also had the M6 high speed tractor also. As I recall it weighed, 65,000 pounds, and had 2 of the M4 HST engines, although they were only rated 190hp each instead on 210.


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## Shortround6 (Aug 6, 2011)

davebender said:


> If you insist.
> 
> Cost ??
> The M2 light tank was superceded by the M3 light tank which cost $55,244. An M4 Tractor probably cost less then the tank. However I'd hazzard a guess the American made towing tractor still cost quite a bit more then a German made Sd.Kfz. 8 towing tractor.



Armor plate is not cheap. it is a lot more expensive than mild steel, it is also a pain the As* to work with, running the labor costs way up. Rotating turrets (turret rings,etc) are not cheap. 

German half tracks used a tracked steering system in addition to the front wheels. They could steer with wheels off the ground. This system was not cheap. 

The German Mark was no more allowed to float to it's true value compared to the American dollar, even in the late 30s, than the Chinese yuan is officially allowed to float to it's true value against the American dollar in the last ten years. Comparisons of cost based on a bogus exchange rate are bogus.


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## davebender (Aug 6, 2011)

I agree. The M4 artillery tractor was a nice vehicle. 

I suspect Germany could have produced something similiar based on the Panzer II chassis and for about the same cost as the Sd.Kfz.8
half track. Perhaps they opted for the Sd.Kfz.8 because it offered more interior space for weapon crew, ammo etc.


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## fastmongrel (Aug 6, 2011)

Shortround6 said:


> Armor plate is not cheap. it is a lot more expensive than mild steel, it is also a pain the As* to work with, running the labor costs way up. Rotating turrets (turret rings,etc) are not cheap.



As a spotty young recruit we were told the most expensive part of a Chieftain tanks hull to make was the turret ring because of the precision casting, forging and machining it took to manufacture. Dont know if that holds up for a WWII tank but I bet it was still a major cost.


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## psteel (Aug 6, 2011)

The last thing the Germans should have been doing was to divert precious tank production into prime movers. A half track was always going to be cheaper to operate than any fully tracked tank chassis. More to the point was to turn the Paner II production into self propelled gun carriage, which is what happened. Infact the 1934 plans for the Panzer divisions included a Panzer Artillery Battalion. But lack of tank production meant they couldn't include these in the TOE for a decade.

BTW according to Tooze, the slave labor amounted to 10% of the labor force by 1944 and was going to be phased out since it was shown to be less cost effective than employing semi skill workers. I would guess that if this slave labor was averaged over the war effort, it would amounted to maybe a couple % of the output?


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## psteel (Aug 6, 2011)

Shortround6 said:


> The German Mark was no more allowed to float to it's true value compared to the American dollar, even in the late 30s, than the Chinese yuan is officially allowed to float to it's true value against the American dollar in the last ten years. Comparisons of cost based on a bogus exchange rate are bogus.



According to Tooze, from Germany's POV , Hjalmar Schacht was correct in not devaluating the Mark in relation to World Currency.
Hjalmar Schacht - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

It was his policy of credit and strick control of monitory policy; that allowed the Reich to recover faster from the GD than any other power. He implimented these policy before Hitler came to power, so the recover would have happened with or without Hitler. 

I don't know if Germany should be penalized for this advantage?


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## pinsog (Aug 6, 2011)

psteel said:


> The last thing the Germans should have been doing was to divert precious tank production into prime movers. A half track was always going to be cheaper to operate than any fully tracked tank chassis.
> 
> Normally I would agree with you on this, and you would be correct if you were referring to the American halftrack or the German trucks that simply added a bogie assembly where the rear axle used to be. But, the 3/4 tracked vehicles that we all recognize as German artillery prime movers were just as complicated as a light tank, having all of the steering mechanisms that a light tank does, with the added complexity of a non-driven front axle, which hindered mobility. Sd.Kfz. 7 and 8 are good examples of very complex halftracks.
> 
> As far as needing prime movers, yes, Germany needed prime movers, in fact, Germany needed alot of stuff that they didn't have. They needed trucks and prime movers as much as they needed tanks and fighters. Trying to bring fuel, ammo, food and water to a supposedly mechanized force by horse drawn wagons was rediculous in the extreme. Tanks and infantry without artillery support are dead meat, artillery without prime movers are stationary.


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## parsifal (Aug 6, 2011)

_if you would read what others write I wrote “German infantry was capable to march while following motorized troops 50km per day” so while FOLLWING the panzer and Inf. division (mot.), so along the roads which were first used by panzer divisions and their artillery and supply columns. And source is the Finnish translation of von Tippelskirch’s history of the WWII. V. Tippelskirch happened to has been the CG of 4th A during the destruction of AG Centre in summer 44. And of course such forced marches were hard to infantry._

Why are you mentionng situations that would not apply and are of no benefit to the issue we are looking at???? A division following another is not in an engaged situation, and the original supposition that led to this little debate was what an unmotorized division could do if it began in an engaged condition with the enemy. So the question arises....are you (still) saying that in enagaged situations an Infantry division could retreat 40km. If not, what distances are you suggesting as an appropriate yardstick to estimate their capabilities.

I have not read your Von Tippelskirch, but it may well be a case of someone trying to cover their own behind, arguing it was all Hitlers fault and the army could have managed the situation if they had been given the opportunity. In other words, someone trying to cover themselves.

Whilst I havent Tippelskirch, I have read a series of articles put together into a single volume called "Fighting In Hell" The articles were by Erhard Raus, General Der Infantrie Dr Waldeimar Erfuth (considered by many to be the foremost Infantry specialist in the wehrmacht) and Franz Halder (who needs no introduction). I also have read Von Manteuffels book (the name of which I forget). All of these guys do not support the notion that 50km sustained marching by unmotorised infantry even in an unengaged situation is at all possible. And for the record, they make the point that units following a Panzer formation on a Rusian road had a hard time moving at all, because the roads system was so badly torn up,, so many bridges collapsed after the passage of the Panzer unit and the like. It generally took weeks of repair to restore a Russian Road network that had been torn up by German motorised forces, simply through usage 

With regard to your last sentence, that strikes me as the classic understatement..."force marches were hard on the Infantry"....you think!!!!!. Out of roughly 800000 defenders, 680000 of them were killed or captured in the DAGC . Most of the survivors were generally rear area line of communications troops and the like. The average strength of those divisions that did survive was just 1000 men, no transport, no artillery, virtually no equipment. I guess you could say it was a little hard on the formation, given it was a deferat that led directly to the capitulation of both Rumania and Finland, and is recorded as the greatest defeat of the German army up to that time in the WWII. 

_And pre-war western allies manuals are only that, not necessary apply to divisions fighting in the Eastern Front as seen for ex. the western rule of thumb that a div after 30% casualties was no more capable to normal combat operations, when in the East much more depleted divs had to fought and fought even successfully._

Just to clarify, the US manual was updated in 1971, and again in 1993. With regard to calculating march speeds, it has not really changed. Evidently there were plenty of people who considered it to have value. Its still used at places like Duntroon, Sandhurst and West Point AFAIK, but in your little world these places arent worth the ground they are built on I guess. 

I agree that German Infantry continued to fight past the point of 30% casualties. The usual strength for German Infantry on the Eastern Front was an average of 40% authorized strength, but given the greatest losses were in their transport and logistics areas this only makes their mobility problem even harder. by 1944 German Infantry Divs could no longer move in unison. They were so short of both MT and Draft animals, that divisions could only be moved by pooling transport and moving units in stages, or alternatively dropping their gear and running. this was particularly true in so called "static sectors" like AGC and AGN, wher the divisions were stripped out to provide transport to other more dynbamic sectors.

The British manual was updated during and after the war. I havent seen the post war manual, but I have seen the wartime revision. It makes no change with regard to mobility and march calculations.

So, either these Operations manuals are worth looking at, and are reliable, or Allied commanders were incredibly stupid to teach their armed forces procedur4es that were below the capabilities of the troops. And, if the operating procedures are accurate, why would they not be applicable, or at least comparable to German forces, unless you really do believe that the Germans were somehow the race of super soldiers, capable of things the allies could only dream of... 


_For example it seems that German 4th A would have made it if the Soviet flanking units would not have had 2 days – 3 days head start because of interference from higher up. And 4th A was retreating in very bad conditions, almost uncontested enemy air superiority (3 weeks after D-Day in Normandy which had attracted was majority of LW fighters in the West), using rather bad road network through swampy and forested areas with lot of partisans harassing them while especially north of them a Soviet pincer was advancing along the Smolensk – Minsk highway, and regular enemy forces attacking constantly their rear and flanks, but some of its divs could march 30-50 km per day, even 85km per day parts of 110. Inf Div on 3 Jul 44, source Das Deutsche Reich und der Zweite Weltkrieg 8_

Really, this is the stuff fairy tales are made of Juha. AGC was incapable of rapid movement because of the crisis in their transport arm. And whilst orders were issued, or formations were just attempting movements of 40-80 km per day, how much was surviving. How much of the formations were actually falling out of formation and getting themselves captured???. At the end of the operation they had lost all of their artillery and transport, and rifle strengths were down to 1000 or less per division. If you call that surviving, well, you have a different concept of sustainable operations to me.

Perhaps I should qualify. Units in rout can save remnants of the formation if resistance is abandoned, and the personnel take to sheer flight. These elements are no longer a coherent defence, no longer in contact, and no longer a military organization. Under those conditions, the more determined individuals have a chane of survival, but the force as a coherent body is finished. I thought we were talking about the conditions needed to save a formations artillery, not the fact that a few ragged individuals made it out of a cauldron alive. The Soviets managed similar feats in 1941, but on a larger scale in the various cauldrons that developed around their armies during Barbarossa. Many of the personnel managed to escape such encirclements, but noit as formed military units.

It would have mattered very little if the germans had started moving 2 days earlier than they did. By the time of the offensive, AGC was a house of cards that simply was incapable of rapid movement at the same time. To save more of its personnel it would simply have had to abanadon most of its heavy equipment, and start running earlier than it did. Thats still not a retreat, its still a rout, and a big one.

And blaming Hitler or higher up...really, I thought you had a better grasp of the situation than that. Sure Hitler was stubborn, and at times his orders unrealistic, but in this instance, he didnt have a choice. Retreat as is generally (ie as formed military formations) was not possible for AGC in 1944, indeed retreat as an option was not possible on any front for the germans by that time, except for their mobile formations.


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## parsifal (Aug 6, 2011)

Juha said:


> Parsifal
> if you would read what others write I wrote “German infantry was capable to march while following motorized troops 50km per day” so while FOLLWING the panzer and Inf. division (mot.), so along the roads which were first used by panzer divisions and their artillery and supply columns. And source is the Finnish translation of von Tippelskirch’s history of the WWII. V. Tippelskirch happened to has been the CG of 4th A during the destruction of AG Centre in summer 44. And of course such forced marches were hard to infantry.
> 
> Juha




This comment made me chack back...

