Ordinance Guys Wanted

[kevinkins]

I was wondering if there was any thought

to automatic ground ATGs. That is belt fed like

a magine gun. What was the most rapid firing

ground weapon capable of killing a medium

tank say in 1944? The Hs 129 must have had

an auto-loading mechanism. I guess is was just

too costly on the ground to "spray" 75mm ammo

from a low profile dug-in gun.

- Kevin

[ParaBellum]

The Hs129 used a electro-pneumatic loading system that enabled the 7,5cm gun to fire at a ROF of about 40 rounds per minute, although it could carry IIRC only 20-30 rounds.

I'd say the automatic Flak guns like the Bofors 40mm and the german 37mm Flak were the most rapid firing guns with a decent AT capability.

IMO there is no point having a dedicated AT weapon with high ROF if

a.) the calibre is too small to hurt the target

or

b.) the calibre is big enough to kill the target with one round, so why bother with a high ROF?

[Bone_Vulture]

Ti my knowledge, the autocannons on ground attack planes were rather light; their effectiveness was based on the fact that the rounds penetrated the fragile top armor of tanks. I doubt that would have worked on ground-based guns.

Although, I've done some serious carnage on tanks with my 37mm flak in CM...

[White Phosphorus]

Aren't the Bofors, and 37mm the same thing? Soviets copied the Bofors and made their 37, Germans like the soviet 37 and copied it.

[Bullethead]

IIRC, the good ol' .50cal HMG M2 was originally called the M1918 or some such WW1-era number. Anyway, the story I heard was that it was originally intended as an anti-tank weapon. Browning figured that if other countries did OK with scaling up their standard rifles into the 1st ATRs, it would be even better to scale up the standard MG.

If this memory is correct, then a belt-fed ATR existed not long after tanks came onto the scene.

[kevinkins]

I have been trying to look at it via co$t/

benefit analysis. A cone of automatic shells

vs a wave of infantry was very cost effective.

But the same can't be the case vs a wave of tanks,

or could it be? Infantry had always been delt

with not as point targets but as a mass. Volume

of fire was key in the firefight. On the gound

vs tanks - tanks always seem to be treated as point targets for direct fire. I quess given the weight (cost) of the shell to destroy a medium

tank, blowing them off like magine gun bullets

would be very expensive.

- Kevin

[Foxbat]

The KPV 14.5mm automatic weapon, used in post-war vehicles like BRDMs.

[Michael Emrys]

Kevin, an artillery battery or battalion firing indirectly could be considered an area fire weapon against armor. I know that this is different from the exact question you are posing, but it's as close as you are going to get. Otherwise, it is pointless to spray cannon shells in the general direction of armor, if for no other reason than that tanks etc. were widely enough dispersed to make that an ineffective mode of attack.

Michael

[kevinkins]

Mike -

You are right and it's the cost analysis

that prevented nations from developing automatic

ATGs vs a WW2 type main battle tanks. But given

the fact that automatic ATG cannon were installed in aircraft and automatic ground based systems during the war did have some effectivness, I wonder if larger caliber belt fed gun were ever concidered and/or experimented with.

- Kevin

[WWB]

In the defensive whatever was on hand was used. But I think it is no accident that 20-30mm cannon systems developed on ground support weapons after the war.

WWB

[kevinkins]

Can you imagine the noise of a belt fed

88mm?

- Kevin

[Michael Emrys]

Kevin, I think you are wrong to keep harping on cost. There were other more important reasons why there were no large automatic cannon for ground targets.

If you look at automatic weapons, you see that they were employed to either hit fleeting targets or were fired from fast-moving platforms, or both. Thus, we have air-to-air, air-to-ground, and ground-to-air weapons all capable of very rapid fire because they had short acquisition and fire windows on targets with usually a rapid relative motion. For the smaller calibers (less than 37mm), it would take more than one hit to score a kill. Thus, it makes great sense to try to fill the volume the target is moving through, just as one would use a shotgun to shoot a bird.

Firing at tanks from the ground is a different propostion, however. Especially as armor increased on tanks, small caliber rounds had less and less chance of penetrating however many hits they might have scored. So a higher rate of fire does them no good. What's needed is a round of sufficient size and ballistic properties to cause the desired level of destruction. Once that is achieved, one or two hits is sufficient to kill. It isn't necessary to smother the target with multiple hits. And scoring a hit on a tank, even a moving tank, is a much easier exercise than scoring hits on an airplane.

Cost was not a decisive factor. If automatic cannon had demonstrated a superiority in killing tanks, the increased cost would have been justified. It's just that the concept you put forward is a non-starter from the outset.

Michael

[ October 27, 2002, 05:17 PM: Message edited by: Michael emrys ]

[kevinkins]

I am not saying that I think it was a good

idea. I wanted to know if it ever got beyond

a thought experiment and perhaps prototypes

developed. It looks unlikely.

Kevin