Talk:Hull down: Difference between revisions

Wouldn't this article be better titled something like "Tank Tactics", since it's a fair bit broader than just an explanation of "Hull-down"?

Danny Yee 14:28, 29 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I noticed that it's grown, but so far everything touches on the topic. I'm thinking a lot of this material can be used in a bigger article on tactical movement, armoured tactics, or mechanized tactics, since it applies to reconnaissance, combined arms, etc., and not just tanks. —Michael Z. 2005-03-29 17:01 Z

I like armoured tactics or tank tactics best - "tactical movement" could apply to infantry and what you have so far doesn't really apply even to mechanized infantry. -- Danny Yee 22:53, 30 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I think tank and other armoured vehicle employment is treated far too much in isolation in many of the wikipedia articles (and in much of the popular literature). It's naturally easy to write about the individual vehicles and equipment. But it leads to a comic-book or TV image of events on the battlefield.

It's the organizations, their taskings, the people in them, and how they get the job done that are more important. And none of it happens in isolation. There are lots of different things that happen on the battlefield, but the crux is the combined infantry and armour attack. The infantry is the only arm that can accomplish the chief objective in ground warfare: to take and hold ground, and it is most effective in combined-arms employment, with the support of reconnaissance, armour, artillery, engineers, etc., etc.

Anyway, this article did grow up from a little stub about the hull-down position, and it's about as big as it can get (although it desperately needs some good photos or a diagram; any illustrators out there?). I think I'll expend some energy on the existing articles on tank, armoured warfare, etc., for a while before starting any new ones. —Michael Z. 2005-03-31 04:24 Z

I'm removing the following discussion of turretless AFVs and the history of tank design.

1. Turretless AFVs can go hull-down: just replace the word turret with superstructure.
2. Multi-gun tanks have two hull-down positions, depending whether engagement with the hull or lower-turret gun is desired.
3. Regarding history, it would be great to know when/where hull-down and other armoured tactics were developed. Anyone have a reference? —Michael Z. 2006-07-28 01:39 Z

Deleted text:

WWI-era tank designs, for instance, Germany's A7V or Britain's Mark I tank, had hull-mounted guns. As armoured tactics evolved, the need for an elevated turret was soon recognized. By WWII, most tank designs included seperate, fully-rotating turrets, allowing engagements from hull-down positions. However, some notable early-war tanks, such as the french Char B1, the U.S. M3 Lee, and the Soviet T-35, included secondary hull-mounted cannons to reduce costs, despite recognition that this would result in reduced performance. Late-war tanks rejected dual-gun designs, focusing on a single turret.

A common distinction between Tanks, and Tank destroyers is the lack of a rotating turret in a tank destroyer, reducing cost, but also removing its ability to fire from a hull-down position (or change the direction of fire without redirecting the hull, as well).

My copy-edit of the addition:

Most First World War tank designs, for example Britain's Mark I tank and Germany's A7V, had hull-mounted guns. As armoured tactics evolved, the advantages of a rotating turret were soon recognized. Some inter-war tanks, such as the French Char B1, the U.S. M3 Lee, and the Soviet T-35, also had hull-mounted guns or secondary turrets. By World War II, most tanks had turrets, allowing better use of a hull-down position.

Nothing left of my addition:

There is nothing left of my edit. That simply isn't acceptable. It would be acceptable if you put in the copy-edit, but instead, you deleted everything. The whole intent of a elevated turret is to fire from a hull-down position. I agree - any tank can go hull down. But if the gun is in mounted in the middle of the hull, and you leave the gun clear to fire, then part of the hull is exposed, and so the tank is clearly not hull-down. Not sure why that's not clear to you. I guess you could invent a new term "tracks down", or "belly down", but when you get cooked by a shell coming in through the exposed hull, that's not going to help you very much.

