WesWorld

I am working on the full details of the Argentine Army, any info anyone has will be most useful both form Wesworld and the real world Arg army.

This is the Army’s expansion plan and modernisation as a result of the report of the Argentine Military Commission of 1921. Two new divisions are to be formed by Aug 1935 (or at least one by 1933) and a new corps structure will see an extra battery equipped with heavy guns. By mid 1933 all four Brigades of the Infantería de Marina will be complete and new 150mm and 75mm guns will enter service from late 1932.
Re-equipping with the new 75mm M31 L/50 is now beginning at a rate of 30-50 guns a year. This gun is a copy of the old French 75mm Modele 1897 with a new barrel and carriage. Elevation is now -10 to +45 degrees with 35 degree traverse, weight is 1100kg, a 40kg saving. Range is about 11300m. A new AP shell for attacking warships is still in development. The Navy is to purchase 50 for coastal defence, some to be mounted in casemates. An AA gun version with pedestal mount and associated rangefinders etc is due to enter service from 1933 with modified shells. New 37mm and 20mm AA guns have been entering service since 1929 in small numbers. Some 100 new trucks have been brought from the new D’Silva motor works in Cordoba and work is on going to provide an armoured version. Some 30 Chrysler cars have been modified with 8mm armour (open top) and armed with one 7.92mm MG and crew of three. Some 50 more may be built if funds can be found. On going radio procurement has been hit by financial difficulties but most long-range sets will be replaced by 1935 and medium sets by 1939.

New requirements for tender:
1) A 6 ton light tank for general service, the Army having seen recent trials of the Vickers Type E are satisfied with this tank but other better designs will be considered. License production and plans are required as part of the package.
2) A fast tank based on the Christie suspension system. The tank must be armed with a 50mm gun and be armoured with at least 30mm frontal armour and equipped with radio. 50-70 to be brought form 1932/33 and later license production in Argentina.
3) A light 50-75mm mountain howitzer with 10-12,000m range and a weight no more than 590kg. 90 to be procured.
4) A 105mm howitzer for regular army use, some 100 to be brought over three years.
5) A 150-200mm heavy gun capable of 15-17,000m range and elevation of at least 60 degrees. Some 50-100 guns to be brought.
6) A new infantry rifle capable of being produced in Argentina and easy to maintain in harsh conditions.
All tenders MUST include working prototypes for practical evaluation before any order is placed. All tenders must be sent to the Ministry of Defence, Cordoba, by Aug 1st 1931.

Entries for requirement number 1: Camels , Horses, Lamas.

Don't need to worry about lack of fuel. Faster across rough country. More mobile, especially in Patagonia and Andes regions. Getting a working prototype is easy enough.

Getting the mountain howitzer with the range you want might be difficult: mountain howitzers are short-barreled, to reduce the weight, and that does not do good things for range.

The numbers of heavy guns vs lighter guns seems a bit kcewed, though that depends, I suppose, on how many lighter guns are already in service.

1932 is probably a bit early for 50mm tank guns, though with the Japanese having demonstrated a prototype with a 57mm, anything is possible.

Out of curiousity, is anybody out there not jumping on the "Christie Hindsight Wagon"?

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Out of curiousity, is anybody out there not jumping on the "Christie Hindsight Wagon"?

Italy only needs speed in the Sahara, which might be better solved by wheels. Which will probably happen when the M13-30 is discovered to be a failure, mainly through suspension problems.

Not likely, not with the wheeled transmissions and suspensions available in the 1930s or even into the 1940s. It wasn't until MUCH later that vehicles like the Centauro you're showing off pictures of got low enough ground pressures to be useful off-road machines. How many roads are there in the Sahara, and do you want to be restricted to them if they're there?


Besides, Germany's probably not going to go whole-hog on the Christie bandwagon, there are some useful parts of the design to develop from, but there are definite limits to how big a tank you can build with a true Christie suspension.

US trackless tank of 1941. 70kph over rough terrain. Not really large enough though.



AB40/41 showed itself able to travel succesfully off-road in the desert. Only 7t when I need a vehicle 20t+, so definitely 8 wheels needed.



Ansaldo off-road armoured car from 1926. Again, too small and underpowered.

Suspension isn't really needed in the soft sand of the desert. The A15 crews stiffed up the suspension as much as possible to make it go faster, exceeding the design speed. Unfortunately the suspension tended to break sometimes.

I should have some pictures and descriptions of Terentrian armoured cars and tanks courtesy of Fantasque. I'll have to have a looksee.

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Originally posted by The Rock Doctor
Out of curiousity, is anybody out there not jumping on the "Christie Hindsight Wagon"?

Im not becose:
A:Im poland Landrovers and Jeeps are getting stuck in mud.Think documentry german fotos from the east front, mud up the axis in spring and summer.Snow up the windows in the winter.
And thats today in the 1930's its worse.

B:Yugoslavia is one big mountain chain.Not realy a place for tanks and fast tanks are just not smart there.There is not enought room for them to pick up speed.

C:Romania is going for big heavy slow tanks.

And one morething.Ither build a armourd car or a tank dont mix the two that sort of idea's dont work.
List of mix idea's that dont work:
-Battlecruiser(expensive cruisers)
-Two engine fighter bomber(Bf-110)
-Alcoholic drinks(dont water down my vodka)
-Cars like Audi Allroad(either have a Four wheal drive or a normal car)
-Battleship carrier hyblid(Ise conversion)
-A romantic comedy(never actualy funny)


But back to the topic
I dont see the logic behing having both criestie fast tank and a Vickers E(T-26, 7PT) type tanks.
either go for a Criestie or normal tanks after all argentinas resorces are limited its not like the USSR(sorry russia) that can build 15000 tanks in a year in peace time ,bought will have preaty similar fire power.
I rather have one type of a tank.

