John D Salt

You are correct. But I never suggested they were the same weapon if you read the above paragraph. I merely pointed out that the Chauchat, and early AR, was itself based on the Browning gas mechanism.</font>

While that all sounds plausible on its face, I don't think it matches the facts. Despite the improvements in production engineering, the Bren remained a quality-built gun throughout the war (and incidentally my Grandad worked at RSAF Enfield Lock, the only factory in the UK to make Brens during the war). According to Hogg & Weeks' "Military Small Arms of the 20th Century" (6th edn, A&AP, 1991) The Mk 2 was in production from June 1941, and you are right that it had the non-telescoping bipod, as it was the variant that introduced the producton simplifications. This, far from being "shoddy", was the gun that must have done most to build the Bren's reputation for accuracy. The Mks 3 and 4 were lightened and shortened converions of the Mks 1 and 2 respectively, introduced in July 1944 with the intention of being used for jungle warfare but in fact used in other theatres too. I'm not sure about the sights moving as a result of recoil, either; I've only ever fired 7.62mm Brens, and the .303 is perhaps a harder-kicking cartridge, but with 7.62mm there is minimal felt recoil, and sight alignment presents not the slightest problem. The conversions to 7.62mm were not based exclusively on early-production or post-war guns, either; the L4s I used to use in the TA had date-stamps of 1943 and 1944 scored out on the sides of their receivers. According to "Jane's Infatry Weapons 1975", the L4 conversions were made as follows: L4A1 Converted Mk 3 L4A2 Converted Mk 3 L4A3 Converted Mk 2, chromium-plated barrel L4A4 Converted Mk 3, chromium-plated barrel L4A5 Converted Mk 2 L4A6 Converted L4A1, chromium-plated barrel L4A7 Converted Mk 1, none made All the best, John.

Only if you are ignorant of the history of weapons design. The Bar design parts, all made by Browning, predates the Chauchat by years. (I should have noted that the Browning closed bolt may have come in part from the Chauchat, even those the gas mechanism was much much older -- the oldest BAR designs prewar were all open bolt. ##edited##) </font>

You're quite right. Brainfart on my part. I should also perhaps mention that the "4 regts" could equally be written as "2 regts x 2 bdes", as I understand the AEF has 2-brigade divisions each of 2 regiments. That's the only ZB-24 I know, too; AIUI it is Czech, this being the Mauser rifle built under licence at the ZB works. Of course "ZB-24" just gives the name of the factory and the nominal year of introduction -- I believe the designation for an MG produced in that year would be vz ZB 24. All the best, John.

Don't worry, we will get you up to speed. </font>

Well, not tools, exactly, but an asbestos glove ("Mitten asbestos M1942"), as shown on p. 487 of Jane's Infantry Weapons 1975. All the best, John.

Here, let me feed you a couple of snippets... "Mounting The gun is usually employed as a light machine gun using a bipod but during the war a tripod was available. This enabled the gun to fire on fixed lines and could also be adapted readily for anti-aircraft use" -- page 462, Jane's Infantry Weapons 1975, ed. Maj. F Hobart. "Carrier fire power in defence The carrier platoon should rarely be employed in the static role of increasing the depth of the position, unless guns so allotted can also be available as a mobile reserve. At night, or in fog or mist, the LMGs of the carrier platoon can, by means of the tripod, be laid on fixed lines." -- page 207, Handbook on the British Army 1943, ed. Chris Ellis & Peter Chamberlain. While I can see BTS' reasons for not modelling it, I don't see how it can reasonably be "disputed" that the Bren tripod existed and could be used in the ground role. However, it's really not top of my list for things to add to CM -- illuminating rounds, trip flares, the Dingo, the Humber Light Recce Car (two of the commonest pieces of light armour in the BLA), the Sd Kfz 222 and the Littlejohn adapter all come higher up the list. Mind you, it's nice to dream about the carrier platoon being modelled so that it is possible to cram the full complement of armament on the carriers, and have the option to dismount Brens, put them on tripods, and also go housebreaking with PIATs in the high-angle mortar role (while shooting low-angle 2-in mortar bombs in through the windows). Riiiighht... You have seen, have you, page 55 of Ellis & Chamberlain's "Schmeisser", where it points out that the Steyr-Solothurn SI-100 SMG could be fitted with a tripod? :eek: All the best, John.