I don't mind edits - but simply removing everything I wrote because you have problems with a few words is not appropriate. If you want to have your own website, please do so. If you want to work on a collaborative effort, stay at wikipedia. I will be putting my edits back in, I think they add far more value and relevance to the term hull down, than the random armoured tactics that also appear in the article. If you have issues with the text I put back in, perhaps we can have a wider debate before you hack and slash. That, after all, is the intent of the discussion section, isn't it? -- —User:Warthog32 2006-07-28 9:41 PST

If you want to work on a collaborative effort, please don't get personally hurt when your contribution is edited or removed.

Splitting up image annotation into two disassociated sentences in the caption and text watered it down. Your edit presumed an incorrect definition of tank destroyer, and incorrectly presumed that only turreted vehicles can make use of the ground in hull-down and turret-down positions. There were other problems, which I mentioned above and in the edit summaries. Adding facts not directly relevant to the discussion waters down the point. For goodness' sake—you even restored the spelling mistake I corrected! If you really "don't mind edits", why are you being stubborn about your problem-ridden addition? And if you are reverted and someone does, or even doesn't make a comment on the talk page, please take part in the discussion rather than starting a revert war.

"The whole intent of a elevated turret is to fire from a hull-down position"—just plain wrong. Whether a rotating turret or fixed superstructure is exposed has no bearing on a hull-down position: in either case the hull is hidden and a smaller, well-armoured part of the AFV is exposed. "but when you get cooked by a shell coming in through the exposed hull, that's not going to help you very much"—so it will help you when you get cooked by a shell coming in through the exposed turret front? The purpose of a turret is to turn. You're conflating that with the standard design pattern of mounting the main armament near the top of a vehicle, whether in hull, superstructure, or turret, which was developed along with modern tank tactics.

The discussion about development of AFV design and armoured tactics after WWI could be a valuable addition, but it has to be firmly based in reality, or at least published facts (see Wikipedia:Verifiability and Wikipedia:Citing sources). Information about WWII and modern armoured tactics can be found in many sources, but good writing about their early development is rare. We can't just make presumptions about why, how or when something was developed. What you've written seems based largely on speculation. Please do some reading, and cite your sources when you make additions making specific statements about history. I don't know the details, but the virtual absence of tank-vs-tank warfare in WWI, the dearth of early antitank weapons apart from antitank rifles must have played some role. A mention of lessons learned at the German-Soviet tank school and in Spain would be relevant.

If you can add an improvement, I'll leave it or further edit it. If an article is made worse, it's fair to change or remove that edit. I'm writing based on my experience in the Canadian Armoured Corps and extensive reading, but if I'm not well-versed enough on the topic at hand, or don't have ready references to improve it immediately, I'm not going to edit just to coddle your feelings—I'm going to revert. In this case, I made a suggested edit and moved the material to the talk page, because it's not quite right for the article now, but there may be some value in it.

Here's why I object to your latest edits:

WWI-era tank designs, for instance, Germany's A7V or Britain's Mark I tank, had hull-mounted guns.

Incomplete information: some WWI designs did, and others didn't. Why mention the late-war A7V first? Why ignore the thousands of Renault FT-17's but mention the 30-odd A7Vs?

As armoured tactics evolved, the need for an elevated turret was soon recognized. By WWII, most tank designs included seperate, fully-rotating turrets, allowing the tank to fire from hull-down positions, leaving a much smaller portion of the tank exposed.

Conflates two design principles: a fixed superstructure is elevated just as a rotating turret is, and a vehicle with either can take advantage of a hull-down or turret-down position.

However, some notable early-war tanks, such as the french Char B1, the U.S. M3 Lee, and the Soviet T-35, included secondary hull-mounted cannons to reduce costs, despite recognition that this would result in reduced performance. Late-war tanks rejected dual-gun designs, focusing on a single turret.

These are all interwar tanks. By the Second World War, these were either considered obsolete, or quickly shown to be, and I can't think of any early-war dual-gun designs. It's also an inaccurate description of the T-35. Does adding a secondary hull-mounted tank gun ("cannon") reduce cost?—please cite a reference. How does it reduce performance?

