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the JJ posted:The best example of this are the Swedish Cold War tanks built basically only for defense. Sticking the gun in the hull means that can get away with not needing a turret so it's got a super low profile perfect for ambushes and hull down defenses. After I posted that I hurried off to look up that tank lol.
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Jul 12, 2014 08:00
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Sweden gets away with that because in dense forests a turret isn't that useful anyway.
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Jul 12, 2014 08:55
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Isn't a danger of that where you end up falling into hyperspecialised tank destroyer territory?
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Jul 12, 2014 09:26
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Phobophilia posted:Isn't a danger of that where you end up falling into hyperspecialised tank destroyer territory? Tank destroyers excel on the defense. If you are only going to be fighting on the defense, and are willing to make those sacrifices, it can make good sense. But in most cases, that sort of sacrifice is way more than it's worth.
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Jul 12, 2014 10:05
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Well the real downside for the Strv-103 was the need to have *two* engines, due to how the gunbarrel cut through the length of the hull in the middle. Hydralic fluids everywhere to allow it to tilt and lean like some robot, double driving controls to allow it to drive backwards and I believe double gunner controls so the commander could get in on the action if need be. And a autoloader on top of it all. Sorta over-enginereed for what it was, but totally rad sci-fi tank still.
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Jul 12, 2014 10:11
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It does kind of mean you can't counterattack, and cedes all the initiative to your opponent. Edit: unless say you don't intend to counterattack, and just want to bleed them until your buddies turn the planet into radioactive ash Phobophilia fucked around with this message at 10:59 on Jul 12, 2014 |
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Jul 12, 2014 10:56
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Retarded Pimp posted:The STuG as an example. Part of the gunner training was to be able to write your own name on a piece of cardboard with a pen tied to the gun barrel, so the gun movements were really precise just like on an infantry AT gun. (I can scan a picture of this when I get home.)
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Jul 12, 2014 11:35
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Phobophilia posted:It does kind of mean you can't counterattack, and cedes all the initiative to your opponent. This is incorrect, turret has nothing to do with ability to attack. In fact, assault guns were originally intended to support infantry on the attack. StuGs and Jagdpanzers led many WW2 attacks just as well as tanks would have - I'd posit it just puts greater emphasis on combined arms tactics, assault guns are less capable of an unsupported breakthrough to enemy rear area in the classic tank warfare style. Swedish terrain is quite infantry friendly anyway.
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Jul 12, 2014 11:50
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I think it's worth noting that German 'assault guns' were not originally intended to be 'tank destroyers'. They just needed something that could be used to hit a static fortification like a house or a bunker that was more precise than indirect artillery fire and more able to keep up with advance than a towed infantry gun. Under such requirements, the lack of a turret wasn't really a problem because you would have been shooting at buildings, and it worked out even better insofar as not needing a turret meant you could mount a larger gun than you could on a turreted tank. It just so happened that the bigger gun made them really useful at taking out other tanks, especially when the Panzer IIIs started going up against KVs and T34s. The other aspect was that it was really cheap to mount a gun and encase it in armour than it was to build a turret around it, as well as a way to utilize all of those captured enemy AT guns (see: Marder series). I admittedly don't know how the Soviets evolved their assault gun/TD development, but AFAIK it was the Americans that designed dedicated tank destroyers from the get go. The Germans sort of learned it on the fly as the war and their roles changed around them
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Jul 12, 2014 12:09
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Nenonen posted:This is incorrect, turret has nothing to do with ability to attack. In fact, assault guns were originally intended to support infantry on the attack. StuGs and Jagdpanzers led many WW2 attacks just as well as tanks would have - I'd posit it just puts greater emphasis on combined arms tactics, assault guns are less capable of an unsupported breakthrough to enemy rear area in the classic tank warfare style. Swedish terrain is quite infantry friendly anyway. Yeah the S-tank at least could turn so drat quickly that it didn't really need a turret to trade 1:1 or better against enemy tanks (centurions, in a exercise/test), even when attacking. Most tanks around then couldn't really fire on the move either so the difference wasn't so big.
