 |
| Destroyed PzKfw IV (Source) |
But the Germans did do some mountain fighting in the Soviet Union during that mammoth slugfest from 1941 to 1945. Their advance to the Caucasus springs to mind. So that might possibly be a picture from southern Russia, neh?
But it isn't.
A little background before I get any further along - whilst hunkering down at Chez Sarge during this virus-thing, I've been standing by my work laptop, awaiting the call to action. (Which I don't think is coming anytime soon, I hope I'm wrong.) During this period, while reading the occasional email from work, I've been up on my home computer (which is conveniently next to the laptop table). I've been doing many things to keep from going batshit crazy. (Yes, I see what I did there.)
A friend of mine has written a book, a very good book I might add, and asked me to review it, make suggestions, comments, what have you, which I've been doing. (As you might gather, it's an unpublished work, I hope he gets it published, I'd actually buy a copy, even though I already have the draft, it's that good.) But I can't spend the entire day reading. So I watch videos, music and tank videos. (No Stefan, not those tank videos.) Okay, the occasional History Guy video as well.
Some of my favorite videos are done by this fellow -
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| Nicholas Moran (left) and Z (right). |
For those of you who don't know it, Major Moran works for Wargaming.net as an advisor for their World of Tanks online gaming empire. As he's a currently serving armor officer in the Nevada Army National Guard, he's the right man for the job.
Anyhoo, before I drone on much further, at the end of his series on the Jagdpanzer IV, he made mention of that online game and again stressed the fact that it was free to try out. Which indeed it is. How do I know? Well, I signed up Tuesday evening and spent quite a bit of time over there learning the ropes. I haven't gone head-to-head with my fellow humans just yet, I will be doing that soon.
Is it fun and awesome? You betcha. Otherwise, I wouldn't be doing it.
All that being the preface of what seems to be turning into a somewhat lengthy tale, I was watching another Inside the Chieftain's Hatch series on the Panzerkampfwagen (PzKfw) IV, an example of which lies destroyed in that opening photo, when he mentioned something which made me sit up and say "Huh?" At the end of the third and final episode, Major Moran mentioned that the last PzKfw IV destroyed in battle was of a tank operated by the Syrian Army in the Golan Heights, in June of 1967.
Yup, twenty-two years after the Nazis surrendered.
Of even more interest was the fact that that former German tank had been knocked out by an Israeli Sherman. While I did remember at the time (yes, I was alive, I was fourteen) that the Syrians had a number of former German armored vehicles in their army and that the Israelis had a number of American Shermans in their army (modified to their own excellent standards), I never put two and two together and wondered if the two had met in battle.
Well, they had.
Which was, to me anyway, a very interesting story.
A note on the video, something which a lot of folks do is use the phrase "German panzer tanks." While technically it's not as bad as saying "ATM machine" or "hot water heater," it's close. The generic German word for a tank is "Panzer," which literally means "armor," so saying "panzer tank" could be excused as meaning "armored tank," it still kind of grates, even to this rusty old, non-native semi-German speaker.
Aber ich schweife ab...
No, that's it I think, I've got to get this to the publisher and hire a new editor after Angus McThag noticed in yesterday's post that I had captioned a photo of the Wiesel with it being next to a "real tank," a vehicle which is most emphatically not a tank, real or otherwise. In actuality it's a self-propelled artillery vehicle, armored yes, a tank no. Does it look like a tank a little when viewed by someone focusing on the vehicle in the foreground? Yes, it does. Should I have looked more closely at the photo before captioning it? Yes, I should have. Here's the vehicle in question -
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| German soldiers with 4th Battery, 131st Artillery Battalion carry out a fire mission with a PzH 2000 (Source) |
FWIW, the PzH in that designation stands for Panzerhaubitze, literally "armored howitzer." I know you wanted to know. I mean you come here for the pictures and stay for the German, right? (Well, except for maybe Paweł, I know how the Poles feel about the Niemcy.) Also, as a final note, that PzH 2000 is actually bigger than a tank.
Further reading:
- Last Sherman vs Panzer Battle
- The Last Battle
- Panzers in the Golan Heights
- How Israel Won Many Wars With Outdated World War II Sherman Tanks
- More photos of that wrecked PzKfw IV (Really those are more for juvat...)
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Well, we knew what you meant We are flexable of thought.
ReplyDeleteGood to know! 😁
DeleteI bookmarked the "wwiiafterwwii" website for future reading.
