Just because these sorts of threads tend to be surprisingly interesting (and sometimes just surprising).
Scenario is someone has been playing silly buggers with reality again and set up a competition, a modern military weapon has been sent back to face Second World War era weapons of the same type (so a tank faces tanks etc)
So how many equivalents would it take to defeat a modern weapon of the same type? Rules:
Any single modern weapon of your choice versus any combination of WW2 era weapons of the same type of your choice (You could use an M1A2 tank VS multiple T-34’s and Sherman’s etc, if they were on different sides in that era assume they’ll work together to defeat the modern tank)
All sides have a full complement of fuel, crew, weapons and similar training, but no reinforcements. Edited to add either no refueling or rearming, or if you think it would be more interesting this is allowed, otherwise the battle would end once the tank ran out of ammunition.
Combat takes place on flat level terrain (or equivalent for planes etc)
The WW2 era side wins only when the modern era unit is destroyed and the modern unit has to destroy as many of the opposition as possible.
Its a fight to the death, the modern tank/aircraft/ship can’t just leave the battle area.
I’d be interested to know if the main gun on a Sherman could even scratch a Abrams. As I understand it they had a hard time hurting the German tanks of their day and had to hit for a specific spot to have any chance of penetrating the armor.
In fact I’ve heard stories that the Abrams themselves had a hard time penetrating another Abrams. As I heard it one got stuck in the sand in Iraq and eventually they decided to scuttle it but were unable to.
Perhaps it would come down to simply ramming the modern tank?
btw for the purposes this thread I forgot to add that of course part of the competition is for the WW2 era side to use the minimum number of units to defeat the modern version, otherwise it would be simple to just overwhelm them with numbers.
On flat level terrain (or its air/navy equivalents), the combination of better detection, faster speed and longer practical weapon range of modern tanks/fighters/ships/sub might mean that there would be no practical limit, short of some dumb mistake/hubris/fluke or running out of fuel/ammo.
A modern tank could hang out 3-4km away and just kite the WWII tanks, more so if the gun could also launch missiles.
A modern ship, especially if it had a spotter drone/helicopter, could remain below the horizon and keep lobbing anti-ship or cruise missiles from 100-1000km away. It could move away when enemy ships tried to close in.
A modern fighter could hang out at 15km altitude, 100km away and keep shooting missiles. If enemy fighters ever got some idea of where it was, it could relocate easily.
A modern submarine would likely be able to detect and engage a WWII submarine at least one order of magnitude farther than the enemy could do it back. Again, if the WWII submarines ever got a little too close, the modern submarine could easily outrun them.
On flat open terrain, the typical WWII infantryman might actually have an advantage over the typical modern infantryman because WWII infantry tended to use .30-ish bolt action rifles whereas modern infantry use 5mm-ish assault rifles.
Now, if we take away the flat level terrain and replace it with specific, more likely examples, it gets interesting.
Taking the tank as an example though, it would only be able to engage one target and move in one direction at a time, if there were enough opponents they could out-flank it or circle around behind surely?
I did consider this and was going to add that both sides had to advance on the other but I thought that was a little too unrealistic (in a totally realistic serious thread).
Feel free to use an example of more interesting terrain, I for one would like to read it.
On a sidenote I do remember seeing a comparison showing that a modern fighter aircraft is significently larger and can carry a heavier bomb-load than a WW2 era heavy bomber.
In pretty much every fight I think it’s gonna be the equivalent of a Marine Corps Scout Sniper vs a bunch of guys with flintlock pistols, the accuracy and range of modern weapons would be far beyond anything WWII tech could counter. The only limiting factor would be rate of fire if the WWII vehicles decided to just go kamikaze.
Modern naval vessels have less armor than their WWII counterparts. If the WWII ships get into gun range, the modern vessels are toast because WWII surface combatants can put shit-tons of shells onto target and rip a modern frigate or cruiser to shreds. However, so long as the modern vessels have missiles the WWII ships can’t get anywhere near gun range.
I believe the answer to most of these scenarios (except the infantry one) is that the modern unit can kill as many WWII targets as it has ammo for, and then it will lose once it’s out of fuel and can’t stay out of range anymore.
1 US Attack sub vs every submarine from every fleet in WW2. Not even close. The attack sub will meet the “Win” conditions when it runs out of torps. The WW2 subs might not even know they are being attacked until they blow up.
Absolutely. The standard USN sub torpedo now 21" Mk.48 has a 290kg warhead. The 24" Japanese Type 93 cruiser/destroyer launched torpedo of WWII had a 490kg warhead. The warhead on the small caliber Type 91 Mod 7 air dropped torpedo was even larger, 526kg. The Mk.48 uses more powerful explosive and an influence fuse to detonate below the hull of a surface target further enhancing the destructive power. The Type 93 like most WWII torpedoes used a contact fuse and had to hit the side of a ship. The Type 91 Mod 7 however was fitted with a kind of Rube Goldberg non contact fuse, but which actually seems to have worked in some cases. Torpedoes with this device would be set to run deeply, but trail a kite-like device above to snag the ship and trigger the warhead. At least some of very damaging hits on the US cruisers Houston and Canberra off Taiwan in October 1944 seem to have been caused by these weapons.
