John D Salt

There was a request by the Armored Board to install 90mm guns in 1,000 Shermans in Autumn 1943, which was disputed by the Ordnance Board and rejected by Army Ground Forces. Following experience in Normandy, interest in a 90mm Sherman was renewed, and this time a demonstration vehicle was prepared at Detroit Arsenal using an M4 chassis fitted with a Pershing turret (both tanks haveing the same diameter turret-ring). This was not proceeded with, as it was thought that by the time production could be ramped up the Pershing would be available anyway. Pictures of two proposals for 90mm-armed Shermans appear on pages 212 and 213 of Hunnicutt's "Sherman". All the best, John.

Arguably they were never in similar positions, as Russian logistics depended on rail transport and Allied logistics depended on shipping. And I doubt that the terrain and troop densities were all that similar. From the point of view of airborne forces, the Russians had their "Arnhem" in '43 with the Kanev drop. The Germans lost their enthusiasm for airborne operations after Crete, and the Russians after Kanev, but I think the Anglo-Allies retained some degree of enthusiasm after Arnhem, although the drops in support of the Rhine crossing were very much less ambitious in terms of depth. Having overwhelming air superiority probably helped. All the best, John.

Depends on which brigade. The battalions in the lorried infantry brigade are pretty much like those in the infantry brigades in infantry divisions, but the motor battalion is quite different, mounted in half-tracks and carriers. The armoured squadrons in the armoured brigade have the normal complement of Fireflies, but if the armoured recce regiment is being used as a fourth armoured regiment, it might not have Fireflies. Expect to see recce corps units (mounted in Humber LRCs and carriers) and I believe Archers in infantry divs only. All the best, John.

Tell me, Sigrun, have you ever heard of Operation Bagration? All the best, John.

There probably isn't much to say, as the gun was as far as I know never built even in prototype form. I believe the only mention of it occurs in connection with the proposed armament of the Panther Ausf F/Panther II. Von Senger und Etterlin has this to say (p. 64 of the Galahad Books edition): "Official documents dating from 1944 talk of a Pz Kw V 7.5cm KwK L/100. Apparently it was intended to lengthen the 7.5cm tank gun L/70 to L/100, whose performance figures must then have reached their absolute maximum. From the metallurgical and constructional points of view all possibilities had by now been exhausted with this weapon." Calibre doesn't help penetration, calibre (broadly) hinders penetration. Mass (well, areal density) and striking velocity (if you stay the right side of the shatter limit) help. The Soviet projectile is about a kilogram more massive, and leaves the muzzle about 150 m/sec faster. It's absolutely no surprise that it penetrates better. All the best, John.

The BA-64 is not even a low-tech dune buggy. All the best, John.

There is to my knowledge no book in print giving reliable, complete and consistent armour-piercing performance data for all the gun/projectile combinations used in WW2. I think the best published source for penetration figures of German weapons is Hoffschmidt & Tantum, 1968, and for British and American weapons, the works of Hunnicutt (I have "Sherman" and "Half track"), Playfair 1956 and Ellis et al 1962. I have yet to see any printed source of comparably high quality for the weapons of other nations, but Valera Potapov’s “Russian Battlefield” website (www.battlefield.ru) is by far the best source I have yet seen on Russian weapons. If it is preferred to take penetration figures based on calculation, rather than solely on historical documentation then the best printed source is Bird and Livingston’s “WW2 Ballistics: Armor and Gunnery” (Overmatch Press, Albany, NY, 2001), unfortunately now apparently unobtainable. If you want a copy of my WW2 armour penetration document, a Word file which summarizes 130 sources I have inspected, e-mail me. All the best, John.

Sure it does. But you don't need to speak the language that well to do lots of things. I only really speak two foreign langages, and am only really good in one, but I have functioned successfully at a basic level in a couple of others. Which of these characteristics you think soldiers don't have? Have you actually met any serving soldiers from the British army? I think you're right that trust is crucial. I also think that trust arises from people learning that you do what you say you will do, not from fluency in a language. Indeed in Anglophone culture there is a tendency not to trust people who have too much verbal facility. However, making people believe that you will do what you say is something the Army is very, very good at. The degree of language skill needed to do so is much less than you seem to imagine. I don't think the successful "Hearts & Minds" campaigns of the past have depended on the rank and file being trained to degree-standard language competence. Unfortunately this doesn't stop people bidding to supply hand-held machine translators to the US armed forces. I haven't seen this particular flavour of silliness from the British defence procurement community yet, but I expect it will happen -- it's not just the army the decision-makers know nothing about, they're clueless about AI and foreign languages, too. All the best, John.

Yup. Unless they've done the course at Beaconsfield. Unless they've read their int folders during IPB like good little soldiers. Something the British Army has had rather a lot of practice at these past three hundred years. Yup. As Bugeaud had it, "L'infanterie anglaise est la plus redoubtable de l"Europe; heureusement, il n'y en a pas beaucoup". Of course, "Network Enabled Capability" means that people making decisions about defence policy -- usually people with no military knowledge, experience or culture, advised by other people who want to sell them expensive electronics and consultancy -- are currently engaged in cutting the number of infantry in the British Army, and seeking to obtain military capabilities "better, faster and cheaper" by means of the military equivalent of the .com boom of blessed memory. If you have a belief in technology as sympathetic magic, then every problem presents itself to you as a technological problem -- hammers and nails again. And this is the real reason for why someone needs pictures of special forces tooling around in satcom-equipped desert cruisers ready to call in expensive death from the sky before you can say "reconaissance-strike complex". It's so much more glamorous and exciting than training, equipping and supporting an adequate number of boot infantry. All the best, John. [ August 27, 2006, 01:35 AM: Message edited by: John D Salt ]

Given that calls for fire should be going over dedicated gunner nets, I doubt that this will make a great deal of difference. As I think Ian Hogg once put it, once the words "Fire mission" have been said, people stop talking about things like fresh supplies of socks. All the best, John.

