Roman multi tool

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The "Roman Swiss Army Knife" multi tool exhibit received some attention early this year. It is a piece of great metal working (reminds me a bit of a Roman lock I saw in a German museum).

It's a good reminder for those interested in military history: Our knowledge of history is very fragmentary. Descriptions of historical societies and organisations tend to underestimate the capabilities and complexities that were achieved long before our times.

One example: An old mine was discovered somewhere in the Mediterranean region years ago (forgot the location). The people who found it believed that it was a 18th century mine because of the elaborate water pump system. It turned out to be almost two thousand years old.

Military historians can easily underestimate complexities because of our merely fragmentary understanding of earlier military forces. The bow is such an example. Mongol and even more so Janissary bows were very advanced (the contemporary English longbow is primitive by comparison) and archery was an art at a much higher level than for example a modern basic military training.

All Janissaries were supposed to be their own bowyer and arrow-maker (and this was achieved for many generations)! It required much training to be effective with a relatively low velocity arrow against moving man-sized targets in battle. A superficial look can easily lead to a low opinion of archers.

It's similar with the art of war. Yes, there was a low point in the art of war in Europe during the Dark Ages because of chivalry and arrogance excesses. The art of war - and especially the knowledge of ruses of war - was on the other hand quite advanced and interesting in Europe from Leuctra (371 BC) till Belisarius (560 AD) at least.

Sven Ortmann
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The granddaddy of heavy calibre machine guns

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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

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Ancient soldiers in colour

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"Ultraviolet light reveals how ancient Greek statues really looked"

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Swordsmanship

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The "age of movement to contact"

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Movement to contact is the most primitive form of offensive movement with deployed forces. Tactics and Operational art manuals & books are full of much more effective and elaborate forms of offensive movements.

This didn't prevent the "age of movement to contact".

Exercises are often about incredibly slow-paced and do often allow for the "deliberate attack". This attack requires reconnaissance, planning, orders, preparations, movement into positions and finally the attack itself. It's the philharmonic orchestra version of battle.
Officers are usually aware that this is utterly unrealistic unless it's about a breakthrough battle in otherwise static warfare.

A hasty operation is an operation in which a commander directs his immediately available forces, using fragmentary orders (FRAGOs), to perform activities with minimal preparation, trading planning and preparation time for speed of execution. A deliberate operation is an operation in which a commander’s detailed intelligence concerning the situation allows him to develop and coordinate detailed plans, including multiple branches and sequels. He task organizes his forces specifically for the operation to provide a fully synchronized combined arms team. He conducts extensive rehearsals while conducting shaping operations to set the conditions for the conduct of his decisive operation.

FM 3-90 (2001, U.S. Army)

Fortified, static front lines as in much of WWI and WWII are impossible in almost all modern warfare scenarios, though. The German, French and Soviet armies of WW2 consisted of a few highly mobile divisions and about 85-95% foot-mobile infantry divisions. The latter formed the static front lines while the mobile forces prepared for the next mobile warfare phase.

Today's armies are smaller versions of the mobile forces, with no bulk of slow infantry divisions.

Land warfare between conventional forces would probably have calm phases when no side dares to close in, but there would be almost no set-piece, deliberate attack battles.

The established alternative to the deliberate attack in less slow motion-ish situations is known as "hasty attack" in English. "Hasty attack" is deceptive; it's still nothing that's done without substantial preparations.

- - - - -

Forces which were presented with a new tactical situation every two days in peacetime exercises found themselves reacting to new developments every few hours against the Iraqi forces in 2003. The Iraqi forces were certainly not known for their mobile warfare prowess. A hostile force that masters mobile warfare would pose an even greater challenge and likely often times cause a temporary breakdown of command by brigade and division staffs.

A German armour regiment commander defeated a clearly superior French tank concentration in 1940 with a handful of competitive tanks and many light (rather suitable for training) tanks. He moved a lot, attacked here then there - employing his useless light tanks for deception and his few medium tanks as the hard hitters. This kind of tactical brilliance decided many battles against superior tank forces, even against the T-34 in late '41 and in '42. A movement to contact against such tactical brilliance is a recipe for disaster if not outright suicide (+manslaughter of subordinates).

- - - - -

This is usually the time when writers begin to blather about the OODA loop (observe-orient-decide-act) and how completing the loop quicker than the adversary means to get inside something and to win.

