Direct hits on theoretically confined units

[JonS]

Originally posted by PLM2:

it sounds like as an infantryman in the foxhole you'd be scared crapless in the event of an enemy assault

Yes, that's the general idea.

[Wartgamer]

You have multiple people targeting your front as well as MGs targeting across the whole squad front.

The US had excellent results with this against Rushes by the enemy. The M16 on full auto at close range was devastating.

[PLM2]

Thats a very interesting tactic i think i'll write it down

[JasonC]

Bernard Fall, "The Seige of Dien Bien Phu", p.88 and following -

On December 26th. Col. de Castries issued an order to all units in the valley that their positions were to be fortified to resist artillery shells of 105mm caliber. The engineering manuals of every modern army have a standard answer to this problem: two layers of wood beams at least six inches in diameter, separated by three feet of closely packed earth topped off with sand bags to absorb splinters. No such protecting roof was to cover an unsupported area more than six feet in width. Time tested in two world wars in which the 105mm had been the standard field artillery weapon, the average tonnage of engineering materials needed to protect a unit of a given size was known to the last ton.

"To protect one squad against enemy artillery, 30 tons of engineering materials were required. Building a combat bunker for one automatic weapon required 12 tons... Sudrat (the engineering officer) thus calculated that in order to satisfactorily fortify Dien Bien Phu (and its garrison, this many units, etc) he needed 36,000 tons of materials."

He got 2200 tons of local wood by dismantling every structure in the valley and sending logging parties into the jungle. He got 120 tons of building materials and 3000 tons of barbed wire squeezed in to the airlift. He thus found enough to 105-proof the main headquarters, the signal station, and the underground X-ray room of the field hospital, and nothing else.

The Viet Minh brought a dozen Russian MRLs, 20 120mm mortars, and 24 105mm howitzers to the hills ringing the valley. They had about 3000 rounds for the 120s and 15000 rounds for the 105s (supplimented by occasional misdrops of French ammo -an estimated 3500 more that way). (They also had 5000 rounds of 75mm for 15 tubes, and 21000 rounds of 82mm for 40 tubes. Those were effective against uncovered positions).

They proceeded to pound the holy crap out of the insufficiently sheltered French. 40-50 pieces of sufficient caliber. Took less than two months. It does not take a large number of tubes to throw the ammo. If you don't have lots, it just takes a little longer.

There were 10 battalions of infantry and 2 of artillery in the garrison. Large caliber rounds fired at the garrison probably came to 20000 to 25000, plus 25000 to 30000 smaller caliber (which were probably an order of magnitude less effective, on average). The French lost about 7500 men before the final collapse. We don't have an exact breakdown of causes, many were to small arms during the various infantry assaults.

The arty losses might have been half or might have been three quarters of the total, on the order of 4000. The averages earlier wars generally work out to something like 10 serious shells per causalty, counting small stuff as a tenth. Maybe it is a quarter here, or maybe the average effectiveness per shell fired was something like twice typical WW II averages, because the target was well IDed in a confined space and inadequately protected by serious overhead cover.

Lying in a foxhole is not remotely adequate protection from a 105mm barrage. Because the barrage will kill you even if only one shell in five, or one shell in ten, gets a single man. To survive the volume of shells armies can readily throw, you need to be shell proof, not hoping maybe it'll miss.

It is also noteworthy that DBP held out as long as its own arty (4 155s and 24 105s) was able to intervene against serious assaults. A bit beyond that, actually, using counterattacks by its best infantry units and a few light tanks (M-24s) - but the cost of that to their infantry was prohibitive, more than a few times. Meanwile the gun crews operated them from open pits to have 360 traverse. This made them vulnerable to even the light stuff, 75mm and 82mm. They were cut to ribbons.

Arty attrites on longer time scales than individual CM scenarios. But it attrites on a massive scale, when the time scale is extended to anything from a few weeks to a few months. The cold fact is armies that can field millions of men can field hundreds of millions of large caliber shells (in major wars).

Formations of tens of thousands of men get tens to hundreds of thousands of shells tossed at them in single battles (operations, whatever you want to call them - engagements between divisions to armies on a time scale of weeks to months). The shells are readily replaced before the next one. The men aren't.

In CM, if you buy a 105mm module and hit 10-15 men with it, you will probably consider it a waste. The real ratios between the things in the long run mean, if you get shooting only that good, the other guy is going to run out of men way before you run out of shells.

