Got a Real-World Weapon, Armour or Tactics Question? Mk. XXVIII

[halfeye]

With the benefit of hindsight (since it's 2020)... if I wanted to build a commerce raider / cruiser hunter, I think it would look more like a bigger, nastier, faster Deutschland, or a lighter Scharnhorst (WW2), than like the RN battlecruisers -- the latter are overkill and not optimized for those missions (and yes I realize I'm blurring WW1 and WW1 here).

Fast enough to avoid being easily overtaken by fast battleships, armor scheme focused on resisting fire from 8" and 6" guns, armed with a number of 9" to 11" guns to gain range and hitting power over the cruisers while not flinging overkill for merchant targets, with the Deutschland's wide-angle box torpedo tubes to dissuade pursuit, and resilient floatplane handling capacity for scouting.

The battle of the River Plate showed that the Deutschland class weren't armoured to withstand 6 inch gunfire. The Hippers arguably were, at long range anyway.

I think submarines were really the way to go for everybody.

2) Armor and main guns. Basically it comes down to weight. As shells get larger and guns get better, the amount of armor they can penetrate directly or plunging grows faster than any reasonable attempt to protect against equivalent class.

Take the British 15” gun of WWII. At 20k yards, it could punch through nearly 17” of armor, or 33” at a theoretical point blank shot. Plunging fire could go through 7 inches of deck armor.

Now take the Yamamoto, with over 23,000 TONS of armor, the heaviest battleship ever made. Her belt armor was 16 inches, deck was 9”, and armor was nearly a third of her weight. You’ll notice that still wouldn’t have been enough to stop a 15” shell at 20k yards. There comes the point where it just isn’t practical to try to outpace the big guns, and you’re really proofing against improved guns on cruisers.

For a fun way to play with this, try Rule The Waves or RTW 2.

I got into this conundrum by comparing tanks. In late WW2 tanks were just about not gun proof, but you had to be lucky to knock one of the really heavily armoured ones out. Ships just weren't like that, from about ten or maybe twenty years before WW1.

[Max_Killjoy]

The battle of the River Plate showed that the Deutschland class weren't armoured to withstand 6 inch gunfire. The Hippers arguably were, at long range anyway.

I think submarines were really the way to go for everybody.

Prior to nuclear powerplants become practical, the main advantage of the submarine was enemy forces not prepared to hunt submarines. Once facing opposition with the correct tools and tactics, they become the prey rather than the predator most of the time.

The armor issues of the Deutschland class are why I was looking at something between that and the Gneisenau/Scharnhorst.

I got into this conundrum by comparing tanks. In late WW2 tanks were just about not gun proof, but you had to be lucky to knock one of the really heavily armoured ones out. Ships just weren't like that, from about ten or maybe twenty years before WW1.

Tanks really can't carry around 8 to 16 guns of 12" to 18" bore.

(Modern tank guns are still in the 4" to 5" range.)

[fusilier]

I've been thinking about the armour on pre-WW1 to WW2 battleships. There seems to have been something odd going on. The guns went up in size by a lot, and the armour didn't go up to match. Was this stupidity, or was something else going on?

I know in the late 1800's there was a lot of development in the metallurgy used in armor. So the thickness of the armor belt could decrease while retaining a similar level of protection. See the wikipedia entry on Harvey Armor, which gives an idea of how rapidly things were changing:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harvey_armor

Compound armor gave way to nickel-steel armor, which was superseded by Harvey Armor, which was then replaced with Krupp Armor -- all in about the timespan of a decade!

You may also be interested in a series of articles about American battleships in WW2, posted at Avalanche Press. Avalanche Press makes naval wargames (from the Spanish-American War through WW2), and they often post interesting articles about the development of ships. The starting point in this article is that the American battleships are overrated in their WW2 game, which means there's some discussion of game related stats at the beginning, but then it gets into the details:

http://www.avalanchepress.com/Overrated.php

The third article is not linked from the other two, but may be especially interesting because it is focused on armor:
http://www.avalanchepress.com/overrated3.php

The author discusses the complexity of armor -- different classes of armor were used in different places, and armor was often sloped, etc.

[Gnoman]

Tanks really can't carry around 8 to 16 guns of 12" to 18" bore.

(Modern tank guns are still in the 4" to 5" range.)

The counterpoint to that is that, compared to ships, tanks fight at ludicrously close range. The glacis plate of a Panther tank was the same thickness as the main belt of a Admiral Hipper-class cruiser. A hot 3" gun or an ordinary 3.5" to 4" could get through a Panther at any realistic combat range, while the Hipper-class ships were effectively immune to 6" guns at most combat ranges.

[halfeye]

Modern tank guns are still in the 4" to 5" range.

Not the same sort of system, they're sabot rounds, fired from smooth barrels, and the actual weight of the shot is much reduced, while the KE is increased proportionately.

[Lemmy]

I've been thinking about the armour on pre-WW1 to WW2 battleships. There seems to have been something odd going on. The guns went up in size by a lot, and the armour didn't go up to match. Was this stupidity, or was something else going on?

I can't comment on this specific instance, but in general, once we aren't limited to human strength, it's much, much easier to find efficient ways to deliver lots of energy than it's to find efficient ways to safely absorb and/or deflect energy. i.e.: It's easier to make armor-piercing bullets than it's to make bullet-proof armor (at least with any significant amount of efficiency and practicality).

