155mm arty was used in direct fire mode to blow Panthers up?

[Magpie_Oz]

Thanks for the correction.

no, no correction just getting my facts straight. Actually total production is probably the better figure to consider anyway as "bums on seats" is really what we are looking at in terms of relative strengths.

Any idea what the actual rate of supply was for AFV's? i.e. how many landed in France per month or what ever.

It must have been substantial, I remember reading about the Poole fellow who was in action for only a short time, something like 3 months but went thru 3 tanks in that time.

[gunnergoz]

Guys, I just posted Sherman series production figures from Hunnicutt in its own thread if you are interested.

http://www.battlefront.com/community/showthread.php?t=98003

Hunnicutt had it broken down by model series, variants and sub-types and includes the delivery acceptance date span.

[Magpie_Oz]

Guys, I just posted Sherman series production figures from Hunnicutt in its own thread if you are interested.

http://www.battlefront.com/community/showthread.php?t=98003

Hunnicutt had it broken down by model series, variants and sub-types and includes the delivery acceptance date span.

So the simple answer is officially "A crap load"

Are those figures "Landed in France" or "At the farm gate" ?

[gunnergoz]

The delivery acceptance dates are presumably at the factory, upon delivery to the Army acceptance teams.

[Broken]

Ok, so this is a really good example of why Cooper's book needs to be taken with generous doses of salt, especially when he strays out of his lane.

The attack being discussed occurred on 11 July, when Lehr attacked north towards Carentan/Isigny, into the advancing Americans. Lehr totally had their asses handed to them, and the attack fizzled in less than 12 hours causing a barely noticeable slow down in the US rate of advance. Yet Cooper - with no personal experience relating to this fighting - describes the day as "one of the most critical battle in the battle of Normandy. He also states there were Jagdpanthers present that day. He then goes on to opine that "the 105mm howitzer mounted on the M7 chassis proved to be one of our most effective weapons against German armor."

When he talks about ordnance stuff and and his own - personal - experiences: great. When he starts free forming about anything else: terrible.

Whatever your opinion of Cooper's assessment of the Lehr attack, there 72 M12 SP 155mm in Normandy, 991 being one battalion.

A battalion of M12s were attached to 3 AD in the Ardennes, in which Cooper served, and he is not the only source saying M12s saw direct fire action there.

In any case, there were a number of times in 1943-44 where German attacks did penetrate to the US artillery line. The Panzers usually got the short end of the deal. In fact, throughout the war, whenever armor penetrated to the artillery positions they often had a tough time of it.

[Magpie_Oz]

In any case, there were a number of times in 1943-44 where German attacks did penetrate to the US artillery line. The Panzers usually got the short end of the deal. In fact, throughout the war, whenever armor penetrated to the artillery positions they often had a tough time of it.

I gunna need to see some references on that, one of the prime roles of armour is to break through and kick the puss out of the supporting elements, top of the hit list is the enemy artillery emplacements.

Arty direct firing on armour is a pretty good sign that things are not going as well as you might have hoped.

Hitting a moving tank with an artillery piece, as distinct from a field gun is not an easy task, often since the person firing the gun isn't the person aiming the gun and you are all pretty exposed to enemy fire (no gun shield).

[Bastables]

It wasn't that the Stugs were considered more important it was more that Stug were cheaper and easier to build and as the Pz IV had technically been replaced by the Pz V the manufacturing was directed towards the assault guns.

The Pz IV was still very much a viable tank in 1944, as was the M4 and the T34. I often wonder if the Germans had not squandered resources on the Pz V and Tigers I and II whether they may have fared better.

PIV in 1944 cost 103,462 RM Panther cost 117,100 RM. Panther was designed with all the cost time saving measures such as outside welding, interlocking plates. Final Drives of the PIV were just as unrelible as the panther as the chassie was now overloaded with frontal 8cm hull armour and the heavier long 7,5cm gun.

Per Riech mark, per ton, and man hour the Panther was a better veh, they should have stopped squandering resources on PIV. And Hitler considered the StuG more important when reports from the eastern front showed StuG's were better than PIV in limited circumstances aka more of the front was 8cm armour meaning more of the front was proof against Russian AT rounds. This reasoning led to Vomag switiching to Jadgpazer IV production.