A commonly seen distinction between WWII era Tanks, and Tank destroyers was the lack of a rotating turret in tank destroyers, reducing cost, but also limiting their ability to fire from a hull-down position (and also limiting gun traverse).

This is a common distinction between tanks and self-propelled antitank guns, but not a defining one, and as I mentioned above, definitely does not limit their ability to fire from a hull-down position. How do you think the defensive Sturmgeschütz were intended to be used!? A hull-down StuG is probably better-protected and exposes less armour than any hull-down tank of the early war.

Also check your spelling and capitalization of proper names, which I already corrected once.

I'm reverting again for now. Please fix the deficiencies or do a bit more research, and you're welcome to contribute. —Michael Z. 2006-07-28 23:17 Z

Your edits aren't perfect either. Your copy-edit is incorrect. The M3 Lee is not a interwar tank. It was designed after french occupation. I would recommend you both worth together to resolve these minor errors, and work together to find something you both agree on, rather than keep removing and re-introducing different versions of the edit. Read this: Conflict resolution. If you'd followed the first point (improve the edit, don't revert), you wouldn't be where you are.

Well, I've responded at length and in detail on the talk page. How can you expect me to improve a mini-essay on development of 1920s–30s tank design and tactics when it has incorrect basic assumptions, and I don't have references on the period or time to research and rewrite it?

Regarding the M3, I understand that it was developed before the US entered the war—perhaps grouping it with interwar tanks is not quite right, but that doesn't make the T-35 or Char B1 WWII "early-war tanks", nor does it make Warthog32's thesis correct. —Michael Z. 2006-07-29 16:40 Z

"Thus, Soviet tank crews would have a hard time finding a hull-down position from which they could cover much of the terrain by fire. The typical Soviet tank had a range of elevation of -5 to +15 degrees, about half that of Western tanks with a range of about -10 to +20 degrees. This disadvantage was deemed acceptable, since Soviet armoured doctrine emphasized the massed attack with local superiority in numbers."

This is rubbish written by someone who doesn't know much about tanks in general, and Soviet design philosophy in particular.

Soviet designed tanks have been armed with gun-tube launched missiles sinc ehte 60s, and are in fact officially called missle-gun tanks in Russian (T-64/72/80).

It seems Kobra fired from the main weapon can assume a -7/+15 degree pitch. This added to maximum depression of the gun tube itself (-6 degrees I believe) would allow a -13 degree approach angle of the warhead. So maybe not quite top attack. However it is probably only a matter of time before the Russians design a round with better guidance. It does however allow for greater then -10 degree downward firing.

Now here is the interesting thing that VERY few US sources advertise, and the one that does, hides it by misrepresentation.
The US sources have always claimed that the US tank superiority over Soviet design was in part due to their ability to assume better hull down position due to greater degree of main gun depression.
What is the M-1A1s main gun depression?
I know Leopard 2 has -9, and Merkava has -8.5/-8 depending on variant. But just try and find the depression of the M-1! The clue is, don't look for "gun depression". Instead look for elevation...but not of the gun! Here is an interesting bit of info. "The loader has a 7.62 calibre M240 machine gun on a Skate mount. The elevation of the M240 is from -30 to +65 degrees and the traverse rotation is 265 degrees." Does this mean the M-1s main weapon has a depression of -30 degrees but can't traverse through 360 degrees?
Well, no.
To find out what the Commander and the Gunner can SEE to fire the main weapon, one needs to do a bit of research into the Independent Thermal Viewer from Texas Instruments installed in both stations.
The range of the Commander's viewer is -12 to +20 degrees in elevation and 360 degrees in azimuth. For the Gunner the Line of Sight excursion range is -16 to +22 degrees in elevation and + or - 5 degrees in azimuth.

