Kill marks on heavy arty

[Gud_23]

Gentlemen,

I stumbled recently on a photo of German artillery piece on Halfaya Pass.

It is a captured French 155mm GPF gun. Interstingly, it has 5 " tank kill"

rings on it. I wonder if any of you has information about use of heavy

guns for direct fire against armour....

[Little Pete]

I don't imagine they would have come under this role often (being a few miiles behind the front line in general) but it certainly could happen.If i was an artillery man and tanks broke through I'd crank the barrel down for direct fire (assuming there was no escape transport available).It may only be HE but with a 155mm and high velocity its gonna pack a punch (especially early war)

[CombinedArms]

Also, in real life and CM the indirect fire arty weapons like 105mm or 150/5mm howitzers usually had some hollow core (hc) rounds handy for just such emergencies as armored breakthroughs. The howitzers weren't as accurate as long-barrelled ATGs, but could often score hits on tanks at reasonably close ranges and these hits could be fatal to the tank. Check out the anti-armor effects of HE chuckers using hc charges from the Brit 25pounder (88mm) on up.

All sides in WWII have stories of armored assaults being turned back by timely direct fire from HE batteries and there are several CM scenarios that feature either such batteries in action or a specific gun or two that function as direct fire weapons on defense. CMBO had a bunch of these featuring US batteries or individual weapons in the Battle of the Bulge.

[flamingknives]

The 25pdr didn't use HC (hollow charge) round but instead used AP shot, as it had a quite respectable MV

[ricky77]

There's a photo in Dal McGuirk's book Rommel's Army In Africa that show's a large ex-naval gun emplaced outside Toburk during the siege with 2 kill rings on the barrel as well

[JasonC]

Use of howitzers for direct fire was quite common, particularly in the first half of the war. The Germans did it, the Brits did it, the US did it. It was more common with the standard vanilla calibers - 25 pdr and 105mm - than with the larger guns. The Russians used their 76mm that way as a matter of course.

German gun fronts incorporated 105mm batteries routinely. For example, the gun front created to stop the Arras counterattack included only a handful of 88s, but 2 full battalions of 105s. The gun front at Halfaya pass included a few batteries of 88s, more than a battalion of German 105s and another of Italian 75 howitzers. In Russia, strongpoints in the second line of defense were routinely formed around attached 105mm battalions.

The US generally tried to keep its 105s off the immediate front line, but whenever they were attacked the guns came into action in direct fire roles. This happened in the fighting around Kasserine, in the counterattacks onto the Sicilian and Italian beaches at Gela and Salerno, and on numerous occasions in the Bulge.

In the desert the Brits found that their 25 pdrs were the only really effective gun against the German tanks. Their infantry "boxes" in the desert were formed around them. When infantry divisions captured an important position, 25 pdrs were brought up to hold it (e.g. after taking the heights above Halfaya pass in Crusader). The AT defenses of Tobruk consisted of an outer ring of minefields back up by 25 pdr gun-lines.

It was somewhat less common later in the war. Tanks had become thicker and it wasn't as easy for ordinary field artillery pieces to kill them at range, compared to specialized AT weapons. HEAT still made it feasible e.g. with US 105s. The Allies were mostly not on the defensive, so it came up less. The Germans mostly used PAK for this in the west, later on. In the east they continued to form strongpoints around any available guns - PAK, FLAK, infantry howitzers, div arty howitzers, whatever they had.

The Russians sometimes used their heavier caliber guns as direct fire weapons, but mostly relied on very large numbers of 76mm, whether controlled by div arty or by independent ATG formations. The heavier calibers were meant primarily for indirect fire, but were occasionally pressed into a direct fire role when 76s proved inadequate e.g. some 122 guns - not howitzers - and 152 gun howitzers, at Kursk. Later they had ISUs for this.

[gunnergoz]

That's all grog BS. Artillerymen will tell you the rings represent the numbers of hernias inflicted upon crewmen having to limber and unlimber the big S.O.B.s all the time.