Strategic Arms Quest 3/2: Armor Edition

Crusher Bob · Jul 21, 2018

7734 said:

I'm unaware of anyone producing a tank with sloped armor in the 15-25mm thickness range and it being notable for being more survivable.

The H35 had heavily sloped armor of 34mm thickness, and it turned out it still wasn't good enough. Plus it was hard to make.

The BT-7 (13mm? armor) looks like it had pretty good sloping on the armor, but I've never seen anyone comment on it having better effective armor than the T-26 (15mm armor).

The M-24 Chaffee has a sloped frontal glacis, but that's way way out of time period and the armor was thicker (40mm?) but by that time, it was thin enough that it didn't matter. Anything shot at it was going to go through.

I don't think you could do enough with sloping and hardening armor in the 15-25 mm thickness range to be fully immune to 'good' 37mm guns, and good 37mm guns are already 'everywhere'.

If we are building a medium tank with 40-60mm armor, especially if we are starting to get hardened armor, then some simple sloping is going to be worth it. But that's 'medium' armor.

If we are building a tank with heavy armor (80-100 mm), then thinning out the armor in exchange for slope makes lots of sense, because making hardened 80+mm plates was apparently a pretty difficult proposition. IIRC, even the US, with it's ridiculous steel industry, had trouble with the ~100mm frontal armor of the Sherman Jumbo.

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The only IRL country I can think of right now that planned to mostly fight in difficult terrain (Czechoslovakia) still produced ~10 ton, 37mm gun-armed, ~20mm armored tanks, with ~100 HP engines.
Pretty much all the notable pre/early WW2 tanks that were thought of as 'pretty good' seem to have followed this pattern (T26, BT-7, 7TP, PzIII, LT vz. 35/38). The only thing I can think of that's notable from that time period that doesn't look like that is the KV-1, which is noted as being the only heavy tank in the world at the time that didn't completely suck. It just mostly sucked...

And since there were a lot of 'good' tanks that followed the T26 pattern, but only one good heavy tank, I'd prefer shooting for the niche that produced lots of good tanks, rather than gambling that we'll luck into the KV1.

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[edit]
The tank I 'want' to build would be something like:
~20 tons
~25mm armor
~250 HP engine
Gun similar to T-26 (1933) 45mm gun
3 man turret
commanders cupola
Range finder
hatch for every crewman
intercom
short range voice radio
long range radio on some (company commander?) tanks
wet ammo storage
and maybe wider tracks than historical (for better handling in mud)

And that would indisputably be the best tank in the world (IRL) before around 1940, which is something like 30 years from 'now'.

CthuluWasRight · Jul 21, 2018

Crusher Bob said:
And that would indisputably be the best tank in the world (IRL) before around 1940, which is something like 30 years from 'now'.

But it also seems like it would be ludicrously difficult/expensive to build with present technology. We just don't have the tech for fast, well-armed and reliable breakthrough tanks at this point in time, and even if we did we have nowhere near enough dedicated tank production to crank them out in the numbers you suggested. We likely won't have this capability for at least another few years either.

Furthermore, doesn't sloped armor also improve the chance of incoming rounds bouncing, as well as improving the practical thickness of the armor?

7734 · Jul 21, 2018

Crusher Bob said:
I'm unaware of anyone producing a tank with sloped armor in the 15-25mm thickness range and it being notable for being more survivable.

The H35 had heavily sloped armor of 34mm thickness, and it turned out it still wasn't good enough. Plus it was hard to make.

Then you've got shitty sources. The H-35's problems were due to Hotchkiss making guns, not tanks, and having teething problems forthwith. In service, it performed admirably (certainly better than the Char models) and cleaned the clock of the panzers it faced in Hainut.

If we are building a medium tank with 40-60mm armor, especially if we are starting to get hardened armor, then some simple sloping is going to be worth it. But that's 'medium' armor.

You already have hardened steel armor, as well as cemented plates. These have distinct tradeoffs however, cost being a large factor, as well as the fact an overly brittle plate is less safe than an overly soft plate.

I don't think you could do enough with sloping and hardening armor in the 15-25 mm thickness range to be fully immune to 'good' 37mm guns, and good 37mm guns are already 'everywhere'.

You're never going to be 'fully immune' to a weapon, period. Between energy loss at range pushing for closer engagements, increases in the sophistication of powder, an actual armor piercing round that isn't a lead brick with a windscreen, and literally a thousand other factors, anything can kill a tank under the right circumstances. Until armor tech levels up in the background, you got what you got, and you need to make compromises around that.

