German artillery what-if: going all-in with gun-howitzers past 1935

[z42]

Accuracy, Dare I say it? is dismal. Especially at the longer ranges. US 4.2s were better, post-war French 120s were pretty good.

WW II Mortar accuracy was never good, some was worse than others.

When I did my military service, we did quite a lot of exercises shooting with (smoothbore) mortars as well as howitzers (I was in an artillery spotting team), and I don't recall the mortars being any less accurate than the guns. If anything, since the dispersion pattern is more or less circular vs a much more oblong shape for the guns it was often easier to cover the target. But this was more than 50 years after the end of WWII, so maybe mortar accuracy was substantially different back then.. A bit surprising though, considering a mortar is pretty simple piece of equipment compared to a cannon.

An awful lot depends on the weight of the weapon (I am using weapon to try to keep from confusing howitzers, guns and gun/howitzers) because the difference between different weapons also depended on tow vehicles. And tow vehicles changed considerably from the early 30s to 1943-44.

The US had several years to figure some of this stuff out and started using things like the M1 heavy tractor.
View attachment 797536
80hp diesel and top speed of 11mph (18kph) but it was faster than using horses.
BTW the Soviets got about 1000 of these plus other to supplement their own tractor production. This helps explain how the Soviets moved their heavy weapons around.

The Germans had their heavy halftracks that they used for towing heavy artillery, like Sd.Kfz 9. Which should be capable of towing a long-range 15cm gun in one piece, similar to the US M1 at around 14 tons. I guess they just didn't have enough of them.

 

[z42]

By 'losing' I've meant that 130mm was the preferred new long-range gun.
5 different propellant charges were available. Smallest was 3.98 kg (MV of 525 m/s), while full charge weighted 12.9 kg (MV of 930 m/s). See here (easy to translate).

Ha, serves me right for relying on the English language wikipedia for my data on this gun, which claims "a single propelling charge".

 

[Shortround6]

That lot of German army, that depended on horses, will not be getting the K4.
Czech guns (K4 in this case) not just looked better, they were longer-ranged with same weight of the shell and same weight of the firing position vs. the German 15 sfh.

Agreed.

Is there anywhere in this thread me claiming that Germans should've made an equivalent of the D-44 in the 1930s instead of their historical howitzers

No, but what you are proposing is somewhere around 1/2 way between the British 25pdr and the D-44. The Russian D-44 is rather light for what it does.
The 25pdr with a 20lb (9.07kg) shot and using a supercharge + increment+ muzzle brake hits 610m/s.
There is no question that such a weapon could be built. And it might be able to be built at about the same weight or a bit lighter than the German 10.5cm howitzer.
It might have been a better weapon than the British 25pdr. You can certainly lob a shell that carries more HE further.

K44/pak44 fired a 28 kg HE shell, vs. the 43 kg shell that 15cm guns fired. That is about 64% the shell weight, not the 1/2 shell weight.

I was actually referring to a 12.2cm shell, sorry I wasn't clearer on that. So about a 22kg shell vs the 43kg shell, close enough.

For the Germans working in 1942-43-44 they were using the shells they had available which were intended for high velocity and they didn't have the best amount of HE content for a lower performing weapon. The 26kg AA shell held about 3.4kg which is about the same as the the Soviet 12.2cm Howitzer shell. The ex-navy 28 kg shell held a bit less, sources differ but max out at 1.75kg (???). Nammo Raufoss produced some Anti ship shells in 1989 that held 3.2kg of HE. WW II data is incorrect or badly translated or???

A WW II purpose built shell for a 700m/s velocity could obviously hold more than the German high velocity shells.

The 1960s 12.2cm Soviet D-30 howitzer fires 21.76kg projectiles holding 3.675 kg-4.05kg of HE depending on type.
The 13cm M-46 cannon fires 33.4kg projectiles that hold 3.64-4.17kg of HE (?).

 

[tomo pauk]

I was actually referring to a 12.2cm shell, sorry I wasn't clearer on that. So about a 22kg shell vs the 43kg shell, close enough.

Okay, roger that.

For the Germans working in 1942-43-44 they were using the shells they had available which were intended for high velocity and they didn't have the best amount of HE content for a lower performing weapon. The 26kg AA shell held about 3.4kg which is about the same as the the Soviet 12.2cm Howitzer shell. The ex-navy 28 kg shell held a bit less, sources differ but max out at 1.75kg (???). Nammo Raufoss produced some Anti ship shells in 1989 that held 3.2kg of HE. WW II data is incorrect or badly translated or???

Hopefully I'll find some good data from the manuals and post them in a few days
This website is one of the reliable ones, FWIW: nawveaps

A WW II purpose built shell for a 700m/s velocity could obviously hold more than the German high velocity shells.

The 1960s 12.2cm Soviet D-30 howitzer fires 21.76kg projectiles holding 3.675 kg-4.05kg of HE depending on type.
The 13cm M-46 cannon fires 33.4kg projectiles that hold 3.64-4.17kg of HE (?).

Of course.
Germans can use the existing shells they find suitable at 1st (and later for longer ranges?), while developing a 'high capacity' shell to be available within a few months. Also, the weapon can gain the muzzle brake later, as it was in German fashion come 1940/41.