That's why modern warfare defenses have become more about out-ranging and out-maneuvering the enemy and/or disabling their weapons, rather than withstanding what they throw at you.

So I'm guessing that after a certain point, the amount of armor needed to resist those large caliber projectiles was simply not viable, practical or perhaps even possible to build with the current technology.

[halfeye]

I can't comment on this specific instance, but in general, once we aren't limited to human strength, it's much, much easier to find efficient ways to deliver lots of energy than it's to find efficient ways to safely absorb and/or deflect energy. i.e.: It's easier to make armor-piercing bullets than it's to make bullet-proof armor (at least with any significant amount of efficiency and practicality).

That's why modern warfare defenses have become more about out-ranging and out-maneuvering the enemy and/or disabling their weapons, rather than withstanding what they throw at you.

So I'm guessing that after a certain point, the amount of armor needed to resist those large caliber projectiles was simply not viable, practical or perhaps even possible to build with the current technology.

That sounds mostly reasonable, but my understanding is that that's not how they sold the ships to the public or the sailors.

[Max_Killjoy]

Not the same sort of system, they're sabot rounds, fired from smooth barrels, and the actual weight of the shot is much reduced, while the KE is increased propotionately.

I know.

That doesn't change the comparison I was making.

[halfeye]

I know.

That doesn't change the comparison I was making.

What was that comparison then?

I heard "tanks aren't as big as ships, and not so difficult to destroy" which doesn't seem particularly relevant to what I was trying to say, which was something like "the armour on ships seems relatively weak compared to that of tanks if you take the relative sizes into account".

[Max_Killjoy]

What was that comparison then?

I heard "tanks aren't as big as ships, and not so difficult to destroy" which doesn't seem particularly relevant to what I was trying to say, which was something like "the armour on ships seems relatively weak compared to that of tanks if you take the relative sizes into account".

That a good deal of the difference in how armored they SEEM has to do with what sorts of weapons the armor was being asked to stop.

That the scale of a warship vs a tank is entirely different, too.

[fusilier]

Tank armor and battleship armor:

I'm not sure if this has been mentioned yet, but a ship can take a lot more penetrating hits and not be knocked out, whereas that's not really true for a tank. A lucky shot (usually a plunging one) could take out something critical on a ship, but there's a lot of space on a ship that a good hit will just cause it take on water. Water-tight compartments can mitigate against the spread of the flooding. Engines and magazines are usually put well inside the ship, flanked by fuel bunkers and tanks to help absorb more of the damage before it reaches a critical component.

On a tank, any exploding shell that penetrates the armor has a good chance of knocking out the vehicle (either the engine or the crew). Not always, but the chances are a lot better.

However, I think the kind of armor is an issue too, as clearly there was a lot of development occurring, with newer armor being able to provide the same amount of protection while being thinner and lighter than older armor.

[halfeye]

Tank armor and battleship armor:

I'm not sure if this has been mentioned yet, but a ship can take a lot more penetrating hits and not be knocked out

Like HMS Hood?

[redwizard007]

Like HMS Hood?

A ship that took multiple hits? Yeah three is greater than one so it fits as an example.

[Khedrac]

Like HMS Hood?

Except that HMS Hood was a battlecruiser not a battleship - her armour wasn't expected to be able to hold up under the Bismarck's shells.

A better example might be the Bismarck v HMS Prince of Wales - where one of the shells managed to hole an oil tank when it probably shouldn't have been able to penetrate the armour.

(Note: the Hood and the Prince of Wales were British ships so the British spelling of 'armour' is more appropriate.)

[halfeye]

Except that HMS Hood was a battlecruiser not a battleship - her armour wasn't expected to be able to hold up under the Bismarck's shells.

Look at the displacements:

Hood: 46,680 long tons (47,430 t) deep load

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Hood

Bismark: 41,700 t (41,000 long tons) standard 50,300 t (49,500 long tons) full load

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German...eship_Bismarck

Hood's protection accounted for 33% of her displacement, a high proportion by British standards, but less than was usual in contemporary German designs (for example, 36% for the battlecruiser SMS Hindenburg).

A better example might be the Bismarck v HMS Prince of Wales - where one of the shells managed to hole an oil tank when it probably shouldn't have been able to penetrate the armour.

Displacement:

Prince of Wales: 43,786 tons (deep)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Prince_of_Wales_(53)

[KineticDiplomat]

Besides relative power:locomotion requirements, a few things to consider in the tank/ship question line.

1) AFVs are typically very space efficient. It is either a key system, very limited crew space, or armor. Everything else goes outside - whereas you cannot choose to store your rations and lube oil outside the ship. Tanks have no galley, information center, bunk rooms, toilets, brigs, maintenance sections, and so forth. Comparatively speaking, you need a lot less relative space and weight to keep it running, which means not only do you have fewer per capita square inches which need to be armored, the engine has lots of relative horsepower to carry armor as opposed to other stuff.

2) By and large, tank designers can take risks with lots of angles. Thick armor in the narrow frontal arc, far less to the sides and rear, and virtually none on the top or bottom. (The Tiger is the most notable exception. It broke down. A lot)Ship designers could not from a military sense - some version of the broadside or deck is most likely to be hit, requiring covering the vast majority of the ship. And even if didn’t like that militarily, fluid dynamics do not encourage asymmetrical weights.

