88s Rate of Fire!

[Lord Harmes]

I am currently reading a book by Barrie Pitt, on the North African battles... in this book is a little diagram of a German 88, and in the specs for it, it says the rate of fire is 15/20 per min! I can't say I've ever seen an 88 in CM fire anything,like that much! What gives????

[stikkypixie]

Maybe it's a misprint, maybe if it's used in some other role than in CM, maybe it's the time to put the shell in and pull the trigger or whatever that is on flak guns without taking aim, there are so many maybe's...

[Lucho]

This rate of fire is reached when firing AA barrages against high flying planes.

[Sergei]

I think Lucho is right. You don't need much aiming when firing time-fused flak.

[Elmar Bijlsma]

And it helps when the gun is pointed skyward.

If the gun is aimed at ground targets it is clearly visible how high above the ground the breech is. I would not like to be the one shoving the rounds in at that tempo at that angle.

[Lord Harmes]

Originally posted by Elmar Bijlsma:

And it helps when the gun is pointed skyward.

If the gun is aimed at ground targets it is clearly visible how high above the ground the breech is. I would not like to be the one shoving the rounds in at that tempo at that angle.

Actually if the gun is dug in the breech can be as high or low as you like. Sometimes dug in 88s would have their barrels only a foot or two above the ground. I'm going see if I can work out the ROF in game, and check the net for sources on 88s!

[Elmar Bijlsma]

Not really because the gunpit would still cause the breech to be as high as normal. Unless the Germans buried the undercarriage, and I see no sane reason why they should.

[Thin Red Line]

Elite 88s in CM are extremely fast, and deadly accurate. They probably can reach 10 shots per turn.

[ July 03, 2004, 07:28 AM: Message edited by: Thin Red Line ]

[junk2drive]

my late father in law was a usaaf machinist in n.a. i have an ashtray i assume he made, about two inches high, brass. on the bottom it says 1938 8.8cm flak 18

rof is 4 butts an hour if i'm really into the game.

[Lord Harmes]

Originally posted by Elmar Bijlsma:

Not really because the gunpit would still cause the breech to be as high as normal. Unless the Germans buried the undercarriage, and I see no sane reason why they should.

The great thing about earth is you can make it any shape you want! I'm pretty sure it is not beyond human means to dig a hole big enough for the whole gun, and have a good access to the breach... a good reason for this would be protection from having your swonnicles blown off by HE rounds!

All websites I can find about the 88, just say the ROF is 15-20 per min, bt fail to note in which role! grrrr!

[Redwolf]

I would highly doubt the ROF is substancially different depending on the role.

[flamingknives]

Any hole you put your gun into, you have to be able to get it out again.

RoF would be limited by having to observe fall of shot and adjust for range in the ground role, while AA use is firing into a predicted area as fast as possible with no adjustment of each shot

[Spears]

That ends that discussion flamingknives

[ July 04, 2004, 08:02 PM: Message edited by: Spears ]

[Tero]

Originally posted by flamingknives:

RoF would be limited by having to observe fall of shot and adjust for range in the ground role,

Or by switching targets when you make a kill with the first shot.

while AA use is firing into a predicted area as fast as possible with no adjustment of each shot

The 88 reloading was semi auto and it had a power rammer auto feeder.

[Sardaukar]

I vaguely remember some sources that I've read over 10 yrs ago saying that 88 Flak 18 ROF when engaging ground targets was 6-8 rnds/minute.

That sounds reasonable, IMHO.

Cheers,

M.S.

[Lord Harmes]

6-8 does sound about right...

[Mr. Tittles]

A big factor is barrel vibration. For precise longer range shooting (ie antitank AP fire), the barrel would have to settle out since it acts like a tuning fork. This applys to most long barrel weapons. I have seen footage of 88mm firing indirect (not AA) and the crewmen are just pounding away. The barrel is elevated beyond 10-15 degrees.

Also, the recoil mechanism and its fluid type (or gas types) would reach a travel limit. The working fluids/gases would heat up from the repeated pressure/cycle.

Another concern (long term) is barrel wear. Fast firing with smokeless powder leads to rapid barrel wear. I understand that the 88mm was designed so that part of the barrel could be changed because this wear was such a problem. In Death Traps, the author describes how US troops would fire the 105mm howitzer so fast that the rifling would just erode. The crewmen would just line up and heave cased 105mm ammo in as fast as they could.

OT: Panther tanks actually had a system of blowing compressed air down the barrel between shots. This allowed venting of the barrel and additional cooling. Many sources state that it was physically impossible to stay in a buttoned up tank without proper ventilation btw. The fumes would knock out the crewmen.

[ July 05, 2004, 12:08 PM: Message edited by: Mr. Tittles ]

[Tero]

Originally posted by Mr. Tittles:

A big factor is barrel vibration. For precise longer range shooting (ie antitank AP fire), the barrel would have to settle out since it acts like a tuning fork. This applys to most long barrel weapons. I have seen footage of 88mm firing indirect (not AA) and the crewmen are just pounding away. The barrel is elevated beyond 10-15 degrees.

In that mode the 88 is like any other field arty piece.

On the vibration, I suspect the mount was designed and built to absorb some of the oscillation of the barrel in the deliberately designed dual AA/AT role. The AT role called for aimed shots at slow moving mobile point targets at relatively close range. When the gun controls have been designed to handle optimum ROF and to follow fast moving targets at extreme range I would imagine the overengineering would be more than adequate to compensate for the effects of the inherently slower ROF in AT role. IMO the anecdotal evidence from the recieving end of the 88 would support this premise.

On a related note: I hear the 81mm mortar is so stable and accurate you have to deliberately shift it to make the shells scatter.

Also, the recoil mechanism and its fluid type (or gas types) would reach a travel limit. The working fluids/gases would heat up from the repeated pressure/cycle.

Yet the most frequent failure stories relate to ambient temperatures the gun designers did not envision the piece would be used in. And most of them are from the Eastern Front and not the African front. That would suggest the problem was not heat but cold.

Another concern (long term) is barrel wear. Fast firing with smokeless powder leads to rapid barrel wear. I understand that the 88mm was designed so that part of the barrel could be changed because this wear was such a problem. In Death Traps, the author describes how US troops would fire the 105mm howitzer so fast that the rifling would just erode. The crewmen would just line up and heave cased 105mm ammo in as fast as they could.

I think all arty services regularly monitored the barrel wear and it was calculated into the firing tables negating some of the adverse affects of it. In direct fire where you monitor the fall of the shot I suspect even a regular crew would be able to compensate for the barrel wear as long as the effect was not erratic. And long before it became erratic the barrel would be scheduled for a change as a matter of procedure.

[K_Tiger]

Long time ago i saw a documentation about a travel from a 88`crew to her old fighting places. The one i remember, they sayed uni sono, for Time fuzed Projectils 6 per minute.

Rate of fire is more sumfink for arty peaces... where you have to spit out a lot of bullets in a short time period, or for AA guns. Targeting is more importand and thus the first bullet. If you do not destroy your target whithin the first 3-5 bulletts, your are in serios trouble, nontheless you are able to put out 20 bullets per minute.

[MikeyD]

How many loaders for an 88 Flak? Two? Three? That would substantially speed up ROF.

CM's ROF is a bit simplified anyway. Oftentimes in real life a tank could get the first three shots off in no time, then as the ready rack gets depleted and the exhausted loader has to scrounge more rounds under the floorboards the ROF would drop like a rock. The game of course doesn't model this.