History questions not worth their own thread

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An Austrian teacher I had back in the day didn't like Dollfuss, but was of the honest opinion that he was considerably better than what followed.
I would hope so.
Unless he meant Schuschnigg. Schuschnigg was was alright also.
 
So what's the deal with the Battle of Tolentino? The Muratians outnumbered the enemy over 2:1, caught them by surprise, captured their general, and still managed to lose the battle somehow.
 
With my current mental framework, I blame it on a high Austrian horse-to-man ration and their good defensive positions and preparations for the first day, with the addition of the weather, disheartening misinformation, and counter-surprise (minus the mobility) on the second day.

(I only read Wikipedia's account of the battle).
 
Are tank destroyers and motorized artillery of WW2 basically the same thing? I'm also seeing the term, self-propelled artillery.

Could someone clear this up for me? :)
 
Tank destroyers fire on a flat trajectory and are primarily anti-armor weapons. Motorized/self-propelled artillery fire on a arced trajectory over a much greater and are not necessarily anti-armor in purpose.

I don't think self-propelled artillery would do you much good if a King Tiger were a few hundred feet away. A tank destroyer, however, would have been quite handy.
 
There are four different vehicles that you could be considering:

Examples will be focused on the Western Front, I don't know about too many Soviet or Japanese vehicles.
Self-propelled howitzers (primarily intended for indirect fire, and often simply referred to as self-propelled artillery), notable ones being the Hummel, Wespe, Priest, and Sexton. There were many others of varying gun sizes, they tended to be relatively lightly armoured (using older tank chasis). Though even vehicles such as the katyusha would be in this category.

Assault guns on the other hand were primarily used in the direct fire role. These are likely what you are thinking of. The famous Sturmtiger and others such as the bruumbar were in this category. Armed with forward mounted, typically large caliber and short barreled gun with limited traverse. They were intended to provide close infantry support, especially in urban areas and to breach defensive positions.
The Western Allies typically used regular tanks in this role, though specialized variants were not uncommon, such as the Sherman 105, or the AVRE could fill this role).

Tanks destroyers also fall into two categories:

American doctrine tank destroyers were just lightly armoured tanks with powerful guns (i.e. M10 Wolverine, M18 Hellcat).

And, like you are probably referring to the German and Soviet [and one British] ones. Forward mounted gun on an armoured chassis, initially they were lightly armoured, later they were some of the most heavily armoured vehicles. Very similar to assault guns, they typically used longer guns, better for armour penetration than the large high-explosive rounds of the assault guns. The Marder, Hetzer, jagdpanther, and elephant epitomize this vehicle.

Now you may have noticed that I missed two of the most famour vehicles, the German Sturmgeschutz III and the Soviet ISU-152.
The StuG III was designed as an assault gun, but it proved to be an effective tank destroyer and was later (as of Ausf. F) outfitted with an longer gun, more effective against tanks. The StuG IV was primarily an anti-tank weapon.
The ISU-152 was designed and primarily used as a self-propelled howitzer, but also proved effective as an assault gun and tank destroyer (its shell was so powerful it didn't need to penetrate armour to get kills).
These show that yes they were versatile and in some cases a self-propelled gun could fill several roles.

Self-propelled artillery can refer to all of the above, or different segments. Typical use of the term, in my experience refers either to either to just howitzers or all of the above that are lacking turrets (except possibly if the howitzer is turret mounted).
 
Thanks, very very helpful. :clap:

I've been making a mod and I'm at the WW2 era doing lots of research, and this info helps a lot with stat distribution and what the roles will be.

The two main roles are self-propelled howitzers and light tank destroyers (can't do heavy without messing up game balance). ISU-152 is a howitzer/tank destroyer combo and StuG III is a assault gun.
 
The ISU-152 was very heavy with a 152mm (about 6 inch) gun-howitzer on a IS-2 chassis. This would be like a Tiger with a massive gun-howitzer.

And the StuG is probably one of your best options for a German tank destroyer, whether it is a III or IV isn't important. The vast majority were purpose-built as tank destroyer (with the 76mm/l48 gun), but when there were no tanks around they could always be used as assault guns.
 
I was intending to use the Jagdpanther for the tank destroyer role because I need the unit to come slightly later. That works, right? Maybe the StuG will be a combo role. :hmm:
 
Jagdpanther is perfect in the role of tank destroyer. But it was available June 1944, while the StuG IIIf with the 7.5cm L43 gun was available in march 1942.

So you could have the Jagdpanther as an upgrade of the StuG.
 
Yep, the Jagdpanther is a lot more heavily armoured with a far better gun. I assumed it would have been eliminated for being too heavy.

The StuG was armed with the same guns as the Panzer IV, and I believe upgraded at roughly the same time. It was definitely capable of being used as an assault gun (it kind of was its original purpose after all).

If you give me an overview of the mod, I could give you some help.
 
Not rly a history question but..

Are their any 100% ethnic native americans left?
 
What did Voltaire and Diderot write about the Three Estates in Enlightenment Era France?
 
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