SOLAR MACHINE: Military Hardware

The British introduced armoured vehicles with internal combustion engine ("tanks") into land warfare in 1916 on the battlefields of the Western Front trench war; the First World War as most imagine it.

Germany had addressed the same problems with more infantry and artillery innovations instead of with tanks. Its anti-tank defences employed many means, but they weren't fully satisfactory. The British simply concentrated too many tanks on a too narrow front and were thus able to overwhelm the defenders on the battlefield if they didn't blunder (the exploitation of this breakthroughw as still a problem in search of a solution).

- - - - -

The tanks of WWI were very imperfect, and one of their imperfections was a very weak armour plating. Their armour was barely able to withstand hand grenade explosions and steel-core bullets fired from normal machine guns (7.92x57mm AP).

One of the few German development programs against this new problem was the development of the granddaddy of all heavy calibre machine guns: The Tank und Flieger (TuF, tank and aircraft) machine gun. It was basically an enlarged Maxim machine gun with a more powerful cartridge that offered the necessary penetration power to turn tanks into swiss cheese and it had the necessary external ballistic performance to serve as air defence in a good radius.

fully automatic, water-cooled, Maxim action

calibre 13x92mmSR (semi rimmed)

approx. 300 rpm cyclic

penetration of 24 mm steel at 100 m
(90° / 120-150 kg/mm2 strength)

penetration of 18 mm steel at 300 m
(90° / 120-150 kg/mm2 strength)

(common tank armour of that time was 6-16 mm)

The first prototype was demonstrated on July 1918, 50 pre-series copies were ordered in August 1918. The army didn't get any copies any more because the war ended shortly after.

This kind of firepower would have been badly needed in 1919 if the Western Entente powers had realised their plans for many thousands of new tanks and ground attack aircraft.

- - - - -

Such heavy calibre machine guns proved to be rather useless as anti-air and anti-tank weapons in WW2 and were instead used for air combat and ground/ground fires.

Their weak performance in the air defence during WW2 should be seen in context of the vastly increased aircraft speeds and aircraft firepower. The .50cal machine guns used by the U.S. Navy proved to be near-useless for the protection of destroyers and capital ships in part because Imperial Japanese Navy aircraft released their torpedoes and bombs outside of the effective range of .50cal weapons.

The poor performance against tanks was on the other hand a product of a revolution in tank technology that occurred in the 1930's. WWI tanks were bulletproof, but most WW2 tanks were shell-proof. Even early WW2 tanks weren't well protected - armour thicknesses as up to 30 mm weren't uncommon. Such an armour was able to defeat anything up to calibre 25mm, but rarely anything better. The famous T-34 shock was in part the shock cause by the T-34's shell-proof front and side armour. It was pre-dated by British Mathilda tanks and French Char B-1(bis) tanks, both of which were shell-proofed as well. The Germans had still defeated these in battle and didn't expect similar or better armour in the Soviet Union.

Weak anti-tank weapons such as the M2HB and anti-tank rifles were still useful against scouting vehicles and protected auxiliary vehicles such as the half tracks, of course.

(Surviving TuF example in the WTS museum, Germany.

photo courtesy of milpic.de, description detail here)

The TuF (and the comparable M2HB) would have been a useful heavy machine gun for the "heavy" companies of infantry battalions during the 20's and 30's - a period that luckily experienced little modern warfare. This is probably the reason why these heavy calibre machine guns never rose to fame as anti-tank and anti-aircraft weapons, but as air combat and vehicle-mounted ground combat weapons.

By the way; the same 13mm calibre cartridge was also used for a 13mm Tankgewehr in 1918, the granddaddy of all anti-material rifles (a.k.a. anti-tank rifles)!

Sven Ortmann

Friday, July 30, 2010

Ridiculous

This is BAe's idea for a GCV: A ridiculous antenna farm.

This is how vehicles look when they're overloaded with gadgets after their third upgrade. A vehicle in CAD stage shouldn't look fucked up already.

Maybe they should think about this project more like a soldier and taxpayer, less like an electronics engineer.
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Friday, July 23, 2010

Helicopters & mobilisation

There's a most important difference between small and great wars, and it's trivial: The scope.

You can pour high-end equipment and well-trained personnel into a small war, but that's not sustainable in a great war.

Great wars have the nasty habit of requiring as much resources as are available, and this includes mediocre and inferior resources. The cream alone doesn't suffice in great wars.

A military institution in Europe should first and foremost prepare for great wars. It doesn't need to be really ready for one, but it should at the very least be prepared to get ready a.s.a.p. once that becomes necessary.

Now there's a Cold War left-over that's quite strange. The Cold War demanded permanent readiness in Europe, and the WW3 scenarios left little to no time mobilisation. We partially ditched the idea of harnessing reserves and civilian assets for warfare based on these scenarios - especially in the former alliance frontier state of Germany (both). We had mobilisation plans, but their scope was laughable in comparison to the mobilisations of 1914/15 and 1939/40.

Today we're in the strange situation that our great war preparations - having lost much of our attention to stupid overseas adventures - don't seem to harness the reserves and civilians better than during the Cold War although we're now in a relative geographical position that would allow for a mobilisation in the event of war. Said mobilisation would probably not be decisive because it would take months, but it has at least become a possibility.