Are you saying that the "hip assault" position is not taught? Yes, thank you, I'm aware of that, I just can;t be bothered to type out "...or GPMG in the light role" every time I type LMG. To reinforce the point I made about different American terminology for this kind of weapon -- although the Minimi is, clearly, an LMG, and a very good one too (what else do you expect from FN?), the US Army calls it a SAW. Indeed I wonder if any US Army weapon was ever officially designated as an LMG -- the Johnson gun, perhaps? All the best, John.

Somebody certainly needs to look a great deal more carefully, I agree. Well, you have agreed that the concept of "marching fire" quickly became defunct (apart from Patton's resurrection of it in 3rd Army during WW2). How a weapon designed to fulfil a defunct role could possibly "call the tune" of later development is a bit hard to see. The action of the BAR was imitated in such designs as the Chatellerault, certainly. The idea that the BAR was influential on the development of LMG tactics, however, would be the utter tosh. The only class of weapons since the BAR to use fixed barrels and bottom-mounted magazines -- and after a time-lag of about half a century, which suggests that the BAR was not a great influence -- are those SAWs that are heavy-barrelled versions of existing assault rifles, and a collection of bastardised crossbred nonsenses they are. Really? The Browning company web-site seems to think that the patent for the BAR was filed on 01 Aug 1917. I'm not sure what bizarre set of conditions you are intending to specify to show that the BAR was in some way a "first", but the Lewis was in action with the BEF by 1914, and the Chauchat by 1915. The Mondragon -- clearly an automatic rifle rather than an LMG -- predated both by several years. If, as you claim, the BAR was standardised (before it was even patented!) in 1916, it still fails rather to be a first, either as an automatic rifle or as an LMG. The true trend-S(a)etter {<-- obscure machine-gun joke} was the Madsen, which saw action in the Russo-Japanese war of 1904, and continued in service one way or another for 50 years or so despite never being "standardised" by anyone. The Madsen, like most successful LMG designs, had a top-mounted mag. The Browning company web-site claims that the BAR was used in action in 1918, which is news to me. I doubt that it was used in great numbers, though. Claiming that the BAR was the only reliable man-portable automatic weapon all the way through WW2 seems so badly out to lunch that I assume that was a mis-type for "WW1". Even if it is, it's not true. People are forever fiddling with minor tactics, but the basic principles of fire and movement had been established at the turn of the century, and only fell into temporary disuse during WW1 because of the perceived difficulty in training vast conscript armies in them. The fire and movement tactics the British Army used in 1918 were fully developed and would still work well today (and, indeed, have been shown to do so in experiments such as Exercise Sea Wall). They do, however, rely on having a proper LMG, and not just a heavy-barrelled auto rifle. Apart from the quick-change barrel, the Madsen embodied all those features years before the BAR. FN modified the BAR after WW2 to include a quick-change barrel. For some reason I don't understand, American neglect of this feature continued with the M-60, which requires tools for the barrel to be changed. I've never heard of this ZB24 before, and cannot find it in Hogg's Encyclopedia of Military Small-Arms (where, interestingly, the BAR is not classified under machine-guns at all) or by a web search. Could you give a reference to your source for this, please? All the best, John.

I have no idea. But the troop commander (his tank was "Lochinvar") of 2 troop, Right Flank, 3 SG later became Archbishop of Canterbury. All the best, John.

