Alternative light and anti-tank guns, 1935-45

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Well, they need to increase the caliber - as I mentioned above.
tomo pauk said:
There was nothing stopping the Soviets to have the F22 outfitted with single-man elevation and azimuth controls, making it very effective in the AT role for the 1st 2 years of the Great patriotic war.
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It was a divisional gun initially, however it was used as ATG just due to the circumstances. The AT functionality was not of the highest priority for this gun.
tomo pauk said:
Germans making their 75mm to be of modern layout (split carriage, appropriate sights & controls, hopefully the muzzle brake)
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The muzzle break is a serious disadvantage for an ATG.
tomo pauk said:
paired with suitable ammo would've also relieve some of the pressure to have the improved AT guns. Basically a gun no worse than the pak 97/38, but at least 5 years earlier.
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The Germans had to solve the problem of the recoil devices. Otherwise the use of this ATG despite of it characteristics was not so efficient (especially if the Soviets were better trained). I double, they were able even to recognize the importance of this problem before the beginning of the Operation Barbarossa.
tomo pauk said:
Yes, the Soviet 57mm ATG was something else. It will still require the tungsten to be available in order to kill the heaviest tanks, and tungsten was not something that Germans had in boatloads.
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Only a small part of the ZIS-2 projectiles had a tungsten carbide core, most were of the traditional type.
tomo pauk said:
APCRs always provided the higher armor penetration than the traditional AP ammo, not just at the time.
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"At the time" means "there was no any alternative with a better penetration".
APCR ammo significantly improved the situation for 76-mm divisional artillery. The problem was in the availability of APCR ammo. The production numbers were absolutely insufficient.
The Soviets tried to avoid the duel situations with enemy tanks (but not very successfully). The main weapon used to destroy enemy tanks should be AT artillery according to the Soviet FMs. No improvements in guns would help the Soviets without radical improvements in projectile design which required much more technological efforts.
 
Shortround6 said:
The huge difference was that the APCR shot offered higher performance (armor penetration) and relatively short ranges.
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APCR provided either a higher penetration at the same range or a longer distance for the given penetration for all calibers.
Shortround6 said:
This is some what caliber dependent. The larger the caliber the longer the distance the APCR shot has an advantage over normal shot.
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Even for the smallest calibers.
Shortround6 said:
For the German 37mm the crossover point was around 400 meters, ie, at over 400meters the normal full bore shot penetrated more armor.
For the Soviet 45mm M1942 the distance was close to 900 meters (depends on slope and source).
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The use term "distance" without providing the value of the corresponded armor thickness is senseless here.
Shortround6 said:
The 75/76mm guns had cross over points in excess of 1000 meters and were running into other problems, like greater dispersion.
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Could you please illustrate it with numbers?
Shortround6 said:
If you only have 2-4 "super" rounds in the rack and they are less accurate do you fire them at long range try to destroy the enemy at a distance or do you hold fire for a better chance of hit?
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The use of 57-mm APCR was prohibited if the distance exceeded 1000m. At this distance even if you hit Tiger of Panther with traditional projectile you can just scratch it.
 
bf109xxl said:
APCR provided either a higher penetration at the same range or a longer distance for the given penetration for all calibers.
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bf109xxl said:
Even for the smallest calibers.
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See.

Armor Penetration Table

Penetration data of German tank and anti-tank guns of the Second World War.
panzerworld.com

At close range the APCR offers a huge advantage.
Depending on the size of the gun (caliber/diameter) the advantage disappears with distance.
I was in error, for the 37mm the advantage disappears at just over 500 meters, not 400.
At 100 meters these tables (others may differ) show the APCR defeating 64mm of armor compared to 34mm for the standard shot. At 500 meters the difference is 31mm for the APCR to 29mm for the standard shot. What do you think happens at longer ranges?

The 50mm L42 gun crosses over at somewhere between 800 and 1000meters after having a 96mm to 54mm advantage at 100meters.
The 50mm L60 gun crosses over at under 1000 meters after having a 130mm to 69mm advantage at 100 meters.

You can look for yourself at the larger guns for the longer crossover ranges.

As Tomo has said, APDS goes the other way. The big difference at close range just gets even bigger at long range. Both projectiles penetrate less at long range but the percentage difference gets bigger at long range.

