John D Salt
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Posts posted by John D Salt
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Could you oblige with the piece numbers of the relevant PRO documents, please? I'll give them a peek next time I'm at Kew.Originally posted by Paul Lakowski:[snips]
Its kind of depressing! Tom Rodwell has happened upon what looks like some of the original Chobham armor studies by Dr Harvey etc [ credited with developing Chobham armor]....But these are available on @ 'PRO' and it may cost a pretty penny to get copies.
All the best,
John.
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Many of Suvorov's assertions have been subsequently shown to be false, to the extent that it has even been suggested that he might have been a KGB plant.Originally posted by Michael emrys:</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Determinant:
...Victor Suvorov's...
Michael</font>
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H'mm. I would have thought it would be that much more worrying for the target crew to hear theOriginally posted by AnonymousOxide:[snips]
when you undershoot, the AP or HE round will hit the ground in front of the enemy armor, kicking dirt in it's face, which is obviously better than sending a round wizzing past it's hatch.
crack of an AP shot passing overhead.
There are lots of places where modelling dust kicked up by fire or movement matters --
In dusty conditions, the peak rate of fire of the Sherman's 76mm was controlled down to about four rounds per minute because of the dust kicked up by the muzzle blast. Sensing rounds is obviously more difficult with lots of dust flying about.
Movement by vehicles kicks up a lot of dust in a Normandy summer, as you will know both by photographic evidence of the "Dust Brings Shells" and "Drive Slowly: We Live Here" signs troops used to put up, and I know, in practice, from the cries of "A la poussiere!" when trundling past a bunch of workmen on a Normandy road...
Falling artillery particularly kicks up lots of dust.
There is a lot more that could be done in CM on the modelling of obscurants -- as it stands, WP and chemical smoke are not distinguished, and the effects of wind on smoke drift and dispersion are not modelled at all. So, how much development time, product cost and computer power are people willing to see used to model obscurants in more detail? I suspect that the answer is "not much".
All the best,
John.
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You seem to be assuming that any game that does not use a fixed-increment bound must use real-time (or at least scaled-time) player interaction. A moment's reflection will reveal that it's not so.Originally posted by Le Tondu:</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by John D Salt:
John,I think that I can see why a fixed turn length is important. It stems from why I don't buy those RTS games. I don't buy them because there is always so much going on (especially in medium to large battles) that somewhere, sometime, something gets neglected in an ahistorical manner which will produce ahistorical results for a historical simulation. It just doesn't work, IMHO.
As an example, in a RTS game, that cavalry unit doesn't get orders to move (because you are too busy elsewhere) and it gets pummelled by an artillery unit when in a REAL historical situation it would have moved so as to not assist the enemy by taking on unnecessary casualties.
[snips]</font>
It would be easily possible to devise (though I'm not aware of anyone yet doing it in a computer game) a scheme whereby both players compose their plans at the start of the game, and then get the opportunity only to revise them at nominated "decision points". Decision points could be inserted in a plan, just as military planners in fact do, with contingency plans (conplans) hanging off each decision point. Decision points might also arise on an "ad-hoc" basis when subordinates report situations that seem to demand a complete change of plan. The game would evidently have to be arranged so that players who inserted a decision point every minute "just to make sure" would be severely punished. Some system of time penalties and a (troop-quality based) probability of a cockup every time plans are changed would tend to favour the simple, robust plan in a way that current wargames just don't. Players would be rewarded for making plans that were robust under uncertainty, instead of, as now, being rewarded for a steady stream of improvisation. It would, at last, be possible to give a convincing representation of the old military proverb "order, counter-order, dis-order".
There has been some discussion in another thread of the OODA or Boyd loop (which incidentally seems to me to be an idea that's rather too simple to be useful, but that's another story). Now, although agressive and subtle play may psychologically rattle a human opponent, there is simply no means by which it is possible to "get inside the OODA loop" in a game structured like Combat Mission. Both players get a chance to completely reconsider their position and make fresh plans every minute, on the minute, quite literally as regular as clockwork. Any time pressure that arises from time-limits on turns in TCP/IP games is in the same degree artificial as such time pressure is in RTS/scaled-time games, and for the same reason.