ReplyDeleteBattlefield recovery of armored fighting vehicles. I dread thinking what the inside of a damaged tank contained.
Maybe future posts on WWII era aircraft and ships that served in the military of other countries?
(I searched to see if you had covered this subject, and stumbled across a photo of the Blohm & Voss 141 in a post from 2014, and in an odd coincidence of timing, the post is from 24MAR14 https://oldafsarge.blogspot.com/2014/03/and-now-for-something-completely.html.)
Good post.
Read Death Traps by Belton Cooper, battlefield recovery was his job in WWII, in an armored division.
DeleteMuch of his dislike for the Sherman has been debated by others, but yes, after battle the inside of a knocked out tank was a horror.
Not a bad idea for a future post! (POCIR)
I remember seeing Mr. Cooper on a History Channel program, describing his recovery job - I can't imagine the nightmares he must have had after working in all that gore ...
DeleteI think you could also have said "bat soup crazy", although I understand covid-19 is shed in feces, so maybe you're more correct...
Interesting post - I did not realize that WWII era Panzers had continued to be used all the way up to 1967. I guess not surprising since old Russian/Chinese tanks served into the Viet Nam war...
If it still runs why not use it.
DeleteOf course, the PzKfw IVs got eaten alive by the Israeli Centurions.
Partly because, as Stalin may have said, Quantity does have a quality of its own. The more treads you put on the field, the more chance you have of having treads not get blown up.
DeleteUnless you are not a quality opponent and your opponent is quality. Thus... 73 Easting, where US quality of crews, tanks and technology played whackamole with Sadam's 'finest.' Or most any tank battle the Israelis were in (they were the quality, their opponents, not so much,) as the poor little Panzer IV shows.
One of the few things Stalin got right.
DeleteHey AFSarge;
ReplyDeleteI knew about the Syrians having Mark IV's, the tank was robust and reliable, the mark IV was built through the entire war with upgraded versions being built. What the Americans always called "Tigers" were usually Mark IV's rustling about. As I recall the Israili's upgraded the tank engines, suspension and guns, they used the 105 cannon and Cummins diesel. A lot of people knocked the Sherman during WWII, but the tank could be repaired in the field, unlike the German tanks and reissued. I have read about people picking up freshly painted tanks from depots and finding repaired holed in the armor from what had knocked it out and sometimes pieces of the crew under the paint. My biggest issue with the sherman was the gun, the Americans should have upgraded the gun much sooner when the New MarkIV's came out and they had the uprated gun and the sherman still had the same 75 mm.
Yup, in France every German tank was a "Tiger" and every cannon was an "88." Of course, when you're getting shot at, one tends to rush to judgement. Assume the worst, that way you're ready for anything.
DeleteSurprisingly, for all the trash about the underpowered 75mm gun, it actually did quite well against the German tanks until the Panther and Tigers. If you read through Maj. Moran's essays on Wargaming.net, there is a very good analysis of the ability of all American vehicle-mounted weapons, and information from the US military at the time as to what decisions towards what gun and what role the vehicle was to be used in.
DeleteEven after Normandy, the primary anti-tank vehicle was the tank destroyer. The Sherman, with much heavier armor than a tank destroyer, was still 'infantry support.' The M-26 was the first real US anti-tank tank, with the long 90mm gun, that had been mounted on tank destroyers for 2 years prior.
Front armor-wise, the Sherman was often as good as a Panther at deflecting shots. The side armor was just much more vulnerable to side shots, just like any other tank, including the Tiger series. And, with the invention of a whole slew of anti-tank missiles, grenades, mines and having basically the complete arsenal of France and what Britain left at Dunkirk that wasn't destroyed, plus what the Checks made, what Belgium, Denmark, Holland had, and what Germany produced, it did seem like, at least in the Bocage of Normady, there was a gun behind every bush.
The introduction of field expedient Culin Hedgerow cutters to Shermans meant the Shermans weren't restricted to going down roads, and thus were able to take the enemy in the rear.
One of the major issues the Brits had in utilization of the Sherman, by the way, is they really tended to stay on roads, especially if the Brit unit was a mix of Brit tanks and US made tanks. (Ours were vastly superior, until really the Centurion, at off-roading, and tended not to throw tracks in dirt and mud like the Brit vehicles.) So... Roads. Where every kraut had been spending at least 2 years, maybe more, setting up fields of fire, boresighting guns, studying the terrain...
The bocage was a nightmare. Until that expedient was fielded it was a bloody slogging match!