PIV were much less survivable than Panther's meaning a higher wastage to penetrating hit's. The thinner armour ment a much higher incidence of PIV burning out and becoming a total loss as the armour qualities would be dentured due to heat. 2 ORS had PIV burning out only slightly lower than the Sherman (non wet stowage commonwealth ones) The Panther without wet stowage burned out a a much lower rate as with the thicker armour less of a penetration of shells would get through to cause catastrophic explosions. You can see this as 50% of panther losses during Normandy due to abandonment and not through direct enemy fire losses. More PIV would have resulted in higher wastage to enemy fire, and Germany could not compete against three industrialised nations building tanks, and it did not have the manpower base to crew them all. They would have been better spending 1943 converting the Styer factory to building Panthers as opposed to PIV's

At peak year 1944 around 3125 PIV were built and around 3777 Panther's were built. The Panther was designed for mass production, the PIV initially designed in the 20's was not, this was born out in the effectiveness per RM, per man hour and per ton. Neither of them was going to match Sherman or T-34 production, one tank was much better in combat though.

Or 1943-1945 5987 combat panther's produced. 1936-1945 just over combat 8,800 PIV produced. The PIV was never that much cheaper or easier to build than the Panther.

[JasonC]

Magpie - as a general thing Broken is right that field artillery position were not pushovers. This was particularly true in the US army from my reading of the combat narratives (though the Brits used their 25 pdrs in North Africa in a similar manner, and with success, notably in the first battle of El Alamein). There are several important cases of German tactical break-ins by armor (meaning, front units penetrated but whole depth of the defender's deployment zone not passed through) in which field artillery stopped them. Sometimes it was massed guns of an entire corps firing indirect at "surge" rates of fire, just inundating the attacking formation in HE, stripping of infantry, etc. Examples of that are the last fights after Kasserine, the Mortain counterattack, and the Elsenborn position on the north flank of the Bulge fight. In those cases maneuver elements remained on a front line between the artillery and the attacking armor.

But there are other cases where the intruding tanks went farther, to within direct fire of the battery positions, and were checked by fire from those batteries. Examples are the follow up to the first German breakthrough in the Salerno counterattack in Italy, and some of the battery positions behind "skyline drive" in the center of the Bulge breakthrough. There are also examples where it was SP arty - Priests, not Long Toms - including some of the early Lorraine fighting against the Panzer brigades (alongside 75mm Shermans), and the Heer PDs breathrough along the road to Bastogne during the Bulge. You can find another case (towed 105s) in the early Korean fighting - after TF Smith was overrun, its supporting artillery was much more effective than the maneuver element had been at killing T-34/85s. (On that occasion, they were overcome by numbers eventually - but took out more than their own losses in enemy tanks).

All that said, Cooper citing 155s SP has a different agenda and one that the evidence does not remotely justify. That agenda is trying to claim that much heavier weapons were required to deal with German tanks than the US fleet possessed, as part of his thesis that a 90mm armed main battle tank was a minimum the US should have been fielding.

And the reality is 105s at the gun line - and it generally was 105s when it was a question of direct fire - were not appreciably more effective than the rest of the AFV fleet. 90mm TDs were effective and were also fielded in numbers. And both upgunned British 17 pdr AFVs (Fireflies and Achilles) and US 76mm TDs and Shermans when they had advanced ammo, were quite sufficient for the job.

[JasonC]

Here is the tactical account for the Salerno example -

(A German tank and Panzergrenadier division attack is breaking in)

"A force of tanks and infantry had already cleared the way by coming down the corridor and smashing at the left flank of the outpost line established by the 2d Battalion, 143d Infantry. This force of tanks then fanned out, hitting the main line on both flanks, and other tanks crossed near Persano to take our troops in the rear. The battalion was completely surrounded. Most of Company G, on outpost, escaped south across the Calore, but few of the rest ever came back; the total loss for the battalion was 508 officers and men.

Meanwhile the enemy attack rolled on relentlessly down the lower corridor. At 1715 the main body of tanks was east of the Sele. Enemy artillery was in Persano by 1800, and at the same time an artillery aerial observer reported that 15 enemy tanks were headed south from Persano on the road to the burned bridge-straight into a gap in our lines held only by the 189th Field Artillery Battalion, under Lt. Col. Hal L. Muldrow, Jr. and the 158th Field Artillery Battalion, under Lt. Col. Russell D. Funk. By 1830 the enemy was established in a heavy growth along the north bank of the Calore and was firing into the 189th positions.

Both artillery battalions gathered all available men, stripping their gun crews to the minimum, and posted them on the gentle slope south of the burned bridge to dig in and hold with rifles and machine guns, supported by six 37-mm guns of the 189th. Members of the divisional artillery staff went out on the roads and commandeered every soldier they found. They put Divisional Artillery Headquarters Battery and Band into the line and scraped together a reserve of 15 mechanics and truck drivers to reinforce the most threatened sectors. The sweating gun crews poured artillery fire on the ford by the bridge and on the road leading to it, firing 8 rounds per minute per gun at the height of the attack. Altogether the two battalions fired 3,650 rounds, and seven M-7's of Battery B, 27th Armored Field Artillery, came up in time to add another 300 rounds. This devastating fire pulverized the roads and fields in the tip of the corridor and, combined with the dogged resistance of the artillerymen at the ford, hurled back every enemy attack. At sunset, the enemy admitted failure and pulled back his tanks. The artillery had stopped the most serious break-through attempted during the whole Salerno beachhead fight."

