JasonC

I like the idea in general, and Jeffs version of it seems to me practical. Perhaps a range of 50% strength to 100% (below that, they'd tend to consolidate with other beaten-up units tactically), with the endpoints rare, perhaps slightly "weighted" upward. Roughly, you'd get - 3 squads 3 squads down a few men (0-2 each) 2 squads and weapon team (e.g. MG) 2 squads 2 squads down a few men (0-2 each) For vehicle platoons, 3-5 for 5 vehicle size, 2-3 for 3-4 vehicle size would be possible. Designers already do this sometimes. And in operations, between battle reorganizations can hand you units down several men - sometimes as many as 5, even. The idea would be to just offer it as a setting, and when it is on buying a platoon of whosits would put in the units screen, instead of the full TOE a randomly "reduced" one, with the prices adjusted in some appropriate manner for what one actually received. As for his mixed quality idea, that could be easily handled by "rolling" per unit at the some time of choice, with perhaps a 10-15% chance of -1 quality and that same of +1, compared to the overall unit quality level. 70-80% of the units would be the quality level specified, but they'd vary from platoon to platoon. Since they'd go in at the unit choice time, the player would see the lower cost paid, and have a chance to add a team or 4th platoon to try to make up his strength. But he'd wind up with a more varied unit organization, in effect. Instead of always having platoons exactly equivalent to each other when buying a company, etc.

Right Grunto IV. Sure. "Whether or not America enters the war is a matter of indifference, inasmuch as she supports our opponent with all the power she is able to mobilize. The situation in England itself is bad; the provision of food and raw materials is growing steadily more difficult. The martial spirit to make war, after all, lives only on hopes. These hopes are based solely on two assumptions: Russia and America. We have no chance of eliminating America. But it does lie in our power to exclude Russia. The elimination of Russia means, at the same time, a tremendous relief for Japan in East Asia, and thereby the possibility of a much stronger threat to American activities through Japanese intervention." Hitler to Mussolini, explaining the reason for Barbarossa. Privately. "This has brought us to the hour when it is necessary for us to take steps against this plot devised by the Jewish Anglo-Saxon warmongers and equally the Jewish rulers of the Bolshevist center in Moscow." To the German people. Publicly.

I think the TOE given fits AA work as the original reason for the 50 cal assignments. I'll go through it and explain why I think that. "each infantry battalion would only be allotted 2, which resided in the battalion HQ." That would be the tactical operations center. Radio traffic in and out. Signals intel triangulates, so a possible air target. But not easy to do. Also far enough forward to be identified by ground observation, then targeted. "three each in the AT and Cannon companies." Cannon company - firing indirect. Radio traffic and flash-sound ranging for counterbattery. Another potential air target. AT company - a bit less clear. But the blitzkrieg idea was though to involve armor attacks supported by airstrikes. The ATGs are obviously essential to stopping armor. So if the planes are trying to clear them and coordinate with the tanks closely in real time, then a potential air target. A bit paranoid, but my point is, they were. "The artillery brigade within the division held 89(!) of them" 12 firing batteries (4 battalions) and five tactical HQs (4 battalions and one for the regiment), plus ammo dumps. When you think of it as ~4 50 cal for each possible tactical target, it doesn't seem like such overkill. As AA, that is. You can also, incidentally, see the sort of logic that pushed them toward te ridiculously high number of planned AA battalions at one point. The number of points that -might- face air attack is huge. Also, these units would see much of the radio traffic of the division, and also the obvious -located- points in the rear area for air to go after. Ammo dumps are another potential target for obvious reasons. "the engineer battalion had 12 (one per platoon and 3 in HQ)" Bridges. Obvious enough. So, it seems to me quite clear the -TOE- role envisioned for 50 cals was close-in air defense of division positions, that might be particular targets for light bombers or fighter-bombers. While some would use them that way at first, everybody quickly found that the Luftwaffe was basically a no-show. Then they have all these splendid 50s - but they are too darn heavy to lug around in the infantry, and there are no targets for them in the air above. So what happens to them? I think what happens to them is everybody and his brother mounts one on a vehicle, "shotgun" style. For road column, at first it would be an air defense measure still. Drive across France, though, and you will wind up using them on any number of roadblocks and such. After not very long, people are used to the idea of bringing up the "wagon" to hose down the injuns, whenever they get into trouble. I doubt they all stay in the artillery batteries, either. Some, certainly. Some probably come forward while some newly liberated wine goes to the rear. Messy I know, and not the kind of precision answer you are after. I doubt there is a correct one. The lessons learned reports in Italy regularly speak of the assigned 50 cals, but if you look at the ammo being supplied and expended, it is tiny compared to the 30s. In the battle reports in France, you often hear about the intervention of 1-2 vehicle mounted 50 cals turning a firefight around. I think their front line use was probably ad hoc. TOE or tactical-thought pressure to send them forward dismounted would be resisted for the weight and ammo reasons already mentioned and remain ineffective, as far as the leg infantry were concerned. TOE ideas of using them in the rear for air defense were outdated and irrelevant. They probably gravitated to the vehicles that could carry them around without putting anyone out, and that everyone had some access to, one way or another. Then they got used often, but ad hoc. It is a messy reconstruction and involves plenty of supposition and guesswork. But it is the picture of their role I think is realistic and meets the various known facts about them. In CM terms, a company may have 0-3 jeep MGs, with 1-2 more common - that would be my guess. [ 06-07-2001: Message edited by: JasonC ]

