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Old 25th November 2010, 23:12
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Juha Juha is offline
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Join Date: Dec 2004
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Re: The momentous cost of Bomber Command.

Just for the record
in summer 44 the artillery component of Soviet Rifle/Infantry Div consisted 24 76mm (3in) light field cannon and 12 122mm light field howitzer, the artillery component British Inf Div consisted 72 25pdr (3.45in) gun-howitzer. Soviet div also had 21 120mm heavy mortars and also some 76mm infantry guns, which were short range light guns for direct fire support. Both Soviet and British Armies also had plentiful medium and heavy artillery under GHQ/Stavka control which were allocated to Corps (next level up from division) according to need. While both Soviet and British field artillery guns were good, British divisions had more of them.

Soviet Tank and Mechanized Corps, these were in size nearer to German and British divisions than Corps, had 21 76mm SP guns, but British armoured divisions had 24 25pdr SP gun-howitzer plus 24 towed ones. All also had SP AT guns, Soviet 85mm SU-85s, British M10s (76mm)or Achilleses, M10 regunned with British 17pdr, also 76mm but much more powerful than US gun, in fact it had more penetration power than Soviet 85mm AT gun.

So in divisional level British seems to have more artillery support than Soviets, how much GHQ/Stavka allowed extra artillery support and ammo varied and so no absolute truth here if one doesn't want to go to individual cases.

Finnish experience was that also Il-2s were usually inaccurate.

Juha