Vehicle repair times

[noob]

I'm currently running a team based PBEM operation using CM to resolve any tactical combat and i would like to know how quickly damaged vehicles were combat worthy again in real life, i specifically want to know about repair times for any damage to the main gun or that causes immobilisation.

The operation covers a 20 hour period starting at 6:00am.

[TrailApe]

Hello there noob

I don't think you are going to get any cut and dried answers here, because the time spent on any repair will depend on many variables. For instances, from personal experience, a thrown track can take hours to fix depending on the circumstances of the incedent. Nice flat level firm ground and an experienced crew could get a track back on in under an hour. However if its a rooky crew and the terrain is muddy and on a slant - and the vehicle is stuck up against the side of a tree, it could take hours - especially if you factor in exhaustion and enemy action. And I'm just talking about an MLRS track - 'real' tank tracks are a hell of a lot heavier than we were struggling with.

As for guns - well, when I was on the guns, there were basic maintenance and fixes we could do, but anything more then it was a specialist job for gun fitters. I reckon if you have a veteran crew they would be able to sort a lot more problems than a green crew - just through learning how others do it (whacking the sight bracket hard with the heel of your hand is not something you would find in a gun drill book, but if some old salt has used it in the past - you may have picked up on it)

[Michael Emrys]

What TrailApe said. There are way too many variables to give a hard and fast answer, but I think for the purposes of your 20 hour operation, once something receives main gun or mobility damage, you should consider it inoperable for the remainder of the day. If you want to include a die roll with a small (say <20%) chance of being repaired, that would probably be okay.

Michael

[Sergei]

It's kinda like taking your car for the repairs. You never know what you're gonna get.

[noob]

Thanks for the responses, i understand the relativity of the situation regarding repair times, i was just hoping someone out there might have some real life data to use as a rule of thumb, i've found one article on the net that gave some info but it was too vague to use, my default position is that immobile and gun damaged vehicles get removed from the operational OOB, i decided this for the sake of simplicity and i will probably stick to it unless i get something more tangible.

[LUCASWILLEN05]

Depends on how badly the vehicle is damaged. If immobalized the tank may have sustained track or engine damage. Maybe a few hours repair work to fix. If knocked out but not burning I would regard this as more serious damage reguiring a day or two of work to make it fit for action again. In the event that the tank is burning I would regard this as a write off.

You would also need to consider the time taken to recover the vehicle and get it back to the divisional workshops (probably a knocked out non burning tank would require this sort of work while an immobilized vehicle could well be repaired in situ)

Finally, any vehicle knocked out and is behind enemy lines at the end of a battle or if you loast the battle sufferin a masjor defeat should be counted as

lost and therefore ineligble for repair whatever level of damage it has.

For your 20 hour operation I would regard any knocked out vehicle as lost. I probably would not bother with replacemnts in an operation as short as this but you could allow a very small number if you wish. Most likely however replacement tanks woul join their unit at night while in leaguer for resupply, refueling ec. Immobilized tanks you could leave out of action for, say the next 3 or 4 hours allowing for the minor repairs they might need and time required to get them back to their parent unit or perhaps formed into a new unit.

Luke

[Sergei]

For the allies in Normandy, if the crew made it safe home there often enough was a replacement tank waiting for them, so they might be seen returning to battlefield within the same day. Of course, after barely surviving from an encounter like that your morale wouldn't be the highest.

Germans lacked the material edge in Normandy, although clinically insane commanders like Michael Wittmann would just re-appropriate someone else's tank to get back to the battle ASAP.

[Medex]

Germans lacked the material edge in Normandy, although clinically insane commanders like Michael Wittmann would just re-appropriate someone else's tank to get back to the battle ASAP.

I just bought the "The World at War" box set. In the first DVD they have an hour on the making of the series. In it they showed an interview with a German woman who said she was traveling on a train. In her compartment was a SS man who was on his way to the front. He told her he was on his way to battle and was looking to be killed. He wanted to die for the fatherland. He said he had been to the front many times but kept surviving.

[Sergei]

I just bought the "The World at War" box set. In the first DVD they have an hour on the making of the series. In it they showed an interview with a German woman who said she was traveling on a train. In her compartment was a SS man who was on his way to the front. He told her he was on his way to battle and was looking to be killed. He wanted to die for the fatherland. He said he had been to the front many times but kept surviving.

