WesWorld

Anti-tank defence IS progressing, along historical lines. That means AT gun development is taking precedence over HEAT weapons, which were much more of an emergency response to an unexpected problem (more enemy tanks than expected, the need for more AT guns than could be produced, etc) than anything else. After the many bugs in the HEAT programs were worked out, they became the most potent tank-killers for 30-40 years, until the development of composite armors, but that time isn't yet.

HEAT rounds for artillery and tank guns rather predated their use in rocket weapons (rifle grenades got HEAT rounds first, but only by part of a year over the use in the short-barrelled 75mms used by the Panzer IV and StuG III): rifle-grenade (UK No. 68 AT grenade) and shell (7.5cm Gr; 38 HI) were fielded in 1940, with the PIAT and bazooka following in 1942. I seem to remember RA giving a 1940 or so date for the Italian HEAT version of the Effeto Pronto shells as well, but I might be wrong.

And to call penetration poor is understating matters: the No. 68 would penetrate perhaps 2" of armor, the Gr. 38 HI only 45mm. These would improve, by the end of the war the Gr. 38 HI/C would penetrate 100mm, but in 1940 (even in WW) a 88mm rocket HEAT round would probably only penetrate perhaps 65-70mm of armor.

What might make more sense (to me) for Yugoslavia to be developing is something along the lines of the Steilgranate 41: a way to make older AT guns more useful against heavier tanks, while allowing them to remain useful against lighter vehicles.

It does not appear as though we will reach consensus on this point.

I believe that my development work, as cited, is adequate to support the concept of the weapon. Other players disagree.

I believe that the progression of development is adequate, but other players disagree.

I have been told that HEAT ammunition is off the "+3 years" development track; having asked for a citation, none has been provided.

I have heard argument to suggest that it is reasonable to allow tank development far in advance of the OTL but not allow a logical response on behalf of antitank defense.

I thus appeal to the moderators; I will accept their decision. I also expect all other players to abide by it, whatever it may be.

I will not accept the argument that there is one set of rules for large nations, and one set of rules for small nations.

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The original US 2.36-inch rocket launcher is cited as having an armor penetration of 4.7 inches at 0 degrees - I do not consider that 'sucky' performance.

Thats a midwar weapon though, not the state of HEAT development around 1940.

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I seem to remember RA giving a 1940 or so date for the Italian HEAT version of the Effeto Pronto shells as well, but I might be wrong.

The first started to be issued around that date and growing in number till 1943 when they were usually around 25% -33% loadout. Development is a little confused as early types were base fuzed and essentially HESH. Later Effeto Pronto Speciale was a proper HEAT round.

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I believe that my development work, as cited, is adequate to support the concept of the weapon. Other players disagree

Jet engines already exist. Busemann has had the idea of swept wings. Italy will combine the two and start fielding B-52s next year. Cherrypicking ideas and combining them to create a weapon system isn't really development.

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I have been told that HEAT ammunition is off the "+3 years" development track; having asked for a citation, none has been provided.

There isn't any such list. It's just that some technologies are more advanced than others as a matter of chance or circumstance. Usually some things just start to spiral up in oneupmanship. Aircraft development used to be fairly historical until the early 1930s when we got into an accelerated development spiral.

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What might make more sense (to me) for Yugoslavia to be developing is something along the lines of the Steilgranate 41: a way to make older AT guns more useful against heavier tanks, while allowing them to remain useful against lighter vehicles.

That does seem to make sense. The meagre money there is available going into upgrading an existing weapon. Not that the 37mm anti-tank is particularly obsolete yet. No real problems in shooting through Italian tanks. Bit more of a problem to shoot at Bulgaria's behemoths, but aren't they allies?

I can see both sides of the issue. IMO the development of bazooka and heat rounds in man portable could be at least 3 years ahead of the curve, but with no war in the horizon I don't see a rush to mass produce them. We could agree that Yugoslavia is indeed developing a proto-bazooka but entering production late in 1939? Hrolf idea of the steilgranate 41 makes sense as a short term investement while moving the bazooka back for further testing.

I agree with Bruce somewhat in that it seems that if a small nation develops a new weapons system is not possible because they are small. That seems to me as the same way of thinking of the Western Allies about Japan before the WW2. Yugoslavia is recognizing a need; better AT weapons for their mainly infantry force, knowing perfectly well they can't respond to their neighbors' new tank models on numbers alone and they are trying to find a way to resolve that.

I agree that anti-tank rifles are finished. We all know that.

Medium AT guns 47-57mm are still viable weapons as the recent Persian campaigns showed and will defeat the majority of tanks found on today's battlefields.