The tank I 'want' to build would be something like:
~20 tons
~25mm armor
~250 HP engine
Gun similar to T-26 (1933) 45mm gun
3 man turret
commanders cupola
Range finder
hatch for every crewman
intercom
short range voice radio
long range radio on some (company commander?) tanks
wet ammo storage
and maybe wider tracks than historical

You might get... I'll say three of the things on that list at this point in time. Four if you drop the absurd weight requirement.

CthuluWasRight said:
Furthermore, doesn't sloped armor also improve the chance of incoming rounds bouncing, as well as improving the practical thickness of the armor?

Correct. Past a 50° slope, projectiles want to normalize away from the plate, after which they will fly away and bother other people.

CthuluWasRight · Jul 21, 2018

Really stupid idea here, but since @brmj already put forward his "artillery spotter tank" idea, what about considering additional options (allowing infantry outside the tank to better communicate with the crew inside) to make tanks more of a mobile communications post? If I'm not mistaken, another problem with WW1 fighting methods was the inability for units in combat to reliably communicate with HQ and with each other. A big, armored mobile radio already designed to support and keep pace with infantry would be an excellent method of keeping units "in the loop" and in doing so potentially improve overall flexibility.

NothingNow · Jul 21, 2018

CthuluWasRight said:
Really stupid idea here, but since @brmj already put forward his "artillery spotter tank" idea, what about considering additional options (allowing infantry outside the tank to better communicate with the crew inside) to make tanks more of a mobile communications post? If I'm not mistaken, another problem with WW1 fighting methods was the inability for units in combat to reliably communicate with HQ and with each other. A big, armored mobile radio already designed to support and keep pace with infantry would be an excellent method of keeping units "in the loop" and in doing so potentially improve overall flexibility.

So putting a handset on the back that ties into the intercom? Actually pretty standard stuff.

Crusher Bob · Jul 21, 2018

7734 said:
You might get... I'll say three of the things on that list at this point in time. Four if you drop the absurd weight requirement.

Weight was based on the PzIII. The E model (37mm gun) was around 20 tons, and had 30mm armor, the F, with the 5cm gun had to weigh more, but not sure by how much.

Yes, that tank would be several developments off.
(Assuming the W-5 is somewhere between the Vickers 6 Ton and the T-26)

The next tank on the development chain would be something like:
~10 tons (Assume W-5 is ~7 tons, this one can be heavier)
~15mm armor (No real change in armor, except maybe some production improvements)
~100-120 HP engine (Assume current W-5 has ~80 HP engine, engine power goes up to maintain same power to weight ratio)
3.5 cm gun (no changes)
2 man turret (W-5 seems to have this already?)
speaking tube from turret to driver (not sure what the W-5 uses now)
And then try to add:
hatch for every crewman ('known' because to water evacuation during fording trials)
rangefinder ('known' from target testing a while ago)
short range voice radio (seems to have appeared on several tanks already)

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The tank after that would add a better gun, commanders cupola, long range radio, and the tank after that would be the one I 'wanted' to build.

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[edit]

NothingNow said:
So putting a handset on the back that ties into the intercom? Actually pretty standard stuff.

To get all that we'd need:

intercom (and handset, if not dedicated spotter vehicle)
short range radio
long range radio
rangefinder

Which I think would soak up all our improvement budget for an improved W-5 model. I think some of the later Skoda submissions have most of what we'd want already, but that would require accepting a landship, which seems a bit much to use as an FO vehicle.

CthuluWasRight · Jul 21, 2018

Crusher Bob said:
To get all that we'd need:

intercom (and handset, if not dedicated spotter vehicle)
short range radio
long range radio
rangefinder

Which I think would soak up all our improvement budget for an improved W-5 model.

We know from a previous omake that we have made a few important developments in getting better radios. Even if an intercom is not used, a voice pipe or even something to beat morse code on the back of the tank with could make a poor man's replacement. And you yourself said that we may already have rangefinders in our tanks as part of your own argument.

Ultimately, adding a couple of extra radios is far, far less costly than getting proper two-man rotating turrets, a 120 hp engine powerful enough to move a 10-ton tank, etc. etc.

CthuluWasRight · Jul 21, 2018

Crusher Bob said:
I think some of the later Skoda submissions have most of what we'd want already, but that would require accepting a landship, which seems a bit much to use as an FO vehicle.

Apologies for the double post, but in addition, using Skoda landships is the whole point, because they have all the bells and whistles we need to make the idea work, are getting increasingly cheaper to produce, and are one of the few designs we have which could take the sustained fire that this sort of rolling FO/possible command post will inevitably attract.

brmj · Jul 21, 2018

Okay, working towards a set of ideas that could become a plan or white paper here.

