The Marmot’s Hole

Paul H.

Thanks for the English language links, Zonath, pretty interesting.

Any modern main battle tank has an extremely high velocity flat trajectory “gun” (”gun” having a specific artillery meaning in this case, as opposed to a “howitzer”; a howitzer can also fire “direct” at a target but is much slower to load and fire, besides having a trajectory like a rainbow).

All “modern” (ie since WWII) high velocity tank guns could be considered as “descendants” of this one, the famous/infamous German “88″:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/88_mm_gun

The “88″ started out as a direct fire, flat trajectory, large caliber anti-aircraft gun, and was at first only improvised for use as an anti-tank weapon (Rommel is credited for this idea, first during the German invasion of France and later in his North African campaigns).

It worked so well that the “88″ AA gun was modified for primary use as a direct-fire ground mounted anti-tank gun, and even more famously as a tank main gun (in the famous WWII German “Tiger” tank, as well as some other WWII German heavy tanks; Hitler was notorious for taking a micromanagerial direct interest in the concept and design of many of these systems).

Direct fire, large-caliber, high velocity, “single shot”, dedicated usage anti-aircraft guns have pretty much disappeared from world armies’ inventories; they just can’t be made to adjust quickly enough to track and fire successfully on “fast movers” (jets). However, that limitation doesn’t exist for helicopters, particularly hovering ones.

So as “someguy” implies in his post above, if a proficient and alert tank crew can “get the drop” on a helicopter attempting to attack them — that helicopter’s in big trouble.

The theory for the attack helicopter (actually helicopter”s”, as they should be operating in groups) is to use their superior mobility to circle around to the sides and flanks of a unit of enemy tanks, to engage with their wire- or laser-guided missiles against the tanks’ flank and rear.

However, if the tank platoon or company can get an “alert” over the radio that attack helicopters are in the vicinity, they can quickly orient their turrets respectively to cover a 360 degree circle and load up a round in the breech. The tank commander observes from open hatch position and uses his “override” control to quickly orient his gunner approx on firing azimuth; the gunner, observing through his sight, can then hit the trigger and quickly send one “on the way”, as soon as he can lay the crosshairs on (or just “near enough”) the helicopter.

Even if the helicopter is hovering just below a ridgeline, with no part of it directly visible, the “prop wash” in still air may nevertheless rise enough to be seen by the tank commander and gunner; in this case, the helo “pops up” to take a shot at its extreme peril.

The “counter-counter” for the attacking helicopters is of course to coordinate their operations with friendly tanks attacking from the front, so as to divert the attention of the enemy tanks. The “jargon” for this effect is (or used to be) “combat multiplier” (ie, the whole is greater than the sum of the parts).

If you ever encounter this seemingly obscure phrase in the literature, this scenario can serve as an example of what is meant.