Heavy AT guns are only just making an appearance now, probably some 2-3 years late if we guage besides tank development.

HEAT is under development, I don't doubt that. I doubt the Swiss engineer doing it or that Yugoslavia would be interested in such a weapons. I don't doubt Yugoslavia couldn't build the launchers or even the rockets themselves.

What we don't want is to open the floodgates too early. What this does as cut out an entire generation of heavy AT guns at a stroke. It leaps straight into recoiless guns like 120mm Wombat, B-10, Panzerfausts, RPG-7s etc. Then tanks get even bigger and heavier as players look to keep an advantage so we see skirts by 1942, stand-off armour and by 1950 we have something approaching ERA appearing on a suspicious Abrams look-alike. I only half-joke.

I'm not concerned about the Yugoslavia aspect but the gameplay aspect and tech aspect. If you were to delay introduction by 1-2 years I'd feel happier that would stabilise things a little more.

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Yugoslavia is recognizing a need; better AT weapons for their mainly infantry force, knowing perfectly well they can't respond to their neighbors' new tank models on numbers alone and they are trying to find a way to resolve that.

I'm not sure the need is there. Who is Yugoslavia going to fight now that she's allied with the rest of Eastern Europe? Possibly Germany, or much more likely Italy. So what sort of armour do those countries have? Around 50mm sloped on the front which is too much for AT rifles, but only 20-30mm elsewhere, which is definitely possible for AT rifles and light AT guns to punch through. The current weapons already match the threat to a reasonable extent. Instead, two years ago the Yugoslav's decided they needed to develop an anti-tank rocket launcher along completely new lines in order to punch through 120mm of armour? If there were hordes of AT-37s and Tigers bordering and threatening the country, there is a need for that sort of performance - but those tanks aren't there. With more big tanks around in a few years time there'll be more of a need.

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Originally posted by Hood
I agree that anti-tank rifles are finished. We all know that.

Medium AT guns 47-57mm are still viable weapons as the recent Persian campaigns showed and will defeat the majority of tanks found on today's battlefields.

Heavy AT guns are only just making an appearance now, probably some 2-3 years late if we guage besides tank development.

HEAT is under development, I don't doubt that. I doubt the Swiss engineer doing it or that Yugoslavia would be interested in such a weapons. I don't doubt Yugoslavia couldn't build the launchers or even the rockets themselves.

What we don't want is to open the floodgates too early. What this does as cut out an entire generation of heavy AT guns at a stroke. It leaps straight into recoiless guns like 120mm Wombat, B-10, Panzerfausts, RPG-7s etc. Then tanks get even bigger and heavier as players look to keep an advantage so we see skirts by 1942, stand-off armour and by 1950 we have something approaching ERA appearing on a suspicious Abrams look-alike. I only half-joke.

I'm not concerned about the Yugoslavia aspect but the gameplay aspect and tech aspect. If you were to delay introduction by 1-2 years I'd feel happier that would stabilise things a little more.

I have not insisted that the weapon is ready to enter production - the news report merely said, "soon". This post was a trial balloon, as I expected a critical reaction from some quarters. This is why it was posted to "News", rather to "Encyclopedia"

What was demonstrated was a prototype; the timeline for further testing, development of production tooling, low-rate production, and full production is completely dependent upon acceptance of the concept - on which I await the ruling of our moderators.

It is certainly not the case that every other Yugoslav soldier will be carrying a rocket launcher come spring of 1940. Depending upon a decision to procure the weapon in quantity I foresee that it would be at least six-nine months before even a few weapons (which would be rather simple to productionize) and their ammunition (which is where the real production delay lies) would come off production lines. Wide scale introduction would be at least fifteen-eighteen months after a decision to greenlight production.

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Originally posted by Hrolf Hakonson
Anti-tank defence IS progressing, along historical lines.

And no offense, but that's a bit of my problem here. While AT defense is historical, the tank designs are very definitely not. So far as I've seen, nobody's going to much effort to prepare those bigger AT guns - they're just building bigger and more uber tanks.

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Originally posted by Hood
What we don't want is to open the floodgates too early. What this does as cut out an entire generation of heavy AT guns at a stroke. It leaps straight into recoiless guns like 120mm Wombat, B-10, Panzerfausts, RPG-7s etc. Then tanks get even bigger and heavier as players look to keep an advantage so we see skirts by 1942, stand-off armour and by 1950 we have something approaching ERA appearing on a suspicious Abrams look-alike. I only half-joke.

