shooting a hole through the ground

[Guest Guest]

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[costard]

One? - unless the ground is invisible?

Maybe "direct LOS to the foxhole before the ground..." :confused:

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[MikeyD]

In the game you're not going to hit him that way, unless there's a slight mismatch between the calculated LOF and the graphical display - which use to happen a LOT in the good old days. Its not so much that you're drilling through topsoil to the target than the computer thinks you've got a line of fire on a piece of him despite what the monitor's showing you.

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[MikeyD]

In WWII they brought up Patton tanks to the west side of the Rhine to snipe through the big earth berms erected on the far side of the river, AP would go in one side and out the other. But that's 90mm solid shot. I've never heard of anyone using small ams fire to do earth-moving. I heard a wheat field is enough to stop a bullet after just a few yards.

[costard]

Oh I meant with real firearms against real dirt :-) Maybe it's a goofy question. heh.

Maybe. What's the saying?... "Ask a stupid person, get a stupid answer.":D

Need to find out how much dirt each aimed shell moves - at about 27 cubic feet the target is not really protected any more.

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[costard]

I'd say yes - small calibre stuff isn't going to move the dirt far (which means most of it will end up in the same hole as the cowering dude, who can then throw it back into place). By the time the MG (say) has chopped a hole in the landscape, the cowering dude will either have died of thirst or dug his way out of the LOF.

[theFightingSeabee]

When I had to actually dig foxholes, we were required to make a 36 inch "parapet" (a small wall of dirt in front of the fighting position), that was supposed to stop a bullet. Obviously, an HE tank round would obliterate 3 feet of dirt and anyone behind it.

Firing from a tank as the picture shows? Maybe a sabot would punch through first shot, I don't know. An HE round might create a crater, and displace the dirt into the foxhole, burying the poor guy hiding inside. Otherwise, maybe the tank should target the rear of the foxhole instead, and kill the guy with shrapnel.

[MikeyD]

It all depends on the soil too. Hard ground I can imagine a round coming in at that angle skipping instead of penetrating. Old tank manuals described a technique of skip firing time-delayed HE in front of trenches in order to achieve airbursts over them (I don't think modern rounds can do this anymore?). They were counting on the rounds not penetrating the soil.

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[Drusus]

Just wondering about HE shell against foxholes. Would a soldier standing in a foxhole have any chance of ducking a shot? The muzzle velocity is less than 1000 m/s (?) so that at a distance of 300m you would have 0.3-0.4 seconds to dug. Are there any stories of this happening in WWII, for example? The muzzle velocity of some of the guns must have been even slower. At 500 m/s you would have 0.6 seconds to dug...

[Dave H]

In WWII they brought up Patton tanks to the west side of the Rhine to snipe through the big earth berms erected on the far side of the river, AP would go in one side and out the other. But that's 90mm solid shot.

(snip)

I think you mean Pershing tanks. The first M46 Patton tanks appeared in 1949, a little too late for WWII.

[MikeyD]

Do'h. Pershing of course. I meant Pershing all along (blushes).