Why did the British airforce adopted highly similar Hurricane and Spitfire at the same time?

[Stig1207]

18 Oct 1941 is the first mention I see of Bf 109F (That is the first mention i see of Bf 109F but I maybe missed something? I thought F2 were there for a while before F4

JG27 converted from Emil's to 109F4's; the only 109F2's operated in North Africa were by a Jabo staffel, probably not before 1942 as I remember it. Books are in storage so I can't check.
Btw, I my vol. 1 of the MAW series also has pages that are loose and falling out

 

[Geoffrey Sinclair]

I would note that the British pre war thinking hamstrung the British tanks. ... Maybe not all the time but the the practice of "The Charge" wasn't that that the tankers had not progressed past cavalry sabre thinking but they actually had a understanding of what the capabilities of their weapons were

Agreed it is never just one thing. The allies in the desert were fighting two different armies and although the Italian artillery was widely respected the average Italian infantry formation and to an extent armoured formation lacked artillery and anti tank fire power, more so than an allied infantry formation, so a charge could work quite well. The trouble being the persistent idea that tanks alone could do it and falling into traps pursuing an apparently retreating enemy instead of falling back into supported positions or even having that option as part of a coherent division let alone corps. Apart from what the armoured units did the doctrine resulted in plenty of infantry units putting in requests for tanks when German tanks were spotted or thought to be spotted or thought to be on the way, which did not help the idea of concentrated armour or the impression the infantry units made on the armoured ones. The desert offered few natural defences against a tank attack, your unit needed enough artillery and anti tank guns, I am not sure what the balance of firepower and defensive power would be if a panzer division hit an allied infantry division with only light field positions dug but I doubt it was good for the infantry.

The British decision on how far apart to lay rail tracks restricted the width of loads able to be carried therefore restricted the size of tank turret rings therefore the size/power of guns mounted. The defeats of 1940 meant the ready to go 6 pounder was put on hold, leaving the tanks with 2 pounders in the desert until 1942. All the cruiser tank designs came with Close Support options, the 3.7 inch howitzer, but doctrine said tanks fight tanks. Despite this the official organisation of an armoured brigade in 1940 had 166 tanks including 18 CS but it does not look like many CS versions made it to the desert. In early 1942 the Middle East tried an armoured brigade group with 3 battalions of tanks, 1 of infantry, 1 of artillery, plus 1 AT and 1 LAA batteries and the Grant was in service. As well as the armoured brigades there were tank brigades meant as infantry support and they were generally better at it.

The British had near zero armoured experience compared with the Germans, 1st Armoured was shipped to France but too late, there were other tank units present in France but they were meant as infantry support.

Operation Compass was the main source of information and those people were sent back and dispersed to be replaced by inexperienced forces. The loss of O'Conner did not help. Matildas in 1940/41 did very well as they were near immune to the normal anti tank guns leading to the idea that could keep advancing and in fact lead the attack. Rommel had to deal with the British counter attack in France, learning the value of the 88mm and when ordering his tanks to counter attack, being lured into a well done anti tank gun defence to stop such counter attacks.

The first Rommel attack mostly destroyed the British armoured units there, Brevity and Battleaxe lasted days and were heavy defeats of the forces involved, ending Matilda lead attacks. Then came Crusader, showing up defects at all levels as the allied force had grown from 1 corps to 2. Gazala at last saw the tanks have an effective HE ability in numbers but not in doctrine, plus the disadvantage the Grant could not go hull down to use the 75mm. Then on the first morning of Rommel's attack the concentrated DAK confronts sequentially 2 infantry and 2 armoured brigades, defeating each in turn as the allied high command kept to its belief Rommel was coming from the north, not south. Attempts to attack Rommel later in the battle had the same co-ordination problems.

I'd love to know exactly how many in 1940, 41, 42, but a reinforced division isn't 25,000 troops. Closer to half that especially if they aren't all at full strength. And we know that Crete was taken in 13 days exclusively with paratroopers (vs 40,000 defenders).

