What were the battle distances for tanks and artillery in ww2?

[Cletus Adolfobamaniqua]

I am very curious what would have been the real effective range of world war 2 tank guns and artillery ?

[Aluminum Elite Master]

Not a simple question.

For one, what is your target? Armor? Infantry? Infantry in concrete emplacements? See, just this first question raises a lot of issues. Artillery had special concrete piercing shells that had a vastly different range than HE or Fragmentation rounds.

That leads into the next issue: what type of ammo is used. While CP (concrete piercing) and HEAT (high-explosive anti-tank) rounds could be relatively scarce at times, even for some Allied formations on occasion, while HE and Frag rounds were common and typically readily available except if logistics were strained. So do you include HEAT rounds in the calculation? Do you limit it to HE?

Moreover, if the target is armor, what angle does the round hit at? Because 90 degrees, straight-on-perpendicular is going to drastically affect that effective range positively, while a very shallow angle is going to make a round possibly deflect at almost *any* range. If you assume every round hits at a reasonable angle, you're going to get a different result than if you assume some shots will likely deflect.

And obviously different guns and artillery pieces have different ranges and even ammo types... not every gun had HEAT ammo made for it, for just one example.

There's a lot of variables that make this complicated. No one can give a basic generalization on stuff like this, just to be honest.

So, to make this a little more answerable: is there a particular tank armament or arty piece you want to know about? Because that is a lot more answerable than a general, open-ended question on the topic.

[acur1231]

Well, in the US sector, engagement ranges were extremely short due to the bocage. The ranges in the British sector were further, but fortunately the British had 17 pounders so they were not rolled over by the German armoured divisions(they faced the vast majority of German armour and grinded it down, allow the US troops to break out in Operation Cobra.).

[Cletus Adolfobamaniqua]

Ok like tanks vs tanks or infantry, normal engagement and maximum recorded engagement range

[Cletus Adolfobamaniqua]

Also maximum engage with optics in a battle like Kursk

[Sev]

There is no such thing as "normal" engagement, also it depends higly on the tanks gun and the tank he is shooting at. There are some "average engagements distances" which do not tell the whole story, since a defending force will not open fire at max range but at the moment the attacker is so deep in the prepared kill zone that you can wreck the most havoc.

Another Factor is the terrain, while tank A besides a forest can, lets say, engage at 1200 meters, 100 meter down the line Tank B from the same platoon covers the flank and has only 300 meters engagement range. Concluding out of this the engagement range is 750 meters would be a fallacy.

You can also tanks use in an indirect fire role against infantry which was also sometimes done, for example in the Kurland pocket the Germans used Panthers as artillery because they had huge stockpiles of HE rounds. US Army Shermans did that too, im pretty sure there are some clips on YT in which you can see M4s shooting with max gun elevation.

The maximum range kill of a tank in ww2 i know of, was done by a Nashorn SPG on the eastern front, knocking out the enemy tank at ca. 4700 meters but thats more than a lucky shot and most tank crews would not have shot at such ranges, because the hit propability was so low that it was deemed as wastage of ammo.

Im sorry but there is no easy answer for your question due the monstrous amount of variables.

[Dindomir]

Thank you nonetheless. You gave a lot of info.

[eliandi]

Look here for a nice source
http://theminiaturespage.com/boards/msg.mv?id=202085

[runequester]

I don't have the book handy, but I recall a figure around 400 meters being typical in Normandy, based on post-war analysis.

Infantry typically engages at 300 meters at the most, often much closer.

Potential ranges are much higher but it is rare to be able to spot a target at such distances, particularly in French farm lands.