T34 Calliope (and with the Sherman)

Can anyone give me information of the rocket firing sherman + the launcher itself?

More then what wikipedia has to offer. Is there any records of a battle it took place? What was the effect of it on another tank? Anything.

~Thanks

Hawker

 

Hmm, these rare birds saw action in Northwest Europe and Italy. They provided a lot of firepower, but as it was a salvo rocket bombardment system presumably with HE only to make it cheaper, I doubt very much if anyone ever thought it might have any chance of hitting a tank if aimed at it.

Googling up for it gives you almost nothing except for games sites, which has to mean someting and that's not good.

Ellis & Chamberlain say:

Great for suppression fire, but it woudn't hit a barn sideways in a tunnel.

 

Wow! Where to start?

The calliope was a first-rate POS. A really bad idea.

No tanker wanted the thing on top of his tank. After all who would want all that HE hanging up there over your head, ready to go off with even the slightest provocation? Even worse, much worse, was the fact that the high profile of the damn thing made the tank a very easy target to spot.

I think that by the end of the war one was issued to each tank battalion of an armored division, but am not entirely certain. Maybe it was one per division. I have no idea if they were issued to independent tank battalions. If not, they were lucky.

The calliope was very effective when used against hard points in the West Wall. Once the enemy fire had been surpressed enough for the thing to move safely into firing position it would generally silence whatever you let it off on. It was inaccurate, so to use it on a particular pillbox or fortress you had to be pretty close. It was in reality an area fire weapon which did some good service in getting German towns and villages to hang out the laundry rather than resist. Sometimes I think it was the sheer volume of fire that made the Germans surrender rather than the damage it did.

There were a few accidents with the damn things, and it seems the calliope was just as dangerous to those using it as it was to the enemy, maybe more so.

Does this help?

Five-Zero-Nan

 

Best information i've seen.

Thanks!

 

Hope this helps

Rocket Tanks in the 752nd Tank Battalion

 

Thank you very much, SW. I especially like the 230 yd. range of the 7" version

 

Skunk Works,

The entire 752nd website is actually very interesting. Thanks for posting the link. I noticed that they were given some M24 light tanks in March, and then promptly lost them to Prichard's 1st Armored Division. This shows just how much in demand replacements for the worn out, under-gunned M5s were. Weren't enough to go around.

Five-Zero-Nan

 

Your right Za, that 230 yd range :birds:

That's a near miss in the Navy !

As well bore sight down the middle tube at a stick to aim, (poor stick guy(s), it's all on them)

digging trenches for elevation, (poor trench guy(s), it's all on them)

2 hrs re-load time? (poor reload guy(s), it's all on them)

One might do better with a Trebuchet.

I love the part where the officers pointed out the lack of the desired anti-personnel morale shaking feature of the "Whistle".

A little pay-back for the "Screaming Memmie" ?

 

I understand they wanted to make a battlefied direct fire Katyusha, but that wasn't a good idea. The Katyusha proper came in two versions, the popularly known rockets on a truck, and an even cheaper version which was a 'crate' just set on the ground with a more or less rudimentary mechanism for elevation and azimuth. Both versions were a simple but effective indirect fire, area saturation weapon.

Probably the idea was to go one better and mount the Katysha principle on a platform that could go to the FEBA, but on implementation it wasn't such a a good idea after all.

 

I cannot see the effectiveness of having it mounted on a tank. If the tank moves forward and finds a position to use it, if it is far enough forward, that would leave the crew exposed. To fire effectively, it would have to stay out of sight, thus relegated to the role of artillery. Better to have it mounted on a halftrack or truck like the Katyusha

 

They also said that it was unable to be deployed in fast moving, or fluid situations. No duh.
Good firepower in all rockets in battery's, if you have a day to set up for it (back then)(or an LCR).
You sorta need wheels to move up and move away. After all you're not laying siege to a castle. (one of those pics was about like that) monestary?
They did draw a lot of attention and counterfire.
That vid on Iwo where the Japanese traced the smoke trail back to the launchers, and the incoming arty was seconds away.
Back then.....Bottle Rockets all. Some big booms on the receiving end though.
Fear factor of the shriek and the fact that even though the first one landed two hundred yards away does not negate the possibility that the next three could land on your head.
I've got pics of those Russian "bed-spring" cage launchers.

 

For whatever it is worth, I always thought the calliope's were Rube Goldberg devices that were thrown together and hurried into the field in an effort to provide something that would neutralize the pillboxes and fortress positions of the West Wall.

The reason it was mounted on a medium tank was that it was envisioned as a direct fire weapon. Mind you there was more than enough artillery to take on the indirect role, so there was no other reason to field a handful of the calliope's than for direct fire. Remember, if you saw a platoon of medium tanks up on point, there were sure to be one or two 105mm M7s not far behind them, and bigger stuff on immediate call. Sure it could be used for indirect fire, but why?

Running an M12 up to take a pop at a West Wall position was plenty dangerous, and there were damn few defilade positions that were close enough for the 155mm GP round to be really effective, so the gunners had to do it out in the open lots of the time. Besides M12s were very rare critters so the Ordnance boys had to come up with something.

Five-Zero-Nan

 

Watch this

 

Then Greek for "the THING"
definitely direct fire, and with flechette rounds ..... ouch

ONTOS, the world's biggest shot gun

 

Well, the Ontos has really nothing to do with this thread. It was a recoilless rifle carrier that had to carry a number of loaded tubes because it was impossible to reload in the FEBA, so you needed a few spare ones. They were to be fired one at a time for accuracy.

What I found funny about the pic above was that there must have been a German with lots of time on his hands to spoil an APC with all this welding and plate cutting to install the contraption on top. And the guy must have been lucky to secure an ammunition supply, or else how could he maintain the thing firing?

 

I think its American's using the wrecked vehicle as a platform? :/

 

I think you're right Hawk, those tubes/configuration are American and they look like the 7.1 inch ones too. Perhaps they tried to increase the range from 230 max/60-70 effective to something more realistic/survivable.
Definitely a wreck. Definitely an experiment, beings it un-trainable/movable. Elevation/range test for sure, maybe even after the war/battle is over (in Italy?)

 

You guys may be right, but who knows? Fact remains the SPW has lost it's right track.

 

I was thinking that it was on purpose and maybe is its possible, that it is being towed in a circular motion like a battery?

 

If only the "300", "Custer", and the "Light Brigade" had one of them.
The weapon of choice for the surrounded. Devastating circular fire.