WesWorld

The Danish Army is to be restructured from four divisions and 7 brigades, totaling over 100,000 men in arms, to two divisions and three regiment, totaling 35,955 men.

The organization of the units themselves haven't been worked out in detail yet.


'Flying Regiment', Rapid Response Unit (RRU) - Syddanmark on Fyn
...250....Armored Battalion
...250....Armored Battalion
...700....Light Mechanized Infantry Battalion
...700....Mechanized Infantry Battalion
...275....Artillery Battalion
...250....AAA Battalion
...100....Engineers Company
...100....Logistics Regiment
...200....Army Aviation Battalion
....50....BC Company
....10....RHQ
2,885 TOTAL

'1st Division', Mainstay - Midtjyllard
..2,000....Armored Brigade
..2,800....Mechanized Infantry Regiment
..2,800....Mechanized Infantry Regiment
..2,800....Mechanized Infantry Regiment
..1,100....Artillery Regiment
..1,000....AAA Regiment
....400....Logistics Division
....400....Army Aviation Regiment
.....50....BC Company
.....50....DHQ
13,400 TOTAL

'2nd Division', Mainstay - Sjaelland
..2,000....Armored Brigade
..2,800....Mechanized Infantry Regiment
..2,800....Mechanized Infantry Regiment
..2,800....Mechanized Infantry Regiment
..1,100....Artillery Regiment
..1,000....AAA Regiment
....400....Logistics Division
....400....Army Aviation Regiment
.....50....BC Company
.....50....DHQ
13,400 TOTAL

'Shark Regiment', Amphibious Assault - Hovedstaden
...700....(Marine) Infantry Battalion
...700....(Marine) Infantry Battalion
...700....(Marine) Infantry Battalion
...250....Amphibious Armored Battalion
...275....Artillery Battalion
...250....AAA Battalion
...100....Engineers Company
...100....Logistics Brigade
....50....BC Company
....10....RHQ
3,135 TOTAL

'101st Airborne', Airborne Assault - Midtjyllard
...700....(Airborne) Infantry Battalion
...700....(Airborne) Infantry Battalion
...700....(Airborne) Infantry Battalion
...250....Airborne Armored Battalion
...275....Light Artillery Battalion
...250....AAA Battalion
...100....Engineers Company
...100....Logistics Regiment
....50....BC Company
....10....RHQ
3,135 TOTAL

Replacing the Mk tanks, is the "Jaeger" Heavy tank. It is based off of both the ARL-44 and T26E5. It is also somewhat similar to the T32 project. With permission, I'm going to use the photos of the ARL-44 as a starting point.

I'll be adopting a Soviet/American naming scheme. MXX refers to Model XX with XX being the year 19XX it was first produced. EX refers to Edition with X being the edition number. This would be somewhat similar to the Mk numbering system.


An Early Production Model

"Jaeger" M44E1
Crew: 4 (Driver, Gunner, Loader, Commander)
Weight: 49 metric tonnes

Length: 6.3 m w/o gun
Width: 3.73 m over tracks
Height: 2.80m over cupola

Primary Armament: 1 x 100mm L/59.6 D-10 (30 rounds)
Secondary Armament: 1 x 7.62mm MG (Bow - 3125 rounds), 1 x 7.62mm MG (AA - 3125 rounds), 1 x 12.7mm MG (Coaxial - 600 rounds)

Hull Armor Upper: 175mm@45 / 50mm / 50mm@45
Hull Armor Lower: 120mm@45 / 50mm / 50mm@45
Turret Armor: 120mm / 60mm@30 / 60mm, 300mm Mantle
Engine: 500hp 6-cycl Diesel
PWR: 10.42 hp/tonne
Suspension: Double Torsion Bars
Track Type: Dead
Wheels per side: 7
Track Width: 762mm
Ground Pressure: 71.5 kPa (10.4 PSI)

Range: 180km (road), 100km (offroad)
Speed: 34kph (road), 18kph (offroad)


The M44E2 is the same tank as the M44E1 but with it's 100mm gun replaced by a 290mm Spigot Mortar ala the Churchill AVRE. Equipped with fascine rollers, this tank is used by the Danish Engineers Companies. In exchange for the weight of the 100mm gun and heavy Mantle, side and rear applique armor is added.