Let's take the recently covered helicopter topic as an example. We have approx. these German military helicopter inventories projected for 2015 (excluding naval helicopters, including orders):

82 CH-53 medium/heavy lift helicopters
122 NH90 TTH transport helicopters (more planned)
80 Tiger attack helicopter
100 Bo 105P1M light helicopter (liaison)
14 EC 135 light helicopter (training)

(Many additional old Bo 105 would probably be left in a cannibalized shape.)

Meanwhile, we have a civilian inventory of

789 helicopters in Germany, among them

119 R44

111 EC 135

52 MBB Bk 117

51 AS 355

43 Bell 206

32 Bo 105

26 EC 120

24 Hughes 369

18 AS 332

18 EC 135

15 A 109

12 Bell 407

10 Bell 212

9 MD-900

7 AB 412 / Bell 412

7 AB 204 / Bell 205

7 SA 330

6 S-76

6 SA 365

This includes few helicopters suitable for troops & material transport. The overwhelming majority of them would be suitable for liaison, MedEvac and observation (such as march route overwatch) purposes. I left away most very light helicopters such as two-seaters, as these would only be suitable for basic pilot training.

I think it would be a good idea to not only think of the common MilSpec helicopters as possible military helicopters. We could and most likely would commandeer civilian helicopters and the related personnel into service in the event of a great war.
These helicopters would most likely provide much of the liaison, medical transport and even some troop & cargo transport capacity.

This leads to the possible conclusion that there's no great need for liaison helicopters in the peacetime military; we would easily have enough of them with civilian registration. The MedEvac and liaison capacities would rest greatly on civilian types and this should influence force structure and especially our expectations. It makes no sense to develop and procure a handful of gold-plated MedEvac helicopters if we would have a 90% civilian medevac fleet in war, for example. Well, unless you are a fan of stupid small wars.

Sven Ortmann

Data on civilian helicopters: Thanks to LBA (Luftfahrtbundesamt).

Photo copyrights "Igge" (NH90) and "Stahlkocher" (EC135); Wikipedia users.
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Wednesday, July 21, 2010

The "West German RPG-7"

The RPG-7 gets much attention because it's been proliferated all over the world, and therefore its role in modern conflicts. There are even admirers who miss such a weapon in NATO's arsenals; a simple, cheap launcher of acceptable weight with a wide range of warheads.

Well, the Bundeswehr actually had a very, very close equivalent till the 90's when it was replaced by the Panzerfaust 3.

I'm writing about the Panzerfaust 44 "Lanze" (lance). Panzerfaust 44-2 and Panzerfaust 44-2A1 actually; the difference is the sight mount.

Here's a comparison with a standard contemporary RPG-7:

	Panzerfaust 44 Lanze	RPG-7 with PG-7V
Calibre: Barrel	44 mm	40 mm
Calibre: Warhead	67 mm	85 mm
Length unloaded	880 mm	950 mm
Length loaded	1180 mm	?
Weight unloaded	7.82 kg	7.9 kg
Weight loaded	10.12 kg	9.15 kg
Muzzle velocity	170 m/s	120 m/s
Maximum velocity	212 m/s	300 m/s
Armour penetration RHAeq CE	375 mm	330 mm

The performance difference in weight : velocity can be explained with a useful characteristic of the PzF 44: It has a (slightly) reduced backblast thanks to an iron powder counter-mass behind the propellant. The penalty is a higher weight. The weapon was still not cleared for use in confined spaces, though.

The lower velocities also limited the official effective ranges to 200m (moving taget) or 300 m (stationary target) instead of 300 and 500 m respectively. The Lanze's telescopic sight had 100-200-300-400 markings, though.

Western Germany did not develop larger and different warheads for the Lanze, unlike the Soviet Union and Russia with the RPG-7. There were no thermobaric, tandem shaped charge or larger calibre warheads for Lanze. That's why the RPG-7 of today is much more powerful - given the right ammunition - than Lanze ever was. There's a rumour about the existence of a multi-purpose grenade for Lanze, but it wasn't mentioned in the Bundeswehr's field manual (ZDV 3-16).

A larger calibre would have lead to unacceptable weight increases unless the principle of the munition had been changed. In the end, the Bundeswehr introduced the Panzerfaust 3 instead, which had a 110 mm warhead and its 60 mm barrel is part of the ammunition (only the sights are reusable). The Panzerfaust 3 had an unacceptably long development and testing time, being introduced in 1992 after a tactical requirement of 1973. It had been obsolete against ERA-equipped Warsaw Pact tanks for ten years at the time of its introduction.

Different versions of the Panzerfaust 3 weapon have been procured; especially an anti-ERA version (1998) and the Bunkerfaust, meant to defeat opponents behind walls.

The problematic lack of an intermediate infantry grenade munition between 40mmx46 low velocity grenades and an about 11 kg heavy Panzerfaust 3 round led to the late introduction of the RGW 60 and in the future possibly RGW 90 as well.

Sven Ortmann

P.S.: If in doubt, trust my figures about the Lanze. They're from an official document. Some web pages assert a higher range against moving targets and different sight range markings.
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Sunday, July 18, 2010

The first week of a peer vs. peer air war; a dilemma

It's been a classic dilemma of the Cold War: What should be done early on in an air war?

* Should the air forces focus on the air superiority fight (fighter vs. fighter) at first?

* Should they focus on the destruction of enemy air defences first?

* Maybe attack enemy airfields?

* Maybe blow up some important bridges?

* Attacks on hostile troops on road marches?

* Attacks on hostile troops in contact with friendly troops?

* Should squadrons relocate to more survivable airfields or stay at their home airbases?

* What kind of mix would be optimal?