This is making it all about a working backwards from a conclusion, more airpower is the answer. I made the reinforced division comment with respect to the infantry only and in any case that failed to take into account the number of battalions, in fact the infantry at Malta was around 15 battalions, or the infantry equivalent of a weak corps. Also the state of the defenders at Crete including the thousands without weapons has been listed, but we still have the headline number, while trying to come up with reasons to take the headline number at Malta and reduce it. The allied position in Crete was worse than the position in Malta across the board, organised armed troops, supplies, heavy weapons, AA defences and defensive positions. It then comes down to how much damage can be done in the time available to attack the Malta defences. Also when it comes to an amphibious assault the main killers of the assault waves are the beach defences, not shore batteries, think Omaha. There would be few places in Malta where paratroopers could land without being in machine gun and rifle range during the descent.

Destroying or negating the shore batteries enables better naval gunfire support, then comes making sure the warships do not mess up the landing craft formations while trying to provide support, everything is moving, and having a system of trusted forward and/or air observers able to call in and direct the fire. So how good was this system in the Italian navy in 1942? Also how about the allied navy attitude at Normandy survival of invasion first, survival of ship second. The Germans had a good air support system in daylight, provided they could keep the communication links going and had enough aircraft able to do the mission well enough to overcome the invasion troops lack of heavy weapons. Remembering the need for follow up waves, with each wave hopefully expanding the bridge head enough to enable the next to land better organised and so able to fight better.

If you really want to decide the strength of the Malta defences look at Orders of Battle : Second World War, 1939-1945 / prepared by Lieutenant-Colonel. H. F. Joslen, 2 volumes, which tracks the British Army in WWII at battalion level. Things like the Falkland Island defences are in there.

The allies put a huge amount of effort into amphibious warfare and did a lot of learning from the assaults they did building to the big one of Overlord. Doing Overlord with 1942 allied amphibious doctrine would not be pleasant or nearly as successful.

Matildas were nice tanks for very early WW2, but look how long they lasted in the major battles in North Africa

How many 88 mm were coming with either the paratroops or the first amphibious assault waves?

Their lopsided victories, especially on the attack, came down largely to air power. (This is why they were so overly focused on dive bombing with regard to design planning in this era IMO, because they knew how key the Stuka had been to their early so-called "Blitzkrieg" victories ... which I know is a misnomer so don't go correcting me).

That statement is a main reason the Luftwaffe took on the Battle of Britain, that it was airpower that did it, one attack to destroy the target, move onto the next.

Not a Polish army lacking heavy weapons, badly outnumbered, being attacked on a wide front and for the inevitable reasons trying to defend the whole country, not falling back to better and shorter defences.

Not an allied High Command in France with minimal communication links, which meant by the time the command figured out where the Germans were they weren't, plus a ponderous staff system that meant orders issued were usually relevant to the situation the previous day or earlier. An allied army not trained in mobile warfare, then reserve formations not properly trained by the April 1940 standards and certainly not trained to deal with concentrated air attack.

Not a Soviet command purged of its best and handed stay and fight orders, or like the allies in France, sending orders that made sense a day or days ago, but not now. The German 1942 offensive in the USSR actually didn't capture that many prisoners, the lessons about timely withdrawal to avoid encirclement had been learnt.

6) Can't tanks shoot smoke or use machine guns or back away, or call in artillery?

Yes they can. If they have smoke mortars. If their machine gun is working and can hit the target (if they can see the target). If they can back away faster than the enemy tank or anti-tank gun can sight in and shoot them. Yes if the artillery can hit precisely where the enemy AT guns are before they can aim and shoot their gun.