This also ties in with other well-worn debates such as the choice between the God's-eye-view and the Commander's Shoes View. Scaled-time games, as you have pointed out, fit poorly with the God's-eye view; scaled-time and Commander's Shoes gives you FPS games, with a pretty loose definition of what constitutes a "shooter". A command game as described above would pretty much have to take the Commander's shoes view, whereas CM:BO is wedded to God's-eye. It often seems to me that CM:BO is not so much a simulation of WW2 tactical combat as a simulation of Advanced Squad Leader De Luxe with those interminable Greenwood-edited rules rendered down to software and the toy soldiers and tanks animated by magic smoke. Which isn't a bad thing, but it's not the only way one might handle it.
All the best,
John.
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Simultaneous movement was the method preferred by Arthur Taylor in his "Rules for Wargaming" and Charles Grant in his "Battle!", both published in 1970. I doubt that it was a new idea then.Originally posted by zukkov:i'd be willing to guess that the we-go system came from miniatures. i remember playing micro armor back in the 70s, it was my intro to wargaming. this game is a lot like that, only 100 times better. bts did it right, and i'm hoping they keep doing it!
SPI's development of their SiMov system began, I thought, with "Sniper!", which must have been about 1972.
With a computer to handle the mechanics of movement, I don't really see why fixed-length turns are necessary. Each turn represents an opportunity for each player to change the orders he has given to his units. There is no particular reason why this should occur every minute, on the minute, and a much richer simulation of command & control problems would be possible if the opportunities for changing orders were reduced. However, as Kip Anderson would doubtless point out, such a game would no longer be the Combat Mission we know and love.
All the best,
John.
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Uh-oh!Originally posted by Kurtz:</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by John D Salt:
...fit them with a "Scheissbecher" grenade-launching attachment.
I'm not sure I really want to know what kind of grenades were fired with this thing. :eek: </font>
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Indeed.Originally posted by Mattias:PF, troop trials in July 1943. 350.000 built the same year.
PSchr. deployed in numbers at end of 1943.
They did not hang on to the AT rifles, much, but rather relied on the organic PaK units and fought as best they could with a host of different production and ad hoc close in AT weapons. [snips]
The sheer variety of German weaponry, in ATk devices as elsewhere, is staggering.
One of the improvisations attmepted as a means of making some use of the obsolete Panzerbusche 39 ATRs was to fit them with a "Scheissbecher" grenade-launching attachment. This got you a bulkier projector for the same ATk rifle grenades that could be fired off the usual Kar 98K attachment. One hopes that it had some compensating advantage in terms of range and accuracy.
While I wouldn't miss not having those appear in future editions of CM, I would rather like to see the Stielgranate hollow-charge stick-bombs that prolonged the useful life of tiny ATk guns like the 3.7cm PaK 36.
All the best,
John.
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Indeed, but I was a little mystified by the statement "Attacks on fortified villages, such as those around Caen, ought to have been carried out by battle groups built around tanks or self-propelled assault guns. Unfortunately, the Allies did not possess such armor and what’s more the Allied battle doctrine reflected that reality."Originally posted by The_Capt:OK fellas,
Here is the link to Terry Copps paper.
http://www.wlu.ca/~wwwmsds/341coppnormandyattrition.htm
I found it a very interesting read.
[snips]
The Allies did possess armour formations -- the independent tank brigades -- whose role was to support the infantry divisions. Armoured divisions could and did form brigade groups (Pip Roberts made 11th Armoured fight like this) and in Guards Armoured at least integration eventually went down to Squadron/Company teams. I have never heard anyone previously suggest that lack of armour was a problem in 21st Army Group; I have on the other hand heard it said that the units used in e.g. Goodwood were too armour-heavy.
Depending on where you draw the line between "operational" and "tactical", that might not leave a great deal to chew on. The handling of a division is still pretty clearly "tactics"; I suppose you might count a Corps as "operations", although Jorrocks said that the Corps is the highest formation to fight the tactical battle.Originally posted by The_Capt:So I thik we can narrow the question down to "How was the Canadian performace Operational Level in Normandy?"
Incidentally, another Canadian contribution that is seldom mentioned was the attachment of CANLOAN officers to British units in 21st Army Group, to make up for the shortage of trained British junior officers. I understand that they suffered an extremely high rate of casualties, possibly even more than junior officers usually do. As a curiosity, I believe that one of the officer casualties at the Villers-Bocage battle on 13th June (with 1/5th Queen's, I think?) had the serial number CAN001.
All the best,
John.