At Post 91 I stated

_certainly not 100km, but reasonable to claim 40km per day. this is still beyond the capability horsedrawn artillery to avoid capture. Motorised artillery might retreat 40-50 km per day, provided it had fuel. Not sure if artillery is mechanised, whether retreat rates would be greater than that.”_


Your reply at post 93 was 

_I really cannot understand you claim, the maximum speed for 15 cm sFH 18 for motorised towing was 60 km/h, so I’d say that mot. artillery could easily retreat *400-500 km per day*, provided it had fuel._


At post 108 you indeed said

_German infantry was capable to march while following motorized troops 50km per day so it should be possible in retreat 40km per day in good conditions_


However this post had been edited more than 12 hours after it had originally been posted, for reasons not altogether clear. Perhaps to include a statement later claimed, I suspect. However the statement is non-sequita, because it has no relationship to the issue being discussed in the first place prior to that point between us. Why did you raise it. Reason uncertain, but it tries to pass itself as a reply to my posts, which are to do with controlled retreats and the inability of german *horse drawn* artillery to move or react fast enough. If you are not addressing the point I made, why raise it as an issue at all in reply directly to me. Why not just post it as a general comment. Perhaps to cloud and confuse the issue and throw us off the scent of german failings and weaknesses I suspect, attack the chief critique, distract him, attack him. Bit like the Schleck brothers and Cadel Evans i suppose.....…


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## Juha (Aug 7, 2011)

Hello Parsifal

Quote_:” Why are you mentionng situations that would not apply and are of no benefit to the issue we are looking at????”_

Simply because you claimed that a) even the vehicles of German infantry div put a Russian road on which they travelled nearly unusable conditions, how would they have looked after a / a couple panzer div(s) had used them and still the following inf div managed clearly longer marches on them than you calculated.
and b) because you referred US and British pre-war manuals that according to you calculated that only much shorter daily marches were possible in favourable conditions than German infantry units did during the war.

Quote_:” Really, this is the stuff fairy tales are made of Juha. AGC was incapable of rapid movement because of the crisis in their transport arm. And whilst orders were issued, or formations were just attempting movements of 40-80 km per day, how much was surviving. How much of the formations were actually falling out of formation and getting themselves captured???. At the end of the operation they had lost all of their artillery and transport, and rifle strengths were down to 1000 or less per division. If you call that surviving, well, you have a different concept of sustainable operations to me.”_

All I can say, read more, as starters for ex Gerd Niepold’s Battle for White Russia. The Destruction of Army Group Centre June 1944. it gives how the situation developed day by day and there are excellent maps in Das Deutsche Reich und der Zweite Weltkrieg 8 (2007), the series happened to be as close you get the official history on Germany’s side. And yes the divisions still had some figting power left when they arrived East of Minsk, Soviet units were in times hard pressed for a couple days while defeating their outbreaking attemps.

Quote_:” However this post had been edited more than 12 hours after it had originally been posted, for reasons not altogether clear. Perhaps to include a statement later claimed, I suspect. However the statement is non-sequita, because it has no relationship to the issue being discussed in the first place prior to that point between us. Why did you raise it. Reason uncertain, but it tries to pass itself as a reply to my posts, which are to do with controlled retreats and the inability of german horse drawn artillery to move or react fast enough. If you are not addressing the point I made, why raise it as an issue at all in reply directly to me. Why not just post it as a general comment. Perhaps to cloud and confuse the issue and throw us off the scent of german failings and weaknesses I suspect, attack the chief critique, distract him, attack him. Bit like the Schleck brothers and Cadel Evans i suppose…”_

And in the end conspiracy theories, hopeless, believe what you want, it’s you business, but it was simply a correction of a grammar error on the last but one sentence, which gave the opposite meaning that I had meant.

Juha


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## Njaco (Aug 7, 2011)

Lets keep this civil. This has turned into a very good thread. Lets not muck it up.


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## Shortround6 (Aug 7, 2011)

I think that we are drifting again.

Are we discussing the abilities and liabilities of one gun vs others of it's kind/class?

Are we discussing the abilities and liabilities of one gun *'system'* (tow vehicles, support vehicles, etc) vs others of it's kind/class?

Are we discussing the abilities and liabilities of one nations entire* Artillery system* vs other nations 'artillery system/s'?

Keeping in mind that for many nations the overall "artillery system" changed during the years of the war in respect not only to guns and tow vehicles but in communications, supply, tactics and doctrine.

Going back to the start of this thread. 

How does the 17cm K 18 compare to it's rivals?
we have yet to decide, for the purposes of this thread, what it's rivals were. 

if comparing the guns and not the gun 'system' would the provision of 300-350 tractors of the equivalent of the M-38 and perhaps 3 times the ammo (with barrels to suit) had allowed for the just 300guns built by the start of 1944 to have a bigger impact than they did? 
Or to sort of flip it, would the IDENTICAL gun in IDENTICAL numbers in western allied hands, given typical western allied tractors, ammo supply and engineering support have made a difference in the guns achievements/reputation?

The Germans did make their share of less than satisfactory artillery pieces and spent way too much time and effort on some really bizarre projects. 
Not all German weapons were super weapons. Some were just plain, average, solid working weapons with no out standing abilities or faults.


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## parsifal (Aug 7, 2011)

Fair point SR, but to understand the reason why the K18 had the shortcomings that I allege, one has to understand the "system" for which it was designed. The German artillery system had some glaring weakneses about it, not least of which was its distinct lack of mobility. But for the cirumstances that it was designed, namely to support formations on the attack, or to defend in static situations, the K-18 was perfect for the job. It was long ranged, with a heavy puch, and had a reputation for accuracy.

Its what it wasnt good at that i am harping about. It was not a good piece for a mobile fluid defence. It had a relatively slow rate of fire(mostly due to the way it was used, not so much because of its design) , could only relocate slowly, though to be fair, its great range meant that it didnt need to move as often. It, and guns like it were frequently overrun and captured, as were the unmotorized guns of Germany's opponents.

Its not that the K18 was worse than other guns of its ilk, quite the contrary. It was one of the best. But it came from a generation of guns where mobility and flexibility were not valued, hitting power and range were the determinants of a successful gun. You cannot escape that when considering nearly all of the german guns. We are basically back where we started. What are the qulaities that make the best long range artillery gun. Arbitrarily you have suggested a range of 20000 yds for long range, just to keep the issue simple. Well the issues we have to consider from that point is what are the ingredients of "best". My opinion is that "best" will encompass

1) Mobility - motorization and weight, as the particulars of the carriage and wheels

2) Range - self explanatory really

3) Firepower - weight of shell, ammunition types available and what could be fired

4) Accuracy

5) Durability/reliability

The K-18 IMO scores good marks in cats 2 and 4. It achieves an above average score for cat 3, but I would mark it down because it did not fire VT shells (it could have, but didnt....and in a comparison so arbitrary as this, its simply a case of coulda, shoulda, woulda, but did not). It also scores reasonably well in its durability and reliability, but once again, my opinion is that some of the materials used in its construction and usage failed, particularly in termerature extremes.

For the mobility issue, my opinion is that the K-18 scores poorly, for reasons I have previously mentioned.

So, if we were to apply a score for these 5 categories, I would give the K18 the following (1 is best, 0 is worst)

For Cats 2 and 4: max points (2)
For Cats 3 and 5, I would give it (1.5)
For Cat 1 I would give it a 0

That gives it a 3.5 out of 5

If we apply the same test to the US 155mm, I would give the following scores

Cat 1: 0.75
Cat 2: 0.75
Cat 3: 1.0
Cat 4: 0.75 (as a resulkt of the way it was used) 
Cat 5: 0.75

That gives the 155 a score of 4, slightly better than the K-18


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## Shortround6 (Aug 7, 2011)

Before I can accept a "scoring" system we would have to see how it works on other guns and wither it leaves anything out. 

I am also suspicious of scoring systems that include such things as VT fuses. They were only used at the end of the war, and while they did improve the effectiveness/utility of of western allied ground guns they were never part of the original gun specification. 

try comparing the German 105 howitzer (with and without muzzle brake or 'averaged') to the American 105 howitzer. Both used the same weight of shell and both used a considerable variety of shells. The American 105 has an attribute the German howitzer does not have and the German howitzer has a slight advantage in a sightly different area/direction. 

try comparing the major models of the American 1897 field gun. same tube and same ammo but considerable differences in other attributes. 

The American 155gun may very well be a better long range gun than the 17cm K 18 but claiming it so because it had VT fuses seems to be stretching things quite a bit. One source says the VT fuse was first used for ground fire 18 December 1944. 
Now I could be quite wrong but do you have examples of the 155mm gun firing VT fused shells? The VT fuses were usually longer than standard fuses and shells intended for their use had deeper fuse well that could, at times, be fitted with more explosive or a booster if a normal fuse was fitted. The 155mm gun did NOT use the the same projectiles as the 155mm howitzer.


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## Juha (Aug 7, 2011)

Hello
IMHO 17cm K18 was an excellent LR gun, probably technically the best WWII LR gun. But maybe a bit too specialized weapon. Long Tom and ML-20 were shorter ranged weapons but handier and cheaper, especially ML-20 which weighted less than 2/3 of even Long Tom’s weight. SU and USA seemed to have understood better the economical points of war production and the economy of scale even if one must admit that Heer didn’t continue to produce all those excellent LR guns which German industry offered to, for ex 21cm K 38 and 24cm K 3.

Juha


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## parsifal (Aug 7, 2011)

How can you assess the value of a piece of hardware except if you consider how it was used, how it was made, what ammunition was available to it, whether it tended to be motorized, whether it was mounted on tracks etc etc. Tie enough aspects of a gun behind its back, and you will get the answer that you are expecting. By excluding all these other aspects, we really do reduce the equation to just gunpower and shell weight. We come away from the exercise concluding "wow, that K18 was easily the best gun" not realizing we have coralled the assessment to parameters that maximise the german guns good points, and smother everything thats bad about it. The exercise becomes far too fanciful for my liking unless we consider how it was used and all those other aspects. If this were a rifle for example, we would, I think not just look at the wood and steel aspects of the design, we would unhesitatingly look at the ammunition, the carry sling and any other aspects of the gun that are not really part of the "main" design".

As far as VT fuses, they were first used operationally on ships in April 1943, on cruiser Helena I believe. They were not introduced to ground artillery until December 1944, during the Germans Ardennes offensive. Whilst that is indeed late in the war, it is still only about half way through the US Army's principal land campaign, from Normandy to the Elbe (June 1944-May1945). Before that less than 10% of US ground forces had been engaged, and in North Africa it had been less than a Corps strength. At Sicily (july43) it had been a smallish army, changed to a largish army in Italy, and finally an Army Group in Northern France and a reinforced Corps in Southern France. Moreover it was not until 1945 that the majority of Divs of the US army were finally engaged. Up to Septmber 1944, only something like 28 Divs had seen any frontline action at all, and the majority of action had been witnessed by less than 10 Divs. From September 1944, the amount of combat time by US forces ramped up sharply, it was easily the most combat intensive time for the US. They finished up with something like 75 divs engaged. So in terms of combat hours, or rounds expended or casualties inflicted/sustained, this final period of the war was in fact the main operational period for the US army. It is entirely appropriate to consider the ammunition types used by the guns being considered, and for the US, entirely approparite to give a lot of weight to the VT fuse, because it was deployed at a time when the US Army was atits maximum extent of combat exposure.


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## pinsog (Aug 7, 2011)

The 17cm K18 weighed 51,000 pounds ready to travel, and only had 4 solid steeltires, with a little strip of rubber around them. 

The US 155 Long Tom weighed 30,000 pounds ready to travel and rolled on 10 pneumatic tires. The difference in mobility must have been tremendous. The 155 was quicker to set up and quicker to load up and move. I show emplacement and removal times as little as 30 minutes. 

Looks like the 17cm K18 should probably be compared to the US 8 inch gun instead of the Long Tom.


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## Shortround6 (Aug 7, 2011)

"How can you assess the value of a piece of hardware except if you consider how it was used, how it was made, what ammunition was available to it, whether it tended to be motorized, whether it was mounted on tracks etc etc. Tie enough aspects of a gun behind its back, and you will get the answer that you are expecting."

