AfrikaKorps Posted February 11, 2000 Share Posted February 11, 2000 Can Tanks can fire indiect fire? The big Tanks were often used as artillery, do CM model that? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Colin Posted February 11, 2000 Share Posted February 11, 2000 IIRC, no they can't. There was big discussion about this back in August or September. Search for Indirect fire or something along those lines. Most of the tanks used high velocity guns so there was really not much use for this at CM's scale. I think ------------------ Visit my webpage! http://cm4mac.tripod.com Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sbg2112 Posted February 11, 2000 Share Posted February 11, 2000 Well, I haven't seen the thread here on the forum, but one of my books specifically claims that the Sherman could be and was used for indirect fire. From "Military Vehicles from WWI to the present": <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR> This [tank] was quite suitable for indirect fire missions -- i.e,. artillery assignments -- in ways that German guns couldn't emulate. .... This indirect fire capability made the Sherman extremely valuable in a wide variety of situations. ... [lists typical indirect fire missions].... These were things a high-velocity anti-tank gun did poorly--or not at all. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Okay, I know we're not supposed to believe everything we read, and this book is more of a "coffe--table" book (meaning it's perhaps more valuable for the pictures than the text). But that's what it says.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mark IV Posted February 11, 2000 Share Posted February 11, 2000 There is precedent for using tanks for indirect fire. We were told about this idea at Ft. Knox (with M60's) although we certainly weren't trained to do it. But at what range? If you elevate the gun enough for the round to arc up, then down, how far away is that sucker gonna come down? Miles. Off the CM maps that I've seen, anyway. Tankers aren't trained or equipped for an artillery role anyway. So I guess if you saw some really small, badly aimed arty coming from nowhere, you could assume it was some off-board Shermans with an excess of ammo and enthusiasm. Personally, I'm more enthused about the on-board possibilities of artillery in a direct fire role. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hawk Posted February 11, 2000 Share Posted February 11, 2000 I have a friend who served with the Norwegain UN contingent in Bosnia, and he said that one of the sides (Serbia IIRC) was quite into using tanks as indirect artillery. They even had charts and tables for manually elevating the barrel. Of course, this is way beyond the scale of CM (as has been previously stated). Hawk ------------------ Our's is not to reason "why", our's is but to do and die! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fionn Posted February 11, 2000 Share Posted February 11, 2000 USing tanks for indirect fire IS possible BUT tanks can only fire indirectly at targets a MINIMUM of a few kilometres away. (It's all to do with the limited elevations that tank main guns can reach resulting in a very shallow arc of shell). Anyways, the basic point is that the ONLY way to simulate tanks firing indirectly at CM's scale is to use FOs.. Tanks simply can't fire indirectly at targets on the same CM map. You'll be happy to know that 75mm FOs can simulate off-map tank fire quite nicely. FWIW that book seems to be VERY much overstating the commonness with which tanks did this.. Also it was a common tactic among the Afrika Korps. British and American tactical Analyses mention rolling barrages created by tanks 4 km ahead of the tank column as they advanced through British advance positions and the MLR. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Bobb Posted February 11, 2000 Share Posted February 11, 2000 The limited elevation problem can be addressed by utilizing slopes, either natural or provided by digging a prepaired position with a bull dozer. Korea saw a lot of this in that war. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fionn Posted February 11, 2000 Share Posted February 11, 2000 Yes it can but even then they've have to be on the EXTREME left of a CM map and would only be able to bombard an are on the EXTREME RIGHT. And this would only be possible on the largest of CM maps. If a CM map was 10km wide then I'd say it'd be fun to put in as a tactical variation but at present it simply isn't going to be something which is possible to use on a CM map. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mark IV Posted February 11, 2000 Share Posted February 11, 2000 Right, using reverse slopes was the "rest of the story" on tank indirect fire. It is still a poor man's artillery, and the fact remains that the relatively light round and high velocity would propel the shell right out of CM. Incoming can, as noted, be simulated. Does anyone knoow stats on the blast efficacy of a Sherman HE versus that of a 75mm howitzer? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Babra Posted February 12, 2000 Share Posted February 12, 2000 Regarding the blast efficiency of the Sherman v. a 75mm gun, I suspect it would be about nearly the same, seeing as the 75mm gun was based on the old French 75. Trajectory would affect this somewhat, making the true gun deadlier, but the tank mounted gun should still be no slouch. I have at least a dozen different photos of Shermans deployed for indirect fire in both theatres, particularly towards the end of the war. However, as mentioned previously, the ranges involved would make this a no-no for on-board indirect fire. Also, in all my photos, the Shermans are emplaced, dug in on firing steps to increase barrel elevation, with the turret side hatch open to facilitate spent cartridge and waste gas release. Not very useful with the enemy nearby. ------------------ Floreat Jerboa ! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Major Tom Posted February 12, 2000 Share Posted February 12, 2000 Operation Veritable: Along with 1050 Guns and Howitzers the Canadians utilized 60 stationary Shermans using their 75mm Guns as Artillery. They could have built up some sort of elevated ramp, drove the Sherman up on it allowing for higher elevation. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bullethead Posted February 12, 2000 Share Posted February 12, 2000 I have been waiting patiently for somebody to ask this question since I mentioned the subject in passing during the big infantry gun discussion a while back The problem with flat trajectories already mentioned but not fully appreciated. Using hillsides and pits to artificially increase the elevation of the gun is only a bandaid on the problem because there is no real way to alter the amount of powder in the cartridge of a tank round. So when fired at high elevation, the shell is going to start with its usual high anti-tank velocity and go MILES into the sky before coming down. In fact, using a hillside actually INCREASES the minimum range of tank IF fire. And on top of this, any given hillside will provide you the correct trajectory to only 1 target area (very small in relation a corps' front, for example). To shoot at something else, you'd have to find a different hillside. Besides this, there are about a gazillion things involved in doing indirect fire effectively, and tanks and tankers are unequipped and untrained to do them on a whim. One of the key elements of successful IF is knowing exactly where you are, so you can shoot at the estimated target location without unknowns on both ends of the gun-target line. If you ask an artilleryman where he is, he'll give you a 10- or 12-digit grid. If you ask an infantryman, he'll give you a 6- or MAYBE 8-digit grid. If you ask a tanker, he'll say, "I'm headed North." Seriously, tank units do not have the survey assets needed to precisely locate the tanks--they have to borrow this from an arty unit. Tank units do not have the FDC assets required to compute the firing data--they have to borrow this from an arty unit (and the chore is a bitch due to the aforementioned problems with trajectories). Tank units are not in the normal FO/FDC communications loop so would have to be specially patched in (and arty supervision provided at the tanks to be sure the tankers correctly followed instructions). And even if all this was done, I don't believe that WW2 tank gun sights and gun movement controls were graduated fine enough to shift the point of impact ONLY a couple hundred yards at long range. IOW, tank IF is very inaccurate, so as I understand it was only used in saturation bombardments of area targets. So yes, tanks COULD do IF. However, doing so required they be taken over by arty units, carefully positioned on sites carefully chosen to fit the trajectory to the desired target, patched into a totally different communications network, and carefully supervised at the tanks themselves to try to get the guns laid correctly. And the result of all this work would be rather inaccurate fire of very small-caliber shells landing in a relatively small, fixed area. To shoot at something else, you have to move the tank and redo the whole process (even assuming you could find a hillside that fit the need). IOW, not something you'd see every day. As Fionn mentioned, there's no way for tanks to IF as ON-board arty--the trajectory is totally against it. And IMHO, tanks should not be simulated as OBA in direct support of a CM tactical battle. They are neither responsive enough, nor accurate enough, nor able to adjust their aim finely enough, to shell whatever the FO decides to shell during a CM firefight. I'm very doubtful if tank IF was EVER used in this way in real life. Instead, I think it was ONLY used as part of major bombardments in a general support role at fixed targets. Geez, sending a tanker to do a gunners job.. ------------------ -Bullethead jtweller@delphi.com WW2 AFV Photos: people.delphi.com/jtweller/tanks/tanks.htm [This message has been edited by Bullethead (edited 02-11-2000).] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mark IV Posted February 12, 2000 Share Posted February 12, 2000 <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Geez, sending a tanker to do a gunners job..<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> I figured you'd show up here.... Tanks are much too valuable to be squandered with slow, soft, target things located amidst the field kitchens. Tankers can certainly provide 6-digit (and 8, if necessary) coordinates on request, because tanks have things called destinations, usually in the vicinity of something called the FEBA, the noisy area many, many kilometers forward of their supporting artillery. They are busy with things like taking, holding, stopping the enemy, dodging the enemy, and generally winning the war, and therefore do not carry lawn chairs and velvet-lined boxes with laboratory equipment. So in general, you are absolutely right. Using tanks for IF is like using your screwdriver as a hammer. On the other hand, your hammer can actually drive screws if you pound hard enough, so I don't have a problem using arty for direct fire at all. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MrPeng Posted February 12, 2000 Share Posted February 12, 2000 Now THAT is some first class taunting! Peng out Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bullethead Posted February 12, 2000 Share Posted February 12, 2000 <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Tanks are much too valuable to be squandered with slow, soft, target things located amidst the field kitchens<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Right. Tanks are fairly high-value arty targets <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Tankers can certainly provide 6-digit (and 8, if necessary) coordinates on request, because tanks have things called destinations<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Tank leader to HQ: "Have arrived at, uh.... Riesburg" One HQ staffer to another: "OK, tell the gunners we've now got friendlies at 462528." <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>They are busy with things like taking, holding, stopping the enemy, dodging the enemy, and generally...<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> ... being big, loud, highly flammable targets All kidding aside, I was just trying to point out that ALL indirect fire at greater than mortar range is NOT a gift from God, as JonS put it. It requires a LOT of hard, very complex work by a LOT of highly trained specialists with the proper equipment. Tank units have none of this stuff. IF is hard enough for gunners to do, which is why we're so proud of it. It's impossible for tanks without adult supervision ------------------ -Bullethead jtweller@delphi.com WW2 AFV Photos: people.delphi.com/jtweller/tanks/tanks.htm Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mark IV Posted February 12, 2000 Share Posted February 12, 2000 <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>ALL indirect fire at greater than mortar range is NOT a gift from God, as JonS put it. It requires a LOT of hard, very complex work by a LOT of highly trained specialists with the proper equipment. Tank units have none of this stuff. IF is hard enough for gunners to do<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Bingo. <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Tank leader to HQ: "Have arrived at, uh.... Riesburg"<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> How would we know with all the signs down? Pretty quiet about the lawn chairs, I see. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bullethead Posted February 12, 2000 Share Posted February 12, 2000 <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Tank leader to HQ: "Have arrived at, uh.... Riesburg" How would we know with all the signs down?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Hell, tankers couldn't read the signs even if they were still up. The Tank Leader quoted above was merely dredging his fume-clouded, vibration-impaired memory for the name his boss had beaten into him by rote before he set out <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Pretty quiet about the lawn chairs, I see.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Contrary to cannonfodder superstition, gunners don't have lawn chairs. We can't stay in 1 place long enough to set them up because the other side has gunners just as skillful as we, and we're their #1 target. We do, however, generally have more of those little things that keep morale up: food, booze, smokes, and dry socks. Not because we have more opportunities to acquire them (grunts and tankers generally having picked the area clean ahead of us ), but because we can carry more of what we find in our trucks. Pretty quiet about the adult supervision, I see ------------------ -Bullethead jtweller@delphi.com WW2 AFV Photos: people.delphi.com/jtweller/tanks/tanks.htm Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AfrikaKorps Posted February 12, 2000 Author Share Posted February 12, 2000 The Fallshirmjagger units who manned the StuhIII and Stuh42 were actually artilliery troops. They were not from tank trainning cause the idea was to have direct control over them by infantry HQ. They also perfored as the support roles and indirect fires. Low muzzles guns are very good at that. Or you can even name the AVRE mortar gun has the ideal indirect fire. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Bobb Posted February 12, 2000 Share Posted February 12, 2000 Fionn, No disagreement on impropriety of Tank indirect fire on CM scale. They would likey have to fire at such a high angle, that they could not climb the slope steep enough to do it. And if so, the shells would climb for miles and be at the mercy of winds which could not be easily calculated. I was just pointing out that all the reasons for it being a difficult thing historically, seemed to have been overcome in Korea. I recall being told on one military base, that tanks could not fire there because the range of the guns exceeded the size of the base-- by several miles. Firing a high velocity weapon is not an inconsiderable matter where safety is concerned. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lindan Posted February 12, 2000 Share Posted February 12, 2000 solution: tell some Infantry to grab those 75mm shells and order them to: "go 500meters north and throw them at something suspicious" - problem of shells flying miles high into the sky solved - accuracy problem solved - high velocity problem solved - grid and coordination problems solved or, even better: shoot the infantry miles high over the enemy positions and let them decide when to drop the shells they are carrying... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bullethead Posted February 12, 2000 Share Posted February 12, 2000 Bobb said: <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>the shells would climb for miles and be at the mercy of winds which could not be easily calculated<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Actually, all high-angle arty shells go miles into the sky, all the way up there to jet airliner altitudes. As they go up and back down, they pass through layers of air of different densities with winds moving at different speeds in different directions. But arty units have meteorological sections--another thing tank units don't have. These guys' job is to figure out what the effect of all the atmosphere along the trajectory will be, so the gunners can take it into account--windage corrections, if you will . These days, the met guys are constantly launching weather balloons that carry instruments to read the atmospheric conditions, and they track the balloons with radar to figure out what the winds are doing. I don't know what they did in WW2, but it had to have been something fairly similar and fairly accurate, because you can't shoot IF accurately at long range without taking this into account. <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>I was just pointing out that all the reasons for it being a difficult thing historically, seemed to have been overcome in Korea.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> I don't think so. Tank IF is never going to be any less difficult, simply due to the nature of tank guns and tank units' need for a lot of support external to their TO/TE to do the job. But remember, after the huge ebbs and flows of the early part the Korean War, things settled down to more or less a WW1-type stalemate for a long time. Under these conditions, you have the time and ability to set up tanks for IF: select and prepare positions for them, tie them into the arty communications and control network, stockpile large amounts of HE ammo for them to shoot, etc. This is the same sort of situation as in WW2 when tanks were used as arty in preparation for a major assault. The whole process of getting tanks to do effective IF is very analogous to that of bringing up the seige engines in the Middle Ages. It's a big pain in the ass and requires a rather static front line. <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>I recall being told on one military base, that tanks could not fire there because the range of the guns exceeded the size of the base-- by several miles.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Right. This is because there's very little you can do to DECREASE the range of a tank's gun. With arty, you can shoot nearly straight up with a very light powder change and have the round land very close to you--just a gentle toss. Can't really do either with a tank gun. ------------------ -Bullethead jtweller@delphi.com WW2 AFV Photos: people.delphi.com/jtweller/tanks/tanks.htm Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tss Posted February 13, 2000 Share Posted February 13, 2000 All kidding aside, I was just trying to point out that ALL indirect fire at greater than mortar range is NOT a gift from God, as JonS put it. What, are you questioning the divinity of the artillerists? Heathen. During WWII there was at least one tank that would have been capable of IF even in CM scale, namely BT-42. Although it was officially classified as an assault gun, it had a tank-like turret mounting a 114 mm howitzer on a BT-7 chassis. Of course, the only way to classify its gun as a "high-velocity gun" would be by using 18th century standards. The BT-42 crews had IF training and the fact that they were never actually used in that role (execpt during field tests) tells more about stupidity of the commanding officers than actual capabilities of the vehicle. Sending them into tank-to-tank battle against T-34s and JS-IIs was a brilliant example of commanders that were totally detached from realities of the battlefield. - Tommi Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Big Time Software Posted February 14, 2000 Share Posted February 14, 2000 Tommi, that vehicle sounds like a Wespe, Hummel, Priest, Sexton, or other related SP guns. All of these could fire indirectly, and in fact were supposed to as their primary role. But when you see these vehicles in CM it is because they are included for DF roles. If not, they shouldn't even be on map, instead using FOs to simulate their fire. Steve Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tss Posted February 14, 2000 Share Posted February 14, 2000 Tommi, that vehicle sounds like a Wespe, Hummel, Priest, Sexton, or other related SP guns All those vehicles were designed to be SP guns. The BT-42 was more of an ugly duckling. It was supposed to be an assault gun and officially it was classified as such. However, it looked like a tank and probably would have been classified as an infantry tank in most armies. Except that most armies would have classified the whole idea as braindead and hadn't built it at all. Adding a WWI vintage low-velocity gun to a tank originally designed in 1933 was not too bright idea in 1942. I just found a picture of it online, from http://personal.inet.fi/cool/poro/tankit/tank009.html . The base url of the site is http://personal.inet.fi/cool/poro/mil.html . But when you see these vehicles in CM it is because they are included for DF roles. If not, they shouldn't even be on map, instead using FOs to simulate their fire. Yup. I just wanted to point out that there were at least one vehicle that most onlookers would categorize as a tank and that could comfortably fire indirectly. - Tommi Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bullethead Posted February 14, 2000 Share Posted February 14, 2000 Tommi said: <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>All kidding aside, I was just trying to point out that ALL indirect fire at greater than mortar range is NOT a gift from God, as JonS put it. What, are you questioning the divinity of the artillerists? Heathen.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Oh no Gunners are God's gift to ground forces. But fire missions are the work of Gunners ------------------ -Bullethead jtweller@delphi.com WW2 AFV Photos: people.delphi.com/jtweller/tanks/tanks.htm Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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