Waiting 20 seconds to load a round for an M18 isn’t gonna be as effective as just shooting them with APCBC that has 786 grams of effective explosives.
I dont know if its been mentioned in this thread so ill say it anyway. Before match starts or in test drive you can adjust the order and quantities of ammo, they have a drop down selection and you can swap them about. For the cost of 1, it really dont matter,. Would you want to get caught with your pants down with an empty gun. In real life it would be unprofessional but this is WT
I personally would not, as i have been sniped from spawn at start of match. And i zlso do not like players who used smoke at spawn
What do you mean by manual reload, would it work with auto loaders, it could affect BR’s
Drill Title: Conduct Main Gun Misfire Procedures on a M1 Series Tank - Crew: “Note: If the round fails to fire again, the loader moves the gun to the SAFE position, removes the round, and places the round in the ready ammunition compartment.”
So unloading is definitely a thing for the M1, as I imagine it would be for all tanks with a possibility of a misfire. (Probably doesn’t apply with two-part ammunition, likely have to ram it out from the barrel)
“In real life it might be stuck”–in real life you can blow a shift and trash your transmission, like any other mechanical failure there’s no need to include it.
We can imagine an “unload->load” action to be slightly less than 2x the load time, because the load time already has opening the breech and ejecting the empty baked in.
Pretty sure most tanks don’t. Due to hazard risks. Thought do believe some do have the option.
I think the burden is on you to prove that cannons with one-piece ammunition, capable of ejecting an empty shell under normal conditions, would not be able to do the same with an unfired one.
The hazards are the hazards–you still need someone inside to catch it when ramming from the barrel (gonna let a potentially hot round thunk down on the floor?) and hopping out of your tank to walk the dinosaur with your crew after (presumably) trying and failing to shoot at a hostile target is not where you want to be when staying inside is an option.
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I fail to see how that’s related to the topic.
Short version–any tank with one-piece ammo can eject shells, and therefore change ammo without firing it. Forgive me if you weren’t implying the opposite.
It wasn’t i was stating that not all tanks were capable of doing so and I doubt tanks in the past at least a certain quantity of them had this option.
and I doubt tanks in the past at least a certain quantity of them had this option
Yes, this is where you’re mistaken. Ejecting of empty shells is not optional for non-combustible cases. The mechanism which ejects empty shells is equally capable of ejecting unfired ones.
The capability to eject unfired shells is also not optional for ejecting misfired shells, which tanks in the past would certainly also experience and need to deal with.
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Provide sources. With images of WW2 era, early, mid, and late cold war era tanks that do such.
Let’s start with WW2, mmmmmmmkay?
Stuart, breech and ammo:
Note the falling block action and rimmed cartridge. The purpose of a rim on a cartridge is to provide a surface for the ejector to impact, and in some cases to headspace the cartridge. Headspacing is only necessary when the cartridge is relied on to seal the chamber; a falling block action does not rely on the cartridge to seal the chamber. The rim on the cartridge in this case is a surface for the ejector to impact.
See video of the cannon action here, with ejection of the empty occurring at 2:30. The M6 37mm on the Stuart features semi-automatic shell ejection. Said mechanism does not preclude manual operation of the mechanism. From Basic Field Manual, 37mm Gun, Tank, M6, pg. 56: “d. To unload.—The gun automatically ejects the empty case. To unload an unfired round, pull down on the operating handle.”
Sherman breech with labeled extractor and rimmed ammunition (bonus Panzer and Tiger) here:
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I probably could have just posted the field manual with the section on “instructions to unload the gun”.
We’ve got the Stuart and the Abrams. If you’d like to believe that tank cannon technology changed dramatically in between those two, only to end up back where it started, be my guest.
Perhaps next you’d like sOuRcEs AnD iMaGeS proving that, when a vehicle has a gas tank, it has a gas cap component that allows you to fill said tank with gas?
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I did read somewhere a long time ago that firing the “wrong round” was preferred because the engagement of the shell in the rifling might result in the shell separating from the case if ejected unfired - making a much, much bigger mess!!
Can’t find a reference for it now tho - perhaps someone else knows about it??
ETA: found it in regard to the Sheridan - also mentions M60 had no such problem - The Sheridan
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That’s a great source, reading it makes me chuckle uneasily with how much of a nightmare it sounded like. But yes definitely an exception to all the dynamics stated above, basically a two-part round for extraction purposes.
One more thing as I’ve said previously but I’ll rephrase it.
Not all tanks are made equally which means there’s a possibility that a certain quantity of tanks did not have the option to drop live rounds once fed into the breech.
By no means was i disagreeing i was simply stating that i have my doubts that all tanks could do said functionality. This would include armored cars with a cannon of some sort.
Not all tanks are made equally… a certain quantity of tanks did not have the option to drop live rounds once fed into the breech
Every tank will need an ability to clear misfires, which is exactly equivalent to unloading a live round, point finale. For two-part charges, you need to push them out from the muzzle. For one piece ammunition, the extractor does the job. For autocannons, you can generally just cycle the action (which also uses the extractor), but actually switching ammunition may require changing belts. For edge cases like the Sheridan things are messy, but there’s still a way they’re alleged to work (like how the Tiger was alleged to have a functional transmission). It ain’t some arcane subject you need to have doubts about.
Listen man. You came in a little over your skis (“Pretty sure most tanks don’t”). We’ve all done it. We gotta keep grinding this one out or can you just say “hmmmm, interesting, learned something today”?
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I fail to see why every tank would have one. But ok.
You are a tanker. You put a round in the gun. It misfires. What needs to happen next?