Best Long Range Artillery Piece

[psteel]

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.

 

[parsifal]

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)

 

[pinsog]

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.

 

[parsifal]

Some intersting pics of WWII heavy artillery, from Aberdeen PG

Tanks - World War II Artillery

 

[davebender]

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.

 

[davebender]

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.

 

[Njaco]

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

 

[parsifal]

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.

 

[psteel]

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.

 

[parsifal]

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

 

[parsifal]

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.

 

[davebender]

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.

 

[Juha]

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

 

[Shortround6]

"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.

 

[Shortround6]

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

 

[parsifal]

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!!!!!!

 

[pinsog]

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!!!!!!

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.

 

[Shortround6]

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".

 

[parsifal]

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.

 

[davebender]

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

Any idea when accurate RAP ammunition began to enter service?