The sad fact is that instead the OODA theory breaks down at this speed. The "observe" part is the first one that breaks down; the iconic situational awareness (holy golden calf of ground forces RMA and focal point of the marketing of many military hardware suppliers) fails.

Ground forces which operate at high speed often lose their understanding of the surroundings - they simply stumble into the enemy - they do movements to contact if they advance at all.

Movement to contact is a type of offensive operation designed to develop the situation and establish or regain contact (...). A commander conducts this type of offensive operation when the tactical situation is not clear or when the enemy has broken contact.

FM 3-90 (2001, U.S. Army)

This is not necessarily a bad thing; many incredibly one-sided battles in military history were begun with a movement to contact by either one or both forces. The problem is that in a movement to contact the only advantage to be had is the superior readiness for battle. A commander who conducts a movement to conduct does not use more advanced tactics for additional, unfair advantages over the enemy.

This readiness for battles includes everything associated with small units; hardware, morale, training, ammunition, vigilance, leader's talent, relative positioning and facing and so on.

It does not include operational art at all. A force which conducts a movement to conduct and stumbles into an enemy has likely few if any advantages built up on the operational or formation tactical level.

The exception is of course the specific case when the operational leader intentionally seeks decisive combat ASAP because he is sure about the own forces' superior battle readiness. There's a name for this tactic that slips out of my memory one I read it.

This was the standard in 2003, and the Iraqis were way too demoralised and incompetent to exploit this negligence. The failure of the operational and formation tactical level to create substantial advantages through clever manoeuvres was not punished. No harsh punishment (such as the French were punished for their operational failure in 1940 and the Soviets in 1941, the British in 1942) meant little attention and little learning effect.

The Israelis blundered into Lebanon in 2006, were punished for their blunders by Hezbollah (embarrassing!) and worked hard on rectifying their issues ever since. The Russians blundered into Georgia and succeeded against Georgian forces that were about as incapable of exploiting blunders as were the Iraqis - but nevertheless the Russians seem to have recognised their blunders in that short episode.

NATO members on the other hand became immediately distracted by occupation duties including the frustrating fight against pesky, minimally capable yet elusive opponents. They replaced the failed RMA fashion with the COIN fashion and oh boy, we know how well that one performed.

It looks as if they slept over the necessary learning and issue correction phase in regard to mobile warfare proficiency on the operational and formation tactical level.

- - - - -

Modern operational art has nice books with basics, but it seems to be out of synch with modern ground forces' mobility.

The age of movement to contact should be ended ASAP. The key to this is to fix the "situational awareness" thing - but not the military-industrial way. That one has failed badly, and at high fiscal cost.

Instead, the answer should be operational and tactical.

I have a proposal for this, but I have also mercy for the readers of this text, so I won't turn it into a long book chapter right now.

Sven Ortmann

edit:fixed a typo

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An unorthodox view on OP 'Overlord'

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The only thing approaching a unifying theme for this cataclysm we call “WW II” is the United States, THE major allied participant in the Pacific (think logistics all you commonwealth coalition guys that are thinking “what about us” as you read this) and the United States becomes the principal partner in the Western alliance which is handling, admittedly only 20-30% of the European War duties against the background of the massive Soviet-German war. I have written this before but will write it again, we say at CGSC that Overlord was simply a deception operation to support BAGRATION and the destruction of Army Group Center!

En Avant!

Dr. John T. Kuehn

CDR USN (ret)

Associate Professor of Military History

Adjunct Professor, Norwich University

CGSC Ft Leavenworth

Hat tip to War and Game.

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The sense of smell for reconnaissance

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Some people (apparently with a better sense of smell than I have) swear that it's important to eat what the enemy eats, wash with what the enemy washes and not to smoke if you shall go on a patrol in a forest. Your different smell could otherwise give away your presence to the enemy.

That may very well be true. The sense of smell has nevertheless a very restricted utility for armies.

Again and again and again some developers attempt to develop some explosive sniffer tool or similar for the military. Even worse; they even get funds for this nonsense. Here's a recent example: Danger Room: "Secret New Sensors Sniff For Afghanistan's fertilizer Bombs"

Let's be frank (even more than usual): That's a waste, crap, a rip-off. Such sensors are useless. To grant funds for such projects is an evidence for stupidity and incompetence.

