British Field Artillery Undermodelled?

[Andreas]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Babra:

Now you're at least close. Your previous statement that one was a 'simulation' of the other was just tripe. And I didn't say they "couldn't do combined arms". They clearly could. I said it was weak, and then only on attacks. You came back citing many GERMAN attacks being broken up by said arty. If you diagree with something, at least know what you're disagreeing with.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Babra, this is getting silly. If you have a problem making yourself clear, don't blame me for it. I don't want a fight with you, but my reading of your sentence is:

Statement a: Commonwealth practice was weak

Statement b: in some cases during attacks FOOs weren't where they supposed to be, and that proves the general point.

conclusion: put the limitations (incorrect ROF, because that is what we have been talking about here) in that context and you should not have a problem

Err, so should BTS then have two ROFs, one for attack and one for defense? What was the point of your initial statement if not to say that low ROF could be a simulation of weak practice? If that was not the point, what was it? I think I know quite well what I disagreed with, and that is statement A. And I addressed that, and for the benefit of Michael, I can even bring some sources.

[Jarmo]

A few random thoughts.

Doesn't CM model every spotter directing fire from 4 gun battery? If british 25pdr battery did have 8 guns, the speed of firing should be doubled. But then it'd be necessary to also adjust every other gun/mortar that didn't have 4/bat. (If there were any, I dont know.) Would that be worth the trouble? Maybe.

Rexford had these nice effective shrapnel generation theories that give US 75mm HE nearly the same anti personnel performance as US 105mm and above US 90mm. I don't remember where the posts are and I'm not sure I understood him perfectly. For some reason I don't always do.

That's just to point out that there might be more or equally important factors involved than just the amount of explosives in the shell. Not to suggest that plain shell weight would give a better figure.

BTS has at some point mentioned that "blast value" is an amalgamation of other values. Not simply a figure to say how loud&lethal bang the shell makes. I'm not sure if the game uses the blast value internally or if there are other hidden values around there somewhere.

[IPA]

Just a minor point. A battery was sub-divided into two troops of 4 guns. So abstractly an F.O. represents a "Troop" F.O. There was no such thing, but having two F.O.s solves the number of tubes problem. The original contention is that the ROF per tube is too low.

Peter

[Andreas]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Jarmo:

A few random thoughts.

Doesn't CM model every spotter directing fire from 4 gun battery? If british 25pdr battery did have 8 guns, the speed of firing should be doubled. But then it'd be necessary to also adjust every other gun/mortar that didn't have 4/bat. (If there were any, I dont know.) Would that be worth the trouble? Maybe.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Commonwealth 3" mortars came in batteries of 6/battalion, don't know if they were fired as a group though. I suspect they were.

[IPA]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Germanboy:

Commonwealth 3" mortars came in batteries of 6/battalion, don't know if they were fired as a group though. I suspect they were.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

For what it's worth (No sources). This really depended on the disposition of the infantry companies or whether the battalion was in attack or defense. For instance if the companies were widely dispersed it was common practise to package support weapons out in ones or twos to provide local support.

Peter

[Brian]

I've been following this discussion with some interest. I'm surprised no one has mentioned either Shelford Bidwell's excellent book, "Firepower" which is actually an extensive study of the development of British artillery and fire support doctrines from WWI through to the end of WWII.

I'm also surprised that in the game there is no possiblity of AGRA being employed. This neat division of FO's into one battery or another, by weapon is not terribly representative of how the British FO system worked by 1944-45. While FO's were drawn from specific units, they were, when required, able to call upon all available artillery units, even up to the entire Army Group's. So neatly dividing them up is a little silly.

Another problem is that there are no FO tanks. Both the British and the Germans utilised tank-mounted FO's, usually in either specialised vehicles (such as the Panther Beo) or older model tanks, which had been replaced as first line vehicles. This allowed them to keep up with fast moving armoured columns and provided them with some measure of protection.

I also found the way in which FO's were assigned a certain number of "rounds" rather limiting. Artillery units, particularly Allied ones essentially had unlimited ammunition, as far as tactical considerations go. There appears to be no way to resupply any unit in CMBO, which when coupled with the uncontrollable manner in which units tend to expend ammunition.

Those considerations aside, I agree the ROF for 25 pdr batteries is too low. One of the notable features of the 25 pdr was that it had a much higher ROF and a longer range than most of the 105mm guns adopted by the Germans and Americans. Indeed, many American artillery units tasked with counter-battery fire were armed with 25 pdr guns for that reason. Therefore, IMO, the ROF of the 25 Pdr has to be increased, whilst the actual effectiveness of the round, compared to a 105mm one should be decreased.

