Why can’t I just aim the artillery down or the anti-tank up? Why do they have to be different guns?
In: Engineering
You technically could make just one type of gun that do both, we in the past, because today anti-tank gun isn’t really a thing anymore, they were replaced by missile, rocket propelled gun and stuff like that, but let’s talk as if we were in WW2.
You could build just one gun to do it all, but it wound’t be that good, you still need people with different training, different ammunition and those guns would be way too expensive for no reason.
In general an artillery piece was bigger and longer than an anti-tank gun. Most artillery were 105mm with 75 as light artillery and some going up to 150mm or even 240mm. The reason is that you need a lot of space in the shell for the high explosive. Anti-tank gun usually want a smaller caliber that goes really fast to penetrate tank. So it was more like 37mm, 50mm and later 75mm to 90mm. Some were bigger, but in low numbers. If you use a 105mm gun for artillery and anti-tank, you won’t be able to produce enough to equip all your unit. A 105mm anti-tank gun would be powerful, but overkill for most of the tank people faced in WW2, especially in the first half of the war.
On top of that, indirect fire and direct fire can use the same gun, but not the same surrounding system. If you gun can do both, it need a bigger mounting system that is able to change the elevation of the gun by a lot more, you don’t need that in an anti-tank gun, so that’s added cost which result in less unit produced. Same with optic, how you target will be different in direct and indirect fire and so you need two system on your gun instead of just 1.
It’s also about mobility. It’s a lot easier to transport a 50mm anti-tank gun and its ammunition, than to transport a 105mm artillery piece and its ammunition. For artillery you are further back of the front and usually can take more to step up your position, while the anti-tank gun should be more lightweight to move at the front and engage the ennemy, stay hidden or change position.
But even if both gun would be the same, you still can’t use the same unit for both role, because of people and ammunition. The job of using an anti-tank gun isn’t the same as using an artillery gun. You need different training. If you teach both job, your guys won’t be as good at both. On top of that they are not using the same ammunition. It’s simply easier for training and logistic to have those two role done by two different type of military unit.
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