No US 90mm AA/AT guns?

[Michael Emrys]

7 hours ago, panzersaurkrautwerfer said:

While  thousands of 90 MM anti-aircraft guns were produced, a very small portion of them (perhaps even less than the Jadgtigers) saw direct fire employment, many of them tied up keeping Seattle WA safe from Japanese bombers, shooting down V1s,  deployed protecting rear areas etc.  They just were not commonly employed for a variety of reasons.

Exactly. They were AAA and used as such. The Brits also had an AA gun that was possibly a better AT weapon than the German 88, if less mobile, but it never got used as such. Why? Because it was being used to protect strategic targets agains air attack. In North Africa Rommel often pulled his 88s off their AA duty to beef up his AT capabilities on the front line. As a result, his harbors often lacked sufficient protection from air attack and his logistic support suffered one more kind of damage. Some people think he was brilliant and the British High Command was stupid, but look who won the campaign and the war.

Michael

[JonS]

7 hours ago, Michael Emrys said:

The Brits also had an AA gun that was possibly a better AT weapon than the German 88, if less mobile, but it never got used as such.

Completely agree with the sentiment and your general points, however it may be of some interest that the 3.7-in was used - intentionally - as an A-Tk weapon during the fighting in the Western Desert, on at least one occasion.

Edited April 16, 2016 by JonS

[user1000]

I think somewhere in the time period the 90mm AA units joined AT units. This has already happened in the ardennes where vets recount killing tanks with them. The stories from vets and their 90mm AA guns are very hard to come by BUT THERE ARE SOME STORIES OF ANTI-TANK USE and literature lacks any specifics that I have found as of yet, just stories from veterans of the gun. There are also a couple pictures of them in the AT position and are very hard to come by as well. I have only seen one guarding a road from tanks. But the lack of pictures doesn't mean they were NOT used for AT.

Edited April 16, 2016 by user1000

[Michael Emrys]

59 minutes ago, user1000 said:

...BUT THERE ARE SOME STORIES OF ANTI-TANK USE...

Oh I don't think anyone has disputed that. I know that it has been some decades since I first came across an account of their use during Bulge. But the argument is that that was an emergency situation where anything that was available was snatched up and sent where it was thought to be needed, not a carefully planned out general operational technique. The Army saw the AA gun as just that and that was how it was to be used. It was significantly modified so that it could be mounted on an armored carriage, but it was not really thought of as an immobile AT gun. You have to understand that by this stage of the war the era of the AT gun was drawing to a close. At the start of the war, AT guns were small enough to be manhandled and concealed. But by the middle of the war, it was getting harder for such guns to be effective against now uparmored tanks and other armored vehicles. So the AT guns got bigger too. The 7.5cm PaK represented pretty much the upper limit to what was really practicable. The 17pdr and 76mm were both pretty unwieldy for their crews to try to move around, and it was clearly not a good idea to field a larger gun that was not on a motorized carriage. Postwar armies showed increased interest in rocket powered and eventually electronically guided missile weaponry for the infantry and put the big guns on tracks.

Michael

[Michael Emrys]

2 hours ago, JonS said:

...it may be of some interest that the 3.7-in was used - intentionally - as an A-Tk weapon during the fighting in the Western Desert, on at least one occasion.

I've read that but I've never been able to find out where or when. Do you know?

Michael

[panzersaurkrautwerfer]

Re: Tanks are Sexy

Armored fighting vehicles always have way more sex appeal than a static gun.  It's a simple fact.  Also when you're going for more bang for your buck in terms of programming, I imagine a Jadgtiger gets more attention than a 90 MM AA gun.  

 

9 hours ago, user1000 said:

I think somewhere in the time period the 90mm AA units joined AT units. This has already happened in the ardennes where vets recount killing tanks with them. The stories from vets and their 90mm AA guns are very hard to come by BUT THERE ARE SOME STORIES OF ANTI-TANK USE and literature lacks any specifics that I have found as of yet, just stories from veterans of the gun. There are also a couple pictures of them in the AT position and are very hard to come by as well. I have only seen one guarding a road from tanks. But the lack of pictures doesn't mean they were NOT used for AT.

I've heard references to them being pulled off of AA duty in places, but more often in reference to the same general panic that led to folks being asked the capital city for Illinois. I don't think anyone doubts they played a role as an AT weapon on some occasions but it just was not especially common.

Errata:

1. It's worth noting they're not the only low density weapon to not make it into the Bulge.  I mean some US Armored Infantry units retained their old 37 MM AT guns, either towing them or making an improvised mounts for them on a halftrack.  I've got photos of both methods and some commentary.  This does not mean the game is really worse off though, just demonstrative that not everything will make it in.