The Israelis had this kind of dilemma - especially in the surprising Yom Kippur War 1973. They seem to have improvised. The substantial losses of their attack aircraft forced a campaign against hostile battlefield air defences on them in the midst of the conflict. In the end, lots of technological changes and special conditions prevent the Yom Kippur example from giving us reliable guidance about how to answer the dilemma.

The dilemma wasn't nearly as serious in the conflict against Iraq. The Iraq was simply no peer and not capable of immediate decisive action on the ground or air. Fighting against Iraqis was even less than a sparring match in comparison to WW3 expectations. Again, there's little to learn from the campaigns against Iraqi forces in regard to the basic prioritization dilemma.

- - - - -

There might be an answer to the dilemma, though: Surprisingly, this may be a technological answer (and we should be sceptical about it for this reason).

It's obvious that several of the aforementioned options are related to the survivability of combat aircraft. Survivability against hostile fighters, against hostile attack aircraft (when on the ground) and against hostile air defences.

Now what if we were able to take this out of the equation? Let's assume we had a silver bullet that can strike operational level targets (typically 50-500 km depth, for example) while the artillery can strike close targets (and substitute for lacking close air support).

The air forces would then be able to fight for air war superiority, fight air force vs. air force. They would have the best probability of success, could later turn on the hostile ground forces and deliver a strong argument for the politicians who hopefully keep negotiating about an end of the folly.

OK, which weapon or munition could render fighters, air defences and attacks on friendly airfields quite irrelevant? The (quasi-) ballistic missile!

Such missiles are very survivable against most air defence systems, have a useful range for the operational level of war (the longer the range the faster - and thus more survivable!) and nowadays such missiles have the necessary pinpoint accuracy for the destruction of stationary (fixed and reconnoitered semi-mobile) targets: Air fields, long-range air defence batteries, bridges).

NATO air forces (and navies) have understood their potential, their potency as threat - and accordingly spent a great deal of attention and money on hard kill defences against such missiles.

They did not embrace the (quasi-)ballistic missile themselves, though. Missile types with less than 500 km range would fit into the treaties that are in force (except possibly ICOC 3-3).

It may be a prejudice, but maybe it's simply bureaucratic inertia coupled with conservativeness and special interests (fighter pilot generals wanting more fighter wings, not more unsexy missile batteries) that keeps these missiles outside of NATO air forces.

Foreign policy strategy (promotion of ICOC & BM counter-proliferation efforts in general) might play a role as well.

The exposure to Third World ballistic missiles based on Russian 1950's technology has distorted the perception of the (quasi-)ballistic missile threat. Such missiles are at times interpreted as useful only with non-conventional warheads.

It's almost forgotten that NATO had such battlefield missiles with conventional warheads in service during the Cold War!

- - - - -

There are several modern designs of accurate (quasi-)ballistic missiles:

The U.S. ATACMS Block II missile:

supposedly 300 k range

The Russian Iskander missile:

supposedly 400 km range.

The Israeli LORA missile:

Supposedly 300 km range.

The payload is several hundred kilograms each - enough.

The most obvious choice for NATO forces would probably be to introduce (more) ATACMS Block II into Corps- or Division-level army artillery units and to produce in license a longer-range version of LORA (to be honest, its's most likely cheaper to let them develop a LORA 2 and to buy a license than to develop a missile of our own!).

The dilemma could then be solved quite easily; NATO air forces could alternate between defensive (defence with fighters and air defences) and offensive (additional strike packages against battlefield air defences and relatively easily accessible installations) phases until it has a won the air power vs. air power contest in one shape or another.

Strike missions against airfields, fixed and semi-mobile area air defence assets, bridges and the like (ministries?) would be substituted for with the fires from 300-500 km (quasi-)ballistic missile regiments.

Close air support could early on be substituted for with army aviation and artillery fires.

So far, the Western air forces don't seem to believe that this is necessary, though. They prefer air-launched cruise missiles of about 250-300 km range instead. Such cruise missiles require sorties just as the classic strike packages would do.

Maybe we should pay more attention to (quasi-)ballistic missiles as a gap in our air forces instead of paying obedient attention to other big ticket projects (fighters, bombers, air launched cruise missiles) and to the role of ballistic missiles as threats only.

F-35 and Typhoon critics are numerous - how many critical remarks about the lack of SRBMs in Western air forces did you see (except here)?

Sven Ortmann
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Friday, July 9, 2010

The 24/7 air attack paradox

I could swear I wrote about this a long time ago, but I never find the article whenever I search for the post with my search function.

Well, here's it (again?), in short:

I see a problem in modern air/ground attack technology, and it takes a long look back to the prime time of air power to explain this.

The German army was almost completely unable to move in daylight on the Western Front from June 1944 till the end of WW2. Few exceptions proved the rule, and all of them were tied to poor weather phases.

The Western Allies achieved this with several thousand tactical aircraft that roamed the skies during daylight (very, very few were on non-strategic missions during the night). Every move in daylight even by small units was possible only along certain roads - especially roads that offered concealment (trees) in short intervals. The troops were then able to sprint into concealment once aircrafts were spotted. Even that was pointless if hostile aircraft were overhead all the time, of course.

The result was a huge problem on the tactical level, but it was an unmitigated disaster on the operational level. Reserves moved extremely slow and counter-attacks were much delayed. German operational art died the death of lags and slowness.

The critical component in this historical case was the Allies' inability to achieve a similar effect at night. There would have been no reason to restrict necessary marches to poor visibility phases if that had not offered effective concealment.

