British Army at home September 1940

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Re: British Army at home September 1940

#946

Post by RichTO90 » 16 Sep 2014, 18:23

phylo_roadking wrote:I hadn't noticed that before; the battery established, the guns fitted, personnel transferred in...and not until three weeks+ later were the guns actually calibrated 8O
I hadn't noticed before either, but you might want to look up exactly what calibration entailed in the RA during World War II and whether or not this case should elicit a 8O . The process determined actual Mv of a particular piece and was important for predicted fire...which the guns were not going to use when firing at the barges and ships at sea (it was still important for determining MPI for a piece, but in this case - direct lay - such a variation is unlikely to be critical). It also wouldn't be unusual for some time to elapse between when a battery was operational and when it was calibrated, since there were only five calibration troops raised by the RA during World War II. However, guns were calibrated and recorded individually, so it is probably closer to say the battery was re-calibrated - in between calibrations fudge factors were employed, including barrel wear measurements versus known data for the type (which was very well known in the case of the 6") yielding fudge factors.

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Re: British Army at home September 1940

#947

Post by Knouterer » 16 Sep 2014, 19:53

phylo_roadking wrote:
I'm sorry Phylo, but you're just not making any sense at all ... are you now claiming that the fact that certain pillboxes are not marked on a certain German map is proof positive that they didn't exist?
It's proof positive that the Germans weren't aware of any defences at Lympne except possibly two pillboxes (if they were actually identified correctly) "by the beginning of September"...given that all the others don't actually appear on ANY German maps before those dated 1941...
All I "claimed" was that the Germans apparently had spotted various defensive works around RAF Lympne, ...
You're conveniently forgetting your timeframe claim...
...Marix Evans' map certainly suggests that a good part was in place by the beginning of September and had been spotted by the Germans
Unfortunately, of EVERYTHING that Evans marks up as the defences of RAF Lympme, two minefields and eight pillboxes...there's only the possibility of two pillboxes, and the certainty of one (1) of them. That is NOT "a good part". That's one (1) out of ALL those marked defences actually there by the beginning of September.

Pity you didn't think to check Evans' map against Evans' favourite Defence Of Britain Project before making such a claim, isn't it? :wink:
and that there are are some (undated)physical remains, such as the the Battle HQ and the (non-PH) pillbox (see below) that was presumably part of the outer defensive perimeter
Oh, so now you're inventing an entire OUTER defensive perimeter to explain away their location??? :lol: :lol: :lol: Or perhaps you've been in touch with Hendon for a map of the defence scheme for RAF Lympne already then? That was quick...

Any way you cut it - both the "Battle HQ" AND that pillbox are

1/ outside the 1940 airfield perimeter by half a mile...

2/ half a mile on the WRONG side of the road - Otterpool Lane - that runs up the western side of the up-to-1940 (and postwar)airfield to be ANY of the "1940" defences marked on Evans' map...

And of course...

3/ you don't know when EITHER/BOTH were actually built, so they might just be be outside the scope of this thread :wink:
OK, so here's the relevant fragment of the Befestigungskarte of Aug./Sept. 1940 ... seems as if Marix Evans' honour is safe and he did transpose the German findings reasonably accurately on his (somewhat schematic) map. Of course, the Germans may not have spotted everything - they probably didn't. So if they had spotted nine pillboxes by the end of August, maybe there were a dozen, and twenty or so by the end of the month?

And now we will see Phylo hammer away on his keyboard and fill three whole pages with all sorts of irrelevant stuff trying to "prove" that somehow he wasn't dead wrong after all - or at least to confuse readers so much that they can't tell right from left or facts from guff anymore :milwink:
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Re: British Army at home September 1940

