"Dumb" Artillery vs Tanks
Artillery is quite unpopular and often underestimated, particularly in comparison to tanks. Yet, particularly even "dumb" artillery, so without specialized anti-tank or guided / high-precision ammunition. For this I talked to a German Ukraine Legion member, additionally I looked at German WW2 sources and also a US Field Artillery journal that looked at US and Soviet data from various tests.
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Soldiers of the Royal Artillery are pictured firing 105mm Light Guns during an exercise, Richard Watt/MOD, OGL v1.0OGL v1.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Busted T-72BA tank during August battle clashes in the War in Donbass, День ТВ / DenTVinform Official Stream, CC BY 3.0 creativecommons.org/licenses/..., via Wikimedia Commons, commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi...
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Durham, George: Who Says Dumb Artillery Rounds Can’t Kill Armor?, Field Artillery, Nov-Dec 2002, p. 8-11
Kast, Bernhard; Bergs, Christoph: Panzer: The Medium Tank Company. German Army Regulation H. Dv. 470/7 1941. Military History Group: London, UK, 2023 - www.hdv470-7.com
00:00 Intro
00:38 Experiences from Ukraine Fighter
02:51 German WW2 Experiences
04:01 US Army Field Artillery Journal (US & Soviet Data)
6:56 Myth 1
07:42 Myth 2
07:57 Myth 3
08:08 Myth 4
08:41 Myth 5
09:02 Conclusion
#artillery #tanks #artilleryvstanks
I think a lot of people forget what tanks were designed for, to break hardened defences and provide direct fire in support of combined arms approaches. They see the tank as a purely tank vs tank kind of thing when it's more of a rock, paper, scissors scenario where you're using the tool appropriate to break the enemy. American doctrine is to use heavy forces to effectively push the envelope and draw fire, allowing the real heavy hitters to identify and target enemy strong points with indirect fire. Artillery rules the battlefield with this level of intelligence and instant correction, anyone entering into it to try to achieve something should know they are under constant threat of unpredictable death from above. That being said, there could be strength in formations if you can control local airspace and have advanced active protection systems.
Indeed, a lot of the problem is that the only wars people have seen for most of the last fifty years or more are COIN Ops, Occupations, and other low-intensity conflicts, where minimal collateral damage is a primary concern of the armed forces. Americans, especially, are mostly oblivious to the sheer firepower the USA keeps in stockpiles waiting for a war where the only rule is kill the enemy wherever it is with extreme prejudice. An example is the B52. Most media talks about how they keep being updated to drop the most amazing precision weapons. What is not talked about so much is that if Uncle Sam decides it is time for most or the whole of a city to be reduced to ruins, each B52 can still drop 30+ tons of indiscriminate boom-boom in its belly, be it incendiary, high-explosive, shrapnel, or otherwise.
And I am going to disagree. Tanks were designed to exploit, using their mobility. Even in WW1.
@@genericpersonx333We only have 70 B-52s, and we can’t build anymore. We lost like a dozen trying to bomb Hanoi, and those SAMs were ancient SA-2s. There will never be carpet bombing again in modern war, except maybe behind our own lines, because of AA cover. I also don’t think our stocks are as vast as you think. Most of our weapons are stupidly expensive and have an expiration date. Look at how much trouble we had finding 155s for the Ukraine. We are not ready for a peer to peer conflict, whether it be our populace, military itself, or industrial base.
@@jakemocci3953 We didn't have trouble finding 155s for Ukraine, we sent them 160 Howitzers and over 2 million shells. And we're moving towards increasing ammo production from 14,000 shells per month to 24,000 per month. That's nearing the production levels of the Korean War. You heavily underestimate the ability of America's military industrial complex to supply the military, or expand rapidly to do so. We used a number of B52s for carpet bombing in the First Gulf War, and you wanna know how many we lost? One. From an electrical failure. Not even from Iraqi anti air. The B52 works well, especially when combined with SEAD operations. When you send them out alone with no preparation or support against enemy air defenses, sure, they don't do well, but that would be as ridiculous as launching a bayonet charge into enemy machine guns unsupported and then saying infantry is useless when it fails.
You guys love to boast about your great feats against iraqi IADS yet never mentuon how extremly fragile outdated centralized to an extent that basically handicapped,their capabilities not go mention how the,cia already had enoug intelligence on their system and especially the vulnerability and gaps through simply obtaining the info on,their command and,control system the kari from the engineer who designed it so basically you had everything on a plater what if you fight a peer who has complex rough IADS an airforce large and can fight back with IRS capabilites enourmous counter intelligence capabilites its not only logistics @@charliebasar9068
As a semi-recent graduate, US Army artillery schools still teach that it takes 70-80 155mm shells to successfully destroy a Russian MBT. I’ve always assumed this number takes accuracy into account, but especially after seeing footage and accounts from Ukraine it’s clear this is a massively exaggerated number 😂
The guy that ran these numbers took into account the amount of shells needed to reduce the tank to dust 😂
Any estimate needs to keep in mind that weapons operators won't shoot or will be allowed to shoot if the chance is too low, and the operators will figure out tricks to increase the chance, like sight in bends in advance. But I also think that the military schools haven't caught up to how much drones change the game.
I kind of think that number is close. it their are only one MBT in the area. after all most of the shells might only do Lanscaping.
I think that number goes back to WWII where the artillery battery covered a number of hectares and the density of shells per hectare was computed. I worked it out for shells per minute and then hit chances for a game, but that was a long time ago. I remember that a 152mm shell had to hit within 1.5 meters of the tank to damage it.
Considering the price differences between some extra artillery shells, a modern tank and whatever the tank would destroy if it gets away: expend some extra shells, just to be sure. Also: how much decoys and fog of war was factored in? How much degradation over longer times between proper maintainance?
Artillery: 70% of the battle casualties in WW1, yet forgotten.
Well when nobody moves for four years that is a given out come.