And if you include enough things like "how it was used, how it was made, what ammunition was available to it, whether it tended to be motorized, whether it was mounted on tracks etc" depending on how much weight you give each factor and you can get the answer you want, too.

I guess the Germans made NO good artillery pieces, not a one. I can justify this because they lacked enough tractors or motor transport, they lacked VT fuses for the last 5-6months of the war, they were often short of ammo and their response time for fire support was slower than the western allies. 

Not a single thing to do with any individual gun or howitzer but we can use these reasons to down grade any German gun or howitzer to get an answer that pleases us. 

I asked about the German 105 howitzer and the American 105 for a reason. 

The German 105 had a problem with range early in it's career, this was solved (sort of) with the provision of a new HE shell and a new propelling charge. Of, course none of the other shells ( smoke, etc) or their propelling charges where changed so the increase in range is only for HE. The German weapon had another problem. It would only elevate to 40 degrees or just a shade over. The American 105 howitzer would elevate to about 65 degrees (in towed guns) which allowed it to fire in upper register. This means that for most ranges less than maximum there are TWO elevations that will give the same range but with different times of flight with EACH zone charge. This makes it easier to arrange ToT fires, it also makes it easier to lob shells over obstructions like mountain ridges or to fire out of forests/built up areas. The Germans were working on several differetn designs to solve these problems but never got them into production. 
The American gun also used semi-fixed ammunition. The fuse could be fitted and the powder charged adjusted to the zone range desired and the shell fitted into the mouth of the case. The round was loaded in one piece unlike the German gun which was loaded separately except for the anti-tank ammunition. This means the American 105 How could be fired faster for short periods of time than the German 105 How. 
Now the German Howitzer was a solid workman like design that did all that was asked of it the majority of the time but it did lack those margins of performance/ useablility that the American Howitzer had. It did have one small advantage, it had more traverse in the carriage. 56 degrees instead of 45 degrees which meant it could cover a slightly bigger arc without having to be shifted. At 10,000yds it could cover about 900yds either side of what the American howitzer could cover. How often this was used I don't know. Perhaps the better American communications and easier ammunition supply meant they could swing the guns and get fire on the target just as quick despite the traverse limit. Perhaps the Americans had more guns per per mile of frontage and had less need to use the extremes of the traverse to bring the weight of fire they wanted. 
But this points to the difference between attributes of a gun's design and how it was used. Some attribute's increase a gun/how's flexibility and usefulness while other characteristics limit it or force work arounds. 

As for using this reasoning 
"If this were a rifle for example, we would, I think not just look at the wood and steel aspects of the design, we would unhesitatingly look at the ammunition, the carry sling and any other aspects of the gun that are not really part of the "main" design". 

Ammunition can be changed much more easily that the rifle, the sling is a throw away extra.

Is rifle "A" a better combat rifle because it has a better oil can in the buttstock recess than rifle "B"? Of course not. 
The Mauser was made in a variety of calibers. Some were better than others (although the differences were not as great as many people would like to believe) but changing from 7.63X53 to 7.9X57 to 7X57 made what difference to the loading, rate of fire, safty, ease of aiming, manufacturing difficulty, mobility etc,etc?? 

The Johnson semi-automatic was made in 3 different calibers, did changing the round it was chamber for really make it better or worse than the Garand? or did it's advantages/disadvantages stay the same?

Is changing the sling going to make any difference in the rifles chances of jamming, in speed of reloading, in ease of cleaning, it the firer's ability to see the sights or to adjust them? And if by some miracle it does, how hard is it to re-equip the rifle with a different sling vs fitting new sights, or a new magazine or clip arrangement (try fitting stripper clip slots to bolt rifles that don't have them) or getting access to forward locking lug recesses to clean dirt debris out of them.


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## Shortround6 (Aug 7, 2011)

pinsog said:


> The 17cm K18 weighed 51,000 pounds ready to travel, and only had 4 solid steeltires, with a little strip of rubber around them.
> 
> The US 155 Long Tom weighed 30,000 pounds ready to travel and rolled on 10 pneumatic tires. The difference in mobility must have been tremendous. The 155 was quicker to set up and quicker to load up and move. I show emplacement and removal times as little as 30 minutes.
> 
> Looks like the 17cm K18 should probably be compared to the US 8 inch gun instead of the Long Tom.



One source says the 24cm K 3 could be emplaced by 25 men in 1 1/2 hours. it weighed about 121,000lbs in action and traveled in SIX loads. weight on the road was 83 tons. The Germans didn't like it because they thought it took too long and took too many men to set up. They built 10? We don't have a set up time of the 17cm K18 so far but I doubt that it was as long. We also have the fact that the American 155mm gun had 60 degrees of traverse while the 17cm had 16degrees on the carriage but after jacking down the trail castoring wheel the entire gun was supposed to able to be swung through 360 degrees by two men. This may depend on clearance and ground surface but it is an ability the US gun does not have. 

I am getting mixed feelings on mobility. How much (how fast) is needed? 
Obviously being able to move when horses can't do the job is a huge advantage.
Obviously being able to move at 3-5 times the speed of horses is a huge advantage.

If you are stuck in a column of vehicles doing 10-15km/h I am not sure that being able to have a top towing speed of 50kp/h is much of an advantage over having a top towing speed of 25kp/h (or whatever the speed is for those solid rubber tires).


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## davebender (Aug 7, 2011)

> IMHO 17cm K18 was an excellent LR gun, probably technically the best WWII LR gun. But maybe a bit too specialized weapon.


That's my line of reasoning also. Germany might have been further ahead to mass produce a variant of the 15cm K39 optimized for use as field artillery (i.e. not coast defense). Without the coast defense equipment weight should have been similiar to the U.S. 155mm Long Tom. Hence it could be towed by a single WWII era artillery tractor. 24,500 meter max range is good enough for most missions. Every German army corps should have a battalion for counter-battery fire and other such long range missions.

Germany still needs a few hundred 21 cm Mörser 18 for use as siege artillery. Such specialized weapons would remain in OHL reserve.


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## pinsog (Aug 7, 2011)

Shortround6 said:


> One source says the 24cm K 3 could be emplaced by 25 men in 1 1/2 hours. it weighed about 121,000lbs in action and traveled in SIX loads. weight on the road was 83 tons. The Germans didn't like it because they thought it took too long and took too many men to set up. They built 10? We don't have a set up time of the 17cm K18 so far but I doubt that it was as long. We also have the fact that the American 155mm gun had 60 degrees of traverse while the 17cm had 16degrees on the carriage but after jacking down the trail castoring wheel the entire gun was supposed to able to be swung through 360 degrees by two men. This may depend on clearance and ground surface but it is an ability the US gun does not have.
> 
> I am getting mixed feelings on mobility. How much (how fast) is needed?
> Obviously being able to move when horses can't do the job is a huge advantage.
> ...



I'm not looking at mobility as far as how fast you can tow it on a paved road, 15 or 20 mph is about as fast as an M4 HST could tow a 155, I'm looking at mobility as far as 51,000 pounds concentrated on 4 steel wheels with little rubber strips around them, vs 30,000 pounds spread out over 10 pneumatic tires crossing soft ground. I would think the 17cm is going to sink right up to the frame in any kind of soft ground. In fact, I've seen the jacks on loaded semi trailers sink into blacktop on a hot day, I wonder if a 17cm would do the same thing. If so, how would you like to be towing it down an unpaved road in Europe that had been abused by hundreds if not thousands of heavy vehicles before you.

The greatest cannon ever designed by mankind is worthless if it is buried up to the frame in mud 5 miles out of range because the designer didn't think "oh yeah, we gotta move this think in the mud, so maybe we should remove the skinny iron wheels and put lots of big rubber ones on it so it doesn't act like a boat anchor". Kinda like the greatest tank in the world with an unreliable engine or transmission.


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## Shortround6 (Aug 7, 2011)

The Germans had trialed carriages using 6 pneumatic tires (3 axles or one axle and a double boggie) before settling on the steel wheels with "little rubber strips". They may have had a fair idea what they were getting into. Since I don't have the tire sizes or actual dimensions of the steel wheels (except to note that they were big) and since I don't know the axle loading's of the equipment, it was post war practice to tow the 155 with the trails suspended from the tow vehicle and not use the limber, I am not going to try to guess the actually ground loading of the two equipment's. There are pictures showing the companion piece, the 21cm Mrs 18, with the barrel transporter hooked to the gun carriage as a sort of tandem trailer load, with Six steel wheels to take the weight. The trial versions with pneumatic tires appear to have used eight tires including the barrel cart. 

The American equipment may very well have had better ground loading and more flotation. Without some numbers to go on though we have no idea how close or how far apart they were.


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## pinsog (Aug 7, 2011)

Shortround6 said:


> The Germans had trialed carriages using 6 pneumatic tires (3 axles or one axle and a double boggie) before settling on the steel wheels with "little rubber strips". They may have had a fair idea what they were getting into. Since I don't have the tire sizes or actual dimensions of the steel wheels (except to note that they were big) and since I don't know the axle loading's of the equipment, it was post war practice to tow the 155 with the trails suspended from the tow vehicle and not use the limber, I am not going to try to guess the actually ground loading of the two equipment's. There are pictures showing the companion piece, the 21cm Mrs 18, with the barrel transporter hooked to the gun carriage as a sort of tandem trailer load, with Six steel wheels to take the weight. The trial versions with pneumatic tires appear to have used eight tires including the barrel cart.
> 
> The American equipment may very well have had better ground loading and more flotation. Without some numbers to go on though we have no idea how close or how far apart they were.



The barrel of the US 8 inch was transported on a wagon with 6 huge pneumatic earthmover tires that looked to be about 6 ft tall each and very wide. Iron wheels should have been retired after the American civil war.

If you really want the best soft ground performance, do what the Russians did, put a tracked undercarriage on your heavy guns instead of wheels. Some of the stuff the Germans did really make me scratch my head, they put tracks on a motorcycle, and skinny iron wheels on a 51,000 pound cannon. In hindsight, neither sounds like a great idea.

Was the 17cm transported in one load or 2?


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## Shortround6 (Aug 7, 2011)

pinsog said:


> The barrel of the US 8 inch was transported on a wagon with 6 huge pneumatic earthmover tires that looked to be about 6 ft tall each and very wide. Iron wheels should have been retired after the American civil war.



They might have been closer to 4ft judging by some of the men in the pictures (tires come to mid chest?). Gross exaggeration does your argument no good. The Civil war was firmly in the wooden wheel era as was light/medium artillery in the early part of WW I. Russians were using steel wheels with soild rubber tires on artillery adopted in the md 30s. 



pinsog said:


> If you really want the best soft ground performance, do what the Russians did, put a tracked undercarriage on your heavy guns instead of wheels. Some of the stuff the Germans did really make me scratch my head, they put tracks on a motorcycle, and skinny iron wheels on a 51,000 pound cannon. In hindsight, neither sounds like a great idea.



Except the Russians never tried it again, ever wonder why? What you gain in flotation you loose in rolling resistance. it takes twice as much power to move on good ground as the wheels. Plus the tracked carriage was heavier than the wheeled one. If putting tracks on a motorcycle is funny, try pulling an 800-1000lb trailer through dirt with a wheeled motorcycle. 



pinsog said:


> Was the 17cm transported in one load or 2?


Either, it could be pulled as one load for "short" distances or the barrel pulled out and carried on a special cart for longer moves, or perhaps in ground conditions warranted it? in any case the option was there.


