arethusa -> (7/12/2003 9:14:52 AM)
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Having spent a number of years in the artillery and having a few friends who were turtles (in the armoured corps) :) ,I might be able to shed a little more light on the survivability of ATG vs that of a tank. In the aritllery, wich is similar to fighting with an ATG, every man in the gun crew was trained to do every job to service the gun. Thus, if the regular man was unavailable, anybody else could take his place. I specifically remember one incident where half our crew had gone to lunch at the mess truck when a fire mission came down and we had to serve the gun with only 4 men out of a 7 man crew. Perhaps we had a reduced ROF but we did the mission. In a tank, it's not the same. Even if you do train everybody to do everybody else's job, it just isn't practical for the driver to stop the tank, climb into the loader's seat and load the gun. If you've ever been in a tank, this trip could take a couple of minutes due to the cramped and twisting confines inside. By the same token, the commander sits on the opposite side of the gun as the loader and it's almost as hard for him to do both jobs, especially when the breech opening is on the opposite side from the sights. (Not a problem with an ATG since there's little restriction to jumping over to the opposite side.) Furthermore, the gun is a much smaller, easier to hide and harder to hit, target than the tank, so a critical hit on the actual weapon is less likely. The tank, by contrast, is big and even if you don't hit the gun itself (think how often you kill the main weapon and not the tank), you're going to hit some other part. If you hit a tank's turret ring (without killing the tank ;) ) then the tank can't aim at you. Just think of trying to aim at a moving target by turning the treads of the entire vehicle. The ATG on the other hand, even if the mounting post is jammed, it can still be turned by the crew grabbing the forks of the trails and manhandling it around. We did this with 105mm's all the time as they had a limited traverse range and fire missions weren't always in the direction that the gun-tractors initially dropped us off at. Finally, hit the tracks of a tank and it's immobilized. Do you want to sit there in a steel box with a big target painted on the side of it? :eek: On the other hand, even if the gun-tractor was hit, it's still possible to drag the gun away by brute force to get under cover or set up somewhere else. It's not easy, but it can be done.
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