#948

Post by phylo_roadking » 16 Sep 2014, 20:26

Apart from the smoke, that is...not just the smokescreen offshore, but once the fighting starts in earnest on land there's going to be a lot of drifting smoke from Dymchurch, Littlestone, St. Marys etc.
So the smoke has now moved to be offshore?
The smoke was always to be on the water side of the tide line.
No they are not going to be "firing blind", they do not need a "FOP" with "a view" or otherwise, and they are certainly not going to fire a "stonk", which is anachronistic and an unlikely choice for a defensive fire in this particular case since it is a divisional concentration in an area of 1200 by 600 yards. You may want to review just what the British artillery procedures actually were. Given this is a static situation, each of the three battery section leaders and the battery commander would be forward acting as OPO's and/or liaison officers with the supported battalion. The fires would be pre-planned and pre-registered on the battery target record card as either counter preparation or defensive fire (effectively the same, the first was officially dropped in 1942), which were usually standing barrages fired in one or two lines roughly 140 yards in width.
No they would not need to "see" anything since they are not using "bracketing" when using defensive fires supporting a static position. You are confusing the methods of engaging impromptu targets with the methods used for static defensive operations. In practice, the defensive fires would be well known to both the artillery and infantry officers concerned and could be called by anyone with the authority who knew what the mission designations were and who had communications with the BCP.
Yes - but someone has to be able to see the beaches to tell them where any particular German concentrations are on them at any given time for the correct preplanned, pre-registered fire missions to be called. The point about that particular pic is that from that POV you can't see the beach below the top of the seawall...therefore you can't see from that POV what's ON the beach there in front of them.

In any case that is more analogous to the POV of the EB firing at the landing ships and craft. Given the destruction wrought on the American landing craft on EASY RED and FOX Beaches on OMAHA by a single 88mm gun and the similar destruction at JIG caused by a single elderly 75mm Czech gun, it isn't difficult to estimate what the outcome might be.
I hadn't noticed before either, but you might want to look up exactly what calibration entailed in the RA during World War II and whether or not this case should elicit a . The process determined actual Mv of a particular piece and was important for predicted fire...which the guns were not going to use when firing at the barges and ships at sea (it was still important for determining MPI for a piece, but in this case - direct lay - such a variation is unlikely to be critical). It also wouldn't be unusual for some time to elapse between when a battery was operational and when it was calibrated, since there were only five calibration troops raised by the RA during World War II. However, guns were calibrated and recorded individually, so it is probably closer to say the battery was re-calibrated - in between calibrations fudge factors were employed, including barrel wear measurements versus known data for the type (which was very well known in the case of the 6") yielding fudge factors.
However, Rich - remember the issue of how close projectiles needed to drop to cause significant damage to single-skinned, steel hulled barges...as tested by the RN/FAA in 1940 and 1941. The April 1941 tests showed that a even a 1,000-pound bomb would not sink a barge at 15 yards; it took a 250lb GP bomb fused to burst at a distance of 15 feet or less from the hull of a barge to hole and flood one compartment of a barge....and a 100lb bomb bursting 12 feet away or less...(AIR 14/976)

...which are VERY narrow margins of error when it comes to badly-calibrated EB guns firing at barges - or shore-based artillery doing so from several miles. It's the sort of precision targeting that an artillery barrage can't perform, it needs direct-aimed fire...then sort of thing that of course an 88 was also set up for - in its role as an A/T gun.
That's quite a Luftwaffe you have there. So the 90-odd operational Stukas supporting 16. Armee along 40-odd kilometers of front will knock out all the defensive positions? And the 611-odd operational Kampfflieger will simultaneously interdict the battlefield on both land and sea, while suppressing the RAF? All without losses of course.
That's not an answer to what you've quoted from me.
Yes, once they manage to get through the standing defensive barrages - if they do - the OPO technically is considered a FOO...if he starts moving, but a FOP is a dandy rather than a Royal Artillery observer. Then they may have to start using methods of locating impromptu targets...assuming in the weeks and months they were there they didn't spend time laying down DF on most likely routes of advance from the beaches, which were limited. That of course takes us back to the apparent base assumption on your part, which appears to be that all British were incompetent louts incapable of following their own planning sequence while all Germans were superbly capable of extemporaneous superhuman feats.
It's not about the "how"...
The numbers of guns in the area isn't THAT generous - not when we remember that there's some on that list of Knouterer's that were dug in as a/t guns
They are never enough, but in this case probably sufficient.
...it's about the "how many". Looking at Knouterer's figures http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic. ... 5#p1896545 there are how many artillery pieces not to be used as A/T guns on or around Romney Marsh for landing Zone B? Remembering that the non-British "75mms" not noted as dug in...had quite restricted ammunition available IIRC, not unlike the situation with the EBs. There wasn't that much sent from the States with them.
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Re: British Army at home September 1940

#949

Post by phylo_roadking » 16 Sep 2014, 20:36

OK, so here's the relevant fragment of the Befestigungskarte of Aug./Sept. 1940 ... seems as if Marix Evans' honour is safe and he did transpose the German findings reasonably accurately on his (somewhat schematic) map. Of course, the Germans may not have spotted everything - they probably didn't.

