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This article reminds me of a story.
One of the things the cannon cockers do is to train for direct fire.
You never know when you might be near to being over-run and a direct hit from a 155mm round is nothing to sneeze at.
At some point in live fire training, our commanding general must have felt the M109 crews were getting a bit too confident in their ability to deliver fire directly.
He whirled onto our range just as my tank was getting ready to start our table and he commandeered us to the range where the arty guys were.
He set us up "head to head". Fire as many rounds at the target as you can when you get the "go" order.
We were confused, but it was simple enough.
GO!
Gunner, HEAT, SPG!
Identified!
UP!
FIRE!
On the way!
That took us three seconds. The range was, in our minds, ridiculously close because we and the target were stationary.
HIT! Re-engage!
UP!
FIRE!
On the way!
Five seconds.
HIT! Re-engage!
UP!
FIRE!
On the way!
BOOM! from the M109.
CEASE FIRE!
The arty guys are kinda looking around embarrassed.
The general screams at them, "YOU ARE NOT FUCKING TANKERS! THAT TANK KILLED THREE OF YOU BEFORE YOU GOT OFF EVEN ONE ROUND AND H-E AGAINST THE FRONTAL ARMOR WOULD JUST MAKE THEM MAD AT YOU!"
We, diplomatically in my mind, didn't mention that the Ma Deuce would have sufficed for a 109.
Did at least a baker's dozen direct fire drills.
ReplyDeleteAll of which confirmed, much like NBC training, that if we ever needed it, the crew selected (deliberately, or by fate) to do so was toast.
The only ones worth it would have been using the 105mm, not the 155mm, and using beehive ammunition (still squirreled away in deep inventory), against personnel rushing the position, a la multiple firebases in RSVN circa '67-'72.
Otherwise, it was simply an exercise in suicide.
And everyone in arty knew it, including the officers.
We were generally far enough back from the front lines that if tanks in the position was a concern, command had much bigger problems than our predicament.
Baby brother was a treadhead, and scored himself an ARCOM as part of OPFOR for single-handedly wiping out an entire hapless battalion task force laagered up at NTC with a poor understanding of combat watch-standing, using just his lonely unaccompanied vismod Sheridan. (I've seen the citation write-up. The video replay AAR he described, in front of both the OPFOR staff and visiting unit's officers, was priceless.)
I was under no illusions about the realities.
A fire mission of "Tanks in the open" against the then-new VT airburst WP rounds, let alone cluster munitions, somewhere downrange, was another story entirely.
What bubbled this up was double checking my Twilight: 2000 to GURPS conversion and noticing that I'd labeled the Copperhead as a HESH round and not HEAT. That made me look up all the other rounds on the list and not finding the conventional HEAT round I had in the table.
ReplyDeleteA 155mm HEAT round would work like gangbusters in direct fire against a T-72!
Apparently it was on the original game's listing because it was on someone's wish list or was being tested.
Well, maybe, but the Copperhead was longer than a standard 155 round, which required special handling, cost over $100k@, and takes about 2 minutes to load, IIRC. So the crew would be toast about 110 seconds before they got it loaded. And as you know, the whole point is to use the Copperheads to thin out the tanks long before they get to direct fire range, provided someone out front can sparkle the target.
DeleteI hear there are later rounds that do the same thing much quicker and cheaper, as the Ukes have been demonstrating lately. But still not in DF mode.
All we ever fired DF was standard HE rounds. Which, I can tell you from personal experience, will blow the circular steel base of the round straight back 100 yards, which is what happens when one gun shoots the target hulk that's quite a bit too close to the firing position. Our medic caught a 4" disc right in the flak vest, still smoking hot, but other than shock and surprise, he was unscathed, with a souvenir (once it cooled off) and a good reason not to get too close to the further festivities.
The gun crew was directed to engage targets a wee bit farther downrange.
Well your driver would probably wouldn't be in any condition to care.
ReplyDeletehttps://youtu.be/wJrA9rMpMpA
Even worse, that simulation is assuming there's no hatch there. The hatch won't be near as strong as an unpierced plate.
ReplyDelete