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Jul 12, 2014 14:00
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Don't forget that the German tank ace, Michael Wittmann, got his start with a STuG and did a poo poo load of damage with it. It wasn't until about 43 that he got into a Tiger I. By himself with a STuG III he destroyed 6 t-34s and chased the remaining 12 from the field in one day and ending with 25 t-34 kills and 32 anti tank kills with his SIII by 1943. Some STuGs at work here around the 30 second mark https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nV_2VbTLDXg And a JagdPanther https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QCCCKiQWMRM
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Jul 12, 2014 14:24
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Nenonen posted:(I can scan a picture of this when I get home.)  Tank Destroyer Chat!
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Jul 12, 2014 15:17
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Retarded Pimp posted:Please do. Tank Destroyers Best Destroyers
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Jul 12, 2014 15:42
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SocketWrench posted:Some STuGs at work here around the 30 second mark all this proves is that assault guns own infant tree
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Jul 12, 2014 15:52
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Acebuckeye13 posted:Tank Destroyers Best Destroyers Tank destroyer? I hardly knew her!
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Jul 12, 2014 15:53
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SocketWrench posted:Don't forget that the German tank ace, Michael Wittmann, got his start with a STuG and did a poo poo load of damage with it. It wasn't until about 43 that he got into a Tiger I. I like that clip I always see of King Tigers probably had every combat ready King Tiger at the time.
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Jul 12, 2014 16:31
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gradenko_2000 posted:I admittedly don't know how the Soviets evolved their assault gun/TD development, but AFAIK it was the Americans that designed dedicated tank destroyers from the get go. The Germans sort of learned it on the fly as the war and their roles changed around them Pre-war, Soviet SPGs were largely open-top vehicles, designed to keep up behind infantry and provide artillery fire. If you look at the various SU-5 vehicles, they are basically a T-26 with the top cut off and a field gun stuck on. Tank destroying was something tanks were supposed to do. The one closed top vehicle that was basically a StuG but earlier didn't really go anywhere as a concept. Immediately pre-war, everyone was obsessed with super-heavy tanks of the Potential Enemy (tm) which may or may not have actually been built. Various solutions to this problem included the installation of a 57 mm gun in a T-34 (commonly known these days as T-34-57, but designated as "T-34 tank destroyer" at the time) and a project to install an 85 mm gun in an open turret on the T-34 chassis. Meanwhile, Soviet heavy tanks engineers were putting 107 mm guns on anything that moved, which still outclassed any potential or existing tank destroyer in firepower. The war rolled around, and the minuscule number of SU-5s on finely aged T-26 chassis weren't doing anyone any good, so two replacements came up, mounting already used infantry guns (ZiS-3 and M-30) on top of tanks (T-70 and T-34) to produce turretless vehicles for infantry support: the SU-76 and SU-122. Later, when the Red Army needed more oomph in its counteroffensives in regions that the enemy had lots of time to fortify, the same procedure was repeated with the ML-20 and KV-1S, resulting in the SU-152. So far, these tanks were not tank destroyers and weren't used as tank destroyers, despite tank destroying being something that they did once in a while. When German Tigers came around, everyone's huge gun boner returned and GABTU ordered a number of vehicles that were explicitly tank destroyers, of which only the D-5 gun (based on 85 mm AA gun ballistics, just like that gun that was supposed to go into the turreted tank destroyer) on the T-34 chassis (the initial idea was more of a SU-76 type with a rear casemate, but sticking a D-5S in a SU-122 proved easier). The tank was a tank destroyer, organized in largely the same way as towed anti-tank artillery batteries, but was still designated SU-85 (SU: self-propelled gun) and counted as an SPG when counting totals of things. A later addition to the tank destroyer family that was kind of complicated was the ISU-122. It was technically a tank destroyer, but the gun was massive enough to be used as artillery as well, so this vehicle is seen in both heavy AT units and assigned to infantry in urban combat, driving up to buildings and placing a 122 mm shell or three in a particularly troublesome area. Post-war, some vehicles were expressly made as tank destroyers (turreted and turretless), some weren't tank destroyers, but were built to respond to a foreign tank threat first and do everything else second (which turned out not so great, *cough*T-62*cough*) SocketWrench posted:Don't forget that the German tank ace, Michael Wittmann, got his start with a STuG and did a poo poo load of damage with it. It wasn't until about 43 that he got into a Tiger I. Take SS kill claims with a heaping spoonful of salt. Even the Wehrmacht did.
