British Projects to replace the 25 Pounder field gun

In a copy of Forces 90 there is an article about the Royal Artillery which refers to a British project to replace the 25 Pounder artillery gun with an 85mm weapon with a nuclear protection overhead shield. It adds that the project was dropped when NATO went for the 105mm instead. Have I missed a thread on this, or does anyone know more?

I think you are referring to the Garrington gun.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/sarge_schultz/1672463665/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/sarge_schultz/1673317042/in/set-72157614661138515

http://www.houseoftheorangemonkey.co.uk/monkey/trips/trip4310.htm

http://www.flickr.com/photos/milesh/406163182/

http://forum.valka.cz/viewtopic.php/t/44104

Ian Hoggs encyclopedia of artillery identified it as an 87mm weapon, the 25pdr was 3.45in which is 87.6mm and it looks like both 87mm and 88mm may have been used in reference to the thing. It seems it had passed all trials successfully when the caliber shift killed it off. It was to fire a new longer ranged shell, reaching 17,000 yards compared to 13,400 yards for a 25pdr Mk 1

Thank you to all for so much info and pics.

uk 75 said:

the project was dropped when NATO went for the 105mm instead.

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So when did NATO go for the 105 mm calibre? As the Czech website says the Garrington gun was developed sometime in the late 1950s, the NATO's adopting the 105 mm (i.e. American) calibre must have taken place at that time, I suppose.

Piotr

I believe 1955 is the year NATO adopted the 105mm calibre as its standard field gun calibre.

Canada replaced its 25 Pdrs in 1956 - http://www.canadiansoldiers.com/weapons/ordnance/c1howitzer.htm

In the 1950s NATO agreed that 105 mm was to be a standard calibre but did not define its ballistic and other characteristics. This stopped UK work on the new 88 mmfield gun as well as UK and US design studies for 110 mm. UK recognised the deficiencies of the widely used US ‘1935 pattern’ 105 mm ammunition and switched efforts to a new 105 mm round, which may have been a scaled up version of the new 88 mm round.

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http://nigelef.tripod.com/p_105ltgun.htm

The Carrington guns' barrel looks awfully short for a 17 km range. I assume that shell was an RAP projectile?

17,000 yards is not equal to 17km. I've seen nothing to indicate that the new shell was rocket assisted nor was this yet commonplace in the mid 1950s. The barrel does not look short at all for the caliber. Take a look at the following picture, and remember that the gun crew can stand upright under the shield. This is by no means short.
http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2340/1672463665_25a46ac085_b.jpg

A short barrel weapon looks like this 105mm howitzer, which fired only 11,000 yards with WW2 ammo and not much further with postwar improvements. 1960s RAP went around 15,000 yards IIRC, could be wrong on that.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/76/M101_105mm_Howitzer.jpg



The 25pdr always had good ballistics in any case; this was the advantage of getting to design a completely new shell, cartridge and gun all in one go with freedom of caliber choice to round it all off! The 25pdr was specifically designed as a light field gun, rather then a howitzer and could only fire above 45 degrees if one dug a recoil pit. It would appear the Garrington Gun is designed the same way, possible to crank up high elevations but not fire without a pit, but I can't confirm that. Certainly the navy implies it was still being designed as a light field gun, but I wouldn't make an argument based on that alone! Politics and Marketing and all.

In comparison the Russian D-44 85mm divisional gun from 1944 had a 55 cal barrel and could shoot 17,100 yards while being ten years older in design; its improved M52 variant from 1952 could shoot 17,600 yards. Seems very very similar all around.

While looking into the Canadian website I noticed that the Canadian army modified, in the 1990s, some of their 105 mm howitzers of the US origin by lenthening their barrels from 22 to 33 calibres [http://www.canadiansoldiers.com/weapons/ordnance/c3howitzer.htm]. If I am not mistaken the ammunition remained unchanged, but the new howitzer's range increased almost by 50 percent (from around 12 to 18 kilometers).

I wonder whether a similar arrangement was actually planned in case of the Garrington gun (it had the same caliber as the old 25-pdr, didn't it?). Do you have any idea how it was to be?

Piotr

Mistaken. That link you posted says range is 18km with extended range ammunition. Both projectile and propellant charges changed.
I looked into the C3 weapon, seems its a French upgrade package and shoots 18.5km with the French HE-ER G2 round which is a base bleed projectile, and 19.5km with US made M913 HERA which is a rocket assist round. A breach modification was required as well as the new barrel. It would appear if you fire the weapon with its original WW2 ammo and propellant charges, the longer barrel gives no advantage in range. This is not that surprising.