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CM:BO doesn't IMHO provide terribly good coverage of armoured cars and light recce vehicles. From the British point of view, there is little doubt that the Daimler armoured car and the Daimler Dingo scout car were the best-liked vehicles of their type. The armoured car appears in CM:BO, the Dingo doesn't. It would also have been nice to see the Humber Light Recce Car represented, as found in the recce regiments of infantry divisions -- armoured cars would only be found in armoured car regiments which were Corps recce assets, and so not likely to be found in the close battle quite as frequently as CM:BO suggests. As I've mentioned before, I'd also have liked to see the Staghound, the Humber and the AEC armoured cars represented.Originally posted by Sir Augustus:These are used in CM for a reason. How often were these used in WWII? Also what do you think are the best of these to used in CM both german & allied?
American armoured cars are I'm afraid rather dull; there's the M-8 and the M-20 on the same chassis, that's it, and both are in CM:BO.
For the Germans, the eight-wheelers are covered in CM:BO, but the Sd Kfz 222 for some reason has been left out. I'd have liked to see it. I'd also have liked to see some MG-toting BMW R-75 motorcycle combinations, just like you see on the movies.
All the best,
John.
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Exactly what one would expect if one was observing a Poisson arrival stream -- which, in effect, you are (although the shots are not quite Bernoulli trials because second shots have higher chances of success, that just means it's a non-stationary Poisson arrivals process).Originally posted by Soddball:First set of results in:
[snips]
Some interesting points which cropped up during this, the initial phase of the testing:
[snips]
4) Things seemed to occur in clusters - the 2 Tiger gun failures occurred in 2 tanks next to each other, and the 3 explosions of Tigers occurred in the last batch of testing.
Like angels, Poisson processes have no memory (the Markov property). You wait for a bus and then three come at once. The porrige of fate is lumpy. One in a while, you go through a period of six consecutive misses.
All the best,
John.
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We've done this before, haven't we?Originally posted by SwedishPSK:[snips]
Wittman was destroyed by an aicraft rocket in the enginecompartment behind the turret.. probably by a Typhoon.. Joe Eskins didn't knock Wittmans Tank out of action..
What you say may be true, but Hubert Meyer is not usually regarded as the world's most reliable source.
Gary Simpson's "Tiger Ace" is not terribly well written, but he seems to have done a spot of research on his subject, and he supports the story that 1NY got him, and I think, as Mike Reynolds says in "Steel Inferno", that this is the most widely accepted version. Joe Ekins (not Eskins), gunner of the Charlie tank of 3 troop 1NY, certainly bagged four Tigers just outside St-Aignan-le-Cramesnil on the 8th of August.
All the best,
John.
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While I confess that I know not a skerrick about Finnish engineer doctrine, it seems to me that you will be needing to model small 2-3 man groups of sappers to show their use by the Russians properly, at least if the examples in TM-30-430 are anything to go by.Originally posted by Big Time Software:[snips]
The Finns, apparently, parcelled out their Pioneers during battles when necessary. However, they assigned as few men as possible, generally in ones, twos, or small teams. Not even in Squad sized formations (9 or 10 men per Squad).
This begs the question... should we be including Pioneer formations in CMBB for Finland at all and instead simply include 2 man demo and flamethrower teams?
[snips]
Steve
By the way, "Assault pioneer" in British usage means infantrymen who have received training usually in mine-lifting and laying, as distinct from Royal Engineers, who have a much wider collection of skills. It would be nice to see both types modelled if ever CM visits Normandy again.
All the best,
John.
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I think you are badly over-estimating the blast effect of an 88mm-calibre HE shell. The explosive filling of a Flak 36 HE round is 0.87Kg. The British 25-pdr, of the same calibre, has slightly less filling, at 0.51 Kg, and PRO document WO 291/399, "Casualties to Churchill tanks in 25-pdr concentrations", describes the effect of 25-pdr HE bursting on a Churchill in the following terms: "There is no adverse effect on the crew from a 25 pdr direct hit. Fragments cannot penetrate the tank, and the blast is not at all uncomfortable." The experiment reported in the paper involved driving a squadron of Churchills twice through live-fired 25-pdr concentrations.Originally posted by Captitalistdoginchina:[snips]
Someone put me out of my mental torture here, i cannot believe that German Tiger crews deliberately fired HE directly at their own tanks :eek:
I mean, picture the situation.
Tiger 1
Hey Hans, look over there, soviet troops are on the back of Lars Tiger - Quick fire a HE shell on the side of the turret, that will blow the ruskies off!
Tiger 2
(Huge explosion rocks the Tank)
HOLY MOTHER OF GOD, what the F**ck was that? said Lars with blood trickling out of his ears...his head ringing with a deafening sound.
Oh, its ok Lars, that was just our buddy Hans, doing us a favour.
