Re: Assault guns

From: Paul J. Adam (news_at_jrwlynch.demon.co.uk)
Date: 03/14/05 

Date: Mon, 14 Mar 2005 20:05:01 +0000

In message <L5sYd.23867$6g7.11607@bignews1.bellsouth.net>, Paul F Austin
<pfaustin@bellsouth.net> writes
>The Sovs, during the fifites and sixties built a lot of assault guns in
>various calibres (up to 152mm, IIRC). With the gun installed in a casement
>with very limited traverse, what was the doctrinal justification for them?

It's a mobile artillery piece with at least splinter protection, meaning
it can keep pace with exploiting troops and get closer to the front:
close enough to engage bunkers with direct fire, for instance, while
withstanding the worst of said bunkers' defensive asset. In a time when
most spare chassis were not sized to take turrets with 122mm or 152mm
guns, it was a way to get heavy guns up to the front without impacting
too much on tank production.

As an antitank asset, it's also a way around "but this chassis can't
take a turret with an 85mm gun!" by saying "so bin the turret and put
the gun in the superstructure": cf. the British Archer conversion for a
UK version, or the assorted Jagdpanzers and Jagdtigers in Germany. Loses
you the versatility of a turret, but you get a mobile gun in an armoured
mount. When the chassis is limited by air transport, this gets you the
ASU-57 and ASU-85 (whose US equivalent might have been the Ontos) 

-- 
He thinks too much: such men are dangerous.
                                             Julius Caesar I:2
Paul J. Adam         MainBox<at>jrwlynch[dot]demon{dot}co(.)uk

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