Comments on: Special Panthers part III – Sturmmörser Panther

By: German Assault Gun branch | For The Record

German Assault Gun branch | For The Record — Thu, 08 Aug 2013 07:53:05 +0000

[...] This tier should be very, very interesting. There are two options (besides the abovementioned pushing of StuPa IV to T7): you can either have a Sturmgeschütz Panther, or the Sturmmörser Panther (the latter being better documented). I will quote from my earlier text: [...]

By: Kellomies

Kellomies — Sat, 13 Jul 2013 15:02:09 +0000

My point exactly. Not only would this be a roughly 50% bigger gun (and shell volume ergo weight increases *exponentially* according to the square-cube law when caliber goes up), but it’d also be in a vehicle not exactly intented for such huge shells and propellant charges.

By: Captian Nemo

Captian Nemo — Sat, 13 Jul 2013 06:09:20 +0000

Those 15 cm guns can only fire 2-3 rounds per mins on their spg chassis.

By: Kellomies

Kellomies — Fri, 12 Jul 2013 19:43:51 +0000

*shrug* Compare to the whole Sturmgeschutz-Panzerjäger-Jagdpanzer mess or the US “Motor Gun Carriage” (AKA tank destroyer) mire… or the way the Cavalry branches of several armies in the interwar period (the US and French most notably) had to invent fig-leaf euphemisms for their tanks because by law only the Infantry could have “tanks”.

By: Elmarby .

Elmarby . — Fri, 12 Jul 2013 16:36:48 +0000

Okay, having looked into this, which maybe I ought to have done in the first case, there seem to be a few guidelines for the naming convention, which however appears inconsistently used by the Germans.
As far as I can make it out:
Haubitze is for multi-role howitzers that can also be expected to be used in the direct fire role. Mörser is for more dedicated high arc artillery types not generally expected to engage on a flat trajectory. This includes both howitzers and mortars except lighter (infantry support) mortars which are called Granatwerfer.)
But stuff like the Mörser mentioned in the article are pretty much direct fire only weapons. Most confusing.

By: Kellomies

Kellomies — Fri, 12 Jul 2013 15:48:45 +0000

Considering even English jargon actually has terms like “gun-mortar”, idk. Plus I’d think most people can figure it out from the picture; if there *are* twerps who think it’s a high-arc indirect fire weapon merely because it’s called a “mortar” or somesuch their opinion can be discounted on grounds of failing to qualify as fully sapient.

By: exocet6951

exocet6951 — Fri, 12 Jul 2013 15:31:03 +0000

Oh dear god you wouldn’t dare…

By: Elmarby .

Elmarby . — Fri, 12 Jul 2013 15:20:21 +0000

I have only seen Mörser used for howitzers and in rare cases for breach loading (very) heavy mortars. I could not in all honestly tell you were the definition one begins and the other ends but in case of this article I would certainly suggest howitzer would be the correct term to use.

By: Kellomies

Kellomies — Fri, 12 Jul 2013 14:42:54 +0000

Ditto. Problem is really that English doesn’t have separate terms for *artillery* and *infantry* mortars…

By: Kellomies

Kellomies — Fri, 12 Jul 2013 14:40:34 +0000

Dudes needed to keep themselves too useful to send to the camps, I’d guess. And look for ways to keep their outfit solvent – and the Germans were the only customer in town.