There were massive sweeping movements in the West in 1914 and 1918. The East was fairly mobile for the whole war@@SouthParkCows88
And 80% of UKR casualties in the siege of Bakhmut.
In our WW1 unit, we litterally talked extensively how artillery played a massive role in the war, and how military leadership trained on napoleonic warfare, didn't know how to deal with it.
@@honkhonk8009Well I mean they were making the tactics on the fly.
When it comes to "resilience" of armored vehicles against 155mm shells falling nearby (no vehicle will survive direct hit), then from memory being able to protect against 155mm shell falling 60 meters away or more is STANAG 4569 level 3 requirement, which most SPA and SPH are capable of. But only the best manage STANAG 4569 level 4 (or even higher) - which is protection from shells falling 30 meters away or more. This is very important, because for example sources differ for various systems - example: Zuzana 2 is either level 3 or level 4 - sources differ. Also this particular requirement mostly talks about crew survivability. Not optical or other "weaker" components. Those that are supposed to be protected the best are probably only systems that deal with communications and basic operability of the Artillery. So it might still be able to perform basic missions, but for example sensors that would allow it to operate more independently could be more easily damaged. Generally speaking most vehicles can handle 155mm shell going out over 100-120 meters away from the vehicle. The closer the shell lands, the more exponentially deadly it is. Level 5 from memory talks about surviving blast from 25 meters. There is also level 6, but I don't know if there is any vehicle (this STANAG is for armored vehicles not tanks) that can handle 155mm shell going off 10 meters away from it, in terms of survival of the crew. Tanks theoretically should protect the crew against such a blast (well, at least from fragments), but crew will most likely have to abandon it or evacuate vehicle with external help.
I think 155mm HE impacting the front (direct fire) of a T28 Super Heavy Tank, IS-7, or Obj 279 would not guarantee elimination of every crew member. Otherwise, why did the British bother testing 183mm HESH?
I'm absolutely no expert on these matters, but 60m away and a mission kill? That seems a bit too much for me. Especially since modern artillery fires far more accurate.
@@JWQweqOPDH Yes, apologies, I was talking of indirect fire (meaning shell is striking from above). That is usually how also STANAG levels of protection are written, since direct fire from artillery is something that is currently relatively rarely used (most SP Artillery are capable of direct fire, but that is usually for self-defense in case something goes horribly wrong and sometimes it's used against certain type of fortifications). Albeit I know that "Dana" SPH in Polish army had a loadout that did include up to 4 rounds of ammo that wasn't HE (it could have been APFSDS, but I'm not sure) that was meant to penetrate tank armor. I would have to check how often they did include those rounds in real combat scenarios - I know that when they were in Afghanistan, they usually didn't have any, since there was no need. For obvious reasons. Also protection standards usually are written in such a way that they for example specify that "armor should protect the crew from shrapnel from X type of HE ammo landing Y distance away". We don't design Artillery to also be protected from tank direct fire - they would probably weigh at least 90 tons if we did (or much more, given that usually turret has 2 compartments - I do wonder now how to build one of those ;) ). Not to mention that you'd need to protect not only from tank HE rounds, but also every other type of armor piercing ammo if you are preparing for those type of "nightmare" scenarios (which would usually mean that your front line has been breached 30km away and Artillery still didn't retreat).
@@etuanno Well, we're talking about NATO "standards" of protection. BMP-1 might not be able to protect you for example in case of a 155mm shell landing 60 meters from it. STANAG 4569 requires "guarantee". Almost all modern SP artillery is at least level 3, but might not be level 4 (so for example if it protect from 155mm shell falling 35 meters away). Also this particular STANAG talks about protection from anti-materiel calibers from certain distance. So if vehicle doesn't meet one requirement, it doesn't meet the standard. From memory level 3 requires to protect from 7.62x51 Tungsten Carbide projectiles (or 12.7 regular, I think) fired from 30 meters or more with certain velocity, while level 4 talks about 14.5 mm AP round from 200 meters with also some velocity that I don't remember.
Lvl 6: 155 mm High Explosive at 10 m Angle: Azimuth 360°; elevation: 0-90° Or kinetic 30 mm APFSDS or AP at 500 m Angle: Frontal arc to centreline: ± 30° sides included, elevation 0° Not sure, I think Zetor Engineering (Brno) made a (concept) with lvl 6 at front of a ifv (kind of like the puma). But yeah lvl 6... Then you want a tank..
Why did you park your Pzh 2000 in the middle of the museum
Because I can.
Probably the weather. Keeping these vehicles free of ice and snow by hand is no fun. 😅
Because it’s an older design, the future is RCH-155. 😂
DDH... Because, like most military vehicles these days, it's an antique. ...though FWIW, the vehicles I went to war in in 1991 were all produced in 1962-65 ..... upgraded every decade or so, but still nigh 3 decades old -3 decades of hard use ...
@@danieparriott265 Guess what the 2000 stands for! Yeah, it’s a pretty modern system.
This is confirms the old adage if it doesn't crack hit or more or with a bigger hammer. Artillery is a very big hammer.
Perfect, we were just arguing over this in the boardgame World at War 85. I said the armor tops and tracks were remarkably vulnerable as modeled in the game. Now, I sent your video to my friends to say I told you so.
I was a forward observer in the army and I asked out arty LT about what we would do in a conventional scenario with tanks. He told me that we weren't to fire on tanks with arty and that the fire direction center would probably write us off for even requesting arty on tanks because it was too ammo inefficient. I suppose the russia ukraine conflict has proven that more wrong than right. especially with the guided arty rounds like Excalibur
That is literally the most moronic thing they can do. They think they would be sniping the enemy with arty or something? Write peoples request off as "ammo inefficient" when they are being advanced at by tanks is to literally get them all killed.
Every army always underestimates ammunition requirements, because there is no limit. Look at Vietnam - give soldiers unlimited rounds, and you get hundreds of thousands of shots per kill. It's the same with artillery. More ammunition, the more rounds get used on a target. No soldier is going to conserve ammo or use it wisely if they don't need to. It's diminishing returns.