Oh, and the average ROF for a 25 Pdr battery, for planning purposes in the Australian Army, in the early 1970's when we finally replaced them with 105mm's was set at 8-10 rounds a minute. I still have a copy of the Pam somewhere on my bookshelf.

Finally, why is there a 4.5in gun for the British? By 1944 all 4.5's had been basicaly replaced by 5.5in's as it had been found that the 4.5in round was too light for its calibre, compared to the much more effective 5.5in. Ian V. Hogg makes that pretty clear in his "British and American Artillery of WWII."

[IPA]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Brian:

By 1944 all 4.5's had been basicaly replaced by 5.5in's as it had been found that the 4.5in round was too light for its calibre, compared to the much more effective 5.5in. Ian V. Hogg makes that pretty clear in his "British and American Artillery of WWII."<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

64th Medium Regiment in support of 1st Airborne at Arnhem still contained one battery of 4.5in guns. I don't know whether this was an isolated case.

Peter

[IPA]

Additional note: are you referring to the 4.5 in Howitzer Mk 2? This was withdrawn from service by 1944. Its replacement was the BL 4.5 in Gun Mark Mk 2. It saw service until shortly after the end of the war.

Peter

[ 08-15-2001: Message edited by: IPA ]

[JasonC]

The 4.5" is certainly meant to be the gun, not the howitzer. The US has its own 4.5" too, which was based on the Brit gun (not howitzer).

The statement that "many US units assigned counterbattery work use 25 lbers" strikes me as an error. No US artillery unit in the ETO was equipped with 25-lbers. The US did use 4.5" guns precisely for their greater range, and for counterbattery work. This is probably the source of the confusion - the idea of using Brit guns for greater range for counterbattery. The 4.5" in US service were used in place of 155mm guns (not howitzers), because there weren't enough of those. The low HE weight was not liked and they were phased out after the war. But during it, the range was popular enough with the gunners - it meant they didn't have to get so close to German counterbattery fires themselves.

The idea that 75mm and 105mm HE have the same splintering capability and thus the same blast effect strikes me as the purest fantasy. Yes, I was in the threads discussing them before. After a bit of explanation of the issues involved, the proponents of the notion backtracked to something more like "about equal effect this close by". Which isn't exactly saying much. Inside the kill zone of any HE round, a standing man without cover is in the same sort of trouble.

On the issue of battery sizes, there were many types that used a 6-gun standard. 81mm mortars of all parties, and US and German self-propelled artillery are well known cases. Regimental cannon companies (75mm or 105mm, sometimes 150mm SiG) generally had 6 pieces in both the US and the German armies, too - sometimes parcelled out 2 per battalion.

The self-propelled ones show some of the problems with modifying battery rates of fire to account for supposed TOE battery size differences, however. The principle reason SP guns use 6 compared to 4 for towed was not "50% more fire per unit time". It was maintenance on complicated tracks AFVs. One or two could be expected to be in the shop at any given time; an 80% readiness rate is good for any tracked vehicle in wartime. By providing 6 vehicles per battery, an ordinary full strength firing battery would generally be operational.

As for the statement that BTS used a mix of factors for blast, it may well do so. It just happens that weight of shell predicts blast to within +/-15% or so (slightly favoring smaller calibers). You get around 2.3 blast per lb of shell, somewhat higher at the low end of the weight scale, and slightly lower at the high end of the weight scale. There is some trailing off of the blast per pound, but smoothly with weight, not varying from shell type to shell type. E.g. from 81mm to 155mm, CM blast rating per pound of shell weight varies from 2.7 to 2.0. By Occam, blast basically means weight of shell. What you don't see is any reflection of the fact that e.g. 15% of a US 105mm round is TNT, while only 7% of a British 4.5" shell is.

[JonS]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by JasonC:

The self-propelled ones show some of the problems with modifying battery rates of fire to account for supposed TOE battery size differences, however. The principle reason SP guns use 6 compared to 4 for towed was not "50% more fire per unit time". It was maintenance on complicated tracks AFVs. One or two could be expected to be in the shop at any given time; an 80% readiness rate is good for any tracked vehicle in wartime. By providing 6 vehicles per battery, an ordinary full strength firing battery would generally be operational.

<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

This stikes me as ... odd to say the least. Could I extend your reasoning to say that all US armoured forces TO&E were 50% over what was estimated to be required so that they could have 1 or 2 in the shoop at any given moment and still be effective? So a platoon was only supposed to be 3 tanks, but adding the one thats in the shop we get the standard 4 tank platoon? And a company should only have had about 12, but to make up for poor mechanical reliability they were given 16-17?

