Army mortars v screw galleys

Hi Don,

The problem with a infantry type bazooka weapon used to attack pillboxes or hard points etc, is that it could now be quickly copied by the Go4 and would increase the capabilities of their infantry far more than it would benefit the allies, since they already have rifle grenades.

While the subject of general weapons being copied hasn't been mentioned directly by the inner circle too often [though the Mahndrayn was supposed to be too advanced to be copied, it spurred Go4 development of something better], the discussion of adopting rockets indicates their ongoing concern regarding increasing Go4 potential firepower than any new weapon improves their own.

We have yet to have a thread on the battlefield effects and other potential effects of how quickly the Dohlarans and the Go4 will be when they adopt revolvers [like Gatling guns?], now that they have examples to copy.

Granted, the Go4 are still ignorant of most of the weapons demonstrated in HFQ since the victims weren't able to report what happened (not that they knew the details in the first place), and are still unaware of others; but we shouldn't be too surprised by new Go4 weapons based on reports of other Charisian developments, even if copying things like the M96 etc directly are impossible.

Given the vast amount of allied artillery fielded since the end of LaMA that was featured in HFQ, delivery of lots more of the modern 4" and 6" guns/howitzers [NTM the M97 4.5" mortars] will go rather far in keeping the Go4 armies at bay.

Which brings up the size of the allied artillery wedge, ie the huge number of artillery troops needed to man them all compared to the regular infantry and dragoons they support.

And so it goes...

L

n7axw wrote:Lots of soldiers still using personal armor, of course. But no APCs yet so really no other armor to penetrate.

Don

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lyonheart wrote:Hi Don,

The problem with a infantry type bazooka weapon used to attack pillboxes or hard points etc, is that it could now be quickly copied by the Go4 and would increase the capabilities of their infantry far more than it would benefit the allies, since they already have rifle grenades.

While the subject of general weapons being copied hasn't been mentioned directly by the inner circle too often [though the Mahndrayn was supposed to be too advanced to be copied, it spurred Go4 development of something better], the discussion of adopting rockets indicates their ongoing concern regarding increasing Go4 potential firepower than any new weapon improves their own.

We have yet to have a thread on the battlefield effects and other potential effects of how quickly the Dohlarans and the Go4 will be when they adopt revolvers [like Gatling guns?], now that they have examples to copy.

Granted, the Go4 are still ignorant of most of the weapons demonstrated in HFQ since the victims weren't able to report what happened (not that they knew the details in the first place), and are still unaware of others; but we shouldn't be too surprised by new Go4 weapons based on reports of other Charisian developments, even if copying things like the M96 etc directly are impossible.

Given the vast amount of allied artillery fielded since the end of LaMA that was featured in HFQ, delivery of lots more of the modern 4" and 6" guns/howitzers [NTM the M97 4.5" mortars] will go rather far in keeping the Go4 armies at bay.

Which brings up the size of the allied artillery wedge, ie the huge number of artillery troops needed to man them all compared to the regular infantry and dragoons they support.

And so it goes...

L

On your last paragraph, true... All that artillery is a great equalizer, however. Heavily outnumbering your enemy doesn't do you a whole lot of good if you have to charge into the face of something like that.

Don

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n7axw wrote:

lyonheart wrote:Given the vast amount of allied artillery fielded since the end of LaMA that was featured in HFQ, delivery of lots more of the modern 4" and 6" guns/howitzers [NTM the M97 4.5" mortars] will go rather far in keeping the Go4 armies at bay.

Which brings up the size of the allied artillery wedge, ie the huge number of artillery troops needed to man them all compared to the regular infantry and dragoons they support.

And so it goes...

L

On your last paragraph, true... All that artillery is a great equalizer, however. Heavily outnumbering your enemy doesn't do you a whole lot of good if you have to charge into the face of something like that.

Don

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I think lyonheart's penultimate paragraph answers the worries he brings up in the ultimate one. If you've got fewer people but better manufacturing and technology than the other side, you need the force multipliers to make each soldier as dangerous and as removed from harm as you can make him, and you're going to use that manufacturing to deliver it to him. (Or her, though Safehold isn't quite getting there yet. The women are getting employed doing that building and delivering though.)

Four guys operating a M97 mortar are a lot safer and a lot more dangerous - under standard, more-or-less creatable conditions - than four guys with rifles, on a horse or off it. And they're a lot easier to feed, transport, or hide than the latter, if a bit harder than the former.

Mind you, those standard conditions do depend on having some infantry, dragoons, scout-snipers, forward observers, and logistics train - more than a few, too. But it's fair to say that, by design, the ICA is an artillery/engineering force with what support by other arms the artillery and combat engineers need to do their jobs. And it works.

saber964 wrote:
Most modern rocket launchers are used in reducing strong points and bunker busting not anti-armor work.

Huh? The newest variants of the RPG have a warhead specifically designed to defeat modern armor by creating a jet of plasma to cut through armor. The implosion round isn't very useful against concrete bunkers.

One of the US weapons from the 60's was the M72 LAW (Light Anti-Tank Weapon) - I'm not certain what it was supposed to be used for, but lots of soldiers pointed them at tanks.

It's replacement is the M136 AT4 (Anti-Tank) - once again, a missile that gets pointed at lots of tanks.

It should be noted that the AT4 (and RPG) come with multiple types of warheads, each with a specialized purpose - the warheads you use for bunker busting aren't the ones you use on a main battle tank.

Loren Pechtel wrote:They already have shoot-through rifle grenades, why would they need an infantry rocket? Infantry rockets are for punching through armor and require shaped charge warheads. That requires high explosives and a complex impact fusing system--and they can't make them for their shells, why should we think they can make a far more complex system for a rocket?

