"Reminder to tank destroyer battery commanders
- Check your sight lines every day.
- Dial in on landmarks, especially on on off-road terrain.
- Have each gunner personally measure the range to landmarks in paces.
- Set up false guns 50-80 meters away or flanking real guns.
- Organize nighttime lighting (with flares) of a 500-800 meter long zone in front of the guns if enemy tanks appear.
- Conduct practice battles with your gunners and gun commanders.
- If you have time and the conditions are right, conduct subcaliber practice shoots against moving targets both at daytime and nighttime.
- If there are few enemy tanks, do not open fire with the entire battery. Remember the ratio: 1 gun per 3 tanks.
- Try to hit the tanks in the side, fire until it burns.
- Immediately issue bonuses for knocked out tanks.
- Nominate exceptional troops for government awards.
Commander of the 8th Independent Guards Anti-Tank Artillery Brigade, Guards Lieutenant Colonel Chevola"
Set up false guns 50-80 meters away or flanking real guns
ReplyDeleteI've never seen photos of these. Were they made of wood, like the "Quaker guns" US Civil War armies sometimes set up?
From what I gather [from East German Manuals] it is more or less exactly like that: wooden "mockups". And while I haven't ever been in an armored fighting vehicle during combat operations, I assume it would be hard to distinguish these from the real stuff. Especially if camouflaged/covered in a manner similar to the real guns.
DeleteThere's a very good example of them shown in the movie "38 Panfilov's Men". They are exactly that: wooden guns that are camouflaged poorly, not so poorly that they are an obvious decoy, but poorly enough that the enemy will see them.
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