This thinking keeps reminding me of the battle rifle, a cool idea on paper in reality, guns with more bullets and ease to carry are always superior. Every 30 or so years we revert and need to relearn that lesson.
The chiefton "there is no such thing as overkill" (to a tanker. To ordinance however....)
It's understandable. The side which fires more rounds will have an advantage in the engagement, other factors being equal
@@juliantheapostate8295this is correct. Combatants are not always, firing to kill the enemy. Rather, they are often, perhaps mostly, firing to "suppress" the enemy. That is, inflict in the enemy a mortal fear that keeps him from maneuvering or returning fire. This is the case from small arms fire, all the way up to crew served weapons as large as naval guns (though decreasingly so). Killing the enemy supports inflicting this fear, but is also a distinct goal onto itself. This is why "fire advantage" is so important to combat and explains the psychological motivation for combatants to fire as much ordinance as they can, whenever they can.
An ROTC instructor of mine, a US army colonel from the artillery, in fact, encountered General George Patton himself during the "Great Louisiana maneuvers". The general was engaged in an argument with an umpire, stating that "artillery could not stop his tanks because they weren't anti-tank guns!".
I think it was a little different back then, it’s the accuracy of modern guns and spotting techniques that have made howitzers viable weapons against MBTs.
Anti aircraft artillery certainly did. Flak 88 enters the chat
@@jakemocci3953 In WW2 arty was the main killer of tanks, and that remained to this day. Barrage either immobilizes the tank or takes out its vision blocks. Direct hit spreads the tank over the field.
Fascinating, because that's something a lot of British tank officers did as well in anti-invasion exercises in 1941! I wonder if part of it was because many officers were still thinking in terms of the shrapnel barrages fired by the old 18pdr and 75mm, instead of the heavier HE barrages of the 25pdr, 105 and heavier pieces. I bet your colonel had a lot of fantastic stories to tell.
@@jakemocci3953It has nothing to do with modern guns and spotting techniques. If you watched the above video thinking the entirety of the video pertained to Ukraine, you weren't paying attention. The US Field Artillery journal article cited was published in 2002. That is not a typo of 2022, that is 2002, two full decades before Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Worse yet, it cites a US artillery study conducted in 1988, and the documents from the Soviets being referenced were from even further back during the Cold War. The Soviets were aware at the very least years before the US was and codified their knowledge in documents. The US then tested the two sets of data to see which was more accurate and found the Soviets were indeed correct. Anyone working near tanks and artillery and rigorously testing interactions between the two have known tanks to be vulnerable to artillery for the last half-century; long before the advent of drones and proliferation of guided munitions.
Still amazes me at how accurate normal artillery is now. I remember when only extremely expensive Excalibur shells were touted to even have that kind of accuracy. Even with modern tech and fire control, and radar and drone spotting and fire correction. Being able to land a hit on a target that small is insane!
It's not 'more accurate'. Nothing changed. Lobbing a shell 15-25 km away cannot be accurate due to the flight time, atmosphere etc. Lot of these 'accurate artillery' claims are tanks shooting HE from 3-7 km away. People are just stupid.
@@IvanTre100 mm HE from t55
@@carkawalakhatulistiwa if you look at tank destruction videos, these are far from the most common tanks, which have 125mm cannons on both sides of the conflict.
Both your examples of flight time and atmosphere making artillery inaccurate are inaccurate. IFCCS, and furthermore MAPs(calculation with pencil and paper) account for all meteorological data,(up through the layers of the atmosphere) lot factors,(changes to shells based on which lot they are from the factory) muzzle velocity of individual guns, charge bag temperatures, and much more. In addition to this, if you have fired on a target and your round was off, both the observers and command post can account for the error and adjust the error out. Also ToF, or time of flight, is a simple calculation done by yourself or the computer and is given to the observer upon the first report of shot. A switched on observer can easily guess "this vehicle or column is moving this fast, my time of flight is 30 seconds, I will call for fire 30 seconds ahead of them."
in the future artillery rounds will probably be some sort of intelligent drone rounds, that will always hit tanks by seeking it, you just have to shoot it in the general direction of the enemy formation. ( Bofors/Nexter Bonus is kinda like that already ) you have to disable it with electronic warfare, or even a 100-tank formation is a goner in a matter of less than an hour.
I read once, that an US unit with M107s did a direct fire training at Grafenwöhr. Most often they missed the tank targets, but the near misses flipped the tanks over. So i guess, you don't have to hit a target to take it out ;)
Tanks just need an anti-artillery umbrella. When under fire the umbrella opens and protects the tank from direct hits 😂
Larger cope cages
I immediately thought of the panzers from Hammer's Slammers, with their radar and computer directed powergun tribarrels, able to knock down artillery and aircraft within line of sight.
Umbrellas genuinely stop you being seeing from the air by thermal sights
@@Ukraineaissance2014 New tactic unlocked. Umbrella swarm. Cover your tanks and other vehicles in umbrellas to make your ground units indistinguishable from the air 😂 The umbrella can be neatly folded and stored besides the vehicle until it needs to be deployed. You can also create fake armies by putting them on a swarm of ground drones to make the enemy focus his attention on a large force of umbrellas 😂
Finally umbrellas are getting the respect they deserve on the modern battlefield. I've always thought they were brutally underated.
Does need to be remembered: Coordinated "dumb artillery" fire is almost literally the first anti-tank doctrine ever developed.
Generally speaking, in modern warfare the basic rule is - if you can see it, you can kill it. The trick is to see before your enemy, and spotting artillery is always harder than tanks charging a position. This gives artillery a land battlefield ruling advantage, provided they have spotting available
Great video and as always a touch of the real. Do a quick mental breakdown of how an army fights in the front line in % terms - tanks, AFVs/APCs/IFVs then the soft targets. Even a tank with one track broken is a very expensive pillbox.