A tactician may think the only point of arty is to suppress, because he doesn't expect a modest barrage to annihilate whole companies at a go. But a logistician knows better. You don't have to win the war this afternoon. The enemy is right over there, he isn't going anyplace. As fast as you can truck up the shells, he bleeds.

The only way to stop that is to dig in so deep, with such an enourmous investment in materials and labor, that every unit really has that double log bunker with 3 feet of packed earth, or (when the 150s and 155s come up) even more. Which only happens at lines prepared six months in advance by huge engineering operations, or static for ages.

The big difference between WW I and II in this regard wasn't that tanks won by driving around the other guy (though that did of course happen, especially early against inexperienced enemies etc). It was just that fronts that move at all - even just a few miles a day - never really get arty proof. And as a result, whoever has the logistics bleeds the other guy to death - pretty rapidly, operationally speaking.

[Michael Dorosh]

15 paras is the best you can do? :mad:

Some homecoming!

[Michael Dorosh]

Originally posted by PLM2:

I see the logic in that but it sounds like as an infantryman in the foxhole you'd be scared crapless in the event of an enemy assault given that you're relying on someone else to keep the enemy from coming right over the berm.

Yes i know shrapnel is a certain type of shell, but it doesnt really matter as the term is generally coined to the fragments from any type of shell even grenades.

I've read about this also; I think it was discussed by some US Army vets at the Trigger Time forum. Very interesting, if odd, way of laying out a section or platoon. Seemed to me that the interlocking fields of fire are great, if everyone in your platoon is alive; but once one man gets killed, others may not even know about it due to their restricted vision....

[JasonC]

What can I say? I've been busy with RL for six months.

Maybe something forthcoming in the CMBB forum...

[junk2drive]

Wow, that was brief, but a good read.

[Wartgamer]

So the French just had no counter battery? If you allow an enemy to just take shots at you, I suppose you will eventually just get attrited.

A simple answer is to just not be under enemy observation. Reverse slopes work nicely to negate artillery. So does area. Length times width. Keeping your true front lines MLR beyond enemy observation helps. Defense in depth also.

At the time that the French decided to be lucrative targets, did counter battery radar exist yet?

Arty as a shovel is fascinating.

The US Army certainly had German soldiers to shoot at with 105mm and no 105mm ammo 'lump' at the later stages of the ETO. They rationed these supplies till the end of the war. Another factor was tubes. The 105mm was often 'gang-fired' by lining up guys with ammo and wearing out the tube. If you expect any weapon system to work as a math formula then it will wear out according to a formula.

I wonder what the ratio of arty ammo needed to attack and defend is? 10:1? The US certainly outshot the Germans after D Day and probably didnt budget the usage as they should have. So there is a limit to shooting the load. Even to a nation like the US with its industrial might.

[ March 08, 2005, 09:11 PM: Message edited by: Wartgamer ]

[JonS]

Originally posted by JasonC:

stuff

All good stuff, but ... relevance to CM?

[JasonC]

French counterbattery - part of the problem was they were so cocky about this. They didn't think the VM would get so much arty there, didn't think they'd be able to supply it, and their own arty and air boasted that with 30 minutes notice, they could wipe out any battery that fired into the perimeter.

Instead they fired outward in a fan with 28 guns at the whole countryside, while the VM fired inward at two confined areas with twice as many pieces. The VM dug their guns in, sometimes into firing pits with only the barrel exposed, because they only had to fire on one axis, not 360. They also had better observation. Air proved ineffective against the guns, only marginally more effective against their primitive logistics.

As for US "shell shortages", relative to the rate of consumption sure. But Patton's Third Army fired something like 3 million shells in one month in the middle of said "shortage". Nobody else would consider that being "short". In fact, the US expended about as much ammo in the west in a year, as the Germans did on all fronts for the whole war. Ammo is made out of money and moved by logistic links which are made out of money.

Tube shortages are never serious, except tactically or temporarily. Shell supply is always the limiting factor. Yes if you fire very high rates you burn out tubes, so what, tubes are cheap you just replace a few. Which is more likely to limit an industrial power, one extra 105mm howitzer or the 10,000 shells it might throw before it burns out? The latter may wound a thousand men. You aren't going to run out of single artillery pieces before the other guy runs out of battalions. If you have the shells, he loses the men.

