
3rd August 2010, 15:15
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Alter Hase
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Join Date: Dec 2004
Location: Finland
Posts: 1,448
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Re: Why the USAAF gave up on the A-36 in favour of the P-47.
Hello Tony and sorry for the OT message
Thanks for appliqué armour info, texts say that most Mk IVs and VIs had it, but I have found out that it is difficult to identify from photos because most Churchills in NW Europe seemed to had been heavily camouflaged with hessian or foliage. In fact according to drawings I have seen appliqué sets incl also a part for hull nose.
Quote:” The poor A/T performance of the 75mm L40 was not a problem in infantry support which required HE performance, and that was good. In any case 20% of Churchills were equipped with 6pdr APDS. And towed Allied A/T guns were outstanding, especially the 17pdr.”
Now even if 17pdr was excellent A/T gun it was heavy and very vulnerable, not a right weapon to support attacking Churchills throught German counter barrages. Look for ex what happened on Hill 112, even M10s/Achilleses suffered heavily because of open tops and weak armour and could not give reasonable support for Churchills which suffered heavy losses to German tank fire. And unit histories are full of bitter comments on lack of penetration power of 75mm.
Quote: “Attacks were usually planned to minimise the possibility of enfilade by 50mm and 75mm Paks”
In theory yes but in reality because of insufficient info on enemy not often possible.
It wasn’t so easy in the Eastern Front in 44-45 than you seemed to think. Soviets lost 1800 heavy tanks and 1800 heavy SP guns in 1944-45 and suffered high human losses. You might compare Oper Veritable and the the Battle of Tali-Ihantala http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Tali-Ihantala, sorry Wikipedia, terrain at Tali-Ihantala suited better to tanks but still, even if we forgot the preliminary fighting 20-24 June 44, it took for Soviets 7 days to advance appr 7km from Tali to Ihantala where they were stopped. The battle continued several days but without any significant gains to Soviets. Terrain was better for attacker, it was summer and weather was much better, lots of daylight here north, defence preparations minimal and in this case attacker suffered clearly heavier losses than the defender, contrary to what happened during Oper. Veritable/Blockbuster.
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You mentioned Soviets and IS-2s, one small combat, rather insignificant but bloody. One of preliminaries of Tali-Ihantala. On 20 June 44 152 Tank Brigade and 26 Separate Guards Heavy Tank Regiment (21IS tanks) attacked with troops from 358 RifleD in order to take Tammisuo which was defended by Finnish III/3. Brigade ie one exhausted infantry battalion, which had arrived on previous evening, the neighbouring battalion had 2 StuGs attached. There wasn’t much defensive works so troops had to also do some digging even if they desperately needed some sleep. The lack of defence preparations might have been a blessing in disguise, at least at first; later under Soviet artillery fire it would mean clearly higher losses to Finns, because Soviets attacked without reconnaissance and without artillery preparation. They didn’t succeed to take Tammisuo and on that day the heavy tank regiment lost destroyed and damaged 11 IS tanks and 152 Tank Br had only 10 T-34s in strength on 21 Jun. The battalion sector was appr 2 kilometres wide. After two days hard fighting the Brigade, which had suffered heavy losses in heavy Soviet artillery fire, had to retreat 2½ km to new positions. I don’t know the number of A/T guns III/3.Br had, but they could not have had many and none were bigger than 75mm, no air support.
Now the first picture in the thread http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?f=59&t=167588 happened to be on a destroyed IS-2 at Tammisuo on 21 Jun 44, so you can see that the terrain was fairly open and firm. Other pictures are from Ihantala.
Juha
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