Or a battery of 5.5 inch?
What prevented the QF 3.7-inch AA gun being used in the Anti Tank role.
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Re: What prevented the QF 3.7-inch AA gun being used in the Anti Tank role.
The Germans were far more tactically astute than the British.
Dynamic? No change.
Losses? Battery of HAA guns lost in the same way as the ATk 6-pdr and Field Arty.
Re: What prevented the QF 3.7-inch AA gun being used in the Anti Tank role.
4.5 inch would have been even better than 5.5 inch, as the shells were more solid and the mv higher. They were also available near the front lines.Michael Kenny wrote: ↑16 Dec 2019, 20:48I would venture the 5.5 inch would be a better AT gun than the 3.7. Far more mobile at least. A 3.7 in the front line is a Kamikaze weapon. Is it being suggested that AT Platoons in Armoured Divisions be equipped with the 3.7?
I also think that dedicated AT sighting is less necessary than is commonly recognised, as the Germans successfully used 155mm GPF's against Matilda tanks during Battleaxe, and I'm pretty sure these only had iron sights, if even that.
"The demonstration, as a demonstration, was a failure. The sunshield would not fit the tank. Altogether it was rather typically Middle Easty."
- 7th Armoured Brigade War Diary, 30th August 1941
- 7th Armoured Brigade War Diary, 30th August 1941
Re: What prevented the QF 3.7-inch AA gun being used in the Anti Tank role.
Is that it?
"They halted beyond effective anti-tank range, and all our six-pounders were knocked out of action without being able to retaliate with success."Dynamic? No change.
Losses? Battery of HAA guns lost in the same way as the ATk 6-pdr and Field Arty.
Somehow I reckon 'beyond effective range' of a 94mm AP round is likely to be well beyond visual range too
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Re: What prevented the QF 3.7-inch AA gun being used in the Anti Tank role.
Looks far less cumbersome than the 3.7 AA
From 3m 07s
https://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item ... 1060013191
Re: What prevented the QF 3.7-inch AA gun being used in the Anti Tank role.
Use as field artillery is completely different from use as an anti tank gun. Anti tank guns need to fire direct, field artillery doesn't and can be fired from much greater range.
Thanks
Mark.
Thanks
Mark.
You know you're British when you drive your German car to an Irish pub for a pint of Belgian beer before having an Indian meal. When you get home you sit on your Sweedish sofa and watch American programs on your Japanese TV.
Re: What prevented the QF 3.7-inch AA gun being used in the Anti Tank role.
Who won the engagement?
So? How does that affect the engagement?Gooner1 wrote: ↑17 Dec 2019, 16:22"They halted beyond effective anti-tank range, and all our six-pounders were knocked out of action without being able to retaliate with success."Dynamic? No change.
Losses? Battery of HAA guns lost in the same way as the ATk 6-pdr and Field Arty.
Somehow I reckon 'beyond effective range' of a 94mm AP round is likely to be well beyond visual range too
Who/what neutralized the 6-pdr guns?
Who/what neutralized the the 25-pdr guns?
What makes you think the answer to the above wouldn't also neutralize a battery of HAA guns?
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Re: What prevented the QF 3.7-inch AA gun being used in the Anti Tank role.
You might do better using ammunition consumption for 21AG.Gooner1 wrote: ↑17 Dec 2019, 18:4090th HAA in Normandy
https://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item ... 1060019774
3.7 dwarfed the dedicated AT. However being a couple of miles in the rear doing ground bombardment is not remotely anti-tank work.
Re: What prevented the QF 3.7-inch AA gun being used in the Anti Tank role.
Gooner1 wrote: ↑17 Dec 2019, 18:4090th HAA in Normandy
https://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item ... 1060019774
How does this connect with the engagement during the Gazala battle or the more general discussion about 3.7-inch HAA doing ATk work?Object description
Having served in the Battle of Britain four years earlier, the 90th Heavy Anti-Aircraft Regiment RA now participate in the battle for Normandy as field artillery during 30th Corps' drive on Condé-sur-Noireau.
Full description
One of 285 Battery's eight 3.7 inch AA guns is seen under camouflage netting at the edge of a field near St Pierre le Vielle. Its crew attends to various tasks such as cleaning the gun-sights, the trunnions, the breech and recoil-spring and stacking and fusing high-explosive shells before being called to action stations. The detachment fires several air-burst rounds under the supervision of the gun sergeant who receives orders via a loudspeaker linked to the battery HQ. There, RA personnel plot firing ranges on receipt of 'phone messages from the battery's FDP. Earlier, the sergeant helps the gun-layer to bring the gun onto its target bearing, taking as his guide his troop commander who determines the alignment between the gun and its target with a target director. Two 3.7 inch AA guns at high elevation kick up dust each time they fire a round. A gun crew works hard to keep their gun in action.