Lars - Christ, maybe the ruskies have captured his tank and are firing at us.....if he fires again we die....quick, load up an AP shell! Fire!!
I find it hard to imagine guys.
CDIC
All the best,
John.
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Rats, I can't find the PRO document reference, butOriginally posted by Andreas:[snips]
Regarding the gyros. BTS has always been open to be persuaded that gyros were disabled or not used. The last evidence I have seen was at best anecdotal, and there is anecdotal evidence to the contrary too. I suggest you do a search with BTS member number and 'gyro' or somefink. So no, 'we all' don't know that gyros were disconnected.
I am quite sure that one of the ones I've read said that in 21st Army Group, from Jan 1945, tank workshops were free to return Shermans to units as "100% combat ready" with non-working stabilizers.
Hunnicutt's compendious "Sherman: A History of the American Medium Tank", however, states that the gyrostabilizer conferred an advantage if crews were properly trained in its use. Gander 7 Chamberlain's Airfix Magazine Guide "American Tanks of WW2" describes it as a "valuable asset" that was "often wasted".
I suspect that this is another of those cases where RL included a wide variety of different things, and it is impossible to be dogmatic about gyros being used or not used in all cases.
All the best,
John.
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Well now, as you've just used a Kipling line, here's my favourite poem for ANZAC day, with a tip of the hat to the Aussies and Kiwis on the forum, especially those who've served:Originally posted by Stixx:They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old;
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them
Lest we forget.
Ode: Melbourne shrine of remembrance
So long as memory, valour, and faith endure,
Let these stones witness, through the years to come,
How once there was a people fenced secure
Behind great waters girding a far home.
Their own and their land's youth ran side by side
Heedless and headlong as their unyoked seas -
Lavish o'er all, and set in stubborn pride
Of judgement, nurtured by accepted peace.
Thus, suddenly, war took them - seas and skies
Joined with the earth for slaughter. In a breath
They, scoffing at all talk of sacrifice,
Gave themselves without idle words to death.
Thronging as cities throng to watch a game
Or their own herds move southward with the year,
Secretly, swiftly, from their ports they came,
So that before half earth had heard their name
Half earth had learned to speak of them with fear;
Because of certain men who strove to reach,
Through the red surf, the crest no man might hold,
And gave their name forever to a beach
Which shall outlive Troy's tale when Time is old;
Because of horsemen, gathered apart and hid -
Merciless riders whom Megiddo sent forth
When the outflanking hour struck, and bid
Them close and bar the drove-roads to the north;
And those who, when men feared the last March flood
Of Western war had risen beyond recall,
Stormed through the night from Amiens and made good,
At their glad cost, the breach that perilled all.
Then they returned to their desired land -
The kindly cities and plains where they were bred -
Having revealed their nation in earth's sight
So long as sacrifice and honour stand,
And their own sun at the hushed hour shall light
The shrine of these their dead!
- Rudyard Kipling, 1934
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From that paper, I think they were calculated using an error budget, but some other papers with range firing trials from 6-pdr Churchills show even lower hit probabilities (with considerable inconsistency between the amount of trunnion-jump on each gun, ISTR).Originally posted by Brian:[snips]
One presumes those results were obtained on a range and not a battlefield?
"Informed opinion" among the folks who currently model the direct-fire battle for the British MOD (that is, what they tell me down the pub) is that you can probably multiply the number of shots needed for each hit by up to ten for real exercises as against range firing, and up to ten again for real combat as opposed to exercises. Not all of this is due to degradation in performance hitting visible targets -- some is due to hitting the wrong targets, such as bits of agricultural machinery that are mnis-identified, and I suspect a bit of shooting up the countryside on spec.
On the other hand, one paper I've seen (reference not to hand, I'm afraid) suggests that many successful 6-pounder engagements in Normandy obtained hitting rates pretty much as good as range firing.
One the whole, I agree with Andreas' remark about there being plenty of room between the two extremes that cannot be definitively characterised as "wrong".
Sounds like what I'd call the Bovington system -- I believe Ken Macksey mentions this in "The Tanks".I also wonder, what do people think of the tactic that the Indian Army developed during the fighting around the "Patton Narga" in one of its wars with Pakistan where their Centurions would fire what they called "the three round shot" - the commander would give the order on sighting of a target, "target, bearing such-and-such, 1000 metres, fire!" and then repeat the order for 500 metres and 1500 in rapid succession.