Really, I find this a little hard to swallow. If these vehicles truly were spares, they would be held by the Q element and issued when required (that is, when one broke down, or was lost in action). They would not have a crew. And they would not be included in the standard TO&E.

IMHO.

Regards

JonS

[Stalin's Organ]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by JasonC:

The statement that "many US units assigned counterbattery work use 25 lbers" strikes me as an error. No US artillery unit in the ETO was equipped with 25-lbers. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I have at least one photo of US crewed 25 pdr "in action". I can't imagine it is in the Pacific, so where would it be?

Also here's an interesting article on the introduction of 105mm howitzers into teh NZ army from teh 60's - first the Italian designed 105mm pack, which we used in Vietnam, and then the Brit designed 105mm light field gun.

It makes some comparisons between lethality and ease of use, describes some of the limitations of various designs and how they came about, and is generally good reading:

Intro of 105mm in NZ service

[ 08-15-2001: Message edited by: Stalin's Organ ]

[JasonC]

Readiness rates on AFVs start around 80% and go downwards. For some types, notably the limited run German heavies (with high track wear and limited spare parts), it regularly ran 50% or even less. If you track the total AFV and running AFV for any wartime unit you will see the effect. Nobody is near TOE in "runners" more than 2-3 days into combat, even if runners plus short term repair still is.

How do tank battalions deal with this? Companies have extra tanks at the company level. Battalions do too. Platoons run with 4 (often) down to 2 (sometimes) vehicles. And companies rotate in action instead of all being committed at once. Do they need crews still? Yes. The crews do maintenance on their own vehicles, and they also see to all their ordinary supply needs (personal as well as for the AFV) in the "downtime".

And I'm not just concluding it from figures of the day. Having 5 out of 6 SP artillery pieces in a battery running is good readiness even in peacetime, and often not achieved even today in the US field artillery. I regularly saw times when a 4 gun battery of 8" self propelled had only 2 vehicles operational. When the Desert Storm people managed 90% readiness for M-1s - with only 4 days of combat to worry about - it was heralded as a minor miracle.

What goes wrong with them? Engines need work. Batteries. Oil and other fluids, leaks. Busted hydraulics on SP arty from recoil stress. Burnt out tubes from long periods of fire. Cracked tread links, missing "shoes", bent suspension bars. They are complicated machines with tens of thousands of parts operated in tough conditions by teenagers. They break.

[JasonC]

"So where would it be?"

In the Med maybe? Tunisia, or Italy? In Italy under 8th Army, you had US divisions subordinated to UK higher echelons, and most new US material was going to England for D-Day - I can imagine it there maybe. But I have never seen a definite unit assigned them, or read any combat history that said they were used by American units. Where did you?

[Stalin's Organ]

The photo that I'm thinking of is in a MacDonald's and Janes "WW2 Fact Files" series book on light and medium field artillery. I don't recall the caption, but it was definitely a US crew (helmets & gear) on a 25 pdr with a muzzle brake.

I'll get it out tonight when I get home & see if there's any further info there.

[Michael Emrys]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by JasonC:

"So where would it be?"

In the Med maybe? Tunisia, or Italy? In Italy under 8th Army, you had US divisions subordinated to UK higher echelons, and most new US material was going to England for D-Day - I can imagine it there maybe. But I have never seen a definite unit assigned them, or read any combat history that said they were used by American units. Where did you?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Oh boy. This is another of those times when I wish my reference books weren't packed away. I would almost swear that I have a photo of American troops using the 25 pdr in action, and I'm pretty sure that it's in NW Europe. But alas, I have no proof to hand.

Michael

[Simon Fox]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by JasonC:

The statement that "many US units assigned counterbattery work use 25 lbers" strikes me as an error. No US artillery unit in the ETO was equipped with 25-lbers.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>Well it strikes me as in error in the sense that in all likelyhood they wouldn't have been used predominantly for counterbattery work although the 25pdr with it's superior range was probably better than the M3 105mm for that purpose. The US units equipped with 25pdrs were probably employed in a similar fashion to 105 equipped units. Your latter statment is wrong.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Earlier in January, Communications Zone Headquarters (COMZ) had arranged with the 21st British Army Group, commanded by Field Marshall Montgomery, for the loan of one hundred 25-pound guns, along with sixty days supply of ammunition, to the United States 12th Army Group. It in turn divided them equally among its three armies, which were the First, the Third, and the Ninth. The Ninth Army then immediately assigned its quota to the 691st and the 692nd Field Artillery Battalions.

