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- #21
I'd say that the weight of the '5 in' gun-how will be lower than what the 150mm sfh18 howitzer weighted, or what the 5.5in gun weighted.
German artillery what-if: going all-in with gun-howitzers past 1935 (2 Viewers)
- Thread starter tomo pauk
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Actually most powers, aside from the Germans and US used 75/76mm guns as divisional artillery. The British were the middle ground and then screwed up with the cheap ammo.
Many armies used a mixed armament of 75-76mm field guns and 100-105mm howitzers as the two weapons could use similar/identical carriages. 2-3 batteries of the 75-76mm field guns for each battery of 100-105s.
So everybody had 100-105mm howitzers, but in the Japanese, Italian, French, Soviet armies they were rather outnumbered by the 75-76mm guns. They just don't get much of the glory
Ah, point taken. I remembered the Soviet divisional artillery was a combination of 152mm and 122 (or 107) mm, but that was actually the corps level artillery. Divisional artillery was indeed apparently mostly 75/76 (and some 122mm)
These charge&range tables might be specific to the German 10.5cm systems, not universal truths. At least some info I found about modern 155m 39 cal howitzers it seems the number of charges required goes up much smoother up to the maximum 24km range:
| Number of charges | Max range |
|---|---|
| 1 | 8 |
| 2 | 13 |
| 3 | 14 |
| 4 | 18 |
| 5 | 24 |
(there's almost no difference in range between 2 and 3 charges, that is because at that point one switches to a different type of propellant (faster burning presumably?).)
A 155mm shell has the benefit of better sectional density than a 105mm one, and particularly the modern ones presumably have better aerodynamics as well which might be particularly useful in the higher speed regimes when using close to or full charges.
Oh, absolutely. Isn't that the point of this thread, a thought experiment trying to come with something better than the historical.
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There's a lot of ways to use old weapons. E.g. remove the cases and have the LW drop them over enemy airfields (or cities, since they thought that was useful..)
. Make AP bombs from barrels. Or just use them as-is long as you have both munitions and guns, and melt down the guns for scrap when you run out of ammo (that of course still means a logistical headache even if you're not manufacturing more ammo..)?Yes, if/when you give up on the idea of horse transport, you might as well go substantially bigger. As for SP guns, they had the Hummel, mounting a 15cm sFH on a Pz IV chassis. Maybe they could have fit the hypothetical longer-ranged gun-howitzer (12.8 cm or even 15cm?) on it instead? Panther/Tiger/etc. chassis are probably too valuable to use as tanks to use them on such "secondary" roles. So that might be another requirement for the hypothetical gun-howitzer: it has to be light enough to fit on the Pz IV chassis.
Shortround6
Major General
Possibly
British 4.5in gun .................55lb/25kg shell................12,800lbs/5800kg..........................20,500yds/18,745m........................2250fps/686ms
British 5.5in gun .................80lb/36.3kg shell............13,646lbs/6190kg..........................18,100yds/16,550m.......................1950fps/594ms
British 5.5in gun ..............100lb/45.4kg shell.............13,464lbs/6190kg.........................16,200yds/14,813m........................1675fps/511ms
German 15cm sfh 18........96lb/43.5kg shell.............12,154lbs/5512kg..........................14,490yds/13,250m........................1624fps/495ms
Please note that the distance and velocity for the 80lb shell required a supercharge that could not be used with the 100lb shell.
The 100lb shell used a 2+2 charge system, The 80lb shell used the same 4 charges plus the supercharge that completely replaced the standard charge systems.
Both the 4.5in shell and the 100lb 5.5 in Shells are the heavier than normal (thicker walls) shells. This helps with the distance when comparing the velocities compared to the German weapon.
Weights are in service and the British guns did not use a limber. British guns were towed by AEC Matadors generally, a 7.26 ton (empty) 4 X 4 truck that maxed out at about 36mph.
also had a 7 ton winch.
Germans were not happy with the 15cm sfh 18 and came up with the 18/40. this was the 3rd try after the sfh 18.
They added about 420mm to the length of the barrel an made the chamber about 32% bigger. Weight went up about 200kg.
