Questions about Weapons

[Morphing Cell]

Hi, everyone. I just got CM several days ago and I think CM is indeed a great game.

I am a little disappointed, however, that the manual doesn't explain the purposes of different types of weapons (only ammunitions). And I haven't found a web page that explains this. Since I know very little about weapons, I feel kind of lost.

For example, what is a rifle best for? A submachine gun? Why are there 10 semi-automatic rifles, a submachine gun, and an automatic rifle in an American rifle squad? Why aren't all rifles automatic? What is a recoilless rifle? What are the differences among an AT gun, a tank destroyer, and artillery? What is the advantage of a tank destroyer compared to a tank, when a tank can destroy other tanks too?

And where can I read descriptions of combat vehicles in WW2?

Thank you all.

[JoePrivate]

Go to this website:

http://w1.312.telia.com/~u31213280/index.htm

In the Addon section there is a Unit Database download which lists most if not all the units in CM, it even has pictures

CM was designed to be historically accurate, a typical US Rifle squad would have the loadout described though in reality it wouldn't always be so clearcut. Just by playing you will pick up what each weapon is good for, start small, experiment and have fun!

As for your other questions, there is a wealth of information regarding CM tactics, WWII weapons etc right here on this forum. Just browse through some of the past messages, you'll be suprised. Good luck.

[Chupacabra]

I'll try to go through this in as much detail as I can.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>what is a rifle best for?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Short to mid-range fire. Rifles were the basic combat arm of all armies, and will do the bulk of the killing in most CM games.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>A submachine gun?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Point-blank to short range fire. They rule the school at close combat. At anything much above 50m, they're fairly useless.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Why are there 10 semi-automatic rifles, a submachine gun, and an automatic rifle in an American rifle squad?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

This is a combination which worked well in practice. The US Army's main rifle, the M1 Garand, was the finest semi-automatic rifle of the war. The submachine gun added some close-range punch, and the automatic rifle added suppressive firepower.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Why aren't all rifles automatic?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> WW2-era automatic rifles, a la the BAR, weren't modern assault rifles. They attempted to fill the same role as light machine guns such as the English Bren or the German LMG42. That is, to pump out suppressive firepower to allow the rest of the squad to fire or maneuver. The BAR's muzzle climb when firing fully automatic was high, and so accuracy tended to be low. Moreover, the BAR only held a 20-round magazine, so that it ran out of ammo very quickly. The Germans developed the first modern assault rifle, the MP44, which saw service in limited numbers in 1944-45.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>What is a recoilless rifle?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

A recoilless rifle has openings in both the front and the back, so that when a projectile is fired, the projectile goes out the front, while the propelling explosion goes out the back. A bazooka is an example of a recoilless rifle.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>What are the differences among an AT gun, a tank destroyer, and artillery?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

AT gun: Not really sure how to descripe this, actually. Um, it's a gun, it sits on the ground, it kills tanks. Generally not moveable by their crews, they usually had to be truck or horse-towed.

Tank destroyer: Mobile AT gun. Usually eschewed armor in favor of speed and firepower.

Artillery: Long range, indirect fire. Drops High Explosive shells in salvos.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>What is the advantage of a tank destroyer compared to a tank, when a tank can destroy other tanks too?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

In the Allied case, it was a question of doctrine. Allied tanks were generally designed as infantry support units, and as such were not really given guns that were especially effective at tank killing. Tank Destroyers on the other hand were unsuitable for infantry support, but were good at killing tanks. Until the end of the war, most Allied tanks had woeful anti-tank capabilities. You will learn to love the Allied TDs as you play.

On the German side, TDs were cheaper to build then Main Battle Tanks like the PzKw IV through VI series. It was a question of economics. Say your enemy's tanks cost 100 dollars, and your tanks cost 200 dollars. If your tanks can kill three or more enemy tanks before getting killed themselves, they're doing well, but if not, you're operating at a loss. Now say you can build tank destroyers for 50 dollars. Even if your enemy manages a 1-1 kill ratio, he's now the one losing money.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>And where can I read descriptions of combat vehicles in WW2?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Try AFV News.

Good luck!