"Jaeger AVRE" M44E2
Crew: 4 (Driver, Gunner, Loader, Commander)
Weight: 52 metric tonnes

Length: 6.3 m w/o gun
Width: 3.73 m over tracks
Height: 2.80m over cupola

Primary Armament: 1 x 290mm Spigot Mortar (40 rounds)
Secondary Armament: 1 x 7.62mm MG (Bow - 3125 rounds), 1 x 7.62mm MG (AA - 3125 rounds), 1 x 12.7mm MG (Coaxial - 600 rounds)

Hull Armor Upper: 175mm@45 / 100mm / 100mm@45
Hull Armor Lower: 120mm@45 / 100mm / 100mm@45
Turret Armor: 120mm / 75mm@30 / 75mm
Engine: 500hp 6-cycl Diesel
PWR: 9.62 hp/tonne
Suspension: Double Torsion Bars
Track Type: Dead
Wheels per side: 7
Track Width: 762mm
Ground Pressure: 79.3 kPa (11.5 PSI)

Range: 160km (road), 80km (offroad)
Speed: 31kph (road), 16kph (offroad)

With an initial overview, I'll say I'm liking what you're doing with regards to the order of battle.

For the M44 - yowza, that's pretty hefty armour for a tank - but based on your doctrine, it's definitely a strong defender. Looks to have low ground pressure despite its weight (good) and a nice economical diesel (good). When I get home I'll do some compare-and-contrast with other tanks, and give a more detailed analysis. I do like the idea of the 290mm spigot mortar - it's something I don't recall seeing on anyone else's tanks in Wesworld (though I might just be mis-remembering).

Just off the top of my head, I think this may actually be the largest tank by weight in universe.

I agree with Brock that the M44 seems well suited to what I understand of Danish doctrine. It would be a formidable opponent in head-to-head combat.

What does strike me as odd though is development of the AVRE variant. My understanding of Danish doctrine, which may be flawed, is that it is primarily defensive. As the AVRE is primarily an offensive weapon - intended to break through fixed fortifications - it seems out of place.

In addition to the traditional roles held by the AVRE, the M44E2 is meant to deal with Urban defenses. In Urban combat, the fighting devolves very quickly to both sides occupying buildings which makes the 290mm Spigot useful. It is for this reason the side and rear armor of the AVRE was thickened. In addition, the 290mm Spigot is meant to provide organic heavy direct-fire HE power to the unit it is attached to. This gives the units much better ability to counter infantry assaults, deal with stubborn resistance, and suppress enemy units. As I see it, the mechanized infantry units have sufficient anti-tank capabilities for most work, but lack heavy HE power without resorting to calling in air/artillery strikes. The 290mm Spigot gives the units more operational flexibility by giving them another tool in the command chain to use.

Denmark has almost no strategic depth, and therefore one cannot really "retreat" perpetually. Therefore Danish doctrine is aimed at the general mobility of forces with rapid reaction units to conduct a short-depth elastic defense. Unlike deeper variants, the Danish one emphasizes exploitation of partial exhaustion of momentum. This is achieved through greater local (and organic) firepower and army-wide mobility. This is reflected in the OOB and it's relative lack of non-mechanized infantry. As such, it can be expected that there will be occasions when the AVRE will need to fulfill it's traditional roles.

Britain uses a 165mm mortar on its AVRE (basically a Churchill chassis, which in WW was developed for that role rather than as a tank). It fires a 64lb HESH round.

The M44 looks a formidable beast and well suited to defensive warfare and the AVRE version look useful. I'm not sure about a direct-fire role, rate of fire is low and, correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't spigot mortars muzzle loaders?
The 100mm gun raises my eyebrows for a 1944 tank, we've been frowning on 90mm guns in Europe and while we've allowed them as future developments, a 100mm in 1944 just seems to be jumping ahead - although I agree the M44 needs a powerful gun.