Everything I've seen, which is limited, indicates that the Garrington gun could fire the same ammunition and had the same bore as the 25pdr Mk1, it just had a longer barrel and would also use a new projectile, with presumably new charges, as well. No sign of rocket assist, and base bleed had not yet been invented. It has fairly long range because it’s just a lot more ballistic efficient then 105mm of the period. 105mm has never been good at long range; if you look at say the German 105mm long range guns in WW2, the things weighed as much as 150mm howitzers. This did not make them terribly popular.

Sea Skimmer said:

Mistaken.

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You're quite right. I've missed the info on the French ammunition.

By the way, do we know how long the Garrington gun's barrel was?

Piotr

Sea Skimmer said:

The 25pdr was specifically designed as a light field gun, rather then a howitzer and could only fire above 45 degrees if one dug a recoil pit.

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Not quite. The later versions of the 25 Pdr had a hinge in their trails which allowed the trail to effective "break", which allowed higher elevations. While a pit had still to be dug under the hinge to achieve elevations above 45 degrees, it had nothing to do with recoil.

Petrus said:

By the way, do we know how long the Garrington gun's barrel was?

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Never been able to find that information, very rough scaling on the images suggests around 30cal but perhaps less. That fits fairly well with reported 716m/s MV. Various 22ish cal field howitzers seem to do about 500m/s, while the 50cal field guns did more like 800m/s. Of course much depends on the design of the ammunition and just what an acceptable gun life is judged to be. One can guess that the 17,000 yard range involved some kind of barrel eating supercharge.




Thanks for that information Kadija Man

Hi,

If you see this weapon in the UK "Firepower" museum (or at least whats left of it) you will see that it actually has a very long barrel compared to the 25 pdr. The picture above makes it look as if the recoil recuperator is the barrel but the barrel actually extends well past that.

On this weapon the guys at the museum contradict Ian Hogg, they say that the mounting and carriage were a complete failure, apparently the armoured shell simply worked to trap the fumes and make the operating area very cramped and uncomfortable whilst the hydraulic training system had problems also. It is possible that the actual gun may have been satisfactory but a different carriage would have been required.

The gun is also known as X5E1.

Has anyone ever seen any suggestion of an attempt to replace the 5.5 inch prior to FH70?

Sea Skimmer said:

... I looked into the C3 weapon, seems its a French upgrade package ...

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The C3 fires HE-ER G2 (or US M913) rounds but it wasn't a French upgrade package. It was Dutch. The now-defunct RDM Technology BV (Rotterdamsche Droogdok Maatschappij) called this their M101/33 package. Last I heard, the Chilean Army was also upgrading their 105s to M101/33 standards.

The C3 does have some Brit content though - the Royal Ordnance L/33 barrel (which has progressive rifling so the C3 can fire older-type 105mm rounds -- without added range, as you noted).

BTW, RDM had previously upgraded two Canadian Army 155mm M114 howitzers to M114/39. These were trailled successfully but Canada then dropped towed 155mm howitzers for two decades...

JFC Fuller said:

On this weapon the guys at the museum contradict Ian Hogg, they say that the mounting and carriage were a complete failure, apparently the armoured shell simply worked to trap the fumes and make the operating area very cramped and uncomfortable whilst the hydraulic training system had problems also. It is possible that the actual gun may have been satisfactory but a different carriage would have been required.

The gun is also known as X5E1.

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As valuable as they are Ian Hoggs books have proven wrong or mistaken or suffered from lack of information on more than one subject, so thanks for those tidbits. Perhaps he saw data that only referred to the gun barrel and ammo itself, or it could be an outright mistake. Maybe some day someone can go out and measure the barrel with a tape too; or well I’d suspect the museum may have added data already. Do you think 30cal is a reasonable ballpark for the length, or bigger?

Problems with the training system sound like they be readily fixable, the shield was never a good idea given how heavy it made the weapon, but I wonder if fumes were really considered that serious a problem at the time? I mean if you are fighting a nuclear war near constant use of gas masks would be required anyway. Train like you plan to fight and all that.

Has anyone ever seen any suggestion of an attempt to replace the 5.5 inch prior to FH70?