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Soy super bien soy super super bien soy bien bien super bien bien bien super super

[Morphing Cell]

Wow, thank you both for your very helpful answers!

But I just remember another question: What is the purpose of an assult gun? What is it designed to hit?

Thank you again!

[KrazyKnut]

What is the purpose of an assault gun? What is it designed to hit?

First kudos to Chupacabra for his explanation.

The assault gun is an infantry support unit. They were designed to primary engage soft targets so the gun fired HE and a few shaped charges for defense.

Unlike a tank they are gun carriages, so lack a turret. Hence cheaper to construct. Lack of turret won't matter so much in engaging slow targets like infantry. These are great for knocking down building bunkers and like.

Shoot fast, shoot straight

[Gremlin]

Remember, as stated or implied above, that as a rule, assault guns and tank hunters/destroyers lack a traversing turret, so the whole vehicle has to slowly rotate to track a target. This means they're generally ineffective in the heat of a complex, close-quarters battle, particularly with enemy tanks in the neighborhood. It's wiser to use TD's for ambushing, in defensive setups, or offensively in situations where their flanks are protected by terrain or buildings and they can cover relatively narrow areas, like a small valley.

Here's another bit of info that may be useful. An assault gun (German ones at least--called a Sturmgeschütz (assault gun) or Sturmhaubitze (assault howitzer), StuG or StuH for short) is generally fairly well armored, though not as heavily as a tank.

Self-propelled (SP) guns serve roughly the same purpose in CM: moving in to wipe out infantry and buildings when no enemy tanks or AT guns are around. SP guns typically have only minimal armor, though. I've seen them taken out by heavy machine guns. Think of these as essentially exposed howitzers that happend to have self-propulsion for quick relocation. Some tank destroyers, like the German Marder, are similarly poorly armored (just thin plates to protect against small arms fire).

Many tank destroyers (at least Allied) and SP guns are open-topped making them especially susceptible mortar/artillery fire, grenades, and infantry fire from higher elevations. Like driving a convertible in a hail storm

Also, a recoilless rifle is generally used as a lightweight anti-tank weapon. Expulsion of gas from the rear (the backblast) does away with the normal need for single or double hydraulic recoil compensators (sort of like big versions of what you see on doors at public buildings, letting them open quickly and slowly close). The barrel and breech don't need to be as thick, either, due to less gas buildup (insert rude joke here ). This helps reduce the overall size and weight of the gun while keeping it steady. Shells could also be made thinner to carry more high explosive.

Anti-aircraft (AA) guns in CM are somewhat effective at fending off fighter bombers in the occasional scenarios that have them, but they've extremely effective against ground troops too. This is particularly true of the mobile, armored varieties, such as the German Wirbelwind and Ostwind.

Achtung Panzer! has lots of info on German armored fighting vehicles.

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War is cruel and you cannot refine it. --Sherman

[This message has been edited by Gremlin (edited 01-01-2001).]

[Gremlin]

Try setting up a Quick Battle and set it to allow human unit purchase. Then you can buy and experiment with whatever you want, depending on the unit's availability at the month you select (e.g., some tanks aren't available until 1945).

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War is cruel and you cannot refine it. --Sherman

[Pak40]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Morphing Cell:

Why aren't all rifles automatic?

<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

There are a several reasons:

1) automatic rifles expend a lot of ammo quickly. If every soldier had an autmatic rifle then there would be serious supply problems.

2) They are heavy and bulky. The BAR is quite a load and it is intended to fire from a set position with it's bipod. Regular rifles, on the other hand, can easily be handled, run with, and fired on the move.

3) There are different jobs for different weapons. A bolt action rifle has high accuracy and is good for sniping. A semiautomatic rifle has a good balance of firepower and accuracy. BAR and machine guns have a lot of firepower and less accuracy because of their high rate of fire, but are great at keeping the enemy's head down while your riflemen get into better position.

[Gremlin]

You probably already noticed this too, Morphing Cell, but most of the machine gun teams move quite slowly, too. Just something to bear in mind as your planning. You may want to try using vehicles to shuttle them about quickly, though that raises all kinds of other tactical questions

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War is cruel and you cannot refine it. --Sherman

[CATguy]

As for carrying any weapon they are all heavy!!!! and think if you have to carry 100 rds or more of ammo then it is real heavy!