- - - - -

This is where I see a problem in today's air/ground attack avionics. We turned the night into day, supposedly because this was an improvement. The avionics and training costs for the night attack ability were quite high - were they worth it?

Our enemies would not be motivated to restrict themselves to night marches. They would be willing to march 24/7. The extremely valuable slowness and lag factors would not be in effect (at least not as much as back then). Instead, we could expend a limited quantity of expensive precision munitions against a much larger quantity of mobile targets.

Maybe that would suffice to compensate for the lack of the slowness & lag factors. I tend to believe that it would not if we really fought against a peer instead of against a 4th rate developing country military equipped with 'monkey model' hardware.

In short; I don't consider air/ground night attack capability as a desirable feature for a large share of NATO air/ground capable combat aircraft. It's also very questionable for attack helicopters, mostly for fratricide concerns.

The night air/ground capability looks like a prime candidate for luxury spending and gold-plating awards to me. It was very fashionable during the 80's and 90's and has become quite self-evident since then, but somehow I doubt that the operational consequences are really understood.

Sven Ortmann

Friday, July 2, 2010

Small innovations

Small things that made (or could've made) a big difference.

It's about time to pay attention to the potential of small, unspectacular innovations that often pay off much more than costly, complex ones. Here's a list of examples:

* Submarine snorkel

Allied countermeasures to German WW2 submarines concentrated largely onc atching the submrines on the surface twhen they were cruising or recharging their batteries. The snorkel (a refined design, much better than the slightly older primitive Dutch snorkel) bought several months time for the subs by allowing them to recharge batteries at speriscope depth.

Snorkels are still standard equipment on modern conventional subs.

* Torpedo nets

Tarent 1940, Pearl Harbour 1941. Both times a proper employment of torpedo nets would have prevented most of the damage. They were actually a 19th century innovation, but apparently not sexy enough to get due attention.

The principle was extremely simple and cheap: Keep a net between the anchored ship and the torpedo launcher. it did usually work fine.

* Wehrmacht petrol cans

Durable, portable, stackable (x5), cheap - and avaialable in numbers that allowed the parallel refuelling of vehicles at a quick pace. It's incredible how such a simple piece of metal was able to speed up motorised and armoured divisions by 1940.

Armies that relied on dedicated fuel trucks with pumps readied their forces much slower for action, at times wasting decisive hours with slow refuelling.

The use of petrol cans and barrels instead of dedicated tankers also had a huge effect on logistical demands. Fuel demand varies a lot between heavy fighting (breakthrough) and rapid movement (pursuit, exploit) phases. This wasn't well-understood till well into WW2.
A simple truck could load either ammunition, fuel or almost any other supplies while dedicated fuel trucks couldn't even load drinking water. This specialisation disadvantage persists till today and suggests that an army should have enough dedicated vehicles for basic supply needs and versatile carriers for the additional, situation-specific supply needs.

* R4/M "Orkan" rocket

A cheap 20 mm grenade fuse, a long-known solid rocket propellant, a pound of explosives, some cheap metal and a folding mechanism. Voilà, you've got a revolution in air war.

I'm writing about the 55 mm R4/M Orkan (hurricane) supersonic salvo rocket of late WW2. It was able to slaughter 4-engined bombers mercilessly from well beyond the bomber's defensive weapon's range.
German late WW2 reports are mostly lost and reports about the effectiveness of these rockets are not 100% reliable, but it's for sure that the lethality of these simple rockets exceeded everything ever seen before to such an extent that all piston engine-driven heavy bombers were immediately obsolete by late '44 (a single hit almost ensured a kill even of the largest and most sturdy aircraft). Such bombers stayed relevant till the Korean War only because way too few such primitive rockets were used against them.

(photo: R4/M at the WTS Koblenz, copyright D.P.)

* DROPS / MULTI / PLS / Ampliroll

Self-unloading and self-loading trucks for palletised and container cargo. One of the greatest things in logistics since the introduction of trucks.

* Anti-freezing lubricants

Vehicles, machine guns and much else ain't worth anything if they stopped working because of terrible sub-zero temperatures. Good luck of the Russians: Germans only understood this in the Winter of 1941/42.

* Interruptor gear / machine gun synchronisation

Early WWI aircraft weren't particularly well-suited for air combat because only a few pusher propeller types were able to mount a decent forward-firing machine gun. The propeller was usually blocking the field of fire of the natural machine gun position; in front of the pilot, where he could fix jams.

Then came three engineers and developed an interruptor gear - this enabled the machine gun to fire only between the propeller blades. Problem solved, and Germany enjoyed air superiority in late 1915.

* Highly selective radio channels

Advances in radio technology during the inter-war years had enabled the design of radio sets with many, well-separated channels. This was more important than much if not all hardware stuff that you can find much more easily in books about WW2 hardware!

* "schwere Flak Doppelzünder" (heavy anti-air artillery dual mode shell fuses)

Germany's heavy AAA faced its greatest test in 1943-1945 against 4-engined bombers. The very elaborate air defence technology of that period used searchlights, visual tracking devices, stereoscopic rangefinders, radars, tube-based computers and automatic time fuse setting devices. The mission was to fire a shell on an intercept to a heavy bomber and to set its time fuse exactly to the right time to hit the bomber with fragments.

The air defence troops required a double fuse, one that could double as point detonating impact fuse. The procurement people weren't convinced and held this type of fuse back till very late in the war.

