2 questions

[Oberst Hausser]

wire/ AT mines

It is pretty clear that wire can be removed by HE effects, the shrapnel will disintegrate the wire
or if big enough just make a big hole under it as well,.

Yet ASL makes it nearly impossible to dislodge. What i want to know is what is inaccurate about a TANK ( gasp) seeing the wire and just - more gasps - blowing it up.

Now in ASL it is further removed from reality that it is technically impossible for a non area shot to target the wire. So any HE effect is 1/2.

In games where there is a lot of wire the bottleneck will always be the wire especially when it is in the attack area. This will SLOW any attack in ways that make wire a borg like effect.

Is it wrong to think that wire CAN be removed via HE effects at full FP regardless of where that HE comes from ???

AT mines:

A much simpler question.

house| ROAD |house

If a AT mine is placed on the road can an AFV bypass on either of the houses?

If there is not enough "room" [width of counter] I presume not

To get a overall AT "blanket" 3 separate AT mines would be needed ?


Thank ya all

 

[jrv]

Wire: C3.41, "The Infantry, as well as the Area, Target Type may be used to attack a unarmored-target/unmanned-Gun/building/bridge/vehicle, and may also attack a hex devoid of such." If you would have hit a concealed target, the effects are evaluated. However per B26.5-.53, non-OBA HE will not clear wire.

AT mines: each hex has to be mined separately. A vehicle can move through the building hexes without attack, either in bypass or into the building itself, if those hexes are not mined.

JR

 

[jrv]

Wire remains a very effective obstacle today: https://www.quora.com/How-effective-was-barbed-wire-in-WW2. A single tank with one gun will not make much of a difference.

JR

 

[rwpikul]

It is pretty clear that wire can be removed by HE effects, the shrapnel will disintegrate the wire

That's what people thought in 1914.

They were wrong, shrapnel shells did almost nothing to properly placed wire.

 

[Jazz]

You think wire is hard? Try taking down a wall.

 

[jrv]

That's what people thought in 1914.

They were wrong, shrapnel shells did almost nothing to properly placed wire.

I think the reality is a bit more complicated than that, but it did require a sustained bombardment to clear substantial wire obstacles.

Soldiers on the offensive faced barbed wire obstacles of some form in virtually every type of attack. In general, there were four ways to overcome wire:
1.Destruction by artillery fire or aerial bombardment: It was difficult to fully destroy barbed wire entanglements using this method, as a massive volume of accurate shelling or bombing was required. This tactic achieved better results as the war progressed and as weapons improved but barbed wire remained a formidable obstacle.
2.Demolition by hand-placed explosive charges: This was relatively effective, assuming that the assault troops had rehearsed carefully, and knew exactly what type of obstacles they would encounter.
3. Removing or cutting the wire by hand: This was not always feasible during an attack, as it was time consuming, and left the individual open to enemy fire during a battle. However, assault troops often did carry and use wire cutters.
4. Going over top of the wire: This could be quite effective, but it involved carrying heavy and bulky equipment (ladders or portable bridging material) into battle.

http://www.warmuseum.ca/supplyline/wp-content/mcme-uploads/2014/10/CWM_SupplyLine_BarbedWire_EN_FINAL_20140922.pdf

The quoted bit omits a fourth way to overcome wire, which was to use a tank to drive over it. This has its own drawbacks, as I'm sure our former tankers will confirm, but was possible.

The ASL rules seem to capture all this reasonably well.

JR

 

[Oberst Hausser]

Wow what a great article on wire - cut and paste time. hayyyy

 

[rwpikul]

I think the reality is a bit more complicated than that, but it did require a sustained bombardment to clear substantial wire obstacles.

Remember that shrapnel shells traded "boom" for "ouch" because they had less explosives than an HE shell of the same size[1]. It turned out that it was well placed "boom" that could cut or collapse wire and the bits of flying metal would just bounce off as the wire flexed.


[1] Shrapnel is something you pack between the shell casing and the bursting charge. It is not fragments of the casing, those are shell splinters, (not that your body cares about the difference).

 

[jrv]

Remember that shrapnel shells traded "boom" for "ouch" because they had less explosives than an HE shell of the same size[1]. It turned out that it was well placed "boom" that could cut or collapse wire and the bits of flying metal would just bounce off as the wire flexed.