And now we will see Phylo hammer away on his keyboard and fill three whole pages with all sorts of irrelevant stuff trying to "prove" that somehow he wasn't dead wrong after all - or at least to confuse readers so much that they can't tell right from left or facts from guff anymore :milwink:
No, it's dismissable in several simple sentences...

The Germans seem to have positioned FOUR pillboxes and barbed wired entanglements right on top of RAF Lympne's "long" runway! Which runs along below the line of the road you can just see under the ink running from the word "Berwick" north-north west to Point 338 ( Across the north-south road you can see, there was a long wrangle in 1943 over the vesting of the land of "Otterpool Manor" on the left-hand side of that road to lengthen the runway when Typhoons started operating from Lympne. It didn't do the RAF much good - it was always far muddier than the original section of runway, and fully war-loaded Tiffies often got bogged down in the mud... 8O )

Given that we'vve already learned that Hamilton-Pickett Forts retracting pillboxes weren't first used until the winter of 1940 at least, and that despite all that barbed wire on the runway aircraft in distress were merrily using that runway in August and September 1940 for emergency landings...then there was something VERY wrong with the placement of those defences on the map - or the Germans thought they saw something that just wasn't there.

By the way - if you look at the 1940 overlay on GoogleEarth - you won't see them either.

And finally - now that M.M. Evans' map has been added to the post to permit direct comparison -
..seems as if Marix Evans' honour is safe and he did transpose the German findings reasonably accurately on his (somewhat schematic) map.
- we can actually see that he transposed a different number of pillboxes....five on his map, six on the German...running on a different line across the airfield...south west to north east, as opposed to the Germans' roughly south east to north west.

He ALSO failed to transpose the correct number of pillboxes along the southern perimeter of the airfield - he transposed three, the German map shows two...and he missed entirely the pillbox marked on the German map on the western edge of the grounds of Bellevue country club.
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Re: British Army at home September 1940

#950

Post by phylo_roadking » 16 Sep 2014, 20:53

From Watsonia, Journal of the British Botanical Society, Volume 20 Part 1 March 1994:

"…there is ample evidence of ditch elimination in the Romney Marsh, particularly where grassland has changed to arable (Latimer 1980; Mountford & Sheail 1982)".
Did it not strike you that in the 60-70 years since, a lot of the drainage ditches have done their job and have been filled in again? ...
Obviously, with fewer sheep, there is less need for deep ditches to keep them in their fields.


..because if you look back you'll see I said that sheep was the principal agricultural industry on the Marsh for several hundred years. It's what the Romney Marsh smugglers had been smuggling out for several centuries, to avoid "poundage" tax. But it...the wool raising and thus the smuggling...began to decline sharply in the 1800s. Now, arable farming and cropping for grass for cattle are the main agricultural activities - which had led to farmers enlarging fields over the last 20 years for modern tractors and equipment by filling in no-long necessary ditches and other field divisions.
And the pictures on the previous page of this thread clearly show a few disused ditches which may not have been maintained ("scoured") for decades.
Looking properly, and if you care to look at the example of Fairfields Church on the internet, you'll find that the majority of still-extant ditches around the church are not disused - they still fill up in winter and high rainfall periods. Being one of the more scenic places on the Marsh you'll find it's very well photographed.

Nowadays the Marsh's several pumping stations are used just for a few weeks in Spring to clear the winter rainfall that has drained down onto the Marsh...by the NGO that runs the pumping stations, and also is in charge of inspecting yearly and scouring out any and all ditches and sewers that require it. Which is one of the reasons why Romney Marsh didn't flood catastrophically THIS year...but the Somerset Levels DID 8O
A nineteenth-century survey describes the ditches – not the main sewers – in Romney Marsh as "eight to fifteen feet wide and three to five feet deep, with somewhat sloping sides".

