"Reload times. AT gun vs tank gun?" Topic

Take something like the German 37mm or the Soviet 45mm, available as both an anti-tank gun and a tank mount.

Are there significant differences in the reload times after firing a shot? How significant?

I shouldn't think so. They're both small caliber guns. So the rounds would be easy to handle. Even as rounds get larger well designed tank turrets are not too difficult to load main gun rounds in. Didn't have much trouble with 105 rounds in M48s through M60A3s.

Depends on the tank and where rounds are stored. An AT gun should always be faster since it had more crewmen – if it does not have more crewmen it would be slower.

If the tank has ready rounds in an accessible location for the loader (no loader would be VERY much slower…) it would be nearly as fast as an AT gun till the ready rounds ran out.

Watch news realms of artillery, positive can be seen on YouTube. I think they can out shoot tanks by a good margin.

Rate of fire in a tank was far more variable.

Some tanks did not have a dedicated loader. Rate of fire should be much lower.

Some tanks had very limited working space given the size of the gun or length of rounds. Rate of fire should be lower.

Some tanks had limited read-rack ammunition. Rate of fire should decline after the first few rounds are fired.

Some tanks had very complicated access to stowage after the ready rounds are used up. Rate of fire should decline greatly after the first few rounds are fired.

For example a late model Sherman with wet ammunition stowage should have a good rate of fire for the first several rounds. Then it should drop precipitously. The wet ammo racks were all under the turret floor. The loader could only access the close rack if the turret was pointed in the right direction. Otherwise the rack behind the co-driver's seatback was the only path for more rounds.

As compared to an early Sherman, which would not see much decline at all. Or compared to a Sherman Firefly, which should have a notably lower rate of fire to start with, but suffer less decline in time.

All vs. a 3-inch AT gun, which should have a high rate of fire from start-to-finish, unless the crew is taking fire.

-Mark
(aka: Mk 1)

As above, he sustained rate of fire for a tank (with a comparatively tiny crew and ammo stashed in all sorts of wierd places) will be somewhat lower for a tank.

Differences in effective ROF may have been one of the contributing factors to the massive difference in combat effectiveness in identical weapons in ground vs tank mounts. Doesn't explain why the same differential holds true for ATGMS….

All makes sense.

I'd assume that taking any small arms fire will bother the ATG crew a lot more than it'll bother a tank, obviously.

The difference would be dependant on the space in the turret and the visibility to available targets, assuming all other things are equal.

If you get the chance, watch the old movie "The Story of G.I. Joe" with Burgess Meredith as Ernie Pyle. Made during the war they use real soldiers as extras. They have one scene where a 57mm AT gun dukes it out with a German pillbox. The gun crew has a bucket-brigade set up passing shells from the halftrack that was towing the gun, to the gun. It's amazing to watch. They are firing a round every two seconds or so, just boom, boom, boom.

Some tanks -- French and Soviets, notably -- had very cramped turrets, where the commander also served as either gunner or loader, or both. Such should have much lower rates of fire.

Sherman crews (and probably most others) often over-stocked with ammo and had to store the extra in all sorts of unsafe places, which is one reason they had a reputation of being easy to set on fire, even after the instigation of wet (official) storage.

AT guns (and towed artillery) can stash their ammo ready to hand a lot easier than the tank layout, plus have more room to move around.

The traverse on German and American 37mm a/t guns are incredibly fast and smooth, having traversed both at the WW2 Weekend in Reading, Pa., resulting in a faster on target time compared to a tank gun, thus resulting in quicker reload times.

I recall reading that the German SPAT vehicles, Marders for example, had a high rate of fire because the gun serving area was more spacious and ammo ready at hand……….

Zis-3 on paper had 25 shots/min. I had an opportunity to shoot from the one we had, you can get to 25 if you're not aiming – just load and fire. Since you have several loaders, you can load one shell after another. If you changing targets, then the main time-consuming task is the work of gun's operator. depending on required traverse, you can aim the gun in 5-15 sec.
Su-76 had the same ZIS-3 gun. On paper Rof was 15, and real rof was 6. This "6" number was not taking into account aiming on new target. Su-76 had lots of space, in comparison to, say, T-34, but in order to aim you had to turn the machine, not the turret…