As you point out, such a method relies on having a good high-velocity gun with a nice, flat trajectory. APDS from a 20-pdr or 105mm would be leaving the muzzle at almost 1500 m/sec, which is a good deal oofier than anything in CM:BO. Obviously, the lower the velocity of the weapon, the more critical it is to estimate (or measure) the range tonthe target accurately.
All the best,
John.
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I imagine so. 100 lbs of solid shot (45.5 Kg) with a muzzle velocity on charge super of 1,950 fps (600 m/sec).Originally posted by von Lucke:[snips]
But doesn't the above modification effectively remove the HE capability of the round and turn it into solid shot?
All the best,
John.
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I don't doubt that there were times in the Italian campaign when artillery fighting in close defence of the battery position knocked-out tanks with HE fired direct. I would be absolutely amazed, though, if thick-walled standard HE shells ever achieved the "poultice" effect of Sir Dennis Burney's "wallbuster" (later HESH, American HEP) shell, which required considerable design work. A conventional HE shell has rigid walls and a nose fuze, whereas HESH uses thin walls and a base fuze. By the way, Mr. Picky would like to point out that the word is "spalling", not "Spalding", they make basketballs.Originally posted by Wildman:Wasn't there a battle in Italy, where large caliber howitzers knocked out tanks with HE. In essence, the HE hit the tanks, deformed and molded themselves to the tank surface before detonating. This causes spalding on the interior of the tank which disabled the crews.
This effect is now used in a (hope I have the right term here) Squash head HE round?
The approved anti-tank round for the 5.5" gun-how was the ordinary HE shell with the fuze removed and replaced by the transit plug. That, according to Ian Hogg's "British and American Artillery of WW2", was considered quite sufficient to knock the turret off any wartime tank.
All the best,
John.
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I'd be very interested to know what the sources are that give those hit probability numbers, please.Originally posted by K_Tiger:[snips]
On the net or other resurces, you will find statistics in gun accuracy in testing and battle conditions. The better guns like the 75mmL/70 and the 88`s have mostly up to 100% hit chances up to 1000m (17Pounder is also a nice piece) in a battle it drops down to not worser than 80%.
The following numbers are from PRO document WO 291/180, "Accuracy of anti-tank gunnery." They give the probability (%) of a static anti-tank gun hitting a static hull-up tank target with first round.
Range (yards)___6-pdr____17-pdr
500_____________87_______98
1000____________33_______46
1500____________12_______20
2000____________03_______10
2500_____________________05
All the best,
John.
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Most people would probably agree -- the Bren was replaced by the belt-fed FN MAG (in the guise of the L7 GPMG) in British service during the 1950s.Originally posted by BloodyBucket:[snips]I still think that the MG-34 would be the ticket to base a squad around, given the choice of the three (Bren, BAR and MG-34).
However, if you have Jac Weller's "Weapons and Tactics: Hasting to Berlin", there's a dissenting opinion in there (I may get round to posting some more tactics-connected snippets including this, if people are interested). At any rate, I think the difference between the two is probably exagerrated in CM for most types of fire. PRO document WO 291/474, "Rate of fire of the LMG", gives results of a theoretical study indicating that a belt-fed weapon with a cyclic rate of 1000 rds/min is only about 20% better than a mag-fed one with a cyclic rate of 500 rds/min firing short bursts. The advantage is greater in traversing fire, and greater still in enfilade fire.
AFAIK, the Johnson was officially acquired only for the USMC, who had, and I believe to some extent still do have, their own ideas on what weapons to procure. I also get the impression that the USMC has also, by the nature of its role, always paid more attention to infantry minor tactics than the US Army. Some Johnsons were fielded by 1st Special Service Force, to be sure, but I believe that these were traded with the Marines in exchange for a few tons of plastic explosive.The Johnson seems to have suffered a similar fate to the Stoner weapons, that is, they were a good idea that didn't have the support or the political clout to get fully developed or adopted by other than a few specialty units.
Don't forget that, during the Viet Nam era, the US Army was not immune to the fashion for GPMGs that everyone followed after WW2. The M-60 was used as a squad weapon, as well as a platoon one, once the silliness of the M-14 modified and M-16 heavy-barrelled automatic rifles had subsided. For reasons I don't pretend to understand, the UK is now going through the same silliness with the LSW. Meanwhile, the USA has got itself probably the best 5.56mm section LMG available anywhere by buying the Minimi. But I don't think anyone ever went too far wrong by buying FN.[snips]
The glacial nature of change in US doctrine is probably due to the fact that until recently, the idea has always been that outside fire support would be available whenever needed. Now that the idea of light infantry that can be inserted and extracted quickly is in favor, the need for a good SAW has been filled. This might be in part a response by senior leadership to their days as junior officers in Vietnam, where lavish fire support was not the the war winner it was in WWII.