3) Lots of tank armor is magnified by deliberate sloping and angles. Air resistance is not really a big deal. You can build long angled slopes into the turret and hull design, and be fairly sure shells will strike at a limited series of angles in the vertical.

Ships obviously have to design their hull to actually go through water, can’t angle their decks too much, and might be struck from across a vast array of possible vertical angles. All of which makes it very hard to create weight-efficient armor thickness the same way you do in tanks.

[fusilier]

Like HMS Hood?

Yes, as the very next sentence mentioned -- "A lucky shot (usually a plunging one) could take out something critical on a ship." The HMS Hood, was hit at least twice, at over 16,000 meters, so the shot was probably dropping pretty steeply. The second hit set off the magazine, and destroyed the ship. I was literally thinking of the Hood when I wrote that, but whatever . . .

What percentage of battleships (even if we choose to count the Hood as a battleship), were sunk by one well placed shot, versus what percentage of tanks were knocked out by a single hit?

[AdAstra]

Yes, as the very next sentence mentioned -- "A lucky shot (usually a plunging one) could take out something critical on a ship." The HMS Hood, was hit at least twice, at over 16,000 meters, so the shot was probably dropping pretty steeply. The second hit set off the magazine, and destroyed the ship. I was literally thinking of the Hood when I wrote that, but whatever . . .

What percentage of battleships (even if we choose to count the Hood as a battleship), were sunk by one well placed shot, versus what percentage of tanks were knocked out by a single hit?

Plus, the Hood notably did not use the "all-or-nothing" (if it was essential, you gave it all the armor you could, if it wasn't important or couldn't be armored effectively, use the most basic protection, or at least far lighter stuff) armor scheme used by most battleships of the period, and was hit by plunging fire, which she was particularly vulnerable to (and iirc, slated to be upgraded to fix this before the whole war thing). Enemy gunfire could well mission-kill a battleship(by destroying things like the bridge, fire control, and other mostly-unarmored components), but sinking or even immobilizing typically involved torpedoes or bombs.

Look at the displacements:



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Hood



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German...eship_Bismarck

Displacement is not the same as armor. Prince of Whales and Bismarck were shorter ships overall, with slightly less (or about equal, in the case of Bismarck) speed and were significantly more modern than Hood (PoW was commissioned in 1941, Hood in 1920). Hood's main armor belt was only 305-152mm thick vs PoW's 370mm. Hood's deck armor, which is what Bismarck's shells punched through to sink her, was 76mm at it's thickest, and was as little as 19mm thick in places. PoW on the other hand, had 127-152mm deck armor. The Bismarck herself was notably larger than she strictly needed to be due to her armoring scheme (a heavily sloped "turtleback"), which also resulted in her armor's practical thickness being higher than the stated thickness would suggest. And she was still shorter than Hood, though a good deal fatter.

Hood's size and displacement was not for armor, but for speed, as size gave more room for the massive propulsion machinery of the time. Her armor was certainly more on par with that of a battleship, but it had notable weaknesses regardless.

[PersonMan]

So, recently I've been working on a project and I'm at a point where I think all of the general guidelines are good but I'm unsure on the details.

The context: There's a military conflict between nations A and B; the world is at a rough mid-late 1940s tech level with no magic or similar changes that would influence the results here. Nation A is significantly smaller in both population and industry than nation B, but is allied with nation C who will force nation B to divert a portion of their forces to fighting them (nation C is, however, also significantly weaker than nation B in available population/industry). For the last ~7 years there has been an arms race and series of proxy conflict between the A+C block and B+smaller allies, which B has come out on top after, but led to about half a decade of rapid military expansion with a heavy focus on paper strength in nation A. Before tensions cool following the end of the last proxy conflict, a series of events cause an escalation to direct war.

I'm wondering:

• What sort of strategy nation A's military would pursue when unburdened by political demands; it seems like a focus on defense and fortification in search of force multiplication is the logical move, is it?
• For internal political reasons, nation A's military is in competition with a number of parallel military organizations, which have generally had first pick of recruits (especially officers) and done what they can to secure the most modern equipment for themselves. When it comes time for these organizations (which are organized similar to historical paramilitary groups like the post-war German Freikorps) to participate in the fighting, what kind of problems are likely to arise?
• For the same political reasons, nation A has an anemic air force and weak armored force; what would be the best way to utilize these against superior enemy forces?
• Finally, would it be correct to expect that deployments of large forces of light infantry to cover sections of the frontline would likely result in their encirclement or disintegration in the face of air-supported armored attacks?

[halfeye]

Yes, as the very next sentence mentioned -- "A lucky shot (usually a plunging one) could take out something critical on a ship." The HMS Hood, was hit at least twice, at over 16,000 meters, so the shot was probably dropping pretty steeply.

In Jurens's opinion, the popular image of plunging shells penetrating Hood's deck armour is inaccurate, as by his estimation the angle of fall of Bismarck's 15-inch shells at the moment of the loss would not have exceeded about 14°, an angle so unfavourable to penetration of horizontal armour that it is actually off the scale of contemporaneous German penetration charts.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Ho...on_the_sinking

What percentage of battleships (even if we choose to count the Hood as a battleship), were sunk by one well placed shot, versus what percentage of tanks were knocked out by a single hit?