The answer your own question format is not helping. In the desert any movement churned up lots of dust, making its own smoke screen. The reality is the towed anti tank guns could remain invisible to the tanks until well within killing range and they did, far more than the tanks managed to get out of the trap or call down accurate artillery to stop or defeat the anti tank guns. How long do you think it took to call in artillery on average? Then who was going to guide the fire onto the hostile positions?

In 1941 the allied infantry and artillery forces in the desert put the foundations down for the good wartime doctrine, forward observers with authority, artillery and infantry formations matched. The armour did not.

Air Power at the Battle Front by Gooderson uses the allied surveys and reports to give a good picture of the strengths and weaknesses of close support.

 

[Wild_Bill_Kelso]

JG27 converted from Emil's to 109F4's; the only 109F2's operated in North Africa were by a Jabo staffel, probably not before 1942 as I remember it. Books are in storage so I can't check.
Btw, I my vol. 1 of the MAW series also has pages that are loose and falling out

Thanks, i was a bit confused by that... and in a way, beyond confused. I think I had constructed a false memory of F2s being with JG 27 for at least a while.. but the Jabo staffel thing explains it. I knew I had seen one in Desert tan...

Yeah and quite frustrating about MAW I, the other volumes were from a different printer and don't seem to have this problem.

 

[Clayton Magnet]

In fact later on in 1944, quite a few US tanks operating on Western Europe had their .30 cal machine guns removed and replaced with M2 heavys, which I can imagine must have caused a lot of problems (noise inside the tank for one thing). But an HMG can for example dismantle buildings in a way that a .30 cal cannot. Some crews wanted that.

The M2 .50 cal machine guns on American tanks in WW2 were put there for local anti-aircraft defense, not for dismantling buildings, although I am sure they were used for many different roles. The commander would have to almost completely expose himself to operate the gun, so hunkering down and hoping the airplanes miss might have been a more effective and survivable option

 

[Shortround6]

.50 cal ammo takes around 4 times as much space to store as .30 cal ammo. A tank has a fixed amount of storage space inside.
If you need to dismantle a building............................
USE THE MAIN GUN.........................................................
IT IS WHAT THE HIGH EXPLOSIVE SHELLS ARE FOR!!!



Don't confuse modern tactics (limited main gun ammo storage and sometimes trying to limit damage to nearby buildings) to WW II tactics.

 

[Wild_Bill_Kelso]

yes in theory they were all AA weapons, in practice they were used for anti-personnel and against vehicles and buildings etc., mainly from long range. Originally as mounted these were also really only useable from outside and behind the turret, making whoever was doing the shooting even more exposed.

later on they started moving the pintle mount to the front so it could be used from halfway out of the hatch, I think this started in the field.

I don't know what the timeline was for these changes, which actually varied from unit to unit. But I do know that the heavy machine gun was used quite a bit in spite of the inconvenience and risk of shooting it from the exposed position.

 

[Shortround6]

Picture smacks more of fun than combat. Not expecting much in the way of return fire.
.50 cal bouncing around on a pintle mount vs .30 cal inside the turret aimed with the main gun sight.
Guy using the .50 isn't even using the sight/s. Good thing the Americans had plenty of ammo.

 

[Wild_Bill_Kelso]

.50 cal ammo takes around 4 times as much space to store as .30 cal ammo. A tank has a fixed amount of storage space inside.
If you need to dismantle a building............................
USE THE MAIN GUN.........................................................
IT IS WHAT THE HIGH EXPLOSIVE SHELLS ARE FOR!!!



Don't confuse modern tactics (limited main gun ammo storage and sometimes trying to limit damage to nearby buildings) to WW II tactics.

Sure but use your imagination a bit here.

The main gun can jam or be disabled.
It can run out of HE ammunition.
Not all vehicles even have a cannon or howitzer, but may have one of these heavy machine guns. Certainly in the US heavy machine guns were increasingly prevalent.
You may be faced with multiple targets (for example, the tank or AFV can be shooting at say, another tank, when a panzerfaust team creeps up, or a light AT gun starts shooting)
etc.

