Artillery

[James Robert Dennis III <jrdennis@earthlink.net>]

>Just talked to a Customer who's Dad was in WW2 against the Germans
>firing 105mm Cannons
>His Dad said despite the larger size of the 105mm the German 88mm were
>better.
>Also comment that other countries adopted the German design and was used
>against us in Korea.
>
>I cannot corrobrate this conversation
>So I bring up these questions.
>
>What did the Chinese, Russians and NK Korea use as Artillary pieces.
>Were they original Russian design?
>Were they copies of the German designs?
>What did they use for AntiAircraft? They shot down a lot of our planes.
>
>...and what did we have against them?
>What comparisons between artillary pieces?
>
>Did we ever trade extended artillary blows with THEM?
>
>DF
>
>
The Germans used the 105mm, the 155mm and several other caliber howitzers 
and guns, some pretty large, up to and including rail road guns.    
Walton Walker's XX Corps often fired captured German artillery ammunition 
(105 & 155) in H&I roles, especially in the Lorraine Campaign.  

The American Soldier, typically, said anything that exploded about them 
were "88s".  One of the big killers were the 120mm mortars (similiar to 
the Soviets), especially in the forests.  

One of the most numerous anti-tank guns were the 75mm PAKs, and they got 
a lot of Tanks.  

The Neiblewerfers (rocket lauchers) were considered more of a nuisance to 
the Artillery Officers that I know from the 90th Division (Van Fleet's 
for a while).  

The North Koreans and the Chinese were using a lot of Soviet weapons, 
this would mean the 76mm field gun/howitzer, at least 2-3 varieties of 
122mm guns/howitzers, the 152mm gun/howitzer and rocket launchers (107mm 
and 122mm).  There were cases where the Chinese did use artillery 
captured from the Nationalist (American) and also artillery left over 
from the Japanese.  The big problem with using captured guns is getting 
the ammunition and unless you over run some very large ammunition depots, 
you aren't going to have a lot to fire.