Why did the Russians go for tons of tubes? Partially just to ensure each subformation could serve as a delivery mechanism when asked to. But also logistically, high tube number meant a huge surge fire capacity after a long period of static front - but one they could not keep up. Since most of the guns were horse-drawn and the front started moving again after such a surge, they wouldn't stay in range anyway. When the front stabilizes again, the slow guns trickle in, rail is restored, their ammo is shifted forward, and it can all be done again. Flurry and lull. High tube number makes the most of the flurry part.

Of course it is possible to waste artillery ammo. The efficiency per shell is going to vary up and down by factors of 2 from operation to operation, due to variations in terrain, enemy readiness, observation, etc. And if you work at it mindlessly, you can blow up a lot of empty trench. But nothing is going to force you to. You do sensible things to keep the efficiency per shell reasonably high, bring the shells, and he bleeds. As deterministically as anything gets in war. Law of large numbers gets rid of a lot of local variation; you don't care about small scale "breaks" going against you.

What does it have to do with CM? One, players have somewhat unrealistic expectations from arty. Let it do what it could really do, bleed the enemy. Give it good conditions. Think of it as a way of buying subtractions from enemy infantry strength. You don't have to follow up every barrage within 2 minutes, as though temporary neutralization has to be the point. Bring heavy stuff and mess his infantry up, and it will fight a lot worse than it does when not messed up first.

On the receiving end, do not sit still for it. Pillboxes and bunkers are meant to ride out 105mm fire, not trenches and foxholes. Get the men out of there, if you can. Individual teams can sit in trenches - it isn't cost effective for the other guy and the last 2 men can man an MG. But the full platoons under a beaten zone need to be elsewhere. Trenches or heavy buildings might ride out 81mm mortar stuff, off map 75mm stuff. Not 105s and up.

[ March 08, 2005, 10:31 PM: Message edited by: JasonC ]

[JonS]

Good to see you back BTW. Interesting posts, this and the CMBB one, as ever. The CBB one mirrors the little I've picked up on the '41 campaign and is, IMO FWIW, quite credible.

[Wartgamer]

Originally posted by JonS:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by JasonC:

stuff

All good stuff, but ... relevance to CM? </font>

[Wartgamer]

Ammunition, particularly artillery ammunition, tended to be a much more pernicious problem. In the early stages of the Army's expansion there were plans calling for a high priority in the production of 105mm shells of all types, inasmuch as these were the standard, general-support divisional field piece. Ammunition for heavier guns was accorded a lower priority, under the assumption that mobile warfare would reduce the utility of large, unwieldy and relatively immobile large artillery pieces. Unfortunately, a number of factors then intervened. First, congressional criticism was raised over large over stocks of all types of artillery ammunition that had accumulated in Tunisia in 1943. The Army was pressured to scale back production, particularly of 105mm ammunition. Secondly, the perceived need for an expansion of the heavy and medium artillery was mirrored by an expansion of the production facilities for the heavier types of shells. The expansion in heavy shell production was facilitated by converting light ammunition production to heavy. Thus, by late 1943 priorities had shifted radically. Many plants were retooling for other production, while some 105mm plants were closed completely. Events in France and Italy in mid 1944 then changed all the assumptions again. The fierce German resistance in the bocage of Normandy and in the Appenine Mountains of Italy placed a premium on all types of ammunition - just as stocks of 105mm ammunition began to shrink. Rationing was instituted (and extended to most other types of mortar and artillery ammunition), and captured German weapons and ammunition were utilized against their former owners. By 1 January 1945 the entire ETO stock of 105mm ammunition was reduced to 2,524,000 rounds, a twenty-one-day supply according to War Department planning factors, which were widely acknowledged to be too optimistic. The poor flying weather encountered in Europe in the fall and winter exacerbated this near-disastrous situation: Allied airpower was not always available to take up the slack. Although emergency measures in theater and in the U.S. improved matters, artillery ammunition shortages were to remain a chronic problem until the end of the war in Europe.

[Wartgamer]

In fact, the US expended about as much ammo in the west in a year, as the Germans did on all fronts for the whole war. Ammo is made out of money and moved by logistic links which are made out of money.

I assume artillery ammo? Are there any online sources to that? I recall that the Germans made terrific quantities of 105mm (100 million?) but how much actually gets fired may be anyones guess. I suppose the US units may be actually well documented. Arty use is tracked very closely from what I understand.