A simple, short anecdote from WW2 can explain (and prove) it:

Soviet partisans mined railways to destroy German supply trains. The Germans reacted by deploying dog teams with dogs trained to sniff for the mines. They found some mines. The partisans observed this and dispersed small quantities of explosives almost everywhere on the tracks. The great sense of smell of the dogs was rendered useless, utterly useless. The false alarm rate made the whole "sniffing" approach 100% useless. It's still 100% useless.

Engineers who attempt to develop smell-based explosive detection tools for general or route reconnaissance are wasting time and money. Thsi is especially obvious if it's not done in perfect secrecy.

Sven Ortmann

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The inner workings of a Greek phalanx

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Ancient Greece had few horses (except in the plains of Thessalonia), so infantry became the dominant part of land warfare.

The Greek city-states developed heavy infantry and an almost ritualised form of warfare that required the frontal confrontation of two battle lines of heavy infantrymen.

This changed profoundly when Athens (+allies) and Lacedaemonians (Spartans, + allies) faced each other. The Athenians were superior at sea and inferior on land and refused a decisive land battle. This long (one generation!) Peloponnesian War became a civilisation-shattering experience that pretty much ended the phase of cultural prosperity and advances of Greece. On the other hand, it began a time of military innovations in the Hellenic World.

A generation later the Lacedaemonians faced off against the numerically inferior Thebans in the Battle of Leuctra, and the apparently genius Theban general Epaminondas finally introduced serious tactics into Hellennic warfare; the famous oblique order that overwhelmed one wing of the enemy and thus turned the enemy's line. It was a very early application of the Schwerpunkt principle.

Up to that time numbers of men and their quality as hoplites (including their equipment) had been the most decisive factor.

- - - - -

Hoplite equipment evolved over time. One trend (attributed to the general Iphicrates) took place after the Peloponnesian War and included longer spears, lighter armour (more mobility as sword fighter) and can be considered to have been a reaction to the rise of light infantry (skirmishers) such as the Peltast javelineers.

Most literature about Iphicrates-style hoplites and later Macedonian heavy infantry with even longer Sarissa spears appears to focus on the spear length. I suspect that the Sarissa (r)evolution was overshadowed by the much more drastic changes favoured by Iphicrates. Iphicrates probably deserves to be remembered as the first infantry equipment revolutionary (leaving Marius far behind).

First, an example that helps to understand my point: The German techno music festival "Love Parade" experienced a disaster a few weeks ago when 21 people died and about 500 were injured. The cause? The masses were pressing towards a stair. This pressure sufficed to kill and badly injure people. The deaths occurred because of deadly pressure on the upper bodies.

This scenario is quite similar to how Hellenic battles worked before the spears grew very, very long. The clash was at least as much about pushing as about stabbing with spears and swords (the aparently preferred Greek sword, the kopis, was rather a slashing than a stabbing weapon).

The forward ranks needed a stable bronze cuirass. This did probably provide more crucial protection against the ranks behind its wearer than against the enemy (who was usually behind two shields).

Greek phalanx warfare was almost always decided when one phalanx broke. There was no real exploitation phase, fleeing warrior-citizens were not cut down in a pursuit (remember, few horses!). Losses per battle were therefore low both absolute and in per cent. This made frequent wars over tiny conflicts sustainable for the city-states.

Now think about it; you need armour on your back to protect against the enemy in such a kind of combat. Greek bronze cuirasses were still a two-part body armour, though: Front and back part. No weight- (and cost-) saving half-cuirasses apparently.

That's because the body armour was apparently very much about protecting against the hoplite's fellow warrior-citizens in ranks behind him. it wasn't only (or mostly) meant to protect against the enemy. That's also why other forms of body armour such as scale armour or composte armour (= less able to protect against pressure) were not important for the forward ranks of the hoplites.

The "pressure" component of phalanx tactics was maximised with the oblique order when the breakthrough wing of the Battle of Leuctra was 50 ranks deep. (Btw, it was led by an elite group, the Sacred Band of Thebes. This is interesting if not funny with DADT in mind.) There cana lso be no doubt that the psychological effect of facing a formation many times as deep as yours was of great importance, too.