Quoted

Originally posted by The Rock Doctor
Out of curiousity, is anybody out there not jumping on the "Christie Hindsight Wagon"?

Currently the Netherlands have old FT-17s. The Vickers 6-ton is the most likely new model for trials. The Christie has speed and is light. The Netherlands's model of war is a modified Verdun - trenches and forts. The need at home is for 'Infantry tanks', preferably with wide tracks and low ground pressures. A lighter tank, or perhaps a tankette for jungle use would also be desirable down the line.

Given my limited knowledge on the affairs of Armies, I've not taken to hindsight as of yet. In some ways I'vve actually gone against hindsight by using what some would call "clearly out of date" designs and building up from them (see Capitan Tylor and some others).

On Mountain Howitzers- I only have stats for German ones of the WW2 era. However they didn't update the artillery as much as some arms. So these may be reasonable for the 30s.

The WW2 standard German light mountain howitzer- the 1936 7.5cm Geb. G36 was 75mm with 10,100yards of range, could be broken into 11 pack loads...
but weighed in at 1,650lbs, or 750kg.

The 10.5cm Geb. H. 40 mountain howitzer managed a range of 13,810yards, but at a weight of 1663kg.
Both Mtn howitzers had a max elevation of 70 degrees.

It is interesting to note that the German infantry guns weighed substantially less, but at significant cost of range, having very short barrels. While the true field artillery weighed more and shot further.

The 1940 series of German airborne recoilless guns would fit in terms of weight, but lack range and are years and many development dollars in the future.


The 15cm K18 field gun had a range of 27,040 yards with a max elevation of 45 degrees.

The 21cm Morser 18 Howitzer (Guns seem to top out at 15cm) has a range of 18,300yards with a max elevation of 70 degrees.

Missed the 17cm on the 21cm howitzer's carridge. Perfect for the bill. 32,370 yards, 70 degrees elevation. ONLY 19.04 tons!

So...Hrolf...German arms suppliers need any ad agencies? Amsterdam is packed with em

RA, there are no camels in Argentina and I don't think I'll import any, Llama's will do nicely for transport and I have horses.
On the Christie suspension, I think it can be made to work, maybe not 1931 but by 1936 some nations here will have good designs. I'm thinking long-term here. Vickers E seems good right now for the next ten years as a good basic starting design. I already discounted multi-wheeled vehicles, in 1931 there were not many and being adaptions of trucks etc were not much good.
It looks like I'll go German for guns, the best in the world anyway, but my mountain howitzer is doable, there is a 75mm American design that fits the bill.

Quoted

Originally posted by The Rock Doctor
Out of curiousity, is anybody out there not jumping on the "Christie Hindsight Wagon"?

Atlantis plans on exploring all options, Christies system is one of them. As Gavin said however its not really an advantage in the desert, and Atlantis is still building the AT-27, its smaller coil sping suspension being more ridgid but able to obsorb a reasonable amount of battle damage making it an ideal Infantry support tank.

Christie suspension really won't make much difference in the late 30's as the majority of tank designs did around 25 mph/40km road speed anyway reguardless of suspension type. each suspension system had multipull variations in size of springs, number of road wheels ect.

As for wheeled tanks, Christie's early designs where able to remove the tracks for better speed on roads, some like the BT-5 rarely used the tracks but also rarely went offroad as a result.

The German infantry guns were primarily direct fire weapons, designed to deal with strong points, bunkers, machinegun nests, and the like, rather than indirect fire weapons for firing barrages. That's why they made the trade-off of light weight (so they could be man-handled into position more easily) for range.

To help others design their tanks and to learn a bit more here are the various types of tank suspension. Some are inherently unable to traverse cross-country at fast speeds and older coil spring designs by the late 1930s were obsolete. In our time (early 1930s only the Christie allows fast speeds, remove the useless wheels only running to save complexity then it can work better. Torsion suspension is much better but we are about five years too early to successfully use it.

Coil spring and hydraulic shock absorber, basic and good enough, examples include Panzer I.
Leaf springs and box bogie, good but outdated by late 1930s, suitable for slower speeds only, examples include Vickers 6-Ton.
Christie suspension, a pivoted bell crank and heavy coil mounted vertically in hull for each wheel. Wastes internal space and vulnerable to side hits but good for cross-country speed. Can’t handle heavy weights.
Torsion bar, suspension mounted across hull and bolted to opposite side, this uses less space than Christie system and offers better protection to the spring. Simpler but needs careful production of the spring. From late 1930s on all German tanks and from mid 1940s all US tanks.
Horstmann coil spring, used by most British early tanks and the Centurion when Christie could not support its weight. Has longer travel than normal coil spring.
Newton hydraulic “slow motion”, as fitted to British Cruiser Mk I & II and Valentine.
Vertical Volute, consists of a two-wheeled bogie, wheels pivoted on arms against vertical spring protected inside box with return roller above, easy to build, maintain and replace by bolting on a new assembly. Used on all US tanks before torsion bar chosen for faster tanks.
More important is the strategy and tactics to be used. Having written a dissertation on the origins of Blitzkrieg and mobile warfare I know a few points. Let me put it this way, some Argentinean officers are visiting J.F.C. Fuller in Britain to discuss his ideas over tea and scones.