I don't think they really need infantry rockets, but I will point out that it's generally much easier to build a complex fusing system for a rocket propelled projectile than for a shell. The rocket experiences a far gentler acceleration profile; so it's not so difficult to build fusing mechanisms that survive launch/firing in working order.

This assumes a contact fuse. Delay fuses are just as difficult for rockets as shells; because the terminal impact is just as hard no matter how gentle the launch/firing was.

Jonathan_S wrote:

Loren Pechtel wrote:They already have shoot-through rifle grenades, why would they need an infantry rocket? Infantry rockets are for punching through armor and require shaped charge warheads. That requires high explosives and a complex impact fusing system--and they can't make them for their shells, why should we think they can make a far more complex system for a rocket?

I don't think they really need infantry rockets, but I will point out that it's generally much easier to build a complex fusing system for a rocket propelled projectile than for a shell. The rocket experiences a far gentler acceleration profile; so it's not so difficult to build fusing mechanisms that survive launch/firing in working order.

This assumes a contact fuse. Delay fuses are just as difficult for rockets as shells; because the terminal impact is just as hard no matter how gentle the launch/firing was.

Except an armor-piercing charge must be detonated from the rear, not from the front.

Even more challenging, it has to be detonated before the body of the charge is in full contact with the armour.

For HEAT rounds, at least - some of them actually had a rod sticking out front to trigger the fuse at the correct stand-off distance. HESH isn't as fussy, it should work fine detonating at contact. Come to think of it, as long as you can manufacture plastic explosives, a HESH warhead is going to be at least as effective as the much more difficult HEAT design against anything that's likely to be brought into service before the unification wars are over.

Loren Pechtel wrote:

Jonathan_S wrote:I don't think they really need infantry rockets, but I will point out that it's generally much easier to build a complex fusing system for a rocket propelled projectile than for a shell. The rocket experiences a far gentler acceleration profile; so it's not so difficult to build fusing mechanisms that survive launch/firing in working order.

This assumes a contact fuse. Delay fuses are just as difficult for rockets as shells; because the terminal impact is just as hard no matter how gentle the launch/firing was.

Except an armor-piercing charge must be detonated from the rear, not from the front.

Hi Jeff Engel,

What I was trying to obliquely point out is that the ICA artillery is a huge, rather unnumbered fraction of the ICA: being between at minimum, a fourth and a third of its given front line strength that can't be reconciled by the numbers given in LaMA.

Remember the crew of a 3" mortar is 6 [plus another 6 in the support platoon's chain of command], so I expect the crew of an M97 4.5" mortar would be at least 7-8, while the field gun crews are at least 10 to 12.

DE had almost 5000 field guns and over 3000 mortars, Stohnar had 2600, Sahmyrsyt had over 2000, and while we don't know what BGV and Hanth had, I'd be surprised if it was less than a thousand each for over 14,600 guns and mortars just with the 7 main allied armies as abase figure, not counting those still involved internally or training up.

We don't know the detailed breakdown, except that mortars are probably the overall majority, possibly as much as 60-67%, so the mortar/gun crews alone total 125-135,000; with another 15-25,000 just in the artillery battalions, without all those at the brigade and higher chain of command plus all those involved in supplying ammunition and maintaining the guns etc; for a total figure easily in excess of 40% of the 350-400,000 ICA, before losses, in Siddarmark at the end of LaMA; a rather high ratio of artillery to infantry and dragoon.

Being an ex-artilleryman I'm very glad to have all of them, NTM more than willing to concede most could have come after the initial combat troops [assuming artillery aren't considered 'combat' troops for some reason] in HFQ's almost unmentioned convoys, which appeared to be mainly making up losses, since LaMA clearly stated that all but 20,000 combat troops had left Chisholm by the end of September 896.

If Clyntahn, among others, is ignoring or downplaying the size and number of the ICA and RSA artillery units despite their now known power in order to play the temple's greatly superior ratio of infantry and dragoons, they are only going to be very painfully reminded of what they tried to overlook in the near future.

L


[quote="JeffEngel"][quote="n7axw"]*quote="lyonheart"*Given the vast amount of allied artillery fielded since the end of LaMA that was featured in HFQ, delivery of lots more of the modern 4" and 6" guns/howitzers [NTM the M97 4.5" mortars] will go rather far in keeping the Go4 armies at bay.

Which brings up the size of the allied artillery wedge, ie the huge number of artillery troops needed to man them all compared to the regular infantry and dragoons they support.

And so it goes...

L


*quote*

On your last paragraph, true... All that artillery is a great equalizer, however. Heavily outnumbering your enemy doesn't do you a whole lot of good if you have to charge into the face of something like that.

Don

-[/quote]
I think lyonheart's penultimate paragraph answers the worries he brings up in the ultimate one. If you've got fewer people but better manufacturing and technology than the other side, you [i]need[/i] the force multipliers to make each soldier as dangerous and as removed from harm as you can make him, and you're going to use that manufacturing to deliver it to him. (Or her, though Safehold isn't quite getting there yet. The women are getting employed doing that building and delivering though.)

Four guys operating a M97 mortar are a lot safer and a lot more dangerous - under standard, more-or-less creatable conditions - than four guys with rifles, on a horse or off it. And they're a lot easier to feed, transport, or hide than the latter, if a bit harder than the former.

Mind you, those standard conditions do depend on having some infantry, dragoons, scout-snipers, forward observers, and logistics train - more than a few, too. But it's fair to say that, by design, the ICA is an artillery/engineering force with what support by other arms the artillery and combat engineers need to do their jobs. And it works.[/quote]