Quite enough to stop any wheeled vehicle in the German army in 1940, and most tracked vehicles as well, even if the ditches were not full to the brim. And a truck with a heavy load would probably get stuck in the soft ground before it even reached the first ditch.
Pity the Germans didn't invade in the 19th century then....but were planning in invading in 1940 at the end of the summer. You do appreciate what tanks were first invented for? For crossing man-made ditches..."trenches"...8 to 15 feet wide and deeper than five feet...in the mud of Flanders?

Do we get a link to that survey?
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Re: British Army at home September 1940

#951

Post by David Thompson » 16 Sep 2014, 20:55

Knouterer -- You wrote:
And now we will see Phylo hammer away on his keyboard and fill three whole pages with all sorts of irrelevant stuff trying to "prove" that somehow he wasn't dead wrong after all - or at least to confuse readers so much that they can't tell right from left or facts from guff anymore :milwink:
We don't need or want this kind of commentary here. Don't do it again.

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Re: British Army at home September 1940

#952

Post by RichTO90 » 16 Sep 2014, 21:11

phylo_roadking wrote:The smoke was always to be on the water side of the tide line.
So as to neatly silhouette the landing barges as they ground on the beach?
Yes - but someone has to be able to see the beaches to tell t
Are you now claiming that no one can "see the beaches"?
However, Rich - remember the issue of how close projectiles needed to drop
The dropped projectiles in that case were bombs. Artillery pieces - especially in this case - are not firing "bombs".
...which are VERY narrow margins of error when it comes to badly-calibrated EB guns firing at barges - or shore-based artillery doing so from several miles. It's the sort of precision targeting that an artillery barrage can't perform, it needs direct-aimed fire...then sort of thing that of course an 88 was also set up for - in its role as an A/T gun.
They are NOT "badly-calibrated" that is only your ill-conceived assumption. They are not calibrated full stop. Different thing entirely. Nor are the EB's going to fire "artillery barrages" - they are naval guns firing directly at point blank range...just as the 88mm was at OMAHA. Fundamentally there is no difference between an 88mm firing "in its role as an A/T gun" and it - or a 6" naval gun - firing "in its role as a gun" at any direct fire target.
That's not an answer to what you've quoted from me.
No, it was musing at the apparent omnipotence the Luftwaffe has acheived in your eyes.
It's not about the "how"...
Odd reply given that "how" doesn't appear in my remark.
...it's about the "how many". Looking at Knouterer's figures http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic. ... 5#p1896545 there are how many artillery pieces not to be used as A/T guns on or around Romney Marsh for landing Zone B? Remembering that the non-British "75mms" not noted as dug in...had quite restricted ammunition available IIRC, not unlike the situation with the EBs. There wasn't that much sent from the States with them.
Oh, I see...you do this intentionally in order to confuse issues - sorry I had forgotten. So is this supposed to be a trick question? 22. Yes, 1-million rounds for 1,095 pieces is probably "restricted" in the cockeyed world view you've drunk the koolaid of... :roll: That's only three times the 275 round per piece for the 6" EB guns...which is nearly twice that of the German 15cm s.F.H. that wrecked such havoc at OMAHA... :roll:

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Re: British Army at home September 1940