Percentage? do you have a list of "sunk in combat" battleships? warships, destroyers, frigates, corvettes and smaller too were mostly scrapped.

I think Hood should count, there were three hits, but their effects didn't apparently combine. Barham (torpedo, or some idiot smoking in the magazine?), the British battlecruisers at Jutland, they were being fired on by the German battlecruisers so I think that should count.

[fusilier]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Ho...on_the_sinking



Percentage? do you have a list of "sunk in combat" battleships? warships, destroyers, frigates, corvettes and smaller too were mostly scrapped.

I think Hood should count, there were three hits, but their effects didn't apparently combine. Barham (torpedo, or some idiot smoking in the magazine?), the British battlecruisers at Jutland, they were being fired on by the German battlecruisers so I think that should count.

The Hood's deck armor was still comparatively thin, for battleships of that era (i.e. WW2). And it is not in dispute that the shot hit the deck and not the more heavily armored sides (as far as I know).

But it was still a lucky shot, although I agree that, if we consider the Hood to be a battleship, then it is reasonable to say it was destroyed with one shot. (As the other hits don't seem to have done serious damage -- however the final "hit" may actually have been more than one round hitting simultaneously)

I do not have a list of modern warships sunk, but you can check the results of major battles. Battle of Tsushima, for pre-dreadnoughts, Jutland for Dreadnoughts, etc. Can you name any examples other than the Hood?

However, I must admit some confusion: I thought the original question was about battleships, not all types of warships (which are typically less well armored). Similarly I thought the discussion was about the resistance to heavy (battleship) artillery, not other weapons like torpedoes and aerial bombs.

[halfeye]

The Hood's deck armor was still comparatively thin, for battleships of that era (i.e. WW2). And it is not in dispute that the shot hit the deck and not the more heavily armored sides (as far as I know).

To repeat:

In Jurens's opinion, the popular image of plunging shells penetrating Hood's deck armour is inaccurate, as by his estimation the angle of fall of Bismarck's 15-inch shells at the moment of the loss would not have exceeded about 14°, an angle so unfavourable to penetration of horizontal armour that it is actually off the scale of contemporaneous German penetration charts.

They were at moderately close range for the guns involved.

But it was still a lucky shot, although I agree that, if we consider the Hood to be a battleship, then it is reasonable to say it was destroyed with one shot. (As the other hits don't seem to have done serious damage -- however the final "hit" may actually have been more than one round hitting simultaneously)

I do not have a list of modern warships sunk, but you can check the results of major battles. Battle of Tsushima, for pre-dreadnoughts, Jutland for Dreadnoughts, etc. Can you name any examples other than the Hood?

I did name other examples. For another, Tirpitz, it was a bomb, but it was one (another hit didn't detonate, so I think one is fair), and it sank her.

However, I must admit some confusion: I thought the original question was about battleships, not all types of warships (which are typically less well armored). Similarly I thought the discussion was about the resistance to heavy (battleship) artillery, not other weapons like torpedoes and aerial bombs.

Torpedoes are not so fast as shells, but they have a similar explosive load to battleship shells.

However, in the main I am interested in battleships (and ships of similar armour levels) resistance to battleship gunnery.

British self-critique

The official British Admiralty examination of the Grand Fleet's performance recognised two main problems:

British armour-piercing shells exploded outside the German armour rather than penetrating and exploding within. As a result, some German ships with only 8 in (20 cm)-thick armour survived hits from 15-inch (38 cm) projectiles. Had these shells penetrated the armour and then exploded, German losses would probably have been far greater.
Communication between ships and the British commander-in-chief were comparatively poor. For most of the battle, Jellicoe had no idea where the German ships were, even though British ships were in contact. They failed to report enemy positions, contrary to the Grand Fleet's Battle Plan. Some of the most important signalling was carried out solely by flag instead of wireless or using redundant methods to ensure communications—a questionable procedure, given the mixture of haze and smoke that obscured the battlefield, and a foreshadowing of similar failures by habit-bound and conservatively minded professional officers of rank to take advantage of new technology in World War II.

Shell performance

German armour-piercing shells were far more effective than the British ones, which often failed to penetrate heavy armour.[136] The issue particularly concerned shells striking at oblique angles, which became increasingly the case at long range.[137] Germany had adopted trinitrotoluene (TNT) as the explosive filler for artillery shells in 1902, while the United Kingdom was still using a picric acid mixture (Lyddite). The shock of impact of a shell against armour often prematurely detonated Lyddite in advance of fuze function while TNT detonation could be delayed until after the shell had penetrated and the fuze had functioned in the vulnerable area behind the armour plate.[138] Some 17 British shells hit the side armour of the German dreadnoughts or battlecruisers. Of these, four would not have penetrated under any circumstances. Of the remaining 13, one penetrated the armour and exploded inside. This showed a 7.5 per cent chance of proper shell function on the British side, a result of overly brittle shells and Lyddite exploding too soon.[139]

The issue of poorly performing shells had been known to Jellicoe, who as Third Sea Lord from 1908 to 1910 had ordered new shells to be designed. However, the matter had not been followed through after his posting to sea and new shells had never been thoroughly tested.[140] Beatty discovered the problem at a party aboard Lion a short time after the battle, when a Swedish Naval officer was present. He had recently visited Berlin, where the German navy had scoffed at how British shells had broken up on their ships' armour.[141] The question of shell effectiveness had also been raised after the Battle of Dogger Bank, but no action had been taken.[142] Hipper later commented, "It was nothing but the poor quality of their bursting charges which saved us from disaster."[143]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Jutland#Outcome

If british armour was being tested with british shells in that period, it's no wonder Hood sank, though the people concerned probably weren't quite that dim.