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## pinsog (Aug 7, 2011)

Shortround6 said:


> They might have been closer to 4ft judging by some of the men in the pictures (tires come to mid chest?). Gross exaggeration does your argument no good. The Civil war was firmly in the wooden wheel era as was light/medium artillery in the early part of WW I. Russians were using steel wheels with soild rubber tires on artillery adopted in the md 30s.
> 
> Except the Russians never tried it again, ever wonder why? What you gain in flotation you loose in rolling resistance. it takes twice as much power to move on good ground as the wheels. Plus the tracked carriage was heavier than the wheeled one. If putting tracks on a motorcycle is funny, try pulling an 800-1000lb trailer through dirt with a wheeled motorcycle.
> 
> ...





http://ww2db.com/image.php?image_id=7461
This is a much better angle than the other pic I have. Obviously less than 6 foot, but looks taller than 4 foot. Lets just agree this would float over soft ground better than 2 skinny iron wheels. I wasn't trying to exaggerate the size of the tires. The image I was looking at was from above behind a prime mover and they looked MUCH taller, this is a much better image.


With the tracked carriage your probably right, in the long run you probably lose more than you gain.

Pulling 800 to 1000 lbs with a motorcycle is rediculous anyway. Americans used trucks, anything from a jeep through a 7 1/2 to Mack. Mostly just a 2 1/2 ton though

If we are going to compare cannon that had to be broken down, why aren't we comparing this to the US 8 inch gun?


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## parsifal (Aug 7, 2011)

German choices on mobility as well as choices on gun carriage arrangements are very much linked to one of those taboo subjects extraneous to the actual gun itself......the intended purpose of the gun. German guns were linked to horse drawn transport, to breakthrough pre-planned barrages, and defending static lines. mobile artillery was developed for lighter guns, generally 105mm and below, usually on tracks. later, of which the k-18 was an example some of these relatively static heavies were given a measure of mobility with MT transport, but without changing the basic configuration of the german Heavy gun park, that is, tuned to relatively static lines and relatively limited mobility options.

By contrast American Artillery seems to have been developed between the wars with more motorization and more mobility in mind. certainly their artillery systems appear to have been developd to deal with more fluid lines in mind. their artillery was designed to allow relatively rapid movement, their artillery plotting systems designed to react more quickly. Not perfectly so, but more rapidly than the german model. There were reasons why both armies would develop along different lines like this, and the designs cannot be understood unless the theories behind their development are also understood.

My opinion is that German artillery development, whether by reason of equipment (MT), doctrinal shortcomings, or resources shortages (ammunition materials for constructionetc) was simply not as advanced as comparable Allied artillery. Now, before allowing that statement to be torn apart, the germans developed their artillery in certain areas very well, and in those areas were ahead of the opposition by a clear margin. Specifically in terms of range and weight of shell, and also to a lesser extent in terms of accuracy. But in other areas they were behind (and significantly so). They prepared for a mode of warfare that was a generation out of date in terms of their artillery. Some of this was because of the material, and some because of the doctrine. Now, the question that remains very much in the debate is how much of these associated factors do you want to eliminate. Do we ignore the shortcomings in german transport, do we ignore the shortcomings in doctrine, just so we can oggle at their guns sheer size and power. We can do that, but we will come away with an incomplete understanding of how and why German (and Allied) artillery developed the way that they did.


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## pinsog (Aug 7, 2011)

parsifal said:


> German choices on mobility as well as choices on gun carriage arrangements are very much linked to one of those taboo subjects extraneous to the actual gun itself......the intended purpose of the gun. German guns were linked to horse drawn transport, to breakthrough pre-planned barrages, and defending static lines. mobile artillery was developed for lighter guns, generally 105mm and below, usually on tracks. later, of which the k-18 was an example some of these relatively static heavies were given a measure of mobility with MT transport, but without changing the basic configuration of the german Heavy gun park, that is, tuned to relatively static lines and relatively limited mobility options.
> 
> By contrast American Artillery seems to have been developed between the wars with more motorization and more mobility in mind. certainly their artillery systems appear to have been developd to deal with more fluid lines in mind. their artillery was designed to allow relatively rapid movement, their artillery plotting systems designed to react more quickly. Not perfectly so, but more rapidly than the german model. There were reasons why both armies would develop along different lines like this, and the designs cannot be understood unless the theories behind their development are also understood.
> 
> My opinion is that German artillery development, whether by reason of equipment (MT), doctrinal shortcomings, or resources shortages (ammunition materials for constructionetc) was simply not as advanced as comparable Allied artillery. Now, before allowing that statement to be torn apart, the germans developed their artillery in certain areas very well, and in those areas were ahead of the opposition by a clear margin. Specifically in terms of range and weight of shell, and also to a lesser extent in terms of accuracy. But in other areas they were behind (and significantly so). They prepared for a mode of warfare that was a generation out of date in terms of their artillery. Some of this was because of the material, and some because of the doctrine. Now, the question that remains very much in the debate is how much of these associated factors do you want to eliminate. Do we ignore the shortcomings in german transport, do we ignore the shortcomings in doctrine, just so we can oggle at their guns sheer size and power. We can do that, but we will come away with an incomplete understanding of how and why German (and Allied) artillery developed the way that they did.



Excellent summary.


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## parsifal (Aug 8, 2011)

I should calrify that the K-18 was always pulled by a motorised prime mover, nevertheless it was relatively slow to emplace, and difficult generally to manouvre.

I am guided by Pattons comments immediately following the german surrender....along the lines of "Ishould not need to tell you that our war was won by our artillery". Ther were good reasons for him saying this.


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## pinsog (Aug 8, 2011)

parsifal said:


> I should calrify that the K-18 was always pulled by a motorised prime mover, nevertheless it was relatively slow to emplace, and difficult generally to manouvre.
> 
> I am guided by Pattons comments immediately following the german surrender....along the lines of "Ishould not need to tell you that our war was won by our artillery". Ther were good reasons for him saying this.



And if moved very far was broken down into 2 pieces. Seems to me we are comparing the wrong weapons. The US 155 Long Tom was a 1 piece cannon and relatively easy to move with a single M4 HST or some other full tracked prime mover, relatively quick to emplace or to move.

If we are going to compare long range 2 piece cannon, then we need to compare it to a US long range 2 piece cannon, and that cannon would be the US 8 inch gun.

But, to be fair, the 17cm K18, just splits the difference between the US 155 and US 8inch guns. The US 155 weighs 30,000 pounds, the 17cm K18 weighs 51,000 pounds, the US M1 weighs 69,500 pounds. 

The 17cm K18 out performs the US 155 in range and weight of shell but has poor mobility and slow setup times. I would venture to say the US 8 inch gun has equal or better mobility, due mainly to the better carriage its mounted on, and is equal, or faster in set up time(8 inch gun was accompanied by a crane to speed setup times) in addition to throwing a heavier shell slightly farther.

The cannon itself was undoubtedly a fine weapon. Why the Germans chose to handicap it with a sustandard carriage is a mystery. They obviously knew how to build quality platforms for artillery, the 88mm Flak 18 and Flak 36 gun carriage being one of the best examples fielded by anyone during the whole war.


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## parsifal (Aug 8, 2011)

Some photos I found on th4e web


url=http://www.ww2incolor.com/german-artillery/drat.html]




[/url] 


German Artillery - Direct Fire


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## Shortround6 (Aug 8, 2011)

pinsog said:


> Pulling 800 to 1000 lbs with a motorcycle is rediculous anyway.



That German "motorcycle" used a water cooled, 1500cc, 4cylinder engine of 36hp. from an Opal car. It used a bigger engine with 50% more power than a Kubelwagon. It also weighed about 1 1/2 tons.

Standard German sidecar motorcycles had a side car wheel that could be driven (two-wheel drive) and a transfer case with high and low ranges to give 8 forward gears and two in reverse. The Germans did not try using them to tow small artillery.


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## Shortround6 (Aug 8, 2011)

parsifal said:


> German choices on mobility as well as choices on gun carriage arrangements are very much linked to one of those taboo subjects extraneous to the actual gun itself......the intended purpose of the gun. German guns were linked to horse drawn transport, to breakthrough pre-planned barrages, and defending static lines. mobile artillery was developed for lighter guns, generally 105mm and below, usually on tracks. later, of which the k-18 was an example some of these relatively static heavies were given a measure of mobility with MT transport, but without changing the basic configuration of the german Heavy gun park, that is, tuned to relatively static lines and relatively limited mobility options.



The majority of the German army was linked to horse drawn transport. While the Panzers got the the press and the attention of many modern day enthusiasts, the German Army was very much a horse drawn army for the entire war. The Germans had been pioneers is the use of mechanized transport of heavy artillery in WW I. At least in the way of dragging what had been considered guns too big to move at all at a walking (marching) pace into the field. With the introduction of the Panzer divisions and the Panzer grenadier divisions some mobile divisional artillery had to be provided. Truck or semi-track drawn divisional artillery was provided to the "mobile" divisions. Work on the 17cm K 18 and it's companion 21cm mortar had started in the mid 30s, the 21cm piece which used the same carriage was first issued in 1939, well before the Germans got around to putting any sort of artillery "on" tracks as production/issue items. First tracked artillery being the Sturmgeschutz. 
Now I could be way off, basing my understanding on books written for the 'popular' audience, but I believe the initial Panzer doctrine was one of penetration and by passing strong points, which would be dealt with later by the "foot" army. perhaps this doctrine was flawed but it meant that the heavy guns didn't have to keep up with panzers or "mobile" troops. Of course the rapid expansion of the "mobile" troops didn't help the planning or equipment production. In 1938/39 were they planning of on having not just Panzer corp but multiple Panzer armies in 1941/42? The change from 6 Panzer divisions to 10 (converting the "light' divisions) was enabled by the use of Czech tanks, not German production. Up to 10 "foot" divisions were equipped with Czech weapons, from rifles and machine guns to 15cm howitzers for the attack on France. The doubling of the Panzer divisions, enabled in part by halving the number of tanks per division is part of the history that shows that the artillery branch may have been caught short by the demand for more mobile guns, both in quantity and type. 


parsifal said:


> By contrast American Artillery seems to have been developed between the wars with more motorization and more mobility in mind. certainly their artillery systems appear to have been developd to deal with more fluid lines in mind. their artillery was designed to allow relatively rapid movement, their artillery plotting systems designed to react more quickly. Not perfectly so, but more rapidly than the german model. There were reasons why both armies would develop along different lines like this, and the designs cannot be understood unless the theories behind their development are also understood.



Between the wars the American army had to be more strategically mobile. A division in New England or in Kansas was useless if an enemy invaded Florida or Georgia. Granted we had railroads but the size of the United States helped Dictate the drive for mobility of the Army just as the size of the United States helped dictate the range requirements and size of some of our 1930s aircraft. Put that together with size of the US motor industry and the fact we had the highest per capita number of motor vehicles in the world for civilian use and it is not hard to see how/why the US Army developed it's mobility. 


parsifal said:


> My opinion is that German artillery development, whether by reason of equipment (MT), doctrinal shortcomings, or resources shortages (ammunition materials for constructionetc) was simply not as advanced as comparable Allied artillery. Now, before allowing that statement to be torn apart, the germans developed their artillery in certain areas very well, and in those areas were ahead of the opposition by a clear margin. Specifically in terms of range and weight of shell, and also to a lesser extent in terms of accuracy. But in other areas they were behind (and significantly so). They prepared for a mode of warfare that was a generation out of date in terms of their artillery. Some of this was because of the material, and some because of the doctrine. Now, the question that remains very much in the debate is how much of these associated factors do you want to eliminate. Do we ignore the shortcomings in german transport, do we ignore the shortcomings in doctrine, just so we can oggle at their guns sheer size and power. We can do that, but we will come away with an incomplete understanding of how and why German (and Allied) artillery developed the way that they did.