Is this just another of your handwaves where you think by posting a picture or a film of a big gun suffices to evidence your opinion?
Re: What prevented the QF 3.7-inch AA gun being used in the Anti Tank role.
Pretty sure they used heavy stuff during CRUSADER as well. When it comes to it every gun is an anti-tank gun.Don Juan wrote: ↑17 Dec 2019, 15:234.5 inch would have been even better than 5.5 inch, as the shells were more solid and the mv higher. They were also available near the front lines.Michael Kenny wrote: ↑16 Dec 2019, 20:48I would venture the 5.5 inch would be a better AT gun than the 3.7. Far more mobile at least. A 3.7 in the front line is a Kamikaze weapon. Is it being suggested that AT Platoons in Armoured Divisions be equipped with the 3.7?
I also think that dedicated AT sighting is less necessary than is commonly recognised, as the Germans successfully used 155mm GPF's against Matilda tanks during Battleaxe, and I'm pretty sure these only had iron sights, if even that.
The enemy had superiority in numbers, his tanks were more heavily armoured, they had larger calibre guns with nearly twice the effective range of ours, and their telescopes were superior. 5 RTR 19/11/41
The CRUSADER Project - The Winter Battle 1941/42
The CRUSADER Project - The Winter Battle 1941/42
Re: What prevented the QF 3.7-inch AA gun being used in the Anti Tank role.
Wow. You really are that clueless. No, in a duel fought at 7,500 yards with a howitzer battery mounted on a platoon of tanks the 3.7” will lose.Gooner1 wrote:Somehow I reckon 'beyond effective range' of a 94mm AP round is likely to be well beyond visual range too
The enemy had superiority in numbers, his tanks were more heavily armoured, they had larger calibre guns with nearly twice the effective range of ours, and their telescopes were superior. 5 RTR 19/11/41
The CRUSADER Project - The Winter Battle 1941/42
The CRUSADER Project - The Winter Battle 1941/42
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Re: What prevented the QF 3.7-inch AA gun being used in the Anti Tank role.
'Effective' range of an AP round is well below 3000 yds. An AP shell has to score a direct hit to be effective. Return fire against the 3.7 does not depend on such accuracy.
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Re: What prevented the QF 3.7-inch AA gun being used in the Anti Tank role.
Telescopic direct fire sights were standard of common on the German 15cm howitzers & HV guns. They probably did not come out of the box much and training for direct fire may not have been routine, but there were mounting brackets on the examples I inspected at Ft Sill & the brackets are often visible in photographs and occasionally the telescopic sight is seen mounted in the photos. Flipped open my copy of Werner Adamczyks memoior as a cannon crewman in WWII & found his description of a hasty direct fire mission by his battery vs some Soviet tanks that approached their position.
I have no idea how accurate the DF telescopes of the Germans were. Those provided for the M114 155 mm howitzer & the M198 155mm howitzer were useful with a standard full Charge 7 out to approx 1500 meters. I recall training in direct fire twice in my ten years in the USMC artillery. Once with the M198 Howitzer & once with the M101 105mm Howitzer.
I'd also note the indirect fire sight could be used was a direct fire sight. This was not 'in the books' but any artilleryman who understood how the IF sight worked & the relation to bore sight or the tube axis could make that work. Would have been less accurate but better than shooting with no sight.
We did not have "iron sights" on any of the cannon I trained on. A few very old models in the artillery park at Ft Sill had front & rear aiming posts on the tube & breech, usually 19th Century cannon, like the French 75mm gun. It would be just as accurate to look through the breech to aim before loading.
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Re: What prevented the QF 3.7-inch AA gun being used in the Anti Tank role.
For that target, a group of SP howitzers at that range I'd use a mix of point detonating fuzes settings and air bursts. I'd order a burst of 3 to six rounds per cannon, observe the impacts & make a correction. That would be using range tables/calculations. no reference to direct fire sights. A accurate volley of airbursts over open topped SP cannon, AT guns, & any other AFV with a open top, entrenched cannon is usually effective. This works with any cannon that has time fuzes for the ammunition. Otherwise you you depend on saturating the target area with impact fuzed HE and play the percentages until she direct hits occur.
There plenty of examples of field artillery using that technique against tanks, SP cannon, other vehicles, infantry, or anything else visible but beyond the range of direct fire sights.