[Olle Petersson]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Chupacabra:

A recoilless rifle has openings in both the front and the back, so that when a projectile is fired, the projectile goes out the front, while the propelling explosion goes out the back. A bazooka is an example of a recoilless rifle.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>A small correction might be in place.

The Bazooka (together with Panzerschreck) is not a RR, but a rocketlauncher.

A RR is like a regular gun where you've forgot to close the breech. About 2/3 of the propellant gas exits through the rear to compensate the impulse projected onto the projectile as it's accelerated down the tube.

It goes off with a loud BOOM, not the puny woosshh presented in CM, and has a hefty blast at both ends.

Modern RRs are for example the disposable AT-4, with a wartime safety distance of 15m to the rear arc. (Swedish safety distance in peacetime is 90m, but that also apply to the larger 9cm RR.)

Rocket launchers fires projectiles with on-board rocket engines. These do go off with a woosh and have much less blast, as they continue to accelerate after leaving the barrel.

The main advantage of RRs are that they can be built very light weight, compared to recoil weapons, and they have better accuracy than rockets. The downsides are the huge blast that reveals the position and slightly limits deployment, plus that the ammo is heavier due to the increased propellant load.

The Swedish army fielded it's first RR in 1942, a 20mm ATR with roughly the same ballistic performance as the German 20L55. This weapon wasn't really recoilless, but had the kick of two regular rifles fired simultaneous...

Cheers

Olle

[jasoncawley@ameritech.net]

Others have already given some fine answers to your questions, but I thought I'd add my two cents and try to explain some of the effective differences in weapon types in CM terms.

Rifles are plain vanilla weapons, but in CM what is noteworthy about them is their better range than the light automatic weapons that are the main alternatives. Rifles in CM can fire out to 500 yards, but are effective at ranges of 100-250 yards. The American M-1 is the best of the rifles. Semi-automatic means one round is fired for each pull of the trigger, but without the shooter needing to do anything else between shots. The M-1 is an example, and used a small clip of ammo, 5 rounds usually. The rifles of the other nations (Brit and German) are bolt action, meaning the shooter recocks the weapon manually by operating the bolt - pulling back ejects the spent case of the previous round, pushing forward again to load the next round. The semi-auto thus had a higher rate of fire, for short periods anyway. Over longer periods there wasn't much difference as ammo and aim are the real limits in the long run.

The alternate weapon of most infantry is a submachinegun. For the Germans, that is the MP40, for the US the Thompson SMG, for the Brits the Sten. Compared to the rifles, the SMGs are less accurate and much shorter range, firing a pistol-sized round at a lower muzzle velocity than a rifle. But they make up for it by firing often, a burst for each pull of the trigger, from 20-32 round clips. In CM, the SMGs of all types have much higher firepower than rifles at 40 yards distance, and the two weapons are comparable in firepower at about 100 yards. In the 100-250 yard range, the rifles pass the SMGs again, and the SMGs can't fire at all beyond 250 meters.

The later-war german units also have a few MP44s, which was the first "assault rifle", firing a rifle round at high muzzle velocity but fully automatic. That gun is the forerunner of the Russian AK-47, which was copied off of it, if that helps give an idea of what it is. In CM terms it is a compromise between an SMG and a rifle, useful, but no squad is fully equipped with them so they make only a minor improvement, compared to mixed rifles and SMGs. You will also find some carbines in the US forces (HQ units in particular). They too are a compromise of sorts, but more like the worst of SMG range and rifle firepower instead of the best of both. Crews and leaders will have pistols, which are nearly useless, a weapon for inside one building at best and much worse than an SMG in that case.

All of the above are the "line" weapons used by privates, individual soldiers. But the firepower of many squads and teams is built around heavier weapons, light machineguns of one variety or another. The best of these is the German MG42 LMG, which incidentally is the forerunner of most modern LMGs. Most German squads pack one, and some of them have two. The Americans use the BAR (Browning Automatic Rifle), and the Brits the Bren light machinegun, for the same job.