Many of your points are valid but you keep wanting to turn a simple question "what was the best long range gun" into a critique of the not the just the German artillery system but comparing the entire German artillery system to a number of other nations artillery systems. And then using that critique of the 'systems' to down grade a specific weapon.


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## Shortround6 (Aug 8, 2011)

pinsog said:


> And if moved very far was broken down into 2 pieces. Seems to me we are comparing the wrong weapons. The US 155 Long Tom was a 1 piece cannon and relatively easy to move with a single M4 HST or some other full tracked prime mover, relatively quick to emplace or to move.
> 
> If we are going to compare long range 2 piece cannon, then we need to compare it to a US long range 2 piece cannon, and that cannon would be the US 8 inch gun.
> 
> ...



Does anybody have an actually time for the set up of the 17cm gun or 21cm howitzer/mortar?

The US 8in gun needed 1 1/2 to hours to set up using the crane. Up to 9 hours without the crane. The US 8in gun was restricted to a 30 degree traverse (15 right-15 left) during the war, without getting the crane back or using the prime movers winches. The US 8in also had a rather major restriction. A +10 degree minimum elevation which meant that while it could shoot to 35,635 yds it could NOT shoot any closer than 22,100 yds to the gun. 

The cannon itself was undoubtedly a fine weapon. Why the Germans chose to handicap it with a sustandard carriage is a mystery. They obviously knew how to build quality platforms for artillery, the 88mm Flak 18 and Flak 36 gun carriage being one of the best examples fielded by anyone during the whole war.[/QUOTE]


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## pinsog (Aug 8, 2011)

Shortround6 said:


> That German "motorcycle" used a water cooled, 1500cc, 4cylinder engine of 36hp. from an Opal car. It used a bigger engine with 50% more power than a Kubelwagon. It also weighed about 1 1/2 tons.
> 
> Standard German sidecar motorcycles had a side car wheel that could be driven (two-wheel drive) and a transfer case with high and low ranges to give 8 forward gears and two in reverse. The Germans did not try using them to tow small artillery.[/QUOTE
> 
> I just looked up the specs on a Kettenkrad tracked "motorcycle", 3440 pounds! I had no idea they weighed that much! While they are undoubtedly cool,(how would you like to ride that into Sturgis during the big rally?) they would have been better off putting those resources into a small 4x4 truck, the Dodge WC 3/4 being a great example, they would be a much more all round vehicle.


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## pinsog (Aug 8, 2011)

[Many of your points are valid but you keep wanting to turn a simple question "what was the best long range gun" into a critique of the not the just the German artillery system but comparing the entire German artillery system to a number of other nations artillery systems. And then using that critique of the 'systems' to down grade a specific weapon.[/QUOTE]

If that is the question, does it matter if it is mobile at all? Do we count shore batteries? Do we count railway guns? Or do we just count the biggest guns that can be moved by tractor on a battlefield(ie: American 8 inch and 240mm howitzer type guns)?

I'm showing US 8 inch gun and 240 mm howitzer had a 20 degree swing in each direction instead of 15 degrees. Still seems rather narrow. What can the big German guns in this class do?


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## parsifal (Aug 8, 2011)

SR

You and I agree on about 90% of the discussion and then seem to proceed to divorce proceedings on the last 10%. Correct me if Im wrong, but your beef is because I tar the K18 with the same brush as the entire German artillery park

Specifically

_Many of your points are valid but you keep wanting to turn a simple question "what was the best long range gun" into a critique of the not the just the German artillery system but comparing the entire German artillery system to a number of other nations artillery systems. And then using that critique of the 'systems' to down grade a specific weapon._ 

I have to differ on this point. On a number of occasions I have stated that the K18, indeed many other pieces of German artillery, were excellent in certain areas, but they had some glaring weaknesses. The point I am making is that ther is more to the "best" piece of artillery than its range and power, and even its design. That may not be the simple answer that you want, but the points raised are relevant to the topic (suggest you have a look at Post 1 of the thread....its not about one gun) 

This thread is not about one piece of artillery, its about the best piece of long range artillery. Go back to post 1 of this thread and you will see why I can harp on about the full range of artillery pieces, of any nation and why we think they are better. It was never strictly about one piece of artillery or indeed about the design of that piece or pieces alone. it was about all the factors that lead to the title "best". As I see it that can include all manner of things and influences, including things and influences not related to the actual gun design. It was about making the comparisons to establish the best LR artillery. From that basis it is valid to talk about doctrines, about failures, about shortcomings, about things you might not normally consider as relevant to one particular piece of kit. And just to allow the discussion to proceed, I have waived the objection i have about the vagueness of the term "Long Range". That should not be forgotten, its just that it was threatening to derail what is a good topic for discussion.... 

I suggested some time ago that the best way to address this aspect of the discussion would be to refine the terms of the thread....this suggestion was not accepted, so, here we are, discussing what was the best LR piece of artillery. I happen to think it was not the K-18, or any German piece for that matter because of inherent weaknesses in the way they were used. that may not be to your liking....I can understand that....but it is still relevant to the wide ranging and ill defined terms of reference contained in this thread....


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## Shortround6 (Aug 8, 2011)

pinsog said:


> I just looked up the specs on a Kettenkrad tracked "motorcycle", 3440 pounds! I had no idea they weighed that much! While they are undoubtedly cool,(how would you like to ride that into Sturgis during the big rally?) they would have been better off putting those resources into a small 4x4 truck, the Dodge WC 3/4 being a great example, they would be a much more all round vehicle.



The Germans developed the Kettenkrad as a small prime mover for use by mountain troops and it was later adapted by the parachute/airborne troops. While the Dodge WC 3/4 was a better all round vehicle it wouldn't work in the mountains as well and certainly wouldn't fit in any normal German gliders or transport planes.


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## Shortround6 (Aug 8, 2011)

pinsog said:


> If that is the question, does it matter if it is mobile at all? Do we count shore batteries? Do we count railway guns? Or do we just count the biggest guns that can be moved by tractor on a battlefield(ie: American 8 inch and 240mm howitzer type guns)?
> 
> I'm showing US 8 inch gun and 240 mm howitzer had a 20 degree swing in each direction instead of 15 degrees. Still seems rather narrow. What can the big German guns in this class do?



The last sentence of the first post in this thread. 

>>>Other. Please nominate your favorite long range field artillery weapon (i.e. not siege artillery.)<<<<

After listing specs for the 17cm K 18 and the US 155 gun. 

I think we can leave out the railway guns and shore battery guns.


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## davebender (Aug 8, 2011)

Not if it works. And everything I have read suggests the Kleines Kettenkraftrad Sd.Kfz.2 light towing tractor worked just fine. It performed many of the same tasks as the American made Jeep.


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## pinsog (Aug 8, 2011)

davebender said:


> Not if it works. And everything I have read suggests the Kleines Kettenkraftrad Sd.Kfz.2 light towing tractor worked just fine. It performed many of the same tasks as the American made Jeep.



I think a jeep would have been way more practical, easier to manufacture, and was made to haul 4 men and pull a trailer. In reality you could pile 6 or 8 on it and still pull a trailer. But, I still think the Kettenkrad is cool, just not as good as a jeep or weasel.


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## pinsog (Aug 8, 2011)

Shortround6 said:


> The last sentence of the first post in this thread.
> 
> >>>Other. Please nominate your favorite long range field artillery weapon (i.e. not siege artillery.)<<<<
> 
> ...



With the benefit of 65 years of hindsight, if I were German and given the option of equiping the German army with either the 17 cm or US 155, I would without hesitation choose the US 155 Long Tom. The 17 cm outranged the US 155 by 3.5 miles and threw a 1/3 heavier shell. BUT, from what I have read, most German 17cm guns were lost because they were simply overran. If I were a German commander, and I knew I was going to be chased all the way across the Russian Stepps, I would want an artillery piece that could be picked up and moved quickly, in one piece. A US 155 would have worked better for the Germans whether on the offense or on the defense. In the fast moving battles of WW2, you needed artillery that could be picked up and moved quickly. The US 155, you pull the guns trails together, hook up the limber, hook the limber to the prime mover and your out of there. That was simplified I know, because your always doing this in knee deep mud or snow, 100 degree heat or 20 below cold, but still simpler than having to break a weapon down. The German Sd. Kfz 8 would have no problem handling the US 155 on any normal terrain.

The 17cm K18 had fine ballistics, but its added weight, 40% more than a 155mm , and 2 piece movement, requiring 2 prime movers, was not worth the added range and weight of shell.

I liken the 17cm K18 to a paraplegic with a sniper rifle. He's gonna do great until it's time to move quickly, then your in trouble.


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## davebender (Aug 8, 2011)

Only when operating on a road. The tracked Kettenkrad would be far superior in mud, snow, soft sand etc.

I've driven quite a few U.S. Army Jeeps. I have never seen one carry more then 4 people. Off road capability while towing a loaded trailer wasn't terribly good either. When we got our first HMMWVs they spent a substantial amount of time pulling stuck Jeeps out of the mud.


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## pinsog (Aug 8, 2011)

davebender said:


> Only when operating on a road. The tracked Kettenkrad would be far superior in mud, snow, soft sand etc.
> 
> I've driven quite a few U.S. Army Jeeps. I have never seen one carry more then 4 people. Off road capability while towing a loaded trailer wasn't terribly good either. When we got our first HMMWVs they spent a substantial amount of time pulling stuck Jeeps out of the mud.



Of course you know I mean piled in anywhere they can fit, not seated safely in a seat according to regulations?

I've had 4 grown men and a large mule deer on a Suzuki 300 King Quad 4 wheeler. 1 guy on the front rack holding 2 rifles, driver, guy behind driver on seat, deer on rack behind him, I was sitting on dead deer, holding 2 rifles, with guy in front holding my legs so I didn't fall off the back. Drove out of a canyon in 8 inches of snow. That is the kind of pics that should be in sales brochures!!!

I used to have a pic of my dad deer hunting in Colorado in the late 60's. They had 8 or 9 guys in a flatfender, windshield laid down, chains on all 4 tires, snowing like crazy. He said it would go anywhere they pointed it. They hauled it there and obviously it was for offroad use only. I'm fairly certain OSHA would not have condoned the way they used it. Obviously a Kettenkrad would have better mobility off road than a jeep, but what about a weasel?


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## Juha (Aug 8, 2011)

On 17cm K18, it was hauled by big half-tracks, on its carriage, it wasn’t a normal one but a double system one to handle its enormous recoil. On its wheels and generally the wheels of German guns. Germany had to rely on Buna, a synthetic rubber, to satisfy its need of rubber, so they tried to limit the use of it so that production would met the demand and even with all those efforts to limit the use of Buna Germany suffered for lack of tires most of the war, so US type solutions would not necessary have been optimal to Germans.

On horse drawn artillery, it was the only solution for Germany if they wanted reasonable amount of artillery support to their troops, Germany simply didn’t have access to sufficient amount of fuel for fully motorized artillery, even with vast majority of divs relying horse transport the scarcity of fuel hampered its military operations already in Summer 42.

One had to try to make most of the resources one had, not to try to built an army for a perfect world where all the resources were plentiful. Simply as that. I bet that 17cm K-18 was more mobile than tireless Long Tom.

