Self propelled artillery

It has occurred to me that I have not come to gain a full appreciation of the development of SP artillery, which is certainly an important part of a division in WWII. Do any of you know of any good books on its development. I think all I have read is what was offered in Hunnicutt's work on the Sherman...i.e., not much.

 

Try it at here. They have some good books some are on special types some are common!

https://www.amazon.de/s/ref=nb_sb_n...d-keywords=self+propelled+artillery&x=18&y=19

 

Thanks for that. I am looking for overview development, history, doctrine. Some of those might dabble in that but most would be picture books, I think.

 

JBark: Are you talking about indirect fire weapons (example: Priest or Wesp) or direct fire (example: StugIII)?

 

A Theses can be found here for the development of US Field Artillery from 1917 to 1945

http://www.dtic.mil/cgi-bin/GetTRDoc?Location=U2&doc=GetTRDoc.pdf&AD=ADA242118

A book describing the development of Artillery

Field Artillery and Firepower By Maj Gen J. B. A. Bailey (RA)

 

Thanks...indirect.

 

see
1)Feldgrau:German AFV deliveries to the east front
viewtopic.php?f=24&t=11476
2)Tanknet:Wehrmacht organization of Stug's,TD's and heavy tanks?
208.84.116.223/forums/index.php?showtopic=26813

 

Good question. While there is a ton of material on tanks and direct fire spgs in WW2, it seems there is far less written about indirect fire SPG's and artillery in general. This is unfortunate since it's probably fair to say that artillery played as important, if not a more important role in determining the outcome of most battles as did armor. I sometimes wonder if the reluctance to talk about artillery has to do with the fact that many of these forums seem to be populated by fans of the Wehrmacht, and artillery was the one branch in which they did not have much of a technical or doctrinal advantage over the allies. (yes, I realize that last statement was purely speculation and opinion, but I thought I would put it out there for the sake of discussion.)

 

THere also is the fact that a lot of people are fascinated by the idea of advancing tanks, I think that in their youth they were
fascinated by the picture of gallopping cavalry,and that the tanks only are a coolsubstitute for the gallopping knights.

 

I think the tanks, or for that matter the infantry, in the front lines going head-to-head with the enemy just have more dramatic appeal for most history buffs than the "out of sight, out of mind" artillery, however important the latter was in real life.

SP artillery would be a good topic for serious discussion. It was taken for granted that armored or mechanized units needed SP artillery support, and I don't disagree, but it might be interesting to compare how long it really took SP guns to get set up and ready to deliver indirect fire vs. towed weapons. Ironically the SPs ultimately depended on trucks for resupply, while a towed gun could remain in place and in operation while its prime mover went back for more ammunition.

 

I have been trying to find out the different ranges and elevations for S.P. Guns, most of them are just standard artillery peices mounted on a AFV chassis, but there ranges due to the restricted elevation are different, I will post some stuff to let you guys know where I am on this later.

 

A lot of good points made. I'd love to get a hold of some good text on development of the guns, vehicle and doctrine. Arty in general is probably not given the omantic look because short of ground attack aircraft and counter arty fire artillery fights a much different fight than infantry and armor. Its importance is huge though.

 

it seems that from the R.A.,the first S.P.Arty was the Bishop.?Were there any previous attempts to get an artillery piece onto or into another tank.?Bodge ups etc.?Obviousley before the M7 priest,or Sexton S.P.G.?cheers.

 

The British did small scale production and trials before the Bishop, but like the US they officially seemed to think their was little advantage over towed guns.

British Gun Carrier Mk1, Chassis was also used for munition resupply.
Gun Carrier Mk 1 Pictures
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also 2 Salvage tanks with cranes
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From what I know the British used the Sexton and American Priest SPGs later on in the war. Early on it was mostly the Bishop and other experimental designs like the ones mentioned.

The Japanese had some pretty interesting SPGs as well. Check out the Ho-Ro:

Google Images

 

I believe the first to experiment were the french on Renault FT chassis and the 194mm on Saint Chammond chassis are probably the first true tracked artillery unit to be deployed, Guderian in Panzer Leader advocated for tracked artillery but in practice tanks got priority and it wasn't until 1942 that the first true German SP went into service (IMO anything armed with the SiG33 infantry gun is an assault gun not SP artillery).

 

That's an interesting point. Was the SiG33 generally used as an indirect or direct fire weapon? It's amazing how many things you can read about german infantry guns without them giving much detail as to how they were actually used in the field.

 

Most German Infantry Regiments had 6 x 75mm IGs & 2 x 150mm IGs, going on the size of the Gun Shield mounted on the 15cm sIG 33 (Sf) auf Panzerkampfwagen I Ausf B it must have been used for direct fire only, the Germans produced 38 of these AFVs in 1940.

 

Something that I forgot was the M8 75mm G.M.C.I don't "trust"the wiki completely ,but it says that the M8 was a Stuart based S.P.arty.Now,was this particular weapon in use before the Priest.?,cheers.

 

The British had an 18pdr SP on the Vickers Medium tank chassis in the late 1920s. The idea of SP artillery was around fairly early, but there was little commitment to it in any army, or for that matter to large armored formations that would require it.

The M8 GMC was a direct fire weapon, intented to provide HE support in armored cavalry units which otherwise had only 37mms on Stuarts and armored cars. The armored cavalry squadron included an "Assault Gun Troop" with 6 or 8 M8s depending on whether the squadron had 3 or 4 regular troops; the organization varied between independent squadrons and those integral to armored divisions.