Finally, the double fuse arrived at the AAA troops and immediately proved that it was a great thing. The effect was dramatic - multiplied kill chances against the large bombers. Especially the smaller calibres (88 mm) became much more effective. Accurate and reliable figures are not available, but the effect was on the order of threefold to sixfold lethality against heavy bombers for the 88mm gun.

The double fuse was not exactly simple, but much less complicated than the "VT" radio proximity fuse used by the Allies with good effect (greater fragmentation effect) against small Japanese aircraft mostly (large calibre benefitted the most from the VT fuse).
(Photo copyright Harry)

* LUT & FAT torpedoes

German submarines faced mostly convoys of ships in WW2. The development of guided torpedoes led to quite elaborate and easily deceived torpedoes, while another approach was no more susceptible to countermeasures than old dumb ones; torpedoes that followed a pattern after a set distance. This pattern greatly increased the chance of a hit against a ship in the convoy.

* Padded winter clothes

Much lighter than wool and other classic materials, these were a great innovation.

* Riegelmine / bar mine

This seems to be an Italian invention. The idea of a bar anti-tank mine with full-length pressure fuse allowed for a multiplied chance of hitting a tank (at least if the direction of approach could be guessed correctly in advance). The early model Riegelmine 43 was unreliable (hazardous fuse), but the principle was a success and still popular decades after WW2. The bar (instead of circular) shape was especially well-suited for rapid minelaying with a tool that looked like a plow.

* Korean War body armour

The Americans invented this in the 1943-1952 period; fibreglass plates, Nylon fabric and Aluminum/Nylon combinations that were (submachinegun) bullet resistant. Small plates were sewed into body armour vests and immediately proved to be a great success during the Korean War, where a great deal of fragments-induced casualties were avoided thanks to these vests. Later advances such as Kevlar didn't add much protection value.

The same could have been done with aluminum plates in WW2, of course. To equip two million soldiers with such vests would have required about 10,000 tons of aluminum; a fraction of the air force's aluminum consumption in Germany, Britain, Russia and the U.S.. Hundreds of thousands of infantrymen, artillerymen and engineers more could have survived with such vests (in order to die on another day).

(Photo: copyright "Ironmonger")

* Stahlhelm / steel helmet

A steel helmet based on a 15th century helmet reduced the lethality of WWI grenades greatly. This was certainly one of the most cost-efficient military innovations of modern times. The introdution of these helmets reduced Entente artillery firepower by the equivalent of several thousand guns. Millions of soldiers had to wear this really uncomfortable piece of kit well into the our time, even though modern examples are a bit improved with usually better suspension, protection and materials.

* Bayonet (Musketeers)

Back in the 17th century, there were musketeers in the army that provided mostly gunfire (and very little fencing) while they were guarded against enemy cavalry and melee troops by pikemen. Elaborate tactics and formations were developed for this combination.

Then, one day, someone attached a long knife to a lighter musket and the 18th century infantry was born. Soldiers who had both the firepower of a musket and the ability for melee combat and deterring cavalry with a wall of spear-like bayonets.

The firepower of such forces was improved, their melee capability was improved and tactics were simplified. The effect was probably greater than the move from (skilled) bowmen to musketeers in the first place.

* Radio, 3-man turret and tank commander's cupola with mirrors on 1930's tanks

Few things on tanks have been as badly under-reported as this combination. It was (in combination with elaborate gyro compasses) the formula for success in the German armour companies. These tools enabled the tank commanders to observe and lead instead of being busy loading or aiming. Even badly outgunned, ill-armoured tanks of inferior mobility (such as early Pzkw IV with low velocity 75 mm gun vs. T-34/76) were incredibly successful weapons of war thanks to this combination of features.

* Central firing and fire control on dreadnoughts

Battleships of around 1900 were capable of firing very far, but their accuracy sucked. The solution was the observation fo the falling shot fountains in order to correct the aim. This was impossible if turrets or even guns were fired individually, for the fire control crews did not know whose shot was creating the splash.

The problem was solved by aiming all guns together, and firing all at once in a salvo. This technique was introduced very shortly before WWI and became a self-evident procedure until radars and computers took over.

The central firing technique required salvoes of at least six guns (to get a meaningful splash pattern), which influenced ship design.

The hidden feature of central firing was much mroe important for a battleshi's firepower in WWI at ranges greater than 10 km / 6 nmi than the number of guns itself. Now gues which you'll find more easily; the quantity of guns or the date when central firing was introduced on a specific battleship!?

By the way; the problem persisted if more than one ship fired on a target. The French solved this (I think in the inter-war years) by firing shells that created splashes of different colours.

* Aiming periscopes

Aiming machine guns, sniper rifles, Panzerfaust and even infantry guns from behind cover - thanks to a device simple enough that I could improvise one in a few minutes.

The success of this idea still doesn't seem to have won over Rube Goldberg solutions for the same problem, though: Ever since the "Land Warrior" project of the 90's, several armies attempt to enable infantrymen to shoot from behind cover using complex, heavy, expensive and battery-depenent camera/monitor combinations. They should by now understand that you really don't need much more than mirror technology - see Parascope.

* Folding roadway systems / runway mats

The rapid construction of safe airfields and solid approaches to fords by engineer carpets saved thousands of aircraft and pilots, facilitated many rapid river crossings and generally was a huge help.

The notoriously poor conditions of airfields on WW2's Eastern front and the resulting horrendous landing and take-off accident rates could have been prevented if this technolgoy had been used. Many trucks that got stuck on worn riversides could easily have negotiated that obstacle with the help of such a mat, not slowing down their unit's advance.