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Nope. The British army seems to have been still working on self propelled 5.5in versions into the later 1950s, while the earliest work on what became FH70 goes back to 1963 even if nothing was very detailed before the late 1960s. I’m sure designers did sketches, they always do and are terribly hard to find for artillery, but the window for a serious replacement project seems very slim and smack dab in the middle of thermonuclear nuclear mania. The US for its part took just as long to replace its own wartime medium artillery, having dropped out of FH70 at an early point. I’m not sure when the UK bought the M108 and M109, but I think it was early in the existence of these vehicles, that would have been a pretty good finishing blow to talk of UK developed artillery solutions. Even that most major armies, the US and USSR included let 1940s era towed medium guns and howitzers last in front line service into the 1970s, clearly nobody was too convinced they were missing out.

The Garrington Gun was displayed on Horseguards parede in 1955 was part of the RA 250th anniversary. That gives a indication of timeline. It was designed to fire both 25-pr and new design ammo, I suspect the new design ammo may have been scaled up to 105mm Fd for Abbott. I believe there may be Garrington Gun manuals at Shrivenham, unless they were transferred with the gun now exhibited at Woolwich.

Interestingly some years ago while scanning through a copy of the RAA DRA Liaison Letter from the 1950s there was reference to a joint UK/US study looking at a 110mm equipment.

Apologies for reviving an ancient thread, but I've recently become interested (for a fictional scenario) in the possibility of producing a long-range version of the 25pr. The Garrington gun provides an obvious example of what might have been possible, although it takes the idea a step further by using more advanced shells.

I was looking to use standard shells and cartridge cases but with a slightly longer chamber to take a larger super charge, and a longer barrel. Given that the standard 25pr had a barrel length of around 28 calibres (excluding the muzzle brake) I would assume from both the performance and the appearance that the Garrington gun had a barrel of something like 40 calibres. 716 m/s is a lot higher than the 518 m/s of the standard gun's super charge, so it must have used more propellant as well as having the longer barrel.

I think that increasing the super charge in a standard gun could theoretically have increased the MV to around 550-560 m/s, and adding a longer barrel (important to extract the benefit of the larger charge) should have put the velocity in the 600-620 m/s range. The gun recoil system would have to have been strengthened, but as this fictional proposal is only for an SPG that shouldn't be too much of a problem. By how much would that have increased the range over the 13,400 yards of the standard gun? I'm not sure, but at a rough guesstimate it should have been in the 15,000-16,000 yard bracket.

Comments?

There's no reason the technology applied to the Abbot and L118 Light Guns (L40 barrels and the Fd Mk 2 ammo) couldn't be used on a 25 Pounder base rather than a 105mm M1 base. You would probably get the same 50% improvement in range as well as more lethal shells with an Abbot 25 Pounder over the WWII 25 Pounder.

I would expect that this would be substantially a new gun with a new mounting because of the recoil which such an increased charge would produce. As it was, the 25 Pdr had to have a muzzle brake added to help absorb the recoil from the use of supercharge with the existing barrel length and mounting. While mounting on an SP chassis would help, you're still looking at a substantial increase in recoil and with such a long barrel, there may be problems with muzzle whip as well which may require beefing up of the barrel's walls, which would make it essentially a new gun. If you're making essentially a new gun, then it might be just easier to use a larger chamber as well and that would necessitate new cartridge cases. So you're really starting to look at something which might have started as a 25 Pdr once, some time ago but which grew into something very different indeed.

If those problems could be overcome, then I'd expect to see about a 50% increase in range, roughly comparable to the L118 105mm Light Gun. However, you would not necessarily see any substantial increase in lethality. The 25 Pdr HE round was considered too light for destructive fire missions. It was always intended to fit within the Royal Artillery "beliefs" that field guns were meant to suppress, rather than destroy the enemy (a hang over from the days I believe of field guns being expected to fire over open sights directly at the enemy). So, while you're get more range, you won't necessarily turn it into something like a 105mm round's effectiveness on target.

Kadija_Man said:

However, you would not necessarily see any substantial increase in lethality.

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If you are firing the same shell this is a given. The UK Fd Mk 2 105mm ammunition used by the L118 Light Gun and by the Abbot SPG when it was available however did have a reshaped shell as part of its means of increasing range (plus higher chamber pressue and longer barrel). This changed shape allowed for an increase in explosive filler by 20% compared to the original FD Mk 1 (US M1 105mm shell) and therefore more if still hard to notice lethality.