Indeed, spigot mortars are muzzle-loaders - someone has to feed the round onto the spigot prior to firing the weapon.

I understand the potential usefulness of such a weapon for fighting in urban areas, but that is a doctrine developed during and after the Second World War; the closest Wesworld experience was perhaps the final stages of the Lithuanian Civil War, and I do not recall offhand if Denmark was involved with the League contingent operating there. It therefore is unclear to me how the posited Danish doctrine would have been developed.

As to the 100mm main gun of the M44 - I admit to sharing some small concern, given the fact that weapons of that caliber have been proposed before and frowned upon by the player-base. Given the rather specialized nature of the M44, and the probabilities that (a) it will likely be procured only in relatively small numbers and (b) is not likely to be a major export contender, I my concerns are muted. If either of those assumptions is incorrect, I would have to revise my opinions.

Russia has a 100mm in service, France, Italy, and Japan all have a 90mm in service, and ze Germans have their 88mm. The Americans are testing the 3.5in in a modified Longstreet chassis as well as on some M6 heavy's but aren't expecting in service until the beginning of mid 1945.

I wonder how close the stats for the proposed 100mm gun stack up against the aforementioned 90mm class guns in addition to the 85mm guns in service on Polish and I asume Russian tanks (AFAIK, the Russian 100mm gun is only in service on the Su-100 and not a turreted tank). I think that information would help figure out whether there is an issue or not.

Quoted from "TheCanadian"

Russia has a 100mm in service, France, Italy, and Japan all have a 90mm in service, and ze Germans have their 88mm. The Americans are testing the 3.5in in a modified Longstreet chassis as well as on some M6 heavy's but aren't expecting in service until the beginning of mid 1945.

Yeah, it's true - Russia did start fielding 100mm/L55 guns with the TT-43, although the vast majority of their tanks still retain the 76.2mm gun.

France has less than two hundred 90mm-armed tanks in service at the moment. I must admit I've been extremely tempted to just skip ahead to 105mm, since Italy's started building a lot larger tanks than I expected to see in service within the next five years. For now, the French practice so far has been to keep penetration figures up using better shell design with their smaller 75mm guns. It's a bit of an irritating thing for me: an HV 75mm gun still ought to rule the battlefield, since we lack all of the combat one-upsmanship from WWII to drive calibers up.

All that said, I'm not going to fuss over this tank design unless it starts getting exported all over creation. Perhaps we can all just agree that this design is "exceptional" and shouldn't be used to justify further caliber-wars?

Well it isn't just the gun that makes the tank either, for instance I do plan to have the Pershing have its issues with mobility and reliability. For a small country like Denmark I don't have much of an issue with it going to an 100mm gun. And while I can understand your concern about Italian 90mm tanks, an army is more than just what gun it mounts on its tanks. Trucks IMHO are far more important than tanks.

Quoted from "Brockpaine"

since Italy's started building a lot larger tanks than I expected to see in service within the next five years. For now, the French practice so far has been to keep penetration figures up using better shell design with their smaller 75mm guns. It's a bit of an irritating thing for me: an HV 75mm gun still ought to rule the battlefield, since we lack all of the combat one-upsmanship from WWII to drive calibers up.

Well I cannot speak with regards to the other nations you mention, but I think the Italian move to the 90mm does have some sort of historical backing in why it was done. In looking around, I have found that most every non-Italian gun has both AP shells and at lease one form of high-pen round (HVAP, APCR, etc) that would make a 75mm-class gun able to pen the armor of current WW tanks at 1000m (the data point I have been able to find information for most every gun on). However, the Italian guns do not have this feature. They only use what I assume are fairly typical AP shells. I do recall reading (I did not save the source, I am looking for a reference) that when it came to increasing penetration abilities, OTL Italy would increase caliber rather then field more advanced ammunition for existing guns or increase the muzzle velocity via a longer barrel. That is the same sort of trend I have, unintentionally at first, followed with WW Italy. The data I have been able to locate on Italian AT guns supports this conclusion. I would be happy to present more data on this, but don't want to derail this thread. Perhaps we could split the comments about calibers already in service beyond as reference to the proposed gun off into another thread?

