A Question about US Artillery

[RichTO90]

Please correct me if I am mistaken, but the impression I have gained is that, aside from the occasional complex fireplan, the "great mass" of Soviet artillery in the attack was intended as a stunning preparation barrage and the occasional rolling barrage in front of the advancing troops.

The pinpoint, on-call shooting was to be done either by mortar or assault gun. These could fire at targets pointed out to them by the infantry in contact with the enemy.

A "rolling barrage" is a complex fireplan. And mortars are limited in range, while they still need communications links to observers, while assault guns (or tanks for that matter) are fine as direct fire instruments - but what happens when the enemy has a developed antitank barrier that halts or destroys your assault gun? So I guess I'm not sure what you are asking?

[RichTO90]

The RA figured out in WWI that supression was the name of the game for field arty. Granted, they had to relearn a lot in the first years of WWII :roll: but it did figure in their inter-war thinking.

Okay, fair enough. But still IIRC (for DT that's "If I Recall Correctly" and AFAIK is "As Far As I Know" ) the 25-pdr was not designed to optimize its suppresion capability. Rather, it was designed to meet the requirements of the RA for weight, range and rapidity of traverse, which pretty much limited it under the technology at the time to a smaller and lighter design than the 105mm types that were becoming common in other armies.

And I doubt that "designing for suppresion" had much to do with the rather anemic burster used in British shells either.

[Michael Emrys]

Please correct me if I am mistaken, but the impression I have gained is that, aside from the occasional complex fireplan, the "great mass" of Soviet artillery in the attack was intended as a stunning preparation barrage and the occasional rolling barrage in front of the advancing troops.

The pinpoint, on-call shooting was to be done either by mortar or assault gun. These could fire at targets pointed out to them by the infantry in contact with the enemy.

A "rolling barrage" is a complex fireplan. And mortars are limited in range, while they still need communications links to observers, while assault guns (or tanks for that matter) are fine as direct fire instruments - but what happens when the enemy has a developed antitank barrier that halts or destroys your assault gun? So I guess I'm not sure what you are asking?

I understand what you are saying. But what I intended by "complex fire plan" is one targeted at many precisely located (you understand that "precisely located" is a fluid concept here ) targets. These would include known positions of guns, MG nests, etc. Obviously, this kind of fire plan takes a lot of careful reconnaisance.

What I meant about the mortars was the smaller types (45mm-82mm) that would follow not so far behind the advancing troops and could respond to the commands of the local infantry commander without needing a lot of comms gear. Their job is to provide suppressive fire rather than destructive fire.

The assault guns were extremely heavily armored and not all that easy to kill. Hopefully the pre-attack bombardment would have silenced at least some of the AT guns anyway. And the Soviets, like all the WW II combatants, saw losses as part of the cost of doing business, as long as the unit was able to complete its mission.

[The Argus]

Rich the specification the RA drew up to replace the 18pr wasn't mactched by the 25pr and even the moden 105mm just scarpes in. But the problem wasn't technical, both Woolwich and Vickers had designs that would meet it. It was financial pressure that killed it, as I mentioned earlier, being forced to chose their new caliber by what would fit into the existing 18pr Mk.IV carriage, the re-armerment rush that didn't permit a new carriage to be designed (the 25pr's was an experimental Vikers 105mm) etc etc.

The less than stellar burster you mention was deliberate, as was the poxy 100lb 5.5" shell. Both were designed for maximum ecconomy, because WWI taught (if nothing else) that in the next war artillery ammunition consumption was going to be huge, and there was no point in throwing more money down rangethan you had too. One of the drivers behind supression theory, is that the shell numbers to achieve the same tactical result were simmilar, and infact could be higher for destruction. So for the same result a cost benifit anaylsis gave a cheaper price for supression with larger numbers of smaller/cheaper shells, hence the decission to replace the 18pr/4.5"How mix with a 94mm rather than either a 105 or 114mm.

The smaller burster also gave the 25pr better fragmentation, but it was mostly a function of useing a low grade (cheap) steel, which ment thicker side walls and so a smaller cavity (same for the 5.5").

http://riv.co.nz/rnza/hist/25pr.htm

Gives a pretty good idea of things but not all the detail.

shane

[HMan]

I ...

So how about:
Scale 1 = Very Good, 2 = Good, 3 = Not So Good

Russia
Mass 1+
Felxiability 3

Japan
Mass 3
Flexiability 2
(a cheat as used few concentrations)

Italy
Don't know

Germany
Mass 2
Flexiability 2+

America
Mass 1
Flexiability -1

Commonwealth
Mass -1
Flexiability 1

shane

So, if I'm understanding this right America & Commonwealth Artillery are rated here as the
best of the war. Between the two, was there one you would rate higher?