The best single volume I can suggest, long out of print, is Anthony Farrar-Hockley's "Infantry Tactics 1939-1945" in the Almark "Mechanics of War" series (Almark, London, 1976; ISBN 85524-255-8). It covers British, German, Russian and American infantry tactics, but I think covers British ones best (as one might expect from a British soldier). If you find a copy of the "Squad Leader" issue of the Avalon Hill "General", the article on infantry tactics in that is largely drawn, uncredited, from this book.Can anyone reccomend a good book on Commonwealth infantry tactics in WWII? I would like to learn more about this.
British platoon and section tactics did not officially change greatly between the end of WW2 and the adoption, finally, of 5.56mm weapons in the 1980s. This means that there are a lot of people around, myself included, who were trained to do section and platoon attacks the same way the book said to do them in the North-West Europe campaign. Whether people always did them that way, of course, is another question...
All the best,
John.
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...or even "pride"...Originally posted by me:Prode
That should beof place, however, must got to the section organisation used by the British Army Training Team (BATT, a cover name for the SAS) during the Dhofar campaign, as described by Colonel Tony Jeapes:
BATT, Dhofar, 1970s: 2 GPMGs, 6 AR-15s
372__214___72___36
304__162___72___36
All the best,
John.
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Here, have some snippets to chew on -- long post, I'm afraid. Here are Ian Hogg and John Weeks to start with:Originally posted by edward_n_kelly:With all the "interaction" in another thread on the role of the BAR versus the Bren (and others) just what was the BAR ?
[Lots of other good questions snipped]
"The Browning Automatic Rifle (BAR) was another weapon which arose from the concept of "Walking Fire", an idea urged upon the Americans by the French army. The weapon never entirely lived up to the designer's hopes; neither a rifle nor a machine-gun, it fell between the two. As a rifle it was too heavy and could not be fired from the shoulder with any accuracy as it vibrated from the forward movement of the bolt. Set for automatic fire it was too light and moved excessively, and the small magazine demanded frequent reloading. For its day, though, it was a brilliant design produced in record time by John Browning, and it was bought and used by many countries around the world. It was the standard squad light automatic of the US infantry during World War Two and saw use in every theatre of war. It was also supplied in considerable numbers to the British Home Guard."
Ian Hogg and John Weeks, "Military Small Arms of the 20th Century", 6th edition (A & AP, London, 1991) page 174.
Why did the US Army prefer the BAR to the Lewis?
"Although Lewis energetically promoted his weapon to various US authorities, it was not until the gun had been produced in tens of thousands in Europe and proved in war that it was adopted in the land of its inception. In spite of subsequent combat experience, though, the US Army were quick to get rid of it after 1918, retaining only a small number for training purposes, though the Army Air Corps adopted it as a standard weapon. The truth of the matter will probably never be known, but it seems to have been a personality clash between Lewis and some of the higher elements of the US Ordnance Corps."
Ian Hogg and John Weeks, "Military Small Arms of the 20th Century", 6th edition (A & AP, London, 1991) page 285.
Some historical bits from Jane's:
"Browning returned to the USA and in 1917 gave a demonstration of 2 new weapons -- the Browning water cooled machine gun and his Automatic Rifle. The tests at Congress Heights of the BAR on 27 February 1917 were very impressive. The rifle was fired at semi automatic, automatic and whilst carried by a walking soldier. In addition it was completely stripped down to its basic 70 components and rapidly re-assembled.
"Colt's held the rights to Browning's design and they provided the drawings and gauges to enable other companies to manufacture the Browning Automatic Rifle (BAR). Browning returned to Winchester's plant and there the working drawings were produced. Production started in February 1918 and in November of that year when the war ended, Winchester were producing 300 guns a day. Other guns were made by Marlin-Rockwell who were turning out 200 guns a day when the war ended. Colt made a total of 9,000 to bring the overall figure up to 52,000 guns. The weapon first saw action on 13 September 1918."
Major F Hobart, "Jane's Infantry Weapons 1975" (Jane's Yearbooks, London, 1975) page 312.