Iphicrates changed this by dropping the bronze cuirass. He preferred the lighter, composite body armour of textile and glue (linothorax), and apparently so also for the front ranks. This seemed to mostly rule out the pushing and to emphasize the stabbing with spears.

The next step was even longer spears and serious training - the Macedonian Phalanx.

In short: I believe that the move towards longer spears was about much more than mere out-ranging the enemy.

It was a radical shift away from a pushing & stabbing tactic to a stabbing tactic. It made extremely deep formations unnecessary and thus enabled very wide (and again relatively thin) battle lines.

This in turn enabled the Hellennic heavy infantry model to be effective on wide plains (Aleander's conquest of Persia) instead of only on the restricting terrain of Greece (where both flanks were secured against heavy infantry formations by hills if not mountains or the sea).

This was something that seems to be missing in many books and webpages about classical Greek warfare. The authors never seemed to connect the dots.

I cannot guarantee for the correctness of my interpretation, of course. It all just fits nicely together if you look at it from this angle.

Sven Ortmann

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The "West German RPG-7"

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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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Logistics - we got used to trucks

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I keep trying to accumulate military (history) knowledge on a very broad basis. Electronic warfare and logistics appear to be the greatest challenges in this endeavour. EW is very secretive and logistics is boring. That's probably the reason why few show interest in logistics.

Nevertheless, I took on another book (without any new insights in the first three chapters). That got me thinking about logistics again. Among these thoughts was this one:

Pre-1850's logistics were very basic. Food, fodder, few equipment and ammunition. Civilians often made up a large part of the train and provided "services" to the troops. I think I mentioned in an earlier post how these functions got militarised (all services except the sexual ones were incorporated into the military itself) in the late 19th century.

The transportation of fodder with horse-drawn carts was very inefficient (the cart-pulling horses ate much of the payload!) and lead to a rule of thumb that you shouldn't campaign farther than 250 km away from your logistical base if you depended on the supply shipments of horse cart convoys.

Some campaigns looked very different; one version used boat/ship-centric logistics support thanks to a coastline or a canal/river network. Other campaigns did simply not depend on the shipment of supplies from some logistical base; Caesar in Gallia, Alexander in Persia (after he left the Med coastline) and the Mongols come to mind.

The latter version emphasised the foraging - obtaining all you need from the country you're moving through.

Logistics changed a lot with the invention of trucks. Rail-roads had merely pushed forward the logistical base in the form of railheads. Trucks replaced the horse-drawn cart. A truck needs only a small fraction of his load-carrying capacity to transport goods much farther than 250 km. Campaigns such as the partially mobile desert warfare of 1940-1942 became feasible.

Modern armies got used to the availability of great volumes (and weights) of supply and changed themselves in order to exploit this for their advantage. The consumption of ammunition rose in incredible heights during the World Wars (possible in WWI without having many trucks simply because railheads were close to the front-line).

Something changed in the 50's and 60's, when modern armies became fully motorised/mechanised: Soldiers forgot that all these supply requirements were a novelty in mankind's history. The Napoleonic Age when armies went on campaigns with very little logistical supply somehow vanished from institutional knowledge.

- - - - -

Today we can see the consequences. Logistical bottlenecks are a huge problem for a corps equivalent operating in Afghanistan even though there's almost no fighting and only a weak enemy.

The German army - bound by political constraints in its combat behaviour - spent a great deal of attention on the development of logistics, camp defence and camp services. The whole logistical behaviour of Western troops in Afghanistan seems to be very strange if looked at from a military history angle:

Why is the "comfort" (with associated logistical and manpower requirements) so much better on the main bases than on outposts? What is all that supply volume being used for? How does the "we do almost nothing except caring for ourselves and patrolling" mission there require such a vast amount of supplies when German infantry divisions of 1941-1942 were able to fight in a mobile war with intense battles with few trucks and many horse carts?

- - - - -

Mankind is both blessed and cursed with the ability to become used to almost everything. The effect of getting used to recent circumstances has a profound effect on logistics: We un-learned the ability of our ancestors to make do with little logistical support.

It should be possible to drop an infantry company from a plane in Afghanistan with some cash and to recover it a year or half later without having resupplied it in the meantime. They could live off the land, obtain what they need in their region of operation. The Afghans manage to live there as well, after all.

Even the thought of such a logistical modesty appears almost crazy nowadays, though. Even special operations forces wouldn't want to even come close (at least not for a year).