However, the 125mm gun launched missiles were brought into Soviet Army in the 60s before the M-1 even begun design stage!
Also the extra depression is required to engage CLOSE range targets. However the M-1 claim to fame is its long range sniping! Where in Europe (the theatre M-1 was designed for) does one find an unobstructed LOS of 4000m? Why, on the US Army gunnery range of course!
The various NATO surveys of European battlefield over the decades of the Cold War have consistently reported reduction of average tank gunnery LOS due to urbanisation from 1,100m in the 50s to 800m in the 80s!
However with the added negative pitch of missile guidance in Soviet designs, the difference between M-1 LOS and T-64/72/80 becomes 3 degrees for gunner station and 1 degree better for commander's station.
Even worse, the Russian tank crew can assume hull down with their flank aspect! It seems to me the packed earth would provide defence enough for the side armour, and a much faster change of positions, as well as a significantly greater depression of over -30 degrees. This is a more logical way to position a tank in defence as part of a unit-occupied position.

Of course whoever wrote the Wikipedia article missed a bit of tactical knowledge. Finding a hull-down position has nothing to do with covering terrain with fire! Firstly there are very few places on Earth that lack ground undulation. Secondly, what the unit's crews will look for are multiple covering LOSs and routes out of the position. Inevitably some LOS for some tanks in the unit will lack IDEAL angles of fire regardless of their possible main weapon depression, and usually due to obstructions in the horizontal plain.

I see this as a bit of dishonesty on behalf of Americans and claims they make in the attempt to overshadow the fact that the M-1 design was 15 years behind the Soviet designs, and their attempt completely failed with gun-launched missiles (even with 152mm calibre!), never mind that the supposed superiority of the gun depression is tactically irrelevant, and is a bi-product of excessive overall height of the design that makes it harder to find a hull-down position to begin with since average ambient level of undulation in Europe, or any 'flat' terrain is about 1.2m.

However, having a gun-tube launched missile does allow Soviet designed tanks to fire turret down! With a +15 guidance pitch, the turret down tank can acquire its target and launch by simply pointing the gun UP. This actually allows a tank to fire without assuming a position directly behind cover, but some distance from it, allowing even faster manoeuvring since only 16 seconds is required for the missile to reach a target at 5000m. This is the distance quoted for firing at helicopters, the main threat Soviet designers planned for in the design of the T tanks when replacement of the AH-1G begun in the late 60s to be armed with TOW.--Mrg3105 00:14, 1 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Interesting. However, the facts about the Soviet tanks are not incorrect; they merely require the addition of information about the missile's capabilities of newer tanks. And not all of them fire missiles, especially many export models, so this is certainly not irrelevant, and doesn't deserve to be called "rubbish". What proportion of Soviet/Russian tanks fire missiles?

Do Soviet/Russian tankers routinely practice taking hull-down positions while exposing the flank instead of front armour? Seems like it would be a difficult maneuvre for the tank commander to control: how do you move up the slope until you can see over it sideways? And what about the common position where you are hull-down to the ground you have to cover by fire, but simultaneuosly exposed to higher positions? Do they normally keep sabot or a missile loaded? Can the tank move while guiding a missile? Your information about the missile's capabilities is excellent, but the info about Soviet tactics sounds speculative.

Where are the figures for M1 and Kobra elevation and depression from?—it would be good to add some of this to the article, with appropriate citations. Do you know the minimum effective range of the Kobra? Do you know if the Refleks has the same sighting capabilities as the Kobra?

I don't quite understand the point about the M1; what is the maximum depression of its main gun? Long engagement ranges are achievable not only on tank ranges, but also in the Middle East, I understand.

Also, where have I missed a bit of tactical knowledge? "Finding a hull-down position has nothing to do with covering terrain with fire!"—I don't understand—of course it does. Regarding multiple LOSs, yes of course; nothing in the article contradicts that. I know all about undulating ground: a vehicle can sometimes find a hull-down position in what looks at first glance to be an open field, but it can be tricky. —Michael Z. 2006-12-01 07:42 Z