2. The Germans wound up using the 88 extensively because they always had a bigger tank problem than the Allies.  This may sound counter-intuitive, but German armor was simply not that common in the wider picture of things.  Locally it could become very common, as was the German practice of schwerpunkt, but most German units had very little armor on hand if anything at all generally Stugs and Panzer Jagers (they never had anything like the Allied/Soviet infantry supporting armor BN/BDEs).

And facing this fairly armor light collection of forces was frankly the largest collection of armored vehicles in history (there were twice as many Shermans produced than German AFVs of all types).  

Which is not to wander back into the Deutchland Uber Alles mythos of superior tankers killing waves of tanks.  Not at all, German armor was frequently mauled, defeated, and destroyed by "inferior" tanks and tankers.  But if you're the German Army you've got enemy Panzers coming from EVERYWHERE and in number.  If you're the Allies, you might very well never see much German armor at all.

So in that regard the Germans had to answer the question of how to deal with thousands upon thousands of enemy tanks on the offensive.  And that was pretty much anything that could be AT had to be AT (see some of the various attempts to keep things like the PAK 50 relevant).  The Allies and specifically the US in this case never had to think of ways to go max anti-armor at the expense of other weapons and missions.  

[JonS]

14 hours ago, Michael Emrys said:

I've read that but I've never been able to find out where or when. Do you know?

Michael

Damn. I thought there was something in Pemberton's "Development of artillery tactics and equipment", but now I can't find it, sorry. As I recall it was post COMPASS and pre- first battle of Alamein, so we're talking about a fairly narrow time period of from ~March 41 through to June 42. And I'm also fairly sure it was in the Tobruk area (i.e., within 50-100 miles of the port). I'm reasonably sure it was in the first half of 1942. Anyway, They found about what you'd expect; ballisticly (ballistically? ballisticaly?) it worked very well (which is not surprising for a large calibre gun, firing with a really high MV, against early-war lightly-armoured Pz.IIs and IVs), but tactically it had an extremely high silhouette, no protection for the crew, and took ages to emplace/displace. And - as you noted - when they were busy tagging panzers they weren't protecting Alexandria.

IIRC, they also had to make some modifications to the mount, and supply different sights, before they could even depress the barrels low enough. Later in the war, from about mid-1943 when the Luftwaffe had become irrelevant, they started using them for indirect artillery fire, and found that prolonged firing ruined the mounts because the firing stresses were ~horizontal rather than ~vertical, and the mounts weren't designed for that.

[MikeyD]

Talk about AA, it seems nobody uses 40mm Bofors (or the Russian 35mm clone) in the game. Heck, you rarely see the towed .50 quad in use. One reason is German air attack is extremely rare so there's little concern about defending against air. Second reason is these stationary units tend to die after getting perhaps three bursts off if you're lucky. Axis players seem to be much more willing to purchase AA assets, even the weeny 20mm flak pop gun.

[user1000]

7 hours ago, panzersaurkrautwerfer said:

Errata:

1. It's worth noting they're not the only low density weapon to not make it into the Bulge.  I mean some US Armored Infantry units retained their old 37 MM AT guns, either towing them or making an improvised mounts for them on a halftrack.  I've got photos of both methods and some commentary.  This does not mean the game is really worse off though, just demonstrative that not everything will make it in.
 

He was talking about 3.7inch not 37mm

[panzersaurkrautwerfer]

2 hours ago, user1000 said:

He was talking about 3.7inch not 37mm

And I was talking about weapons used in the Bulge in limited amounts that did not make the cut into the official weapon's list.  37 MM AT guns were retained by some US units mostly for fire support purposes.  It wasn't common but there's a few photos of those guns towed behind halftracks into 1945 or improvised into vehicle mounted weapons. 

[LukeFF]

5 hours ago, JonS said:

Damn. I thought there was something in Pemberton's "Development of artillery tactics and equipment", but now I can't find it, sorry. As I recall it was post COMPASS and pre- first battle of Alamein, so we're talking about a fairly narrow time period of from ~March 41 through to June 42. And I'm also fairly sure it was in the Tobruk area (i.e., within 50-100 miles of the port). I'm reasonably sure it was in the first half of 1942. Anyway, They found about what you'd expect; ballisticly (ballistically? ballisticaly?) it worked very well (which is not surprising for a large calibre gun, firing with a really high MV, against early-war lightly-armoured Pz.IIs and IVs), but tactically it had an extremely high silhouette, no protection for the crew, and took ages to emplace/displace. And - as you noted - when they were busy tagging panzers they weren't protecting Alexandria.

IIRC, they also had to make some modifications to the mount, and supply different sights, before they could even depress the barrels low enough. Later in the war, from about mid-1943 when the Luftwaffe had become irrelevant, they started using them for indirect artillery fire, and found that prolonged firing ruined the mounts because the firing stresses were ~horizontal rather than ~vertical, and the mounts weren't designed for that.