- - - - -

Nevertheless, we should become aware again of the possibility to substitute for the shipment of supplies with other means. The most such means is of course the possibility to obtain material from the region of operations itself (the alternative is to carry more supplies with you).

Long-range scouts can extend their mission duration if they acquire food locally, photovoltaic power is being harnessed to re-charge batteries, armoured reconnaissance and armour spearheads could loot civilian gas stations and vehicles for fuel and lubricants - and expeditionary forces could turn into an indigenous sustainment mode.

We didn't lack warning calls about our dependence on logistical support and motorisation since the 60's, but the effect of these warning calls seems to have been unsatisfactory.

It's a safe bet that this one won't achieve anything of significance, either. Nevertheless, I wanted to vent.

Sven Ortmann
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The 24/7 air attack paradox

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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

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Small innovations

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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

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Defensive reconnaissance

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123. Für den Aufklärungsdienst sind nicht mehr Kräfte zu verwenden, als es der Zweck verlangt.

Die Aufklärungskräfte sind beizeiten in der wichtigsten Richtung zusammenzufassen, besonders wenn mit überlegenen feindlichen Aufklärungskräften zu rechnen ist. In Nebenrichtungen ist nur das Notwendigste einzusetzen.

Anzustreben ist, die Aufklärung je nach der Lage aus zurückgehaltenen Aufklärungskräften jederzeit zu verdichten, erweitern oder, wenn notwendig, auch in neuer Richtung ansetzen zu können.

("For the reconnaissance service are not more troops to be used than the purpose requires.

The reconnaissance troops shall be timely concentrated on the most important direction, especially if superior enemy reconnaisance forces are to be expected. Only the minimum (most necessary) shall be allocated for secondary directions.

It is to strive that the reconnaissance according to the situation be densified with held back reconnaissance forces at any time, expanded (enlarged, extended) or, if necessary, also to be sent into a new direction.")

This paragraph of the classic Truppenführung field manual (pre-WW2Wehrmacht) reminded me of an interesting detail; Wehrmacht reconnaissance theory/doctrine was offensive (= optimistic), just as most reconnaissance doctrines seem to be.

The pre-WW2 division of the German army generals into defensive, offensive and armour schools of thought had experienced a shift towards offensive during the 30's and towards armour after the fall of France. The defensive school had mostly assumed that front lines would quite reliably prevent penetrations and did not prepare reconnaissance guidance for the finding and tracking of fast enemy forces that had penetrated the front line (at least not behind the HKL, main line of resistance).

Other defensive skills were neglected as well till they had to be re-learned during the winter of 41/42. Delaying tactics, breaking contact and withdrawals were apparently not trained well-enough.

Back to defensive reconnaissance; Soviet tank units often peentrated the thin front line (often rather lines of pickets and hedgehog self-defence positions) quite often and they were very often particularly vulnerable because their escorting infantry (desants) experienced high losses during breakthrough fights.

The tanks were still able to wreak havoc among German rear units and had to be found, tracked, hunted and destroyed (preferably in ambushes).

That's where a huge problem intervened; there were no forces for the find & track part. Luck (radio reports from surviving rear units, for example) and improvisation had to suffice.

Late war tank destroyer, heavy tank and assault gun units organisations often had a cheap solution for this problem:

A platoon or more of light cars (Typ 82 Kübelwagen offroad-capable cars) with radio sets. These cars were survivable enough (by WW2 standards), quick, small, cheap, easily concealed, easily camouflaged, relatively silent and reliable.

They swarmed out, reported their findings and the anti-tank forces could move into advantageous positions for the AT fight.

I have yet to see an equivalent in modern field manuals; reconnaisance against enemy stragglers and incursions on supposedly friendly terrain doesn't seem to get much attention nowadays.

There are certain area recce, zone recce doctrines (rather patterns) in field manuals, but the idea that this could be used for purposes like the described one seems to be absent.

Unsurprisingly, much of the modern Western literature seems to assume that we'd be on the operational offensive in a military vs. military war. That's quite ahistorical (save for extremely one-sided conflicts such as OIF); a look at the culminating point of attack concept should suffice to remember us that periods of high activity (offence, defence) and relatively low activity (static defence) tend to alternate.

Sven Ortmann

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Assault guns - past and future?

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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.

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