lomb831 | 23 Sep 2017 7:11 a.m. PST |
How difficult is it too move (not prolonged a couple of yards or moved back a couple of yards)a PAK 40 both on open ground and a road with only its crew? Also what would be a realistic amount of movement and how long would it take? Just some ideas please |
Dynaman8789 | 23 Sep 2017 7:20 a.m. PST |
Moving the gun itself is not too bad, moving the ammo is the problem. Without transport you are talking a long time to make it anything other than a couple of shot weapon. |
Jeff Ewing | 23 Sep 2017 7:42 a.m. PST |
This is one of those "how long is a piece of string" questions. The gun itself is 20 feet long and weighs a ton and a half. On a flat road the eight man crew could probably manage a slow walk. In any kind of bad going, you're going to need an artillery tractor. |
Frederick | 23 Sep 2017 8:29 a.m. PST |
Agree with and Dynaman – you can move a medium AT gun a few yards or so, but anything more than that is why God invented prime movers |
jeffreyw3 | 23 Sep 2017 9:26 a.m. PST |
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Skarper | 23 Sep 2017 10:26 a.m. PST |
Fatigue would set in after only a few meters. I'm guessing on a road with no incline you could manage maybe 1 mph for an 5-10 minutes. So maybe move 2-300m?? Imagine you and 7 guys pushing a car. Then imagine you're all young fit guys. Then imagine you're dog tired from sleeping in a ditch and being constantly scared witless. |
Neroon | 23 Sep 2017 11:24 a.m. PST |
Note the bricoles. The gun crew was usually only 5 men, but the infantry were usually glad to help. |
Jeff Ewing | 23 Sep 2017 12:21 p.m. PST |
I count 14 guys in that shot. Terrific photo, Leper Messiah. |
saltflats1929 | 23 Sep 2017 5:20 p.m. PST |
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Bunkermeister | 23 Sep 2017 10:05 p.m. PST |
link While it's a TV show it show the difficulties of moving a six pounder AT gun a significant distance. Mike Bunkermeister Creek bunkermeister.blogspot.com |
Cerdic | 24 Sep 2017 1:37 a.m. PST |
Great link from saltflats! I'm going to insist on a new rule though. An A/T gun can only fire once every three moves 'cos nobody can see a bleedin' thing after it fires! |
laretenue | 24 Sep 2017 5:33 a.m. PST |
May not matter, but Leper Messiah's pic – which I already had – definitely shows re-enactors. |
OneBadMonkee | 24 Sep 2017 6:11 a.m. PST |
@Iaretenue: Right, a picture from the German Bundesarchiv, dated October/November 1943, showing re-enactors… link |
laretenue | 24 Sep 2017 7:40 a.m. PST |
OBM Completely fair point, but I have also found some rather erratic Bundesarchiv photo labels elsewhere. Like pix attributed to Normandy which look much more likely to be in Italy. I accept the argument that jumbling theatres is different from confusing genuine and spurious material. Still, as someone who lives much of the time in France, I cannot believe that that sash window is anywhere on the Continent. I think they're unheard of outside the English-speaking world. The brickwork looks suspect too. So I remain sceptical, but suit yourself. Not that this in itself tells us much about moving a PAK 40. I had already filed this pic myself precisely because it caught my imagination for this reason. |
7dot62mm | 24 Sep 2017 10:42 a.m. PST |
The PAK 40 weighs 1.4 tons. From personal experience I can tell you that seven guys can push/pull it on a paved parking lot at slow walking speed. If there's an incline things become more difficult and slower. I wouldn't dream of trying to move it off-road without using a towing vehicle. |
Andy ONeill | 25 Sep 2017 3:15 a.m. PST |
Have you ever pushed on of those 4 wheel suitcases? They work well on perfectly flat polished floors. Once you get out the airport and onto a pavement they clunk along. Onto tarmac and they're not so smooth. Drag them across your front garden and a heavy one is likely to be hard work. In mud I guess they'd be stuck. That's for 20 odd kilos. Obviously, you could eventually move a pak40 across a field given enough men or hours. If you intend sustained movement you really want a nice flat hard surface. |
Lion in the Stars | 25 Sep 2017 3:25 a.m. PST |
Yeah, the big problem with the PAK40 is it's weight. But you couldn't kill a tank with a lighter HV gun. So the Germans went to work on a gun light enough to push around on rough ground that could still kill a tank with a HEAT warhead and ended up with the 8cm PAW 600: link
It could punch 140mm of armor, and the gun only weighed 600kg including shield and trail. Only has a 750m effective range, though, compared to the 1800m of the PAK40. But since it was based on the 8cm mortar, it can also fire any of those shells, and had greater elevation than the 7.5cm infantry guns. |
Martin Rapier | 25 Sep 2017 3:36 a.m. PST |
I have manouvered both a Pak 36 and an LeIG through woodland. It took 12 of us to drag them up to the top of a slope after considerable cursing. Those are light guns, designed to be moved on foot. I could not begin to imagine doing it with a Pak 40, although we did manage to wheel one a couple of hundred yards along a track. The chapter in The Naked and the Dead where they move the 37mm guns through the forest gives an idea of what prolonging artillery is like for the poor saps who have to do it. |
deephorse | 25 Sep 2017 5:17 a.m. PST |
Not so easy with just the crew? |
Thomas Thomas | 25 Sep 2017 3:04 p.m. PST |
Pak 40 made to be as light as possible. Spaced gun shield and tubuler trains. A US 7.6L was twice as heavy. Still a project to move. In Combat Command a crew can prolong a gun at a penalty of 1/2 the gun's size in CM (round up for L down for N or S). So a 7.5L would inflict a penalty of 4" (1/2 7.5 rounded up) on a crew that can move 6" normally (so you can only move it 2"). TomT |
4th Cuirassier | 26 Sep 2017 6:46 a.m. PST |
The gun itself is 20 feet long and weighs a ton and a half. On a flat road the eight man crew could probably manage a slow walk. Ooh, I dunno. 10 guys can pull a Scorpion tank at a fair old clip: YouTube link and that weighs 8 tons. |
deephorse | 26 Sep 2017 3:02 p.m. PST |
12 men I think, and for just a few yards. Not really proof of anything (other than that 12 men can pull a Scorpion a few yards!). |
uglyfatbloke | 28 Sep 2017 4:24 a.m. PST |
And it's all a bit easier on a proper road. One man (after a very long day of physical work) can push a Hi-Cube transit and about 600 kilos of lighting equipment 300 yards ….but it's a slow process and he's pretty much f%/+£d thereafter. |
Blutarski | 28 Sep 2017 7:06 a.m. PST |
When you have to move something like that - The ground is always uphill. It's always raining and muddy or three feet deep in snow. If there is a road, it is always strewn with three foot deep potholes. If it is not a road, it is a forest with dense underbrush or a recently plowed field. ;-) B |