Kadija_Man said:

The 25 Pdr HE round was considered too light for destructive fire missions. It was always intended to fit within the Royal Artillery "beliefs" that field guns were meant to suppress, rather than destroy the enemy (a hang over from the days I believe of field guns being expected to fire over open sights directly at the enemy). So, while you're get more range, you won't necessarily turn it into something like a 105mm round's effectiveness on target.

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First of all field guns and even medium guns almost never fire “destructive” fire missions. They fire frontages that supress and destroy enemy targets via splinters. This isn’t a hangover form open sights or such nonsense but artillery’s contribution to the combined arms fight and a crucial element of land warfare. If you want to destroy a bunker and heavy artillery is not available (or these days precision air strike) then a field or medium battery will fire a converge mission in which all 4-8 rounds of the firing unit will hit the same spot at the same time and with half your shells in PD and the other half on delay that tends to do it. But this is a real pain in the arse to shoot and is really best left with statistical weapons to a barrage of 203mm guns. And just shoot a norm which will mean most bunkers get a delay fuse 203mm in the roof which will be the end of them.

25 Pounders and 105mm are basically considered interchangeable for all missions. The difference in lethality between the shells is marginal. 105mm is almost a third bigger and that is of course better but in terms of frontage the difference is not practically noticeable. Splinter lethality is a product of proportion and quality of the shell’s steel and explosives filler. Since 25 Pounders almost always outshoot 105mm in rate of fire you can throw a lot more splinters into the frontage thanks to the slightly smaller gun. Its the splinters that supress the enemy, kill and wound their soldiers and destroy their vehicles.

To really notice a difference in shell lehtlaity you have to upgrade to medium artillery or 155mm which is a shell four times heavier than 25 Pounder and three times heavier than 105mm. That makes a difference. 203mm is eight times and six times heavier respectively. Puts the puny 1.3 times increase of 105mm into perspective.

The gun would certainly be new, since it would need a slightly longer chamber as well as a longer barrel. However, the breech would remain the same, so would the brass cartridge case, so would the projectiles. It could use all of the ammo for the standard 25pr, with the addition of an extra super charge only when longer range was required.

I appreciate that the 25pr was not as destructive as larger calibres (although improvements would have been possible with higher-grade steel for the shells) but it was nonetheless highly regarded in WW2. I wouldn't want to make any changes to the towed gun, since the longer barrel and heavier recoil would require beefing up the gun mounting, adding to the overall weight. But if the gun is going to be mounted on a sturdy tracked chassis, the weight doesn't matter so much and there would seem to be advantages in a gun which would normally use the standard ammo but could also reach out significantly further when required.

Tony Williams said:

The gun would certainly be new, since it would need a slightly longer chamber as well as a longer barrel. However, the breech would remain the same, so would the brass cartridge case, so would the projectiles. It could use all of the ammo for the standard 25pr, with the addition of an extra super charge only when longer range was required.

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If you are going to shoot the same shells you are going to probably run into a range limitation based on the capacity of the shell to handle increased velocity. While long range shells like Fd Mk 2 and the SRC ERFB reshaped their ammunition for improved aerodynamics they also reshaped the nature of the explosives filler ‘bubble’ within the steel to thicken the walls. Otherwise with higher velocities thanks to their increased chamber pressure and barrel length the legacy shells could have (and did) structural problems where the shell is crunched up and can break up in the barrel. I’m sure at some stage 25 Pounder shells were tested to find their acceleration limits and it is probably within the 50% increase in muzzle velocity needed to achieve the kind of range advantages that the Fd Mk 2 ammunition provided. However if you did have a new long range shell to go with the super charge then that doesn’t mean you can’t shoot the legacy ammo for shorter range missions.

Tony Williams said:

The gun would certainly be new, since it would need a slightly longer chamber as well as a longer barrel. However, the breech would remain the same, so would the brass cartridge case, so would the projectiles. It could use all of the ammo for the standard 25pr, with the addition of an extra super charge only when longer range was required.

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I think you'd need a longer cartridge case to ease loading. While the diameter might remain the same, making the chamber "fatter" rather than longer would make propellant burning more efficient. In the end all you'll return is the calibre.

I appreciate that the 25pr was not as destructive as larger calibres (although improvements would have been possible with higher-grade steel for the shells) but it was nonetheless highly regarded in WW2. I wouldn't want to make any changes to the towed gun, since the longer barrel and heavier recoil would require beefing up the gun mounting, adding to the overall weight. But if the gun is going to be mounted on a sturdy tracked chassis, the weight doesn't matter so much and there would seem to be advantages in a gun which would normally use the standard ammo but could also reach out significantly further when required.