"I dont give a damn what you think either." Is the stuff on your site then "what you think"? That is not, after all, the way it is presented. But perhaps you merely refer to my comments about not caring what the origin of the obvious propaganda in those sections, was. "You might want to attend a university or college & study your subjects" I study at the University of Chicago. I've studied with John J. Mearsheimer on security issues. If you haven't heard of him, he is a leading "realist" international relations prof who wrote the book "Conventional Deterrence", among other things. I also worked with Hein Goemez when he was a graduate student, who I consider something of an authority on both WW I and issues of war termination, if you care; he now teaches at Duke. As for being able to spot propaganda, my field is political science. I don't consider it any requirement of decency or of anything else, to only discuss your publications in private, rather than in public. After all, when you publish something, on the web or elsewhere, inviting public thought about it, and comment on it, is sort of the entire point. I tell not only you, but everyone who might be interested here, that I don't believe the stuff in one part of your site. You react as though people may not disbelieve any particular thing you happen to publish, which is quite silly. As for hiding behind filial piety, I'm afraid that does not begin to wash. I don't know you to have had any relation with anyone, who did or did not write, at the time or later, any account that you claim to present snippets of, edited who knows how by you, or censored who knows how by officials at the time, or composed for what purpose by the author or authors, whenever. I don't need to, in order to conclude that the content of the JS section of your site is propaganda. Whose, is quite immaterial to me. Perhaps it is yours by wholesale fabrication. Perhaps it is yours merely by selective editing. Perhaps it was some prior editor's, or the author's. It is entirely possible some man sat down and deliberately wrote propaganda at any time from the actual events until the day before your site went up, but none of that changes the nature of the internal evidence. It is just bilge. [ 06-07-2001: Message edited by: JasonC ]

To Viceroy - I kinda like the Moody Blues too. But pray tell, what kind of person am I?

Here is my loose translation of the section on Normandy. The Panzer trooper loves his tank. The leader always sees what is coming. The Panzer trooper loves to fight. The German people love the war. The commanders know what the enemy will do, before the enemy does. The Panzer trooper loves his tank. Cliched anecdote of army life. The panzer trooper loves to fight. The panzer trooper usually fights all the time, tirelessly. Cliched attitude toward fresh meat. The panzer trooper is proud of his prowess. The panzer trooper always obeys orders. The panzer trooper takes care of his tank. It takes care of him. Cliched statement about tanker's tasks. German tanks are better. The Panzer trooper loves to fight. The panzer trooper is proud of his prowess. The panzer commander is proud of his men. The panzer trooper loves to fight. German soldiers know the heraldry of every other German unit. The western allies had superior airpower. Cliched attitude toward fresh meat. The panzer trooper loves to fight. The western allies had superior airpower. The German panzer always wins. The western allies had superior airpower. The panzer trooper is proud of his prowess. The panzer trooper usually fights every day, tirelessly. German tanks fire from ambush and remain unseen. The German panzer always wins. The western allies had superior airpower. The panzer commander always thinks ahead. The SS and Heer work together. The western allies had superior airpower. The panzer commander wins with his wits. The German panzer always wins. The French always run away. The western allies had superior airpower. Good service is always rewarded. Troopers are always humbled by awards. The German panzer always wins. The British are reckless with tanks. The western allies had superior airpower. All defeats in the west are the Luftwaffe's fault. Goering was a coward, that's why the Luftwaffe fails. The German panzer always wins. The British are reckless with tanks. The Russians were even dumber. The German panzer always wins. German tanks are better. The German panzer always wins. The British are reckless with tanks. All defeats in the west are the Luftwaffe's fault. Sometimes tanks break down. They never lose in action. Read that, and you've heard everything it actually says - or rather means. Anyone think that is important eyewitness testimony, instead of propaganda drivel?

Whether he is retailing somebody else's lies to him, or otherwise, I don't pretend to know, nor do I care. I just know that pack of stuff in the last J-S section is propaganda. If you haven't read it, you obviously have precious little input to offer either way on that judgment.

"I mean they never miss" Well, I've seen a Jabo make several passes at 1 Panzer IV, with great clouds of smoke and several loud bangs resulting. But when the dust cleared, that Pz IV was still spitting and prowling. So yeah, they miss sometimes. [ 06-07-2001: Message edited by: JasonC ]

East. The decisive battles are there, first of all. And the scope and variety of the actions are much greater, which increases interest and replay.