It all sounds fine so far. A few questions: 1. Does this mean that players will be able to arrange reinforcing fires? It sounds as if it does (I get the arty battalion assigned to support me, plus fire from the other battalions in the regiment). 2. Are there different fuzing options for the rounds? 3. Are there options for firing different sheafs? 4. Are there options for firing at different rates? 5. Are ammo stocks of different natures recorded separately (HE, WP, BES)? 6. Can non-observer elements perform Artillery Target Indication, as for example a squad leader calling the fall of shot to an FO who hasn't himself got eyes on the target? None of these seem incompatible with the system as so far described, which seems to be a considerable improvement on the CM system. All the best, John.

The portee idea continued for quite a while after the war. For example, the British Wombat 120mm recoilless gun was mounted en portee on Land Rovers and in the large circular hatch of the FV432 APC. This makes sense, because the Wombat was a light weapon, not particularly suitable for towing, and such a mounting gives the possibility of getting the gun into action quickly if surprised on the move. All the best, John.

Which is why, if you are ever aiming an RPG-7 at a tank in a crosswind, you should remember that the wind drift correction on the sight is applied the other way round to what you might expct (you aim off downwind of the target, not upwind). All the best, John.

Ah, but Mr. Picky must now advise that Herr Doktor Korinthenkacker of the Department of Military-Historical Gefingerpoken at the University of Ulm has pointed out a defect in the steam-powered P(hit) calculator when dealing with rocket projectiles. I believe that RPzBGr 4322 rockets fired from the Panzerschreck were not ABOL (All Burnt On Launch), hence the need for the shield and/or the operator to wear a respirator to protect against the rocket exhaust. This means that there is a short interval of powered flight after the projectile has left the muzzle, during which it may be accelerating. The steam-powered P(hit) generator is designed to deal only with projectiles following a ballistic trajectory, and needs modifying to deal with powered projectiles; as it stands, it will clearly under-estimate the P(hit) obtained by non-ABOL rockets (and combination recoilless gun/rockets like RPG-7). Terry Gander's "Bazooka" (PRC publishing, London, 1998) gives the m.v.s I have used, and states the maximum effective range of Püppchen as 230m "against moving tank targets" and the effective anti-tank range of Panzerschreck with the RPzBGr 4322 rocket as 150m. He states that this rises to 180m firing the RPzBGr 4992, with its "far more efficient motor", which was ABOL (except in conditions of extreme cold). Although he makes no mention of there being any increase in projectile velocity, presumably there must have been. A rule of thumb for estimating the effective range of a bazooka-like hand-held anti-tank weapon is to take a figure in metres equal to the muzzle velocity in m/sec. Gander's figures are 40% further for Panzerschreck and 50% further for Püppchen, possibly indicating a slight advantage from Püppchen's additional stability, or possibly indicating an obsession with pointless detail. If the same +40% applies for the Panzerscheck with the RPzBGr 4992 rocket, that might suggest an m.v. of about 130 m/sec. If anyone knows what it really was, or the all-burnt distance for the RPzBGr 4322, I would be thrilled to NAAFI-breaks to know. Not that I am obsessive about pointless detail, or anything. All the best, John.

I'd say it's between the Swiss and the Swedes. All the best, John.

Mr. Picky's steam-powered P(hit) calculator barfs up the following numbers if fed with the assumptions of a 3.3Kg projectile, 2 mils projectile dispersion from all causes and range estimation error of 20% against a 2.5m x 2.5m static target: range_____RPzB54____Püppchen 100m_______100%_______100% 200m________68%________94% 300m________21%________37% 400m_________7%________13% 500m_________3%_________6% 600m_________2%_________3% 700m_________1%_________2% 800m____________________1% I have assumed an m.v. of 110 m/sec for the RPz54, 150 m/sec for the Püppchen, and the extra 40 m/sec accounts for all the difference you can see in the above figures. There may be a difference in dispersion at the muzzle, but P(hit) is fairly insensitive to it at these velocities and ranges. All the best, John.

Fas est et ab hoste doceri. Omnia bonorum, John.

but I guess GUI space is a bit limited. </font>

Naah, you can lift 17 pounds, don't need a tractor. All the best, John. </font>

Naah, you can lift 17 pounds, don't need a tractor. All the best, John.

...and the nationality, as the DBT is Belgian (it's what the ( stands for at the end of the Fremdgerät number) I think more likely to be referring to the fact that it's a Crusader gun tractor, not a Cromwell. All the best, John.

Practically none of the cheerleading for digitization I have ever seen bothers itself with even the briefest consideration of any serious EW threat. As a colleague of mine at Fort Halstead used to say, our normal assumption is that the EW threat is presented by an enemy equipped with the electronic equivalent of a sharpened mango. All the best, John.

I have just stolen the following numbers from the salary checker at totaljobs. Obviously they are deeply questionable, first because they are based on totaljobs ads, and advertised salaries are largely imaginary, and second because the category names used are entirely misleading. The numbers are, in round thousands of pounds sterling, the reported "average" and "average maximum" annual salaries for each category. No, I have no idea what "average maximum" could possibly mean. Defence engineer:______32 to 35 Oil & gas engineer:____34 to 38 Solicitors:____________40 to 44 Accountants (ACA):_____41 to 46 General managers:______48 to 53 Doesn't look to me as if oil & gas engineers are doing terribly well against the bean-counters and the suits, and I expect barristers earn pots more than solicitors, it's just that they don't show up on salary surveys 'cos they don't get paid salaries. All the best, John.

Oh, bum.

Ah ... this might be getting toward an explanation I can understand. </font>