This argument carries a lot of weight with me. Somehow we've got this +3 year rule for tanks now, when we still ought to be fine using 50mm guns and what all. We're responding to "enemy" tanks with the sort of speed that would come from facing them in combat. We should be slowing down our technological advances, not speeding them up... but at the same time, why are we only permitting one side of the equation (tanks) to advance, while shooting down everything on the AT side?

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Originally posted by Hood
I'm not concerned about the Yugoslavia aspect but the gameplay aspect and tech aspect. If you were to delay introduction by 1-2 years I'd feel happier that would stabilise things a little more.

Clarification: as I understand things, this is a prototype test, and the actual weapon won't enter production until 1941 or 1942; presumably ubiquity will be several years after that, right? Is that a sufficient delay of introduction?

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Originally posted by Brockpaine

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Originally posted by Hrolf Hakonson
Anti-tank defence IS progressing, along historical lines.

And no offense, but that's a bit of my problem here. While AT defense is historical, the tank designs are very definitely not. So far as I've seen, nobody's going to much effort to prepare those bigger AT guns - they're just building bigger and more uber tanks.

Then you didn't read the latest German or US news: both countries are looking (Germany more seriously than the US, probably due to more tanks around it) at new heavier AT guns. The trials in Germany have delivered prototypes of the historical PaK-40, PaK-41, and PaK-43 75 & 88mm guns. In the US, it's being recognized that the 2" AT gun isn't going to cut it long term, and that something bigger will be needed.

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Originally posted by Hood
I'm not concerned about the Yugoslavia aspect but the gameplay aspect and tech aspect. If you were to delay introduction by 1-2 years I'd feel happier that would stabilise things a little more.

Clarification: as I understand things, this is a prototype test, and the actual weapon won't enter production until 1941 or 1942; presumably ubiquity will be several years after that, right? Is that a sufficient delay of introduction?

As long as that's held to, I withdraw my objections.

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Originally posted by Hrolf Hakonson

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Originally posted by Brockpaine

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Originally posted by Hrolf Hakonson
Anti-tank defence IS progressing, along historical lines.

And no offense, but that's a bit of my problem here. While AT defense is historical, the tank designs are very definitely not. So far as I've seen, nobody's going to much effort to prepare those bigger AT guns - they're just building bigger and more uber tanks.

Then you didn't read the latest German or US news: both countries are looking (Germany more seriously than the US, probably due to more tanks around it) at new heavier AT guns. The trials in Germany have delivered prototypes of the historical PaK-40, PaK-41, and PaK-43 75 & 88mm guns. In the US, it's being recognized that the 2" AT gun isn't going to cut it long term, and that something bigger will be needed.

Okay, I forgot about the Pak-40 news.

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Originally posted by Red Admiral

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Yugoslavia is recognizing a need; better AT weapons for their mainly infantry force, knowing perfectly well they can't respond to their neighbors' new tank models on numbers alone and they are trying to find a way to resolve that.

I'm not sure the need is there. Who is Yugoslavia going to fight now that she's allied with the rest of Eastern Europe? Possibly Germany, or much more likely Italy.

Well, Germany would have to invade either Italy or Hungary to get to Yugoslavia. Doing so would only activate the Poles, with whom we've been getting along fairly well for years (not to mention AEGIS, if we went via Italy). Not worth it. Nope, sorry Yugoslavia's basically safe from Germany. Now, if we had a border.... but no.

The only threat left for Yugoslavia is Italy, holding territories that Serbia-Montenegro must see as been stolen by Foreign policies. This is one of the many things I found funny about WW. The late 20th-early 21st mentality. If we go with a more realistic state of mind of the period we would have seeing at least a Third Balkan War(between Turkey and Bulgaria vs Greece) for sure, the so-called state of Byzantium eliminated and probably a Yugo-Italian War. Kemal believe in peace but in peace from strength. Allowing the Greeks to hold Smyrna and for a foreign power to create a protectorate would have been untolerable. But here they all live in harmony

IOTL the Versailles Treaty forced thousands to live under a flag not their own; nothing different has happen in WW but still we see a 21st century mentality to resolve issues. There is no atomic armageddon looming; at least war is an option.

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There is no atomic armageddon looming; at least war is an option.

That may be true, of nations such as India which apparently have not fought in a major war for quite a number of years.

However, the Great War is now barely a generation old. The two Balkan Wars which preceded it are not much older. Which government in the Balkans is willing to say to its citizens "after seeing your sons, your brothers, your husbands, your friends die in three consecutive wars, we now want your children to be sent to war as wel?" In my opinion, any government that did so would face mass revolts amongst its population should such a policy be attempted. IOTL during the Great War Romania lost nearly 10% of its prewar population, out of all the participating powers that is number 3 percentage wise by the way. Yugoslavia lost 16% of its prewar population as well. Turkey lost 13% of its prewar population. 1939 is still to early for all of those nations to begin thinking about war again. In 40 years perhaps, but 20 years after the conclusion of a war that IOTL cost 16.5 million people? Remember, while in OTL World War 2 started 20 years after World War 1 ended, the factors that led to World War 2 in OTL are not present here.