T-34s were produced before Barbarossa. Production started in July of 1940 - the prototypes were accepted at the tail end of 1939. Around 3000 were ordered before the invasion, most of those were made as "B" models sometime in 1941 (after a smaller run of "A"s that were buggy). One factory was in Kharkov and worked on them from the summer of 1940, while another in Gorki was added to the program in early 1941. They first saw action against the Germans in July of 1941, a couple of weeks into the invasion. Part of the production was shifted to the Urals during the invasion, and later Stalingrad became a major producer of them as well. The 1942 "C" model was the one produced in tens of thousands rather than thousands, in both 42 and 43. In '44, production switched to the T-34/85. The KV-1 was also a pre-invasion model, on essentially the same time scale. Its prototype was accepted in 1939 and production began in 1940. They were produced in Leningrad and the plant was later evacuated to the Urals. 636 were produced before the invasion, and another 728 by December. A small number of them were used in Finland in the winter war, more for combat trials and working out, than for operational results. The KV-2 was also produced in 1940, specifically to deal with Finnish fortifications - only a few hundred of those were produced.

To Stalin's Organ - That is exactly the problem - it is a sweeping history, not of the war but of later grog-hood and historical-political debating points. Every line of it has an obviously intended "moral" one is supposed to draw about a well known technical or political debate - every blessed line. Which is out of this world for real recollection of real experiences. Nobody cares about such things, while in the middle of fighting and expecting to die any day. But it is par for the course for propaganda. As for Michael's comment about trained to think that way, there may be some truth to it. But I have a simpler explanation of the tendency, which I prefer for Occam's razor reasons. Some of these fellows probably think it is some sort of -duty-, still, to present a certain version of things. You can call that "conditioned to think that way". I call it lying. Does the vet who says the Russians must have been about to attack need to really think so, to say so? Or to have thought so at the time? Has he bothered, or does he care, that historical records perfectly available to all by now, show pretty darn conclusively that it was not so at all, and the political surprise of Barbarossa was total? I don't think so. All he has to know is that is what Hitler said in every speech about the war with Russia from the day of the invasion until the final collapse. Over and over again. Which makes it the authorized version, whether he "believes it" or not. His duty is to say so. Belief as you or I understand it, as a relation of one's conscience to one's perceptions of the world, seems to have nothing to do with it whatever. What is the jocular definition of a diplomat? A man sent abroad to lie for his country. Well, some are "diplomats" to reality itself, from a world of fantasy. I am never in the least surprised by mendacity about events triggered by a movement that was the incarnation of mendacity from begining to end. But there is precious little point in fighting over such things all over again. I simply record that I don't believe a word of it, and rest.