Ger...15cm sfh 18/40................96lb/43.5kg shell.............12,613lbs/5720kg..........................16,513yds/15100m........................1952fps/595ms
Max charge went from 3.71kg to 6.81kg, only 46 were built, accuracy using the standard projectiles and propellent charges was not good.
Trying to figure out a German Army 5in weapon is a little hard as the Navy and AA guns were long, high velocity weapons.
The Krupp 12.8cm Kanone 44 went over 10,000kg but it had a 360 degree cruciform mounting which complicated things in addition to the high ballistics.
Germans had 15cm Kanone that were only about 25% heavier that fired shells almost twice as heavy several kilometers further.
Germans mounted a few of the 12.8cm Kanone 44 barrels on ex Russian 152mm howitzer carriages and got a weight of 8200kg. They had to restrict the traverse to 40 degrees instead of the normal 58 degrees. How durable it would have been in service long term????
Yes this is much more gun performance than Tomo is calling for.
Without purpose manufactured shells (not adapted naval shells or AA shells) would such a weapon offer much change in capability or would it be a compromise?
I can't find the HE content of the 15cm shells. For the US the 155 howitzer gave about 15lbs of HE compared to just under 5lbs the US 4.5in shells offered and the US didn't think the 4.5, despite it's greater range, gave enough "bang for the buck".
Adding a couple other interesting examples to the table above
| Model | Shell weight (kg) | Weight of gun (travel) (kg) | Max range (m) | Muzzle velocity (m/s) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US M114 155mm howitzer | 43 | 5800 | 14600 | 563 |
| US M1 155mm gun | 43 | 13880 | 23700 | 853 |
| Soviet ML-20 152mm howitzer-gun | 43.6 | 7930 | 17230 | 655 |
| Soviet D-1 152mm howitzer | 40.0 | 3600 | 12400 | 508 |
| Soviet D-20 152mm gun-howitzer (1947) | 43.56 | 5700 | 17400 | 650 |
| German 15cm cannon K18 | 43 | 18600 | 24500 | 865 |
It's interesting to note that both the US and UK declared their 4.5" guns obsolete by the end of WWII and quickly withdrew them from service, while keeping the M114 and the BL 5.5" howitzers (and the M1 and other heavy guns for counter-battery and other long-range missions), which both soldiered on until replaced by 39-caliber 155mm howitzers (M198 and FH-70, respectively) in the late 1970'ies.
The Soviets, in principle replaced both the ML-20 and the D-1 with the D-20, but the Soviets being packrats I'm sure they kept those older guns around just in case. Looking at the table above, the D-20 is quite impressive in terms of the range it provided for the weight. And given it was designed in 1947, that's bound to be pretty WWII-level technology, no fancy alloys or such?
So maybe there really is something to be said for a ~15cm size gun with a range around 15-17km in the WWII era? Perhaps combined with a corps-level long-range gun similar to the M1 Long Tom above, with a range up to 25 km? The Germans, as mentioned in the quote above, weren't apparently particularly happy with their attempts to increase the range of their 15cm sFH, and similarly they were unhappy with their 15cm cannon with range similar to the M1. So, for the sake of argument, lets say the Germans get their act together and design a good 15cm howitzer and gun, something similar to the BL 5.5"/M114, and the M1 Long Tom, for their corps level artillery. Probably can use the same shells, if done reasonably competently, although the gun version will need bigger cases for the extra charges. And for the Pz corps, put the howitzer version on a Pz IV chassis similar to the historical Hummel. In general, forget about horse mobility for these guns, trucks/halftracks it is.
Now for the divisional artillery, if we focus on horse mobility as a critical factor here, maybe there's a case to be made for the 88mm gun discussed above? Oh, and combined with lots of heavy mortars, also easily transportable by horse. With a lot of the indirect fire missions done by the heavy mortars, maybe the 88mm gun then needs to have the design weighted slightly more towards direct fire support and AT capability as secondary capabilities. So it becomes a kind of jack of all trades, capable of indirect fire, direct fire infantry support as well as some direct fire AT capability? That probably means we need to sacrifice some high-angle capability to get a low profile mount? Something like the Soviet ZiS-3 and D-44?
If we have the heavy mortar and the 88mm field gun as the divisional artillery, that leaves the various 75mm and 105mm guns in a somewhat awkward spot. Might not be worth the additional logistical burden to have them. Except what to do with existing guns and ammo? There's of course a big risk this 88mm gun ends up creating a situation like
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SaparotRob
Unter Gemeine Geschwader Murmeltier XIII
Been there. Done that.
