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CM Artillery is too slow!


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Originally posted by Olle Petersson:

Okey guys, here's my experience:

Towed 9cm recoilless ATG, 250 kg total weight for gun and carriage.

.....

Most guns in CM are heavier than this, and more ammo is brought, so perhaps it's not too slow with these aspects in mind.

However, if one could opt for man handling, with less ammo, then movement speed could increase dramatically.

Also, did the recoiless gun have to be weighted down with anything? Probably not because there's no recoil like a typical WWII AT gun.

[This message has been edited by Pak40 (edited 02-19-2001).]

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I think that this is going to play a larger role in CM2 than in CM. In CM, the primary AT weapon most people use are probably handheld bazookas/PFs for close in defense and TDs for the long range stuff. However, in CM, AT guns take on a much bigger role - towed ATGs were the ONLY anti-tank asset most commanders could count on during most of the war. That being said, I've read many accounts of artillerymen moving their guns into and out of firing positions under fire. Right now, this is something that's almost impossible to do since to reverse a gun from it's position into concealment would take upwards of 3 minutes - during which time the gun is usually toast. I definitely think that the solution would be to treat ATGs as heavy machine guns - i.e give them "sprinting" capacity but only over short distances. Oh, and make them able to back up.

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Guest Germanboy

1937, Leichter Werfer (probably predecessor of IG75?)

running1.jpg

Above - propaganda, sent home by my grandfather as post-card. German Ubersoldiers pushing the Leichter Werfer through Niedersachsen wink.gif

running2.jpg

Above - who needs horses? biggrin.gif My grandfather is the rear fellow towing on the right. The guy walking behind was one of a pair who looked for the quality of the performance.

According to him you could do about 100m at anything more than walking speed (at most), and that was it. Now this was a very light gun, compared to a real thing, since it had no barrel. The same for the 3.7cm AT gun (fondly known as 'Tripperspritze' - STD-injector - on account of the pill-sized projectives it fired). Small and light, compared to later guns. I really don't have a problem with the movement in CM. Yes, it could be a wee bit faster on the road, but hey - it is no big problem warranting a lot of coding attention, IMO.

------------------

Andreas

Der Kessel

Home of „Die Sturmgruppe“; Scenario Design Group for Combat Mission.

[This message has been edited by Germanboy (edited 02-19-2001).]

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Guest Michael emrys

I thought a few statistics might be interesting:

German

2.8cm sPzB 41: 229kg

2.8cm sPzB le. Feldlafette 41: 118kg

3.7cm Pak 35/36 L/45: 328kg

5cm Pak 38 L/60: 986kg

7.5cm Pak 40 L/46: 1500kg

8.8cm Pak 43/41 L/71: 4380kg

8.8cm Raketenwerfer 43: 149kg

British

Ordnance, Q.F., 2pr.: 831.6kg

Ordnance, Q.F., 6pr. 7cwt Marks II and IV: 1112kg

Ordnance, Q.F., 17pr.: 2923kg

U.S.A.

37mm Antitank Gun M3A1: 410.4kg

57mm Antitank Gun M1: 1215kg

3in Antitank Gun M5: 2632.5kg

Conclusions: Those of you with actual field experience at hauling things around can call me on this, but I would hazard a guess that moving anything much above about 50mm in caliber would be a major pain in the ass, with the German 7.5cm being on the borderline.

Michael

[This message has been edited by Michael emrys (edited 02-20-2001).]

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Originally posted by Michael emrys:

I thought a few statistics might be interesting: ...

Conclusions: Those of you with actual field experience at hauling things around can call me on this, but I would hazard a guess that moving anything much above about 50mm in caliber would be a major pain in the ass, with the German 7.5cm being on the borderline.

You're quite right.

Some observations though:

- The Germans made their gun carriages lighter than the Allies, with the sole purpose of man-handling. (Not in your list is the Bofors 40mm AA gun that weighted twice as much in British service as in German service.)

- The PAK40 was indeed considered to be the optimum mix of firepower/penetration and mobility during the 2nd half of the war.

- The Raketenwerfer is lightweight, and should easily move pretty fast over short distances, even cross country.

Cheers

Olle

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Originally posted by David Aitken:

Remember that 'open ground' in CM is not a pool table.

To me there are in principle only two types of terrain; dirt roads and woods.

When I discuss off road movement that means moving through woods...

We had a small accident once, when moving through a woods during a night exercise.

Two guys were pulling the trail while one pushed from behind. As usual the pace was like fast jogging, and when we arrived at the new firing position we noted that one of the guys pulling the gun wasn't there...

Backtracking a bit we found that he'd fallen into a foxhole left after some earlier exercise.

The gun had passed over the hole and the other two guys didn't step into it either, but nobody saw it.

As for other terrain types; when going downhill the trick is to ru faster than the gun will roll. Even if the ground is covered with stones that will roll away under your feet. If you fall the gun will most probably hurt you as it passes by...

Cheers

Olle

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Originally posted by Olle Petersson:

As for other terrain types; when going downhill the trick is to ru faster than the gun will roll. Even if the ground is covered with stones that will roll away under your feet. If you fall the gun will most probably hurt you as it passes by...

A bigger gun would probably kill you if you get run over. OTOH they have reasonable ground clearances so you might get away unhurt if you're lucky. But the gun will definitely not stop if you get run over..

The Russian 2x23mm gun has 7 person crew and it weights 1100kg. So everyone has to push about 160kg. It's not a big feat to do that for 100 meters but you won't push it for hours, no way.

I actually remember seeing a news photo of Taleban militia using this gun in anti-personnel role so yeah, it's do-able.

But it's only got 60 pieces of ammo in the boxes so you won't do much spraying.

Here's a lovely picture of the lovely piece of scrap metal: Sergei

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Guest Michael emrys

It's also true that Ozzie gunners hauled 25pr howitzers over the Owen Stanley Mountains and American GIs did the same with 105mm howitzers through knee-deep mud on various Pacific islands, but in neither case was it something you could do in a hurry or would want to do under fire.

Michael

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