Carl. Thank you for an informative post. How would you rate the 155mm vs the 203mm in combat? The 155mm dish out plenty of power, and I would think that it had a considerable higher ROF. So say during a 5 min stonk, would the 155mm put more weight on the target than a 203mm?
The 155mm projectile we used was 45 kilos. Our usual rule was two rounds per minute was rapid fire, but that was actually fairly slow. A average crew could sustain that for quite a while. I've seen on video crack crew keep up five or six rounds per minute for several minutes. YouTube - marine corps field artillery at its best Tho that crew are dropping a couple safety steps. I've seen enough nasty injuries on the gun line to be sensitive about that. So lets say you want to hit a enemy vehical column for three minutes then displace your batteries to dodge counter fires. A scenario we occasionally practiced back in those days. A 155 battalion of 18 howitzers could put three to four rpm out for three minutes or 180 projectiles = 8100 kilo. The 203mm battalion would crank out three to four projectile in three minutes, or 65 projectiles = 5900 kilos. Thats gross shell weight which is mostly steel & fuze. The common 155mm HE had approx 6.5 kilos explosive or 1150 kilos for our 180 round mission. The 203mm had approx 13.6 kilos or 886 kilos explosive. The difference shrinks further when factors like Effective Casualty Radius and strength of the over pressure wave are considered. Both are significantly larger with the 203mm howitzer. The harder the target the more usefull the 203mm round was. The 155 would take a chunk out of the targets down range when there was a direct hit. With the 203mm there was no more target. A usefull feature when firing into modern concrete and steel urban landscapes.
That's impressive. But I wonder about the breech overheating, or leftover sparks from the previous shot igniting the propellant. Why isn't there any need to put out fires from the earlier shot?
That was one of the safety measures they were skipping. Not swabing the breach with a wet sponge. In this case they are using a relatively low power Green bag charge so heat is not a large issue tho a residual spark could create a nasty preignition, either before or after the breech is closed. The other obvious one is no laynard is in use. The firing lock is being triggered directly by hand. Again the low charge is letting them get away with it, but a misfire or moment of inattention risks broken fingers or worse.
Actually the 8-inch howitzer at 15.8 tons was lighter than the 155mm gun at 20.1 tons. I do think mobility is the key to this discussion though. Even the 155mm Howitzer M1 could present problems with emplacement when it came to muddy conditions, for instance. While I have somewhat mixed feelings myself about the 240mm Howitzer M1, the "Black Dragon" was the most powerful artillery weapon in US Army service during WWII, and I'm surprised no one has mentioned it. From Steven Zaloga's "US Field Artillery of World War II": Zaloga then goes on to say: While it apparently proved useful in some applications, I think the US FA stretched the concept of mobile heavy artillery to the extreme with this one and perhaps a tad beyond. As warfare became even more mobile, the bigger guns obviously became even less useful.
I definitly regard that as siege artillery, not the field variety. I love packing a big gun as much as the next man, but in practical terms eight inches is more than enough
I think the point is that a lot of WW2 combat was not mobile warfare even if siege like (trench) operations were not the norm as some "old school" pre-war planners thought. So while the super heavy guns were something of an anacronism they did have a role to play. When facing a really hardened target, such as a reinforced concrete structure, field (up to 150mm) artillery is not enough, you need something a lot heavier than a 105, air attacks may not be an option due to the risk of friendly fire incidents that still happen even with today's much better C3 systems and procedures (no ground based laser designators in WW2!). The need for super heavy artillery was parly removed by the high velocity gun, the Germans in France and Poland showed how the 88 could deal with concrete bunkers designed to withstand field artillery fire and similar techniques were used in the PTO against japanese bunkers by using direct fire from field guns, but putting a direct fire weapon in direct line of sight with the target is not always practical, you need suitable terrain to move it on and to either completely suppress the target or have a very well armoured gun (think sturmtiger ot JSU 152), so there is still a need for the big guns thogh they are something of a luxury. IMO all weapon systems specialized for an uncommon occurrence are "luxuries" , but not having them will mean the infantry will have to take high losses to do the job. The Dora ang Karl were designed with assaulting the Maginot in mind, when France fell they were really out of a job even if the Luftwafffe lacked something like the tallboy, but fortifications capable of withstanding field caliber rounds were fairly common especially in urban combat that is basically a siege operation.
Did the 240mm see much use out of the maginot line? I imagine that it would be hard for the battery to keep up with exploiting armor even if its power would be appreciated in urban combat.
I found this about them on pp 61-65 Weapons of Patton's armies - Google Books -------------------------------- [SIZE=+1]A Real Screw Cutting Job[/SIZE] Cutting the feed screw used in a machine, which rifled 240 mm howitzer barrels, at the Niles Tool Works during WWII. The screw is 6 inches in diameter and 62 feet long. Quadruple threads 1-1/8 inch pitch, 4 1/2 inch lead, being cut to an accuracy of .002 of an inch per foot of length. Screw weighs 5,000 pounds.
Never underestimate the tenacity of someone trying to see their pet project through to its completion, regardless of how riduclous it might be! lol