Juha


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## pinsog (Aug 8, 2011)

Juha said:


> On 17cm K18, it was hauled by big half-tracks, on its carriage, it wasn’t a normal one but a double system one to handle its enormous recoil. On its wheels and generally the wheels of German guns. Germany had to rely on Buna, a synthetic rubber, to satisfy its need of rubber, so they tried to limit the use of it so that production would met the demand and even with all those efforts to limit the use of Buna Germany suffered for lack of tires most of the war, so US type solutions would not necessary have been optimal to Germans.
> 
> On horse drawn artillery, it was the only solution for Germany if they wanted reasonable amount of artillery support to their troops, Germany simply didn’t have access to sufficient amount of fuel for fully motorized artillery, even with vast majority of divs relying horse transport the scarcity of fuel hampered its military operations already in Summer 42.
> 
> ...



I guess that proves the folly of starting a war with the entire planet.


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## Juha (Aug 8, 2011)

Hello Pinsog
absolutely true

Juha


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## parsifal (Aug 8, 2011)

davebender said:


> Not if it works. And everything I have read suggests the Kleines Kettenkraftrad Sd.Kfz.2 light towing tractor worked just fine. It performed many of the same tasks as the American made Jeep.



It works, and works quite well, for what it was, but it was still a limited vehicle, and for what it was, an overcomplicated one. It had an obstacle climbing ability of 24in which is about half that of its comparable Allied counterpart the universal carrier. its ability to carry mounted weaponary was pretty limited, compared to the bren or the jeep. Brens carried 3in mortars, 0.55in ATRs, brens (of course), captured german models were adapted to carry Panzershrecks.
Brens were used to tow 6 pounder guns, and i think even 25 pounders in the jungle. Jeeps were definately used for that purpose. It was not easy for them, but they definately were used operationally in that role


(Edit - please diregard attachment....wrong attachment)


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## davebender (Aug 8, 2011)

Coast defense artillery was often mounted on a turntable. For instance the U.S. Army Coast Defense Force employed the so called "Panama Mount".
Panama mount - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Many of the WWII era German long range field artillery pieces were also designed for coast defense use. I believe that's why the 15cm K18, 15cm K39, 17cm K18 and 21cm Mörser 18 all had portable turntables. And therein lies the mobility problem. These weapons were highly portable compared to typical WWII era coast defense guns but rather cumbersome compared to typical WWII era field artillery.

Welcome to Landships! - A site for WW1 Military Hardware WW1 Military Modelling




The WWI era 15cm Kanone 16 shows how much simpler things could have been. 
Produced 1917 to 1918.
10,870 kg emplaced
51.4 kg shell.
22 km max range.
The barrel could be detached for easier transport using WWI era artillery tractors. However it didn't need to be detached and wouldn't need to be detached if WWII era artillery tractors were available.

All Germany needed to do was updated the 15cm K16 with a WWII era split carriage. Forget the duel purpose concept that required the weapon to be mounted on a heavy and cumbersome turntable. If Germany desires a larger 17cm long range artillery piece it employs a similiar design. Let the navy design their own coast defense weapons.


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## parsifal (Aug 8, 2011)

might also update the axles and wheels, and all of a sudden you have the long lost twin of the long tom.

I agree with your summary however...Germany was in a good position to go in a differnt direction with its artillery than it did just after WWI. There cannot really be any serious argument that they lacked the technical expertise to do this


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## parsifal (Aug 8, 2011)

Here is the photo of the 25pdrs of 2RAR being moved by wilys jeeps. This was a regular occurrence in NG, and saw relocations of many scoresd of miles on repeated occasions. The Phot is from the Australian War memorial library, and is captioned:

BOUGAINVILLE. 1945-05-25. A JEEP TOWING A 25-POUNDER ALONG BUIN ROAD TO A NEW BATTERY POSITION AT THE HONGORAI RIVER. ARTILLERY OF 5 BATTERY, 2 FIELD REGIMENT, ROYAL AUSTRALIAN ARTILLERY, IS BEING USED EXTENSIVELY TO SUPPORT THE INFANTRY ADVANCE.


These were the LR Heavy artillery pieces in the Jungle until well after 1945


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## Juha (Aug 9, 2011)

davebender said:


> ...Many of the WWII era German long range field artillery pieces were also designed for coast defense use. I believe that's why the 15cm K18, 15cm K39, 17cm K18 and 21cm Mörser 18 all had portable turntables. And therein lies the mobility problem. These weapons were highly portable compared to typical WWII era coast defense guns but rather cumbersome compared to typical WWII era field artillery...



Hello Dave
Are you sure, that 17cm K18 was designed also for CD use? IIRC pre-war CD was KM's cup of tea. IMHO the turntable was mandatory because of the double action carriage which was the chosen solution to very powerful recoil of the gun. And after all Heer was satisfied with the K18 and it edged out its half-brother 21cm Mörser in production. It was probably not unduly awkward weapon in use, after all it was a Corps level cannon with very long range. In July 43 when Germans lost the eastern part of Orel bulge under very heavy Soviet pressure which produced several crises and while they were hampered by Hitler’s unwillingness to allow rightly timed retreats , the 2nd PzA, the main German army under attack lost only one 17cm K18, it lost also among others 2 other heavy guns ,one 10cm and one 21cm while other losses incl. for ex 95 field howitzers (10.5 and 15cm), 37 artillery pieces of captured types and 32 AA guns. So probably its mobility wasn't unduly bad.

Juha


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## Shortround6 (Aug 9, 2011)

parsifal said:


> It works, and works quite well, for what it was, but it was still a limited vehicle, and for what it was, an overcomplicated one. It had an obstacle climbing ability of 24in which is about half that of its comparable Allied counterpart the universal carrier. its ability to carry mounted weaponary was pretty limited, compared to the bren or the jeep. Brens carried 3in mortars, 0.55in ATRs, brens (of course), captured german models were adapted to carry Panzershrecks.
> Brens were used to tow 6 pounder guns, and i think even 25 pounders in the jungle. Jeeps were definately used for that purpose. It was not easy for them, but they definately were used operationally in that role



The Kettenrad was also a much smaller vehicle than either the universal carrier or the Jeep. Why don't we ask why a Universal carrier didn't pull 105 howitzers as a standard (non-emergency) thing?
The universal carrier used an engine the size of the engine in the SdKfz. 222 and not much smaller than the engine used in the early 1 ton half-tracks. 

Data on the Kettenrad.

Technische Daten des NSU Kettenkrads


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## parsifal (Aug 9, 2011)

Its about value for money, what would have been the difference in cost between building the Kettenrad and something larger that could pull artillery. 

The Bren had its limits, as did the jeep. However you are incorrect to assert that jeeps were used on an emergency basis to pull 25 pounders, at least in NG. They were found to be the best vehicle for the job actually. Brens pulled the 6 pounder, both in the Pacific and Europe, again on a routine basis, and being on tracks gave them a great deal of off road capability. I strongly suspect that in terms of cost they were much cheaper to build than the Kettenrad. I am unaware of the SDKFZ 222 being used to pull the 105mm, and whilst it was quite a good recon vehicle, did suffer from relatively poor mobility in the East, in mud and in North Africa. it would not have performed well in the jungle because of that poor off road mobility.

There is a size and type of vehicle that might be considered "optimal" for military uses. Motorcycles trikes, and the like have some uses, but really are an expedient, and ought not be considered as a satisfactory substitute for more conventional lorries and other military vehicles like a jeep or a UC. My point in raising this, apart from responding to the rather fantastic claims that the Kettenrad was as good or better than a jeep is that there are many ways at looking at effectiveness. Cost effectiveness is one of them, flexibility is another, as is of course straight up performance, and as is so often the case in discussions like these, the technical capabilities of all things German are played up, whilst the cost effectiveness (and to a lesser extent flexibility) of the item is not. Kettenrad is one of those pieces of equipment


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## davebender (Aug 9, 2011)

I agree. But if you want to pursue this line of thought then we need historical equipment prices.


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## Shortround6 (Aug 9, 2011)

davebender said:


> Many of the WWII era German long range field artillery pieces were also designed for coast defense use. I believe that's why the 15cm K18, 15cm K39, 17cm K18 and 21cm Mörser 18 all had portable turntables. And therein lies the mobility problem. These weapons were highly portable compared to typical WWII era coast defense guns but rather cumbersome compared to typical WWII era field artillery.



Who's "typical WWII era field artillery"?

and "typical WWII era field artillery" covers a rather wide spectrum. Why don't you compare these guns to other nations 15cm guns instead of field artillery in general? 

Belgian cannon de L mle 1924, only 17,290lbs in action but only 19,145yds of range and only 4 degrees of traverse on the carriage.

Skoda 149mm model 1928, with a range of 26,030 yds it has performance but it raveled in three loads and was a combination siege gun, coastal defense. 360 travres but 33,000lb in action, sold to Rumania and Yugoslavia.

Skoda 152mm model 14/16. 26,240lb left overs from WW I with a range of 23,900yds. 29 started the war with the Italians. 

The French had a motley collection of WW I left overs I won't go into. Their best pieces were the cannon de 155 Grand Puissance Filloux which was the gun the US copied to get the 155mm 1918. 23,700lb in action. 60 degrees of traverse with a split trail and a range of 21,330 yds. The French also used a modernized version which used the same barrel and uper carriage (recoil, elevating and traverse) on a new lower carriage, much like the US 155 carriage but single wheels instead of duals on the bogie, traveling weight went up by about 5,000lbs, the price of mobility?

Skipping the Germans we go to Italy where skipping a really ancient piece with no recoil mechanism we have a rather good piece. The Cannone da 149/40 modello 35. Range 25,930yds, traverse 60 degrees, weight in action 25,000lbs split trail but traveled on steel wheels with solid rubber tires in two loads, separate barrel. It also had three large takes at the end of each trai; that had to be hammered into the ground before firing and then pried up before moving. 

http://www.ww2incolor.com/d/579493-2/Artiglieria149

The Japanese have an entry. The 150mm gun type 89, 22,930lbs in action, range 21,800yds, traverse 40 degrees, split trail, towed in two loads. 

The British don't have much, the old B.L. 6in MK XIX gun with it's light traveling weight of 22,792lbs matched by it's short range, 18,750yds, limited traverse of 8 degrees and need for ramps to control recoil. The 5.5in was much better but it's range with 100lb shell was only 16,200yds which takes it out of this class of weapon. 

That leaves us with the US guns and the Russian guns, except the Russians don't have anything that ranges over 19,000yds aside from the contraption on the treads. 152 mm gun M1935 (Br-2) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.





davebender said:


> The WWI era 15cm Kanone 16 shows how much simpler things could have been.



Most peoples WW I guns were simpler. Why??

Because they had small angles of traverse. The German 15cm K 16 had 8 degrees of traverse, changing to split trails may have added several thousand pounds to the weight, they often changed the weight of 3,000lb field guns by several hundred pounds. The don't solve the wheel/tire problem or the tractor problem. The 15cm K 39 was built to Turkish requirements and had a split trail and had 60 degrees of traverse. The third load in it's transport was the 360 degree platform, which was a segmented circle of a radius equal to the distance from the axle to the rear of the trails. The 15cm K 18, 17cm K18 and 21cm Mörser 18 had had a much smaller 360 degree turntable built in although ground anchors had to be deployed. There may have been a similar firing platform but it does not appear to part of the normal equipment. The German gun designers do not appear to be ignorant of the Split trail carriage but they had to build what the Germany army wanted, which might not have been what the needed. However, many post war guns went for 360 degree traverse at the expense of greater weight. Such as the Russian 122mm D-30 howitzer.


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## parsifal (Aug 9, 2011)

wasnt it the Italian 149/40 that Rommel thought was his best piece of heavy Artillery available in quantity????? I think it was him that said that.....but in any case it was probably the best piece of land ordinance the italians ever builty


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## Juha (Aug 9, 2011)

Hello as I wrote in my message #4, SU had also 122 mm M-1931 and 122 M-1931/37, A-19, 25kg HE shell, max range 19800 - 20000m, depending on source.