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The 25 Pdr was highly regarded for its range and ROF. It was criticised quite a lot by both Allies and Enemies as being too light a shell. Only the RA and its Commonwealth affiliates really liked it as a Field Gun. The Americans liked it as a counter-battery weapon, receiving several batteries for that duty in Italy and NW Europe.

Given that its going to be tracked, then I see few problems in the theory but as I mentioned the application might be harder than you realise. I suspect a fair bit of effort might be required to actually make it work. What looks easy on paper quite often proves difficult in practice where artillery pieces are concerned.

Abraham Gubler said:

If you are going to shoot the same shells you are going to probably run into a range limitation based on the capacity of the shell to handle increased velocity. While long range shells like Fd Mk 2 and the SRC ERFB reshaped their ammunition for improved aerodynamics they also reshaped the nature of the explosives filler ‘bubble’ within the steel to thicken the walls. Otherwise with higher velocities thanks to their increased chamber pressure and barrel length the legacy shells could have (and did) structural problems where the shell is crunched up and can break up in the barrel. I’m sure at some stage 25 Pounder shells were tested to find their acceleration limits and it is probably within the 50% increase in muzzle velocity needed to achieve the kind of range advantages that the Fd Mk 2 ammunition provided. However if you did have a new long range shell to go with the super charge then that doesn’t mean you can’t shoot the legacy ammo for shorter range missions.

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Fair point, although I don't think that the MV would be increased that much: from 1700 fps to maybe 2100 fps is about a 20% increase.

Kadija_Man said:

I think you'd need a longer cartridge case to ease loading. While the diameter might remain the same, making the chamber "fatter" rather than longer would make propellant burning more efficient. In the end all you'll return is the calibre.

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The "charge super" already protruded from the cartridge case so protruding a bit more would make little difference.

The advantage of retaining the ability to use the standard cartridge case, increments and projectiles would outweigh any minor differences in efficiency.

You might want to define when and why you want such a weapon, before you ask how to make it. The British in WW2 already went to the trouble of producing a dedicated 4.5in long range gun that went on the carriage of the 5.5in gun, and managed to get the US to buy hundreds of the things while they were at it, so making a new variant of the 25pdr for that purpose would have very little appeal. Since the 25pdr already out ranged typical enemy light field howitzers, and had the primary mission of close support and not counterfire anyway, what's the point? The reinforcing batteries will better with much larger, but vastly more capable weapons. Indeed the British were chronically short of artillery over 25pdr class throughout the war, and could have saved a large amount of ammunition, as could American forces, had heavier, harder hitting and much more accurate (at long ranges) weapons been available in larger numbers to deal with tough targets.

Sea Skimmer said:

. Indeed the British were chronically short of artillery over 25pdr class throughout the war, and could have saved a large amount of ammunition, as could American forces, had heavier, harder hitting and much more accurate (at long ranges) weapons been available in larger numbers to deal with tough targets.

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This is a really good point. While the 25 Pounder could have been upgraded post war if the UK had never entered the various ammunition standardisation agreements and remained a capable field gun howitzer the real need in WWII was for a self-propelled medium gun howitzer. A 140mm on an armoured tracked chassis would have been ideal. The problem was many of the potential donor tanks of the right size had rear engines and forward transmissions making incorporating a medium gun unwieldy. But a chassis like the Churchill or Cromwell could have accommodated an Archer style rear facing 140mm and surrounding gun shields quite effectively. Such a “Cardinal” type SPG would have made a significant difference.

Gentlemen, I should explain that my proposal is not a "stand-alone" one but a small part of a much bigger scenario. Almost a decade ago I published an alternative history novel (The Foresight War) exploring what might have happened if present-day British and German historians, specialists in WW2, woke up in 1934 with proof (laptops etc) that they came from the future. The changes on both sides include strategy, tactics and equipment; with my interest in military technology, it was actually the "alternative equipment" aspect which prompted me to start it, but once started all sorts of other issues arose.

Over the years there has been much discussion on my forum of the issues and choices in the novel, so I've decided to write an expanded second edition, prompting thousands of posts from interested readers.

I should point out that the decisions made have to take into account the realities of the time - a serious shortage of both money and other resources to develop new weapons - so equipment choices have to be carefully made to get the most "bang for the buck", with production focusing on fewer but better types.