[fusilier]

To repeat:
. . .
However, in the main I am interested in battleships (and ships of similar armour levels) resistance to battleship gunnery.

I've tried to provide logical responses to your questions, and provide input about how you can test their veracity. But I can't really follow your responses, as you appear to respond to individual sentences in isolation, rather than reading through a paragraph in its entirety. Maybe I haven't been following it closely enough, but the conversation appears to be splitting and digressing in ways that seem to be impressive even by this thread's standards.

[Storm Bringer]

So, recently I've been working on a project and I'm at a point where I think all of the general guidelines are good but I'm unsure on the details.

The context: There's a military conflict between nations A and B; the world is at a rough mid-late 1940s tech level with no magic or similar changes that would influence the results here. Nation A is significantly smaller in both population and industry than nation B, but is allied with nation C who will force nation B to divert a portion of their forces to fighting them (nation C is, however, also significantly weaker than nation B in available population/industry). For the last ~7 years there has been an arms race and series of proxy conflict between the A+C block and B+smaller allies, which B has come out on top after, but led to about half a decade of rapid military expansion with a heavy focus on paper strength in nation A. Before tensions cool following the end of the last proxy conflict, a series of events cause an escalation to direct war.

I'm wondering:
A What sort of strategy nation A's military would pursue when unburdened by political demands; it seems like a focus on defense and fortification in search of force multiplication is the logical move, is it?

B For internal political reasons, nation A's military is in competition with a number of parallel military organizations, which have generally had first pick of recruits (especially officers) and done what they can to secure the most modern equipment for themselves. When it comes time for these organizations (which are organized similar to historical paramilitary groups like the post-war German Freikorps) to participate in the fighting, what kind of problems are likely to arise?
C For the same political reasons, nation A has an anemic air force and weak armored force; what would be the best way to utilize these against superior enemy forces?
D Finally, would it be correct to expect that deployments of large forces of light infantry to cover sections of the frontline would likely result in their encirclement or disintegration in the face of air-supported armored attacks?[/list]

A: its historically common, but I'd argue its often a bad move, generally because the sheer cost of fortification, combined with the pace of technological advance, means they are often kept on past their point of obsolescence, and thus relied upon to stop a threat beyond those that were envisaged by the designers (for example, the Belgian Fort of Eben-Emael, which the Germans were able to neutralise in 1940, via a glider assault, within 10 years of its construction, due the increases in aircraft ability and the invention of shaped charge warheads). So, it sounds logical, but in the time period we are talking about it is a sub-optimal strategy.



B: Based on the performance of groups like the SS and the Italian blackshirts, I'd say that they'd fail to meet expectations, but that might be due to unrealistic expectations. for our hypothetical Paramilitary organisation(s) (hereafter, the "paras"), how useful they are depends on how well integrated they are into the military and wether their is a unified chain of command. If, for example, the paras were explicitly outside the standard chain of command and not beholden to army commanders, you have unity of command issues where the army finds itself reliant on troops it cant control, and might have to compromise its plans in order to accommodate these elements.

For example, the political forces that are creating the paras as separate "elite" formations might well mandate that any assault the army wants to make must be spearheaded by the paras, and that once the assault Is over, the paras are to be withdrawn form the front to be used in some other assault, even if the army would rather keep them in place holding the line they just won.



C: Best use of limited assets in this case is to concentrate what you have in to mobile reserve, and use that as a "fire brigade" and rush them to wherever they can do the most good. So, while you might not have the airplanes to control the whole theatre, you might be able to secure temporary control of the airspace over a critical sector for a few hours, and use that time to win (or attempt to win) the ground battle.


D: probably, it really depends by what you mean by "light" infantry. If you mean a force with nothing heavier than small arms, then absolutely, but that would also be true if defending against "heavy" infantry with the usual complement of supporting artillery, AT weapons, AA guns, signals and logistic support, etc. In a modern, cold war era definition of light infantry (basically meaning any non-mechanised infantry), they would last much better because they have the support and specialist elements for fighting a air-armour attack.

In the long run, they'd still lose, because the key is combined arms, and if your lacking two arms of your force and the enemy isn't, your in a bad place. However, assuming that you've only got so much to work with, and that you can intelligently use your infantry and terrain, you might slow an enemy advance enough that a counter-attack force can get into position and stop the enemy attack. Plus, their are all those terrains and situations where armour and air power are less of an advantage (for example, heavy jungle or forests, dense urban terrain, etc), which level the playing field somewhat.