* Panzerfaust

Well, this innovation got enough attention already. Its simplicity and effect were entirely disproportionate.

We can expect a decade of tightening military budgets all over NATO. That should be a great time for more attention to cost efficiency. These 20 examples show for sure that we don't always need gold-plated solutions if we want to realise huge improvements.

Sven Ortmann

Thursday, June 24, 2010

Assault guns - past and future?

What were assault guns?

Assault guns were one variety of tanks in WW2, common in the German and Red (Soviet) Army. The archetypical assault gun (Sturmgeschütz, StuG) was certainly the StuG III, which was based on the German tank Pzkw III. That tank was not prepared for mounting more powerful guns than 50 mm L/60 or 75 mm L/24 guns, but the good chassis became used in great numbers for a casemate tank (StuG III) with a 75 mm gun (the first few had a 75 mm L/24 gun before the Pzkw III got one, later and most StuG III had a capable 75 mm L/48 gun).

The Soviets used their own series of assault guns, most of them on T-34 chassis. They, too, mounted heavier guns than the turret tank version was capable of mounting. Some examples were the SU-85 (85 mm cannon, earlier than T-34/85), SU-122 (122 mm casemate howitzer), SU-100 (powerful and relatively rare 100 mm casemate cannon). Their heavier assault guns were based on the KV tank series chassis, mounting only large calibre guns.

Germany used the other chassis for assault gun-like tanks as well, but most of those types were assigned to Panzerjäger (tank destroyer) units - assault artillery units such as the Sturmgeschütz Abteilungen (assault gun detachments) were part of the artillery.

The British and U.S. Army followed very different approaches; the British had only the improvised and weird Archer tank destroyer, while the U.S. had a very different tank destroyer doctrine that preferred extra fast, thin-skinned tanks with open turret. They were meant as anti-tank vehicles, while assault guns merely morphed into that role.

The howitzer-equipped assault guns were mostly restricted to the infantry support role, though.

- - - - -

The origin of the assault gun was in WW1. The German infantry needed guns with HE shells to defeat machine gun positions in the field, and used mountain guns as well as other relatively light guns for the purpose. The idea carried on; Germany, Soviet Union and Japan developed dedicated light (70-76 mm calibre, about 400-700 kg) and simple shielded guns for the purpose (and for indirect fire, a role later taken over completely by infantry mortars).

The problem with these infantry guns was that their mobility was too restricted. Their teams could quite easily get caught by competent enemy mortar troops and it was difficult to follow an infantry attack on rough ground with a crew-moved 500 kg gun.

The internal combustion engine and tracks as well as more armour plating were of course the solution, and exactly this was proposed in 1936 in the German army.

A few medium tanks were simplified (no turret, 75 mm L/24 casemate gun), took part in campaigns in 1940 and proved their value as a protected, mobile substitute for infantry guns.

The scarcity of German resources caused a conflict between the need for concentration on Schwerpunkt armour divisions and the scattered assault guns units for infantry of the line.

The assault guns batteries' great success and the great need of the infantry forces for such support coupled with the reduced vehicle price allowed for a decent quantity of assault guns. The organization of the assault guns helped as well; battalion-sized units (in practice less than 30 assault guns each) were held at higher HQs and assigned to support in infantry division sectors only on a as-needed (most) basis. This was more efficient than assault guns for every division; that would have been an unaffordable luxury.

The affordability and quality of assault guns later led to their employment in armour divisions as well, mixed with turret tanks with good effect.

Assault gun tactics

It's easy to learn about hardware basics, but tactics are the really interesting thing about assault guns.

The basic offensive tactic was to advance with (actually behind) the infantry and lob 75 mm HE shells against enemy defensive positions and buildings in support of the infantry. More experience led to more advanced tactics, with a delicate balance between too close and too far infantry screens and even own escort infantry in assault gun detachments. The infantry-bound advance allowed for the use of experienced assault gun personnel scouts ahead in order to have a pair of eyes on the ground/terrain before any assault gun could get stuck on it.

It is interesting to see that much tank combat with main battle tanks after Desert Strom 1991 was quite similar to these offensive anti-personnel assault gun tactics (Croatia, Bosnia, Chechnya, Afghanistan, Iraq post-2003).

Offensive tactics such as pursuit or exploitation were no jobs for assault guns. They were simply not as good as tanks in these risky jobs. A dangerous enemy contact to the left or right of a formation could not as easily be countered because assault guns had their gun roughly pointed at the same direction as their movement. Turret tanks are in most terrains able to move in formation with some guns pointing let, forward, right and even to the rear. Assault guns had to turn and stop for effective firing. The necessity to point the front armour towards the enemy helped at times (and turning was quick with good gearboxes), but it stressed gear boxes, sometimes threw the tracks and it tended to let units deviate from their originally planned axis of advance. It was also more difficult to engage multiple targets in quick succession than with a turret.

These characteristics of casemate tanks (kind of similar to today's restrictions of tanks without full firing-on-the-move capability) were the price of the lack of a turret, but apparently overcompensated for by casemate tank advantages in WW2 if the proper tactics were used.

The assault gun on the defence was a different beast. Many tactics were possible, but the most interesting was apparently rooted in the fact that assault guns were operated by artillerymen.