As far as British artillery is concerned, I am leaving the towed 25pr strictly alone as it was highly successful (just accelerating the production rate). In the original novel I proposed a "62pr" gun using elements based on the 4.7" naval gun (I won't go into that...). I have now decided to retain the 5.5" field gun instead, but greatly accelerate its development to get it into service years earlier. I would not bother with the 4.5" because I would develop from the start the long-range 80 lb shell for the 5.5", plus add a base-bleed element to it so that it would match the range of the historical 4.5" for counter-battery work.

The principal tracked AFV family I chose (and am retaining) for service from the late 1930s has the engine mounted at the front right of the hull next to the driver, like the CVR(T) and the Argentinian TAM tank, resulting in a very compact vehicle with the back half free to take various turrets, limited-traverse guns, or troop compartments. So it is ideal for SPGs. This could physically take a 5.5" gun in an open mounting, but the general view among artillery specialists on my forum is that making the big gun self-propelled would be of limited value, and the vehicle would be too small to carry the crew or any ammo too so there would need to be one or two other vehicles trailing along behind each gun. The view instead is that putting the 25pr in an LT mounting (as indeed happened, with several variants) would be much more use. Which explains why I was attempting to provide a performance boost for the SP version of the 25pr, in order to reduce the range gap to the 5.5".

OK but why do you think such a weapon would be needed? As already noted, the 4.5in was designed to fulfil that gap. It had a heavier shell than the 25 Pdr and was more effective as a long range, medium weapon. Produce a higher capacity shell for it and it would be an excellent medium weapon.

I'd suggest that rather than reinvent the wheel, stick with the weapons that were available and increase their production. It would be better to address doctrinal deficiencies which were more important for the British Army than necessarily problems with weapons. Most of the British arsenal (with the exception of tanks) were as good and quite often better than those of the enemy. What was missing was a coherent, well thought out means of employing them on a mobile battlefield with intelligent direction. Provide Wavell and O'Connor with sufficient men and materiale and have someone sit on Churchill and stop his Balkans obsession. Drive the Italians out of North Africa and prevent the Germans reinforcing them.

A number of successful self propelled weapons carried little or no ammunition in WW2 and later, the whole point was you could still get in and out of action ten times faster then a towed gun and had much better rough terrain mobility then any overturning prone towed gun ever could have. I'd say making a dedicated long range 25pdr and making it self propelled is a complete waste of a effort and of a vehicle, because such weapons are already the easiest to move. Even self propelled weapons which did carry large amounts of ammunition still needed additional vehicles for more ammo. Such vehicles will exist no matter what you do. Tracked vehicles will also need more maintenance and more fuel then towed primed movers, so vehicle count goes up from that too.


Identifying a gap in artillery ranges, which existed historically anyway is a pretty poor reason to invent a new weapon. Long range light caliber guns were not successful in World War Two as a whole, and precisely because they are long range less reason exists to want them to be self propelled. Your basically trying to invent precisely the kind of weapon people didn't want so that the British can end up needing three different 25pdr guns in the war.

Kadija_Man said:

OK but why do you think such a weapon would be needed? As already noted, the 4.5in was designed to fulfil that gap.

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If you read my post above, you would see that the 4.5" would not exist, as the job could be done by the 5.5" given the right ammo. The 4.5" was no easier to move around than the 5.5" since it used exactly the same mounting and weighed only fractionally less. So that's one gun and ammunition family which didn't need to be developed.

I'd suggest that rather than reinvent the wheel, stick with the weapons that were available and increase their production.

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It isn't a question of reinventing the wheel - just of providing a 25pr - using the same shells, cartridge and propellant increments (+1) with the option of a longer range.

It would be better to address doctrinal deficiencies which were more important for the British Army than necessarily problems with weapons. Most of the British arsenal (with the exception of tanks) were as good and quite often better than those of the enemy. What was missing was a coherent, well thought out means of employing them on a mobile battlefield with intelligent direction.

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You picked the wrong target, since the Royal Artillery's command and control system was better than any other army's in WW2 (although I gather that the US caught up later by copying it). It was the most professional branch of the army.

Provide Wavell and O'Connor with sufficient men and materiale and have someone sit on Churchill and stop his Balkans obsession. Drive the Italians out of North Africa and prevent the Germans reinforcing them.

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Yeah, that happens - along with a number of other strategy changes.