Well, for what they are worth here are my impressions and opinions on this subject. The basis is many official histories usually on a higher scale, but that mention the role of MGs in fights, and some lessons-learned documents, especially from Italy, that detail the sort of field modifications used in practice. In general, the troops vastly preferred the M1919A4 air-cooled to either of the heavier guns. It was considered much handier, easier to carry and use. Compared to the 50 cal in particular, the much lighter ammo was also extremely important, as it allowed numerically much large total ammo loads for the same weight carried. The army assigned many 50 cals to small subunits, and to every sort of vehicle imaginable, primary for its superior -air defense- abilities. At the time the formation types and the whole army structure were planned out, the prestige of the German "blitzkrieg" was at its height. And popular understanding of it included a large emphasis on the role of the air force in supporting the rapid ground attacks. Being able to deal with enemy air attack was a topic very much on the minds of US army planners. The early US plans for the army involved levels of AA that are barely believable in restrospect. At one point, 400 AA battalions were planned for a 50 division army. As the air war was won, these ambitious to silly plans were scaled back, by a factor of two, then as much again. But I believe the abundant levels of 50 cals assigned down to small unit levels, largely reflect this earlier concern. Artillery batteries did not have lots of 50 cals to deal with enemy infantry or halftracks, but with Stukas - which never showed up for the party. All the 50 cals being around, they were of course put to use in ground action. But when the infantry could help it or choose, they put the 50s on vehicles and carried air-cooled 30 cals instead, because they could carry so much more ammo for them and thus get more firing done. Nobody wanted to carry the heavy foot 50s, nor the ammo, and they pointed out the waste involved in the effort to their superiors. The same level of physical effort just brought more infantry firepower in lighter 30 cal form. When a vehicle motor was going to do all the work, there was no objection to the M2. The water-cooled 30 cals, as I understand it, were meant to fufill the role of WW I MGs - denial of open areas on defense with industrial levels of ammo "thruput". As such, they were assigned to the -battalion- weapons company, rather than the -company- weapons platoon. That had been the level that had mattered in the previous war. A battalion in position with its water-cooled 30s amply supplied with ammo and dug in, could defy frontal attack by infantry, unless and until heavy weapons KO'ed the MGs. But they were not expected to be moved about as fast as the infantry moved. I think the reason they were not as common or as liked was that the US infantry was usually attacking, not defending in position. The front often moved only a small amount each day, but it generally moved. Battalion level supported with mortar fire from a distance, but the rest of its weapons - 57mm ATG as well as the MG platoon - were mostly positional and defensive, and when they moved did so by vehicle. The troops preferred a gun they could easily carry, because infantry does not only go places trucks or jeeps can go. In the Italy lessons reports, the things front line company and battalion commanders say are like this. Companies should bring only 2 mortars but bring more ammo for each of them, and leave the excess men on ammo detail to hump more forward. Bring all the 30 cal ammo you can carry, and enough air-cooled 30 cals to fire it all off. Bring the BARs and the zooks, and lots of grenades. Forget about anything heavier. Leave the 50s with the vehicles. Use the 57mm ATG men as extra riflemen. Leave the 81mm mortars someplace that can support, and move them up after each advance to a new position a ways back, trucking up their ammo. The clear implication is that the limit the total unit faces in combat power it can carry is -weight-, and especially weight of the -ammo-. MGs that can fire 10 times the bullets before overheating are irrelevant when the lighter ones can fire everything you can hump, already. MGs that fire bullets that weigh several times as much each are wasteful compared to more bullets. Extra tubes to fire off ammo faster are not needed very much - the thing is to have more bullets or shells to fire off, and enough tubes to push it through, and then to keep those tubes as light as possible in order to carry more ammo. In infantry fighting, the MGs and BARs do the ranged work, and grenades do the close work. I think one should use the M1917s when you are depicting a -battalion- position on the -defense-. They belong in the same sorts of fights 57mm ATGs belong in. When attacking, neither the 50 cals nor the M1917s belong with the attacking force. Extra 1919 MMGs and zooks should be used instead. In CM terms, take the items with "medium" speed or better. An attacking company may have 2-3 60mm mortars and up to 4 1919A4 MMGs and zooks (each). If you are editing the scenarios, use 2 60mm mortars and boost the ammo to maximum, around 50 rounds rather than 35. One might also boost the ammo per MMG to around 80 or 90. The essential point to grok is that how fast the ammo load could be fired was often tactically less important than the total size of the load. And there were direct trade offs between weight of heavy weapons carried, and weight of the ammo load carried. Fewer and lighter weapons with more ammo each, is the formula the front line troops were continually harping on to the brass. Some of that may reflect the conditions in Italy, with lots of steep hills to go up and down, including many places tactically critical where roads did not go. But the logic of it is pretty obvious. This does not mean the heavier types would not be used, just that they would be used in conditions where vehicles not men moved their ammo, and moved it to one spot then left them there, if possible. Which generally means defensive operations, or right along the roads - mounted on the vehicles themselves, or all of the above. In the after action reports, one hears again and again about the intervention of an M2 in a battle. But it is overwhelmingly the M2 "on the jeep", or "on the truck", or "on the halftrack", or roof mounted on the AFVs. One man's impressions, for what they are worth.

To Triumvir - At one time or another I checked out on every task on the M-109 and M-110 except driving the beasties. I also did special weapons detail for the M-110, which was mostly about security procedures (as in, don't let any of the wrong people anywhere near the 8" gas rounds, which incidentally we never had and I never saw LOL).