Juha


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## Shortround6 (Aug 9, 2011)

Juha said:


> Hello as I wrote in my message #4, SU had also 122 mm M-1931 and 122 M-1931/37, A-19, 25kg HE shell, max range 19800 - 20000m, depending on source.
> 
> Juha



that is quite true but I was limiting this list to just 149-155mm guns in order to keep the size of list down, Firing 25kg shells 20,000meters plus requires a somewhat smaller gun and carriage than firing 42-50 kg shells the same distance. 

We could argue about which was the better choice between a smaller, lighter 12cm gun and the bigger 15cm guns but those were the 149-155guns of the WW II era. 

The 12cm guns may have been perfectly capable guns but including the 114mm British and American 4.5in equipment adds several more guns (including another Belgian one).


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## Shortround6 (Aug 9, 2011)

parsifal said:


> wasnt it the Italian 149/40 that Rommel thought was his best piece of heavy Artillery available in quantity????? I think it was him that said that.....but in any case it was probably the best piece of land ordinance the italians ever builty



You will probably correct me  
but considering that Rommel probably didn't have more than 4 long ranged (bigger than 15cm Howitzers) German guns of any one type at once that may not be saying much. 

Actually the Italian gun does look like a good piece of equipment but it's wheels/tires were not any different than the German guns and with the two piece transport it doesn't seem to go into/out of action much faster. Could be wrong, some guns had some tricks in the hand winches and stuff that helped but is not usually noted.


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## parsifal (Aug 9, 2011)

I think you are about right with the the German Heavy guns in North Africa. The Italian 149mm and the various 15cm guns from Germany are about the same in terms of performance. My point was simply that the italians did produce a few guns that were very good.

However I cant help but stir up a little mischief. Why would you point out the italian gun would lack mobility because of its size, weight, carriage and wheels, all of which are similar to the german heavies, and not want to accept the same limitations for German guns? Cant resist getting you to concede the point, so I apologize for that


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## Shortround6 (Aug 9, 2011)

I would accept the same limitations, why not. 
Just pointing out that the best axis gun in North Africa (in Rommel's opinion), split trail and all, was actually not much different than the German heavy artillery in many ways. 

As far as stirring mischief, how could it have been any good? The Italian artillery "system" was really bad, poor tractors, poor logistics, poor radio nets, their best designs were on the fringes of main stream artillery (either too light or too heavy) 

Not really trying to put the Italians down, they did manufacture some very good artillery pieces, just not many of them in production totals, but that says more about Italian industrial capacity than the Italian gun designers. 

I have also had a thought about those solid rubber tires and mobility. Solid tires don't go flat from a rifle bullet or shell fragment. Or from rocks in poor roads.


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## Readie (Aug 9, 2011)

Just a thought, would 'Artillery' include missiles?

If so, then the German V weapons win hands down.

Cheers
John


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## pinsog (Aug 9, 2011)

[I have also had a thought about those solid rubber tires and mobility. Solid tires don't go flat from a rifle bullet or shell fragment. Or from rocks in poor roads. [/QUOTE]

You are correct, they don't go flat, but they also have horrible flotation. There is a reason that even the largest earthmoving equipment such as scrapers still have air filled tires, it is because of flotation on soft ground. If the 17cm K18 would have been mounted on the US 155mm carriage, I believe the Germans would've had a real winner on their hands.

Quick question: Why did weapons like the US 155 Long Tom and 8 inch howitzer use a limber? Why didn't they just hook it directly to the back of the prime mover? Now if they towed it with a truck, that is what they did, the 7 1/2 ton Mack did not use a limber. Why did they use one with a full tracked prime mover? It makes it harder to back up and takes weight off the tractor with would help with traction. I wouldn't think it was weight on the back of the prime mover, the limber just had 2 little tires on it.


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## parsifal (Aug 9, 2011)

Readie said:


> Just a thought, would 'Artillery' include missiles?
> 
> If so, then the German V weapons win hands down.
> 
> ...



Hi John


Thats a whole other world of pain and suffering.......nebelwerfer vs katyusha, and then there are those rockets that were mounted on LCMs by the allies to support landings.....fin stabilzed v spin stabilized....cheap v complicated...accurate v area weapons. Do we really have to go there (groan)....


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## Readie (Aug 9, 2011)

N


parsifal said:


> Hi John
> 
> 
> Thats a whole other world of pain and suffering.......nebelwerfer vs katyusha, and then there are those rockets that were mounted on LCMs by the allies to support landings.....fin stabilzed v spin stabilized....cheap v complicated...accurate v area weapons. Do we really have to go there (groan)....



Nooooooooooooooooooooo, unless we all live to 108

I'm probably wrong that 'artillery' would include missiles anyway.

Cheers
John


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## Shortround6 (Aug 9, 2011)

The 'Missiles' did show the way to the future but as practical weapons of war in WW II they just sucked up resources that would have been better off being used somewhere else. Their greatest actual value to the Germans was the effort the Allies put into stopping them. Like the number of squadrons tied up in diver patrols or the amount of bombing of the V-1 launch sites. It was an awful lot of resources to tied up in what turned out to be basically a diversion.


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## pinsog (Aug 9, 2011)

Quick question: Why did weapons like the US 155 Long Tom and 8 inch howitzer use a limber? Why didn't they just hook it directly to the back of the prime mover? Now if they towed it with a truck, like the 7 1/2 ton Mack they did not use a limber. Why did they use one with a full tracked prime mover? It makes it harder to back up and takes weight off the tractor with would help with traction. I wouldn't think it was too much weight on the back of the prime mover, the limber just had 2 little tires on it.


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## parsifal (Aug 9, 2011)

Shortround6 said:


> The 'Missiles' did show the way to the future but as practical weapons of war in WW II they just sucked up resources that would have been better off being used somewhere else. Their greatest actual value to the Germans was the effort the Allies put into stopping them. Like the number of squadrons tied up in diver patrols or the amount of bombing of the V-1 launch sites. It was an awful lot of resources to tied up in what turned out to be basically a diversion.




I assume you are referring to V-1s and V-2s here. I think the battlefield weapons....the Nebelwerfers, the Katyushas, and their derivatives were very effective weapons systems, and generally cost effective. OTOH the terror weapons were not a good use of resources


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## Shortround6 (Aug 9, 2011)

pinsog said:


> You are correct, they don't go flat, but they also have horrible flotation. There is a reason that even the largest earthmoving equipment such as scrapers still have air filled tires, it is because of flotation on soft ground. If the 17cm K18 would have been mounted on the US 155mm carriage, I believe the Germans would've had a real winner on their hands.
> 
> Quick question: Why did weapons like the US 155 Long Tom and 8 inch howitzer use a limber? Why didn't they just hook it directly to the back of the prime mover? Now if they towed it with a truck, that is what they did, the 7 1/2 ton Mack did not use a limber. Why did they use one with a full tracked prime mover? It makes it harder to back up and takes weight off the tractor with would help with traction. I wouldn't think it was weight on the back of the prime mover, the limber just had 2 little tires on it.



Actually, post-war they just slung the trails from the chain hoist at the rear of the 7 1/2 ton truck and did away with the limber. It saved some work and was safer. the normal limber was positioned by the trails (facing backwards) and as the trails were lifted to a certain point the limber flipped 180 degrees into the tow position with the trail legs on top. This procedure was not liked by the gunners.

As for flotation, while the US 155 was better it wasn't using high flotation tires. The eight main tires were 11.00 X 20 in size, large truck tires. 
The 7 1/2 ton truck went just under 40,000lbs for off road use while towing (it could go higher not towing). the front axle carried 12,634lbs when empty and 13,363lbs loaded cross country. rear axles carried 8,235lbs each empty and 13,045lbs loaded cross country while towing. The Truck used 14 ply 12.00 X 24 tires. 80psi front and 65psi rear. They were big but not really high flotation tires. 
US 6X6 2 1/2 ton trucks often used 7.50 X 20 tires during WW II.


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## Shortround6 (Aug 9, 2011)

parsifal said:


> I assume you are referring to V-1s and V-2s here. I think the battlefield weapons....the Nebelwerfers, the Katyushas, and their derivatives were very effective weapons systems, and generally cost effective. OTOH the terror weapons were not a good use of resources



Yes, that is why I put 'missiles' like I did.


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## pinsog (Aug 10, 2011)

Shortround6 said:


> Actually, post-war they just slung the trails from the chain hoist at the rear of the 7 1/2 ton truck and did away with the limber. It saved some work and was safer. the normal limber was positioned by the trails (facing backwards) and as the trails were lifted to a certain point the limber flipped 180 degrees into the tow position with the trail legs on top. This procedure was not liked by the gunners.
> 
> As for flotation, while the US 155 was better it wasn't using high flotation tires. The eight main tires were 11.00 X 20 in size, large truck tires.
> The 7 1/2 ton truck went just under 40,000lbs for off road use while towing (it could go higher not towing). the front axle carried 12,634lbs when empty and 13,363lbs loaded cross country. rear axles carried 8,235lbs each empty and 13,045lbs loaded cross country while towing. The Truck used 14 ply 12.00 X 24 tires. 80psi front and 65psi rear. They were big but not really high flotation tires.
> US 6X6 2 1/2 ton trucks often used 7.50 X 20 tires during WW II.



Yes I knew that none of the tires on the 155 or the Mack were "high flotation" tires, but 8 11.00x20 rubber tires would beat 2 12inch wide iron wheels for crossing soft ground.


The 7 1/2 ton Mack didn't use the limber during WW2 either, the limber was only used for tracked prime movers. The 7 1/2 ton Mack was quite a vehicle. In fact, I used to own a 10 ton Mack at one time. It had 14.00x24 tires on it and even though the old motor was gutless, in low gear you couldn't stop it. I think 1st gear low range was around 181 to 1. 

Does anyone here know why a tracked prime mover would use a limber but a truck would not?


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## parsifal (Aug 10, 2011)

Its not so much the flotation issue as the ground pressures that are lowered with pneumatic tyres . Pneumatic tyres have much more "give" in them, meaning that there is much more tyre on the ground surface than what you will get with a solid wheel. You can increase this effect even more by partial deflation of the tyre, though if you do this too much you will all of a sudden pay a huge price in rolling resistance.

But decreased ground pressures mean decreased bogging for the wheels and much enhanced mobility.

In the reverse situation, ie when travelling over hard ice, wher a heavy hauled load will have a tendency to slide allover the ice, you will also achieve greater lateral stability because of the greatly enhanced grip across the direction of roll of the tyre.

The likelihood of a puncture for a pneumatic tyre is quite low, however, even if your gun carriage gets a flat, its effect is not that much greater than the effect of a solid tyre anyway, so for short distances it wont matter much. The worst that can happen is that you will completely chew out the tyre and destroy the steel rim. You also risk fractures to the axle and cariage cassis, but then this is also a problem with solid tyres and one of the reasons why they were built more solidly (and heavily) than more modern types (a minor issue though admittedly) 

There should really be no great disagreement on this, Pneumatic tyres versus solid tyres = no contest. Steel tyres are marginally better for horse drawn transport, but a big disdvantage for motorized transport


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## Readie (Aug 10, 2011)

Shortround6 said:


> The 'Missiles' did show the way to the future but as practical weapons of war in WW II they just sucked up resources that would have been better off being used somewhere else. Their greatest actual value to the Germans was the effort the Allies put into stopping them. Like the number of squadrons tied up in diver patrols or the amount of bombing of the V-1 launch sites. It was an awful lot of resources to tied up in what turned out to be basically a diversion.