Ian Hogg says pretty much what he did with John Weeks:
"The Browning Automatic Rifle was a good design in its way: the trouble was that it was neither one thing nor another. It was too heavy to be an automatic rifle, and it was too light to be a machine-gun. As a rifle it was cumbersome to try and fire it from the shoulder, and it needed a strong man to fire it with any degree of accuracy. As a light machine-gun it vibrated too much and the bottom-mounted magazine was inconvenient for changing in action. Nevertheless, the US Army adopted it and kept it in service until after the Second World War. They admitted it wasn't the perfect light machine-gun, but they couldn't develop anything better."
Ian Hogg, "The Complete Machine-Gun" (Phoebus, London, 1979)pages 37-38.
...and John Weeks says pretty much what he did with Ian Hogg:
"Critics of the BAR have to tread warily, because this gun arouses the same feelings of loyalty in ex-GIs as the does the Bren in Britain. However, these same GIs can usually be persuaded to admit that the Bren was the better of the two, without prejudicing the BAR. But a study of the BAR does show that it lacked many of the qualities needed to make it a really worthwhile squad gun, and the design seems to fall midway between that of an automatic rifle and a machine gun with most of the vices of both. It had been designed in 1916 by John Browning to be a light shoulder fired rifle to be used in the advance across No Man's Land, and fired while on the move. It never succeeded in being a light rifle, and weighed 16lbs from the start. When firing automatic the vibration was too great to hold the gun onto the target, and the bipod issued with the Second World War models was heavy and clumsy. It was difficult to adjust, and
most gunners ended up by throwing it away and reverting to using the weapon as a rifle. The barrel could not be changed, and so there was no capability for any form of sustained fire, and the magazine held only twenty rounds. Really the kindest thing that one can say about the BAR is that it was a compromise that did not work out."
John Weeks, "Infantry Weapons" (Pan/Ballantine, London, 1972)page 126.
What John Weeks would have thought a better scheme:
"Looking at the infantry weapon armoury of the US Army as it entered the Second World War, one cannot help but notice the lack of an effective squad light machine gun, and it is a thousand pities that General MacArthur was not able to get one. One wonders if he ever tried, but even if he had, the financial climate of his day would undoubtedly have killed it, and he might have lost the Garand also. But what a wonderful combination the squad could have had with the Garand and a .300 Bren!"
John Weeks, "Infantry Weapons" (Pan/Ballantine, London, 1972) page 128.
John George compares the BAR with the Japanese "Nambu" LMGs, and sticks with American terms ("machine rifle"):
"Those light machine guns (more properly called machine-rifles) were good weapons, either the hopper fed M-11 (1922) or the clip fed, Bren-profiled M-96 (1936) job. They had many points of superiority over our equivalent weapon, which continued to be the BAR throughout the entire war. Most of these points arose from the fact that the BAR was a weapon which had been adapted to do a machine rifle job, while both of the Nambus were designed for machine rifle purposes in the first place. I have shot both weapons rather extensively, and I am sure of myself when I say that I would rather be armed with a M-1936 Nambu than with any of our BAR types. I believe it to be a better gun, though slightly less reliable in function. And if I had an equal amount of experience with the older M-1922, hopper feed and all, I might even prefer it to the BAR as a machine rifle.
"The Browning Auto Rifle, stripped of all its machine rifle adaptations, has a role of its own in jungle warfare that is entirely different from the ordinary mission of the machine rifle. In that capacity, the Browning is a good gun, and I would not put any other brush-sprayer we have in the more vital section of a moving column on a jungle trail. Criticism here is directed against the weapon as a machine rifle, not as an assault weapon to be fired during movement. For that type of work, the Nambu would be no better."
Lt-Col John George, "Shots Fired in Anger", 2nd edition (National Rifle Association of America, Washington DC, 1981) page 323.
...and compares it with the TSMG and Bren:
"At the outset of the war our old BAR had been much changed from its original person, in both appearance and function. Ordnance had thrown a lot of gadgets -- buttrests and bipods and hooked buttplates -- on both ends of the poor weapon so that the man carrying it looked from a distance like a travelling tin shop. This was an effort to give the weapon long range accuracy and sustained steadiness throughout long bursts; a typical American attempt to substitute gadgets for skill. The BAR as originally issued was wonderful in the hands of a good man. The gadgets worked beautifully on the range -- the gun would practically fire itself and on the thousand inch targets it would hold a burst smaller than some of our heavy machine guns fired with tripods firmly sandbagged.
"Seeing this -- back in 1940 -- we all congratulated ourselves on having such a splendid weapon, but not for long. Two weeks after we were on Guadalcanal we had thrown away all of the gadgets and were using the gun stark naked -- the way old John Browning had built them in the first place. The only times when bipods and buttrests were worthwhile were in long range sniping from hilltop to beach, opportunity for which was rare in occurrence. We did, however, make good use of the guns we stripped down.