#953

Post by Knouterer » 16 Sep 2014, 21:42

RichTO90 wrote:
...it's about the "how many". Looking at Knouterer's figures http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic. ... 5#p1896545 there are how many artillery pieces not to be used as A/T guns on or around Romney Marsh for landing Zone B? Remembering that the non-British "75mms" not noted as dug in...had quite restricted ammunition available IIRC, not unlike the situation with the EBs. There wasn't that much sent from the States with them.
Oh, I see...you do this intentionally in order to confuse issues - sorry I had forgotten. So is this supposed to be a trick question? 22. Yes, 1-million rounds for 1,095 pieces is probably "restricted" in the cockeyed world view you've drunk the koolaid of... :roll: That's only three times the 275 round per piece for the 6" EB guns...which is nearly twice that of the German 15cm s.F.H. that wrecked such havoc at OMAHA... :roll:
Interestingly, the British seem to have had big plans for their newly acquired 75 mm guns, because a million rounds was not considered enough - at a meeting of the Defence Committee (Supply) on 16.7.1940, chaired by Churchill himself, it was announced that the War Office and the Ministry of Supply proposed to order 2,000,000 rounds in the USA (taking over French contracts), to produce a limited number (around 250,000) in Britain to gain experience in the techniques of production and filling, and thirdly to produce in Britain as quickly as possible 200,000 rounds of A.P. shot (first 50,000 without and the rest with tracer) – the idea being, apparently, to fit these to existing rounds, discarding old HE or shrapnel shells. As more 25pdrs became available towards the end of 1940/beginning of 1941, the 75 mm guns were gradually passed on to A/Tk regiments which were still short of 2pdrs.

As regards the 55th Field Regt in Romney Marsh, all troops were assigned various beach sectors they could reach, according to a map overlay from July - for those guns that were assigned a possible AT role as well, either they were already in a position from where they could cover roads, or alternative positions were foreseen, as for the 75 mm troop in the scan I posted.
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Re: British Army at home September 1940

#954

Post by Knouterer » 16 Sep 2014, 22:03

David Thompson wrote:Knouterer -- You wrote:
And now we will see Phylo hammer away on his keyboard and fill three whole pages with all sorts of irrelevant stuff trying to "prove" that somehow he wasn't dead wrong after all - or at least to confuse readers so much that they can't tell right from left or facts from guff anymore :milwink:
We don't need or want this kind of commentary here. Don't do it again.
It can't have escaped your notice that Phylo immediately started to prove me right, can it?

And since you seem to have such definite ideas about what we "need or want", perhaps you could tell me whether we "need or want" people who, while staying -just - within the rules, make a specialty of being as annoying as possible and completely messing up other people's threads?

Just a question, of course.
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Re: British Army at home September 1940

#955

Post by phylo_roadking » 16 Sep 2014, 22:46

So as to neatly silhouette the landing barges as they ground on the beach?
Silhouetted...at dawn? With the rising sun behind them I.E. behind the smoke?
Are you now claiming that no one can "see the beaches"?
No, I'm just claiming as I have done for the past two pages that noone at THIS viewpoint -
Here's a nice view such as British artillery observers might have enjoyed:
...would be able to see the beach. Given that at that viewpoint the beach lies below the line of the seawall -

Image
They are NOT "badly-calibrated" that is only your ill-conceived assumption. They are not calibrated full stop.
And yet the battery did not conduct its very first shoot...after two months' existence....until after they were calibrated.
Nor are the EB's going to fire "artillery barrages" - they are naval guns firing directly at point blank range...just as the 88mm was at OMAHA. Fundamentally there is no difference between an 88mm firing "in its role as an A/T gun" and it - or a 6" naval gun - firing "in its role as a gun" at any direct fire target.
That's what I was trying to say - except there's no sign (yet) that the guns of the EBs were fitted with any sort of "direct fire" sighting telescope...unlike the 88. Just the "autosight" which near the start of the thread the OP noted was next to useless.
Oh, I see...you do this intentionally in order to confuse issues - sorry I had forgotten. So is this supposed to be a trick question? 22. Yes, 1-million rounds for 1,095 pieces is probably "restricted" in the cockeyed world view you've drunk the koolaid of... That's only three times the 275 round per piece for the 6" EB guns...which is nearly twice that of the German 15cm s.F.H. that wrecked such havoc at OMAHA...
How many of those one million rounds had initially arrived with the 895 guns, which is what I said...or as the case may be arrived by September 1940? - as the main (the only?) consignment of M1917s and M1897s seems to have arrived at the very start of July...but the gun itself was in service for several years, saw active service in Greece, was transferred to the RAF Regiment etc... as in - was there just one single large consignment of munitions in 1940 or was it split up across the service life of the guns in British hands?
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Re: British Army at home September 1940