Notice the surge rate for fire and effect of HE inundation, regardless of direct fire hits. Also notice it is the front line infantry battalion that proves highly vulnerable once bypassed, not the artillery. The maneuver arm conceit that anything in the rear area is a "soft target" and anything normally on the front line is a hard one, is completely unjustified. Artillery has inherent strong AT abilities that a leg infantry battalion does not have.

Here are Priests holding the road to Bastogne -

"Two armored field artillery battalions (the 73d and 58th) still were firing from positions close to Longvilly, pouring shells onto the Allerborn road junction from which Task Force Harper had been driven. A handful of riflemen from the 110th Infantry, including Company G which had been ordered to Clerf and the remnants of the 110th headquarters which had been driven out of Allerborn, were still in action. These troops, together with four tank destroyers from the 630th Tank Destroyer Battalion (-), had formed a skirmish line to protect the firing batteries of the 58th south of the village.

Late in the evening firing was heard behind the CCR position. This came from Mageret, next on the Bastogne road, where German troops had infiltrated and cut off the fire direction center of the 73d Field Artillery Battalion. The firing batteries nevertheless continued to shell the road east of Longvilly, tying in with the 58th Field Artillery Battalion. Both battalions were firing with shorter and shorter fuzes; by 2315 the gunners were aiming at enemy infantry and vehicles only two hundred yards to the front. Somehow the batteries held on. A little before midnight Colonel Gilbreth ordered what was left of CCR and its attached troops to begin a withdrawal via Mageret. A few vehicles made a run for it but were am- bushed by the Germans now in possession of Mageret. When a disorderly vehicle column jammed the exit from Longvilly, Gilbreth saw that some order must be restored and stopped all movement until morning light.1

Under orders, the 73d Armored Field Artillery Battalion displaced westward, starting about 0400, one battery covering another until the three were west of Longvilly firing against enemy seen to the east, north, and south, but giving some cover for the CCR withdrawal. The 58th Field Artillery Battalion and its scratch covering force were hit early in the morning by a mortar barrage, and very shortly two German halftracks appeared through the half-light. These were blasted with shellfire but enemy infantry had wormed close in, under cover of the morning fog, and drove back the thin American line in front of the batteries. About 0800 the fog swirled away, disclosing a pair of enemy tanks almost on the howitzers. In a sudden exchange of fire the tanks were destroyed...

About this time CCR started along the Bastogne road, although a rear guard action continued in Longvilly until noon. The 58th Field Artillery Battalion, with cannoneers and drivers the only rifle protection, joined the move, Battery B forming a rear guard and firing point-blank at pursuing German armor. The head of the main column formed by CCR was close to Mageret when, at a halt caused by a roadblock, hostile fire erupted on the flanks of the column. There was no turning back, nor could the vehicles be extricated from the jam along the road. The melee lasted for several hours. Company C of the 482d Antiaircraft Artillery Battalion (Capt. Denny J. Lovio) used its mobile quadruple machine guns with effect, working "heroically," as CCR later acknowledged, to hold the Germans at bay. The two batteries of the 8th Armored Field Artillery Battalion that had been able to bring off their self-propelled howitzers went into action, but the fog had thickened and observed fire was wellnigh impossible.

...The 58th Armored Field Artillery Battalion had lost eight of its howitzers; the 73d Armored Field Artillery Battalion had lost four. That these battalions were self-propelled accounts for the fact that so many pieces, closely engaged as the batteries had been, were saved to fire another day."

Each Armored FAB had 18 pieces, so those losses amount to a third of the guns of the two battalions. They had held off a pursuing Panzer division, which successfully cut up the armor, TD, and armored infantry forces ahead of and all around them; they did it as a fighting withdraw up the road, at ranges down to 200 yards - but they were never penetrated and got the bulk of the force out, successfully.

Here is the artillery component of Task Force Smith in Korea, engaging a battalion of T-34/85s with just 5 towed 105s -

"Two thousand yards behind the infantry, Colonel Perry pulled four 105-mm. howitzers 150 yards to the left (west) off the highway over a small trail that only jeeps could travel. Two jeeps in tandem pulled the guns into place. Near a cluster of houses with rice paddies in front and low hills back of them, the men arranged the guns in battery position. Perry emplaced the fifth howitzer as an antitank gun on the west side of the road about halfway between the main battery position and the infantry. From there it could place direct fire on the highway where it passed through the saddle and the infantry positions... all this ammunition was high explosive (HE); only 6 rounds were high explosive antitank (HEAT), and all of it was taken to the forward gun...