First to Michael, my comment about "light work" referred to the rest of the sequence of tasks the loader goes through to operate the M-109, besides actually putting in the shell. That includes #1 ramming the shell forward until seated properly in the tube, which in the M-109 is done hydraulically, with a telescoping "press" that swings down from the ceiling. Then #2 placing the powder in behind the shell. The #3 closing the breech, which is mostly accomplished by a spring-release, and finished off with a long vertical lever on the right side of the breech, that rotates the heavy breech block only the last few inches, smoothly. Then #4 priming the "touchhole" with a cartridge that detonates the powder, and sliding the touchhole mechanism closed. Then #5 attaching a lanyard to a loophole on the priming mechanism, and last #6 on order, smoothly pulling the lanyard. All of them are done rapidly and do tax agility and presence of mind, but none involve significant physical labor, in the sense of applying major effort with major muscle groups. The point was about cumulative fatigue on loaders. While doing all those things, the major muscles are effectively resting, much like walking around between repetitions when weight-lifting. By the time the next shell lift occurs, there has been perhaps 10 seconds of such "light" work. The point is that loaders are not engaged in lifting 100 lb shells continually over minutes or tens of minutes, which would indeed be tiring. The periodic heavy lifts, I said directly, do give you a decent work-out, just like weight reps do. But because these lifts are interspersed with lighter work, the whole effect is not all that tiring, over a period of 20-30 minutes (as I mentioned), or over the number of shells in typical fire missions or even carried on one gun. As for traveling, we generally sat on the floor with our backs up against the side of the vehicle, and the legs out in front into the middle. The arms are spread front and back to brace oneself, on the wall or the floor or both. One moves around a bit to prevent cramping up, of course, and going over terrain one sways certainly. We'd never try to fire an M-109 while it was moving, except the shell already loaded perhaps, at something so close and big it would be hard to miss (like the proverbial broad side of a barn). The army regs call for being able to conduct a battery-size hip shoot, fully "laid" to fire on coordinates only, within 2 minutes of reaching a position. But getting this time down to a minimum was one of the primary focuses of training, and my unit often managed to do so within 45 seconds, which was not particularly good by active-duty unit standards incidentally. This includes the "surveying" work of locating the howitzer and horizon points of aim (to let the FDC plot its position accurately by map triangulation - probably simply these days with GPS by the way), setting its sight compasses, dropping spades at the rear to anchor vs. the recoil, prepping a shell, etc. (The other time periods focused on in training were delivery of a certain size fire mission from order to last impact, and getting onto the road in "march order" to leave a battery position - something essential to do very fast in this era of counter-battery radars). All that is in the M-109 of course. In the ISU-152, the loader and assistant loader each had bench seats along the walls, left and right respectively. The loader side has a bit less room, because he is essentially sitting with his back leaning up against the ammo racks. The assistant is on the side of the gun with less room between breech and wall, but has a longer seating area. He would be less comfortable when the gun was parked and firing, more so when traveling, than the 1st loader. The IS-2 is different again. That has only one loader seated on the right side of the gun in the hull compartment, while the commander up in his turret seat is farther back. This would be easily for traveling - a seat facing the direction of motion always is - but his loading task would be somewhat harder. He had a few ready-rounds on small racks just to his right, but most of the shells were at the rear of the turret, and he would have to turn around and lower them down, etc. His seat could be folded out of the way while in action if desired, to have more room to stand and turn. In position, I bet it was most of the time, simply because one might trip over it when turning back around with a shell from the rear of the turret otherwise. So I bet the seat was only "up" for moving, or engagements of 4 shells or less (about), where the one in the tube and the few on the right would suffice. Longer positional shooting they'd probably get it out of the way to fire faster - perhaps losing a shot or two to make the switch, incidentally, after about the 4th round. As for ASL's document about engaging IS-2s, every aspect of it made sense to me and I find it very believable. The IS-2s backed number one up because Tigers had guns that could kill them from the front from close range, so they tried to open the range. The comment about only being willing to engage at 2 km, and then only from favorable cover, strikes me as simply sound tactics. The closer you are, the easier others find it to get flank shots, and close enough Tigers start getting front penetrations too. Whereas the 122 would penetrate 100mm boxy armor at long range if a hit was obtained. It doesn't matter too much if the hits get harder to obtain, if his don't kill you while yours do kill him. The points about coordination of the Tigers and use of platoon tactics, avoiding single commitment, also make obvious sense. With two Tigers standing off any appreciable distance from one another side to side, no IS-2 could afford to close. It would just give one of the pair a flank shot if it did. But a single Tiger this would no longer be true, and medium ranges (well more than 500m, probably 1km or more, but less than 2km), front aspect, easier hits at those ranges etc, would all favor the IS-2. I also agree with another fellow's comment that the best use of IS-2s was certainly not tank-dueling with German heavies. They wanted to hit where only German PAK or lighter StuGs and Marders, etc, were present to oppose them. As another (here I think) has put it, strategy is the art of avoiding a fair fight. The place an attacker wants his ~20 IS-2s is where there -aren't- sufficient heavy AT weapons to oppose them, not where there are some.

It was indeed the J-S stuff that struck me as bad fiction and very thin. Some of the rest may well be better. Several of the things I noticed about the JS portions - every comment was either tendentiously directed at some much debated political issue among historians, technical issue among later grognards, or was a cliche, or both. Unrelieved by a single example of freshness, vivid picturing, curious incident, anecodotal account of friendships, hardships, loves, hates, etc. As Michael quite correctly says, vets will spend hours on such topics for two paragraphs about anything military-technical. And when they do address military technical issues, they do not do so with one liner throw-aways. The issue arises for some reason connected to a story, and it is necessary to get it right for the point of the story. Then there is the complete absence of vivid imagery, unit details, mission details, coordination issues - if fact, anything beyond the platoon while in action, and the company while not. Then there are particular places that are plainly unbelievable, like one passage about getting out of the Tiger and it taking an hour to get warm again afterward and being surprised about it, for all the world like it was the first time he had done so in Russian in the cold, when it was supposedly after years of action and tank crews are out of their vehicles all the time when not in direct action. Or another where it was the first time he was scared of dying, when he supposedly spent years driving Pz IIIs. Or the unbelievable three line paragraphs that Italy was just boring, but at least warm and the whole description of it, which are more consistent with writer's block than realism. Or the fact that every rear area or politically related item in the whole is the most worn and thread-bare cliche, something out of movie cartoon versions of history. It is possible the effect is a result of a ridiculously clusmy choice of passages to present, but I rather doubt it. And I don't care how much padding is put around any of it. I don't believe a word of what is there in the J-S stuff. And the site operator, so all-fired concerned over it (hardly a response suggesting merit to my mind, on the contrary), will just have to deal with the fact that I don't believe anything he is saying. Having already blown such credit by charity I readily extend to most, he is not going to re-establish it with me by anything amount of pontificating. He may enjoy that for the sake of the rest of his potential audience, and I don't give a darn about that, one way or another. If he thinks he has any sort of rights of ownership over my own judgments and opinions, I can quickly disabuse him of the notion. I owe him nothing. He will just have to live with the fact that one person in the world doesn't believe one of things he has published.

