Comparing WWII medium artilleries

While tanks, planes and battleships dominated the headlines, in WWII armies still relied upon artilleries for supporting fire. How do some of the French, British, American, Japanes, Germany and Russian artilleries stack up against one another in terms of range, accuracy, mobility..... In particular the medium artilleries, 100mm, 122mm, 152mm,155mm...and what's this German 18.4 cm which I never heard before....

 

Russia had some very nasty 152mm Artillery pieces, wich when was used in a large scale bombardment would suck the air right out of your longs if your were in the middle of it...

Regards, KBO

 

Depends on how you define 'medium'. The standard field artillery calibre for the Germans and Americans was 105mm, but for the British it was the 25 pdr, which had a calibre of 88mm. The British also had a 4.5 inch (114mm) long-range gun, but that was much less successful than the 5.5 inch (140mm) gun/howitzer on the same mounting.

The 25 pdr and 5.5 inch were regarded as highly successful and remained in British service for a long time after WW2. The 25 pdr in particular was probably one of the best field artillery pieces, ever, and ammo for it is still being made - it's still in service somewhere!

Tony Williams: Military gun and ammunition website and discussion
forum

 

Yeah, guess where.

Holland!

As for artillery, the Russians had some of the best. I hear nothing but good news about their guns, from the 76.2mm field gun to the 152mm howitzer. The American 155mm Long Tom was renowned for its accuracy though.

 

The Russians spared no expenses when it came to artillery for sure. They typically can lay down 150-200 guns per mile of front during any major campaign. Even their 76.2mm were deceptively effective, not to mention the devastating 204mm howitzer which leveled Berlin.
I didn't know the British had a 5.5 inch field howitzer, I always thought they had a 6-inch. Was the 25-pounder the same gun mounted on the up-graded Centurion tanks after the war?
Does anyone have anything on the German 18.4 cm?

 

I hate to be nagging about the details, but a good deal of Berlin had been levelled by Allied bombers when it was struck by a massive assault of Sturmovik ground attack aircraft in early April; then the 'real' bombardment began with Katyushas and every variety of Soviet gun firing at the city - including the 203mm gun.

 

No - that was the 20 pdr, which was a very different beast, a high-velocity gun with a very similar peformance to the Tiger II's 88mm L/71.

TW

 

The US field medium artillery stood shoulders above them all in WW2, with the M2A1 105 and M1A1 155 hows, and the M2 "Long Tom"

A correspondent which saw M7( a self-propelled M2A1 105 mm howitzer) during the American landings in North Africa described what happened:

" l watched the guns wheel into position and open fire. The shells ripped through the armor of all axis tanks-German Mk.3s, Mk.4s(sic) and the new Italian semovetes.The panzer divisions crumbled under the fir, the lines dissolved and they retreated The American guns are said to have accounted for more smashed panzer units in the Alamein offensive that the tanks did. The more the British 8th army used the american gun, the more devastating necame the effect on the enemy. the Germans brought uop heavy cannon of their own in an attempt to silence the new weapon, but they found, to their dismay that the American gun ouranged them. "

The M1A1 155 mm howitzer was an extremely accurate piece which used separate loaiding ammunition and percussion firing mevchanism. Towed by a truck or tractror it only required five minutes to emplace. The US M2 155 "Long Tom" was the farthest shhoting piece in the US field artillery (max. range 25,715 yards with HE)- It employed the same shell as the M1A1 howitzer, and utilized the same wheeled carriage as the M2 8-inch howitzer. Not only were th M1A1 105 how, the M1A1 155 how and the M2 155 gun excellent pieces, ut they were available in quantity. The British were certainly glad to have them...The US Army landed in France. it boasted a fabulous array of guns-23 pieces per 1000 soldiers(compared to the tradiitonal 4-1 of WW1) but the use of advanced instruments at the FDC (Fire Directional Center, which included computers for each of the heavier pieces) enabled US batteries to mass their fire far more effectively than their British, German or Russian counterparts. TOT (Time on Target) missions in which as many as 23 artillery batallions were syncronized to fire simultaneosuly destroyed enemy troop and armor concentrations before they could be deployed.[/b][/i]

 

That is a great point, any GI with access to a field telephone can direct any artillery batteries within range to his aid. The Russians were known to be inefficient when re-directing its artillry fire to changing battlefield situations.

 

Actually, the ability of the US field artillery to mass its fire with speed and accuracy was due to certain innovations, not the least important of which was a new logarithmic slide ruler invented by captain (later gral.) Abbot H. Burns, who was assined to thFire Direction Center in 1940. The slide rule , known as GTF (Graphic Firing Table) provided elevation, drift, fork and fuse time with every varierty of charge known for any range and it was accurate to within 10 yards. To this were added computers, rather massive affairs, but decades of anything else in servicewith other armies.. US artillery was able to shift fire quicker than any other comparable arm. The russians, on the other hand oprefered to shift their pieces, and their fire control methods were primitive, and at least a decade behind. Furthermore, they relegated their truck-towed guns to indirect fire, this made them unecessarily slow, akward and very vulnerable to enemy indirect fire., something which cost them thousands, perhaps tens of thousands of pieces....

 

This is one where you'll never get agreement, but the British and Commonwealth view is that (1) the 25 pdr was a better gun than the 105mm and (2) their method of fire control, and the speed with which different level of fire could be brought to bear on a target, were the best in the war.

You should try to read Blackburn's 'The Guns of War'. He was an FOO with a Canadian 25 pdr unit in 1944/5 in NW Europe. It's an outstanding memoir, very gritty with no holds barred.

Tony Williams: Military gun and ammunition website and Discussion forum

 

I wouldn't exactly call the first army to use massed rocket artillery for just that purpose 'primitive'... (As opposed to Nebelwerfers which were designed to throw smoke.) The Russians themselves at least felt they had the best artillery in the world, true or not it says something about their confidence in it and proficience in using it.

 

The germans used a lot of horse-towed 105mm houwitzers during their campaigns. Sometimes these guns got lucky and got a 10-tons halftrack to tow them, but that was very rare. These were pretty good cannons though. They had an effective rang of about 10 kilometers, and were able to load, aim and shoot pretty fastly after the previous round.
Drawback was that attacks often had te be postponed because the horses couldn't keep up with the motorized units such as tanks, IFV's and those towed guns.

 

I'm with Tony over the fire control of 25pdrs. I believe the British(sic) system to have been the best in WWII. (I am not biased, honestly. Credit where credit is due.)

 

What the US Army achieved by superb fire control (which what l was referring to when l said that Russian fire control methods were primitive) the Russians simply achieved my massive numbers-When it came to fire control, the US Army was in a league of its own...This is not bias..just fact..

 

Do I smell a split topic called "Best fire control of WWII"?

 

Soviet artillery was massive and inflexible, compared to US, British and German fire control methods it was primitive. US and British methods differed more in detail than substance, but I think the edge goes to the Americans, based mostly on more extensive and reliable communications. To quote George Patton in a letter to his wife: "our artillery won the war".

 

More like, "US artillery gave the Americans and those working with them a vital edge over the enemy". It's likely that the outcome of the war was influenced more by the primitive but massive Russian artillery than the superior American fire control...

 

You are talking about numbers, l was referring to quality ..if l was to follow your line or reasoning l would argue that the US strategic bombing of Germany not only destroyed their industrial capabilities but forced them to divert almost 15.000 pieces of artillery to protect the skies of the Reich....Otherwise, those 15,000 gun barrels would have been deployed in the Eastern Front....

 

Hey, l'm game!
best regards!