Makes me wonder what size the thought a assualt would be??
Hmmm yes. they did reinforce the sector substantially during May. Consider the first hours on Omaha beach had the attack gone in in early may, before the 352 div settled in.RichTO90 wrote:Well, previous they had experienced multi-division invasions in North Africa, Sicily, and two in Italy. So I suspect they expected a multi-division attack of up to 8 divisions. But they only had so many resources to oppose them with.
"61. Methods of fire.—German artillery makes extensive use of ricochet fire. In this type of fire the Germans set their shell fuzes so that the shells will strike the ground, and ricochet into the air and burst. 'They also employ time-fuze fire, which they try to regulate so that- their shells will burst about 40 to 50 feet above the ground."
Possiblly. I wonder if it would work very well on loose sand/gravel? It also requires the axis of the projectile be at very small angle to the ground, possibly less than 15 degrees. Too much range & you cant get the low angle at impact even at a high propellant charge. A large vertical interval discussed affects this as well.RichTO90 wrote:They may have been trying the former. As you mention, timefire could have been problematic given the geometry and close proximity of the German defenses to the attackers.
One of the problems I'm wrestling with is lack of good info on German artillery norms for ammo allocations. There is some here for US, British, and Soviet. Extrapolating from those estimates of effects has all sorts of potiential for error, & my several years doing fire planning gave me enough experience to understand the degree of my ignorance. At this point it looks like those six artillery batterys & their 4,800 rounds were inadaquate for either suppressing or nuetralising much of the landing area. I'm a long way from finishing these numbers but it looks like a allout effort to nuetralize the mass of battlaions on the beach would have expended that ammo quantity in less than a hour.
Probablly not what I am thinking of. This would be something that tells you 'Number of Projectiles' = "Estimated Casualties". A German version of the Soviet Nomogram or US Effects Table.RichTO90 wrote:The norm was the Erste Ausstattung, which corresponds, more or less, to the American unit of fire.
RichTO90 wrote: The most careful examination of the subject I am aware of is LTC Jakob Jung, Consumption of Ammunition by Land Forces Since 1939, Bergisch Gladbach, FRG, 1986. I don't know if it was ever generally published, although it was available in an English translation; we got it via BG Franz Uhle-Wettler, who was a close friend of Trevor, when we did the Ardennes Combat Simulation Database back in 1989.
Did you save me a copy?
From the Terminal Ballistcs docs linked are attached two charts, for the 105mm howitzer projectile. This is data for the US ammo & may or may not match the German projectile of the same caliber for their similar 10.5cm howitzer, or the Cezch cannon. The frag pattern chart looks identical to what I remember in the fireplanning docs we used back in the 1980s. The Frag Chart should give the reader a idea of the size & number of frags in he casualty zone. This is not the same as what I am calling a "effects" chart or table. The top illustration from the US FM-40 1940 is one of those.