Sea Skimmer said:

I'd say making a dedicated long range 25pdr and making it self propelled is a complete waste of a effort and of a vehicle, because such weapons are already the easiest to move.

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Nonetheless, tracked self-propelled mountings for the 25pr were evidently popular because various different ones were made and saw service. So the army did not regard them as a "waste of a vehicle".

Long range light caliber guns were not successful in World War Two as a whole, and precisely because they are long range less reason exists to want them to be self propelled. Your basically trying to invent precisely the kind of weapon people didn't want so that the British can end up needing three different 25pdr guns in the war.

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One of the big plus points of the 25pr is always quoted as its relatively long range, which enabled it to outrange comparable guns in other armies (which were usually of 105mm calibre), so I don't agree that "long range light calibre guns were unsuccessful". I am merely proposing a minor development of the gun to provide the option of an increase in range when required.

However, I accept that a further increase in range would be a "nice to have" rather than a "must have", and may be not worth bothering with.

Tony Williams said:

Nonetheless, tracked self-propelled mountings for the 25pr were evidently popular because various different ones were made and saw service. So the army did not regard them as a "waste of a vehicle".

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They didn't go invent a special gun and ammo to make it happen though. That's the problem, your creating a special niche weapon and vehicle for a nonexistent niche.


You'd do far better filling a real known gap in capability, which was a lack of a 4in/120mm class mortar. Large scale deployment of such a weapon, both towed and on a dismountable SP form for armored unit would be cheap, making piles of ammo would be really cheap, and could have actually turned the tide of many battles. These sort of weapons have proven to be the most effective form of artillery for direct support and once this was realized around early 1943, the British and American armies couldn't ever get enough of the 4.2in chemical mortar units. As we see postwar, world wide such weapons became standard battalion level support. The Germans loved the Soviet 120mm so much they put it into full scale production during the war, while the Soviets had entire regiments of the things. Ironic too since the British invented the stokes mortar and had a 4in form in WW1, but abandon that caliber, as it was seen as useful only for gas owing to its limited range. If your bringing back technology, bring back the technology to make much longer ranged 120mm class mortar ammo. Have the British build this and as a side effect, never waste all that effort on the 95mm infantry gun which made it into production but was never actually used in combat.

One of the big plus points of the 25pr is always quoted as its relatively long range, which enabled it to outrange comparable guns in other armies (which were usually of 105mm calibre), so I don't agree that "long range light calibre guns were unsuccessful". I am merely proposing a minor development of the gun to provide the option of an increase in range when required.

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The 25pdr gun obtained its modest but useful range advantage over 105mm howitzers without sacrificing other capabilities or being specialist or excessive in weight. That was fine, though the German 105mm leFH 18M did roughly match its range later in the war. Making a new gun that isn't universal service in the infantry divisions, and that doesn't actually meet requirements for counterfire? Totally different story. It then must be measured against other specialist weapons that do that job and those that are fielded by the enemy. For example the German 105mm K.18 gun reached 20,800 yards. The Germans never liked it, but it existed in considerable numbers. You can counter it with the 4.5in gun, maybe with the upgraded 5.5in ammo but a few thousand yards more range from the 25pdr doesn't do the job.

A particular problem for the allies as well was the German 17cm gun, which while very large was none the less numerous enough to be a serious problem, and could fire 32,000 yards. This could be countered directly by no western allied weapon except the 8in gun M1, of which all of nine were deployed in action and only in 1944. Rare 240mm howitzers could fight it to some extent, but only by risky forward deployment tactics. The British did have some abortive heavy weapon projects, a 7.45in gun and a 9.2 howitzer among others, that might have countered it, but they were abandon on the false assumption by both the US and UK that artillery was less important in WW2 then in WW1. By the time they realized how wrong this was it was too late to make major changes, and indeed the US would suffer a major artillery ammo shortage, which also affected British use of American weapons, in 1944 because of decisions in 1942-43 to reduce production.

This is why I was asking, what do you want to do. That should be established before you start talking about the value of new weapon. You can't go changing all of the British military, improvement needs to be targeted towards identified gaps in capability which will give the best bang for the buck.

Sea Skimmer said:

You'd do far better filling a real known gap in capability, which was a lack of a 4in/120mm class mortar.

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Yep, mortars have been extensively discussed on my forum!