During the next three days at Schilberg, January 31 through February 2, the firing battery personnel underwent intensive training that was supervised by British troops. The training involved every aspect of the 25-pound gun and its drills, from sighting and setting up the weapon to firing, cleaning, and servicing it. At the same time, fire direction personnel were busy creating, on their own, a system for measuring and computing firing data. One of the major problems for both fire direction and firing battery members was changing to the system of using degrees and minutes instead of mills for angular measurements. The fact that the battalion was ready to do it alone after only three days of training is a testimony to the intelligence of the troops of the 691st as well as to the skill and patience of the British troops who were teaching them. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

[ 08-16-2001: Message edited by: Simon Fox ]

[Username]

US units in ETO used german arty too. There was a severe 105mm shortage after the bulge. I wouldnt be caught dead firing anything british though.

[JonS]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Username:

I wouldnt be caught dead firing anything british though.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Fortunately for America, you aren't in charge of purchasing policy.

http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/land/m119.htm

[gunnergoz]

None of my readings to date have led me to believe that the 25 Pdr was ever officially issued or carried on the TO&E of any US artillery unit.

However, I'm open to the fact that odd things happen in wartime and it's possible that at some point, US servicemen may have been using the weapon. I just doubt that it was ever "official" use and was more likely a matter of using what was at hand.

BTW I've been reading this stuff for 40-odd years and never tire of it. Guess that makes ME odd...

[JasonC]

Thanks for the correction, and that does make sense. It was the shell shortage after the Bulge. The US had the tubes, but not enough 105 shells, while the Brits hadn't run as low. Not for counterbattery, then, but for use of the available ammo stocks. Learn something new every day...

[Smack]

Read the Books "Guns of Normandy" and "Guns of Victory"

BOth these books seem to drive home the fact that Canadian/British Artillery was fast firing and well managed.

As For the 25 pdr Itsealf...it was a gun that could be fired by a good crew at 10 rounds a minute, sometimes more! (Blackburn says "up to 17 RPM") and it was instrumental at stopping German infantry counterattacking. The ROF would soon persuade any infantry commander that, with the veritable rain of shells coming down, that it was futile to continue any attack.

[Smack]

So yes, I do beleive that the 25 pounder is too weak. In fact the Germans facing the Canadians in normandy said that they had not experianced artillery bombardments as heavy, or spontanious, ever. Those men who made that remark had spent years on the Russian Front.

and of course, the Germans also beleived that the British had "Automatic 25 pounders" Becuase they didnt believe that men could fire artillery that fast...of course they did.

[Guest Babra]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Smack:

Read the Books "Guns of Normandy" and "Guns of Victory"

BOth these books seem to drive home the fact that Canadian/British Artillery was fast firing and well managed.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>"[Montgomery] also elaborated upon the necessity for the 'cooperation of all arms,' stressing in particular the advantage of using divisional artillery 'as a 72-gun B[attery]y under the CRA,' the commander of the divisional artillery and gunner advisor to the divisional commander. "

Failure in High Command - The Canadian Army and the Normandy Campaign

Lt. Col. Dr. John A. English<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

How much of this German awe is due to ROF and how much to being on the receiving end of a 72-gun stonk?

[Jarmo]

From all I've read the germans wereon awe of american arty just as well.

I'd say it tells more of the (un)effectiveness of soviet arty than of anything else. Accuracy matters too..

[JasonC]

All German vets who fought in Normandy report the artillery fire was the heaviest they'd ever seen, whether in the Brit sector or the US sector. It wasn't rate of fire, it was logistics.

Overlord was a massive operation with a huge build-up of supplies beforehand to support it, and in Normandy the supply lines were still short. Figures for ammo expenditure by single Allied artillery battalions regularly reached 5000 rounds per day.

But you do not need peak ROF to achieve such numbers, what you need is the supply behind you to keep firing for hour after hour. 4 guns could do that with a moderate 4/min ROF if they fire only 5 hours out of the day; 8 guns firing 5/minute would do it in two.

The limitation on bulk artillery firepower is ammo, not tubes or how fast shells can be pushed through them. The Russians had tons of tubes, and more mortars and rockets among them with higher ROF. But the artillery fire was heavier in Normandy. Why? Because the shells were built up for 2 years to get ready.

Incidentally, the artillery was just as intense for peak periods of the Bulge, sometimes more so. Even though achieving that resulted in a serious ammo shortage afterward. Artillery has "surge" capacity.

If you've ever played the V4V series of operational, battalion-unit wargames, they model this reality reasonably well. The dominant factor for artillery firepower is the supply state of the parent unit. Most armies in most fights can't begin to supply all the tubes they've got at peak, "attack" levels of supply. At all, or for very long.

Having enough tubes gives armies flexibility about where to concentrate effort and support, and provides surge intensity. But the overall heaviness of fire is determined by trucks, ships, factories, and build-up times, not by peak ROF for this or that tube.