As for the 37mm vs big tanks. even at 400meters it was "rated" for 38mm of penetration at 30 degrees from vertical. That assumes a direct hit in the horizontal plane. Also assumes the tank is exactly at the same height and is not tilted (which can help or hurt). If you are plinking away at T-34s from the side you had better be darn close. Note that if you are shooting at the side of the Soviet tanks there is a good chance they have overrun/bypassed you position. If the Soviets return fire with the 76mm guns at under 400 meters it will not be pretty.
 
I finally managed to locate it by name, namely the 7.5 cm Leichtgeschütz 40.
Very light, fires standard explosive and AT shells in modified cartridge. And relatively early developed and used. Could the "minor" durability problem have been solved?
In fact, it would almost fit for "German artillery what-if: going all-in with gun-howitzers past 1935"
 
Shortround6 said:
See.
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Thanx, I have the ballistic tables.
Shortround6 said:
At close range the APCR offers a huge advantage.
Depending on the size of the gun (caliber/diameter) the advantage disappears with distance.
I was in error, for the 37mm the advantage disappears at just over 500 meters, not 400.
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It means, you can damage or destroy enemy tank from ~200 m with APCR and from ~100m with conventional AP projectile.
Shortround6 said:
At 100 meters these tables (others may differ) show the APCR defeating 64mm of armor compared to 34mm for the standard shot. At 500 meters the difference is 31mm for the APCR to 29mm for the standard shot. What do you think happens at longer ranges?
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Nobody cares what happened at longer ranges. If anyone tries it, he is his own enemy.
Why? Who's concerned?
Shortround6 said:
As Tomo has said, APDS goes the other way. The big difference at close range just gets even bigger at long range. Both projectiles penetrate less at long range but the percentage difference gets bigger at long range.
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We are discussing the technology available at the time, not generally the merits of certain projectiles.
Only a suicidal person or a complete idiot would fire armor-piercing projectiles at a moving heavily armored target (tank, assault self-propelled gun) from a distance greater than the direct fire range. At this range, APCR armor penetration usually is higher. Firing tables give armor penetration calculated by a formula with some adjusted coefficients. How close these values were to the real ones is not quite clear.
Nobody is interested in the armor penetration of a 45-mm gun with a solid armor-piercing projectile at 900m - nobody will fire at tanks from this distance, only at unarmored targets or infantry. Only the range of effective fire is important - the distance from which the probability of hitting the enemy becomes non-zero. And it was even less than the direct fire range. It was often the line between life and death for an artillery crew. APCR allowed to gain a couple of hundred meters (for 45-mm) - it was enough to dramatically increase the effectiveness of the weapon, but it required iron stamina and a very competent choice of position for hitting the side projection.
The Soviet firing tables for the 45-mm specified an upper range limit for the APCR of 500m, but this did not mean that beyond that the armor penetration became zero. This was necessary to motivate the crews to spare limited ammunition and not to fire at long range. For the 57mm, the range limit was 1000m, and in both cases the dispersion did not exceed that of conventional armor-piercing projectiles. No one is interested at what distance the velocities of the projectiles or their armor penetration are equal. Only the range of effective fire is important. It determines the combat distance.

It increasingly seems to me that the Soviets came very close to the optimum in their choice of gun parameters, and all alternatives were less effective. The 45/57/76 system for anti-tank and divisional artillery was very effective as long as the quality of the shells was assured. The 45 and 57mm were anti-tank while retaining some effectiveness against infantry, and the 76mm was a versatile divisional gun that provided sufficient effectiveness against tanks. In the course of the war, it may have been worth adding just the 85mm to the anti-tank guns. On the other hand, the 100mm BS-3 anti-tank gun was versatile enough to be used as a corps level gun. A rare case of competence of the Soviet military leadership.
 
bf109xxl said:
Well, they need to increase the caliber - as I mentioned above.
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They certainly needed the increase in the caliber, as I've also mentioned it above.

bf109xxl said:
It was a divisional gun initially, however it was used as ATG just due to the circumstances. The AT functionality was not of the highest priority for this gun.
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This is a topic about the alternative AT (and infantry) guns. So the better suitability of the F22 to do the tank busting fits like a glove here.

bf109xxl said:
The muzzle break is a serious disadvantage for an ATG.
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Remove the muzzle brake from the Pak 40, 17 pdr, pak 36(r), or the Pak 43 and see how well that goes.