I think if you had access to an authenticated future history back in the 1930s you would be far more interested in using your foreknowledge to decisively strike against Germany and the Soviet Union as soon as possible while they are weak or at least use trade embargos and financial means to weaken them. Rather than build a post WWII type army beforehand. But assuming such actions were impossible then in a forewarned defence preparation schedule a variant of a more than adequate artillery piece would be at the bottom of the list. Certainly developing the technology that you would know have significant impact like communications, electronic sensors (radar, sonar, night vision), computers, guided weapons, high performance aircraft, mass production etc would be far more important.

In the case of the British Army their primary weaponry efforts would be in such a 1930s would be fielding a universal tank scaled as big as their engines can support, armoured personnel carriers and support vehicles, an assault rifle, a general purpose MG, infantry unguided anti-tank weapon (RPG-7 clone), manoeuvre support equipment (engineering), light anti-aircraft, a modern heavy gun and what guided weapons they could build for anti-tank and anti-aircraft roles. They would know that their new 25 Pounder and 5.5” guns were on the right track and keep them as such with a turreted SP 5.5” for their armoured formations. A clear lesson from wartime and post war experience that artillery support for mechanised units needs to be self-propelled and of medium calibre. With 50 years of artillery history laid out in front of them their main efforts would be leveraging communications, fire control calculators, adjustable time fuses and base eject for sub-munitions deployment of anti-tank cluster bombs and land mines.

It'd be near impossible to manufacture something like DPICM in WW2 on the required scale at an economical price and useful reliability. It was a rather major accomplishment for the US to be able to do so in the 1960s, and took a while for anyone else to follow. Similar issues exist for scattered landmines, though air scattered weapons would be much easier to make. A weapon like Volcano dispensed from trucks and low flying army cooperation types of planes instead of helicopters is pretty much an ideal countermeasure to blitzkrieg.

Abraham Gubler said:

I think if you had access to an authenticated future history back in the 1930s you would be far more interested in using your foreknowledge to decisively strike against Germany and the Soviet Union as soon as possible while they are weak or at least use trade embargos and financial means to weaken them.

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You have to be kidding! Our time-travelling historian can provide a lot of very useful advice, but he can't shift the entire psychology of a nation and government (knowledge of his existence is restricted to only a handful of key people, for fairly obvious reasons). The UK was unprepared - both physically and psychologically - to go to war with anyone any earlier than they did.

Certainly developing the technology that you would know have significant impact like communications, electronic sensors (radar, sonar, night vision), computers, guided weapons, high performance aircraft, mass production etc would be far more important.

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Yes, much of that is included in the novel, but the technical limitations of the time have to be borne in mind. Electronic computers and night vision equipment would almost certainly not be possible - our man is an historian, not an electronic engineer, so would not know the details of how they are made.

In the case of the British Army their primary weaponry efforts would be in such a 1930s would be fielding a universal tank scaled as big as their engines can support, armoured personnel carriers and support vehicles, an assault rifle, a general purpose MG, infantry unguided anti-tank weapon (RPG-7 clone), manoeuvre support equipment (engineering), light anti-aircraft, a modern heavy gun and what guided weapons they could build for anti-tank and anti-aircraft roles.

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Yep, all in the novel, plus a lot more - except that as well as starting the development of a Centurion-type 40-ton tank, they would first develop a smaller and much cheaper 20-ton AFV family to build up the numbers quickly. Money for developing and building new equipment would still be very short and little could be done about that, so trying to be too ambitious too soon would be a mistake.

One of our historian's key concerns is to follow the medical mantra: "first, do no harm". A worst-case scenario would be for him to say "don't build that, build this super-duper device instead", only to find that the super-duper device runs into a heap of unforeseen problems, arrives years late if at all, and results in the UK being worse off than historically. So developments need to be taken in small and careful steps, with solid back-ups available in case more advanced schemes fail.

Tony Williams said:

You have to be kidding! Our time-travelling historian can provide a lot of very useful advice, but he can't shift the entire psychology of a nation and government

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No but that’s what political leaders do. If someone from the future showed up today at the White House with authenticated proof that <insert war/disaster/alien trope of choice here> was to happen in a few years then the Government would move hell and high water to prepare for it or counter it. And the people would follow their lead especially as it would soon be validated by the event in question.

In reality it was obvious from 1934-36ish that the Germans were going to start a second World War and HM Govt. made enormous efforts by peacetime measures to prepare for it. Of course there was no foresight onto the specific nature of the war and how military technology would change so many of the weapons invested in were quickly obsolescent. But it’s hard to imagine more preparation within the financial means of the UK at the time.