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CIA Analysis of Soviet ordnance metallurgy from the GPW


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Going clear back to when CMBO was in development, there has been a lot of effort put forth trying to properly understand the nitty gritty of Panzer armor, an effort which I believe far eclipses far harder to get info on the Soviet side of things, though quite a bit of work went into understanding terminal effectiveness of vs Russian AP projectiles and their various limitations and causes thereof. Happily, while looking into T-34 books, this popped up, and am I glad it did! This thing is gold clean through. It looks at gun barrels, armor plate and shells. It's got such things as US analyses of armor samples taken form a T-34 and KV-1 sent to the US by the Soviets and some of the scariest live fire comparison tests ever. If you think I'm exaggerating, take a look at what happened when the Soviet cast iron 82 mm mortar projectile went against our own steel 81 mm mortar projectile. Tests against 1" thick pine witness boards found the Soviet mortar shell put out an almost incomprehensible 9 X more hits  and 8.1 X more total perforations at 40 feet as a result of a hurricane of shell fragments our 81 couldn't begin to match. No wonder Ivan was in love with mortars! Artillery shells using cast iron or steel bodies are also covered.  As for tanks,, coverage is much more than the early T-34 and Kv-1, in fact extending through the IS-2,. It delves into AP shells and shot, including arrowhead, where direct comparisons are made between it and US HVAP down to the level of tungsten carbide core weights. This paper can be read readily, but the level of technical information is eye watering, a condition worsened by the fact that the text was typed and that this was microfilmed, making reading fine print in the tables exciting and making the photos hard to see in the bargain. This was originally SECRET, with a distribution which was a Who's Who of American military ordnance. If Herr Tom loses his mind reading this paper, I'm not responsible!

http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/011426.pdf

Paper Presented at Meeting on
Trends in Soviet Metallurgical Developments

Central Intelligence Agency Washington 25, D. C.

I!

16 April 1953

Regards,

John Kettler

 

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2 hours ago, John Kettler said:

f you think I'm exaggerating, take a look at what happened when the Soviet cast iron 82 mm mortar projectile went against our own steel 81 mm mortar projectile. Tests against 1" thick pine witness boards found the Soviet mortar shell put out an almost incomprehensible 9 X more hits  and 8.1 X more total perforations at 40 feet as a result of a hurricane of shell fragments our 81 couldn't begin to match. No wonder Ivan was in love with mortars!

On the topic of Combat Mission, I wonder if such ordnance differences are reflected in the game, or if all 81mm mortars are made equal?

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After reading that, I find myself wondering how the Germans held out as long as they did in the face of such stupendously lethal mortar fire. Suspect it had a lot to do with the way the Russians handled their artillery in general, lack of flexibility, long response times (if not completely tied to a fire plan) and other degrading factors in theoretical mortar and artillery performance. Because of lower projectile stresses and thinner case walls for mortar bombs, I'd expect that the rifled FA wouldn't be anywhere nearly as bad as the mortars, even with cast iron shells.

Regards,

John Kettler

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