#956

Post by phylo_roadking » 16 Sep 2014, 22:57

Interestingly, the British seem to have had big plans for their newly acquired 75 mm guns, because a million rounds was not considered enough - at a meeting of the Defence Committee (Supply) on 16.7.1940, chaired by Churchill himself, it was announced that the War Office and the Ministry of Supply proposed to order 2,000,000 rounds in the USA (taking over French contracts), to produce a limited number (around 250,000) in Britain to gain experience in the techniques of production and filling, and thirdly to produce in Britain as quickly as possible 200,000 rounds of A.P. shot (first 50,000 without and the rest with tracer) – the idea being, apparently, to fit these to existing rounds, discarding old HE or shrapnel shells. As more 25pdrs became available towards the end of 1940/beginning of 1941, the 75 mm guns were gradually passed on to A/Tk regiments which were still short of 2pdrs.
"Proposed" - was it done?

I note the "rush" - "and thirdly to produce in Britain as quickly as possible 200,000 rounds of A.P. shot" - to produce anti-tank munitions for these; this is what I've been referring to. It was many years ago now, but I seem to remember reading that these weapons initially arrived with HE but not AP shot.
As regards the 55th Field Regt in Romney Marsh, all troops were assigned various beach sectors they could reach, according to a map overlay from July - for those guns that were assigned a possible AT role as well, either they were already in a position from where they could cover roads, or alternative positions were foreseen, as for the 75 mm troop in the scan I posted
Does that "all" include the two 18pdrs specifically given an anti-tank role only by September?

And do we get to see said map overlay?

Incidently...
As can be seen from the first appendix, 373 battery with 75 mm guns was to all intents and purposes immobile. Only D Troop of 374 battery with 4 x 25pdrs had a full complement of 6 field artillery tractors (4 towing a gun and ammunition limber/trailer, 2 towing two trailers each). The Operational Memorandum No. 1 of 3 Sept. notes that “Transport for towing 75 m.m. guns will probably be issued in the near future”, but this probably did not happen in September, at least there is no mention of it in the WD. For comparison, by 1941/42 the War Establisment for a regiment with 24 x 25pdrs included 42 motorcycles, 10 cars (2- and 4-seater), 9 armoured observation post (carriers), 45 15cwt trucks (GS, personnel, water), 1 30cwt lorry, 28 3-ton lorries, and 36 tractors
....for those guns that were assigned a possible AT role as well, either they were already in a position from where they could cover roads, or alternative positions were foreseen, as for the 75 mm troop in the scan I posted
...how were they supposed to get there?
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Re: British Army at home September 1940

#957

Post by David Thompson » 17 Sep 2014, 00:14

Knouterer -- You asked:
And since you seem to have such definite ideas about what we "need or want", perhaps you could tell me whether we "need or want" people who, while staying -just - within the rules, make a specialty of being as annoying as possible and completely messing up other people's threads?

Just a question, of course.
The forum exists to hold informed, fact-based discussions for the benefit of our intelligent readers, who can make up their minds for themselves. If you see disagreement with your point of view as "annoying" and "completely messing up other people's threads" you're in the wrong place.

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Re: British Army at home September 1940

#958

Post by phylo_roadking » 17 Sep 2014, 00:38

However, Rich - remember the issue of how close projectiles needed to drop
The dropped projectiles in that case were bombs. Artillery pieces - especially in this case - are not firing "bombs".
That's strange...looking back, I thought I had typed up a section of text on this - but it hasn't appeared. Strange.

Anyway...

No, I appreciate there's a difference - but the April 1941 RN/FAA tests of gravity ordnance confirmed that a 1,000-pound bomb falling 15 yards away from a single-skinned, steel-hulled barge would not significantly hole or sink it...while it took a 250-pound GP bomb to fall at or closer than 15 feet to significantly hole a barge, causing it most likely to eventually sink. and a 100-pound bomb had to drop within 10 feet to achieve the same effect. These are hardened metal projectiles filled with an explosive burster charge relying on pressure wave and expanding fragment wave to do damage....pretty much the same as artillery rounds, whether naval or shore, no? Apart from Naval AP rounds, of course...