This would be your stereotypical "crazy Ivan" - LOL.

I read some of it. I didn't believe a single word. The subjects are nothing whatever like what real vets talk about, or what real vets discuss. It is all armor grog gamey shibboleths, wall to wall, unrelieved by a single item that is not a cliche.

Um, KT, I am not making it up. There are crossed cannons on the class As hanging in my closet. I loaded 155mm SP (M-109) for my artillery training at Fort Sill OK, and tested on them regularly during my reserve service. My own unit used 8" self-propelled, the M-110, but all cannon-cockers trained first on the M-109 and had to check out on it regularly, since it is the most common piece used in the US Army today. The weight of shell for the M-109 is the same as the ISU-152, it is a cramped AFV interior, and the loading is done by one man instead of two. The shells for the M-110 weigh 200 lbs, and are lifted by two men in a cradle, then passed to the hydraulics on the gun itself. Ordinary teenagers and young twenty-somethings, in good shape after basic but in no way exceptional otherwise, had no difficulty doing it. I don't know why this is so impossible for people to grok. Men designed these guns because they wanted something men could use. They are not Maus blackboard pipedreams, and equivalent pieces have been used ever since in every modern army in the world. The size of common field pieces tops out at 155mm because they can be run reasonably easily and give the greatest weight of shell possible for which that is still true. The implict idea behind the skepticism, that it is somehow an impossibly huge weapon to run, is simply poppycock from people who have no idea what they are talking about and have never been near, let alone used, a similar item. Also, the shells in the ISU-152 were on ready-racks on the left side of the vehicle behind the gunner, which is the loader's position inside. The first two in each of the two racks are about level with his eyes, tips facing backward. He would face that wall, craddle the shell in his arms, then turn his whole body toward the back of the vehicle, then around another ninety degrees to facing the breech. In goes the shell, and then the assistant loader takes over for ramming, powder, closing the breech, etc. In the M-109, the ready racks are at the back and a bit higher, but otherwise similar. Well, except you pull them out lengthwise toward you, which is harder to do than picking them up from their long side - but it lets them be stored more safely, seperated from each other in their little "silos". And often we'd jerk-lift the shells up off the floor, where the ammo-prep crew left them fused, after handing them in the back hatch from the ammo vehicle, in battery position. It just plain isn't that hard. [ 06-05-2001: Message edited by: JasonC ]

Pull up to the back sides of trees, park behind the house, or stay on your side of a slope. It is not hard to get close to where you want to debus the infantry, as long as debusing the infantry is what you are trying to do, instead of re-enacting the Charge of the Light Brigade. Your infantry, after all, want to go to someplace with cover, not to a place without. The mistake to avoid with them is over aggressiveness, moving into the unknown mounted. They can provide useful MG support late, after the tank and AT fight has been going on a while. Just stay back out of easy zook/schreck range, ~200 yards will do. You can use them for infantry fire support before that by using "keyhole" deployments. Meaning, if you want to suppress this MG or that squad, find a spot that can see the target but can't be seen by most of the rest of the map, on the enemy's side anyway. Peek around the house or the edge of a clump of trees, roll just barely far enough up a slope, etc. Also, do not overlook the opportunity they provide to change the axis of your attack relatively late in the game. After many defenders are down or broken, and the fight is focused on a key area, the less numerous defender will often have shifted all available forces to wherever the action is. You can pull a platoon out of action in 2 minutes, and have them clear over on the other side of the map in 5 or less, in those situations. They are still overpriced in CM for their combat effectiveness, because they are vunerable to any sort of AT weapon or light gun and easily spotted, and lack the lethality of tanks to neutralize such shooters in reply. Scenarios will often give you a whole platoon of them. When buying yourself for QBs, think twice about more than a couple to reposition heavy weapons easily. Usually, another tank will serve you better in the scale of fights in CM, than a couple of 'tracks.