These all have far more firepower than the other weapon types and better range as well. They are generally effective to 500 meters. The limits on how much they dish out were based on the ammo that could be carried, and problems with sustained fire by them to a lesser extent. All of these were equipped with a bipod at the end to stabilize the weapon when firing, and had extra men in the squad helping to carry their ammo. At long range, 1/2 to 2/3rds of a squad's firepower comes from just this one (or two) heavier weapon(s).

The most noticeable effects of the difference small arm mixes are SMG-heavy vs. rifle-heavy squad types, with the Germans having a mix of those depending on the kind of troops involved, and the others generally being rifle heavy, except for Allied Paratroops who also use many SMGs. An SMG heavy squad will tend to win a firefight at 40-80 yards, other things being equal (which they rarely are, to be sure). It will tend to lose a firefight at 150-250 yards. In between, the types are reasonably close in the mixes typically found, with the MGs thrown in, etc. One result of this is that the SMG squads can be deadlier in tight terrain, like large forests or inside towns (not on the perimeter), while the rifle squads can do better in more open country, especially on the defense. A rifle-heavy force will generally find it easier to pin attackers down in the open before they manage to get close, when the terrain is open. All infantry gets much deadlier when it gets close, of course, but this is an even sharper rise at very close ranges for the SMG-heavy squad types.

It is also worth keeping an eye on your small arm compositions when using the split feature to create half-squad teams. If a squad has only one MG or BAR in it, as most do, then after the split one of the teams will still have it and the other won't. The one with the MG will have most of the firepower, especially at long range. Squads with 2 MGs (some German units, 1945 US infantry with 2 BARs, etc), will naturally create teams that each have a light machine gun. This is a good way to make machinegun nests, get enough shooters with decent range to cover your ground, and the like. Be advised, though, that the BAR is less of a step-up from the standard rifles than an MG42 is. To understand why, a BAR is firing a 20 round magazine (up from the M-1's 5 rounds), while the MG42 is firing 100-round belt-fed machine gun ammo (up from a bolt action rifle's 1 round).

All of the above are "small arms", in the sense that they are meant to deal with enemy infantry and that is it. The cumulative effect of all of the above is that SMG squads are effective to 100 yards, rifles squads to 250 yards, and the MGs of most squads (or teams with LMGs in them) can reach out to 500 yards with enough firepower to pin somebody down in the open. Sometimes you will see a German Volksgrenadier squad with just 8 MP40s, pure SMG. That means it isn't going to bother anybody beyond 100 yards, but it can really chew up people at close 40 yard range. An American 1945 squad, by contrast, has 2 BARs and lots of M-1s, so it shoots very well at 250 yards and can pin people down out to 500 yards pretty well. But don't tangle with those SMGs in the middle of the woods if you can help it (e.g., in the demo "Chance Encounter" scenario).

There are three important factors to understand about the role of infantry in WW II combat. The first is that only infantry can go anywhere, while armor finds it difficult or impossible to negotiate most terrain except open ground and wheatfields. (Grinding through scattered trees will often work, but sometimes you will get stuck and immobilized). The second point is that infantry may seem poorly armored, but inside a stone house, a bunker, or a foxhole, they are "armored" rather well by terrain. In historical reality, infantry made their own "armor" with a shovel, wherever they were. And the third point is that infantry is much stealthier than armor. It does not announce that it is coming half a mile off by engine noise, uses concealment, short movements, masking by small pieces of terrain, and the like. The best place for infantry is dug in where tanks can't go with nobody knowing they are there.

One other highly important tactic for infantry in CM, or WW II era fighting generally, is to make use of cover to break line of sight completely. You will sometimes face assymetrical situations where e.g. enemy armor is hitting your men beyond range of reply. If you sit inside a building an enemy tank is shooting at, you will quickly get clobbered. But put the house between yourself and the tank, and it becomes better cover even while outside than it was while inside. Similarly, you can often avoid fire by moving to the back of a building, or to the ground floor, or deeper into a forest away from the treeline. Sneak a small unit back into line of sight somewhere else to maintain your view of the enemy, and bring your force back to the forward, firing positions when they have a useful target. Ride out the fire of heavier arms away from the spots the enemy can see. Always try to position larger bodies of infantry (platoons, companies) in locations where they can back away in this fashion, if needed.