When the enemy tank column approached within 700 yards of the infantry position, the two recoilless rifles took it under fire. They scored direct hits, but apparently did not damage the tanks which, firing their 85-mm. cannon and 7.62-mm. machine guns, rumbled on up the incline toward the saddle. When they were almost abreast of the infantry position, the lead tanks came under 2.36-inch rocket launcher fire. Operating a bazooka from the ditch along the east side of the road, 2d Lt. Ollie D. Connor, fired twenty-two rockets at approximately fifteen yards' range against the rear of the tanks where their armor was weakest. Whether they were effective is doubtful. The two lead tanks, however, were stopped just through the pass when they came under direct fire of the single 105-mm. howitzer using HEAT ammunition. Very likely these artillery shells stopped the two tanks, although the barrage of close-range bazooka rockets may have damaged their tracks.

...The six rounds of HEAT ammunition at the forward gun were soon expended, leaving only the HE shells which ricocheted off the tanks. The third tank through the pass knocked out the forward gun and wounded one of its crew members.

The tanks did not stop to engage the infantry; they merely fired on them as they came through. Following the first group of 8 tanks came others at short intervals, usually in groups of 4. These, too, went unhesitatingly through the infantry position and on down the road toward the artillery position. In all, there were 33 tanks in the column. The last passed through the infantry position by 0900, about an hour after the lead tanks had reached the saddle. In this hour, tank fire had killed or wounded approximately twenty men in Smith's position.

Earlier in the morning it was supposed to have been no more than an academic question as to what would happen if tanks came through the infantry to the artillery position. Someone in the artillery had raised this point to be answered by the infantry, "Don't worry, they will never get back to you." One of the artillerymen later expressed the prevailing opinion by saying, "Everyone thought the enemy would turn around and go back when they found out who was fighting." Word now came to the artillerymen from the forward observer that tanks were through the infantry and to be ready for them.

The first tanks cut up the telephone wire strung along the road from the artillery to the infantry and destroyed this communication. The radios were wet and functioning badly; now only the jeep radio worked. Communication with the infantry after 0900 was spotty at best, and, about 1100, it ceased altogether.

The tanks came on toward the artillery pieces, which kept them under fire but could not stop them. About 500 yards from the battery, the tanks stopped behind a little hill seeking protection from direct fire. Then, one at a time, they came down the road with a rush, hatches closed, making a run to get past the battery position. Some fired their 85-mm cannon, others only their machine guns. Their aim was haphazard in most cases for the enemy tankers had not located the gun positions. Some of the tank guns even pointed toward the opposite side of the road. Only one tank stopped momentarily at the little trail where the howitzers had pulled off the main road as though it meant to try to overrun the battery which its crew evidently had located. Fortunately, however, it did not leave the road but instead, after a moment, continued on toward Osan. The 105-mm. howitzers fired at ranges of 150-300 yards as the tanks went by, but the shells only jarred the tanks and bounced off. Altogether, the tanks did not average more than one round each in return fire.

Three bazooka teams from the artillery had posted themselves near the road before the tanks appeared. When word came that the tanks were through the infantry, two more bazooka teams, one led by Colonel Perry and the other by Sgt. Edwin A. Eversole, started to move into position. The first tank caught both Perry and Eversole in the rice paddy between the howitzers and the highway. When Eversole's first bazooka round bounced off the turret of the tank, he said that tank suddenly looked to him "as big as a battleship." This tank fired its 85-mm. cannon, cutting down a telephone pole which fell harmlessly over Eversole who had flung himself down into a paddy drainage ditch. A 105-mm. shell hit the tracks of the third tank and stopped it. The other tanks in this group went on through. The four American howitzers remained undamaged.

After these tanks had passed out of sight, Colonel Perry took an interpreter and worked his way up close to the immobilized enemy tank. Through the interpreter, he called on the crew to come out and surrender. There was no response. Perry then ordered the howitzers to destroy the tank. After three rounds had hit the tank, two men jumped out of it and took cover in a culvert. Perry sent a squad forward and it killed the two North Koreans.

During this little action, small arms fire hit Colonel Perry in the right leg. Refusing to be evacuated, he hobbled around or sat against the base of a tree orders and instructions in preparation for the appearance of more tanks.

In about ten minutes the second wave of tanks followed the last of the first group. This time there were more-"a string of them," as one man expressed it. They came in ones, twos, and threes, close together with no apparent interval or organization.