Trench warfare is a historical aberration that will not last as tanks, aircraft, communications and artillery improve. We will need our cavalry tanks when this changes, and they also have great immediate relevance in, for example, conflicts with minor powers, where large periods of stationary trench warfare are not expected.

For the moment, though, a new generation of infantry tanks are what is needed. These tanks will incorporate radios and rangefinders, and will be used not just for direct combat but also for artillery spotting and for improving communication and coordination of infantry forces. They will have armor that can reliably resist not just small arms and machine guns, but also man portable anti-tank weapons. Their armerment will be sufficient to deal with infantry and light fortifications, but the ability to call in well aimed artillery fire over radio will be their most dangerous weapon. It is crucial that mobility and reliability be improved, and all effort must be made to achieve this, but it is expected to be a gradual process.

To properly make use of a tank of this type, improvements in training, doctrine and coordination with infantry and artillery forces will be necessary. The goal is to reach a point where a tank can arrange an accurate artillery strike in a matter of minutes on any target it can see, and that infantry operating along side it can make use of its radio to receive orders or report back while out of reach of a field telephone. Though this is enabled by technological advances, this is as much a shift in training, doctrine and standard practices as it is anything else. It will take practice, and a great deal of work to get there, but the effort will be worthwhile. With tanks of this type and the training and doctrine to support it, tanks will be able to force breakouts along-side infantry and under cover of well aimed artillery fire directed where it is most needed. Fortifications that could otherwise not be defeated by a reasonably armed and armored tank can instead be countered by the surperior range of and power of our artillery, allowing tanks light enough to be made reasonably fast and affordable to be used for this task.

Skoda's recent tanks encorporate most of the required advanced capabilities and, with the appropriate crew training and doctrine, are well suited to filling this role in the short term. However, a smaller, lighter, faster and less heavilly armed vehicle could serve this purpose more effectivly at a much lower cost. This is the type of vehicle we must strive for.

Future tanks of all roles will likely encorporate sloped armor, cast rather than welded when feasible. As is becoming standard, they will built with a single turret for the main gun, and no sponson or hull mounted weapons other than perhaps machine guns. They will feature improved ergonomics and ventilation relative to many current models, along with radios, good visibility and speaking tubes, intercoms or other effective provisions for internal communication. Once again, greatly improved reliability and mobility will be essential, but this is expected to be a gradual process of improvement.

Crusher Bob · Jul 21, 2018

brmj said:
Okay, working towards a set of ideas that could become a plan or white paper here.

[...]

So you'd emphasize survivability, doctrine, and economics?

With the theoretical development plan being something like:
Landship -> improved landship -> Matilda -> Improved Matilda -> Valentine ?

Or did you want something closer to:
Landship -> improved landship -> KV1 -> KV85 -> IS

7734 · Jul 21, 2018

Crusher Bob said:
With the theoretical development plan being something like:
Landship -> improved landship -> Matilda -> Improved Matilda -> Valentine ?

Or did you want something closer to:
Landship -> improved landship -> KV1 -> KV85 -> IS

There isn't exactly a tech tree here man. You gets what you gets, and you influences what you influence. Dictating product is for communists, dictating results is for fascists. You are neither.

brmj said:
Okay, working towards a set of ideas that could become a plan or white paper here.

To properly make use of a tank of this type, improvements in training, doctrine and coordination with infantry and artillery forces will be necessary. The goal is to reach a point where a tank can arrange an accurate artillery strike in a matter of minutes on any target it can see, and that infantry operating along side it can make use of its radio to receive orders or report back while out of reach of a field telephone.

This is pretty feasible, but it would require a lot of artillery to specifically be on call for these tanks, which means putting them in the same regiment or possibly even battalion. Doing that, in turn, would take a lot of politics.

A lot of politics.

brmj · Jul 21, 2018

7734 said:
This is pretty feasible, but it would require a lot of artillery to specifically be on call for these tanks, which means putting them in the same regiment or possibly even battalion. Doing that, in turn, would take a lot of politics.

A lot of politics.

Fair. I figure the way to start on making this happen would be enhanced coordination with artillery in the context of particular important opperations like breakout attempts and assaults on fortified positions. Have it be a thing we train for and under special circumstances that we currently have no good way of handling, and if it would help, we pitch it as the tanks being the junior partner and providing spotting where it is needed but would otherwise not be available, rather than the artillery being at the service of the tanks. Once we've seen it work in practice and have some limited buy-in from the right people, we can hopefully push it towards more general practice, including the organizational changes needed to make that work.