As for the misleading term "recoilless rifle", one of Murphy's Laws of Combat puts it briefly - "recoilless" rifles, ain't. The RR is a further development of the bazooka idea, basically. Bazookas fire rockets through a smooth hollow tube, carrying a small anti-tank warhead. But their range is quite limited - 200 yards maximum with more like 100 yards effective range. The idea of an RR is the "rifling" part, which means grooves inside a tube to spin the projectile to stabilize it in flight, just like a rifle compared to a smoothbore or shotgun. The result is RRs had much longer effective ranges than bazookas. But they were also much heavier and harder to use, a little shoulder-carried artillery piece in effect. They are also rare.

The standard infantry anti-tank weapons of all sides are variants of the bazooka or something like it. The US uses the Bazooka, the Germans two types, Panzerschreck and Panzerfaust, and the Brits the PIAT. The Panzerfaust is a one-shot disposable, shorter range weapon. It is listed in CM squads when present, 1 or 2 of them in a squad, or none. They get used automatically if the squad is close enough to enemy armor - 40-100 meters depending on the model carried, quite close. The US uses rifle grenades the same way (a grenade launched from the tip on an M-1 rifle using a special cartridge), but they are not nearly as effective, only being useful against half-tracks and the like. All the other types can kill real tanks, but side and rear shots and getting close are essential. The Germans are somewhat better off in this respect, as their infantry Anti-tank weapons tend to have bigger warheads and the Allied targets tend to have thinner front armor.

Another infantry support arm is the mortar, which comes in various sizes from 50mm (2 inches basically) up to 120mm (~5 inches). 2 inch, 50mm and 60mm mortars are "light" mortars, 76mm / 3 inch (Brit) and 81mm mortars are "medium" mortars, and 4.2 inch and 120mm mortars are "heavy" mortars. All are fin-guided, not rifled, rocket-based rounds that fire nearly straight up, then drop onto their target. You can think of the light ones as throwing hand grenades a long, long way - that is about the effect. The medium ones are light artillery, useful for lots of things and perhaps the most common form of artillery support in CM and in WW reality. The heavy ones are usually off-map artillery, the mediums can show up either way. Mortars have high rates of fire but tend to have relatively small blasts for each detonation. They are thus not very effective against heavy cover - bunkers or buildings - nor are they effective against tanks. But they can chew up people in woods, pin people in foxholes, knock out or suppress crewed guns, and might get lucky against half-tracks or other light, open-topped vehicles.

An important trick in CM when using light mortars is to let their Headquarters spot for them. If the mortar units are close enough to an HQ that you get the red lines for proper command, they can fire at anything the HQ can see, even if they can't see it themselves. This is important, because it means you can #1 put the mortars behind a hill or farther back into some woods, out of sight, and then #2 put the HQ on the crest or treeline, but hiding, so it can't easily be seen. The HQ isn't firing and the mortars aren't in line of sight, so you can fire on your targets without detection or reply. Sometimes your light mortars will have smoke, which is useful in lots of ways. The standard HE rounds are for killing (or pinning) infantry mostly. Check the rounds used in one minute of firing, because the rate of fire is high enough you probably only have ~3-4 minutes of shooting from each mortar unit. Use them when you need them. Once they are out, just keep the men safe - they are useless for combat afterward.

Off map artillery, which sometimes includes the medium or heavy mortars, is represented in CM by an artillery forward observor team (FO for short). That is basically two guys with a radio and a pair of binoculars, telling a whole battery of guns way back behind your side of the line where to shoot and radioing back corrections after they see where the shells land. An FO unit can be good for 3-5 fire missions before they run out of ammo. Off map artillery takes a while to land, though - 2 minutes is typical, sometimes faster for battalion mortars and sometimes slower for green FOs or big guns, etc. An HQ can spot for the FO team, the same as with the mortars above, by calling back the corrections to them. Heavier artillery can hurt troops in buildings or heavier cover, but is still most effective at troops in the open or in the woods, and against infantry not armor. It is not a precision instrument. The shells can fall 50-100 meters from your point of aim, so be careful calling in fire missions right next to your own guys.

