Lonewolf
Moderator
Gods Country
Posts: 2,551
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SPGs
Dec 30, 2006 9:53:01 GMT
Post by Lonewolf on Dec 30, 2006 9:53:01 GMT
???OK I am about to ask what is probably gonna be a stupid question but...
Mobile artillery/SPGs? what is their purpose?
I mean if you are going to mobilise an artillery piece then why not give it that bit extra and make the gun traversable. Oh yes look, a tank!
I guess what I am trying to say is that the SPG/STuG/Priest type vehicle seems a bit superfluous.
Are they guns on wheels (tracks) or tanks without turrets?
Wolfie
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SPGs
Dec 30, 2006 12:32:39 GMT
Post by John Prigent on Dec 30, 2006 12:32:39 GMT
In the days of Priests and Stugs the worthwhile artillery pieces were too heavy to manhandle for more than a few feet, so putting them on tracked chassis made a lot of sense. Towed guns just cannot get in and out of action as quickly as SPs. They all had only limited traverse simply because there was no way in those days of getting 360 degree traverse in a workable turret for anything heavier than light AA guns. Heavy artillery didn't actually need all-round traverse, it was normally sited for a specific fire mission so only needed fine adjustment. As time went on the technology improved and all-round traverse became possible, so we now have it for guns up to 155mm and no army has introduced new-build limited traverse types for many years.
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SPGs
Dec 30, 2006 14:23:21 GMT
Post by John Tapsell on Dec 30, 2006 14:23:21 GMT
Modern artillery is generally based on a highly mobile tracked (or occasionally wheeled) chassis with a fully rotating turret for a number of reasons. - It can keep up with other armoured vehicles (towing something behind a truck when travelling cross-country is not quick).
- It is quick to deploy when reaching a firing position (no unhooking of a field piece, staking out the firing plate and preparing the ammunition before firing)
- It allows a reasonable amount of 'on board' ammunition to be carried for immediate use
- Most importantly of all, it allows the gun to be moved very quickly someplace else after a fire mission (before the bad guy's counter battery fire can be directed to where your gun fired from - all modern armies have highly specialised radar systems that can track shells back to their firing point).
- The (lightly) armoured chassis and turret provides a reasonable amount of protection from shrapnel and small arms fire (generally equivalent to most APCs - without enhanced armour packages). An SPG is not armoured to the same degree as a tank and it would be impractical to do so (weight, performance and the need for larger access doors for sustained operation).
- They can also be sealed against NBC attack for a limited period (as per most modern AFVs)
- Finally - just because it has tracks, never assume it can do the same job as a tank. Artillery has a completely different purpose to a tank - tanks are precision killing weapons designed to take out individual targets at relatively close quarters. Artillery is an area denial weapon designed to destroy or suppress whole units by blanketing a map reference with explosives from a long way away (even so, some artillery ordnance can be used for precision work).
Cheers, John
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SPGs
Dec 30, 2006 15:13:05 GMT
Post by Don Cabriolet on Dec 30, 2006 15:13:05 GMT
SPGs got started as a way to get a bigger gun on an otherwise obsolete chassis - the German Panzer I - basically a machine gun carrier was reused to carry a 150mm artillery piece. It wasn't there as an anti-tank device, but to support infantry as they advanced hence self propelled gun.
The other category is tank destroyers - which are lower, because they don't have the added height of the turret, so easier to camouflage - but at the expense of manouverability - you have to move the whole tank to aim the gun. They usually have a high velocity gun to defeat armour, and that's their only purpose.
It really gets confusing when you consider the German Stug III came in two versions, one with a 75mm armour piercing gun, and another with a 105mm artillery version that fired high explosive to defeat concrete pillboxes etc. One's a tank destroyer - the others an artillery piece - only Treadheads can tell at a glance :-)
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