When the second wave of tanks came into view, some of the howitzer crew members started to "take off." As one present said, the men were "shy about helping." The officers had to drag the ammunition up and load the pieces themselves. The senior noncommissioned officers fired the pieces. The momentary panic soon passed and, with the good example and strong leadership of Colonel Perry and 1st Lt. Dwain L. Scott before them, the men returned to their positions. Many of the second group of tanks did not fire on the artillery at all. Again, the 105-mm. howitzers could not stop the oncoming tanks. They did, however hit another in its tracks, disabling it in front of the artillery position. Some of the tanks had one or two infantrymen on their decks. Artillery fire blew off or killed most of them; some lay limply dead as the tanks went by; others slowly jolted off onto the road. Enemy tank fire caused a building to burn near the battery position and a nearby dump of about 300 rounds of artillery shells began to explode. The last of the tanks passed the artillery position by 1015. These tanks were from the 107th Tank Regiment of the 105th Armored Division, in support of the N.K. 4th Division.

Colonel Perry estimates that his four howitzers fired an average of 4 to 6 rounds at each of the tanks, and that they averaged perhaps 1 round each in return. After the last tank was out of sight, rumbling on toward Osan, the score stood as follows: the forward 105-mm. howitzer, and 2.36-inch bazookas fired from the infantry position, had knocked out and left burning 1 tank and damaged another so that it could not move; the artillery had stopped 3 more in front of the battery position, while 3 others though damaged had managed to limp out of range toward Osan. This made 4 tanks destroyed or immobilized and 3 others slightly damaged but serviceable out of a total of 33.

For their part, the tanks had destroyed the forward 105-mm. howitzer and wounded one of its crew members, had killed or wounded an estimated twenty infantrymen, and had destroyed all the parked vehicles behind the infantry position. At the main battery position the tanks had slightly damaged one of the four guns by a near miss. Only Colonel Perry and another man were wounded at the battery position."

Notice, the tanks are nearly invulnerable to plain HE, though they had fallen pretty readily to 105mm HEAT when it was available. But they were buttoned and intimidated by even HE hits or near misses. They pushed past the position rather than destroying it, losing half a dozen tanks in the process. They likely could not see the actual gun positions while buttoned and in the dust and smoke of the engagement. They did see the American soft transport and destroyed it.

I don't consider that a "normal" result, it reflects poor crews in the North Korean tanks. But it is another example of supposedly soft artillery targets proving surprisingly survivable, after leg infantry had failed completely and been overrun. If the American artillery had a full load of HEAT ammo, and if it had been a full battalion rather than one battery with a single extra gun, they might actually have smashed the attacking T-34/85 battalion outright.

FWIW...

[dan/california]

Jason C has made it perfectly clear that the US took took an idiotically long time to figure out that 105mm heat was a truly useful thing to have around in quantity. In fact, the gun they used in the up gunned Stryker implies they still don't get it.

[wokelly]

wokelly - you wrote "the US suffered a severe shortage of Sherman tanks throughout much of the ETO fighting". I deny it. The average field strength of armor battalions in the armor divisions was 90% of TOE, averaged over the entire campaign. The average strength of independent armor battalions was 80% of TOE over the whole campaign. The Germans would have killed for those numbers; they were frequently at 50-60% within a week of being committed to action and then ground lower until there was nothing left.

The US lost only about 3000 mediums in the entire campaign. Um, they made 86,000. Some went to the Brits to be sure, and there was losses in other theaters, etc. But US tank losses never got even within an order of magnitude of the number produced and sent overseas. There were acres of the things in rear echelons. By the standard of every other power in the war, the US had tanks coming out of its ears.

The fact is, trained crews and the shipping space for full armor divisions with all the rest of their equipment were the rate limiters on tanks employed - not tanks themselves. In action, it was the AIBs that burnt out first, always - even the later pattern ADs were too infantry light and casualties to the 3000 men in the AIBs that had by far the highest loss rates in action, determined the length of time a US AD remained effective in combat, before it had to be withdrawn to take replacements and refit. They regularly cross attached infantry regiments to extend this life but it still wasn't enough.

A few formations in the Bulge took high enough tank losses that they needed to be re-equipped to go back into action - but this was purely a matter of getting the tanks forward and finding crews for them. Not of having tanks for them to be issued.

There were genuine shortages in the ETO - of gasoline in the race across France, of 105mm ammo throughout the fall, of rifle replacements at the west wall. Sherman tanks were not one of them.

Problem was not Sherman production, it was reserves. The US went into Normandy expecting a wastage rate of 7% per month and with reserves to match that. They ended up getting more like 15% in June and July, and 21% in August. By September 1944 the US forces in France were short 335 Sherman's, almost two entire Armor divisions worth of tanks. As a result of losses during the Battle of the Bulge, this deficit grew to 865 Medium tanks as of January 1945. The US actually had to borrow back Sherman tanks from the British as the British had expected higher monthly loss rate (up to 50%!) and thus had adequate reserves.