Another kind of artillery you will encounter in CM is better called a gun - a direct fire piece usually with some special role. Anti-tank guns are the most common, and after them probably anti-aircraft guns. Unlike the off-map artillery, these are not meant to lob shells at a high angle to fall on the general area where the enemy is, but instead are meant to point at a particular target very carefully and hit it with flat-trajectory fire. An anti-tank gun, as the name implies, is meant to do this to enemy armor in particular, firing solid metal rounds at very high speeds to penetrate enemy armor plate. They can also fire high explosive (HE) rounds against infantry targets, however, as long as they can see them directly.

These guns can be very effective, but they are vunerable to fire themselves unless protected by a bunker or some-such. Another useful tactic with them can be to use them in "keyhole sighting" deployments, meaning on spots on the map where only a few of the enemy can see them (like peeping through a keyhole, say between two buildings or a building and a woodline, etc), then they out-shoot those few and stay alive that way. The drawback to that idea is that you have to be right about where the enemy is coming.

Anti-aircraft guns can interfer with enemy air support if he has any, but they can also shoot at guys on the ground of course. These tend to be smaller guns with high rates of fire, which can make them sort of like machine guns against enemy infantry, and can also make them deadly against enemy half-tracks, trucks, and other light-armored vehicles. Against full-fledged tanks they will have trouble, though, as the penetrating power of a 20mm-40mm cannon just isn't up to punching a hole in the front of a tank. They have the same problems with vunerability to fire themselves as the anti-tank guns, with the same sorts of solutions possible.

Tank destroyer as a term can cause some confusion, because it means so many different things. To Joe off the street, it might include a bazooka since that can destroy a tank, but the proper term for that is "anti-tank weapon" or anti-tank capable. A tank destroyer is a kind of tank, but a somewhat different kind for Germans than for the Allies. A basic idea to keep in mind is that "TD"s were meant to be as effective as tanks on defense, without necessarily being as useful on the attack.

The Germans use tank destroyers that have no turrets - they are a tank gun mounted on a tank chassis, but without the turret. This has one obvious disadvantage - you have to point the whole vehicle at the target to aim. But it has two advantages - it is cheaper to make (doesn't matter much in CM), and the whole vehicle is shorter off of the ground, which can make it harder to spot. The Germans used these behind the crest of hills or behind walls, trying to get situations in which only the gun and the very top of the vehicle was visible to the enemy, making a tiny target. This makes them perfect for ambushes, but no turret makes them more vunerable to moves around a flank, attacks from two directions, etc.

The Allies also have tank destroyers, but they retain turrets. What the Allies gave up on their TDs was weight of armor, especially on the turret (the chassis was often a tank chassis, so it often had the same armor as a tank) - often the Allied TDs have open tops like half-tracks, as well as thin turret armor. In return for the lighter weight, though, the TDs carry heavier guns than Allied tanks or the vehicles are faster, or both. The same idea of use in ambush situations is behind the differences, but the Allies needed the heavier guns to knock out better German tanks, and put more stock in mobility for protection, while the Germans prefered stealth and full armor.

Compared to the TD designs with their design differences, tanks are more uniform and meant to balance attack and defense, able to be used in any reasonable manner and in any situation. The Allied tanks tend to be undergunned and underarmored compared to the better German models (Panther and Tiger), but also more numerous. All tanks are fully protected against small arms and most effects of off-map artillery, and except for side and rear shots in close, don't have too much to fear from enemy light AA guns and the like. They can be killed by infantry that gets close enough, by other tanks and TDs, and by the anti-tank guns. They themselves can kill anything.

There are also a wide variety of lighter armored vehicles used by both sides. The most common types are halftracks and light "recon" armor. Halftracks are essentially armored trucks with machineguns mounted, used to support infantry and to move them around. Light recon armor comes in many varieties - halftracks with extra guns mounted on them, armor cars, light tanks, etc. What all have in common is pop-shooter guns and thin armor, which do not enable them to stand up to real tanks in front-to-front slugging, but can smash up each other and shrug off small arms fire. Many real tanks are vunerable to some of their guns if caught from a flank and up close, too.

I hope these comments are helpful.

[Olle Petersson]

Great posting, Jason!

One tiny addition though

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by jasoncawley@ameritech.net:

(1) Anti-aircraft guns can interfer with enemy air support if he has any, ...