Are you referring to the F22 or the Pk 97/38?

bf109xxl said:
Only a small part of the ZIS-2 projectiles had a tungsten carbide core, most were of the traditional type.
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That is only to be expected.

bf109xxl said:
"At the time" means "there was no any alternative with a better penetration".
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The AT gun designed around the 76mm AA ammo would've solved a lot of problems of 1942-43. Too bad that the tank gun of the same power, a.k.a. the S-54 (1154 m/s with the APCR shot of 3.3 kg), was not followed up. Or that there was no SU-152 armed with 122mm cannon, or even with the 107 mm instead of the 152mm howitzer. The 57mm AT gun was at the top of the game, but the production was discontinued right when it was most needed.
Soviets have had some excellent guns in service by 1941, having them being installed in tanks and AFVs was lacking until the late 1943.


In a war, the enemy also has the say. The towed artillery is ill able to save the tanks that have pierced the enemy line and are now 20-30-50 km away from the own artillery, and are a subject to the enemy counter-attack.
Having the more potent guns on the tanks would've definitely helped the Soviets in 1942-43. Having a more potent divisional and AT artillery would've also helped to deal with enemy armored breakthroughs.
 
tomo pauk said:
This is a topic about the alternative AT (and infantry) guns. So the better suitability of the F22 to do the tank busting fits like a glove here.
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The Germans modernized it and used their ammunition to make it anti-tank. 7,62 cm Pak 36 (r) had no muzzle break, was rechambered and - tada! - the Germans placed sights and elevation controls on the same side of the barrel. In the USSR this gun had neither suitable sight nor suitable AP ammo. Its AT functionality was rather rudimentary.
tomo pauk said:
Remove the muzzle brake from the Pak 40, 17 pdr, pak 36(r), or the Pak 43 and see how well that goes.
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Certainly it will not improve performance. But that is the art of designing adequate recoil mechanisms to eliminate demasking factors. For the ZIS-3 as an anti-tank gun, the muzzle brake was considered a great disadvantage.
tomo pauk said:
Are you referring to the F22 or the Pk 97/38?
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Pak 40
tomo pauk said:
That is only to be expected.
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So, the Germans would not have had a problem with shells due to a shortage of tungsten.
The Soviets had a limit to the development rate of military technology. They could not become rich and healthy at once when they had been poor and sick all their lives. They lacked the qualified manpower and production capacity to organize the production of new guns. And in 1941-1943 many different systems were being tested on tanks, including the 107mm. 85mm ZIS-S-53 was quite adequate, better ammunition was required. T-34 armor was inadequate. The guns were ok, the quality of projectiles was insufficient.
tomo pauk said:
In a war, the enemy also has the say. The towed artillery is ill able to save the tanks that have pierced the enemy line and are now 20-30-50 km away from the own artillery, and are a subject to the enemy counter-attack.
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Under such conditions, tanks rarely encounter prepared anti-tank defenses. They operate in the rear on communications and do not suffer serious losses from anti-tank artillery. When the enemy organizes the AT defense line both artillery and infantry should already approach the breaching tank units. Soviet tanks suffered their major losses from German artillery when breaking the fortified lines (what should be done by infantry with artillery support), not from German tanks. At Prokhorovka there was no grand battle between tanks, the majority of tanks of the two tank corps of the Soviet 5th Tank Army were destroyed by German artillery on fortified positions.
tomo pauk said:
Having the more potent guns on the tanks would've definitely helped the Soviets in 1942-43. Having a more potent divisional and AT artillery would've also helped to deal with enemy armored breakthroughs.
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Having the better quality projectiles for the available guns would've definitely helped the Soviets even more.
 
tomo pauk said:
Remove the muzzle brake from the Pak 40, 17 pdr, pak 36(r), or the Pak 43 and see how well that goes.
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The muzzle brakes kick up a lot more dust-dirt-debris than non muzzle brake guns making them easier to spot.
That said you need a heavier gun/carriage to cut the recoil down to manageable levels and that makes the gun harder to move.
So yes, if you are concerned with weight you have choice of more effective gun that is easier to spot or less effective gun that is harder to spot.
 
At Bastogne, the M1 pack howitzers equipped 463th Parachute Artillery Battalion is reported with a surprisingly good performance against Panzer IV from the .15 Panzergrenadier.
 
Things changed a lot in less than 10 years and considering the time it took to get factories tooled up and large numbers of guns into the hands of the troops armies were often a bit behind. However it is supposed to be the job of the general staff to predict the future and order the next generation weapons ahead of the enemy.