If it's a different unit, it's not "contradictory". Do you think the British Army organises itself according to some kind of standard? Seriously, though, you'll see from my "britorg" file that most of the infantry tank organisations listed there are as you describe. The one from the Staff College "Bluecoat" battle study (a battle in which 6 Gds Tk Bde and 3SG played a starring role) says "24 tanks" for a squadron, which I can only make sense of by interpreting it as 4 Stuarts (from the recce troop) plus 5 tps of 3 gun tanks and a 5-vehicle SHQ (2 gun tanks, 2 CS tanks an an ARV). Nonetheless, four troops is what White's book shows. As it's dated June, the reduction in strength cannot possibly be accounted for by battle losses. I have a copy of Helion's 1939-1943 Commonwealth orbat book by Mark Beavis, and it mentions some 4-troop organisations for infantry tank regiments. I don't know whether there were different authorised War Establishments for different kinds of squadron, but the Guards have always been a little idiosyncratic. I wonder if anyone at BTS would be prepared to change the CM engine so that British Guards HQs never move "fast"? ("In the Guards, we are never late. Therefore, in the Guards, we never run. A Guards officer always walks. And it is not enough to walk -- you must walk sumptuously"). It's OK, but how many times does the story of British tank development during WW2 need to be told? If you've already read Smithers' "Rude Mechanicals" (which shows a strange affection for TOG) or whatever-David-Fletcher's-book-is-called (I haven't read it) or even just the relevant Bovington booklets or Chamberlain & Ellis, you'll know pretty much how it goes. All the best, John.

How curious. In which of his numerous books does Hogg say this? There can be few air-cooled MGs that are so massive they need a reipod to support them. The main motive for tripod mounting, surely, is to hold the weapon securely for firing on fixed lines, and, especially, to enable it to be re-laid on different targets using a dial sight. The BAR can hardly be described as "trend-setting" in any sense, and the tactical style of employment was in fact rather different from that expected with the Bren, as you imply in mentioning the habit of not using a no. 2 ("assistant gunner" in American English) on the BAR. On the simple question of historical precedence, the BAR was not by any means the first gun to put automatic firepower into the section (American "squad"), being beaten into production by a few years, and into action by a few decades, by the Lewis and the Chauchat. The British style of use, with the Lewis (originally an American design), was similsr to what we would now expect universally for LMGs, served by a two-man (at least) team and firing from the prone position while the accompanying riflemen advance and assault. Although the lightened MG08 was a much inferior weapon (I believe captured Lewis guns were preferred), German LMG tactics followed much the same line of development, soundly grounded in the fundamental idea of fire and movement. The French style of use, with the Chauchat, envisioned that the gun should habitually accompany the skirmish line of riflemen, the gunner firing from the hip. This evidently made the use of a no. 2 problematic, and militated strongly against features such as belt feed and changeable barrels. The difference in style was reflected in the different in terms: While the British and Germans spoke of light machine guns, the French called their weapon a "fusil-mitrailleur", or machine-rifle. Both the tactical style and the linguistic difference can be seen in American usage. The BAR was visualised as being used Chauchat-style, and, with Patton's "Marching Fire", in practice it sometimes was (though the "book" tactics had become F&M based, albeit with undie complication). For many years after WW2, the habitual American term for an LMG was "Automatic Rifle", a more-or-less straight translation of "fusil-mitrailleur". The parallel wholesale adoption of French artillery tactics by the Americans in WW1 is commented on in Gudmunsson's "On Artillery". The BAR, then, was not so much a tactical "trend-setter" (though elements of the mechanical design were widely copied) so much as the last weapon in service to embody an obsolete conception of the role of the LMG on the battlefield (as far as I'm aware the French had adopted tactics on the Anglo-German model by the time the Chatellerault was adopted). Nobody would these days take the idea of "marching fire" seriously for trained troops (although I seem to remember reading something by Edward Luttwak that indicated he thought it was still a valid idea). Some of the oddities of the French heritage of US LMG policy lingered on long after the BAR disappeared; the issue of 5 M-60 GPMGs to a 1970s USA mech inf pl can be explained by the 3 of those M-60s in the squads replacing the BAR, and the 2 issued to the platoon replacing the cumbersome "light" MG, the Browning M1919A6. I believe that this strangeness still persists in the US habit of teaching the "hip assault" position for LMG fire, a pointless frippery the British Army has not bothered with for at least the past 20 years, if it ever did, and which I doubt is taught by many other armies. Of course, the weakness of US LMG equipment and tactics did not cause as much trouble as it might have done during WW2, as the US Army had the countervailing advantages of suberb MMGs and HMGs (also the handiwork of John Moses Browning) and a superb standard-issue rifle, the Garand. All the best, John.

