"Auto loaders" Topic

I was looking today at data for rates of fire and the impact of an auto loader vs a human loader.

Lots of interesting stuff. The edge may be a good human loader on a good day.

From what I gather from trolling the net and Wikipedia and some sites that have proved reliable in the past a human loader is expected to load in a max of 8 seconds. Some really excellent loaders seem to claim very close to 5 seconds if they are prepared. Auto loaders seem to have anywhere from about 6.5 seconds to 15 seconds. However loading the same round type with and auto loader seems to be faster closer to 5 seconds. On that basis I see no need to differentiate, but it is a close call. But I have a hate about adding rules as that so some extent slows there game down, reduces pressure on players. Players under pressure create excitement and the fog of war creeps in at no cost in rules.

Whats your opinion.

Also, does that edge change when the tank is doing 30 km/h? The gun might be stabilized but what about the human loader?

This is a cut and paste from a site I found but it goes along with other discussions I've run across.

Re debate, the NATO standard of the 1960s/70s was for every tanker to be able to make 3 shots in 15 seconds. By the 1980s with all the electronic improvements in FCS they reduced this to 3 shots in 12 seconds. I later found out from speaking to both German and American tankers that in fact these were basic standards and that most good crews could beat those targets [IE 3 shots in 10 seconds].

By comparison the standard WARPAC figure was first shot in 20-30 seconds and repeat shots every 15 seconds. With the T-64/80 the auto loader was supposed to rechamber a shell in 6 seconds but that doesn't include the time to rotate the carosel to the proper ammo type etc. In practice a round every 10 seconds was expected for all but the best tankers…which is why only the Guards Divisions got these advanced tanks.

I heard a US M1 tanker explain it like this: Starting with a round in the chamber, a round in his lap and a round between his legs he could have 3 rounds off in about 15 seconds.

Hope this helps.
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The reason I don't play modern is an M1 Abrams getting off 3 rounds in 15 seconds (at the same target) is not going to be fun for the other side.

Wolfhag

Having rounds out of its correct storage is bad if the armor is penetrated. One reason the M1 had armor between the crew compartment and ammo compartment was to increase survivability. That is lost if you have rounds in your lap or between your legs.

i would go for a slightly lower rate of fire and correct storage than high rate of fire and die if armor is penetrated. But to each his own.

IIRC with an Auto-Loader the gun had to reset to a particular position for the Auto-Loader to function as well.

From a crew standpoint, it is good to have that extra body during maintenance

All evidence points to human loaders firing faster.

I've read concerns in articles whether that will keep up as ammo gets larger and heavier, but I am not sure where the breakpoint is.

Of course, an auto-loader reduces the need to train another person which games don't reflect. Conversely, a spare human is always handy on a battlefield.

Many other factors bear on this topic. Size of the round, bore size of the gun, composition of the round. The modern day M-1 is incapable of achieving the older standard of engagements since the 120mm gun uses a round that has a combustible casing. The breach of the gun operates slowly compared to the old 105mm gun.

The M-60 series tank had rounds sitting on the turret floor in a ready rack, honey combs for rounds in the turret and to either side of the driver. The engagements times describe above were for a specific engagement using battle sight at about 1000m against a 3 tank threat. So, not only did the loader have to hump the rounds, the gunner have to quickly acquire the next target, lay the gun and fire the round.

The Swedes used an auto loader on their S series tank with a 105mm gun, but I am not familiar with its speed or reliability.

$-Tank was supposed to be one every 3s. Not having a rotating turret probably made things a lot simpler!

The biggest problem seems to be when (not if) the auto loader gets out of adjustment/breaks. Then you need a human loader and space for him to work. No human loader equals a mission kill when a wire breaks or a drive belt skips a few teeth.

Older Soviet designs also had an auto eject 'feature' with a tiny hatch on the turret for the empty casing to go out of – it was usually the first thing to cause problems as the hot, smoking casing missed the hatch and went bouncing around the interior of the tank.

