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What is being cut from the RAF and/or RN to pay for an increase of the British Army budget?
What is being cut from the FAF Marine Nationale to get such stuff?
Nothing - part of the the hulls of the LT Mk VI is used for the SP artillery (= less light tanks), the Britain is awash with 18 pdr guns in the 1930s.
Please Tomo, I expect better of you. Britain is awash is not a phrase I would have thought you would use
Britain hasn't made an 18pdr since about 1919. There are two rather distinctive 18pdrs. The older ones with the recoil system on top of the barrel have rather limited elevation and traverse and are the older style, meaning that if any large number have not already been scrapped they are due for it. Mounting barrels with a good part of their useful life already gone on new tracked carriages in peace time is a sure way to start a scandal in the press.
many of the newer ones with the recoil system under the barrel are slated to be rebored/relined from 83.4mm to 87.5mm to make 18/25pdr guns as the treasury is too cheap to buy new 25pdr field guns.
Mounting the guns on the MK VI chassis is also a mark of desperation. Better than using a team of horses perhaps but putting the barrels on a tracked chassis is just the start of the equation. You need ammo, and battery command posts, and radio links and wire parties and so on. Standard British doctrine was to have 142 rounds of 25pdr ammo in the first line of supply for towed guns, 114HE 16 smoke and 12 AP. More ammo is in the 2nd and 3rd echelons of supply. Please note that the German Wespe is not as "efficient" as some people make it out to be. Every 4 gun battery had another two chassis acting as ammo carriers.
Well, it could go this way: not everyone (that was in charge for this or that) was a 'true believer' into the SP artillery case, so not many of those were built, maybe one hundred by the time UK declared the war?
Not a 'mark of desperation', but more of 'the war might be starting; if works in real combat - fine, we'll build more (and/or better stuff); if not - we did not spent too much of money, and the hulls guns can be reused'.
I've already stated that the limber would be towed behind (80 rounds, if I've counted correctly), and some quantity of the ammo can be carried on board. The dedicated ammo vehicle could be used, and it was used in German units operating the 10,5/Mk VI combo; it was based upon the Mk IV itself, and was also towing a trailer. The German version was not towing a limber, so the separate ammo vehicle was necessity; the 10,5cm ammo being more voluminous anyway.
The artillery units will get what it takes to be proper units: command posts, radio links etc.
There is a distinct difference between an armored gun used for direct fire assaults and self propelled artillery or "mechanized" artillery. For an artillery battery or battalion to be truly "mechanized" not just the guns but a very large part of the battery/battalion must be mechanized. It does no good to get the guns across 20 miles of sandy dessert if half of the radios, field phones, and meteorological section are left behind. Every sub unit or section in the Battery/battalion needs the same mobility.
Somebody once said the shells are the weapon, the guns are just the delivery system. An artillery howitzer or gun is expected to fire 5000-10,000 rounds before needing a new liner. Towing un-armored trailers of ammo behind the tracked armored SP gun is a sure indicator that something wasn't planned well. Granted proper use of even armored SP guns calls for them to thousands of yards from the front lines.
Artillery fire often calls for time fuses and in the case of howitzers instead of guns, zone charges. towed guns have 6 or more in the gun crew in order to handle all the tasks, A GOOD SP artillery piece is going to have room for a gun crew of 4-6 men to work and serve the gun including ammo preparation. This means more than one loader. One man cannot unpack, fuse, adjust fuse timing and load the gun while keeping up any sort of rapid fire rate. Having to adjust the zone charges on Howitzers just adds to the confusion/slows the rate of fire.
Armored boxes on the top of tank hulls are fine for putzing around but as the British found with the Bishop: Bishop (artillery) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
They are far, far from ideal.
The Sexton may have been less than ideal ( no top cover, not as much ammo as desired, height made bombing up difficult, more?) but a battery of Sextons could provide fire to a much, much larger area than even several batteries of Bishops. Which is the better buy?
In peace time take the time to get it right, To much time,effort, and money was spent on half-**sed solutions that were "cheap" but of dangerously limited actual ability.
Tomo, a more "practical" SP gun for 1938-39 would be to take the A9, and much like the Archer 17pdr, turn it around so that the gun is pointed back over the engine deck. Use the 18pdr MK V Mount so you have 25 degrees traverse each way (or within vehicle limits) without moving the vehicle. 8 degrees of traverse is a joke. Now you have the room from the turret and mg turrets (and driver vacating his seat) for the gun crew to work. Much more room than a MK IV light tank lashup. More ammo on the vehicle.
When the Germans were converting those left over British and French chassis, not only did they not have enough tracked chassis of their own, or trucks, they didn't even have enough horses go around. Any way of moving a gun was an improvement over not moving it.
Much artillery fire is not done at the maximum rate of fire but limiting your peak rate of fire because of a too small vehicle is a problem that CAN be avoided in peace time.
While the entire ammunition supply doesn't need the same mobility as the guns there is usually a lot more ammunition than people think. In 1914 the "official" ammo supply for an 18pdr gun was 24 rounds on the gun limber, 152 rounds on ammo wagons in the battery, 76 rounds in the Brigade ammunition column, 126 rounds in the Division ammunition column for a total of 378 rounds on transport. A further 150 rounds were in Divisional ammunition parks and another 472 rounds in ordnance depots. These was supposed to be the allotment per gun in the field and not including storage in home depots or factories. How close they came I have no idea and a number of revisions happened as to what ammo was kept were as the war went on.