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Jul 12, 2014 18:20
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the JJ posted:The best example of this are the Swedish Cold War tanks built basically only for defense. Sticking the gun in the hull means that can get away with not needing a turret so it's got a super low profile perfect for ambushes and hull down defenses. When the S-tank was developed tanks stopped before firing, so no turret was not seen as a major problem. If you look at the regiments that had strv103 they were mostly located to regions in Sweden that consists of farmland. In other words the strv103 was meant for armoured combat in relatively open terrain where the low profile would allow it to use the terrain to its advantage.
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Jul 12, 2014 19:03
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Ensign Expendable posted:Take SS kill claims with a heaping spoonful of salt. Even the Wehrmacht did. I'm not so sure when it comes to Wittmann. After all, he owned an entire British column in Normandy and had the proof to show it. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Wittmann#Normandy
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Jul 12, 2014 22:17
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Read Tigers in Normandy (the wiki page even mentions it), Schneider calculates that Wittmann took out 7 enemy tanks, a third of what he originally claimed.
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Jul 12, 2014 22:56
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Yeah, consider: if Wittmann took out a British column alone, how come the germans lost 8-15 tanks including 6 tigers?
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Jul 12, 2014 23:22
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Because after a relatively successful surprise attack that took a few tanks out, he took his formation on a headlong attack with insecure flanks into an alerted enemy and if I remember right got basically his entire company knocked out!  Also SS, filing overstated kill claims in crayon all day err day. xthetenth fucked around with this message at 23:55 on Jul 12, 2014 |
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Jul 12, 2014 23:52
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IIRC His charge forward wasn't completely retarded as a spotter plane had just dropped a marker where his unit was and they were trying to escape the area before the bombers arrived. E: it was still pretty retarded though Raskolnikov38 fucked around with this message at 00:44 on Jul 13, 2014 |
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Jul 13, 2014 00:41
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Cyrano4747 posted:They still killed a few thousand people with a few hundred. No matter the circumstances that's an ugly piece of work, especially within the limitations of the arms they had. It's pretty chilling to think about, because apparently what happened was the buildings and walls of the town formed a defile that neutralized their numbers. Pizarro's men didn't have to fight 3,000-10,000 Incas, they just had to form a line across the plaza and fight the couple hundred right in front of them, then the next couple hundred, then the next, and so on until they'd killed thousands. The Inca army was apparently trapped by the city walls and their own mass and couldn't easily flee until a section of wall collapsed from the sheer press of men and opened an exit.
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Jul 13, 2014 04:50
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xthetenth posted:For the UK, as mentioned before the 75mm gun was a 6-pounder bored out for a US 75mm shell, so again it's a field gun shell, not a high velocity shell design.
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Jul 14, 2014 00:48
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Arquinsiel posted:The OQF 6-pdr was also an AT gun though... it was the successor to the OQF 2-pdr and the predecessor of the OQF 17-pdr. That's why they mounted it on cavalry tanks. drat, I thought I'd mentioned that. Yeah, the OQF 6-pdr was pretty much a pure anti-tank gun with a godawful HE shell. So when cavalry tanks were getting that sort of gun, it got mounted on them, and by the Cromwell's time when they were thinking they really ought to have an HE shell worth the name, they bored it out to fit the US 75mm ammunition. It's basically a field gun in that configuration in terms of shell design, caliber length and shell velocity though.
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Jul 14, 2014 07:55
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Is there a reason why the British labeled their guns by the weight of the ammunition instead of the diameter of the shell? Or is that just because of the proud tradition of England doing everything differently than the continentals?
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Jul 14, 2014 08:22
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Nenonen posted:This is incorrect, turret has nothing to do with ability to attack. In fact, assault guns were originally intended to support infantry on the attack. StuGs and Jagdpanzers led many WW2 attacks just as well as tanks would have - I'd posit it just puts greater emphasis on combined arms tactics, assault guns are less capable of an unsupported breakthrough to enemy rear area in the classic tank warfare style. Swedish terrain is quite infantry friendly anyway. From wikipedia: quote:The Stridsvagn 103 never saw combat and so its design remains unproven. However, for its intended role in the 1960s, it had numerous advantages. In 1967, Norway carried out a two-week comparative observation test with the Leopard 1 and found that, with closed hatches, the 103 spotted more targets and fired faster than the Leopard. In April to September 1968, two 103s were tested at the British armour school in Bovington, which reported that "the turretless concept of the "S"-tank holds considerable advantage over turreted tanks". In 1973, the BAOR tested the 103 against the Chieftain tank. Availability never fell under 90% and the final report stated, "It has not been possible to prove any disadvantage in the "S" inability to fire on the move." In 1975, two 103s were tested at the American armour center at Fort Knox. The trial demonstrated that the 103 fired more accurately than the M60A1E3, but on an average 0.5 seconds more slowly. It doesn't seem that the lack of a turret compromised the fighting capabilities of the tank, even on the move.