Funny, that's the same exact line I use to pick up ladies when travelling on a train.

Seriously though, I wish that guy survived and they'd also managed to interview him. "Yes, that was my greatest regret of the war... getting a non-lethal concussion under artillery barrage, then waking up in captivity. I hope we can have a re-match soon!"

[poesel]

(I'm the culprit that caused this question )

How long would it take to change the tires of a PSW that has been immobilized by small arms fire?

[Sergei]

Damage from small arms fire should be easy to fix, relatively. Now of course, small arms fire can still mess things up so that you've got more than just the simple task of changing the tires, eg. if suspension is damaged. But a couple of hours should clear it.

[Michael Emrys]

Assuming that it's only the tire that is damaged, and it's only one tire, and that the vehicle has a spare (not always available for the Germans), and that the vehicle and crew are not under fire (that's a lot of moderately big assumptions)...then maybe an hour could do it.

Michael

[thejetset]

Also, "wheels" is somewhat of an abstraction in the game. This is not your average flat tire from driving down the highway. .... There are many variables to consider. I think by reading these posts, we are just scratching the surface on the countless variables that could cause delays for getting a vehicle back into the action.

For a rec vehicle, it could literally be as simple as changing the tire. .... But small arms fire can do a lot more damage than just poping a tire. ... what if brake lines were damaged? Suspension components?? ... even something weird like damaging the wheel so it doesn't come off very easy with regular tools ....

One thing that never fails to amaize regarding bullet trajectories after they hit something ... no two are ever alike and sometimes they put holes in the darndest places once they start bouncing around and breaking apart.

[wombat_of_war]

dont forget it could be a complete unknown for a breakdown too. ive seen alot of reports and photos of broken down german tanks, that were sabotaged at the factory while being made, not to mention things that could be sabotage or half assed manufacturing like bolts not tightened at all. come to think of it. i do wonder if thats part of thereputation for break downs the big german heavies had

[TrailApe]

ive seen alot of reports and photos of broken down german tanks, that were sabotaged at the factory while being made

Never mind sabotage by slaveworkers - If there's a vital and portable piece of kit that is hard to come by via normal procedures, if it's not looked after it will 'walk'.

Your average squaddie is a bit of a magpie, so you know that wheel brace you just checked off two days ago on the kit inspection and you now need - you know the one that hasn't got a parts number stamped on it and is a real pain to get issued? The one that's really useful as it can be used on nearly every vehicle in your army's vehicle stocks?

[slysniper]

I read a book "Dearhtraps" within it there was some mention as to how repairs were done in the American Army anyway. Since the man writting the book was part of a American recovery unit.

But most tanks were transported back to a repair depot, they were repaired by the ease of the repair and parts available. So if the repair could be done in a few hours, it likely would be worked on right away, major repairs might sit for days until that was the next easy thing to repair that was available. They would have a pool of repaired tanks that when request were sent, would then be sent back to the front.

Reading another account, I remember a story about a platoon leader who was shot out of a tank, lost most of his crew, about a week later, he received a repaired tank and found it to be the same tank which he had been in and had lost his friends in. needless to say he was not happy about it.

[Michael Emrys]

dont forget it could be a complete unknown for a breakdown too. ive seen alot of reports and photos of broken down german tanks, that were sabotaged at the factory while being made, not to mention things that could be sabotage or half assed manufacturing like bolts not tightened at all. come to think of it. i do wonder if thats part of thereputation for break downs the big german heavies had

I can't speak for WW II armies, but I had a cousin who was a civilian employee of the USAF during the '50s and '60s. He told me that when the Air Force took delivery of a new plane from the factory, the first thing they did with it was fly it to a servicing center and tear it down completely and inspect it carefully. They nearly always found loose nuts and bolts, random tools, and mismatched components. I don't think this was deliberate sabotage, just the inevitable effect of harried workers on an assembly line trying to keep to a schedule on a complex piece of machinery and making the usual number of slip ups. Wouldn't surprise me in the slightest if the same thing did not happen during WW II, and that canny soldiers inspected their equipment carefully as soon as they got it, time and circumstances permitting.

Michael