[1] Shrapnel is something you pack between the shell casing and the bursting charge. It is not fragments of the casing, those are shell splinters, (not that your body cares about the difference).

My (limited) research on the matter suggests that HE would often throw up the wire and drop it back down in worse tangles than it started in. The HE content could not vaporise or break much wire per shot, so a heavy bombardment was required, i.e. not the odd shot from a tank.

Also there was the problem of fusing. HE with ordinary fuses will often pass through the wire without detonating. The shells might even bury themselves in the ground before exploding, which apparently was an early problem in WWI. This was solved by developing "hair-trigger" fuses that would detonate on contact with something as minor as wire, but I am going to bet this is a specialty product for artillery and not commonly found in direct fire weapons.

Shrapnel was apparently fairly good at taking out wire, although I found in my (again, limited) research that there was a difference of opinion on this. The ones who felt it was good at taking out wire also noted that it was at the same time tricky because the bursting charge had to be fused to explode at just the right time. Too soon or late made shrapnel ineffective at cutting wire.

All this means that firing HE from a single gun, especially vehicle-mounted, might clear one post but will not breach a complex wire obstacle. Clearing such obstacles required a fair amount of explosive placed fairly precisely such as you might find in a bangalore torpedo or the conceptually similar conger line charge. Flails were also pretty good at clearing wire, but as far as I know HE was not your weapon of choice unless you had a lot of guns and a lot of time.

JR

 

[rwpikul]

My (limited) research on the matter suggests that HE would often throw up the wire and drop it back down in worse tangles than it started in. The HE content could not vaporise or break much wire per shot, so a heavy bombardment was required, i.e. not the odd shot from a tank.

Also there was the problem of fusing. HE with ordinary fuses will often pass through the wire without detonating. The shells might even bury themselves in the ground before exploding, which apparently was an early problem in WWI. This was solved by developing "hair-trigger" fuses that would detonate on contact with something as minor as wire, but I am going to bet this is a specialty product for artillery and not commonly found in direct fire weapons.

I certainly didn't mean to imply that a single shell could be expected to do much, even a perfectly placed HE shell is only going to knock out a little bit and an imperfectly placed one isn't going to do anything of use.

When "well placed" means "within a smaller circle than physics lets you reliably hit" you aren't going to be using single shots.

Shrapnel was apparently fairly good at taking out wire, although I found in my (again, limited) research that there was a difference of opinion on this. The ones who felt it was good at taking out wire also noted that it was at the same time tricky because the bursting charge had to be fused to explode at just the right time. Too soon or late made shrapnel ineffective at cutting wire.

Sure it worked at places like Neuve-Chapelle, but that was against wire on light wooden supports that simply rested on the ground. Solid wooden stakes were both more resilient and not likely to be simply knocked over when even somewhat damaged by shrapnel. Steel "pigtails" just wondered about what scratched them.

 

[jrv]

I certainly didn't mean to imply that a single shell could be expected to do much, even a perfectly placed HE shell is only going to knock out a little bit and an imperfectly placed one isn't going to do anything of use.

When "well placed" means "within a smaller circle than physics lets you reliably hit" you aren't going to be using single shots.



Sure it worked at places like Neuve-Chapelle, but that was against wire on light wooden supports that simply rested on the ground. Solid wooden stakes were both more resilient and not likely to be simply knocked over when even somewhat damaged by shrapnel. Steel "pigtails" just wondered about what scratched them.

It sounds like you have access to some good reference material on the matter. Can you post references to them? I'd be interested to read them.

JR

 

[sfcmikej]

Remember also that we are talking about a 40 meter hex. In real life (I pause here while all the folks who hate reality arguments collect the scattered pieces of their exploding heads) artillery can create a mess out of the wire but you are still presented with the same problem. That problem being is that you don't know where the breach is. Wire is typically implemented in such a way that the defenders have a way through that is not obvious to the attacker. The artillery may make a mess but the attacker is still in the dark. With a tank going through the wire or a bangalore torpedo breaching the wire the follow on infantry know where the breach is and can effectively use it.

Mike

 

[rwpikul]

It sounds like you have access to some good reference material on the matter. Can you post references to them? I'd be interested to read them.

The main one on point is Gordon Corrigan's "Mud, Blood and Poppycock". Although it's about WWI myths, barbed wire didn't undergo massive changes in the interwar period.