Infantry gun
An infantry gun is a light field gun that is assigned to the infantry class of service - and not, as is usually the case, to artillery - for the purpose of direct fire support . The designation means either the assignment or a specialized design. Specifically, it describes the type of construction between the First and Second World Wars.
history
Since the development of field guns and amusements , these were repeatedly assigned to the infantry as regimental items. Sweden was able to achieve a decisive victory in the Battle of Breitenfeld (1631) , also because the infantry was equipped with light escort guns. At around 140 kilograms, these weighed only a third of the usual weight of a field gun and could be pulled by a horse.
In the 18th century, the infantry battalion were assigned two "three" or "four-pounders" on the battlefield, which advanced along the battle line and were pulled by the crew. One gun weighed over 100 kilograms. It could fire targeted shots from a maximum distance of 300 meters. However, ricochets made it possible to achieve further distances into the lines in linear tactics, which were thus outside the firing range of the muskets of that time. The advance of the infantry lines could thus be significantly disrupted. In the Seven Years' War Prussian battalion guns reached a rate of fire of four rounds per minute.
At the time of the Napoleonic Wars (1792 to 1815), the infantry guns disappeared because the field artillery was now much more mobile through reorganization.
From the middle of the 19th century, various approaches were undertaken to establish small-caliber repeater or volley guns in the role of infantry guns . These did not work, but the machine gun emerged from these efforts at the end of the 19th century .
When the fronts froze in trench warfare during World War I , infantry guns were reintroduced. These were slight angle fire guns, mortars or mortars referred, or light cannons. At first only an organizational regrouping took place. For example, the German 7.58 cm light mine thrower , which was originally intended for pioneers , was placed directly under the infantry. Adaptations and new developments followed in order to meet the new requirements. The French introduced the 37-mm model 1916 infantry cannon , which was also used by the Allied Americans , with great success . The German Empire used captured Russian field guns, its own shortened field cannons (caliber length 20) but also the 7.5 cm M.15 mountain cannon . Only towards the end of the war was the L / 13 assault cannon, based on the 7.7 cm field cannon 96 n. A., a real infantry gun available. This development was based on the experiences of the assault battalions with the attack procedure in the shock troops, which made direct, subordinate support from their own artillery necessary. Therefore, in the Wehrmacht, in the regiments of three battalions, their own infantry guns were integrated into the 13th Infantry Gun Company with 7.5 cm infantry guns for immediate fire support.
The development of anti-tank guns and infantry guns ran in parallel after the First World War. In the case of anti-tank guns, the muzzle velocity was decisive, as the bullets were fired. H. relatively small caliber with a large caliber length. Infantry artillery, however, fired fragmentation or HE shells; the decisive factor here was the amount of explosives in the grenade. With the shaped charge grenades developed from 1940 on, infantry guns could also be used for anti-tank defense.
Even before World War II, the motorized assault gun was a modern design for horse-drawn infantry guns. The Wehrmacht tried with various designs z. B. StuIG 33 B to mechanize the existing infantry guns and to avoid a failure of the guns in the anti-tank defense through the armor protection.
In addition to self-propelled howitzers, light infantry mortars such. As the grenade launcher 42 took over at the end of World War II recoilless guns direct fire support of combat troops.
After the Second World War, the infantry gun lost its importance, and from the 1960s light and heavy grenade launchers such as the American M79 or the Thomson-Brandt 120 mm mortar were used as direct fire support to the infantry. In addition, automatic cannons such as the Rh 202 , actually a light anti-aircraft gun , were used by the infantry for ground combat.
Individual evidence
- ↑ At that time : superiority of artillery [1]
- ^ Volkmar Regling: Basic features of land warfare at the time of absolutism and in the 19th century. In: Friedrich Forstmeier (ed.), Hans Meier-Welcker (first): German military history in six volumes, 1648–1939. Published by the Military History Research Office . Manfred Pawlak Verlag, Munich 1983, ISBN 3881991123 , Volume 6, p. 47ff.
- ↑ Abroad: Weekly for country u. Völkerkunde, Volume 32; Volume 39, Verlag Cotta, 1866 page 756
- ^ FH Graefe: "Contributions to the combat theory of the artillery, Verlag Mittler, 1824 page 111
- ^ Karl Theodor von Sauer: Plan of the weapon theory, Verlag JG Cotta, 1869 page 367
- ^ Bruce I. Gudmundsson: On artillery, Greenwood Publishing Group, 1993, ISBN 9780275940478 page 79
- ↑ Otto Lueger : Lexicon of the whole technology , Volume 1, Leipzig 1920, page 312-313