The artillery had developed a far ambush tactic (Lauerstellung) in the last years before WWI (not sure about the exact timing, but most likely after the introduction of the first quick-firing cannons). A battery or half-battery was camouflaged and ambushed enemies on an open field with its destructive fire. This tactic was later adopted by heavy machine guns and almost fell into disuse among artillerymen. The did still know it, though - and employed the assault gun with this tactic against superior numbers of enemy tanks.

The StuG III of late 1942-1944 was very well capable of taking on enemy tanks on open terrain, but its employment in relatively small groups (batteries of 6-11 in theory, detachments of up to about 30 in theory - but more like a dozen in practice) helped to keep the necessity of superior tactics in everyone's mind.

Assault guns were also well-suited for a particularly interesting tactic that was and is very difficult to defend against: Tanks of all kinds can expose themselves for a very brief period, fire a shell against a previously identified and selected enemy position and return to concealment or cover. It's very challenging to defend against such a gradual wearing down of defensive positions. Even good anti-tank guns of WW2 and most modern anti-tank guided missiles of today can meet their limits in such a fight.

The assault gun as a 'cheap tank'

Infantry forces were no fast forces; the need for fast pursuit and exploitation was therefore low. Assault gun units were not required to be able to spearhead an attack into the enemy. The requirements for the hardware were therefore lowered, and this allowed for a cheaper tank.

(1) casemate gun tanks were acceptable, therefore no need for a turret (StuG III costed only 71% as much as a Pzkw IV with the same gun and similar armour protection)

(2) a weak side armour protection was acceptable (even normal tanks are usually weak on the sides)

(3) training requirements were lower, for combat was slower and the tactical repertoire a bit smaller than for turret tanks

Tanks are commonly characterized by the triad of firepower - protection - mobility.

Assault guns place a strong emphasis on firepower and frontal protection

Mobility and side protection aren't as important (the saved weight of a turret nevertheless allowed for a better StuG III mobility than Pzkw IV crew enjoyed.)

The most important requirement in regard to mobility was likely the ability to exploit many off-road firing positions and to support the infantry out of the line-of-sight of roads.

(Today's Stryker MGS was (is?) supposed to support infantry with a 105mm cannon, but it's not very off-road-capable and its gun traverse is no real substitute. It cannot be employed as an assault gun and needs to be used with different tactics that are more predictable because of the reduced cross-country mobility. It has a much greater machine gun firepower than WW2 assault guns as a plus.)

StuG III assault guns and similar German vehicles were relatively affordable, but certainly not poor vehicles. The odds of survival (or rather: remaining life expectancy) of assault gun crews were much better than for tank crews. Their kill ratios against tanks were excellent and superior to tanks of the same weight class. Even the ratio of total own losses (all causes) and knocked-out enemy tanks was very favourable. Their tactics were typically less risky than armour tactics, crews had a better chance of escaping to safety if their vehicle was knocked out. The smaller silhouette in comparison to tanks with comparable armour and gun added to the survivability.

Old main battle tanks as assault guns?

I mentioned the parallel between the limitations of a classic casemate gun tank and today's second-rate tanks (that are not fully capable of firing-on-the-move). The lower hardware requirements of the assault gun tactics usually don't exceed such MBTs' capabilities. The European countries have scrapped their second-rate MBTs, the Russians seem to be in the same process. There are (ten) thousands of such otherwise obsolete tanks all over the world, though.

Such old MBTs are usually considered as low-value tanks, or probably as mere cannon fodder in face of modern MBTs. This estimation stems in great part from the in many aspects very unfair battles against the Iraqi army in '91 and 2003. Such turkey shooting on often completely open terrain does not tell much about such old tanks, though.

let's remember that the second-rate M4 Sherman tank was the standard tank of the U.S.Army for assault-gun-like infantry support in WW2 as well (despite being terribly outclassed by several other tank types in tank-vs-tank combat).

The effectiveness of old MBTs with assault gun tactics should be kept in mind!

Modern assault gun detachments?

The ideal assault gun unit has its own escort infantry with armoured personnel carriers. This is a necessity because not all normal infantry can be sufficiently trained in close cooperation (providing security) with assault guns.

Such an ideal assault gun unit is independent and to be temporarily assigned to light infantry brigades or battalion battle groups. This allows those light infantry outfits to remain light and only be reinforced with such armour support if necessary and on suitable terrain. We didn't need to optimize the efficiency of army formations that much during the Cold War, but it is a good idea for the 2010's with the expected downturn in military spending.

Today's "assault guns" would be superficially outdated main battle tanks - similar to the delegation of older tanks to secondary purposes in the German army during the Cold War (Leopard crowded out M48 to secondary purposes, Leopard 2 crowded out Leopard 1).

Such modern assault gun detachments could by default be assigned to Corps, either recovering or ready for temporary attachments.

Modern literature calls what's been done in the past two decades "tank-infantry cooperation" or similar - we could call it as well "assault gun tactics" (except that assault gun commanders were usually more careful). At the very least we should open our eyes to the suitability and value of usually disesteemed older tank types for assault gun tactics.

Sven Ortmann

edit: P.S.: Something is not right with this article. I would have needed many more pages to describe assault gun tactics and make my point. Hopefully, all readers nevertheless get my point in this already quite long text; a reduced tactics set lowers the hardware expectations and in turn lets me think that disesteemed old hardware could be much more dangerous in the hands of competent users than is generally assumed.

Monday, June 14, 2010

A trick for ACEs

I did see a snippet on TV about a certain type of excavators (walking excavators, invented in 1966). A few seconds of a demonstration how one such walking excavator climbed up on soft ground at an incredible slope were shown. Another vehicle - a tracked one - failed to repeat the trick because the soft ground didn't offer enough grip (and the slope was really tough).