This is why I don't think the 3rd ADs armor losses were due to a more liberal interpretation of what constituted a destroyed or damaged tank. With a shortage of shermans you would not be picky with what wrecks you recycled. Zaloga puts Sherman losses at 4,300 in the ETO. Since he gives 3rd ADs losses as 630 and Cooper claims that around that number were permanent losses, than I think Zaloga's figures give 4,300 permanent losses, probably double that number to include those repaired and put back into service.

[MikeyD]

105mm/155mm battery direct fire is handy in a pinch but lets not get too enamoured of it. U.S. experience with their towed AT assets was lackluster. They fielded M5 3 inch gun by the battalion yet only managed six tank kills in the whole Normandy theater. Not that they were bad guns, its was just so darned difficult positioning them where they would do some good! 105mm howitzer uses the same gun carriage as 3 inch AT gun and would be just as difficult to place in position. Lacking massed German tank attacks to beat back, 3 inch gun found its utility as a HE chucker in direct fire support of infantry - something the solid shot 57mm gun was inefficient at.

[gunnergoz]

Jason C has made it perfectly clear that the US took took an idiotically long time to figure out that 105mm heat was a truly useful thing to have around in quantity. In fact, the gun they used in the up gunned Stryker implies they still don't get it.

Could you please elaborate? If you are speaking of the Stryker gun system, it has a high velocity 105mm gun, does it not? That can fire HE, maybe even HEAT or some multipurpose round like it?

The problem I see with the WW2 105mm HEAT round issued to howitzers and M7's was (1) that it was never issued in quantity to them and (2) that it was very low velocity and thus could only accurately be lobbed at a target close by. That's fine for final protective fire but not much help if the target stands off far enough to nail you with his own weapon.

No question that artillery assets with HEAT can defend themselves under the right circumstances but it is still a pretty desperate situation when it happens.

[JasonC]

wokelly - laughable. A "shortage" of 335 Shermans in September, you say. Meaning, the units had that many fewer tanks on hand than their total TOE, yes? By that date, there were 2 heavy ADs (2nd and 3rd) and 4 light ADs (4th through 7th), plus the 2nd French AD (which I will ignore because it might not be covered in the 335 figure); the 10the AD entered combat during September and may or may not be included. That is a minimum of 20 divisional medium tank battalions, and I count 19 additional independent battalions recorded as attachments to one or another ID in combat through September. Total, 39 battalions, to 45 if 10th AD and 2nd French are included. The TOE of mediums for a medium tank battalion was 60 (counting the 105s), so we are talking about a TOE of 2340 tanks, with a "shortage" of 335. Meaning they "only" had 2005 on hand - after the race across France. 85% of TOE. Some "shortage".

(The post Bulge figure is comparable, as additional ADs and independent battalions arrived in the fall. It might have touched 80% of TOE at the lowest - a figure the Germans would have killed for as a highest across the force on any date, not a lowest).

For comparison, a typical German PD in Normandy was down to 60% of TOE as runners *within a week of being committed to combat*, and never rose above that level again.

As I said, there was no lack of vehicles for the US. When the burn rate at the front rose, the pipeline refilled them rapidly, but not rapidly enough to stay literally pegged at 100% of TOE after the most intense tank-used-up periods of the war.

Losing less than 10% of the tanks you produced over the entire war in combat, it is extremely hard to run out. When LL and losses by allies are included, the figure might rise to 25%. Barely that many were in units at TOE. All the rest were over supply, in the depots and replacement channels or still stateside, even.

[MikeyD]

If you are speaking of the Stryker gun system, it has a high velocity 105mm gun, does it not? That can fire HE, maybe even HEAT or some multipurpose round like it?

Stryker MGS primarily fires a very low velocity squash head round. The rounds tube pressures are even lower than the old 105mm smoke shell - which MGS can't fire because it stores its rounds horizontally. MGS does have provision for firing a full-charge Mecar sabot round but the recoil kick is violent enough to rattle the fillings out of your teeth. There was a scathing article about Stryker in the specialty press from a few years ago entitled, I believe, "New Stryker Sucking". For sixty years the Pentagon has done a dismal job designing and fielding a proper infantry direct fire support platfrom. That record remains unbroken.

