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Semovente 90/53 Ammo Question


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According to good old Wikipedia, the Semovente 90/53 could only carry 6 shells. Each vehicle was therefore attended by an ammo carrying L6/40 tank in action carrying extra shells internally and in a trailer. As this vehicle is not included in the TO&E list and as no feature allowing vehicle to vehicle ammo sharing has been mentioned (unless I've missed it), would I be right in assuming that the ammo capacity of the 90/53 will be increased to compensate?

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Wikipedia may be wrong about that, simply judging by the number of holes in the ammo racks in the two lockers beneath the gun. The vehicle in the game comes with 13 rounds, which I suppose is 12 in the lockers and one already 'up the spout'. 9 AP and 3 HE in my example. I don't know if that ratio varies. Semovente 90 is such a peculiar beast that things had to be abstracted a bit to get into the game. For example nobody actually jumps down from his seat to run around back and load the gun, standing out in the open. There's no provision in game code to accommodate a seperate weapons trailer or ammo supply vehicle because, besides this one vehicle, there was no need. Maybe M12 155mm horwitzer motor carriage would need its ammo vehicle too, but we're unlikely to see it show up in the game.

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Thanks for satisfying my curiosity. I would say abstraction is prefferable to ommission in this case, especially as this is probably the only Italian vehicle that should be able to reliably threaten the Sherman at long range. On the other hand it would obviously have been great to see some special features implemented to really bring this 'peculiar beast' to life. For example, a deploy weapon type of command which would cause the crew to dismount and move to the rear of the vehicle to operate the gun or an ammo carrying vehicle with ammunition sharing capability. Of course, I understand that this would be a lot of effort to make for one rather obscure vehicle. To be honest, I'm still not quite over the shock that we will actually be getting a CM:FI.

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MikeyD,

Glad it's in, but I would've preferred to see it modeled as it was, just as I would've liked to have seen the platoon ammo trailer for M10s, carts for infantry weapons, motorcycles, bicycles and, yes, horses and mules depicted. Am very grateful for all the goodies we do have, but given the present level of detail, I feel it important to raise the issue of the continued absence of elevation and depression modeling in AFVs and presumably other direct fire weapons. This is important stuff, as is properly depicting the very real blind spots around AFVs.

Regards,

John Kettler

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I've got a Sicily reference pict that seems to indicate at least eight stowed rounds in those floor lockers. Maybe BFC fudged the numbers slightly to compensate for no ammo resupply. Or maybe they just have better reference material than me. I've been burned by Wikipedia too many times, myself. :)

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True, wikipedia can't really be taken as gospel. I've been trying to find more info about the 90/53 as this vehicle intrigues me but I havn't been abe to locate any detailed accounts of its operation so far-just some brief descriptions. Can I ask where you came accross the picture you mentioned?

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Guys, it is a self propelled artillery piece, not a tank.

The US Priest, UK Sexton, the German Hummel and Wespe are the comparables.

It should really show up as an indirect fire module. If any ever got within LOS of the enemy, it was doing something deeply wrong. Way too valuable a weapon system to waste dueling vanilla medium tanks. The things should be throwing 1000 rounds apiece over the horizon instead. With a whole ammo team operating to fuze shells and cut variable charges and all the rest of it...

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Ah, no ... I don't think so. I'm pretty sure it was explicitly designed to put their best AA gun on a tracked and armoured(ish) chassis to provide them with a semi-decent AT gun. It's peers are the Marder, the Deacon, and the 75 mm GMC M3.

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It's a bit of both. It wasn't suitable for close range engagements that the Italian would have forced it to so it ended up being used solely as self-propelled artillery. But the original intent was to field it as a long range heavy anti-tank weapon, and in the North African plains this was possible. It was also meant to be used against Russian heavy tanks in the steppe, but was never sent to East Front.

It wasn't very well suited for any kinds of mobile operations because as noted it needed an ammo carrier for more than the 2x 4 shell boxes I believe were carried aboard, and only the commander and driver drove onboard the vehicle when it was moved from one position to another, the others rode on the ammo carrier. I suppose the gunner's and loader's seats were not very comfortably placed, literally hanging outside the back of the vehicle...

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Italian certainly do have some 'novel' weapons designs. A 47mm anti-tank gun without a gun shield that you remove the wheels to emplace it. Plus it can elevate to +56 degrees serve as an anti-aircraft weapon too! :eek:

I'm pretty sure that it did have a shield, it just wasn't used much. And the British 2-pr had the same remove-the-wheels aesthetic going on.

The AA thing is a bit ecclectic though, even though we see the flipside (AA used in a ground role) quite often.

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