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Subject: Skipping Artillery Rounds
Carl S    2/10/2007 6:11:07 PM
Picking thru a long book by a Wehrmacht artillery crewman (20th Motorized Div) I found twice mentioned a technique for obtaining airbursts without time fuzes. I'd never encountered this technique & am naturally a bit curious In simple terms: the howitzer (15cm in this description) was fired at a charge/elevation combination that would cause the projectile to strike at a low angle & bounce back into the air. By making the aimpoint at a few meter short in range and setting the fuze to the delay setting it was expected the projectile would explode over the enemy position, gaining a more effective airburst vs a surface burst. As an artilleryman I can clearly see the theory behind this, but am wondering if anyone has any knowledge of this technique. A Russian did make the following remark about it "This was a common tactic in the Red Army.  Since the most common artillery piece was the 76mm divisional gun, which couldn't get very well to entrenched infantry, they had to rely on ricochets. Why you'd need to do it with a howitzer is a mystery. " Anyone else ?
 
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Carl S       2/16/2007 7:51:58 PM
Well thats interesting.  The Strategy Page substituted question marks for the Cyrillic lettered words in my last post.    

Follow the post of 11 Feb here:  to the mention of the Soviet Artillery ricochette fire.

battlefield.ru/cgi-bin/ikonboard.cgi?act=ST;f=2;t=477
 
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neutralizer       2/16/2007 11:37:33 PM
Richochet HE really only made sense before HE fzd mechanical time became generally available, and MT was not notably convenient to use because of the need to adjust the height of burst as well 'ground zero' of the burst.  The great attraction of VT was that adjusting the HoB wasn't needed.
 
As for field artillery not being used in this manner, towed field artillery was more commonly used in the direct fire role in WW2, especially against fortified strongpoints.
 
 
As I pointed out before, richochet fire by field arty was in both US and UK doctrine.  I doubt that there is any evidence to support the contention that fd arty used direct fire more than richochet fire.   There was a bit of towed gun direct fire in Burma from time to time including using 6-inch Hows at Mandalay and a bit at Walcheren and Wesel in Europe.  UK at least provided 17-pdr with HE for the express purpose of dealing strongpoints, particularly in Italy.  I doubt that there was much on the East front because both sides used assault guns, the Germans also used infantry guns. 
 
 
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Carl S       3/2/2007 8:06:07 AM
Here is another realatively obscure refrence for richocet fire with time delay fuze, nearly identical to the quote given for the US ranks in WWII.  I am guessing the nature of the Sturmgeschutze's mission made the fuse with the delay feature standard in its ammo load.


The Sturmgeschutze in World War II 1939-1945 A Photo Chronicle, Wolfgang Fleischer with Richard Eiermann,Schiffer Military History, ISBN 0-7643-0693-6, Page 74.
also includes a paragraph about the use of richocet firing with shells with a 0.15 sec delay . 
 
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