DeleteThe more I learn about the Sherman, the more I like it. Years ago I read Colonel Hackworth's book, About Face, I viewed the Sherman as a rolling death trap. But the good Colonel liked the Sherman, as I respected that man a GREAT deal, I had to rethink some of the things I learned as a callow youth. Broke my heart when he passed, he had a regular column at military.com (when it was a good website, Lex wrote there from time to time as well) which I devoured.
The Sherman has its faults, but it's still a good tank.
Interesting fun fact. Did you know the Sherman was used as an engineering vehicle? I'm not talking about a modified Sherman hull, no. I'm talking about the full up fighting Sherman.
DeleteWell, see, in the Pacific, at Saipan and Tinian, while the islands were being cleared, the Sea-Bees and whatever the Army had, started clearing off the islands and leveling them in preparation to making the huge airbases that were then used for bombers. At one time, while trying to blow up coral outcrops and bunkers and fortifications. Which soon proved tougher than expected, and were breaking rock drills and other dedicated equipment. So one enterprising Sea Bee wandered over to a nearby Sherman doing overwatch duty (and probably bored to the skull while cooking in the sun) and asked how far an AP round would penetrate said obstacles. Answer? Far enough to put a load of explosives in it. Pretty soon the engineers had Shermans shooting obstacles all over the islands.
American ingenuity!
Delete(Didn't know that, pretty cool.)
I can just imagine some shoe-clerk in the Pentagon reviewing statistics, "Hmmm, bazillion rounds of 75mm APC (armor piercing, capped (an extra cap of hard material at the point) and no Japanese tanks found. WTF? Must investigate, Congressional Investiga (WHAP, as some non-shoe-clerk smacks the reset button...)"
DeleteProbably...
DeleteI was reading the comments and you have the same book I have, "Death Traps". It didn't help that the Sherman used gas rather than diesel.
ReplyDeleteOne of the reasons the Brits called it the "Ronson". In North Africa (I think) the Germans called it the "Tommy Cooker."
DeleteThe Marines loved their diesel Shermans.
DeleteAnd, really, if you throw your tanks at the other guy's fist, expect them to get smashed. Just because you have a tank doesn't mean it's not subject to the attacker/defender ratio (Takes 4 attackers (or more) to defeat an equally competent defender in a fixed position.)
At least crew in the Sherman could get out, versus most everyone else's tanks. (Oh, No. My Tank is on Fire.)
Ah yes, the "Oh God, the tank is on fire" test. The driver and the radioman on the PzKfw III were doomed. (No hatches for them!)
DeleteOnly the Russians used much diesel for tanks. It didn't keep their crews any safer. IIRC, only 20% of the crew survived on average in knocked out T-34s. Only 20% of the crews of knocked out Shermans died on average. The big killer was penetrations piercing ammo casings and starting a powder fire. That would usually escalate quickly and all the ammo would go off. With shells stored in the crew compartment, any ammo fire would kill anyone who couldn't bail out quickly.
DeleteThe ammo was the big killer after a penetration.
DeleteThe itch got worse, and I started looking at Israeli aircraft during the 1948-1947 time period,and the Syrian and Egyptian aircraft used at the same time.
ReplyDeleteIt seems that both the IDF and the Egytian Air Force were flying Spitfires but I didn't find any hard facts about air combat between Israeli Spitfires and Egyptian Spitfires.
Wiki does mention this.
"Two Israeli aircraft were shot down and on 22 May 1948, Egyptian Spitfires attacked the RAF Ramat David airfield, believing that it had already been taken over by Israeli forces. The first raid surprised the British, and resulted in the destruction of several RAF aircraft on the ground, and the deaths of four airmen. The British were uncertain whether the attacking Spitfires had come from Arab or Israeli forces. When second and third raids followed shortly afterwards, the British were ready and the entire Egyptian force was shot down – the last aircraft being baited for some time as the RAF pilots attempted to get a close look at its markings." But details are lacking about the type of aircraft the British were using.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egyptian_Air_Force#1948_Arab%E2%80%93Israeli_War
The itch feels a bit better.
Wow, didn't know that one!
Delete...Just as strange in that war, Israel bombed Cairo using American made B17s escorted by German built Communist Czechoslovakian ME109s defending them against British built Spitfires. That would have ben surreal - a B17 escorted by a flight of ME109s...
Delete(Don McCollor)...sorry, that me with the B17/Me109 post just previous....