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- #28
IMO, Germans quickly (by the time they found themselves on the receiving edge of the Soviet and British artillery, talk from late 1941 on) discovered that their artillery park is second best on the battlefield. They were not happy with 105mm, they were not happy with 15cm, and they were eager to both much improve on these calibers, as well as to introduce the 128mm gun.
I'm not sure why the Germans were trying to reinvent the wheel with the much modified 150mm howitzer while having the Czech 15cm K4 in their possesion already by early 1939.
My reasoning is still the same, as it was on the beginning of the thread: trade the shell weight for range, without over-doing either the shell weight to be too small, nor that expectations for the range is too great - all in order to keep the weapon's weight manageable. Perhaps 13+ km for the 88mm, 15+ km for the '5 in'? Thus 88 gun-how is the mainstay instead of the 105mm how, and so is the 127(8) instead of 150mm how. Sprinkle a bit with longer-ranged weapons when possible, use the Czech fine 150mm artillery (also make more of them) etc.
Captured Soviet 122 mm weapons (both cannon and howitzer) can be out-bored to accept German shells once the captured Soviet shells are gone (same as with Soviet heavy AAA that was out-bored to fire German 88mm ammo).
Shortround6
Major General
The British were also 2nd tier with artillery. There are a number of elements that make up an Artillery force.
1. Good guns.
2. Good shells.
3. Good doctrine
4. Good communications
5. Good transport
there may be others. The British had real problems with no 2 and no 3 and no 4 varied a lot in time during WW II.
That is something of a puzzle but it may come down to being cheap and trying to use existing tooling or there may be a bit of NIH going on? or something else? The K4 was not designed for horse traction and perhaps that had something to with it?
Artillery Generals think that artillery is like playing golf. The Generals need a wide selection of weapons (guns, howitzer, mortars) to handle every job just like a golfer needs 9-14 clubs to handle any situation on the course
Trying to use just 4-5 clubs means a lot of compromise. We do run into the 'cube law' and in artillery circles that means that the shell weight is proportional to the cube of the diameter. So is the weight of the tube and the mount/carriage.
Not exact but close. Next limit is the weight of shell that a single man can stuff in the breech end of the gun. This is generally accepted to be about 100lbs or 45kg at least on steady ground or large ship. "lively" ships need a bit lighter shells. Larger guns without powered assist need two or more men to get the projectile into the barrel. This rather explains the popularity of the 15cm/6in guns and howitzers among the worlds armies.
However weight of shell also has advantages and disadvantages. The bigger/heavier shell with range further with the same initial velocity. It will also hold a larger quantity (percentage) of HE per pound/kg of shell weight. British really mucked this one up with their cheap steel.
However large shells also means a slower rate of fire. So the actual weight of shell delivered per minute can be rather variable and this sort of leads us into rates of fire and heat and barrel wear.
Getting back to the cube law we can work out a figure of merit for the different calibers of
3in=27................1
3.5=42.88..........1.59
4in=64................2.37
4.5=91.12..........3.37
5in=126.............4.66
5.5=166.............6.15
6in=216.............8
We can also assume that for similar guns (barrel lengths and muzzle velocities) the the gun tubes and the mounts (similar traverse and elevation) are going to show a similar progression. an 6in "gun" of roughly 2000fps velocity and having 45 degrees if elevation and 60 degrees of traverse is going to weigh about 8 times what an upgraded French 75mm weighed (3200llbs X 8 =25,600lbs/11,640kg) and in fact that comes out fairly close to the French/US 155mm GPF of 1917/1918 at 25,905lbs for 2410fps velocity but only 35 degrees elevation. The 155mm gets a lot more range, only part of which is from the higher velocity. There are some benefits of scale but perhaps not as much as we think?
The 8.8cm gun/howitzer may be a good idea, The British bungled it a bit so perhaps it didn't get a fair shake but if you try to turn it into anti-tank gun you lose some of the advantages. The 5in may be trying to fall into two camps if you try for one gun. Soviets stayed with both Howitzers and guns not only during the war but long after. New weapons and not legacy weapons.