Here are two videos of such walking excavators doing a vertical climb trick, demonstrating the use of the excavator tool as a kind of leg:

That created a weird connection in my mind: The U.S. Army surprised German soldiers sometime in 1943-1945 in Italy by winching a few tanks up a slope that could normally not be negotiated by tanks. The German defenders on the pass were not prepared for defence against tanks and the deliberate attack succeeded. This created a false and long-lasting myth about extraordinary climbing qualities of WW2 U.S. tanks.

Now what if this trick would become part of the armoured engineer repertoire just like laying bridges over unpleasant obstacles (and there are tricks possible with bridgelayers that weren't really made public)?

Armoured engineers in several NATO countries use certain armoured engineer vehicles with excavators, winch and dozer blade. A lightweight, (thin-skinned) vehicle of that kind (with a for other purposes quite overpowered excavator) might be able to climb slopes well in excess of what's normally negotiable - and use its winch(es) and dozer blade afterwards to help a few more armoured combat vehicles up.

The whole trick would probably be loud - but on the reverse slope and therefore difficult to hear.

Maybe this should be tested and taken into account when the next such vehicle requirement has to be written (or updated). A quick calculation about the required excavator tool power might show that it's not even close to feasibility with normal ACE vehicles, of course. Well, except for a few degree slope gain.

Sven Ortmann
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Friday, June 11, 2010

One sick entrenchment tool!

It only lacks a mortar functionality (2). ;)

Wednesday, June 9, 2010

The small arms calibre discusson: Tony Williams

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Anthony G. Williams has published a well-done contribution to this decades-old dicussion about military small arms calibres:

http://www.quarry.nildram.co.uk/The%20Next%20Generation.htm

related:

http://defense-and-freedom.blogspot.com/2009/07/infantry-combat-ranges.html

http://defense-and-freedom.blogspot.com/2009/01/modern-small-arms-calibers.html

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Friday, May 28, 2010

Nimble Quadrotor drone

This is just an impressive flight display of a small quadrotor drone.

Sunday, May 23, 2010

Giraffe tanks

I collected info on 'giraffe' tanks (tanks with sensors or even weapons or a manned observation platform on a long elevatable mast) for some time. The intent was to write about them, but that story hasn't much flesh.

It's rather simple;

(a) It's stupid to use a manned mast because of today's technology.

(b) It's apparently unnecessary to mount weapons that high (lasers and guided missile launchers were included in some projects).

The most interesting vehicle of this kind is in my opinion the Czech artillery observer vehicle "Snezka" (that's a mountain).

A 14 metre mast with battlefield observation radar, laser rangefinder, day/night TV, thermal sensor (likely bsolete by now), wind sensor and a good radio offer almost everything that artillery observers could hope for (in such a vehicle). It certainly embarrasses the by comparison limited CV90 FOV.

I think the Czechs deserve a bit more attention with such an impressive vehicle concept.

http://www.old.army.cz/scripts/detail.php?id=6196

http://www.army-guide.com/eng/product712.html

Besides:

http://www.freakingnews.com/Animal-Weapons-Pictures---1494.asp :-)

Sven Ortmann

Maybe a small step towards less heavy equipment

The Science of Super Thin, Ultra Warm

Canadian adventurer Jamie Clarke is putting [zeroloft material] to the ultimate test by climbing part of Mount Everest in a thin jacket [...] that contains zeroloft. The 0.15-inch-thick windbreaker is as warm as a goose down jacket 1.6 inches thick, [...].

The soldier's problem with great weight-saving tech is of course that undisciplined leadership asks him to exploit the equipment's light weight by carrying more.

Sven Ortmann

Wednesday, April 28, 2010

Finally, pigs can fly!

I had a suspicion I wouldn't see it in my lifetime: Camouflage has arrived on boots.

At least one army is finally doing a troops testing with camo boots - the Canadians (they've also been a bit innovative in regard to camo patterns a few years ago). Maybe there were earlier tests, but not to my knowledge.

Camouflaged boots were available for hunters (quite brownish) and as civilian pop fashion boots (impractical).

OK, maybe we can scratch boots from the "not really camouflaged yet" list. What else?

Weapons (at least rifles) are increasingly being camouflaged, at least in war zones. The good old sniper rifle and white winter camouflage isn't alone any more. Spray-painted (factory and self-made) rifles have been in use for years. Again, hunters and civilians with a faible for camo patterns seem to lead.

Helmet (night sight) mounts; there are camouflage-printed textile covers to hide these at daylight.

I haven't seen heavy infantry weapons (machine guns, AT weapons) - in real camo colours or pattern yet. Grey, black, brown wood - nothing else yet as far as I know.

Kneepads. Some kneepads are camouflaged, but many aren't (see photo). Their wide-spread use by ground forces is a relatively new (few years) story any way.

Weapon sights and other weapon accessoires; rarely if ever seriously camouflaged (snipers excluded). This includes the need for anti-reflection devices (either improvised or bought).

Gloves; many different gloves are available with a camouflage pattern, but simple colour (black, grey or brown) gloves still seem to be more widely used.

- - - - -

This camouflaging of small individual equipment items makes sense, but let's let's not forget that printed camo patterns aren't the real deal. The real deal are unorderly 3D camouflage items.

.../2009/08/modern-basic-individual-camouflage.html

Sven Ortmann