I'm not so worried about the tank under SPG fire so much as the crew. Overpressure isn't great for sacks of water.
When we designed version 4 of the Tactical Combat Series, I relied on Durham and significantly boosted the effectiveness of indirect artillery fire against AFVs.
The combination of observer drones and heavy artillery is deadly for even the most modern tank. Whatever the armor protection, when a 152 or 155 mm shell lands on top of it, it's simply over... But even a near hit of a heavy artillery shell can put a tank or APC effectively out of action.
This was eye-opening as I had believed in those myths. Great work!
Artillery is the main firepower of infantry. I'm shocked at how people underestimate it.
I wanted in a near future to explore this in an article, glad someone already did it !
Great video and explanation with sources as always, thank you! Cheers from Brazil.
Glad you enjoyed it!
Excellent video 👍 Thank you 💜
This is really interesting in so many respect, thanks for posting 👍
Great video and information!
This is a really insightful episode, because it provides some credible insights into a somewhat white debate on what will and won't incapacitate armor (mobility kills, catastrophic kills, etc.) -- well done!
I think it is funny that "tanks are generally weakly armored on the top" is stated in front of one of the few vehicles with a better top Armor by way of the "Igelpanzerung" :) (Not fitted to the on in the German Tank museum). But the statement is of course true. Nice Video.
I like your "out on the field" voice/audio better than your "reading citations" setup. It feels like a hard transition at 2:50
Ft Sill approved of this message.
Great information, cool topic! I am curious if you have information about the following: - similar details about smaller artillery (75mm and such) for WW2 (just area of curiosity) - how far away does traditional gun based artillery (not mortars) have to be to achieve the "top hit" versus hitting frontal armor?
Nice video again! The biggest problem is, to score a hit on a tank, if we talk about indirect fire. Even if you have all neccessary data ("sichere Schießgrundlagen"), you cant say that you hit such a small target as a tank at a greater distance. Artillery is an area weapon, so for us artillerymen, a "direct target hit" is within 50 m (!) of that target. But the detonation of an artillery shell near a target should be enough to disable (not neccessarely destroy) a tank. I servered as a Feuerleitunteroffizier (Fire direction specialist) in a tank artillery bataillon until 1991, we had the M109A3G. For engaging armored targets, we had bomblet ammunition, which worked pretty well on tanks. As you know, a shell contained lots of (80-88) small hollow charged bomblets. So at least one, often more than one would hit a tank directly, and the hollow charge would do the rest. We couldnt fire them here in Germany (but on shooting ranges in Canada), because nobody could say how many - if any - duds were among those bomblets - the reason why they are banned by many countries now. Later, in the reserve business, I was a Beobachtungsfeldwebel (Forward Observer) in a heavy (120 mm) Mortar Platoon of a Jäger-Bataillon. We had HE shells only. They had a great detonation power, and if it detonates next to any vehicle, that vehicle would be in serious trouble, too. But the best weapon of the "dumb" arty is the bomblet shell. The Ukrainians know that...
While I have heard of some military vehicles with stronger armour on the top, they were designed to be (specialised or primarily) used as anti-aircraft platforms. Although someone once told me that there are reasons for not armouring the top as strongly as the front, such as the fact that a front face is usually smaller than a top face and thus its more cost effective, also a top heavy design effects the centre of gravity more and this can make the tank slower, and apparently the main ways tanks defend against artillery is to use their mobility to evade or use reconnaissance to locate the artillery to then take it out or direct other forces (infantry, air strikes, counter-battery fire etc.) if more appropriate.
This is quite interesting, how things have changed. During the opening maneuvers of the Korean War, the american Task Force Smith attempted to ambush an oncoming column of North Korean manned soviet T-34s with *105mm howitzers firing HE rounds where a pre-registered bombardment had zero affect on the oncoming T-34s. HEAT rounds fired direct from a 105* managed to knock out but not destroy 2 T-34s, expending all six HEAT rounds available, before switching to HE. The HE rounds were unable to damage the third T-34 before the 105* itself was destroyed and the rest of Task Force Smith was punched straight through by the t-34 column and then hit with a double envelopment from a second column of infantry.
It also helps if the enemy continues to attack via the same roads so the artillery can pre target the area
Well, it's not like the enemy has a choice because there aren't any other roads.
@@lethalfang you got armor... they create the roads
@@user-nv1gm2zj7ythat's naive thinking. Heavy armour destroys unsurfaced roads quickly, theres a reason commanders still try and capture major transport and road hubs
@@Ukraineaissance2014 you do know why they use tracks right?????
@@user-nv1gm2zj7y you do know tracks wont teleport a 65 ton lump of metal through a mud pit/river/mountains/woodland/marsh/ditches, right?
Very good video. Thank you.
As a senior Finnish reserve officer I am familiar with experimental research proving the effectiveness of 152/155mm artillery against MTBs...
Experimental research? So, results of WW2 and Korea were discounted as anecdotal?
Welcome to NATO! From your friendly neighborhood American.
In my training as an artillery officer, it was emphasized, that the main purpose of massed artillery fire was to slow down or stop and disorganize an armed attacker. This implied, that a certain number of armed vehicles would be damaged or even destroyed. But artillery fire has to aim for maximal effectiveness within the combined action of all weapons. The consideration of effects of single shells against single armored vehicles serves to estimate the number of shells required within the context of the combat of combined arms. Therefore, judging effectiveness of current artillery against armored vehicles requires tactical context. The number of shells required for effective damage to enemy armor may vary accordingly. In today's Ukraine war we have a static situation, precise and timely intelligence data available and the channeling of attacks by massive minefields. For these reasons, such numbers may be very different from those assumed for the mobile situations assumed during the Cold War.
This morning there was an Article in SCMP about a new super-sonic smart shell that‘s supposed to be accurate to 15 meters. They concluded by saying that despite being very accurate, it‘s still not accurate enough to hit something the size of a tank. Having watched your video my first thought was „that tank is still in trouble“. Especially if it‘s a group of tanks, which it always should be.