But it illustrates how close even the very largest of the Navy's iron bombs had to come to a barge to make its immediate future questionable. In other words, even EBs require either direct hits or very very near misses to sink them; a 6-inch naval round is for example just a 13lbs of Lyddite-filled 100-pound shell ...not sure off-hand the burster charge weight of a 100 or 250-lb GP bomb...but the requirement to either directly hit OR get them within a very close radius of a barge is the same to obtain similar effects.

And these are EB crews with minimal live firing experience, while we don't know yet if they had the direct-fire sighting telescopes to obtain such results - as opposed to observation and ranging being provided by the BOP, and the BOP correcting their fall of shot.
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Re: British Army at home September 1940

#959

Post by Clive Mortimore » 17 Sep 2014, 01:51

phylo_roadking wrote:
So as to neatly silhouette the landing barges as they ground on the beach?
Silhouetted...at dawn? With the rising sun behind them I.E. behind the smoke?
Here we go again with the blinding sun. Wasn't the 7th September the ideal tide conditions for the Nazi invasion? What was the weather like on the morning of the 7th September?
SATURDAY SEPTEMBER 7th 1940

WEATHER:
High cloud early giving way to light cloud but remaining fine throughout the south. Channel areas can expect early morning haze which should quickly disappear leaving clear skies. Temperatures were expected to be normal. The north could expect mid to high level cloud with good visibility.
http://www.battleofbritain1940.net/0036.html

A haze, doesn't that make visibility poor for all? And tends to block out the sun at the time you and the Nazi invasion fleet are relying on it.

Oddly it was the day the mighty Luftwaffe changed its own battle plan, so they were too busy to support the Nazi invasion.


As an ex Gun Fitter, your comments about the Emergency Batteries guns not having any direct fire sights is just wishful thinking, all guns can be used for direct firing. These guns would have been secondary armament on battleships or main guns on smaller warships and would be fitted with direct fire sights so in the event of the fire control being put out of action the guns were not.

Gun tables are written to take into account of any wear in the barrel. Examination of Ordnance is a role carried out by the battery gun fitter and his findings are passed on to the Gun Position Office so he has up to date information.
Clive

RichTO90
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Re: British Army at home September 1940

#960

Post by RichTO90 » 17 Sep 2014, 03:40

phylo_roadking wrote:Silhouetted...at dawn? With the rising sun behind them I.E. behind the smoke?
Ever looked at a dark object in front of a white or grey background?
No, I'm just claiming as I have done for the past two pages that noone at THIS viewpoint -
Which is a perfectly good observation point and likely similar to what the BOP of the EB as well as the gunlayers would see.
...would be able to see the beach. Given that at that viewpoint the beach lies below the line of the seawall -
So you're back to parsing every single word only within the meaning you allow?
And yet the battery did not conduct its very first shoot...after two months' existence....until after they were calibrated.
So what? We have absolutely no idea if the two are related. Further, we have no idea if that was common to all the EB.
That's what I was trying to say - except there's no sign (yet) that the guns of the EBs were fitted with any sort of "direct fire" sighting telescope...unlike the 88. Just the "autosight" which near the start of the thread the OP noted was next to useless.
You don't need a "sighting telescope" when you have the BOP feeding range and bearing, although then calibration issues could affect fine ranging...if you were firing at maximum range. They weren't. BTW, that is not at all what the "OP noted". What the OP "noted" was a paraphrase from Maurice-Jones "autosights which permitted reasonably accurate fire out to 4,000 yds or so for bigger ships and 2,000 yds for smaller vessels. However, the naval guns coming out of storage in the summer of 1940 did not have these, so there must have been a certain amount of improvisation." The autosights when fitted were fine at the effective ranges the guns would fire at. Separating out which batteries "came out of storage" is a different issue.
How many of those one million rounds had initially arrived with the 895 guns, which is what I said...or as the case may be arrived by September 1940? - as the main (the only?) consignment of M1917s and M1897s seems to have arrived at the very start of July...but the gun itself was in service for several years, saw active service in Greece, was transferred to the RAF Regiment etc... as in - was there just one single large consignment of munitions in 1940 or was it split up across the service life of the guns in British hands?
So now you are arguing the guns were delivered before the ammunition? The ammunition - and guns - had done very well in storage for 20 years - there was little point in doling out the ammunition across the "service life of the guns in British hands".

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