A lot of this may depend on condition of the weapons and difficulty of manufacturing replacement barrel liners vs different size shells.
AA guns have a much shorter barrel life than field artillery. How much trouble it was to make new liners vs setting up a different shell production line? It may also have simplified the fire control by giving similar ballistics to the normal 88 guns (and fuse setting).
Czechs bored out (relined) German WW II 15ch howitzers after WW II to take Soviet 152mm howitzer shells. They also added a sizable muzzle brake.
This does get us back a bit to the heat problem. Howitzers use rather small charges most of the time. This causes less wear and tear on the tubes and carriages. Long ranges and rapid fire can cause a lot of wear. The US had figured for the invasion of NWE that they would get around 10,000 rounds per 105mm howitzer barrel. They had some experience in NA and Southern Italy. Perhaps not a lot, this was decided many months before the actual invasion. They found by winter 1944/45 they were only getting about 5,000 round per barrel (higher charges/higher rates of fire) and they were starting to run out of spare barrels.
Both the British and Germans (and French?) in WW I managed to blow up a lot of their own guns due to wear and poor quality control of the shells. This may explain their conservatism is service weapons (but not experimental) leading up to WW II.
This is a much more complicated subject than it may appear, much like fighter design
Every gun (and it's ammo) was compromise between conflicting requirements.
Best gun in the world doesn't do much good it it is stuck in the mud 40 miles from where the action is.
The Paris gun was an amazing achievement. Wither it was cost effective is whole different story.
Artillery Generals think that artillery is like playing golf. The Generals need a wide selection of weapons (guns, howitzer, mortars) to handle every job just like a golfer needs 9-14 clubs to handle any situation on the course
Good artillery generals at least ought to think a lot about logistics, considering artillery shells are a very non-trivial fraction of the total logistical burden of an army in the field. And for an industrial total war like WWII, the capacity of the industry to produce shells as well. A 80% 'good enough' solution that you have available in sufficient numbers is better than the perfect tool for every situation that exists only on paper, or somewhere NOT where you'd need it at a particular moment.
I think there's a case to be made for roughly 15cm artillery to be a sweet spot. Not only about stuffing the shell into the breech, but also moving shells around by muscle power. 45kg is light enough that two men with a tarp or slings can shuffle them around (say, between a truck and the gun, or between a rail car and a truck, etc etc.) without undue risk of injury. Yes, I'm sure most men can single-handedly deadlift more than 45kg, but the shell is awkwardly shaped and you may need to lift it in non-optimal positions etc., and you may need to do it all day long. For significantly larger shells (say, 20cm or so) they quickly become heavy enough that realistically you start to require a crane to move them around. Which adds weight and another piece of equipment that has to be maintained, can break down etc. And slows down the rate of fire.
Then you also have mobility. 15cm is probably a bit too large to comfortably move around with horses on bad roads, but if you have trucks/halftracks it's doable. For bigger guns you often have things like a separate transportation carriage for the barrel (and a separate prime mover or horse team to move that), which again adds weight, and needs some kind of crane to lift it into place. Which means setting up the gun is an affair that can take several hours. And vice versa for packing it up again when you need to move to a different position. And finally for SPG's, the gun has to be light enough that the thing can move on roads and bridges, and still provide at least some splinter protection for the crew. Also, a big bonus if you can use an existing tank chassis. Again, it seems the 15cm size fits rather well here.
So yes, all in all I don't think it's an accident the 15cm size has become the 'standard' size for contemporary tube artillery, and why it was a quite popular size back in WWII as well.
To a point, maybe? It does seem that when you go to even larger shells the HE % goes down. Looking at US naval HE (HC) shells for the WWII era, for the 5"/38 you have 13.2%, for 6" you have about 12.6% HE content, for 8" 8.2%, and for a 16" shell you have 8.1%.
For comparison, a roughly WWII-era 155mm HE shell (M107) had 15.9%. And for the 8" gun M1, 8.7%. And a 105mm US shell, 13.2%.
Maybe another case of roughly 15cm being a sweet spot size?