And yes, politics is messy. Not much we can do about that. Our best bet if we want this to happen is to not not be the only ones, or most important ones, arguing for it, and to have results to back it up.

Does that sound reasonable?

Crusher Bob · Jul 21, 2018

7734 said:
There isn't exactly a tech tree here man. You gets what you gets, and you influences what you influence. Dictating product is for communists, dictating results is for fascists. You are neither.

I'm trying to shorthand the development goals of the (presumably more in depth) white paper. I'm hoping to highlight potential problems with them.

As an example, my own development plan doesn't much care about armor, and cares little bit about guns, so my sample development line mostly includes tanks that were good despite have not so good armor and guns.

@brmj 's plan also doesn't concentrate on firepower, so I pulled out the Matilda and Valentine, which were both very well protected, but had pretty anemic guns. So someone else could look at this and come back with something like, "crap, we can't compromise on firepower that much"

The landship -> IS development short hand shows tanks with much more firepower, but they'd be much heavier and more expensive.

This is pretty feasible, but it would require a lot of artillery to specifically be on call for these tanks, which means putting them in the same regiment or possibly even battalion. Doing that, in turn, would take a lot of politics.

A lot of politics.

IIRC, the German assault guns were actually technically artillery, which I think meant that they had 'artillery men' as crews, rather than 'tankers'. We could try moving things in that direction, but I think it would shoot good doctrine development right in the... foot.

brmj · Jul 21, 2018

Crusher Bob said:
I'm trying to shorthand the development goals of the (presumably more in depth) white paper. I'm hoping to highlight potential problems with them.

As an example, my own development plan doesn't much care about armor, and cares little bit about guns, so my sample development line mostly includes tanks that were good despite have not so good armor and guns.

@brmj 's plan also doesn't concentrate on firepower, so I pulled out the Matilda and Valentine, which were both very well protected, but had pretty anemic guns. So someone else could look at this and come back with something like, "crap, we can't compromise on firepower that much"

The landship -> IS development short hand shows tanks with much more firepower, but they'd be much heavier and more expensive.

IIRC, the German assault guns were actually technically artillery, which I think meant that they had 'artillery men' as crews, rather than 'tankers'. We could try moving things in that direction, but I think it would shoot good doctrine development right in the... foot.

For the record, my plan is more like Matilda plan than the IS plan, but I'm not emphasizing protection quite as much as you think. I do want to move away from Skoda-huge pretty quickly, after all. It's got to be able to take a hit from the small stuff, but part of the point is that it can back off an call in an artillery strike if it runs into something it really can't handle. I'm emphasizing protection more than you are, but I definitely view the landships as at best a necessary evil. They are what we've got with the right toys to do the job, and the armor sure is nice for not getting killed while they do it, but I'd much rather something smaller, cheaper and fast enough to keep up with infantry, even if it's not quite as well armored.

SAGrognard · Jul 21, 2018

Crusher Bob said:
IIRC, the German assault guns were actually technically artillery, which I think meant that they had 'artillery men' as crews, rather than 'tankers'. We could try moving things in that direction, but I think it would shoot good doctrine development right in the... foot.

This is one of the ways that the politics were bypassed. Formations such as the Guards Artillery you also mentioned and the German assault guns were 'artillery' formations.
Combined Arms was very much a forgotten doctrine during WW1. (in spite of the lip service it received)

brmj · Jul 21, 2018

SAGrognard said:
This is one of the ways that the politics were bypassed. Formations such as the Guards Artillery you also mentioned and the German assault guns were 'artillery' formations.
Combined Arms was very much a forgotten doctrine during WW1. (in spite of the lip service it received)

Just kind of spitballing here, but what if we did the same thing from the other direction? Make a Skoda-huge, unarmored SPG designed for indirect fire with a built in radio, pretend it's a tank, and have it be the thing that provides the artillery support for our infantry tanks. Enough of them to matter is quite a bit of money, but maybe that's easier than the politics? I mean, it's probably still going to be a political mess because the artillery folks will look at it and say "That's artillery!", but maybe that's an easier sell than a significant reorganization of the army.

Crusher Bob · Jul 22, 2018

brmj said:
Just kind of spitballing here, but what if we did the same thing from the other direction? Make a Skoda-huge, unarmored SPG designed for indirect fire with a built in radio, pretend it's a tank, and have it be the thing that provides the artillery support for our infantry tanks. Enough of them to matter is quite a bit of money, but maybe that's easier than the politics? I mean, it's probably still going to be a political mess because the artillery folks will look at it and say "That's artillery!", but maybe that's an easier sell than a significant reorganization of the army.