Also, by Commonwealth I assume you mean UK, Aust., Canada, NZ, (more?). Off hand,
I would have thought there would have been enough national differences in equipment,
training, and other factors that you couldn't lump their effectiveness together in one group.

Lastly, did naval forces ever conduct TOTs? If so, did they ever coordinate with land
based Artillery in a TOT?

[Carl Schwamberger]

So, if I'm understanding this right America & Commonwealth Artillery are rated here as the
best of the war. Between the two, was there one you would rate higher?

Also, by Commonwealth I assume you mean UK, Aust., Canada, NZ, (more?). Off hand,
I would have thought there would have been enough national differences in equipment,
training, and other factors that you couldn't lump their effectiveness together in one group.

Lastly, did naval forces ever conduct TOTs? If so, did they ever coordinate with land
based Artillery in a TOT?

I'd passed on reviving this thread, redundant to a couple others & those went into greater depth. but, here it is & the questions can be answered.

1. US vs Commonwealth: Lots of opinions here, very little hard evidence presented, here or anywhere else. Differences in command control doctrines, and in the expectations for result of attacks make it a bit of apples & oranges comparison.

2. There were few difference in Commonwealth equipment. The artillery regiments assigned to minor theatre garrisons made do with fewer cannon, and older models. Training varied more by the personality of the artillery comander or his boss rather than any national characteristic.

3. Techncally yes, but the examples I am thinking of did not have many cannon involved. What brings your question?

Hope this helped

[HMan]

Thank you Carl for your reply.

What prompted my naval TOT questions is that one of my interests is
inter-service cooperation. I would guess that you wouldn't use a TOT
against enemy fleets, just in support of land forces. So it would give
an indication of how good naval - ground force cooperation was.

[kgbudge]

TOT would be pretty much useless in a fleet engagement. The point of TOT, as I understand it, is for a storm of shells to arrive all at once and catch the enemy formation by surprise. Not a consideration when fleets are already in gun range of each other.

I've never seen the slightest indication that TOT was practiced by the U.S. Navy, though I suppose the absence of any mention in it in anything I've read doesn't prove that it was never done. But I doubt naval gunners were trained to compute and synchronize time of arrival of their rounds.

[Carl Schwamberger]

Vs a land target a ToT is practical. A matter of setting up the communications link and the procedure to coordinate it. A naval gunnery officer with some knowledge of how a ToT works could probablly set up the procedure and rehearse the other ships gunnery officers in a couple hours. Against a naval target its a bit more problematic. And, as pointed out earlier here, why would you want to?

If I remember some long ago magazine articles about Soviet navy tactics they were intending something like a ToT. Coordinated by a command ship fire control computer anti ship missiles from multiple ships were to be fired sequentially so they arrive on the target/s simultaneously, overwhelming the enemy ability to shot them down and manuver out of harms way.

[LWD]

So, if I'm understanding this right America & Commonwealth Artillery are rated here as the best of the war. Between the two, was there one you would rate higher?
...

...
1. US vs Commonwealth: Lots of opinions here, very little hard evidence presented, here or anywhere else. Differences in command control doctrines, and in the expectations for result of attacks make it a bit of apples & oranges comparison.
...

In the threads that have gone into this in some detail some have argued for the superiority of one over the other but as I recall the differences could be measured in seconds and depending on the specific situation the nod might go to either one. So for all practicle purposes a wash.

Another factor that should be considered (perhaps it was taken into account in the "mass" rating) is log support for the artillery. Artillery ammo consumption is often the driving factor as for was the transport system is concerned.

[Carl Schwamberger]

Another factor that should be considered (perhaps it was taken into account in the "mass" rating) is log support for the artillery. Artillery ammo consumption is often the driving factor as for was the transport system is concerned.

I suspose one definition of 'best' might be getting the optimal effect with less ammunition than some one else. Of course this runs into the question of what the optimal or best effect might be, The rifleman in the manuver unit might define that differently than a staff officer back at the CP, or a armchair general in his comfy chair years later.

[kgbudge]

Indeed, And the rifleman who can't get too much artillery support while attacking might think better about it after he's dug in on the objective but there is no ammunition left to help repel counterattack.

[Michate]

I suspose one definition of 'best' might be getting the optimal effect with less ammunition than some one else.

Perhaps one might reformulate it "getting best effect with a given amount of ammunition". After all how much ammunition you have at hand will strongly influence what effect may be considered "optimal".

[Carl Schwamberger]

...and that leads around to the debate of utility of suppression - nuetralisation - destruction. A discussion I'll not reenter today, or tomorrow :roll:

[LWD]

On the otherhand a country that makes sure it's artillery is well supplied at least most of the time should get some credit for that should it not? I would think each tube is considerably more effective if the commander can just shoot when he's got targets rather than worrying about "if I shoot now what will I do if something critical happens in an hour or day or ..."