 

[Wild_Bill_Kelso]

Picture smacks more of fun than combat. Not expecting much in the way of return fire.

They were used this way in combat a lot. This shouldn't be news to you. This may mean they are at long range (probably) and that the enemy is suppressed by a bunch of shooting.

.50 cal bouncing around on a pintle mount vs .30 cal inside the turret aimed with the main gun sight.

Things are only bouncing if the tank is moving. Even though some US tanks had gyrostabilizers they did most of their shooting after stopping.

Guy using the .50 isn't even using the sight/s. Good thing the Americans had plenty of ammo.

As with most ordinance expended during war, especially WW2, probably most of it wasn't going anywhere near the target. But they may have been keeping some heads down. Or they may have been killing them. You don't need to use the sights when you can see you are hitting what you are shooting at, and it doesn't take long to sort that out with a pintle mounted machine gun.

 

[EwenS]

yes in theory they were all AA weapons, in practice they were used for anti-personnel and against vehicles and buildings etc., mainly from long range. Originally as mounted these were also really only useable from outside and behind the turret, making whoever was doing the shooting even more exposed.

View attachment 701781

later on they started moving the pintle mount to the front so it could be used from halfway out of the hatch, I think this started in the field.

View attachment 701782

I don't know what the timeline was for these changes, which actually varied from unit to unit. But I do know that the heavy machine gun was used quite a bit in spite of the inconvenience and risk of shooting it from the exposed position.

Depends on the turret and cupola fitted. This is from the Nov 1942 M4/M4A1 manual. Note the location of the mount on the front rim of cupola. The earliest Shermans at El Alamein had this fitting with the 0.5" gun fitted to it.

The picture you posted is of a late war M4A3E8(76) with vision cupola.

There were a large number of variations in the turrets designs and fittings during the Sherman production run. Nut and bolt detail over at Sherman Minutia site.

Sherman minutia homepage

 

[Shortround6]

The main gun can jam or be disabled.
It can run out of HE ammunition.

Then get the heck out of Dodge. Pull back, resupply and get back in the fight. It is a team effort, If the battle or skirmish depends on one vehicle with nearly empty ammo racks/bins things are in a pretty sorry state. Last tank firing out of a Platoon or company? Somebody screwed the pooch a while back.

Load from US Army manual.
740 rounds of .50 cal ammo.
7,750 rounds of .30 cal ammo.
540 rounds of .45 ammo for the sub machine gun
10-22 grenades
14-24 anti-tank mines
Depends on exact model, one type had a bit longer body than the other.
Version with two water cooled M 1917s carried a huge quantity as .30 cal ammo.

The stabilizers only worked on the main gun mount. Not the bow gun or any gun mounted on top of the turret.

Any gun bounces on a pintle mount, gun is hinged close to the CG, There were recoil absorbing mounts, those pictures don't have them

 

[Greg Boeser]

The M2 .50 cal machine guns on American tanks in WW2 were put there for local anti-aircraft defense, not for dismantling buildings, although I am sure they were used for many different roles. The commander would have to almost completely expose himself to operate the gun, so hunkering down and hoping the airplanes miss might have been a more effective and survivable option

Audie Murphy must not have gotten that memo. Then again, he was dismantling German infantry, not buildings.

 

[Wild_Bill_Kelso]

usually shooting the buildings is so you can get the infantry...

 

[Wild_Bill_Kelso]

Then get the heck out of Dodge. Pull back, resupply and get back in the fight. It is a team effort, If the battle or skirmish depends on one vehicle with nearly empty ammo racks/bins things are in a pretty sorry state. Last tank firing out of a Platoon or company? Somebody screwed the pooch a while back.

You don't always have that option. Battles don't always go the way you expect. How many units got overrun in Second El Alamein? In the first? At Tobruk? All the other battles in North Africa?