Not sure what heavier guns are available, but the SU-76 and SU-122 both seemed to occupy some nebulous space between assault guns and mobile artillery.

There are 7.5 cm and ~10 cm artillery pieces available. There may be a 100-160 mm trench mortar, which a range of 1-2km that might also be available (example: 14 cm Minenwerfer M 15), but I doubt there is a breach-loading mortar design available for use.

7734 · Jul 22, 2018

brmj said:
Just kind of spitballing here, but what if we did the same thing from the other direction? Make a Skoda-huge, unarmored SPG designed for indirect fire with a built in radio, pretend it's a tank, and have it be the thing that provides the artillery support for our infantry tanks. Enough of them to matter is quite a bit of money, but maybe that's easier than the politics? I mean, it's probably still going to be a political mess because the artillery folks will look at it and say "That's artillery!", but maybe that's an easier sell than a significant reorganization of the army.

I mean, yeah, that'd actually work pretty damn well.

brmj · Jul 22, 2018

7734 said:
I mean, yeah, that'd actually work pretty damn well.

Video's not working.

And are you saying that would work to solve the political issue, or that it would both do that and actually work to solve the problem adequately?

7734 · Jul 22, 2018

brmj said:
Video's not working.

And are you saying that would work to solve the political issue, or that it would both do that and actually work to solve the problem adequately?

Damnit, probably region-locked then. Either way, that would most likely be the kind of political dodge that would get the formative Armor Branch to have a lot less issues with the Artillery Branch. That's not a small consideration- throw it in your plan, and it'll probably do something good.

Crusher Bob · Jul 22, 2018

7734 said:
I mean, yeah, that'd actually work pretty damn well.

And in the silly verse, just next door:

Red-faced artillery man, pointing at Skoda monstrosity, "That is a mobile artillery piece, it should be under our jurisdiction!"

Grinning tanker, "Nein, sir. that is a ship of the Imperial Navy, here to provide us with Naval Fire support."

Artillery man, shouting even louder, "How is that a ship, we are over 300km from the ocean!."

Tanker: "Well sir, note that it is crewed by Navy men, and it has SMS Überlandschiff painted on the side. The Navy promised that their new battleships could deliver naval fire support as far inland as we needed it, and they have delivered!"

Artillery man: <apoplectic gargling noises>

7734 · Jul 22, 2018

that would be much less funny if the Reichsmarine didn't actually own like 40 of the Skodas and treats them like a PT boat sqaudron.

SAGrognard · Jul 22, 2018

7734 said:
that would be much less funny if the Reichsmarine didn't actually own like 40 of the Skodas and treats them like a PT boat sqaudron.

Which is the senior service between the Army and the Navy? If we are going to get into the politics ...

brmj · Jul 22, 2018

Okay, so we introduce a new tank category for our not!artillery. We'll need a term for it that doesn't use the word "artillery", and a surface justification for what makes it a tank, what makes it not artillery and what we need it in particular for.

For names, the best I've got are "gun tank" and "fire support tank". I'd love something that fits and is a bit less artillery than either of those.

I figure we bill this whole thing as freeing up our infantry tanks to be lighter, cheaper and more flexible by not having to be quite so heavily armed. Pretend this is what happens when we look at an SkW-2 and try to figure out how to accomplish the same things better with cheaper, smaller vehicles: a decently armored, reasonably armed infantry tank, and large, very lightly armored gun tanks providing indirect fire aimed at targets the infantry tanks designate. Connect the two by radios and give the infantry tanks good visibility, rangefinders and the like, and with enough training they can operate as a seamless unit for reduced cost and increased capabilities relative to a bunch of painfully slow landships. By building both lighter, we can make them cheaper, faster, more reliable and easier to transport strategically.

For what it is for, why it's not artillery, etc. I figure we'll want to emphasize that they are moving with our tanks, even if in practice they are sitting far, far back and just shooting at things. Maybe give (parts of) them enough armor to help protect crew and ammo from shell fragments and the like, so we can point to that and say "See? Armor! It's a tank!". I favor something sufficiently specialized for longer range, mostly indirect fire that needing more armor than that means something has gone badly wrong. We can certainly cite the organizational implications of having tanks to do this task, but if we make that the primary aspect this whole maneuver starts to look like exactly what it is: a way to give us our own artillery.

Thoughts, anyone?

CthuluWasRight · Jul 22, 2018

Mobile artillery, you say? Nonsense, this is clearly an Assault Support Tank meant to back up our Infantry Tanks! It's a completely unique niche!

Strategic Arms Quest 3/2: Armor Edition

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