Originally posted by humble:
The only western front weapon capable of engaging german armour on an equal basis was the 17 lber. The US 90mm had double the rate of fire but inferior balistics. The Firefly and Achilles (sorry for spellng) are the only 2 vehicles equipped with 17 lber...unless Comet was also.
As for vehicle set...I'd think you'd want a tank from each nation (eventually), a troop carrier, a scout, an assult gun and/or a tank destroyer.
At that point you'd have all the flexability for game play without taxing the design team to roll out a zillion vehicles
By the time the allies were coming into Germany, alot of the British main battle tanks were equipped with 17 pdr retro fits. Includes Churchills (a monster once it finally got a good gun).
While the 17pdr does have a longer range, due to the smaller caliber and greater speed, it's kinetic enegy at long range is lower then the 90mm shell, and thus for the standard APCBC rounds, the 90mm's penetration is greater. At closer ranges, the 17pdr become a much greater gun because it still has it's speed advantage. This differs depending on how you look at it. Staying as far away from the German iron as possible was desirable, but due to their guns being good at close and long range (with the exception of the Tiger's gun, it lost alot of power past 2.5km, as all guns do, but the German 75L70mm and 88L71/kwk were still very potent at this range) To give you an idea, the 90mm was a much better gun, ballastic wise then the Tiger's 88L56.
90mm
projectile muzzle velocity: 853 m/s
shell mass (penetrating portion only): 10.9kg
17pdr (77mm)
projectile muzzle velocity: 883 m/s
shell mass (penetrating portion only): 7.7kg
88L56
projectile muzzle velocity: 773 m/s
shell mass (penetrating portion only): 10.2kg
75L70
projectile muzzle velocity: 925 m/s
shell mass (penetrating portion only): 6.8kg
The real problem with the 17 pdr's was the lack of good HE shells supplies. Where as normally there was 30-35 normal AP shells takin in a 17pdr equipped tank, only 15 HE shells or so were taken so their close support roll is very limited vs something like the German tanks (Who nearly always took half and half, about 40 shells of each) and the American 76 and 90mm guns (who also carried quite a bit more ammunition than the British tanks).
But this is normal because the 17pdr was considered an almost pure AT gun, so there weren't many provisions for HE shells.
Archilles was not meant to engage German iron headon either. Essentially it's a M10 Wolverine (M4A1 or M4A3 Sherman based body) with an open top turrent with a 17pdr gun mount. It's very thin skinned. The Firefly is not much better, depending on variant that varies from the M4A3 up to the E8 and even the Jumbo body with the Firefly turrent cast. None were capable of taking hits from any of the late war German monsters. Good chance with the PzIV series though. Shot for shot, the Western Allies' best bet were on the few Pershings around, 17pdr equipped Churchills, Comets, and Challengers, and the Sherman Jumbos.
Unfortunately, most of the work was done by M4A3 crews who were severly outclassed and had to call upon the M10 Wolverines for TD duty
- Jig