DeleteWow!
DeleteGreat story Don.
No problem!
DeleteI looked at the first photo and your early remarks and thought, “Camp Roberts or Hunter-Liggett.”
ReplyDeleteThose would fit!
DeleteGreat and fun post Sarge!
ReplyDeleteThe Chieftain has fantastic videos. He delves into a lot of actual data and information and along the way destroys a lot of interwebz "facts," including the propensity for Shermans to burn and the "uselessness" of its 75. Another of his targets is main gun tank killing power, pointing out rightly that just because a gun can perform such and such on a test range doesn't mean it will do that in combat. There really is a difference, he points out, between actual combat in the real world and fudd lore on the interwebz. It's pretty refreshing!
I've never been all that interested in armor. Kind of fun to read about but they don't fly and they're pretty easy to sink. That said, I do remember talking with one of the National Guard cannon cockers at an armory open house when I was a kid. He explained the difference between his M-109 and a real tank. I asked him what would happen if his vehicle and a russian tank shot at each other at the same time. "We'd blow up," he said, and then they'd blow up two seconds later." I still think it's an interesting concept.
The US 75mm as found on Shermans actually did quite well, and the ammunition and gun were reliable. And were made with the finest of metals, so the armor piercing ammo did not shatter when hitting something.
DeleteIt's almost like, for some reason, if you use slave labor and are short of materials, your quality might get spotty.
Thanks Shaun, Major Moran is even better in person!
DeleteTrue they don't fly and their seakeeping ability sucks, but they really did get warfare out of the "everybody dig in and start the slaughter" type of WWI thing. But having watched the Major squirm around inside many a tank, I understand the infantryman's love of the outdoors, and a good entrenching tool!
Beans - If you use quality materials, you get quality results.
Delete"Hey why didn't that round fire? What do you mean it's full of sawdust?"
A lot of those slave laborers did their bit to screw the Nazis. We owe them a debt which cannot ever be repaid.
Hey AFSarge and Bean;
DeleteI'm gonna relay a story that was told to me while I was working at Ford in the late 90's and I was reading the book "Death Traps" and my foreman who was an old guy saw me reading that book and sat down next to me and told me "this is no shit...My Dad was a tanker in WWII and they were in France in pursuit of the Germans and they were going down this road and went around the corner and saw a German with a Panzerfaust aiming at them and it was close enough that it would have been a guaranteed hit, well My Dad tried to bring his Thompson on target that he had on the turret but he knew that there was no way that he would be able to get the German before the guy fired. Well the guy hit the lever and the Panzerfaust blew up and killed that damm kraut deader than shit. My dad said that was the closest close call he ever had over there." I had chills listening to that story.
Damn!!
Delete"A lot of those slave laborers did their bit to screw the Nazis. We owe them a debt which cannot ever be repaid."
DeleteNah. I think most of them are getting a much better reward than we could give them.
You're probably right juvat, and they earned that reward. Many times over.
Delete(Don McCollor) ...there is an story of a B17 taking a FW 20mm hit direct in one of the main tanks, They didn't blow up, didn't catch fire, the self-sealing tanks held so they didn't even loose any gas. The shell was recovered from the fuel tank. They were sworn to secrecy, because there was inside the shell was no explosive, only a little note in Polish from a slave laborer. This is all we can do to help you now"
DeleteI have heard that story.
DeleteTwo things.
ReplyDeleteTo someone getting shot at by big tracked box thingy, well, it's a tank. Whether it's an actual tank or it's a tankette, armored personel carrier, infantry fighting vehicle, armored recovery vehicle, tracked howitzer, unarmored tracked transport, a bulldozer, a Killdozer... Tracks and coming towards one while doing tanky things? It's a tank... Punditry is for survivors.
As to World of Tanks. I actually prefer the lower tier vehicles. They are fun, quirky and you stand less chance of some ass-hat whose just spent real money to buy premium upgrades and premium ammo and, less frequently, cheat codes. I hate it when I have a perfect shot at the arse of a vehicle I should be able to kill easily, and my rounds just go skipping off. Yeah. Right. and then my tank mysteriously blows up when I'm behind a rock because his gun hits my front sprocket. Yeah, cheater.
But the lower tiers? Fun. Especially lower tier light tanks.
I haven't played in a while. Got burned out by not being able to buy premium ammo and people calling me bad names because I was actually just there for stress relief and for fun. Some of the players take it a tad too seriously.
