Landships II

Morgoth · Major

Effective range of WWI tank-mounted weapons?

PDA · Legend

The data on maximum range certainly exists, however, I don't have it to hand. But effective range is a very variable beast.

The tanks had no suspension, making accurate fire exceedingly unlikely, so effective range from a moving tank was, well, minimal. In the first tank-on-tank encounter the commander of the British tank made the decision to bring his tank to a halt to allow one of his gunners to fire accurately at the German tanks (the tactic worked).

David Fletcher, Historian at The Tank Museum, can be seen in one documentary saying that the 6pdrs would be fired "to keep people's heads down" but if they really wanted to hit something they'd have to bring the tank to a stop.

CharlieC · Legend

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Strashiem & Hundleby (Tankograd) quote the A7V 57mm Maxim-Nordenfelt gun as having the following performance:

Muzzle velocity - 487 m/sec

Shell Weight - 2.7 kg

Projectile penetration:

15mm armour plate at 2,000m

20mm armour plate at 1,000m

The text notes actual combat ranges hardly ever exceeded 200-300m.

The sights on these guns were notch and bead for the "buck" mounts and optical gun sights for the "socle" mounts. The crews preferred the notch and bead sight because it gave a wider field of view for the gunner.

Regards,

Charlie�

mad zeppelin · Commander in Chief

The German IR 169 practised together with Abt. 11 and 12 (captured Mk.IV tanks) for a fortnight in early May 1918. Their conclusion was that the guns were absolutely useless in attack, because from a moving male tank the gunners were unable to hit any target. In revenge, they suffered four soldiers injured because some shells just hit the ground close to the vehicles. They thought that the machine guns were much more dangerous; - they were as imprecise as the cannons, but consequently spraying everything around the tanks with their bullets because of the higher rate of fire.

Morgoth · Major

Thanks for the replies. Would tanks be able to fire from similar ranges as HMGs or direct-fire artillery when halted or would they have some problems with it?

MTorrent · Lieutenant-Colonel

I would say that their effective is more comparatible with HMGs than field artillery.�

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For example, Renault FT had 1X sight, which is quite useless for distances over 600 m unless you are trying to hit something really big.�

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http://jaegerplatoon.net/TANK_GUNS.htm

mad zeppelin · Commander in Chief

For the German gun armed tanks, case shot (Kart�tsche) was the weapon of choice, for which the practical range was between 300 and 600 metres.

Theoretically, however, a tank standing could have engaged targets up to a distance of 2,700 metres with high explosive or anti-tank shells - and with a fair chance of hitting.

Morgoth · Major

Would they be able to even see that far or spot targets on such a range?

mad zeppelin · Commander in Chief

Theoretically yes. - For all practical purposes, in Central Europe the average maximum field of vision lies between 1,000 to 1,500 metres, often less. The WW 1 tank engagements took place at very short ranges, because factors like fog and artillery barrage further obscured visibility.