I have seen photos depicting US 105mm ammo as being fixed cartridge. Very easily loaded. I have also seen German 105mm being seperate. Was the US the only one to do this? 25 lbr? Soviet 122mm?

Also, not all ammo is made out of money. Tungsten being a prime example. If you can't use it, don't matterhow much money you have. Same for phosphorous shells. You need the raw materials or someone that will sell them!

Also, logistic links are time and not just money. The US had to make, transport, load, ship, unload and distribute all that ammo. One wonders why they could not get the French to quickly set up 81mm mortar ammunition factories.. Oh wait, what am I saying? They were too busy bottling liquor.

[ March 09, 2005, 08:59 AM: Message edited by: Wartgamer ]

[Wartgamer]

Originally posted by Michael Dorosh:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by PLM2:

I see the logic in that but it sounds like as an infantryman in the foxhole you'd be scared crapless in the event of an enemy assault given that you're relying on someone else to keep the enemy from coming right over the berm.

Yes i know shrapnel is a certain type of shell, but it doesnt really matter as the term is generally coined to the fragments from any type of shell even grenades.

I've read about this also; I think it was discussed by some US Army vets at the Trigger Time forum. Very interesting, if odd, way of laying out a section or platoon. Seemed to me that the interlocking fields of fire are great, if everyone in your platoon is alive; but once one man gets killed, others may not even know about it due to their restricted vision.... </font>

[Michael Emrys]

Originally posted by Wartgamer:

A simple answer is to just not be under enemy observation. Reverse slopes work nicely to negate artillery. So does area. Length times width. Keeping your true front lines MLR beyond enemy observation helps. Defense in depth also.

Sure. But for the French at DBP there were no reverse slopes to get behind. They were down in a valley, a bowl actually, where the enemy held all the high ground. In retrospect, it was a stupid position to get in, but the French did not suspect the true capabilities of the VM to move and supply artillery.

Michael

[Michael Emrys]

BTW, hi Jason. Happy to see you back. I was one of those asking about you a few months back.

Michael

[JonS]

Originally posted by Wartgamer:

I have seen photos depicting US 105mm ammo as being fixed cartridge. Very easily loaded.

Then you have no idea what you were looking at. 'Semi-fixed' is the phrase you are looking for. Balls-out loading speed for the 25-pr - using seperate loading ammo - is as high or higher than US semi-fixed 105mm. It also induces less fatigue amongst gun crew.

Also, not all ammo is made out of money. Tungsten being a prime example.

A vanishingly small amount of tungsten was fired indirectly.

[Wartgamer]

Originally posted by Michael Emrys:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Wartgamer:

A simple answer is to just not be under enemy observation. Reverse slopes work nicely to negate artillery. So does area. Length times width. Keeping your true front lines MLR beyond enemy observation helps. Defense in depth also.

Sure. But for the French at DBP there were no reverse slopes to get behind. They were down in a valley, a bowl actually, where the enemy held all the high ground. In retrospect, it was a stupid position to get in, but the French did not suspect the true capabilities of the VM to move and supply artillery.

Michael </font>

[JonS]

Originally posted by Wartgamer:

In many 'non-bowl' sitautions, there are means to use the land to protect oneself.

Sure, but it's only really effective if the enemy is equipped with little more than the Mk.I Eyeball (NSN 1005-00-001-2676).

[JasonC]

My DBP point was about how elaborate field fortifications get, and the fact that they need to be that elaborate to deal with 105mm to 120mm stuff, rather than light 75mm to 82mm stuff.

Digging in for the night does not typically give everyone overhead cover. And even some time to improve the position and get a little overhead cover, usually does not mean everyone has a foot of wood plus three of earth or sandbags over their head. Which is what it takes to really be 105 proof.

Sure, just being prone is better than upright, and a slit trench or better a real foxhole, is a big improvement over milling around in the open. But arty can bleed you dry if any hit gets people, because there are a lot of rounds fired. That was the point.

Yes the Germans made lots of 105 rounds - around 100 million (and 25 million 150mm, their other main arm). Same scale for US production. Half the ammo tonnage sent to Europe was 105mm ammo (M2 and M1, about 70% of it the former). If you look at expenditure for various periods the 155 usage is running about a third of the M2 rate, by shell count. Given the weight difference per round (roughly 3 times as high for the 155), that is most of the rest of it. The total ammo for NW Europe from the US alone was around 1.5 million tons. Brits are extra. Then there are the Russians.