"We used them for blind shooting -- for taking care of surprise targets. We placed them at the head of patrols we knew would run into trouble, and we found them very valuable. We had always thought of the Tommy gun as the standard "sprayer", but we found that it lacked penetrating ability -- it could not cut down brush or penetrate small treetrunks as could the rifle or BAR. The more powerful .30-06 was many times better for shooting into cover. It soon became almost standard procedure for two BARs (carried slung in the assault position) to be placed at the head and tail of all large columns moving through coconut groves or jungle.
"Actually, I believe our fondness for the BAR was more concerned with the type of fire than with the weapon itself. We would have been equally pleased with the Bren gun -- perhaps more so. What we yearned for was a good gun to throw a lot of lead, faster and harder than the Tommy gun. This the Browning did, moderately well.
"I say "moderately" because the twenty-shot magazine of the weapon was too small, and because the gun seemed to require too much maintenance. The ones we used broke too many parts and malfunctioned just a little too often -- in my experience, much more often than the British Bren.
"I hesitate to say these things about the BAR because of the great esteem my friends have for it..."
Lt-Col John George, "Shots Fired in Anger", 2nd edition (National Rifle Association of America, Washington DC, 1981) page 399.
I hope people have been able to find something of interest in that little lot...
All the best,
John.
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The full term is Top-hat/Lowski. [snips]</font>Originally posted by Silvio Manuel:</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by mikster khan:
Top-hat is the term (actually I think it is half the term) for when you hunt and reverse on a ridgeline. [snips]
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Indeed -- although modern controlled-fragmentation grenades would probably show one of the biggest performance improvements in anti-personnel effectiveness over that period. The other big difference I would suspect is the difference between rifles using iron sights and modern optical sights, as fitted on the G-33, IW, AUG and so forth.Originally posted by M Hofbauer:though it may be disappointing to many people, there isn't that much difference between a late-war WW II squad and a modern squad, especially in CM terms.
The MG42 is still in use today... [snips]
Grenades still go boom.
In the end, there isn't that much difference.
I would suggest the following equivalences between modern weapons and those rated in CM:
SMG such as Uzi, MAT-49, Sterling: Count as Sten.
Carbine such as SKS: Count as M-1 carbine.
Self-loading rifle such as L1A1 SLR, G-3, MAS-49, M-14: Count as M-1.
Assault rifle such as IW, M-16, G-33, Galil, FAMAS, AK-47, AK-M, AK-74: Count as MP-44.
Heavy-barrelled assault rifle such as M-14 modified, RPK, RPK-74, LSW: Count as BAR.
LMG such as M249, L4, DP: Count as Bren.
GPMG in light role such as MG-3, AAT-52, L7 GPMG, M-60, PK: Count as MG-42.
You can twiddle things by a point or two up or down here and there if you like, but I think that there is little value in attempting to assign minor differences between weapons in the same general class -- I don't understand why CM gives the Sten 3 firepower points more than the MP-40 at close range, for example. Between one 9mm SMG and another (or one weapon and another in any class) I would guess that there would be far more difference caused by individual marksmanship, weapons care and the quality of the ammunition lot
than there would by differences in design.
Having had my first detailed look at the CM firepower ratings, my personal opinion is that they exagerrate the differences between weapon types -- SMGs and especially the MP-44 should be effective to longer ranges, and I'm baffled by the idea that the sMG-42 is a vastly better bullet-squirter than a water-cooled gun such as the Vickers. Still, if we take the CM values, and follow CM in disregarding the fact that no.2s would not normally be using their personal weapons, we get the following historical progression of the firepower an 8-man British section can put out:
Korea, 1950s: Bren, Sten 6 rifles:
141___77___36___15
1960s-70s: GPMG, 7 SLRs:
164___96___48___24
Falklands, 1982: GPMG, LMG, 6 SLRs:
170__129___66___33
1990s: 2 LSW, 6 IWs:
272__124___42___14
Prode of place, however, must got to the section organisation used by the British Army Training Team (BATT, a cover name for the SAS) during the Dhofar campaign, as described by Colonel Tony Jeapes:
BATT, Dhofar, 1970s: 2 GPMGs, 6 AR-15s
372__214___72___36
According to these numbers, each 4-man fireteam of such a section packs more punch at most ranges than the entire Korean-era section.
All the best,
John.
ROF for T34 w/ 2man turret
in Combat Mission Archive #4 (2002)
Posted
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