We constantly run into the "best is the enemy of good" and often even "good" is sacrificed to the gods of what can you actually make at the time.

In the tank-antitank world the tanks also took enormous jumps in just a few years.
The US was really not paying attention as they didn't even start design work on the 37mm until 1937, relying on the .50 machinegun to handle the "light" tanks of the time. That might have worked if you enemy limited their tanks to 8-12mm of armor.
What the US wound up with was slightly warmed up Pak 36 ( which actually dated to late 20s) which might have been good enough in 1939/early 40 but the US didn't go to war (land forces) until Dec 1941 against the Japanese and late 1942 against the Germans. 37mm gun against 50mm German tanks did work well.
American fall back position was to use French 75 guns (new carriages) with AP shot in some tank destroyers and as the main gun in the 30 ton tanks.

Soviet T-34 armor was rather good.........................in 1941. Not so good in 1943.
And now we get into different theories of armor protection, which didn't get resolved until the 1970s/80s. Getting powerful enough engines to allowed for good protection and a good gun and good mobility all at the same time. Most of the time getting 2 out of 3 was doing good.

AT guns also mostly overlook fire control much more than tanks.
Most AT guns had some sort of telescope. Army doctrine often had a lot to do with what was fitted and the expected ranges of engagement.
But the scopes/mounts and doctrine had a lot more to do with effective ranges than the actual capabilities of the guns/ammo.

Point blank range is generally defined being able to hit the target without pointing the barrel higher than the target and having the projectile curve downwards.
Things used to get a bit more complicated than that with rifle fire against infantry as we have to take target size into account. If all we want to do is get a hit somewhere on the target (man) between the top of the head and the foot we may be able to set a gun up to have a rather long "point blank" range. A .45 automatic has a 'danger space' of 300yds if fired from ground level. Bullet will rise to around 125-150yd to 6 feet and then fall back to ground level at 300yds. This is just to illustrate the Principle. If you do the same thing with a .50 cal round from the 1930s (2500fps) you have an 800yd danger space were the bullet will not exceed a 6 height. This takes about 1.2 seconds of flight.

Long winded but getting there. Most guns have a point blank range about equal (rule of thumb) to their MV +10% Some this depends a bit on the shape of the projectile (or weight vs frontal area). That is ballistics.
Now wither the sight system allows you do that or the doctrine is a question. Extending the range further really requires looking at the sight system and the gun mounts and training/doctrine.
 

Soviets have had direct sights in production for their AT guns, so having them installed on the F22 and similar guns was trivial. Germans list the normal-powered AP ammo for the F22, as well as the high powered type in their catalogue of captured hardware.
Muzzle brake was a feature of the pak 36(r). See here, standing with the ammo for both that gun and the F22 (ammo of the same characteristics being used on the vast majority of the Soviet guns of ww2), with the F22 in the middle.

bf109xxl said:
Certainly it will not improve performance. But that is the art of designing adequate recoil mechanisms to eliminate demasking factors. For the ZIS-3 as an anti-tank gun, the muzzle brake was considered a great disadvantage.
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ZiS-3 was what it was partially because it had a muzzle brake, since that meant that the lighter and cheaper recoil system can be used, as well as the lighter and cheaper carriage.

bf109xxl said:
Pak 40
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?? As per you:
Otherwise the use of this ATG despite of it characteristics was not so efficient (especially if the Soviets were better trained).

bf109xxl said:
So, the Germans would not have had a problem with shells due to a shortage of tungsten.
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??


A bigger gun that is OK, but lacks the hi-tech AP shot is still a better thing than a smaller gun that also lacks the hi-tech AP shot.
Soviets out-produced the Germans in artillery pieces by perhaps 3:1, between 1940 and 1943?


Seems that there was a total of 900 tanks and self-propelled guns involved, with Soviets outnumbering the Germans by 2:1. So perhaps not as massive as that battle of two years earlier, but still a big battle, with Soviets paying an immense price.
Germans were far better in forming the ad-hoc tank defenses, that included any tank, Stug or a towed gun they could've mustered, as well as the infantry units..
 
Frog said:
At Bastogne, the M1 pack howitzers equipped 463th Parachute Artillery Battalion is reported with a surprisingly good performance against Panzer IV from the .15 Panzergrenadier.
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The pack howitzers may have had HEAT shells and since the US was bit late getting into the HEAT game they were able to avoid some of the goofs made in 1940-41 and come up with a shell that penetrated 3.5 inches.
Also a 75mm HE round with just under 1 1/2 lbs of TNT fired into the tracks tends to immobilize the tank fairly quickly.