Apparently, the Australians also used it in the direct fire role in the Pacific:

25-pounder artillery pieces from the 2/7th Field Regiment fire along with Matilda tanks from the 2/9th Armoured Regiment and an anti-aircraft gun from the 132nd Anti-Aircraft Battery, Tarakan, June 1945.

 

[user1000]

why use a 90mm AA for knocking tanks when you could use a 120 AA gun. I guess late in the war the US now had 120 AA as well.

http://www.williammaloney.com/Aviation/AberdeenUSArmyOrdinanceMuseum/AntiAircraftGuns/American120mmM1AAGun/index.htm

[Combatintman]

5 hours ago, MikeyD said:

Talk about AA, it seems nobody uses 40mm Bofors (or the Russian 35mm clone) in the game. Heck, you rarely see the towed .50 quad in use. One reason is German air attack is extremely rare so there's little concern about defending against air. Second reason is these stationary units tend to die after getting perhaps three bursts off if you're lucky. Axis players seem to be much more willing to purchase AA assets, even the weeny 20mm flak pop gun.

But I bet someone would have complained if they weren't in the game.

[A co]

I think Vonnegut mentions 37mm guns being used in the Ardennes in Slaughterhouse Five. He wrote they left a big powder stain on the snow when fired, which gave their position away. If my memory is correct. 

It would be fun, but not vital, to see them in the game. 

[user1000]

Here ya go - from breakout and persuit

"Although experiments were being
made in the United States to improve
the armor-piercing quality of ammunition,
General Eisenhower in early July
wrote to General George C. Marshall,
Chief of Staff, U.S. Army, "We cannot
wait for further experimentation." 29
The 90-mm. guns, organic at this time
to the antiaircraft artillery gun battalions,
seemed to offer a means to improve
antitank defense and armor capabilities
in the attack. But greater
numbers of this weapon were needed,
both for tank destroyers and for tanks.
So urgent was this need that General
Eisenhower sent a special representative
to the United States to expedite not
only delivery of the 90-mm. guns but also
research on improved armor-piercing
ammunition. At the same time, in the
field General Bradley was attaching 90mm.
antiaircraft artillery gun battalions
to ground combat elements for defense
against armor, since the weapon of this
unit was the only one "sure to penetrate"
the front of the heavier German
tanks.so
At the end of June the apparent superiority
of German tanks seemed particularly
serious."

Edited July 28, 2016 by user1000

[pogue]

On 17/04/2016 at 6:46 AM, JonS said:

Damn. I thought there was something in Pemberton's "Development of artillery tactics and equipment", but now I can't find it, sorry. As I recall it was post COMPASS and pre- first battle of Alamein, so we're talking about a fairly narrow time period of from ~March 41 through to June 42. And I'm also fairly sure it was in the Tobruk area (i.e., within 50-100 miles of the port). I'm reasonably sure it was in the first half of 1942. Anyway, They found about what you'd expect; ballisticly (ballistically? ballisticaly?) it worked very well (which is not surprising for a large calibre gun, firing with a really high MV, against early-war lightly-armoured Pz.IIs and IVs), but tactically it had an extremely high silhouette, no protection for the crew, and took ages to emplace/displace. And - as you noted - when they were busy tagging panzers they weren't protecting Alexandria.

IIRC, they also had to make some modifications to the mount, and supply different sights, before they could even depress the barrels low enough. Later in the war, from about mid-1943 when the Luftwaffe had become irrelevant, they started using them for indirect artillery fire, and found that prolonged firing ruined the mounts because the firing stresses were ~horizontal rather than ~vertical, and the mounts weren't designed for that.

There is some mention of 3.7 inch *howitzers* used in Crete in The Official History of New Zealand in the Second World War 1939–1945, 2nd New Zealand Divisional Artillery, Chapter: An Odd Assortment of Guns (pp 110-112). Here: http://nzetc.victoria.ac.nz//tm/scholarly/tei-WH2Arti-c4-2.html.

Weren't they WW1 era?

[JonS]

Yep. Completely different weapons. Quite a lot of old WWI-era stuff was used by the CW in the Med in 1941/42

[panzersaurkrautwerfer]

It's interesting we keep seeing references to the weapon going places and yet it doesn't seem to have made any impression at all outside of scattered engagements.  It's almost like it wasn't a major factor in US anti-armor operations.  

[Michael Emrys]

4 hours ago, pogue said:

There is some mention of 3.7 inch *howitzers* used in Crete in The Official History of New Zealand in the Second World War 1939–1945, 2nd New Zealand Divisional Artillery, Chapter: An Odd Assortment of Guns (pp 110-112). Here: http://nzetc.victoria.ac.nz//tm/scholarly/tei-WH2Arti-c4-2.html.

Weren't they WW1 era?

You can read all about it here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QF_3.7-inch_mountain_howitzer

Michael