A real-life example of CM-scale indirect SPG fire

[tss]

I managed to find another example on the fact that you can find an actual real-word example of just about anything that can happen in a war.

This time it was a case of using a SPG to fire indirectly in a CM scale combat without lengthy preparations. This event happened in 20 June 1944 during the battle of Vyborg, and the gun was a BT-42, a Finnish-made assault-gun conversion of Soviet BT-7 tank that had a 114 mm howitzer as the main (and only) weapon. I'm not certain of the engagement range since it wasn't explicitly given and the accounts of that day are pretty confusing and I don't know how far Soviets had advanced by that time. I'd guess that the range was 500-1000 meters. (There was a tank-obstacle line positioned about 500 meters in front of the gun and I'd guess that the Soviets were a short distance behind that.)

Any way, here's the direct quote from Lauri Leppänen's brand new "Rynnäkkötykit isänmaamme puolustajina" ("Assault guns protecting our Fatherland"):

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The following description is based on information given by Lt. Yrjö Nieminen: One gun [bT-42], probably Sippel's command vehicle 717, was dug in the Ristimäki graveyard. The driver was sergeant Aarne Virtanen and the loader was private Adiel Sorvisto. As the situation was quite worrying, Lt. Sippel had a conversation with Maj. Bäckman about possible methods of improving it. After this Sippel and Nieminen decided that Nieminen goes into the gun and starts firing the enemy. The main objective was to improve the morale of the supporting infantry. The gun was positioned so that it could fire close support if the enemy attacked but the trees in the graveyard prohibited the direct fire to enemy positions that were some distance away.

After this Sippel and Nieminen agreed to fire indirectly so that Sippel would be some distance away from the gun in a place with good visibility to enemy positions and give the corrections with hand signals. They did so but the enemy soon located the gun and started to fire at it, either by an AT gun or by a tank. The first shots missed quite much but the subsequent shots got closer and finally one shot exploded in the rear part of the tank-hole. Dirt and shrapnel entered the vehicle via the open rear-hatch but no-one was hurt.

Nieminen ordered Virtanen to drive fast to the secondary position that was on the far side of the graveyard. Nieminen himself jumped out of the gun and stayed in the hole. Sippel and Nieminen then had a conversation and Nieminen found out that Sippel had noticed that the enemy was starting to fire back and had tried to signal that the gun should retreat to the secondary position but Nieminen had misunderstood those signals as fire correction signals.

<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Few notes on the description of the event:

1) The assault gun men decided to start an ad-hoc indirect fire barrage without doing any preparations that would have been normally necessary for firing indirectly. Also, the main objective was to distrupt the enemy and give a moral boost to own infantry.

2) The fire was directed by a nearby observer and no radio links were used (actually, BT-42s didn't even have radios).

3) The fire didn't happen during the actual Soviet attack but shortly before it. The description doesn't say how much time passed between the shooting and the start of the attack, but it seems that there was at least 30 minute pause before it and the main thrust of the Soviet attack wasn't directed at the graveyard.

4) The account doesn't give details on how long did the preparations for the fire take and what was the rate-of-fire.

Later that day Finnish defence collapsed and Soviets captured Vyborg without too much trouble but they couldn't cross the straits on the other side of the town because the bridges were blown. The BT-42 company lost five vehicles out of nine, including Sippel's no. 717, that was hit in the turret by a T-34-85. Sippel and Sorvisto both died but the driver survived.

Lauri Leppänen, the author of the book, was a Stug-IIIG gunner in Rynnäkkötykkipataljoona (Assault Gun Batallion) and he was probably the first Finn to destroy a IS-II tank (the official account claims that it was a KV-I, but a picture taken by Lt. Olli Aulanko clearly shows that it was actually a IS-II). For some reason the driver of the IS-II had left his hatch open (possibly to see better in the dusk), and Leppänen (or possibly corporal Haapamäki who also fired at the tank) fired through it destroying the tank that would otherwise have been practically invulnerable from front. (Leppänen destroyed a total of 5 tanks, the rest four being T-34-85s.).

- Tommi

[Chupacabra]

You forgot 5) They're Finns

You could tell me that the Finish army used catapult-launched reindeer in an indirect fire role against the Soviets and I'd believe you

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Grand Poobah of the fresh fire of Heh.

[tss]

Chupacabra wrote:

You forgot 5)They're Finns

I would guess that something like this probably happened also with the German low-velocity self-propelled guns but I don't have any data how common occurence it would be, and I haven't come across any descriptions of such events.

You could tell me that the Finish army used catapult-launched reindeer in an indirect fire role against the Soviets and I'd believe you

Oh, no [que for Bruno], no Lapplander would allow such a waste of perfectly good reindeer, they would rather eat all the edible (and most of the inedible) parts and use the bones as raw material for knife handles. The fact that it would a government's reindeer would make it even more appetizing. (Most of the reindeer recipes start with: "First steal a reindeer from your neighbour").

On the other hand, I have seen a photo of a monster slingshot (the kind that would make Wiley. E. Coyote proud) that one enterprising soldier constructed for throwing hand grenades into Soviet trenches that were 150 meters away. The fork of the slingshot was a little over one meter wide. The slingshot probably got its power from torsion of the wooden frame as I would have hard time believing that someone could find a meter-long rubber band in the front lines.

- Tommi