True, but the flying bomb attacks on the UK and later Europe caused a lot of damage and casualties. 
In total, the V-1 attacks caused 22,892 casualties (almost entirely civilians).
I shudder to think of the figures had the V2 worked as intended.
Cheers
John


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## Shortround6 (Aug 10, 2011)

pinsog said:


> Yes I knew that none of the tires on the 155 or the Mack were "high flotation" tires, but 8 11.00x20 rubber tires would beat 2 12inch wide iron wheels for crossing soft ground.



But it is not two 12 wide iron wheels. It is four minimum or six if the barrel cart is used. granted the US gun is using 10 tires and not 8 if the limber is used. The 11.00 dimension is the distance across the side walls at the widest point, not the width of the tread. If you are on soft ground and the wheels/tires are actually sinking in a full inch a 5 foot diameter wheel is going to be pressing on 15.36in of ground for inch of width, a 40in diameter wheel will press on 12.49in of ground. an almost 30% increase. I don't know the actual diameter of the wheels/tires used on the the two different pieces of artillery and I am certainly not claiming that the German guns had better mobility or even the same. I do think that the difference is somewhat smaller than the almost 4 to 1 ratio implied here however. 



pinsog said:


> The 7 1/2 ton Mack didn't use the limber during WW2 either, the limber was only used for tracked prime movers.



According to one source, while the practice started in WW II it wasn't official sanctioned until sometime after the war. The limber may allow more of a load to be placed in the truck.


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## Shortround6 (Aug 10, 2011)

Readie said:


> True, but the flying bomb attacks on the UK and later Europe caused a lot of damage and casualties.
> In total, the V-1 attacks caused 22,892 casualties (almost entirely civilians).
> I shudder to think of the figures had the V2 worked as intended.
> Cheers
> John



I don't mean to minimize the suffering of the civilians but from a military point of view, for what was supposed to be a strategic or at least grand tactical weapon, what was it's actual effect?

How many factories lost how many days of production? How many ports were closed and for how long? Even if twice the number had gotten through and caused twice the casualties would it have lengthened the war by more than a day or two? 

Would the resources the Germans put into this program had served them better elsewhere, like better AA defense, more shells for their artillery, more radios for their troops, other programs or equipment?


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## pinsog (Aug 10, 2011)

According to one source, while the practice started in WW II it wasn't official sanctioned until sometime after the war. The limber may allow more of a load to be placed in the truck.[/QUOTE]

I've never seen a pic of a US truck pulling heavy artillery while using a limber. 

The limber would take 100% of the weight off the prime mover, essentially making the gun into a wagon. 

I'm floored that no one on this sight knows why full tracked vehicles used a limber and trucks didn't. I've wondered this for years.


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## Shortround6 (Aug 10, 2011)

pinsog said:


> I've never seen a pic of a US truck pulling heavy artillery while using a limber.
> 
> The limber would take 100% of the weight off the prime mover, essentially making the gun into a wagon.
> 
> I'm floored that no one on this sight knows why full tracked vehicles used a limber and trucks didn't. I've wondered this for years.



I am taking a guess on this but the gun without limber may affect the steering or tracking (ability to run straight at speed) of the full tracked vehicles. The tracked vehicles may have been more difficult to steer both with the weight and distance from the pivot on an unlimbered gun and the weight of the trails may ( guessing again) have up set the balance of the tractors, making them tail heavy, Front of tracks running lighter than usual? 

The Mack truck was rated at 20,897lbs payload on the highway and 15,350lbs payload off highway. Payload was supposed to be restricted to 10,350 lbs when towing maximum load. Perhaps a few thousand pounds on the rear of the truck from the trails being carried without the limber doesn't affect the steering as much?


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## Shortround6 (Aug 12, 2011)

Video of an 8in howitzer (same carriage as the 155gun) being set up. 


_View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PCvh5aP8-U8_


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## parsifal (Aug 12, 2011)

I like the video, very informative actually. Thanks for sharing

At some point we are going to have to discuss prime movers I think


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## Shortround6 (Aug 12, 2011)

I just got in "Field Artillery and Fire power" by Maj. Gen. J.B.A. Bailey. 

Just a few quick peaks so far but very interesting, The German artillery branch in WW II was screwed up and over in a large number of ways. actual design of the guns may have been the least of their problems.


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## parsifal (Aug 12, 2011)

For sure, I agree with that. The biggest issues for the German army IMO were their motorization programs....too many types, types too complicated, types not strong enough to withtand rough treatyment, but most of all, insufficient numbers. Fuel was never the limiting factor for the German army until later in the war....it was a constraint, but not the most critical constraint.

The other major problem was the shortage of manpower, which was actually made worse in some respects by their poor management of manpower resources. Too many skilled tradesmen ending up as frontline cannon fodder, whilst at the same time wasting too many men onh unneccessary rear area posts. But the manpower issue was never really a solvable problem, whilst the motorization program could have been much better managed

Ive probably overstated my criticism of German artillery. I happen to think that in most situations it perfortmed exceptionally well. My criticism extends to a specific situation....when faced with serious rapid enemy breakthroughs, the German artillery wasnt flexible enough, wasnt mobile enough, and its reaction times were just too slow. But in most situations other than when the Russians were pounding them along 300 KM of their front, or similar, they managed pretty well actually


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## Shortround6 (Aug 12, 2011)

So far, it seems the Artillery suffered some of the same problems as the Luftwaffe, drastic reductions in both gun and ammunition production in the fall/winter of 1941 and wide swings in programs and priorities as the war went on. Coupled with a rather mistaken notion/doctrine of maneuver warfare vs fire power ( and a poorly implemented maneuver warfare, the lack of transport) it seems there were a host of problems. Individual skill and dedication can only do so much.


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## fastmongrel (Aug 12, 2011)

Shortround6 said:


> I just got in "Field Artillery and Fire power" by Maj. Gen. J.B.A. Bailey.



Interesting book but a bit of a disjointed read I thought, it will take me several re-reads to get everything out of it. Very good bibliography though, trying to buy all the references would bankrupt a small country never mind a private collector.


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## pinsog (Aug 15, 2011)

DId we ever come to a consensus on this? Could the German 17cm K18 be mounted on a 155 Long Tom carraige and moved in one piece?


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## davebender (Aug 15, 2011)

Germany had little choice in the matter. Their 1930s plate was overflowing with serious problems. Mass production of artillery towing tractors would have to wait.

Not that they were unaware of the issue. The Heer experimented with artillery towing tractors of various types even prior to WWI. By 1918 they were serious about the problem. During May and June 1918 a series of meetings were held to select an artillery towing tractor design for mass production. The tractor chosen would have been a variant of the LKII light tank, which was also selected for mass production.


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## parsifal (Aug 15, 2011)

Yes, the German auto industry was not well placed for mass production, that has to be concceded, but surely you agree that their handling of the industrial potential they did have was poorly managed. I think it was the Schnell program, essentially a production rationalization that wanted to reduce the number of different types in service from about 100 different types to about 10 or so....but this was not implemented until 1939, and then never completely...in fact as the war progressed and the germans were forced to use foreign manufactured types and ex-civilian types, the situation actually got much worse. This truck park of about 500000 vehicles always suffered heavy losses, but in Russia it became an unmanageable nightmare for the germans. By 1942, the germans could no longer undertake general frontwide offensives because much of their infantry lacked the necessary MT, and from the end of 1943, the Heer had degenerated to a more or less static line force, except for a few mobile formations....movements by infantry could only be undertaken on a unit by unit basis as wholesale simultaneous movements were no longer possible due to MT (and draft animal) shortages. The German army of 1943 was a far less mobile formation than the 1939 army 

Could the germans have done better??? I think so....what was needed was to settle on one or two specific types and then just churn those limited number of types out as fast as possible. Get foreign manufacturers to build components rather than whole units. At all costs avoid the menagerie of types that the Heer was stuck with from the commencement of hostilities. For artillery, I think tracked or half tracked prime movers in preference to wheeled transport, and for wheeled transport, double rear axle rathr than single rear axle types. Forget using armoured halftracks as prime movers....a profligate waste of resources for the germans IMO.


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## davebender (Aug 15, 2011)

IMO that hardly matters. 

Most tracked vehicles are produced in purpose built facilities such as the Detroit Tank Arsenal. Construction of tank factories in 1930s Germany had to compete with construction of border defenses, coast defenses, factories for the production of ammunition, small arms, artillery, aircraft, aircraft engines, army field gear, hydrogenation plants to produce fuel, synthetic rubber plants, synthetic textile plants etc. Building border defenses and a military-industrial complex from scratch isn't easy, quick or cheap.


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## Shortround6 (Aug 15, 2011)

pinsog said:


> DId we ever come to a consensus on this? Could the German 17cm K18 be mounted on a 155 Long Tom carraige and moved in one piece?



It might be possible. There are two problems, one is moving the parts, the other is firing the weapon and either not breaking it or having it be stable enough for quick repeat shots. 

While the basic carriage did carry the British MK VI 7.2 howitzer barrel that weighed about 1500lbs more than the 155 barrel that barrel is still going to be several thousand pounds lighter than the German 17cm barrel. The German barrel is also about 45in longer than the 155 barrel and over 80in longer than the British barrel. Even with the barrel pulled back to full recoil positions there may be be balance issues. 
The next question is if the US carriage could handle the recoil. Both Allied howitzers could have roughly 25-30% more recoil than the 155 but the 17cm has more recoil still. The long range shell is about 45% heavier than the 155 and is fired several hundred FPS faster, this requires over double the powder charge. 
While the late 50s, early 60s 175mm M07 used the same elevating gear and basic recoil system as the 155 gun and 8in how the empty self propelled carriage went 25,915kg (no fuel, ammo, crew). the hydraulic shock absorbers in the suspension were locked when the gun fired so there was no suspension movement. Recoil was transmitted to the ground through both the recoil spade at the rear and through both tracks.


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## parsifal (Aug 16, 2011)

davebender said:


> IMO that hardly matters.
> 
> Most tracked vehicles are produced in purpose built facilities such as the Detroit Tank Arsenal. Construction of tank factories in 1930s Germany had to compete with construction of border defenses, coast defenses, factories for the production of ammunition, small arms, artillery, aircraft, aircraft engines, army field gear, hydrogenation plants to produce fuel, synthetic rubber plants, synthetic textile plants etc. Building border defenses and a military-industrial complex from scratch isn't easy, quick or cheap.



I think you are mixing automotive manufacture up with AFV production. Both are rather distinct from each other. Armour plate needs special rolling and milling gear, more akin to a heavy industry or locomotive manufacturing process , whereas soft skinned vehicles are a relatively light industry producing items that are essentially consumer goods. What could be done through mass production were established by men like Henry Ford that managed to turn large quantities of motor vehicles (MVs) for very low cost. The Europeans were slower to adopt those procedures, and the germans, hardly at all. Despite having the worlds second biggest economy, and the one most geared to military production its output of MVs was really quite modest. In comparison, the British, who started with a larger, but more stuffed auto industry than the german, embraced mass production and rationalization on a much wider scale than the Germans and reaped huge benefits from it. Despit havng an industrial base only about 2/3 that of Germany, and an MV industry at least as innefficient prewar, the Brits managed to turn out roughly 420K MVs during the war to about 300K for the germans. The british rationalized, streamlined, and poured a lot into getting their lines more efficient, the germans did not, despite having a far higher potential for military output. It was a failure of management, rather than a failure of resources. Even the canuck, a far smaller military economy, managed to pump out over 800000 vehicles from memory.


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## tomo pauk (Sep 5, 2011)

A great thread indeed, many thanks to the contributors


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