Bear in mind that a tank is a mobile unit. It operates as a group of several tanks and support units. Counter battery fire and air support will hampered the artillery. Usually shelling is by area until within sights that it becomes a point target if you survived the enemy counter barrage and air strikes
Shelling is pretty common in recent wars and the soldiers in the battlefield Ukraine commonly say this phrase: "Dig in order to survive". Simply static defense fortifications are effective in holding grounds as long as they are backed by highly motivated manpower, materials, man-portable weapons, sufficient artillery support, drone support, mechanized support, and most important ground-based air defense systems.
Many of the videos i have seen from Ukraine are just one or two vehicles operating independently .... and mostly as supporting arms for infantry- either dug in in defense or attacking same across open ground ...
As soldier with smaller mortars (81 mm) I was told that we would remove the accompying infantry and probably stop the tanks without destroying them totally. The problem was, we were to close, but that was possible, because, well as swiss, we were in mountain regions, so we could prevent direct fire.
I have seen images from WII where near hits from high calibre artillery have completely overturned a tank. And that is definitely a ner, but not direct, hit.
Artillery is "King of the Battlefield" for good reasons. As you guys pointed out even near misses cause damage that can take armor out of the mission. Even Battleships in naval warfare can suffer damage that may not sink it, but impact or even cripple its capabilities to carry out a mission. Bismarck's rudder getting wrecked by a Swordfish's torpedo. It hamstrings her and prevents her escape, allowing surface ships to close in and finish her off. Scharnhorst's radar getting destroyed, crippling her ability to fight in terrible night conditions off the coast of Norway in December 1945. This eventually lead to her destruction against a superior Royal Navy force. Destroyer USS Laffey got close to Battleship Hiei and strafed the superstructure and bridge area with machine gun, anti-aircraft, and cannon fire. These weapons had zero shot in sinking Hiei but the bridge was heavily damaged killing and injuring many officers and crew. Admiral Abe was aboard Hiei and was injured, losing command of his forces during battle. His chief of staff was killed.
been saying tank bros for years now that tanks are no longer these mobile wonders forts, anything that is spotted by a drone or scout team can be shelled by 5 PZHs or such within a minute effectively, and then a well formatted shelling allows no escape. its just over for tanks the moment the enemy has good spotting intel and enough guns ready. ofcourse if we learned anything of the ukraine war so far its that both the logistics of dispersing the guns effectively, having the shells, and also just not having enough artillery in total is the real limiting factor currently, i think we will see mass production of artillery starting the coming years amongst all nations together with the drones.
With regards to HESH rounds and other specialist munitions, my understanding is that they are only used in the rare instances when an enemy vehicle comes within visual range. Do I have that right?
HESH is commonly used for destroying fortifications and buildings. Use against vehicles has somewhat declined since anti spall liners became common in tanks. But HESH kept on hand for attacking structures could also be used against vehicles if the artillery position became in danger of being overrun.
Hallo, ich kann man an Bilder aus Panzerfrecks erinnern, wo Panther zusätzliche Stahlplatten auf dem Turm und Motorraum hatten. Denke mal dass das nur effektiv gegen Mörser war, hast du da vllt Berichte drüber?
I remember seeing, a couple of years ago on one of the military channels, a theoretical face-off between a Bradley and a tank. The Bradley won because it could deliver the same surface damage as a close artillery srike. Knocking out sensors, vision, communications, even damaging the gun barrel.
Battle of 73 Eastings. The Bradley was able to blind and immobilize the Iraqi T-72 with its Bushmaster 25mm, before switching to a TOW missile and finally destroying the tank in its entirety. Funny enough, something similarly apparently happened to a T-90, being tag-teamed by a pair of Bradleys.
This just happened in Ukraine. It was recorded by a drone. kzhead.info/sun/mNdmqdyNq5R9oI0/bejne.htmlsi=XnZc4tUcBdpBVYk4
good video but i think if artillery threat comes mainly from indirect explosions you should talk about side armor because the top armor only comes in at a direct hit or am i wrong?
Normally it doesn't matter. Because armor is rigid, a lot of pressure from the sides or on top makes the armor splinter on the inside of the tank. Anyways, if you get hit that close by artillery, you will die from the overpressure. Even if you're inside the vehicle, I'm pretty sure.
Well done!
I am Hungarian and obviously track the Kf41 Lynx procurement as an informed citizen. One line stuck from some months ago: the 40-some-ish Lynx IFV had to withstand 155 or 152mm shell explosions from 30 meters or farther away. This means that WITHIN 30 meters (100 feet if you prefer) tracks, sensors even weapon systems can be damaged, as well as reactive armor bricks.
That shouldn't be surprising considering how much HE is coming down with a 155mm Artillery round, it's basically a very small bomb right next to you. And of course Tanks and IFV's should never get hit period. As soon as you get hit you did something wrong, not to say that it will never get hit, but it shouldn't.
Just about any top attack is going to be bad for a tank. Even the Tiger only had 25mm of top armor.
According to War Thunder, direct hit in a flat trajectory with HE.
Unless the tank jack-the-boxes, people underestimate the amount of damage the armor in the long range videos is receiving... especially the overpressure on the squishies inside. There are lots of cases of people seeming fine and then not waking up the next day.
Came here as a Warthunder fan just to have my thoughts about derp guns confirmed. That they are king!
I was wondering why you didn't park a tank with strong frontal armour next to the mobile artillery piece, then I realised it might have been scared of it ?!?
On the Zaporishne (sic) front the Ukrainian attacking mech forces liked to park to their previously destroyed vehicles, since they do provide protection
A few years ago it was in the news that a member of the chinese peace keeping force in Africa got heavily injured by a mortar shell that blew through the roof of the APC he was sitting in. I don't want to imagine what a direct hit by a howitzer shell looks like.