[KineticDiplomat]

@ PersonMan

At the risk of asking the obvious, what are the political objectives and circumstances, even for an "unburdened" nation? Is this a World War II style "Conquest & Unconditional Surrender" type of war, is it simply to humiliate a foreign power with no intent of occupation or regime change, a small imperial war of negotiated outcome? A knock down drag out bare-knuckle brawl like the Ostfront? Are the populations die-hard nationalists who will demand total victory but are willing to get behind the will and the act, or are they somewhat uninterested in what appears to be a border dispute, tired of the endless taxes, falling apart to internal strife, something in between? At the strategic level, the fundamental ends of state (or non-state for much of history) are what drives the strategy; the military only provides the means that constrain the ends.

As for the "WWII like" strategy, nation A faces a significant problem if it decides to build linear fortifications unless it has terrain strongly supporting it's defense beyond the tactical scale -if you've got Italian style layers and layers of endless mountains, well, a nice line of dug in infantry could be a real problem while the elite units are available to laterally counterattack breakthroughs since there's just not that many roads for a mechanized force to advance on.

Other than that...simply put, a linear defense without much mobility forward will be weak enough to be penetrated somewhere. After that occurs and expands to a tactical-operational level corridor, large portions of the rest of the line are now irrelevant - at best they are facing weak fixing forces allowing the already superior B to concentrate even more strength against even weaker formations along their attack axis while the majority of A's troops sit on "the line" as B drives towards their objectives, at worst the A troops can't withdraw fast enough to avoid being encircled and are lost unless they have strong pre-built logistical support. If you spent money on those forts and didn't just dig them, so much the worse - a large portion of the national investment can be rendered moot with a few key penetrations.

That said, a prepared mosaic defense might be a viable strategy (again, see politics - there is no such thing as politically unburdened strategy) in the right combination of terrain and road networks, particularly if the individual hedgehogs were well supplied ahead of time. In this case, relatively immobile and perhaps less trained infantry would essentially hold strongpoints in good defensive terrain, strongly reinforced with prebuilt fortifications - the intent not being to fight B on the outside of town, so to speak, but to drag them into close combat in terrain where they need to concentrate lots of troops in brutal exchanges where skill is marginalized, and their mechanization/airpower advantage is offset. Obviously, you need to pre-stage most of the logistics and it does mean ceding lots of less favorable terrain. The elite units are not used to "stronger plugs in the line", but as offensive formations that can move quickly through the mosaic to take advantage of opportunities and use the hedgehogs as operational level covers to allow them to reposition when B masses against the threat. It would be a way to make the fort idea potentially work.

It is also entirely possible in the right terrain that you could do a modern Fabian. The destruction of your own rail network will help rob B's supply requirement heavy force of a lot of their punch; the best tank divisions in the world still need gas, and lots of it, and the bulk transportation requirements for artillery ammunition are eye watering if you need to truck it very far. You might see if you could pull off a backhanded blow if you think B is long on mech and low on motorization while your forces are far less tied to supply lines (they will still consume more than you can humanly imagine, just not in the same way B does).

As for the weak armor and air, the trick is not putting them in fights where they won't do any good. "Road A is critical! Send the Tanks to A!" just means dead tanks if state B is throwing a mechanized corps down the road anyhow. When you spend them, they will probably die, but they should die achieving something, not plussing up an already doomed situation.

[fusilier]

C: Best use of limited assets in this case is to concentrate what you have in to mobile reserve, and use that as a "fire brigade" and rush them to wherever they can do the most good. So, while you might not have the airplanes to control the whole theatre, you might be able to secure temporary control of the airspace over a critical sector for a few hours, and use that time to win (or attempt to win) the ground battle.

I can't find the reference at the moment, but I remember reading an analysis of the Italian Army in WW2 which backs up your suggestion. Italy started off with too little of the modern equipment of war: tanks, aircraft, even trucks -- and the situation actually got worse as the war progressed. For example the number of trucks actually decreased; production couldn't keep up with losses.

The thesis of the analysis was basically: The Italian army did better during WW2 when it was smaller. When it was smaller, they didn't have to spread those mechanized resources (tanks, airplanes) as thinly, and therefore could keep better proportions for combined arms operations. (Along with having more resources to support each soldier)

B: Based on the performance of groups like the SS and the Italian blackshirts, I'd say that they'd fail to meet expectations, but that might be due to unrealistic expectations. . . .

I know there was resentment between the regular Italian military and the political MVSN (blackshirts). The MVSN tended to get "more" (weapons or better ones at least), but I don't think they had as much training (although both factors may have become inconsistent during the war). The ranks of the MVSN had different names, which outranked the equivalent rank in the regular military. Experience in the Spanish Civil War had shown that the "binary" structure of the regular Italian infantry division was deficient. With the war looming, they attempted to augment each division with an MVSN battalion -- this led to more direct friction between the two groups. Although, ultimately, the extra numbers may have helped a little.

[Gnoman]

To repeat:

I did name other examples. For another, Tirpitz, it was a bomb, but it was one (another hit didn't detonate, so I think one is fair), and it sank her.



Torpedoes are not so fast as shells, but they have a similar explosive load to battleship shells.

Both of these are extremely flawed arguments. Tirpitz was sunk by one bomb hit, but it wasn't exactly an ordinary bomb - the RAF hit it with a Tallboy earthquake bomb, which was so large that only two aircraft in the Allied arsenal (The Avro Lancaster and the B-29 Superfortress) were capable of carrying it. It had the mass of five 16" AP shells, the explosive charge of one hundred 16" AP shells, and had pretty much the same level of penetration as a 16" AP shell.