The point is, all the machine guns give you options. Extra ways to suppress targets. An enemy tank or big AT gun may be the main threat that the crew is focused on (and whichever way the gun is pointing is going to be where the coax is pointing) but the bow gun and the "AA" gun can target completely different potential enemies. A smaller AT gun or a panzerfaust team creeping up. Or some guy with an MG 42 just plastering friendly infantry. Or an artillery spotter. Or an armored car or one of those cannon-armed halftracks the Germans had.

You don't actually even have to hit them, because if a machine gun (especially a heavy machine gun) is shooting around or near them that may be enough to 'suppress' the target so they focus mainly on not dying and either fleeing or trying to squeeze into the ground for cover vs. actually using their weapon. Then when the main gun is finished engaging their first target (if the tank is still 'alive') they can turn the turret and hit the new one.

View attachment 701790
Load from US Army manual.
740 rounds of .50 cal ammo.
7,750 rounds of .30 cal ammo.
540 rounds of .45 ammo for the sub machine gun
10-22 grenades
14-24 anti-tank mines
Depends on exact model, one type had a bit longer body than the other.
Version with two water cooled M 1917s carried a huge quantity as .30 cal ammo.

They also usually carried a bazooka with 3 rounds by some time in 1943. So what?

The stabilizers only worked on the main gun mount. Not the bow gun or any gun mounted on top of the turret.

Any gun bounces on a pintle mount, gun is hinged close to the CG, There were recoil absorbing mounts, those pictures don't have them

That's a fair point but it's probably not bouncing around as much as it might on a tripod. Either way it's not that hard to hit targets quite far away with a pintle mounted .50 cal, that's why they are so popular today, from the US army down to third world militias.

 

[Shortround6]

Audie Murphy must not have gotten that memo. Then again, he was dismantling German infantry, not buildings.

Audie Murphy didn't have a choice. The US tank destroyers didn't have co-ax guns, (vehicle was on fire so going inside wasn't a good option either.)
The only machine gun was the .50.

One guy wins the Medal of Honor (deservedly) with the .50 and the US Army is stuck with it for the next 70+ years.

 

[Wild_Bill_Kelso]

I don't think that was down to the one guy. Almost every US Army, Marine or even Coast Guard veteran I know loves the M2.

More importantly, the general consensus both among ground troops and leadership during WW2 was that they were very useful. Hence, more and more of them on every vehicle in sight.

The Germans also talked about them being a problem. Not just the usual weird nickname kind of thing either.

 

[SaparotRob]

Picture smacks more of fun than combat. .

Fifties are fun.

 

[SaparotRob]

usually shooting the buildings is so you can get the infantry...

Crunchy on the outside, chewy on the inside.

 

[Shortround6]

More importantly, the general consensus both among ground troops and leadership during WW2 was that they were very useful. Hence, more and more of them on every vehicle in sight.

And yet NOT used by the British on anything they built during WW II or in the over 70 years since.
And yet NOT used by the Germans on anything they built during 65 years since Germany could build their own stuff.
And yet NOT used by the French on anything they built during 70 years since they could build their own stuff.
And yet NOT used by the Italians on anything they built during 70 years since they could build their own stuff.
Or the Swedes....................................................
Get the idea??

USA right, rest of the world wrong?

 

[Clayton Magnet]

Audie Murphy didn't have a choice. The US tank destroyers didn't have co-ax guns, (vehicle was on fire so going inside wasn't a good option either.)
The only machine gun was the .50.

One guy wins the Medal of Honor (deservedly) with the .50 and the US Army is stuck with it for the next 70+ years.

I am unfamiliar with the described action, and just read the wiki description. Did Murphy continuously reload the M2 while under fire? As far as I understood, the mounted M2 would have only had 50 round belts in each can. Single handedly operating what is normally a crew served weapon, whilst trying to manage cumbersome ammo boxes, while under fire, and injured, seems like a movie script.
Wow