On the ROF of vehicles vs. field guns, I would not expect any difference from cramped space if the vehicle has a sensible arrangement. And the ISU-152 does from the interior shots I've looked at. Your muscles do not move any slower inside a vehicle than out. And field guns generally keep the ammo well away from the piece itself, which is not possible inside an AFV. The trip from stack to breech is actually shorter, not longer. The only exception might be single gunner vehicles, rather than a pair to work it. That could indeed lower the ROF - although e.g. in an M-109, essentially all the loading is done by one man. (The assistant gunner is the 5th crewmember. He operates the elevating hydraulics - as opposed to the gunner's traverse - and can help with the breech if something goes wrong, etc). As for the issue of crew fatigue firing 100 lb shells, yeah your hams and delts get a bit sore. Your arms sometimes shake. But understand, the period lifting the shell is a fraction of the time operating the gun, and most of the other tasks - while rapid - are light work. In the case of the ISU-152, the loader only has to open the breech and load the actual shell, while the second loader does most of the other things one guy does in the M-109. He is thus resting for ~10-15 seconds between "lifts". Anybody who lifts weights can tell you that lifting 100 lbs and then having breaks between will give you a nice workout, but it hardly gets undoable in a period of 20-30 minutes. You can do 100 reps, which is more ammo than a gun carries and much larger than realistic fire missions. In practice, you get called upon to do it 6-12 times in one engagement period and then there is a break. It is work, but you don't have to be Conan. I've seen men who weigh 145 lbs do it rapidly.

Yes, an 8" KOed one of the elephants at Kursk. But it did so because it scored a direct hit on the commander's hatch. So says the Russian breakdown of causes of Elephant kills. Another one was destroyed by a direct hit from an aircraft bomb, though - so there are two possible sources of that photo. Aircraft bombs can carry an order of magnitude more HE charge than artillery shells.

I generally agree with ScoutPLs comments. One clarification first - I am not suggesting 4th AD should have attacked Nancy proper, nor that another infantry division should have done so. The missed opportunity (certainly a matter of hindsight, but that is what AARs are largely for) was not cutting up 559 VG when it withdrew from the city. I am thinking of a pursuit-like attack of the fleeing elements, directed northeast of Nancy. This was actually considered on the day of the breakthrough, but rejected in favor of the breakthrough maxim, hit weakness not strength. Since there were Germans (rallying) to the northeast, but none to the east, CCA directed itself east. The idea I am thinking about would have CCA, instead, ensure link-up with CCB in the south, screen the -east- with its recon elements, and immediate pursue northeast, hitting "strength", or bodies rather than air. The roles of the recon elements and the main body were substantially the reverse of that, in the actual history. The period I am talking about is from the day after the breakthrough charge to the "central position" east of Nancy (which I consider correct, even excellent), for the following 2-3 days. It is an example of the doctrinal maneuver on the rear for the purpose of bringing about battle under favorable conditions, to destroy the enemy force. With that destruction as the direct and immediate objective of operations, rather than seizure of ground. As regularly practiced by Napoleon, similar to closing the Kiev pocket rather than running for Moscow, etc. As for the issue of the US assessment of 559 VG, I think that is an excellent point. It was considered a recently formed, low quality manpower, relatively immobile "garrison" or "fortress" division. It was expected to defend passively inside Nancy, while leaving the more difficult maneuver fighting to the vets of the 3rd and 15th Panzergrenadier, on the flanks. The threat assessment of it as a formation was generally very low. Among the brass, only the corps commander, Eddy, who was tasked with juggling the depleted infantry forces of the corps, seems to have taken it at all seriously, for which he has been roundly criticised by historians - and at the time by his subordinates in the 4th AD. The opinion of Eddy by the others was low enough that Patton considered relieving him at the end of September, after the 559 VG mauled the 35th Infantry division in Gremecey forest. Eddy's differences with Wood, the commander of 4th AD, eventually ended in Wood's relief from command of that division in November 1944. Patton did not relieve Eddy in September, and instead supported the corps with 6th AD. Perhaps on examination he found the corps was being asked to do rather a lot - and it had just practically destroyed the 111th and 113th Panzer brigades, gotten over the Moselle, and cleared Nancy, after all. While facing a force about as large as itself. It is hard to call that losing, even in 3rd Army. [ 06-05-2001: Message edited by: JasonC ]

Keith recites his maneuverist catechism. Eddy was right that the problem his corps actually faced was consolidating the bridgehead and that the enemy to worry about was the German infantry. The tankers who wanted to streak east were living in the fantasy world of those who ignore logistics. There wasn't enough gas to go 30 miles, and the farther east they went the less they would get. Therefore, nothing decisive could be accomplished by heading east. Eddy could not "support with follow on forces" for numerous reasons - because there was very limited bridge capacity over the Moselle at that point (only the southern route, with 6 canals and streams to bridge, etc); because he didn't have the gas to run tanks around and reposition much of the infantry rapidly, as the latter task took trucks away from "transport sharing" supply runs; because he did not have any large advantage in numbers anywhere to draw upon to start with. The CCA tanks concentrated east of Nancy accomplished nothing, when they could have destroyed much of 559 KG if they -had- been employed in supporting the infantry. Eddy sent CCB to retake the ground lost behind CCA's advance, because they had not bothered to secure the corridor. Why? The gospel of mass and breakthrough dictated a concentrate column to punch east - which indeed worked well when it met and defeated 3 Pz Gdr's local counterattack on the day of the breakthrough. To "support with follow on forces" would have meant, in practice, that the two supporting infantry divisions were supposed to send an additional RCT each to each side of the salient (north and south) to free up CCA and CCB. They had already lent about an RCTs worth of infantry to 4th AD. And they had each sustained about a battalion's worth of losses in the bridging fights. To "support with follow on forces", therefore, would have meant about one division worth left along the corps front to face 3rd and 15th Panzergrenadier and 559 VG. (18 initial, 2 lent, 2 lost, 4-6 for "follow on forces" of 2 RCT, 2-3 battalion strength each). The plain fact is that the logistics and bridgehead situation made it an infantry-dominated, positional battle. And in that respect Eddy's corps did not have any great strength advantage over the Germans opposite him. When the Germans threw 111th and 113th Panzer brigades at the bridgehead, they were leading to Eddy's strongest suit, and handily repulsed. When they eventually lead to his weak one, infantry, with the 559 VG's counterattacl, both CCB and then the 35th Infantry division lost. Unaided his corps would have been repulsed, with the intervention of Army in the form of the support of the 6th AD preventing that result. Logistics prevented him from converting his armor strength into a decisive force multiplier. He reasonably attempted to use the means he had to meet the task he had, which both before and after the Panzer brigades attack was primarily an infantry one.