As for torpedoes, the typical torpedo carries much more explosive than a shell (16" HE ~150 pounds, Mark 14 Torpedo = 643 pounds), and explodes underwater. This not only makes the explosion more powerful, but has another effect. You don't sink ships by making holes that let air in. You sink ships by making holes to let water in, and torpedoes are much, much better at than than shells are.

[PersonMan]

A: its historically common, but I'd argue its often a bad move, generally because the sheer cost of fortification, combined with the pace of technological advance, means they are often kept on past their point of obsolescence, and thus relied upon to stop a threat beyond those that were envisaged by the designers (for example, the Belgian Fort of Eben-Emael, which the Germans were able to neutralise in 1940, via a glider assault, within 10 years of its construction, due the increases in aircraft ability and the invention of shaped charge warheads). So, it sounds logical, but in the time period we are talking about it is a sub-optimal strategy.

I see what you mean, yeah.

B: Based on the performance of groups like the SS and the Italian blackshirts, I'd say that they'd fail to meet expectations, but that might be due to unrealistic expectations. for our hypothetical Paramilitary organisation(s) (hereafter, the "paras"), how useful they are depends on how well integrated they are into the military and wether their is a unified chain of command. If, for example, the paras were explicitly outside the standard chain of command and not beholden to army commanders, you have unity of command issues where the army finds itself reliant on troops it cant control, and might have to compromise its plans in order to accommodate these elements.

For example, the political forces that are creating the paras as separate "elite" formations might well mandate that any assault the army wants to make must be spearheaded by the paras, and that once the assault Is over, the paras are to be withdrawn form the front to be used in some other assault, even if the army would rather keep them in place holding the line they just won.

Those are good points, especially regarding the chain of command - in this case, the organizations are both outside the army's control and divided into their own groups that are only beholden to direct orders from the head of state, and otherwise entirely at the disposal of their individual leaders. That seem like it could result in a lot of these organizational conflicts, especially as the commanders of these groups will be looking for old school glorious decisive battles to be the hero of.

D: probably, it really depends by what you mean by "light" infantry. If you mean a force with nothing heavier than small arms, then absolutely, but that would also be true if defending against "heavy" infantry with the usual complement of supporting artillery, AT weapons, AA guns, signals and logistic support, etc. In a modern, cold war era definition of light infantry (basically meaning any non-mechanised infantry), they would last much better because they have the support and specialist elements for fighting a air-armour attack.

Ah, gotcha. Probably something halfway between the former and latter, in most cases - though they're far more likely to have (heavily outdated; think early 1920s level) armor support and some artillery than they are to have proper logistics and supply companies. Would lacking the latter be more likely to result in a force that could potentially withstand one or two attacks, but would then break under continued pressure due to an inability to properly resupply and reorganize, or is it more of a "if they lack these, they will probably be a mess by the time they reach the fighting and rapidly collapse from there" type requirement?

In the long run, they'd still lose, because the key is combined arms, and if your lacking two arms of your force and the enemy isn't, your in a bad place. However, assuming that you've only got so much to work with, and that you can intelligently use your infantry and terrain, you might slow an enemy advance enough that a counter-attack force can get into position and stop the enemy attack. Plus, their are all those terrains and situations where armour and air power are less of an advantage (for example, heavy jungle or forests, dense urban terrain, etc), which level the playing field somewhat.

Yeah - the general "game plan" I have is that A loses, and fairly quickly, but I'm hoping to make the loss something that, if analysed, is clearly the result of their weaker position and structural weaknesses rather than being a fairly generic "yup they were smaller so they lost" explanation.

@ PersonMan

At the risk of asking the obvious, what are the political objectives and circumstances, even for an "unburdened" nation? Is this a World War II style "Conquest & Unconditional Surrender" type of war, is it simply to humiliate a foreign power with no intent of occupation or regime change, a small imperial war of negotiated outcome? A knock down drag out bare-knuckle brawl like the Ostfront? Are the populations die-hard nationalists who will demand total victory but are willing to get behind the will and the act, or are they somewhat uninterested in what appears to be a border dispute, tired of the endless taxes, falling apart to internal strife, something in between? At the strategic level, the fundamental ends of state (or non-state for much of history) are what drives the strategy; the military only provides the means that constrain the ends.

Ah; yeah, I was too vague there - what I meant was specifically 'what would the military do to defend against an expected attack by B, when not specifically demanded to favor X or do Y directly by the government?', but the general political situation is something I left out, too.

The objectives for A would lie between a minimum of "repulse B's attack as close to the border as possible; maintain the status quo in a peace deal" and a maximum of "regain land lost in a previous war, dismantle and carve B into friendly regimes". A's population is generally unenthusiastic; a minority are vigorously supporting the war and a larger minority is in secret (the regime has outlawed their activity) opposition to the regime that can/will escalate into rebellion.

The objectives of B go from the minimum of "enforce specific political demands related to the cause of the war (releasing prisoners, paying reparations) and ensure A's military cannot be a direct threat" to the (intended goal) of "topple the current regime, occupying the country as necessary to support the establishment of a new one". B's population is far more behind the war - imagine something similar to the response in Imperial Germany when WWI began. Some are pushing for peace, but the general consensus is that this is a defensive war against a national/ideological enemy that needs to be fought.

