rate of fire....6 pdr a/t vs 75 mm a/t

[fj stiener]

attila or anyone in the know here.

it appears that the rate of fire for the allied 6 pdr a/t gun is faster than the rate of fire on the german 75 mm a/t gun. is it? if so....why?

the caliber and experience of most of the german div. in GJS [ normandy at the time ]would suggest that the rate of fire for the german a/t guns would be be very high and very accurate.
i was reading that the german panzer crews were required to be able to fire 1 round every 7 secs.

your opinions and ideas gentlemen

[AT_ActionJack]

the 6pdr is a 57mm gun so its reload is naturally faster because of a much smaller and lighter shell.

also the 6pdrs in GJS are "QF"-6pdrs... i guess this stands for quick fire - whatever technology that might be. dies anybody know?

[Atilla]

"QF" is the official name of the gun.

The ROF has indeed to do with the size of the shells. PaK40 shells are considderaby larger and heavier, that's why it takes a bit longer to reload.

[__Creeper__]

I think all rate of fire of tanks/guns in this game is unrealisticly slow, and one shell every 7 seconds sounds really slow to me

but, Im ok with that, because when you think of it, this whole game is in slow motion, look how fast infantry run, or stand up when ordered etc etc, look how slow vehicles move, even down roads

its fitting that Rate of fire be slowed by the same percentage

[CSO_Axrael]

1 shell every 7 seconds is damn fast. For a hand loaded and fired weapon I doubt you could get much faster. That is almost 9 rpm.

[AT_ActionJack]

the data shows that there are 2 17pdrs, one is labeled "QF", the other one isn't. the one that isnt QF has slower reload times (16 seconds opposed to 12 seconds) and is used by the M10-17pdr. the ATG itself and the firefly use the QF variant.

a question for the weapon cracks out there : why is the 17pdr such a hard-hitting gun while its only a 76mm gun that doesnt use APDS?

i too think that 7 secs is damn fast. this includes aiming the gun.

[Atilla]

a question for the weapon cracks out there : why is the 17pdr such a hard-hitting gun while its only a 76mm gun that doesnt use APDS?

While I'm not an absolute expert at guns, take a look at the image below:


British Tank rounds left to right: 2pdr, 6pdr APDS, 75mm (Sherman), 17pdr APDS, 77mm (Comet), 3" and 95mm CS.


The 17 pdr is a very long gun, and as you can see there's a lot of explosives behind it. As a rule of thumb, longer guns develop more muzzle velocity, so more range and better penetration. Added to this, when a round is travelling faster it gets there quicker, so long guns are also generally more accurate. Finally, big rounds are less effected by cross wind and other environmental factors so also tend to be more accurate.

[CSO Colonel Olorin]

as attila said its so effective because of two main factors. the length of barrel and the size of charge.
having a longer barrel increases accuracy but i beleibe the 17 also had extra rifling inside the barrel.this makes the shell spin faster which increasees accuracy over long ranges. the longer the barrel and more turns to the rifling equals more accurate.
te larger charge as seen in the pic posted by attila means it has more speed or muzzle velocity enabling the shell to travel further. the other benefit of this is at longer ranges you have to adjust upwards less because with the shell travelling faster it takes longer to lose speed and surcome to gravity. also at shorter ranges this means not having to adjust up at all so if you put the sights on in you hit making life easier for tank and gun crews.

unless ya in a tank crew at the wrong end of the gun that is

[VA44]

AT, I think you have confused the 17 pdr the firefly has in GJS. IIRC, it was the M10-17 pdr and the 17 pdr ATG that has the "Quick Firing" variant.
Makes sense in my opinion that the two fires faster, as there are more room (somewhat for the m10, it's almost as cramped as the firefly) for the gunner and loader to load. it's been a long time since I played GJS so, yeah...

Also, "Quick Firing" doesn't necessary mean that it has a mechanism that makes it fire fast. IIRC, it just means it has a recoiling mechanism. Some left over nomenclature from the days when the British Artillery was still using muzzle loaders to distinct between breechloaders...

7 secs for panzer crews? Hmm...
Well, I've read statements that the RE crews in Churchill AVREs were able to fire the 290mm Petard mortar with its 40 pound(!) dustbin in about 20-25 seconds!
I don't know what to believe in statements made during the war...quite alot of them are almost unbelievable

[fj stiener]

interesting gentlemen...............
atilla.......what is the rate of fire in the game for the 6 pdr and the german 75 mm?
is it historically correct as far as you know?

