This is the fourth part of my review of The stress of battle: quantifying human performance in combat by David Rowland, which is an essential piece of Operational Research on WW2 and Cold War combat operations. Unlike small arms, the effectiveness of anti-armour weapons has changed considerably over the course of the mid-20th century. From non-specialist gunfire in WW1, to high velocity armour piercing in WW2 and then to Anti-Tank Guided Weapons in the Cold War period. This makes the operational research harder to do because the start point needs to be battles where only one kind of AT weapon is in action. Much of the analysis starts with the 'Snipe' action during the second battle of El Alamein in North Africa where data on each of the guns individually was available. 'heroic performance' plays a large factor in the effectiveness of anti-tank guns about a quarter of guns (at…
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