Talk:17pdr SP Achilles

Removing section regarding 17 pdr deployment time due to lack of citation.

12 hours to emplace?? Removing it because it seems an extreme claim. Half a day with a crew of 6+ well fed R.A gunners and the additional labour of the towing vehicle crew? Were they union members? Please cite source. Just sounds wrong. The 17 pdr was not THAT big :) Irondome (talk) 04:36, 13 May 2012 (UTC)

Actually that may not be that far from the truth. There is a very real tactical difference between setting up a gun and emplacing a gun. Not only was the 17 pdr heavy it was large and a great deal of preparation went into its effective emplacement and concealment. It had a substantial recoil so it did have to be literally 'dug in' to operate effectively. The crew were most likely conscripts; eager but by no means muscular (Spike Milligan was a conscript gunner who discribes himself as a skinny individual looking like a sack of potatos tied in the middle with string!). The prime mover, usually a Morris 'Quad', occasionally an older tank with the turret removed, was simply that; the vehicle used to tow it to where it was to be emplaced.

Emplacing a gun the size and weight of the towed 17 pdr was a back breaking job. It required digging out the ground so the split trail could be safely secured against recoil (ie making sure the gun didn't 'jump' or roll back during firing), a clear line of sight had to be secured which often meant hacking back foliage, then that same foliage used to camouflage the gun to make spotting by the enemy as diffcult as possible. All this time sufficient ammunition had to be placed by the gun, and (assuming a stay of more than 24 hours) bivouac and foxholes for each gun crew established along with clear routes for resupply of the gun and crew and (if necessary) the ability to get the gun out of trouble if an enemy assault looked like breaching the line.

All this is the real reason why towed anti-tank guns went the way of the horse; not the capability (or lack thereof) of the ordnance but the amount of time taken in preparation for the battle.

Loates Jr (talk) 10:22, 17 April 2014 (UTC)Andy LoatesLoates Jr (talk) 10:22, 17 April 2014 (UTC)

Looking back now, from the vast distance of 13th may 2012, I can see you are completely right. The gun was a large beast, and I severely understated the excellent points you make. Milligan (I have all the war memoirs) is a good example of the physique of the average WW2 British conscript. Skinny but wiry and tough. Contemporary photos richly illustrate the point, as do Milligans and his own comrades snapshots in the books.

I do wonder whether ATG crews were a "tougher" lot, due to their rather perilious role and positioning, and very very frequent moves. Maybe they got more compo :).

Milligan memorably recalls the units' vain attempts to look smart for leave in Tunis, but reflected that they looked like "sacks of s**t tied up in the middle". He uses the sack metaphor a couple of times. A great post, and I fully support a revert. Cheers! Irondome (talk) 01:49, 19 April 2014 (UTC)

The 6 pdr was small and light enough to be man-handled into position. With the increase in German tank armour a jump from the 57mm of the 6 pdr to the 17 pdr's 76mm was required and this resulted in a physically much bigger and heavier gun. The 17 pdr was simply too heavy for even a fit gun team to manually move any great amount into a prepared position, a tractor was required. This increased the time needed to deploy the guns, hence the development of the Achilles.

It was because the towed 17 pdr was so much bigger and heavier than the 6 pdr that it and its role was taken away from the infantry and allocated instead to the RA.

The 6 Pdr was never operated by the infantry. It was always allocated to RA regiments. Dedicated anti-tank guns (excepting the Boyes anti-tank rifle) have always been classed as tube artillery by the British Army and assigned to artillery regiments. Loates Jr (talk) 13:03, 14 April 2016 (UTC)Andy

" ... were initially issued to the Royal Artillery anti-tank regiments of infantry and armoured divisions in the western theatres (four batteries with 12 pieces each), and later in the war to the six-gun anti-tank platoons of infantry battalions". — Preceding unsigned comment added by 95.149.173.74 (talk) 13:18, 26 May 2016 (UTC)

You could be correct here, it is a little confusing though: From "Desert Rats. The British 8th Army in North Africa 1941-43"

"The far more effective and long-awaited QF 6pdr anti-tank gun . . . were issued to motor rifle battalions and RA anti-tank regiments in armoured divisions." However this is still needs clarifying as to whether those issued to motor rifle battalions were operated by the infantry or by attached RA gunners. Certainly if operated by infantry, they would need a great deal of special training in weapon operation and ammunition handling. LoatesyJnr (talk) 02:16, 15 January 2024 (UTC)

BTW, British SP anti-tank guns all had 'A' names - Archer, Alecto, hence 'Achilles'.

Towed anti-tank guns became obsolete with the advent of the Infantry A/T Guided Weapons such as Vigilant and MILAN, preceded by Malkara.

Again, not strictly correct. Not all ATGM are 'infantry' weapons. Light and medium anti-tank missiles (eg Milan) are classed as infantry support weapons and issued to infantry regiments. Heavy anti-tank missiles such as Vigilante and TOW/Hellfire are issued to the RA (Vigilante) or Army Air Corps (TOW/Hellfire).Loates Jr (talk) 13:06, 14 April 2016 (UTC)Andy

Milligan memorably recalls the units' vain attempts to look smart for leave in Tunis, but reflected that they looked like "sacks of s**t tied up in the middle" - they had just spent months in the desert living in tents with limited supplies of food and water. They weren't going to look like parade ground 'lovelies' whatever their physical condition. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 95.150.11.216 (talk) 15:25, 9 April 2016 (UTC)