IMHO the rate of fire of the 6 pdr is quite a bit faster than the german 75mm in the game rht now. not just a little bit faster.

i am of the opinion that the veteran german a/t gunners, as was most of the troops in the premier german divisons in normandy, were far better trained and had far more experience than most of the allied div. that were in normandy at the time. there is not that much diff in the weight of the shell between the 2 guns. and practice and experience under fire is a lot diff than practice on a target range.

i agree with VA44 that QF means the recoil mechanizim.... not how fast the crew can reload.

also, the german gun optics were FAR better than there allied counter parts..........thus german gunnery was FAR better at longer ranges.

we must also remember that german panzer crews are trained to be elite. especially in the premier divisions. the bad ones didnt survive russia.
so i believe the they could aim and fire 1 round every 7 sec.
german tank crews were forbiden to fire while on the move and had to stop to aim and fire and were also expected to hit there mark on the 1st round! as many personal accounts recount ......"you could very well find yourself dead if you missed on the 1st shot".

AT action jacks question about the 17 pdrs being so deadly.......its true about the high velocity.......[ the german 88 is an example of that ]but also AJ is wrong about the round the 17 pdr fires.....it IS a discarding sabot round. APDS. and only the br and canadians had it at the time. the Firefly ONLY shot APDS and NOT HE. the FF didnt carry HE rounds. [thus in the game the FF is too affective at suppressing inf IMHO ] the 6 pdr also used it........thats why the 6pdr a/t gun is not useless against the german armour, where as the american 57 mm was.

in short i think the german 75mm should have a higher rate of fire than it does.
what do you think attilla?

[AT_ActionJack]

attila, somethings gotta be wrong with the picture i think. the 3" is much smaller in diameter than the 17pdr, while both where 76.2mm guns.

www.panzerlexikon.de states that the 17pdr is a 76.2mm/L58 weapon. still its penetration seems to be better than the 75mm/L70 of the germans, even without APDS. (there were no APDS rounds in the timeframe of gjs afaik... at least there are none modeled into the mod)

[Atilla]

attila, somethings gotta be wrong with the picture i think. the 3" is much smaller in diameter than the 17pdr, while both where 76.2mm guns.

While the Comet had a 17pdr gun, it was in fact a newly designed gun, so not the same as the Firefly 17 pdr. It also used a different shell.

The 17pdr had a better performance than the 75/L70 of the Panther indeed, which was in turn better than the 88/L56 of the Tiger I. The Tiger II's 88/L71 topped all though.

in short i think the german 75mm should have a higher rate of fire than it does.

In my opinion the current data are good. Mind you that loading a gun doesn't have much to do with combat experience; it can be practiced on a range. British artillery was arguably the best of the war. There are stories of Germans captured in Normandy who asked if they might see 'that automatic loading fieldgun the British used'. In fact, there was no such thing; the guncrews were very well trained in rapid fire.

While that is ofcourse a storie about the artillery, I do think standards for the AT-artillery in the British army were equally good.

[CSO Colonel Olorin]

and you have to remember a lot of briish gun crews would of had experience from eqypt and libya

[KaneAndKenny]

... in a related question, does the "L" number reflect the total length of the barrel, or just the length of the shells used? In the later case, it might be quite understandable why a gun with smaller shells still can excell in armour penetration due to higher velocity (from a longer barrel) and/or better projectiles...

Also i dont know excatly how comparable guns of the same caliber are. Even with the same diameter of the projectiles used, there are still quite a few things that can differ in design and manufacture of the gun.

[CSO_Axrael]

Originally Posted by KaneAndKenny

... in a related question, does the "L" number reflect the total length of the barrel, or just the length of the shells used? In the later case, it might be quite understandable why a gun with smaller shells still can excell in armour penetration due to higher velocity (from a longer barrel) and/or better projectiles...

Also i dont know excatly how comparable guns of the same caliber are. Even with the same diameter of the projectiles used, there are still quite a few things that can differ in design and manufacture of the gun.

The L relates to the number of calibres long the barrel is. The higher this number the longer the barrel which in turn increases range and velocity.