Concur on both counts. I've met some "hard core" online wargamers in person, absolute useless geeks. So yeah, I'll live in the shadows of the lower tier for now. (Besides which, it's free, and I am ever the cheap bastid.)
DeleteHerd core gamers (wargamer or otherwise) need to spend some real time in the real world ...same with some engineers (DAMHIK).
DeleteHahaha! Very true Skip!
Delete"To someone getting shot at by big tracked box thingy, well, it's a tank. "
DeleteTo someone who's just crossed the FEBA*, doing 540 minimum at 100'AGL, any vehicle headed in your opposite direction is a....TARGET! If he's tank like looking and seems to be spewing light from four barrels, he's...a very important TARGET! and needs to be destroyed right F'in now! Preferably with napalm pour encourager les autres. ZSU-23-4's must die!
*FEBA Forward Edge of the Battle Area. The line between the good guys and the bad guys. Although that line is not black and white. Usually crossing it is determined by tracers coming at you or not.
Hhmm, perhaps a post on AAA? Nah, that would freak you out unless you got to blow them up. 😂
DeleteNah, not anymore. I fly high above most AAA. Now SAMS on the other hand...
DeleteFlying telephone poles, we hates them!
DeleteWhen I was in AFROTC @LSU one of my instructors jokingly said: "Ever consider that maybe the bad guys have figured out a way to shoot real telephone poles? LOL
DeleteHahaha!
DeleteWar Thunder is a much better simulation, even in Arcade Mode. It's still a game, but a more accurate one.
DeleteI'll have to give that one a shot. It certainly looks good.
DeleteAnd... Moran's your friend? SQEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE! (said while holding hands to face like a Japanese school girl fan-freaking when she sees her favorite pop star...)
ReplyDeleteWell, I've met him, he's a really cool guy (and very funny, great sense of humor), and we are Facebook friends. But it's not like we hang out. (There's that whole distance thing.)
DeleteFor all the horrors of crew of knocked out tank, infantry took much heavier losses. It is much better chances to survive arty barrage under 2 inches of steel...
ReplyDeleteI was just repeating something an actual infantryman told me.
DeletePersonally, I'd rather be in the tank.
My roommate at Clark AB had been an M60A3 gunner in the Texas Guard before going Air Force. He called infantry "crunchies".
DeleteI've heard that term from other tankers.
Delete(Don McCollor...remember Willie and Joe watching a tank go past "I'd rather dig in a moving foxhole attracts the eye"...
DeleteThey do have a point.
DeleteSoviets loved diesel shermans for reliability and comfort compared to t-34.
ReplyDeleteT-34 was NOT a comfortable ride.
DeleteFrom what I read, the T-34, well, most Soviet vehicles ran better after about running 10 hours or so because the engines finally ground out all the imperfections in the engines. Or they blew up. Or both.
DeleteHahaha!
DeleteIf you like world of tanks, try out world of warships it is even better imho. If lag is not an issue, meet me on EU server, ign ewokgoeth.
ReplyDeleteYeah, I've been looking at that one as well. I'll keep that in mind.
DeleteI prefer, in World of Warships, fighting against the computer. I play to whack things, not be whacked all the darned time.
DeleteAnd... I hate torpedoes.
Torpedoes and mines, hates them we do.
DeleteAny talk of heavy tracked vehicles brings out the p.o.ed young float bridge enlisted man into the usually grumpy old man. Nearly every time we build a bridge for the tankers, they would lock their tracks while steering. This resulted in a lot of bent decking. We spent days with crowbars bending the deck back in shape.
ReplyDeleteAs an aside, this was a favorite assignment by the NCOs for their "problem children". Yes, I spent many after hours doing it.
Ouch!
Delete(On both counts.)
I've won a number of bar bets with "When was the last PzKfw IV destroyed in battle?"
ReplyDeleteAnd T-34s STILL rumble across battlefields in assorted 3rd World Hell Holes. Not a bad track (Ha!) record. Of course, if the Other Guy has an '80s surplus Carl Gustaf ... well, life sucks.
The T-34 is a successful design simply because of its longevity. And it's a pretty good tank!
DeleteIt's a pretty okay tank. The gun, for all that people go on about, was barely able to penetrate a PzKfw III. Until they upgunned to the 85mm.
DeleteThe interior was rough, and was just as deadly to the crew as the enemy.
The engine and transmission were crap. They weren't designed to last long. Because, well, the tanks weren't designed to last long.