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Which government in the Balkans is willing to say to its citizens "after seeing your sons, your brothers, your husbands, your friends die in three consecutive wars, we now want your children to be sent to war as well?"

On the other hand, the religious and racial differences in the region means that no one really likes each other in the region, the violence and hatred carries on to this present day.

Saying that everyone woke up and decided to love each other is great if you want to build a massive power block, but not particularly realistic.

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We're responding to "enemy" tanks with the sort of speed that would come from facing them in combat.

We publicise things much more than OTL (understandably) so we have much more of an idea of what everyone is doing. It'd take quite some time for news to filter through, and longer to design and produce any sort of counter. On the other hand it's pretty easy to see a trend towards larger tanks, you might just not know exact details.

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Originally posted by TheCanadian
Turkey lost 13% of its prewar population. .

And that didn't stop Turkey IOTL to attack and recover Smyrna from the Greeks in the early 1920's. Only a couple of years after losing that percentage of their population.

Also the politicans in 1939 are the ground pounders that fought in the trenches and saw their friends die only to see their suffering been stolen by foreign politicans in the diplomatic table. IMHO it would be the other way around. Politicans that tell their citizens that is ok to lose Smyrna are going to lose elections. Yugo politicians that state being occupied by the Austrian-Hungarians for the Italians to get the Dalmatian Coast will lose elections. The time for war was the 1930's when the memories were still fresh of being cheated by the Versailles Treaty, especially in the Balkans.

Treaties and alliances don't guarantee peace. As Bulgaria at the close of the Second Balkan War if their membership in the Balkan Pact alliance was beneficial to advancing their goals or not.

A lot of the problems we're facing in the Balkans is the result of nobody ever seriously outlining what happened there in World War One. In the past, we Balkan players have made attempts to address this gap, and received nothing but apathy, then get told that everything should have happened like historical. It hasn't!

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Originally posted by TheCanadian
Remember, while in OTL World War 2 started 20 years after World War 1 ended, the factors that led to World War 2 in OTL are not present here.

Maybe so, but other are still in place; the Versailles Treaty border adjustments is the main example. So there is no Hitler, still the German government annexed Austria, negotiated treaties with Lithuania and Poland to acquire Danzig and Memel plus wants the League to force the Czechs to make a decision in regard to the Sudetenland. Turkey is lucky it exists at all same with Yugoslavia. The Serbs were occupied for two years, and all they gained was an union with Montenegro? Turkey have a coast in the Med thanks to the Italians returining their coastal enclave in Asia Minor.

I've said this before, Turkey didn't try to reclaim Smyrna because Greece was much more powerfull that historical and Turkey was a much more beaten nation post war. Could Byzantium have fallen? Sure, if the powers in that region wanted Atlantis to get involved again, I have forces stationed there remember?

Its interesting that everyone points out that eastern Europe is a love fest when we have practically the entire far east co-operating in harmony for several decades with only the Philippine civil war to suggest otherwise. India conquers Western Pakistan and everythings peachy, China and Japan get along and Chosen is a modern day Korea aligned with Japan.

Which actually brings me to one of my personal pet peeves about Wesworld.

Everywhere else in the world, players are more or less allowed to do their own thing so far as foreign policy and development are concerned. Italy is allowed to develop an airforce much more capable than it had in OTL. Italy in 1939 was flying biplanes as their main fighter, not state of the art monoplanes. China and Japan were even greater rivals than Greece and Turkey were historically, yet no one seems to grumble about that. Germany and Great Britain were economic rivals in OTL, yet they can be buddy-buddy in WW. It seems in WW people feel the Balkans MUST stay with their OTL development and foreign policy, while others get free rein over such areas, which is unfair, and hypocritical in the extreme.

Well yes there are other examples too in Wesworld, it comes down to a chicken and egg argument. "These nations are freindly so how is my alliance any more unrealistic?" It all comes down to individual players personal bias. Often they use history as a referance and yet forget that Wesworld is Alt-history, which is going to have flaws. Its nearly impossible to have several nations go an alt-historical route without effecting historical events, and keeping all those events consistant.

Is it any wonder sci-fi shows usually have timetravel storylines that have charactors warning about changing the timeline due to unforseen events.