EDIT: Clarified distance penetration is referenced at.

Quoted

All that said, I'm not going to fuss over this tank design unless it starts getting exported all over creation. Perhaps we can all just agree that this design is "exceptional" and shouldn't be used to justify further caliber-wars?

Amen!

Quoted from "snip"

The data I have been able to locate on Italian AT guns supports this conclusion. I would be happy to present more data on this, but don't want to derail this thread. Perhaps we could split the comments about calibers already in service beyond as reference to the proposed gun off into another thread?

If you have the data and wish to post it, I wouldn't mind having a look. If not, I shan't sweat it that much. My main interest in that subject is to keep the playing field sane and realistic, and then secondarily to field my own gear in such a way that I'm not the one who's toeing the line.

I've no major hang-ups, but we wouldn't want it to become an excuse to up the calibres again. Like Brock, I favour the 75-77mm band for a decent gun and other developments are making me think about the 20pdr gun sooner than I had originally planned.

Anyhow, Denmark probably can't afford to develop a new gun every other year (and have probably fallen behind the curve quite seriously in the intervening years), so I guess it has the view that the most powerful possible is a safe bet for the future, probably far into the 1950s.

Apologies Logi, but I think this is somewhat relivent.

So, most of my data comes from the World War II Vehicles site, I will link the pages I am using as the come up.

First up is the Italian Penetration tables. I note the data here is rather sparse, and the lack of anything other then AP ammo listed for all but the 47/32 Mod.37 (which I think the APC round might be the Effetto-Pronto HEAT round). This seems to back up my recollection that Italy never went for advanced kinetic penetrators like HVAP and APCR. We do see the figure for the 90/53 @1000m with a 30 degree incline with a standard AP shell. Due to this being the best data point because it factors in a degree of inclination, the Xmm at 1000m and 30 degree angle with standard AP will be used for all comparisons. That gives us a figure of 101mm penetration for the 90/53. Based on figures for the US 90mm M3 with APC M77 and APHE rounds, I feel the figure for the 90/53 is accurate enough to illustrate the point. Now, with regards to how this stacks up to the 75/46 of previous Italian tanks we have to do a bit of guestimating. Unfortunately, the Italian table is devoid of data for this gun, but a good approximation given the historical stats for this gun can be found via the German 75 mm PaK 40 L/46 (here lumped in with the KwK 40 L/48 and other guns). Using the PzGr 39 ammunition figures, as they are the closest in weight (.3kg difference) to the 75/46 shell, we can assume that the gun can penetrate no more then 85mm of armor at a 30 degreee incline. However, given that the Italian gun has a lower muzzle velocity, I would presume that the actual pen for the 75/46 would be closer to 80mm. A look at the 75 mm KwK 40 L/43 stats with the same shell and similar muzzle velocity back this up. So given the ~80mm penetration figure for the 75/46, we can see that it would have issues penetrating the front of tanks like the StandardPanzer Panther, Char-8 Montbrun and the Cruiser Tank Mk IX Comet (I note these as they would have been in service when the 90mm and M34/44 were being designed and tested) at that range. The 90mm gun provides the additional oomph necessary to reliably penetrate these tanks at combat ranges without introducing a new shell as per my recolection of historical Italian practice. As to whether these figures are to advanced, I refer to the German 88 mm KwK 43 L/71 which had already been in service with the Heer for a couple years prior to the Italian 90mm ever being fitted to a tank. It is possible with the ammo historically available (quantity notwithstanding) for that gun to penetrate a maximum of 222mm of armor[1] under the same test conditions as the tests used to compare the Italian weapons. With similar shells, the American 90mm M3 can achieve 200mm. Baring any reference to an OTL gun, I am willing to speculate that the French 90mm is close to the M3. So I feel in the case of any gun proposed for a tank, the benchmark should not be caliber, but rather penetration figures and the German 88 L71 currently serves as the upper bound of what can be considered reasonable given its time in WW service.

