Tank vs. Cannon

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by The Colonel

Bit of a sanity check - is it reasonable for a low grade, early WW2 tank (say, a Japanese I-Go) to be successfully killed by a Napoleonic style cannon, possibly scared up by some Chinese soldiers?

Hi-tech gives the Bourges Mle 1853 12lber (presumably a pretty typical Napoleonic style field gun) a damage of 6dx5 (mean 105) and the FT-17 45/20 dr (and given that the FT-17 has, according to Wikipedia 8-22mm of armour against the I-Go's 6-17mm that should be representative) … which makes it look doable, but is it sane?

I'd believe it. It's really thin armor on those pieces of junk. A heavy machine gun or antitank rifle would have no problem going through them. I'd believe a black-powder cannon could do the job.

That said it would be a really impressive shot. Napoleonic-style cannons aren't very well suited to tracking a moving target. And are going to be trickier to conceal that a modern AT gun too. You probably need to lure the tank into a really narrow ambush spot so that you can aim the gun long before it arrives and just touch it off at the right time.

[PTTG]

That's what I was thinking. Considering the disparity, you might be able to get away with tricking them into overconfidence.

If you're going to ambush them, it might be a better use of your black powder to make mines and hide them under the roadway, so you're sure to get a track hit. But then, maybe you don't have the time to do that, but you do have the cannon.

[Fred Brackin]

The I-go might even have riveted armor. Put a 12-lb cast iron (not lead) cannonball in the middle of one of the frontal plates and said plate will probably radically deform and the rivets would pop loose explosively. A serious danger to the crew.

You might or might not get a neat circular hole in the armor but that armor was not but to handle that cannonball.

[Michele]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

The I-go might even have riveted armor. Put a 12-lb cast iron (not lead) cannonball in the middle of one of the frontal plates and said plate will probably radically deform and the rivets would pop loose explosively. A serious danger to the crew.

You might or might not get a neat circular hole in the armor but that armor was not but to handle that cannonball.

I agree, and low-quality armor (common on such low-end early-war designs) when subjected to such extreme stress without being pierced, will probably spall on the inside too. So, even if it's not riveted, you have metal bits flying in a quite cramped compartment. If they don't hit the crew, they may well hit the front transmission or the steering or some other critical component.

[johndallman]

The tricky part will be hitting. The gun crew are very vulnerable to the tank's machine gun(s), and if the tank is zig-zagging, getting a hit will be very hard. So a close-range ambush seems necessary.

[The Colonel]

Thanks - I had visions of the cannon being hidden in ambush in some Chinese city, waiting on a tank which is cheerfully ambling along a street chasing away men with no anti-tank weapons, at which point either a screen is dropped or a corner rounded and some ancient cannon lets fly.
I'm pretty sure that there were muzzle loader cannon of this kind still kicking about in China in the late 1930s - they would, of course, be doomed on the battlefield (as the Afghans found out in 1919) and only likely to hit a tank by accident, but I thought ambush might work.

[Tomsdad]

Originally Posted by The Colonel

Thanks - I had visions of the cannon being hidden in ambush in some Chinese city, waiting on a tank which is cheerfully ambling along a street chasing away men with no anti-tank weapons, at which point either a screen is dropped or a corner rounded and some ancient cannon lets fly.
I'm pretty sure that there were muzzle loader cannon of this kind still kicking about in China in the late 1930s - they would, of course, be doomed on the battlefield (as the Afghans found out in 1919) and only likely to hit a tank by accident, but I thought ambush might work.

maybe from behind.

if nothing else you don't have to actually destroy or immobilise the tank to retreat or even get the crew to bail out and run.

Say you a commander of Japanese type 95 tank pursuing lightly armoured Chinese troops done the Street and suddenly a Cannon ball bangs into you. Only you don't actually know it's some C19th cannon at that point. What you know is something much heavier than you were expecting just made a very load noise hitting you.

Are you going to assume that it was a C19th Cannonball, or maybe those Chinese chaps have got hold of something more modern and dangerous to ambush you with and you just got lucky with their first shot.

Your tank's not great for communicating with the outside world (likely no Radio certainly no tank telephone, you communicate with the other crew by switching lights on and off, and it's you in a hand moved turret)


However what you are is pretty fast so maybe the smart move is to get out of there

[johndallman]

Originally Posted by The Colonel

. . . waiting on a tank which is cheerfully ambling along a street chasing away men with no anti-tank weapons, at which point either a screen is dropped or a corner rounded and some ancient cannon lets fly.

Consider carefully if you want your PCs lose with this kind of tank, which may well shorten their life expectancy. If you can arrange to hit it in the rear on the right, that's the engine compartment on a Type 95. That isn't proof against ordinary small arms, so a canon hit should immobilise the tank thoroughly.

[RyanW]

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

That said it would be a really impressive shot. Napoleonic-style cannons aren't very well suited to tracking a moving target. And are going to be trickier to conceal that a modern AT gun too. You probably need to lure the tank into a really narrow ambush spot so that you can aim the gun long before it arrives and just touch it off at the right time.

At which point you've effectively made a standoff mine.

The Renault FT was pretty much only intended to be proof against rifle and machine gun fire. A direct hit from artillery was considered unlikely, and impossible to protect against while keeping the desired performance. Of course, once tanks hit the field, someone starts working on heavier rifles and more responsive direct fire artillery.

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by RyanW

At which point you've effectively made a standoff mine.

The Renault FT was pretty much only intended to be proof against rifle and machine gun fire. A direct hit from artillery was considered unlikely, and impossible to protect against while keeping the desired performance. Of course, once tanks hit the field, someone starts working on heavier rifles and more responsive direct fire artillery.

Including, of course, artillery mounted on other tanks. Which was present from the earliest operational types.