Hallo, can you make a video about the Karl-Gerät self propelled siege mortars? They are an incredible German level of awesomeness that doesn't get enough attention.
Thank you for another great video. I have a question for Military History Visualized and everyone. Based on the experience of the war in Ukraine, should we replace all main battle tanks with SPGs and light tanks?
No. Sub optimal in armour or firepower.
I don’t think so. I think it is too early.
Not this week, thank you very much. In the longer term probably. The MBT has become the new heavy tank, distinguished primarily by a bigger gun and heavier frontal armor, and that may not be an efficient use of weight in the current threat environment. If APS can get ahead of ATGMs and ECM and directed energy (like the new M-SHORAD version) systems develop enough that drones and artillery are frequently ineffective then maybe not. Even then, consider what systems can a 120mm kill that a 105mm, 50mm, or even 30mm can't? What is that difference worth? Likewise, what systems does the heavier frontal armor protect against and what is that difference worth? There's also the question of how heavy those lighter tanks are. The M10 Booker is over 40 tons and have you seen the latest generation of IFVs? They're huge.
The issue is tank armor works very very well especially if it’s a composite and it’s bolstered with things like ERA. Going down Armour to where vehicles can’t survive anything achieves nothing. If you’ve watched whole nine combat videos of armored vehicles in action, you will see they do get knocked out, but it’s the rule not the exception that they go down swinging and take multiple kills to drop, often killing the enemy, even as they go down. A vehicle that reliably dies on the first hit would be fundamentally useless.
I also remember reading a German account of an arty strike on his tanks and explaing that the gun was practically useless as even though the tank was unscathed the barrel and sights were now completely out of calibration
The scariest thing a German soldier ever saw in WWII was an American soldier with a radio.
Soviet*.
@@dragonstormdipro1013 Both, though the difference would've been against the US the shells come down indirectly while for Soviets there's a much higher chance it just comes in as direct fire
@@spinosaurusiii7027 Agreed
I thought it was Americans using M1 rifles and Soviets with the PPSh-41. These Germans were using K98ks basically a WWI action.
Drones changed EVERYTHING !!!!!!!!!!!! 🙂
It's often assumed that this wasn't known prior to the second world war, however looking at the specifications for the British infantry tanks this clearly isn't the case. The I tanks, Matilda, Valentine, Churchill etc were specifically designed to operate in 'the shelled zone' and were therefore reasonably proof against artillery. The RTC personnel therefore didn't fear artillery fire unless it was particularly heavy calibre, even though it caused the loss of tanks, or required repairs, it didn't necessarily lead to casualties unless a direct hit. Hence direct fire was proscribed against enemy tanks, which lead to the obsession with tank on tank combat. I doubt the earlier marks of III and IV were even fully Stanag 2, the later designs had interlocking road wheels and side skirts to reduce their vulnerability but doctrinally artillery wasn't thought to be effective. It does appear to depend upon what artillery however. The 4.5" was specifically designed for counter battery fire to produce large splinters ( higher tensile steel shells)which would damage opposition artillery and heavy metal. The genius of the 25pdr was it's use of 19ton soft steel which meant that production was easy, though one ounce fragments at 3000 ft/sec still sounds a lot like the equivalent of 50 cal, or stanag 2, to me. The Germans increasingly relied upon mortars and nebelwerfers, hence our tanks took few casualties from artillery, hence artillery wasn't used against opposition tank formations. There were exceptions however such as the use of 4.5" on the rocket firing Typhoons. Doctrinally the artillery was meant to mark enemy armour positions with smoke but was often in short supply of such so would use HE instead. This seems to have lead to the operation research groups rather confused findings, that most German tanks were destroyed by their own crews as they were only looking for direct hits and not splinter damage. The Germans certainly knew, particularly the vulnerability to high tensile steel shells from offshore warships, which they were terrified of. So early British tank doctrine had infantry, but only to protect the tanks at night in leaguer, artillery to hit enemy antitank guns and assumed manoeuvre and direct fire against opposition armour. All the tools and knowledge were available, though the wrong people knew and the local commanders drew the wrong conclusions from their rather negative experiences.Meanwhile it's worth pondering on what it means to knock out a tank. The Russians found that only 12% of knocked out KVs, usually those burned out, were not recoverable and repairable. Seems a Churchill unit in Italy, the NIH, lost numerous tanks in battle or to mines but all were recovered and repaired, hence no permanent losses ( even though several were Mk1s). Hence heavy tanks were only really lost in defensive battles where the hulk would be blown up by engineers after ground had been lost, though, amusingly, the German Tiger crews were instructed to destroy their own vehicles if disabled. Vast majority of losses were to mines or breakdowns which certainly puts the silly "this or that tank can penetrate 17 milfs at 3 fathoms" sort or arguments into perspective.
I had been wondering this very thing.
Well.. one of the main upgrade of thee STRV122 over the Leopard L2A4 is a increase in top armor specifically to handle artillery fragmentation grandes. The Swedish army at the time fighter that it was probobly the greatest theat to Armour considering tank to tank combat is really not that common, and it might be argued that in the forested regions of sweden it would be even less common
no tank can survive direct artillery hit like seeking 155 BONUS with high-penetration EFP warhead, no matter how much you upgrade it. BAE Systems Bofors gives the penetration capabilities of the BONUS warhead as greater than 100-140 mm of rolled homogeneous armour. however, with upgrades that concentrated on top armor, it might survive some drone-bombs and such.
@@Redmanticore That is true. If a Bonus is after you, you are coked. Better hope it hits the engine, and you might survive. But if a drone is after you and it drops hand grenades. The armor should stop that. And for the T72 riding with the hach up. I do get it why they do that. But that is one of the bad design aspect that a lot of people don´t think about.
high explosive artillery shells are cheap compared to some other anti-tank weapon systems like missiles and therefore they are a cost-effective way to destroy tanks in a prolonged war.