(2) Allied TDs have open tops like half-tracks, as well as thin turret armor. In return for the lighter weight, though, the TDs carry heavier guns than Allied tanks or the vehicles are faster, or both. ...<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>1. Large AA guns, i.e. the 88mm and 90mm guns, can't shoot at the fighter-bombers in CM.

2. This isn't restricted to Allied TDs, but apply to the German counterparts as well. It's only less obvious.

Marders and Nashorns are open topped as well as the earlier Panzerjäger I.

All German TDs fielded heavier guns than their tank counterpart, and the heaviest guns available at any time.

Some examples:

- Marder on PzKwII or PzKw38(t) chassis had a 75mm or 76mm high powered gun when the tanks had 37mm guns.

- When the PzKw IV got 75L48, the JgdPz IV got 75L70.

- Tiger II had 88L71, Jagdtiger had 128L?.

Cheers

Olle

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Srategy is the art of avoiding a fair fight...

[Skott Karlsson]

Captain BillyJoeJimBob Sixpak replies..

what is a rifle best for?

Deer Hunting.

A submachine gun?

Herd of several deer.

What is a recoilless rifle?

A bazooka for them really big deer.

What are the differences among an AT gun?

Taking out really big tough deer.

tank destroyer?

For taking out several really big tough deer.

and artillery?

Artillery is for when your a really lousy shot and just have to get that deer no matter what!

~Skott~

Can you guess I like to deer hunt? ::grins::

[bredberg]

I'm not keen on simplistic reasoning even though this would be appreciated sometimes.

A comment to Olle:

I wasn't really so that the German TD carried the most powerful gun always.

Ok the heaviest gun was the Jagdtigers 128mmL (?) however I not that sure it gave the most punch or was the best tank destroyer.

Jagdpanther and TigerII (K?gstiger) (fielded in summer -44) shared the same gun and thus equal. The ill-fated Elefant and Nashorn also used this gun 88mmL71 and fielded in July-43, however prior to summer-43, the best tank-killer was the Tiger (I) 88mmL56 gun (fielded Nov-42) and the AA 88mm (same gun).

The common TD StuG had either a 75mmL48 or a

75mmL43 the same as the standard (42-43) PzKwf IV. The Stug and the Pzkwf IV-lang was

fielded nearly at the same time.

In 44 when the Panther (75mmL70) became the most numerous tank the StuGs gun was severely less effective.

Jagdpanzer IV was much later than the PzKwf IV-lang, even the L48-gun version.

The only time Olle is correct is in the time

period of July-43 to July-44 where the

open-top Nashorn (650 built) and the Elefant (100 built) carried the best AT-gun.

The Marders are not a very good TD, the StuGs are a better overall TD. Marders were built

only to use obsolete PzKfw II chassis.

The Elefant was however not very useful in combat, way to heavy with a too small engine.

All the same the Elefant knocked out tanks

on the ratio of 20:1 in the open fields of

Russia, until the muddy season sat in.

The same would have occurred with the Jagdtiger if used. Referring to Combat history of 653:th schwere jagdpanzer bat. I can comeback with more precise info on the combat value of Elefants and Jagdtigers.

Cheers Jonas

[Olle Petersson]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by bredberg:

A comment to Olle:

I wasn't really so that the German TD carried the most powerful gun always.

...

The only time Olle is correct is in the time

period of July-43 to July-44 ...<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>My point was that German TDs carried heavier guns than the tanks based on same chassis.

Comparing a StuG III to a PzKw V is thus not the way I compare them, instead I compare StuG III to PzKw III, Jagdpz IV to PzKw IV, and so on. In pretty much every case the TD has the better gun.

With your way of comparison it doesn't hold up to the Allies either, since the super Pershing had a better gun than the M10...

M10 should be compared to M4A?(75).

As for the time frame where German TDs had the very best SP ATGs (towed guns were always on par or better) I think it's true even earlier. Panzerjäger 1B had a 47mm ATG when the tanks had a 20mm or 37mm gun, and I think the Marder was introduced before PzKw IV got the longer 75mm gun.

Cheers

Olle

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Srategy is the art of avoiding a fair fight...