Indeed -- in S Sqn 3 SG these were the 2-i-c and SSMs tanks. A curiousity I have discvered in Chamberlain & Ellis is that some Mk IIs had the 2-pdr replaced by a 3-in howitzer, giving 2 such weapons, one in the turret, one in the bow. They also say that the Mk IICS never saw action, and also that the 3-in how variants were only used in North Africa and Italy, which contradicts Farrell. Page 50 of B T White's "British Tank Markings and Names" (A&AP, London, 1978) gives a list of tank names for 3 SG in June 1944, and indicates 4 troops of 3 gun tanks plus Sqn HQ of 4 tanks and an ARV. The squadrons are, of course, in accordance with Guards tradition, called Right Flank, S and Left Flank. RHQ has 4 tanks, 3 OP tanks and an ACV. The recce troop has 12 Stuarts, and the intercomm troop 11 scout cars. I suppose I shouldn't grumble about German seperable verbs when English has infixed plurals... AIUI AVsRE were mostly on Mk III and IV chassis, and a lot of Is went for ARVs or BARVs. Now, what grog is going to tell the group why the one Mk III intended for conversion into an NA 75 was not so converted? All the best, John.

Me neither. But you're doing well enough if you realise that you should be looking for the Churchill-driving Scots Guards under "infantry". All the best, John.

Certainly not all Mk. VIIIs, but as far as I can discover it's very hard to tell what specific variants were used (I tried to find this out when researching a battlefield walk for Operation "Bluecoat", for which the Staff College 1947 battle study was useful, but did not contain this particular detail). Terence Cuneo's painting "Action of the Right Flank at Caumont" shows Robert Runcie's troop vehicles as having square hatches, and I'd say they are intended to represent Mk VIs. Charles Farrell's "Reflections" states that the CS tanks of "S" squadron, which he commanded, were equipped with the 3-in howitzer, used only to fire smoke. That would make it a Mk I, II or IICS. I suppose these could be modelled reasonably well in CM:BO by giving a Mk V an all-smoke amn load, although you miss the dubious benefit of having a 2-pounder as well. I am pretty sure that there were some 6-pounder Churchills around in Normandy, too, although whether mostly IIIs, IVs or IXs I don't know, and CM:BO doesn't include them anyway. Now, ask me the names of the tanks in 3 SG and I can give you the full list... All the best, John.

That's pretty easy -- because only the Allies (specifically, the Americans -- credit where credit's due) developed a successful proximity fuze during the war. Ian Hogg's "German Secret Weapons of WW2" (my copy not to hand so my recollection of the title might be a bit squinty) is replete with codenames for German proximity-fuze projects that never made it into service. Like VT, they were mostly intended for air defence applications. Yes, but artillery shells that *reliably* provide airbursts at a useful height are another thing entirely. Most of the airburst shell fired in WW1 would have been shrapnel, anyway. Depending on who you read, shrapnel was either an effective man-killer against troops in the open, but useless at cutting wire or hurting entrenched troops; or it was a complete waste of space. The Russians continued to use shrapnel in WW2, I believe (The "Handbook on Soviet Military Forces" certainly seems to think so), and the Japanese and Italians I think continued to use it, but I think it's fairly safe to say that there wasn't any shrapnel fired in Normandy (maybe some old captured weapons with exotic Fremdgerat numbers had some). Most wargames rules dealing with mobile warfare -- as CM:BO does -- treat field artillery as if it did hardly anything else but simple concentrations with superquick fuzes. I think that's not a bad simplification. "Absolutely unrealistic" doesn't make much sense (as I've said before, "realistic" isn't really a sensible word to use when talking about simulation, anyway). CM:BO players use indirect fire in ways that are discernably related to the ways field commanders used it. Still, I agree that I'd like to see the treatement of artillery given a complete overhaul, so that players can juggle with different kinds of fuze, perform advance fire-planning, fire proper rolling barrages, call reinforcing fires, and so on. I want to be able to put elevated OPs in church towers (it's traditional, dammit) and have the other side's artillery try to shoot them down, shooting in three dimensions (the impact point on the ground will be a fair way beyond the one on the church tower). Most of all, if I'm playing the Brits and I get bogged down by those pesky [Tigers | Panthers | 88s | SMG squads | Puppchens | 20mm Flak guns | Fallschirmjager] I want, instead of having to run away, to be able to lose the game by paying a substantial forfeit in victory points in exchange for the privelege of seeing the other side vanish in clouds of smoke and falling trees shortly after my FO yells "Uncle target!" into his wireless handset. It occurs to me that, by assuming a fictional elevated observer at a considerable distance behind the lines, the functionality of the LOS tool could be re-used to calculate (and visualise) crest restrictions for artillery. This would give still more point to mortars and to the reverse-slope defence. It would also, AFAIK, be the first time this question had been simulated in detail in any entertainment wargame. Oh -- and does anyone know if CM:BO simulates the fact that VT is less effective over lying snow because the burst height is higher (due to better reflection of RF energy)? All the best, John.