The armor itself? Though sloped, quality wasn't Job 1.
Not a great track, just a good track.
But, in quantities, good enough.
It did its job.
DeleteIn great quantities, it counted as a great tank. Just not individually.
DeleteQuantity has a quality all its own.
DeleteSince I know nothing of these dog-faced pony soldiers driving "armored tanks," I can only comment flippantly on that PzH 2000. It looks like they put an ill-fitting camper shell on a tank. I truly believe the reason we get some of the weapons we have in the U.S. military is because of how cool they look. Functionality is a secondary quality, but if it looks good while it's killing the enemy, we'll buy it.
ReplyDeleteWell, in the PzH 2000's defense, it's an armored, self-propelled artillery piece. Which do tend to look like camper shells on a tank chassis. Heh, never thought of it that way.
DeleteI prefer function over form, in all things. Having both is good, if you can get it.
With a self-loading 155mm howitzer, with ammo hoists and cranes and stuff to reload from a reload vehicle. Plus one needs room for the recoil mechanism and all the crew stuff.
DeleteGee, Big Navy, want to see how to do a self-loading 155mm gun?
Our self-propelled howitzers have a shorter camper top, because they are not self-loading.
The Germans have offered to sell us the PzH 2000, either the whole schmear or just the turret to put on our own tracks, but that violates 'not made here.'
The things we could have done with two 155 guns on that ship. Using more or less standard 155 munitions (which was the original concept). We strayed from that path and now what do we have.
DeleteA big missile boat, that's it.
I remember the Navy experimented with an 8" lightweight gun.
Deletehttps://www.globalsecurity.org/military/systems/ship/systems/mclwg.htm
Sometimes the Navy seems all hat and no cattle.
DeleteYa think? LCS anyone? I don't think that even qualifies as a hat. I tend to think functionality should be THE ONLY thing we care about. Employing a huge defensive workforce seems to be the only thing we actually care about.
DeleteThe US Navy threw away all it's knowledge on gun-tech that made US naval artillery the best in the world. The 6" autoloaders from the Salem class? Why didn't we use that tech, or modernize it in a 155mm gun? Same with 8" gun tech, or 10" gun tech, or 16" gun tech.
DeleteThe 5"/54s are the best guns in their naval class, and they came out in... the 50's and 60's. Best in the world. In their class.
And we field the POS that's on the DDX?
What is wrong with us? WHAT IS WRONG WITH US?
It's like NASA throwing, absolutely throwing, away every good thing learned from Apollo and Saturn for that flying turd of a Shuttle. And then to take what they learned on the Shuttle, make the Constellation system, and then when THE WORST PRESIDENT EVER cancels it, they again throw it all away, so when they get the go-ahead to make a new big rocket, do they go back to Constellation? NO, they piss it away on SLS.
THIS MAKES ME SICK. I AM TIRED OF IT ALL!!!
Tuna - You get me.
DeleteBeans - I blame the swollen ranks of the MBAs in industry. It's almost mandatory to have an MBA to get ahead in business, most of them are useless in my experience. The DoD is a bloated dead cow with lots of hyenas and jackals in the defense industry lining up to gorge at the carcass. Makes me sick as well, I know we can do better, but we throw fire trucking panaceas at the problem. (TQM, Six Sigma, etc.)
DeleteThe French AMX-30 AuF1 has one heck of an oversized turret.
DeleteBe interesting to see the inside of that beast!
DeleteThere may be some 20cm L60 tubes laying about some Navy yard, from KMS Prinz Eugen. Nice guns. Clone and match them to the autoloaders off the last CG's or the Mark 71, and reach out. Shame Gerald Bull was curtailed in his commercial activities, he could have made them sing. An 8 inch waterborne version of the G series howitzers, full bore base bleed rocket assist, stick JDAM guidance kits on them. Make them smoothbore, that's mature tech. Take the lightening technology from the M777 series, might squeeze two twin turrets on a Zumwalt. Just even one tube would do, one working is better than none, eh. RoF per tube 6 with guidance, 12 without (data from Mark 71). 24 x 250lb a minute to a conservative guesstimate range 40nm, CEP irrelevant. Make some of those decoys and chaff, mini Chevaline for giggles, or even "MIRV"ed with 6 105mm standard shells with kits similar to M1156, and how many could one stack in a magazine, factoring in cost per round? This Corona solitary is getting to me. Any jobs in procurement for me?
ReplyDeleteI wish, you have some good ideas.
Delete