[1] This is with the HVAP round. I will note that I have not found anywhere where Bruce lists the types of ammo currently used as the main Anti-Tank ammo on this gun in WW, so am pointing out the extreme of what occurred OTL. With a more common AP round the penetration looks to be around 165mm, which is about 20-40mm more then the American M3.

Quoted from "Hood"

I'm not sure about a direct-fire role, rate of fire is low and, correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't spigot mortars muzzle loaders?

The Spigot is indeed a muzzle-loader, I had intended a similar scheme as the Churchill AVRE in loading with the driver partailly exposed during loading. I don't know if this would be a tremendous issue, given how the Churchill AVRE was used, but I was looking at the 21 cm GrW 69 mortar from OTL Germany as an alternative.

Quoted from "Hood"

The 100mm gun raises my eyebrows for a 1944 tank, we've been frowning on 90mm guns in Europe and while we've allowed them as future developments, a 100mm in 1944 just seems to be jumping ahead - although I agree the M44 needs a powerful gun.

Quoted from "snip"

I wonder how close the stats for the proposed 100mm gun stack up against the aforementioned 90mm class guns in addition to the 85mm guns in service on Polish and I asume Russian tanks (AFAIK, the Russian 100mm gun is only in service on the Su-100 and not a turreted tank). I think that information would help figure out whether there is an issue or not.

The stated 100mm (195mm pen) was intended to be a direct copy of the 100mm D-10 mounted on the OTL SU-100 tank destroyers. Of course, I don't expect to have exactly the same gun, but similar performance. I could replace the gun with a 90mm/60 akin to the German 8.8cm L56 (180mm pen) and American 90mm L53 (160mm pen).

The main driving force behind the gun is the requirement that the tank be able to penetrate, at minimum, 185mm @ 500m. That is requirement is formed on the basis that the M44 should be able to deal with the enemy's heaviest likely tanks (Standardpanzer I) at typical engagement ranges, which is around 500m and in. This requirement is in part due to the fact that the M44 will be the main anti-tank weapon in the Danish army.

At the same time, using very high velocity guns to deal with the penetration problem is not ideal. Inherently such velocities reduce barrel life, which becomes an issue for maintenance, especially on tanks expected to last most of a war. They also suffer from much weaker HE capability. The other issue is that small caliber guns do not age well. They don't have much room to lengthen in caliber before encountering significant barrel droop and place enormous constraints on propellant designs given the small chambers.

Let's suppose I use a 75cm L70, as in the OTL Panther... it has penetration of ~200mm @ 500m. If the core requirements for penetration raised up to 250mm in 5 years time, which would be a reasonable expectation given the 1940-1945 developments, the gun would either have to be lengthened to L100 which is by itself an extraordinarily difficult challenge, or some revolution will have to be made in propellants / ammunition due to diminishing returns. It's not quite reasonable to expect the latter to occur. As Hood states, Denmark does not want to and probably cannot afford to change it's caliber yearly nor can it afford to embark on regular wholesale replacement of it's tanks, as opposed to updates. Going back to the 250mm problem, if Denmark uses a 75mm gun and cannot achieve that penetration requirement at 500m, it must increase it's caliber. Going from 75mm to 90mm can prove very troublesome, in working space and otherwise. As such it would be likely that a turret change, if not chassis change, will be required. The problem is the scale of mechanization in the Danish army. This means any turret/chassis change dis-proportionally affects the army, and as such is something to be avoided like the plague. A new chassis/turret would reset the economies of scale as production lines have to be retooled, thereby further increasing the cost of any such replacement.

As such I choose the 100mm to both meet the penetration requirement and provide some measure of proofing against future penetration requirements. I have no plans to introduce a gun that over-penetrates the most likely enemy beyond the typical engagement range of all tanks (500m) since tank fights at >500m practically do not exist.

Is the 195mm figure with HVAP/APCR/Other Advanced Kinetic or with a "standard" AP round?

It is listed here as 100 mm M-1944 D-10 L/56, BR-412 APHE.

Given the available data on Advanced Kinetic Penetrators for those guns, I think its fair. That round seems to have the highest, so I don't think we would see the gun surpass the 88 mm KwK 43 L/71 and set a new standard.