[Broken]

Magpie - as a general thing Broken is right that field artillery position were not pushovers. This was particularly true in the US army from my reading of the combat narratives (though the Brits used their 25 pdrs in North Africa in a similar manner, and with success, notably in the first battle of El Alamein). There are several important cases of German tactical break-ins by armor (meaning, front units penetrated but whole depth of the defender's deployment zone not passed through) in which field artillery stopped them. Sometimes it was massed guns of an entire corps firing indirect at "surge" rates of fire, just inundating the attacking formation in HE, stripping of infantry, etc. Examples of that are the last fights after Kasserine, the Mortain counterattack, and the Elsenborn position on the north flank of the Bulge fight. In those cases maneuver elements remained on a front line between the artillery and the attacking armor.

But there are other cases where the intruding tanks went farther, to within direct fire of the battery positions, and were checked by fire from those batteries. Examples are the follow up to the first German breakthrough in the Salerno counterattack in Italy, and some of the battery positions behind "skyline drive" in the center of the Bulge breakthrough. There are also examples where it was SP arty - Priests, not Long Toms - including some of the early Lorraine fighting against the Panzer brigades (alongside 75mm Shermans), and the Heer PDs breathrough along the road to Bastogne during the Bulge. You can find another case (towed 105s) in the early Korean fighting - after TF Smith was overrun, its supporting artillery was much more effective than the maneuver element had been at killing T-34/85s. (On that occasion, they were overcome by numbers eventually - but took out more than their own losses in enemy tanks).

All that said, Cooper citing 155s SP has a different agenda and one that the evidence does not remotely justify. That agenda is trying to claim that much heavier weapons were required to deal with German tanks than the US fleet possessed, as part of his thesis that a 90mm armed main battle tank was a minimum the US should have been fielding.

And the reality is 105s at the gun line - and it generally was 105s when it was a question of direct fire - were not appreciably more effective than the rest of the AFV fleet. 90mm TDs were effective and were also fielded in numbers. And both upgunned British 17 pdr AFVs (Fireflies and Achilles) and US 76mm TDs and Shermans when they had advanced ammo, were quite sufficient for the job.

Yes, the Salerno battle is one where the US artillery were quite effective in a direct fire role. Thanks for presenting such a detailed account!

[gunnergoz]

Stryker MGS primarily fires a very low velocity squash head round. The rounds tube pressures are even lower than the old 105mm smoke shell - which MGS can't fire because it stores its rounds horizontally. MGS does have provision for firing a full-charge Mecar sabot round but the recoil kick is violent enough to rattle the fillings out of your teeth. There was a scathing article about Stryker in the specialty press from a few years ago entitled, I believe, "New Stryker Sucking". For sixty years the Pentagon has done a dismal job designing and fielding a proper infantry direct fire support platfrom. That record remains unbroken.

OK thanks for clarifying that. I don't follow the modern stuff as close as I probably should. What would you propose for a Stryker fire support vehicle?

[Broken]

105mm/155mm battery direct fire is handy in a pinch but lets not get too enamoured of it. U.S. experience with their towed AT assets was lackluster. They fielded M5 3 inch gun by the battalion yet only managed six tank kills in the whole Normandy theater. Not that they were bad guns, its was just so darned difficult positioning them where they would do some good! 105mm howitzer uses the same gun carriage as 3 inch AT gun and would be just as difficult to place in position. Lacking massed German tank attacks to beat back, 3 inch gun found its utility as a HE chucker in direct fire support of infantry - something the solid shot 57mm gun was inefficient at.

I think JasonC answered your question better than I could. American arty in direct fire was not only quite good in WWII, but also in Korea during the Chinese offensive which overran a number of US units only to be smacked hard when they came within LOS of the 155s. Well trained big gun crews were very effective at long range direct fire. The British and German arty were also tough on armor penetrations that came within sight. The WWII Soviet 122mm guns were designed with a direct fire role in mind, and were effective at it as well.

I think it is a bit of mythology that tanks exploiting a breakthrough would find artillery units easy prey. Best that they stick with destroying C2 and logistical assets.

[gunnergoz]

There is an apocryphal story from Korea which my dad related years ago that an M40 managed to get up on a ridge line and for a while made the Chinese very unhappy when it was used as a really big sniper rifle, driving them to the dark reverse slopes of the nearby hills and depriving them of what little warm sunlight Korea offers at that time of year.

[wokelly]

wokelly - laughable. A "shortage" of 335 Shermans in September, you say. Meaning, the units had that many fewer tanks on hand than their total TOE, yes? By that date, there were 2 heavy ADs (2nd and 3rd) and 4 light ADs (4th through 7th), plus the 2nd French AD (which I will ignore because it might not be covered in the 335 figure); the 10the AD entered combat during September and may or may not be included. That is a minimum of 20 divisional medium tank battalions, and I count 19 additional independent battalions recorded as attachments to one or another ID in combat through September. Total, 39 battalions, to 45 if 10th AD and 2nd French are included. The TOE of mediums for a medium tank battalion was 60 (counting the 105s), so we are talking about a TOE of 2340 tanks, with a "shortage" of 335. Meaning they "only" had 2005 on hand - after the race across France. 85% of TOE. Some "shortage".