Well, you can fire a Javelin with a couple of guys. You need an artillery piece, something to carry it and at least 5-10 crew to have it work. Plus the he shell needs to more or less hit close. Not sure about the math there...
@@Pikilloification The Javelin team needs to be MUCH closer to the enemy.
It's still not that simple: a single artillery gun will do as much as a single soldier with an anti tank weapon, a lone tank or a single aircraft... (Discounting the silverback B29 with a Nuke on board) So you need multiple artillery guns, crews, ammo, spotters (your artillery won't hit anything if it can't see shit), spare parts especially Barrels and a way to move all that, because stationary artillery usually won't last long, after all fireing exposes it's position to enemy artillery. Now on the other hand a single tank won't do much either, but with all of that in mind I don't think there is the single superior weapon, every single one has its strengths and weaknesses and in the best case you can utilize the strengths of all.
"King of Battle"
Drones are changing everything though. They’re going to have a dramatic effect in changing tactics & movement on the modern battlefield. They can be used in an Anti-Armor role as well as Anti-Artillary. SP Artillery that uses the “shoot & scoot” tactic to avoid counter battery fire are no longer safe from drones who will zero in on the area of enemy artillery fire almost instantly. Also, Air Superiority no longer ensures that Armor & SP Artillery can safely move to & from the battlefield.
I’d be really curious what your sources say about the changes western armies need to make to their rear areas due to drones etc. it’s been interesting watching the way Israel (esp at the start of the war) was unprepared for drone warfare and how AAs we targeted via drone.
People are getting a bit carried away about drones. Though they have great capabilities the fact they are unmanned and rely on relaying signals makes them very vulnerable to counter measures currently in development. Their future will mainly be as recon assets mainly imo, dropping grenades on a few men seperated from the platoon are barely even tactical victories. They need to make drones as stealthy as possible, as small as possible while retaining an ability to stay airborne for a long time and to go a decent distance and they will be most useful to use spotting for artillery of various types and providing a big picture from above for attacking units, helping them see threats those on the ground cant. Rear areas have been facing the same threats from aircraft and cruise missiles for years. Radar guided machine guns/auto cannons and ir guided aa missiles such as martlets have already been making short work of drones when a proper aa defence is set up around population centres
30 meters for a single shell is a bit large is that radius or diameter? I know some 155mm he shells which have a significantly lower blast radius than that. Hell weve seen infantry and tanks much closer than that in Ukraine without suffering damage.
Good Video!
Flesquières did show that "dumb" artillery could do havoc among tanks
This has been the case since the birth of tanks, artillery both direct and indirect was a huge threat to british ww1 tanks. I think people are used to movies or even battle footage which shows the initial blast of artillery but doesnt accurately show in detqil the material flying out of that blast, and doesnt let you feel the intense shock wave and as a result hugely people undervalue the power of artillery. Witnessing a single battery firing at a position in real life you see and feel the effect and think 'nothing at all could survive inside that'
People grew up on propaganda of Iraq war and think tanks are killed by other tanks. Reality is entirely different.
"Artillery adds dignity, to what would otherwise be an ugly brawl." - Frederick The Great “Artillery is the god of war.” - Joseph Stalin “Artillery makes the difference between victory and defeat.” - Napoleon Bonaparte
More than 100 years later since the introduction of tanks, when hit, big caliber artillery still destroys the most modern tanks with ease
It's quite simple really. You can make a tank as ridiculously big, heavy and thickly armoured as the Maus. HE will still mess up the tracks. A mobility kill on the battlefield is a kill, period. If you're immobilised, you're dead. Of course the direct effect of artillery is horrific too. This is why the Red Army went with the A-19 122mm Corps Gun as the basis of the gun on the IS-2; at Kursk it worked.
Yeah the Soviets used direct fire artillery alot. Which is why I think it's quite interesting that they really only made assault guns after seeing the German stugs, you'd think they'd have come up with that earlier.
Even after WW2 artillery was still called "King of Battle", and infantry "Queen of Battle".
What about using tanks more indirectly? Like with the modern tanks we're giving them with modern FCS's I would think they can just stand back out at 3000-4000 m, with enemy position/target in gunners thermals and just "laze" the Target range once from there and fire away and be fine relatively? I've seen the Russians doing it plenty when they have a T90M handy(including one that claims its them killing a polish-made Rosomak 30mm, but russian first gen thermals cannot tell its even a vehicle, so...)
Most modern MBTs are accurate out to ~3,500 meters. Range is never a limitation with these vehicles, it isn't WW2 anymore. The issue is finding sightlines that allow for such massive distances on a frontline. If there isn't direct line of sight, just use normal artillery.
Every war game has it wrong. We have learnt that artillery can break tracks, but high explosive can't penetrate armor.
Ukrain3 and Russia have been "Dear grid Coordinates"-ing each others's armor, even with the dumbfire shells far too much for me to ever underestimate them again.
drone with laser guided shell has been extremely effective, krasnopol etc.
Theres a serious misconception that you have about tanks having theor hatches closed (butoned up). Any army with half decent training do not opporate armoured vehicals near the frontline with the hatches open, its suicidal. Yes some well trained militaries with old AV's which dont have decent periscopes for the commander or a commanders sight, will have commanders ignoring their training and taking the massively increased risk to their life and have their hatch open near on on the frontline, but this is rare. There is no extra stress for the crew having the hatches closed, they're used to it, they train like that. The gunner on the tank cant even stick their head out a hatch whilst at their station if they wanted to. If in contact or theres a threat of contact the loader isnt going to be stood on his seat with his head out the hatch, it would take far longer for him/her to load the coax or main armament, meaning your far more likely to be taken out in an engagement. When it comes to AFV's all the dismount infantry riding in the back dont have a hatch to begin with, they are not effected in any way by whether or not a hatch is open. So no artillary doesnt force the crew of AV's to close their hatches, their training and survival instinct means they werent open to begin with. Otherwise an interesting and informative video as usual.