[Wartgamer]

I suppose that one could compare the time/weight/expense of making ammunition and making fortifications.

But even Jason must realize that one would need a virtual direct hit with the 105mm to take out the reinforced position. The need for almost direct hits for trenches and so on.

Even the silly exercise of a single gun firing indirect at a single reinforced position under direct observation might reveal a quantity of shells being needed. The gun will just spread the shells around from round to round at some point and there is no more 'correction'. In fact, I often read about arty using single shells to call for FFE's. The single shell is observed, and corrections made off that shell. The fact is that same gun could fire another shell and it could land 50 yards away with no correction at all.

Jason's premise is that no one is going to do anything about it. The counter battery people stay still, the troops at the target stay put, etc. If you are out of direct observation, heavily camoflaged you reduce Jason's numbers by a factor of 10 I bet. If you are on a reverse slope, the long/short errors get magnified for arty (not so much mortars) and the effect is further diluted.

My point about the US ARMY, which I think MIGHT have brought enough shells given Jason's premise, found itself using great quantities, as well as using an air force for support along with huge amounts of armor/TD in direct support.

One of the things about the Hedgerows is that they are somewhat 'already delivered tons of material'. If you just dig a decent single man position (allows man to occupy 'burrow' and be under the level of the earth) into the side of the hedgerow, he has excellent temp cover. Arty hitting the other side is defeated by the thickness and root structure. If given a day, the position could be all but proof agaist anything but absolute direct hits by high angle 105mm or 155mm.

Adjusting arty in the bocage was a pain. Much of its effects are wasted because the enemy is in a parallel position and your longs and shorts are just a waste.

I think the US did just what Jason is suggesting, and certainly brought prestigous quantities of ammunition, and still found itself scraping around at the end of the war. If anything, this shows that what he is saying is only true to an extent. The DBP example is WHY you do not allow an enemy to shoot down your throats especially when you have no real counter response and your troops are not under decent fortifications. IF the french had some counter response (lets say TAC air) and a good detection system AND good cover for everybody, then they may have destroyed the VM faster than they could rebuild the arty weapon structure they labored into place.

Edit: It just occurs to me that shooting almost any weapons system 'downward' increases its accuracy. This can be understood as the opposite of trying to shoot targets on a reverse slope. As I said before, the longs/shorts are magnified in error.

But when firing from a higher position downward, you are shrinking this same error. Also, the VM may actually have been using the arty in a direct fire role. In many cases, the guns firing at the targets, had direct observation of the result. So they were not diluting by battery but applying precision by single adjustment!

[ March 10, 2005, 06:35 AM: Message edited by: Wartgamer ]

[Nidan1]

Wartgamer, a good analogy that might prove your point is the situation that took place in Khe Sanh in late 1967, early 1968.

The North Vietnamese, under the leadership of Giap, the architect of DBP, attempted to create the same situation for the US Marines at the combat base.

Air mobility and tactical bombing, including B-52s, negated the same circumstances that doomed the French in 1954. Also the inability of the NVA to fully control the high points, hills 881, 861 for example, prevented them from selectively targeting strong points in preparation for ground assaults. They were successful in digging trench lines up to a few meters from the forward positions, but were never able to concentrate their infantry in sufficient numbers because they were pounded from the air and from artillery.

Advances in technology and unlimited ammunition saved the Marines from a similar fate.

[Wartgamer]

'Semi-fixed' is the phrase you are looking for. Balls-out loading speed for the 25-pr - using seperate loading ammo - is as high or higher than US semi-fixed 105mm. It also induces less fatigue amongst gun crew.

So the 25 lbr crew must load the projectile, ram it home, load the 'powder' (or is this in a brass cartridge?) and then close up and fire?

Is the US gun a single warhead/cartridge (fixed or not, they are one man load)? The loader throws this in and thats it?

Is the US gun autoclosing once the shell is thrown in? Does the spent cartridge auto eject?

I have read that US crews could actually rapid fire the 105mm much faster then they should have. With seperate loading ammunition, there must be a limit as far as keeping up with one piece ammunition.

I have seen video of 'Frech75mm' and German le18 infantry guns firing and they appear to achieve a shell every 2 seconds (maybe slightly less). This should overheat a gun if kept up but it probably wasn't (maybe just showing off for the camera). I believe that a US 105mm could achieve 12 RPM or more.

[ March 10, 2005, 07:05 AM: Message edited by: Wartgamer ]