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Jul 14, 2014 12:32
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More S103 chat, this live fire test video is of interest for anyone interested in survivability of post-WW2 afv's: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MiWCpIJ5dBw (turn captions on if your Swedish doesn't go beyond bork bork bork)
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Jul 14, 2014 12:39
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KYOON GRIFFEY JR posted:From wikipedia: Re-read the passage. The passage acknowledges that the S tank has an 'inability to fire on the move', but adds that testing could not prove this is a significant disadvantage. That said, it is not clear that tank testing could do this, given that this is really more a matter of what the tank is used for.
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Jul 14, 2014 12:54
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I wonder what a modernisation program could do for the S-Tank.
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Jul 14, 2014 13:25
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Look no further than the Strv-103D, a remote controlled version developed in the early 90ies.quote:In the mid-1990s, as the Swedish Armed Forces were looking for a new main battle tank, one Strv 103C was upgraded into the Strv 103D. The major changes were the installation of fire-control computer, thermal viewers for both the gunner and the commander, allowing the crew to fight at night-time and in bad weather conditions, and the installation of passive light enhancers for driving. Some minor changes to the suspension system and engine were also made.  The british should have been all over it as the perfect CCTV crime fighting platform 
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Jul 14, 2014 13:28
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Fangz posted:Re-read the passage. The passage acknowledges that the S tank has an 'inability to fire on the move', but adds that testing could not prove this is a significant disadvantage. That said, it is not clear that tank testing could do this, given that this is really more a matter of what the tank is used for. I'm just pointing out that at the time, the ability to fire while moving was not nearly as useful as today due to the primitiveness of stabilizers on turreted tanks. Fighting capabilities on the attack are not a function of being able to fire while actively moving.
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Jul 14, 2014 14:11
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I'm not sure if this is the right thread or not but i'm interested in learning about World War 1. Is there any good documentaries or like not too technical on the battlefield stuff books about it? Looking for something like The World at War series.
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Jul 14, 2014 14:30
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Abu Dave posted:I'm not sure if this is the right thread or not but i'm interested in learning about World War 1. Is there any good documentaries or like not too technical on the battlefield stuff books about it? Looking for something like The World at War series. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fXhiagFG8KE The BBC's The Great War Series sounds like its exactly what you are looking for.
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Jul 14, 2014 14:40
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Awesome that looks perfect thanks!
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Jul 14, 2014 14:42
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Abu Dave posted:I'm not sure if this is the right thread or not but i'm interested in learning about World War 1. Is there any good documentaries or like not too technical on the battlefield stuff books about it? Looking for something like The World at War series. GJ Meyer's A World Undone is an excellent single-tome overview of World War I From there I would recommend Barbara Tuchman's The Guns of August to cover the months leading up to and the first 30 days of the war, which is essential to understanding it in a broader context, followed by Margaret MacMillan's The War that Ended Peace to trace back the European situation dating back to 1800s to see just how far the threads of war went, and finally Paris 1919 to trace the echoes of the armistice forward into the present.
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Jul 14, 2014 14:50
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Cool thanks for the reccomendations. I ordered everyone.
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Jul 14, 2014 15:15
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Don Gato posted:Is there a reason why the British labeled their guns by the weight of the ammunition instead of the diameter of the shell? Or is that just because of the proud tradition of England doing everything differently than the continentals? That's how they did it when their artillery was first standardised. After that, tradition.
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Jul 14, 2014 16:10
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Lathes and milling and poo poo, too, probably. It's a lot easier to build a new gun around an old chambering than it would be to build a new gun around a new chambering, or make a new round for the old guns.
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Jul 14, 2014 19:20
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