PRO document WO 185/179, "Tank armament versus armour", dated 1943, has some calculations of the amount of metal pushed into a tank by various rounds perforating 75mm-thick plate, this being the total of the shot or shell and the armour plate it pushes ahead of itself. Typically this "pushed" metal accounts for about a third of the total. I reproduce a summary of the results here, updated to SI units. Weapon_______Amn nature_______Mass of metal 88mm_________APCBCHE__________11.9 Kg 17-pdr_________APC______________9.5 Kg 75mm_________APCBCHE__________8.2 Kg 6-pdr__________APCBC____________4.3 Kg 75mm PaK 41___APCNR____________1.25 Kg 95mm_________HEAT_____________0.45 Kg WO 291/171, "Effectiveness of British anti-tank guns", states that a tank is unlikely to survive a penetration by a weapon of 57mm calibre or larger. We might take this to mean that any weapon projecting less than, say, 4 Kg of metal into the target vehicle offer some appreciable chance of the vehicle being able to continue in action. Both WW2-era HEAT rounds and APDS were criticised for their lack of behind-armour effect, and the 17-pdr APCBC round was kept in service alongside APDS precisely because of this (I estimate that 17pdr APDS penetrating 75mm plate would drive in about 2 Kg of metal, working on the basis that it has a 38mm calibre penetrator as against the 30mm of the 75/55mm Pak 41). Now, a 14.5mm penetration is not going to produce much in the way of metal compared to the figures given above. Apart from the tiny size of the round, it cannot dream of penetrsating 75mm of armour, so there will be a good deal less plate thickness for it to push in. One of the things that raises the Soviet ATRs into "a class of their own" when compared with other ATRs -- and I would say into the class of "almost completely useless" instead of "completely useless" -- is the provision of tungsten-cored rounds. These, admittedly, give better penetration (although the 50mm we have seen mentioned, without any authority quoted, in another thread seems to me entirely fantastic). They will suffer the penalties of diminished penetrator calibre just like their larger brothers -- I don't know what the penetrator calibre would be, but a good rule of thumb for WW2 seems to be half the overall calibre, and half the calibre means a quarter of the armour mass "pushed" in front of the round. The low behind-armour lethality of ATR rounds was recognised by the Germans, who used the supremely impuissant 7.92mm calibre. With more ingenuity than regard for the 1925 Geneva gas protocol, they incorporated a small pellet of tear-gas into the round, in the hope that it might induce the crew of a penetrated tank to leave in a hurry. The effectiveness of this measure was such that nobody noticed it until after the end of the war. All the best, John.

I think it's Andrew Wilson's "Flame Thrower" (an account of his service with 141 Regiment RAC (The Buffs), a Crocodile regiment) that describes "the drill" for dealing with stubborn concrete pillboxes. First, the pillbox apertures are engaged with 75mm and BESA to dissuade anyone inside from attempting to shoot through them. Some pillboxes give up at this point. Next, an AVRE fires a petard, to make a big hole in the pillbox. Most pillboxes give up at this point. Finally, a Crocodile fires flame into the hole created by the petard. I can't recall Wilson's exact words, but he says something like "There wasn't a fourth movement to the drill; it wasn't really necessary." All the best, John.