Looking at the sectional density (weight of the shell divided by the frontal area) it gives a rough indication of quickly the shell slows down due to drag.
| Shell (mm) | Shell weight (kg) | Sectional density (kg/m^2) |
|---|---|---|
| 155 | 43 | 2280 |
| 122 | 21.7 (Soviet howitzer shell) | 1857 |
| 105 | 15 | 1733 |
| 88 | 11.34 (WWII 25pdr shell) | 1865 |
| 88 | 9.52 (new 25pdr shell) | 1566 |
As for having both a ~15cm gun and a howitzer, I think that makes sense, considering in WWII a 15cm howitzer with about 15km range (borderline gun-howitzer if we squint so we can fit into Tomo's scenario?) was about half the weight of a gun with 24km range.
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Shortround6
Major General
You have made some good points.
which solved doing this nonsense
Now try and get the gun into or out of that situation in an hurry
US 105 howitzer would elevate to 66 degrees without such shenanigans but it made the 105 heavier and more costly.
Paratroopers and Mountain troops liked smaller and lighter guns vs not having any or getting them several days into a battle.
WW II 8in howitzer used shells that held 17.8% HE ?
But firing 8in Howitzer shells at Naval gun velocities may lead to blown up guns. Thin wall shell buckles inside the barrel.
US 16in HC shell was still getting booted by a 593 lbs charge and the shell has to be built to stand up to that.
Standardization is all well and good but the 8in gun used shells that only carried about 20lbs of HE (in a 240lb shell) and the 8in How started with a 30lb filler and the later (but still WW II ) shell held 37lbs (rounded up tiny bit).
The British screwed themselves somewhat with the 25pdr ammo. They could make a lot of it with cheap steel and low HE content (main problem was the steel) but when you have to ship hundreds of tons more ammo (and make it) around Africa or to the Far East the cheap ammo is no longer quite so cheap. Better than no ammo but where is the cross over point?
on this one there is a line that is sometimes crossed to too simple. The British 25pdr with it's 45 degree elevation and 3/4 charge system worked well until the British got into Italy and then it didn't. A lot of digging that trail into pits in the ground to get the shells to land in the next valley instead of shooting over it. Solved by introducing 1/2 charges between existing charges. Also "solved" by making a carriage with hinge behind the space the gun recoiled into.
which solved doing this nonsense
Now try and get the gun into or out of that situation in an hurry
US 105 howitzer would elevate to 66 degrees without such shenanigans but it made the 105 heavier and more costly.
Paratroopers and Mountain troops liked smaller and lighter guns vs not having any or getting them several days into a battle.
We gave to be careful to compare like to like. Not all HE shells have the same construction. You can use thinner walls on low velocity shells than you can on high velocity shells.
WW II 8in howitzer used shells that held 17.8% HE ?
But firing 8in Howitzer shells at Naval gun velocities may lead to blown up guns. Thin wall shell buckles inside the barrel.
US 16in HC shell was still getting booted by a 593 lbs charge and the shell has to be built to stand up to that.
Standardization is all well and good but the 8in gun used shells that only carried about 20lbs of HE (in a 240lb shell) and the 8in How started with a 30lb filler and the later (but still WW II ) shell held 37lbs (rounded up tiny bit).
The British screwed themselves somewhat with the 25pdr ammo. They could make a lot of it with cheap steel and low HE content (main problem was the steel) but when you have to ship hundreds of tons more ammo (and make it) around Africa or to the Far East the cheap ammo is no longer quite so cheap. Better than no ammo but where is the cross over point?
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- #32
Towing the K4 by a horse team means someone screwed up :=)
Germans rarely made a good use of captured production resources (preferring to loot the actual fighting hardware & ammo; Pz-38(t) and G&R14M as probably the only exceptions?), so methinks that not following up with the K4 production (but inn ever greater volume) was yet another mistake of German procurement system.
As an ad-hoc AT gun (ie. something that can be useful in self-defence situation that can happen every few months?), the 700 m/s 8,8cm gun should have it's merit. Soviets moved into 122mm gun-how post war, while the 122mm lost against the former naval 130mm ordnance on the split carriage (the later, together with 85/88/90mm AA guns - all re-purposed into anti-ship guns for shore batteries - were crucial in preventing Serb forces in cutting Dalmatia into two in 1991
).Agreed all the way.
As one can see, I'm not suggesting the bestest gear as the solution to the problems, but perhaps the better compromises.