The norm of loading mechanism pulls ammo out of the cartridge and charging for 8 seconds (in fact, somewhere in 7.5 seconds). It is a complete cycle. The mechanism is quite simple, and does not understand it that to what can only be a complete ignoramus in the mechanisms.
By the way, here's what it looks like in a training class:
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In general, one of the main drawbacks of the machinery – the location of ammunition. It is also called "Morozov's lighter" – when the munition expose, they exploseall the rest.
But there are pluses:
1) the first 3-4 of the fired ammo in the event of a fight "by the book" (ie, against NATO) – a guided rockets (where they exist). Start is made, if I remember correctly, with 4000 m. On the way, at the same time drawing closer to the enemy, to destroy its conventional ammunition. Here loading speed is not critical – most importantly bring these missiles at the target.
2) to reduce the dimensions of the tank (especially the front projection). The height of the tank was taken in the design, taking into account "screen area".
3) In the case of destruction of the tank killed fewer people.
4) Easier to fire on the move. In any case, the mechanism does not drop the ammo on the floor of the crew compartment.

I recall reading in "Inside the Soviet Army" by V. Suvorov, that the auto loader would sometimes malfunction and try to load a crewman's arm into the breech…

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Autoloader worked fine, it was the gunner's coveralls that got caught up in the mechanism…

And some of the really scary Abrams tankers can meet the old M4 Sherman rate of fire. They can usually hold one 120mm round in each hand at arm's reach, and do a pretty good gorilla impression.

I counted about 10 seconds to reload and fire in this video:
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That auto reloader reminds me of a Rube Goldberg contraption.

T-90 gets off 3 rounds in 13 seconds
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Wolfhag

Remember that Suvorov – absolutely typical retired Soviet officer. And yet most typical KGB officer. And these two categories of people like to tell all the fierce garbage (about NATO saboteurs , UFO, and a military coolstories). And story in that book background – faulty autoloader in the early T-64.
In automatic loader (T-72 tanks, and based on it) a lot of flaws, but insecurity is not exactly one of them. It is as simple as two pennies, but to smash it – in general, I do not know how it can be broken. Another thing is the loading mechanism (T-64/T-80). Its long fine-tuned, and abort the go with a large percentage of defects (just do epic adopting T-64 – look a like Song of Hiawatha). But by 1980s it was all resolved.

Interestingly the general agreement is provided that you are not changeing matures there is little differentce in rate of fire. Subleties about changing natures is not worth the rules in my opinion. In most engagements where speed counts you will have the right nature up the "spout".

We have some optional rules that make penetration of the turret more lethal than on a Western tank.

However we have not made any assesment for the smaller target. I think its not simple to accomodate that in our rules and still keep them simple. At what level would it be significant for a well disguised tank?

Unreliability is not in our scope. While its a real world effect. In determining optimum tactics which is what our rules are about its unhelpful.

Thank you for the comments.

How do they compare if you need to change ammo type during an engagment?

a human loader just draws it from a different point, what happens with an auto loader?

Asent,
It looks like it takes a bit longer. Tanks fighting tanks will not need to change ammo nature in the very brief engagement with stuff that can kill it. If it needs to swap to HEAT or HE (or Guided Missile) its tough and it will take a bit longer. Max possible looks to be 15 seconds for the very worst case.

Hello, Ascent!
According to the textbook, to be honest, I do not remember (but if it is necessary – I can see), and in fact – shoot at the enemy and charge a new one.

YouTube link

The auto-loader looks like S, but it still works. It jams, but they're able to clear it with minimal effort (they're not exactly moving as fast as possible. Overall, the darn thing seems pretty durable.

IIRC with an Auto-Loader the gun had to reset to a particular position for the Auto-Loader to function as well.

This is the case with some tanks. For instance, I understand that the T-72 has this problem. The tank is forced to reacquire the target each time the gun fires. However, I've also been told that it's not a universal problem, and there are Russian auto-loaders that don't have this drawback.

Yes thats right – it wasn't the auot loader itself that piled on the seconds to the acquire load shoot cycle, but the fact that the gun had to elevate to pretty much max azimuth for the round to load, then be relayed to the correct elevation. So about twice the time of a trained loader who was lap loading.

Yeah, the Russian autoloader isn't like the naval autoloaders, where the gun stays on elevation/azimuth and just keeps hammering away.

I think it has to do with the height of the tank and turret, but I'm not an engineer…

The autoloader in the M8 Armored Gun System is a closer cousin to the naval autoloader, the entire shell-handling system is almost identical to the one used in the naval 5"/54, just a lot smaller in capacity and without a shell elevator. But it only holds 21 rounds of 105mm!