Mr. Picky would like to point out that the letters "VT" were originally merely an arbitrary (US Navy, I believe) project code for a proximity fuze. The term "Variable Time" is a back-formation, and not a very good one at that, as it is no kind of time fuze. All the best, John.

...and so you should. The 66-round amn load that appears in CM:BO is the load carried in the mortar detachment's carrier. I don't see the crew lifting 66 bombs very fast; even assuming they're the lightweight 7.5lb version, that's 225 Kg just for the amn, before you try hefting the baseplate, tube and bipod. All the best, John.

On a point of informnation, the 2-in mortar does *not* have a barrel smaller than the round, that is, it's not a spigot mortar. Neither are the German 5cm leGrW 36, the Japanese 50mm Type 10 or Type 89 "knee-mortars", the Italian Brixia 45mm modello 35, the Soviet 50mm PM-38, -39, -40 and -41, the Polish 46mm granatnik wz 36, the French lance-grenades de 50mm modele 37 or, darn it, the Belgian lance-grenades de 50mm DBT, all of which are smaller than the 60mm, although I believe that only the Soviet models were drop-fired. The Japanese did produce a 50mm spigot mortar for firing picric-acid demolition charges or bangalore torpedoes, the Type 98. The teensiest mortar ever was I think the Soviet 37mm spade-mortar, although little seems to be known about it. All the best, John.

Certainly you're not alone. One of the corporals responsible for my basic infantry training memorably informed me that tanks are "nasty, smelly, noisy, dangerous things", and one should have nothing to do with them. There are simply too many ways that even a friendly tank can hurt you if you get too close to it -- tank crewmen don't call their mounts "gruntcrunchers" for nothing. Apart from the hazard of the commander thinking he's seen something nasty and calling "driver, reverse" just as you step up to grab the tank telephone (assuming one is fitted), the blast from the main gun could be pretty unpleasant, and for the Brits at least you might already in WW2 have bits of discarding sabot to worry about. I believe it was British WW2 doctrine for all weapons to engage tanks freely, so attracting lots of fire should certainly be a hazard for anyone facing them. According to PRO document WO 291/502, "Germany Infantry in Action" (an early-war training pamphlet, so not necessarily definitive) German doctrine against tanks was for infantrymen not equipped with anti-tank weapons to take cover and hold their fire, so this might not be such a problem for opponents of the Germans; although, presumably, if you know that there might be enemy infantry in close proximity with an enemy tank, you should hose it down on principle. Contrariwise, I seem to recall reading somwhere that an established method in the US Army for getting a platon that had gone to ground moving again was to call up a tank, so that the platoon leader could stand up behind cover to rally his troops. This raises a question about the way CM works -- can leaders exercise leadership when they are hiding? The whole question of intimate tank/infantry co-operation is a tricky one. British and American tanks in the 1944-45 time-frame would, I belive, have radios working on different frequencies to their accompanying infantry (House mentions this in his "Combined Arms Warfare in the 20th Century"). Tank telephones were one solution tried -- a telephone on the back plate of the tank, wired into the tank's intercomm system. British tanks would sometimes carry a spare 38 set in the turret, tuned to the infantry frequency, but after the withdrawal of the 38 set from infantry use (whenever that was -- anyone know?) there was no common set. Being on the same frequency as the infantry might not help that much, anyway. WO 232/77, "Infantry communications in the infantry battalion", quotes a "lessons learned" document from the Staffordshire Yeomanry as saying that infantry communications are "without exception deplorable. There is a general defeatist attitude amongst infantry that their communications are bound to fail once the battle starts. The attitude is justified as they always do." WO 291/482 and /486 deal with target indication by tanks to infantry, and within the infantry dection. Both seem to favour indicating targets by the use of tracer. Perhaps surprisingly, trials at Barnard Castle showed that target indication within the section by tracer was usually quicker than doing it verbally. All the best, John.