Anyway the general point is that there’s an overlap in destructive power between torpedoes now considered potentially lethal to carriers (though not necessarily with just a single hit) and the most powerful ones in WWII.
But combat fairly seldom takes place on flat level terrain.
In most practical situations of WWII, the modern organic equipment of infantry forces would give them a distinct but not overwhelming advantage, maybe 2:1 or less as a guess. And various WWII fighting forces were that much superior to others man for man when using the same technology. What it leaves out is the ‘connectivity’ of the modern force to more effectively marshal resources like artillery and air, assuming the old fashioned force has no way to jam to their communications or stop their a/c.
And artillery itself was wholly left out but tended to dominate WWII land combat except in terrain especially suitable for armor, when it was still important. A modern infantry force would still suffer heavily from WWII artillery effectively directed by WWII means, unless its own artillery and related intelligence, surveillance and recon capabilities quickly enough suppressed the old fashioned artillery. Again realistically if it were in compartmented terrain where the defense had time to prepare, the old fashioned artillery would be well dug in and protected and not easy to suppress even once located.
For the cases of tanks in open terrain (which is the place tank v tank ability tends to be important) or a/c v a/c, the ability of the modern examples to stand off beyond the range of the old fashioned ones means the ratio could be almost infinite if you assume the tactical situation would always allow it. Again in a more realistic cross section of cases WWII tanks could mission kill modern ones with HE hits to their running gear, which would be quite feasible at typical European WWII combat ranges, which were seldom in excess of a 1000m. US M4 tanks had next to no ability to penetrate the front or even side armor of German Tiger II tanks either, but the German tanks couldn’t wrack up infinite success. Sooner or later they were immobilized with tank or artillery HE fire (or a/c bombs or napalm), bogged or broke down themselves, or were cut off from fuel resupply and ran out of gas.
I know, its a completely unrealistic scenario but I was just trying to get a discussion started on the relative combat power of individual units rather than combined-arms and the other aspects that make up a modern army.
I had the idle thought of how many second world war era tanks would it take to kill a modern tank, 1 to 1, certainly not, 10 to 1? 100 to 1?
But thanks to you and everyone else for your answers.
The Zero was a virtually all aluminum a/c. The Mosquito (among other WWII a/c) was mainly made of wood and did have a lower radar cross section than metal a/c its size. But it wouldn’t be not enough to make a difference at ranges where a modern fighter would be still be far out of reach of any WWII a/c’s weapons.
As mentioned, the unshielded exhausts of WWII era piston engines are excellent targets for even the most primitive IR missiles. This was clearly shown by the effectiveness of Soviet Strela (Sa-7) type missiles against RVNAF piston engine A-1 Skyraiders in the last years of the Vietnam War.
Looking up the top road speed for a Sherman on wikipedia it’s 48Km/hour. That means about 3.125 minutes to travel 2500 meters. In that time one of the later M1 variants equipped with a CITV (Commander’s Independent Thermal Viewer) and a good, although not exceptional loader, should be able to empty it’s ready rack with high probability of hit on each shot since the target is continuously exposed and driving straight line at them.
If they were trying to evade on the way in, it would slow engagements some as the gunner had to make sure he dumped lead, took up a steady track, and re-lased when his target changed direction. Of course it would also slow the bum rushing tanks since they turn by applying brakes to one side and they would be traveling a greater distance as they zig-zagged in.
Technically the Abrams isn’t “out” of ammo when the ready rack is emptied but it takes quite a bit of time to transfer additional rounds from hull and semi-ready storage. If one of the turret crew forgot to keep the right sized allen wrench inside the turret the semi-ready rack gets even more problematic since you aren’t getting into it without climbing out of the tank. Effectively the tank would be out of ammo by the OP standards unless we built in a timeout for transfer.
Oh and the the M1A2 SEP with higher magnification available on the primary site should be able to start engaging well before that 2500 meter mark. Other 120mm variants could engage beyond that but gunner skill becomes a bigger deal to maintain high probability of hit when the target is tiny compared to the aiming reticle.
And nothing says the Abrams couldn’t start backing while engaging to lengthen the possible engagement time before they were swarmed. Of course there’s also the option, if something goes wrong like a misfire to slow engagements, of just turning and running away MUCH faster than almost every tank from World War II. Engaging over the back deck limits main gun depression but if the gun can bear the Abrams could still engage accurately while moving. With a decent TC the threats mostly can’t get to effective stationary engagement ranges (let alone moving engagements) to even find out how well armored the Abrams is.
The novella The Fireflies of Port Stanley posits three WW2 Firefly tanks seeing off the Argentine invasion of 1982 by sinking the assault craft and their mother ship.
If the Sherman was able to get a good hide position and allow the Abrams to pass a shot in the ass would take out the engine. The crew would be fine but it would turn into a pillbox.
Other 120mm variants could engage beyond that but gunner skill becomes a bigger deal to maintain high probability of hit when the target is tiny compared to the aiming reticle.