A long time ago a leutenant at the German army claimed a 155mm grenade - he didn't say at what distance - could destroy any tank even if the grenade was just filled wih concrete.
Hold on. I’ll need a few different hats…
Danie's Dad Speaking here.... 98+% of the munitions my unit (5/18FA M110a2) fired was DPICM in the First Gulf War... DPICM is ALWAYS a valid answer to ANY fire mission .... and at the volume we used it, it really didn't matter what we were shooting at, they were toast..... and the "top of the tank is lightly armored" thing is real: I'd heard how tough the T-72 was, since I was a little kid .... and then when I actually saw them IRL ..... "Specialization is for Insects" .... and the niche the T-72 strived for was to be cheap and plentiful and outslug American Armor ..... ir succeeded in the first and second .... and the Americans had no intention of "slugging it out" head on ....
Well you also forget it was a generation behind the then-current Abrams and designed more for fighting the M60. Plus Saddam was using the even cheaper budget models the Soviets made that stripped the most advanced features.
Anybody else remember the wooden death trap barracks on Ft. Sill for Basic?
I do.
Artillery can engage tanks from way outside the range of the tanks main guns.
Question on myth #4:lets say 105mm artilery shell hit the front of, lets say, T72, is it instant kill as if shell landed on top?
a HE 105 hitting the front armor of a t-72 wouldnt take it out. It would wreak havoc on the periferals for sure, but unless splinters caused some very lucky damage, it would be business as usual once the smoke cleared. If all that was needed was a 105 HE frontal hit, no one would bother with sabot 120mm shots.
@@juslitordid you read the part where he wrote that the shell landed practically on top and not from the front?
@@kkkjkk641 "Is it instant kill _as if_ shell landed on top?" Did you read the part where he's asking if it would have similar damage to a top-shot even if it hits from the front?
Did you read it ? HE is asking about a frontal hit, not a roof hit@@kkkjkk641
King of battle!
Yes, it is true - dumb artillery can deal with tanks, one way or another - the tanks are by far not invulnerable, as some might believe, and they have a lot of weak spots. About the amount of ammo needed - it depends on the goal - if a direct hit is required (full destruction, or at least factory repair), the artillery might consume a lot of ammo, like 100 rounds (a 2014 estimate for Russian Arty/Hvy Mortars vs Ukrainan Tanks), or 50 rounds, even 20 rounds (M777 in 2022 vs Russian Tanks, good artilleristic skills). If close misses are considered, the number is lower, but the expectd damage to the vehicle is to be lowered too (mission kill, evtl. mobility kill). 20, 50 or 100 rounds is not that much for a battery, while in the case of M777, we're talking about a single gun. The longest tank - tank engangement was also by indirect fire, the amount of ammo used was also around 15-20 shots. This level of ammo consumption is not very high. Versus moving hard targets, some kind of obstacle or barrier is needed, for slowing the vehicle town, until it can be hit properly with indirect fire. If it is a column - some kind of bottleneck (narrow bend, bridge, narrow road section, an ambush) , which will slow down this area target, so that the artillerymen have time. Artillery is then quite effective at disabling the vehicles. The good thing of artillery nowdays, that they do indirect fire by control of an observer (drone), which makes the fire far more precise.
Will we see a new generation of heavy armored vehicles that give up the priority of frontal armor for having stronger weakspots? It seems the drone with an RPG HEAT warhead that flies right to the weakspot has made the traditional frontal armor layout a liability..
yes
Aircraft carriers are the only military equipment I can think of that are heavily(ish) armored on top.
That only applies to certain models. Early Aircraft carriers had weak flight decks that could be easily destroyed. Armored decks were mainly used by the British at the cost of aircraft capacity.
Myth 2 reminds me of the old myth that it takes 5 shermans to destroy a tiger tank. Ignoring the fact that shermans work in squads of 5 so they are always bringing 5 tanks to every encounter, regardless of threat. Pushing that 50 artillery logic to its ridiculous extent the same line of thinking one can technically argue it takes 54 shells from an artillery battalion to destroy a cockroach.
And the 5 Shermans were needed. More tanks means you can outflank them Tiger.
I wonder if APS or cope cages combined with a slightly thicker roof armour will solve the hard-kill threat from artillery.
The conviction by tank officers that artillery cannot stop tanks has a very long pedigree; during anti-invasion exercises in 1941, the British Army high command repeatedly criticised commanders who tried to use artillery barrages against armoured thrusts.
Never knew this was a myth people believed, arty can also ravage the terrain making it easier to follow up and hit the targets again.
Do you think the combatants in Ukraine (or possibly everyone else as well) may have overestimated the tanks as a breakthrough weapon? I remember that that was also a mistake that the Germans made in WWII, where they consistently overestimated the Panzer‘s capabilities, even though their own experiences had repeatedly shown that the Infantry and things like assault artillery were often the key in achieving breakthroughs. Edit: overestimated, the other one would make no sense
No the issue is that they have trouble maintaining their tools. The Moskva was famously sunk from what should have been survivable hits because they lacked the proper damage control and the CIWS system didn’t work.
Are there any real german field manuals how an officer in the german army from WW2 should wear his sidearm? Is the holster on the right or on the left to be drawn across. A bit of a random question I know but interesting.
Never looked for that. I suspect in combat nobody cared, but in ceremony for sure.
Sure thats valid, everything goes on the battlefield @@MilitaryHistoryVisualized . The question came up because of a recent polish tv show depicting WW2. I for one would like to see a vid just on army and officer rules for carrying arms if you ever encounter such a manual. Cheers. Great vids
I think that external "devices" on armored vehicles should be better protected , 50mm-70mm of armor plate around every external device would make a big difference.
I miss the older style videos.
Ok, that's one *BIG* grandson of the old StuH42, Herr Kast! =) Seriously, the sheer size of this PzH2000 shows how far combined arms has come. Now it makes sense: these can fling something, accurately, ~30km & don't really need armour.