Screeny Posted November 21, 2002 Share Posted November 21, 2002 Hi all, I have a general arty question that has not much to do with this brlijant game as however there are some real history buffs on this forum I'm asking it anyway What is the difference between a Infantery gun and a AT gun from a technical point of view WAIT!! before you answer that and read on . Infantery is against infantery (duhhh) and AT are for destroying armor like units. But as far as I know this depends on the difference in AMMO these guns use...high explosive vs igh velocity (or other nifty ammo with specific anti AT usage). So what is different in the guns them self???? Why not create/design on gun and depending on what role you'll like to give them, suplly them with the proper ammo....I guess there must be more to it so if soem one knows... Secondly what is a houwitser exactly..in comparison with a "ordinary" infantery gun??? Again from a technical point of view... thanks for the attention. gr Screeny Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tigrii Posted November 21, 2002 Share Posted November 21, 2002 The main difference between the two types to my knowledge is that against "soft" targets it's just the amount of He the shell carries that matters, and against tanks it's the velocity. Therefore, infantry guns have short, wide barrels to shoot big shells at a low velocity. This is why they have HC. If they had AP, it wouldn't be going fast enough to penetrate. AT guns, on the other hand, have long, relatively thin barrels to shoot a small shell at high velocity to penetrate armor. The difference between a howitzer and a gun is that a howitzer is generally meant for high angle fire and can elevate above 45 degrees. A gun is used for low angle, direct fire and can't elevate above 45 degrees. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Screeny Posted November 21, 2002 Author Share Posted November 21, 2002 Makes sense.... thx mate!!! love this forum gr Screeny Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John D Salt Posted November 21, 2002 Share Posted November 21, 2002 Originally posted by Tigrii: [snips]The difference between a howitzer and a gun is that a howitzer is generally meant for high angle fire and can elevate above 45 degrees. A gun is used for low angle, direct fire and can't elevate above 45 degrees.That's one definition, as used by the British during WW2 (although the critical angle was 40 degrees rather than 45). However, by that definition, the 88mm Flak 36 the 3.7" and US 90mm HAA guns, all of which can elevate well above 45 degrees, would qualify as howitzers, which they ain't. Another definition, as used by the US, is to count as a howitzer anything with a calibre length below a certain figure (typically 30 or so). The best "working" defintion -- none of these are perfect -- is in my opinion to say that it's a howitzer if it uses a charge system, a gun if it doesn't. Even at that I believe there are seperate-loading guns with a choice of two charges, so you might amend the definition to read "...if it uses a charge system of three or more charges". And, for Mr. Picky, doesn't otherwise qualify as a mortar. Most "infantry guns" are in fact "infantry howitzers" in that they have charge systems. A couple of British and Russian guns carried the designation "gun-howitzer", but if weapons designations were logical the hybrid name would probably apply to most WW2 field artillery pieces. All the best, John. [ November 20, 2002, 07:06 PM: Message edited by: John D Salt ] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Silvio Manuel Posted November 21, 2002 Share Posted November 21, 2002 OK then, so what's the deal in CMBB where on the arty purchase screens, the apparent "type" of arty can be howitzer gun artillery- what is w/ "artillery" as a type...is it neither gun nor howitzer? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flamingknives Posted November 21, 2002 Share Posted November 21, 2002 Artillery is heavy support, a larger group that contains Howitzers, guns, mortars, and more, including AA guns - hence AAA - anti-aircraft-artillery. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Redwolf Posted November 23, 2002 Share Posted November 23, 2002 This discussion is misleading wrt the original question. The indirect fire "guns" are still no AT gun, from the original question you can treat guns and howitzers in the artillery menu the same for CM purposes. The specialized AT guns have much higher projectile speed, to make solid shot penetrate (much) better and to raise the hit probablity. The infantry guns on the contrary have so low projectile speed that they are rarely used for indirect fire. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sgt. Schultz Posted November 25, 2002 Share Posted November 25, 2002 How about barrel rifling? Was every gun in this discussion a rifled barrel weapon or do they just lob them out a smooth bore barrel?? Were there more rifle turns per barrel inch for an AT gun than an infantry gun for more accurate trajectory? That ought to set the grogs a-quibblin' ... how many turns and numbers of rifling are in each weapon and class? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Martin Rapier Posted November 25, 2002 Share Posted November 25, 2002 What is the difference between a Infantery gun and a AT gun from a technical point of view WAIT!! before you answer that and read on . Infantery is against infantery (duhhh) and AT are for destroying armor like units. But as far as I know this depends on the difference in AMMO these guns use...high explosive vs igh velocity (or other nifty ammo with specific anti AT usage). So what is different in the guns them self???? Infantry guns were a peculiarity of (mainly) the German Army. They were guns designed for support of infantry units by direct fire with the ability to be manhandled in necessary & were originally developed during WW1 as a means of destroying MG nests etc. Sturmbattalion Rohrs original job was testing the effectiveness of specialist Sturmkanone. In fact the fundamental problem was that German infantry mortars in WW1 were cr*p and they'd have been better off developing better mortars based on the Stokes principle, but they didn't & pressed on with the development of dedicated infantry guns instead. German WW2 infantry units were modelled on WW1 attack trained infantry units, so they got regimental infantry gun batteries as well. Later in the war the Germans figured out that infantry guns were an overexpensive waste of resources and replaced them in many units with mortars instead. The early versions of the Stug were simply SP versions of the existig infantry guns and were designed to be used in the same role, direct HE fire support of infantry units. AT guns OTOH were designed to destroy armoured targets so generally had a much higher muzzle velocity and a greater barrel length relative to their calibre. Early AT guns were also very small and capable of being manhandled, but later guns became extremely heavy & hard to shift, which is partly why towed AT guns were replaced by SP guns and then finally by 'Universal Tanks' or Main Battle Tanks as they are called now. Cheers Martin Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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