Other than that...simply put, a linear defense without much mobility forward will be weak enough to be penetrated somewhere. [...] It would be a way to make the fort idea potentially work.

Gotcha. The 'mosaic defense' idea is actually a very interesting one I hadn't thought of - unfortunately it isn't really possible in this immediate context (as any defensive plan involving ceding large areas to B's attack would be vetoed by A's political leadership, and the terrain right on the border isn't ideal for it) but I will definitely be keeping that in mind, especially for nation C, which does have the kind of terrain to make that work.

It is also entirely possible in the right terrain that you could do a modern Fabian. The destruction of your own rail network will help rob B's supply requirement heavy force of a lot of their punch; the best tank divisions in the world still need gas, and lots of it, and the bulk transportation requirements for artillery ammunition are eye watering if you need to truck it very far. You might see if you could pull off a backhanded blow if you think B is long on mech and low on motorization while your forces are far less tied to supply lines (they will still consume more than you can humanly imagine, just not in the same way B does).

Would that be viable in fairly open terrain without long distances? A's capital (and, around it, the most industrialized/populous region of the country) is only ~250 km from the border, which may or may not be enough distance to manage this kind of strategy in.

As for the weak armor and air, the trick is not putting them in fights where they won't do any good. "Road A is critical! Send the Tanks to A!" just means dead tanks if state B is throwing a mechanized corps down the road anyhow. When you spend them, they will probably die, but they should die achieving something, not plussing up an already doomed situation.

Gotcha. Presumably, once these forces are expended would be a good time for the military to start sending "we recommend trying to make peace before our defense collapses and we have no bargaining power left"-style letters to the government?

[halfeye]

Both of these are extremely flawed arguments. Tirpitz was sunk by one bomb hit, but it wasn't exactly an ordinary bomb - the RAF hit it with a Tallboy earthquake bomb, which was so large that only two aircraft in the Allied arsenal (The Avro Lancaster and the B-29 Superfortress) were capable of carrying it. It had the mass of five 16" AP shells, the explosive charge of one hundred 16" AP shells, and had pretty much the same level of penetration as a 16" AP shell.

It was the level of penetration I was mainly interested in, but I certainly wasn't aware that the explosive charge in the 16 inch shells was so relatively puny. These are 0.85 tonne shells, having them contain 0.085 or less tonnes (i.e. less than 85 kg) of explosive is unexpected to me at least.

I was aware that the Lancaster had to be modified to carry the Grand Slam, but I'd have assumed, apparently mistakenly, that the more or less half size Tall Boy could be carried in an unmodified bomber, probably a Halifax or a Liberator, as well as the Lanc.

As for torpedoes, the typical torpedo carries much more explosive than a shell (16" HE ~150 pounds, Mark 14 Torpedo = 643 pounds), and explodes underwater. This not only makes the explosion more powerful, but has another effect. You don't sink ships by making holes that let air in. You sink ships by making holes to let water in, and torpedoes are much, much better at than than shells are.

There are antitorpedo belts fitted for just that reason. I will say again how surprised I am by the relatively small amount of explosive in those shells.

Apparently, these heavy shells are so ballistically nice for water that they can sometimes get in under the torpedo belt. I was surprised by that, I know bullets stop pretty quickly, I didn't realise there was so little resistance that shells would still be going fast enough to go through steel after 80+ feet.

[KineticDiplomat]

~250km away over open terrain is not where you want to be when your enemy has striking advantages in mech and air. Especially not for a forward defense. Maybe for a longer campaign you could break down his motor pool if you stopped him deep, but really - 250km of open ground isn't much. But if you had to fight it anyhow, a couple options (which also allow nifty RP dramatization)

A) Try to out-OODA B by mobilizing faster and seizing key mobility positions (bridges, canal crossings, rail yards, ports) and perhaps some exposed population centers in B. The idea is to make him burn his Sunday punch re-taking terrain that gives you some advantage while also helping to offset his initial mobilization plans and making him burn trucks and tracks on tactical movement much earlier in the fight. The remainder of your forces which are mobilizing use the time to do their damndest to limit mobility options near the border and concentrate forces wherever he telegraphs his punches.

B) A multi-layered defense where the first defensive belt is basically a series of reflexive ambushes. Let the armor divisions through with just enough fighting that they believe it, close the roads behind them and take on their infantry as the gap widens - maybe even get a chance to smash some logistical hubs. The second belt will just have to force the armored forces to burn off enough fuel and ammo to neuter them. The third belt kills them.

C) Fight at the crossings, and use off-road strongpoints with roadblocks to force the tracks to divert. Basically, a series of strongpoints in range of the major road networks that the enemy will have to divert to handle. Best would be, say, a wooded or heavily irrigated area a klick or two away, but you make do with what you have. Make the mech infantry dismount, and maybe even bring up straight leg infantry, to clean you out or you're in position to interdict the supply columns. As to the tracked vehicles, every mile they have to drive off-road is a strain on the maintenance and logistics. It won't be bone breaking like the Panzegruppes having to continually attack off-road in Russia, but it will wear out vehicles. Of course, short as it is, they may just blow through and figure they'll clean up the strongpoints later.

D) Pak-fronts & minefields. If you can get in front of the armor, mass anti-tank guns and mines along their attack axis.

E) Any of the above combined with using your own limited armor for a turning movement.