(The post Bulge figure is comparable, as additional ADs and independent battalions arrived in the fall. It might have touched 80% of TOE at the lowest - a figure the Germans would have killed for as a highest across the force on any date, not a lowest).

For comparison, a typical German PD in Normandy was down to 60% of TOE as runners *within a week of being committed to combat*, and never rose above that level again.

As I said, there was no lack of vehicles for the US. When the burn rate at the front rose, the pipeline refilled them rapidly, but not rapidly enough to stay literally pegged at 100% of TOE after the most intense tank-used-up periods of the war.

Losing less than 10% of the tanks you produced over the entire war in combat, it is extremely hard to run out. When LL and losses by allies are included, the figure might rise to 25%. Barely that many were in units at TOE. All the rest were over supply, in the depots and replacement channels or still stateside, even.

Given the United States Government had to ask the British to lend back lend-lease shermans to help make up for the shortfall, I would hardly consider the issue laughable for the men at the time did not seem to feel it was a joke.

I'm not exactly sure what the you are trying to prove with your responses. If it is to make a point the US sherman shortages were never as bad as German shortages than frankly that had nothing to do with what I was talking about when I first mentioned the Sherman shortages.

[JasonC]

You think that 85% of TOE after the race across France and 80% of TOE after the Bulge count as a "shortage" and indicate the US didn't have enough Shermans in the ETO. I think the same facts prove to a demonstration that the notion the US suffered from any "shortage" of Shermans in the ETO is laughable, and that anyone claiming that doesn't know what a "shortage" is.

In Normandy, 81mm ammo actually had a shortage. In early September, gasoline actually had a shortage. From September through the end of November, 105mm ammunition actually had a shortage. During the westwall fighting from October through early December, rifle replacements actually had a shortage.

Shermans, not even remotely. Words mean things.

[Magpie_Oz]

Magpie - as a general thing Broken is right that field artillery position were not pushovers.

Some great examples there for sure but I think if anything they support my contention that once the armour gets to your guns things are going downhill kinda fast.

The first example detailed a desperate defence that halted the enemy via a combination of a hasty infantry/ATG defence supported by heavy fire on a choke point.

The second is an amazing account of a desperate fighting withdrawal in thick fog that really doesn't show an artillery position repulsing an armoured assault. The guns involved are self propelled, one of the compelling reasons to self propel arty is for not only to be able to keep up with an advance but also to allow it to outrun a pursuit.

The last as you say is more an example of ineptitude of the Chinese/North Korean Tankers. Sure the heat rounds are effective and maybe that is what stalled the NK assault because they wouldn't have known how few rounds the US arty had to hand.

Granted field artillery does have a bit more of a chance of it but medium and heavy regiments are in real trouble but I maintain that a concerted assault by armour on an artillery emplacement is not going to go well for the arty under any circumstances.

[Magpie_Oz]

You think that 85% of TOE after the race across France and 80% of TOE after the Bulge count as a "shortage"

Yeh, numbers falling from a crap load to a bucket load is still a long way from a shortage.

Not sure the handing back of Shermans to the US was really about "shortages", I think it was more about the tanks being replaced in British service by the British designs and the returning of the tanks reduced the Lend-Lease debt, the last instalment there of btw was paid in 2006.

[Destraex1]

Yeah i remember reading the brits still had a long way to go with that. Cannot remember the reason it was forgiven... the ruski's decided to pay nothing lol

[Magpie_Oz]

Yeah i remember reading the brits still had a long way to go with that. Cannot remember the reason it was forgiven... the ruski's decided to pay nothing lol

Stuff given under lend lease was actually never charged for as such, it was deemed foreign aid to get it past congress. All that was required was that any working gear was returned and blown up stuff accounted for.

-Cut to Monty Python sketch of US and British Quatermasters checking serial numbers and equipment schedules of Sherman hulks circa a 1945" -

Britain retained some of the LL stuff and was charged 10% of its value for it, this became part of the Anglo-American Loan @2% interest and it was this that was finalised in 2006.

We Aussies did receive a fair bit of stuff but we gave most of it "back" or rather we signed it back to the US and they destroyed it in Aus rather than take it home.

Talk about Sherman shortages, Australia received the grand total of three (3) Shermans via the UK for testing but decided the Churchill would be better for us and then the war ended.

One of the M4's was at the gate of the base I was on, the second one was used as a target and I had the joy of putting a 66 LAW and 84mm CG round through it. Not sure where the 3rd ended up, I think GibsonM's mates shot to bits on the tank gunnery range.