On the stories of turrets blown off by field artillery by HE blast alone, I wouldn't believe too many of them. 155mm arty can get mobility kills by disabling a track or suspension, which are much easier because that system is already under severe mechanical strain to hold up the tank, and outside the main armor. Rear deck direct hits can also wreck the engine and score mobility kills. Barrels can be bent or perforated to produce firepower kills. And sometimes, though rarely, AFVs are taken out completely by field artillery direct hits when unbuttoned. Heavy barrages will also frag off the antennas and damage the sights of some vehicles, regularly. Concussion effects on the crew were not exactly pleasant, either. But plain HE up to 155mm rarely KOs full tanks (as opposed to light armor). The stories of Russian tank turrets blown off by artillery are almost certainly effects of artillery-sized HEAT rounds. When the Germans went into Russia, they did not have many weapons capable of KO'ing a T-34 or KV from the front at range. The 88 FLAK could do it with AP, and the field guns of the artillery could do it with HEAT. The penetration of 105mm HEAT was about the same as the 88mm FLAK at 1500 meters. The penetration of 150mm HEAT was twice as high. Normally, field guns avoid direct-fire engagements with tanks, but in the circumstances the Germans made regular use of batteries of field pieces for anti-tank work. Motorized artillery kept right up with the Panzer columns. One difficulty with this idea, though, is the slower velocity of howitzer shells (about half the speed of an 88's), makes hits somewhat harder to obtain, especially at long range or with a moving target. The problem of destroying tanks with artillery HE was well understood, and one of the reasons for the later development of ICM artillery rounds (improved conventional munitions, aka "bomblets"). Now, they didn't invent those because they noticed 155 fire missions wiped out whole tank companies with plain HE. They don't. Another example of artillery HE engaging medium tanks occurred early in the Korea fighting, the famous case of Task Force Smith. They had 6 105mm howitzers with them that day. But only 5 HEAT rounds in the whole battery. They gave all the HEAT to one gun to function as an anti-tank gun on the main road, and left the other 5 to fire HE in support as a battery. Then they were attacked by around 30 T-34/85s. The 105mm with HEAT destroyed 2 T-34s with frontal shots, although one of the two also took numerous 60mm bazooka hits in the side and rear, so the exact killer is not known. Then the HEAT was gone, and the lone 105 up front quickly KOed afterward. The T-34s rolled through the infantry position (shrugging off side turret hits from 75mm recoilless rifles and dozens of bazooka hits), past its vehicles shooting them up, and then past the battery position, still in column along the road. They were buttoned and did not locate the battery easily. Each tank fired only 1-2 shots as they drove past and pushed on. One gun was taken out by this fire, the other four were untouched. In return, they KOed five more T-34s with plain HE. But they didn't get a single penetration, and they didn't blow any turrets off. What they did instead in the case of the five they got, was put dozens of rounds into their tracks and suspensions. With 4-5 guns firing, the tanks faced 25-30 shots apiece running past one by one on the narrow road. Those that took serious track damage were stopped in view of the guns and hit again and again. The crews abandoned them. If that battery had abundant HEAT, those tanks would not have made it past alive, driven the way they actually were, which was obviously very green. Until infantry came up to spot for them or force the guns to displace, anyway. But against only HE, made it past they did despite numerous direct hits, with a mobility kill the only feasible thing a 105 could do to them.

An excellent bit of digging, Jeff. It confirms what I have been thinking. We can get 3-4 rpm through such pieces today, and not much has changed. The Germans say they got 3-4 through the capture Russian field piece versions, which makes perfect sense. The ROF might be somewhat lower for green troops - meaning 3. And for particularly cramped fighting spaces, especially with one loader doing everything, it might be somewhat lower even for regulars in the case of particular vehicles. But the basic point I don't think can be seriously doubted, that the size of the gun and the manner in which it is normally worked allows 3-4 rpm.