We also have to consider the terrain around Bastogne. In heavy woods a short effective range gun (around 300meters) works fairly well. If you can see 750-1250meters things get a lot harder for the AT guns, Most tanks (British in 1940-43) could start shooting back with HE against the AT guns.
In 1940-41 in France and the desert (or areas in Russia at the beginning) the small guns with low firing signature sometimes were able to stay hidden despite firing fairly large number of shells, helped by crappy vision from closed down tanks.
 
It is also to be noted that the 463rd, was a veteran unit with Sicily, Italy and Southern France experience. It was not even a 101st Airborne unit as it was earmarked for the 17th Airborne before being '' borrowed '' by the 101st
 
tomo pauk said:
Soviets have had direct sights in production for their AT guns, so having them installed on the F22 and similar guns was trivial.
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It was not trivial as F-22s were not equipped with it.
tomo pauk said:
Muzzle brake was a feature of the pak 36(r). See here, standing with the ammo for both that gun and the F22 (ammo of the same characteristics being used on the vast majority of the Soviet guns of ww2), with the F22 in the middle.
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tomo pauk said:
ZiS-3 was what it was partially because it had a muzzle brake, since that meant that the lighter and cheaper recoil system can be used, as well as the lighter and cheaper carriage.
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ZiS-3 was a divisional gun, the use of ZiS-3 as ATG was raher forced.
tomo pauk said:
?? As per you:
Otherwise the use of this ATG despite of it characteristics was not so efficient (especially if the Soviets were better trained).
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Pak 40 was efficient only due to the insufficient tactical training of Soviet tankers.
tomo pauk said:
??
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We discussed suitability of the ZiS-2 for the Germans. I mentioned, that it was possibly an ideal ATG for Wehrmacht.
tomo pauk said:
A bigger gun that is OK, but lacks the hi-tech AP shot is still a better thing than a smaller gun that also lacks the hi-tech AP shot.
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A bigger gun requires more resources, new equipment and sometimes new technology. The Soviets were not able to start mass production of 85mm guns prior 1943. But they were able to start mass production of "high-tech AP shots" already in 1943. This has had some positive effect. And I see no reason to believe that they should necessarily increase the caliber rather than throw all their efforts into improving the shells.
tomo pauk said:
Soviets out-produced the Germans in artillery pieces by perhaps 3:1, between 1940 and 1943?
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...but the Germans managed to fire a lot more shells!
tomo pauk said:
Seems that there was a total of 900 tanks and self-propelled guns involved, with Soviets outnumbering the Germans by 2:1. So perhaps not as massive as that battle of two years earlier, but still a big battle, with Soviets paying an immense price.
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Two years earlier, the Soviets had lost mostly "cardboard" T-26s, BTs and T-35s. And those were often due to technical failures during long, pointless marches (if we are talking about the events in the Dubno-Brody area in Ukraine). And here almost an entire tank army was senselessly lost.
tomo pauk said:
Germans were far better in forming the ad-hoc tank defenses, that included any tank, Stug or a towed gun they could've mustered, as well as the infantry units..
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The backbone of the German anti-tank defense was artillery. And it was this artillery that mostly knocked out the Soviet tanks. The Germans' use of tanks as anti-tank weapons was also forced.
 
tomo pauk said:
Muzzle brake was a feature of the pak 36(r). See here, standing with the ammo for both that gun and the F22 (ammo of the same characteristics being used on the vast majority of the Soviet guns of ww2), with the F22 in the middle.
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The muzzle brake was fitted to the rechambered guns. It is possible that the Germans had less fear of demasking because of the poor visibility from the Soviet tanks.
 
bf109xxl said:
It was not trivial as F-22s were not equipped with it.
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IMO, a matter of doctrine, not a matter of feasibility, as seen with the German conversion.
Any actual German photos of the pak 36(r) without a muzzle brake?

bf109xxl said:
Pak 40 was efficient only due to the insufficient tactical training of Soviet tankers.
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Source?

bf109xxl said:
We discussed suitability of the ZiS-2 for the Germans. I mentioned, that it was possibly an ideal ATG for Wehrmacht.
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Provided they have tungsten, yes, it was. Otherwise, it will struggle with the KVs and ISs.


So it is strongly advised for the Germans to increase the caliber in order to deal with the ever better protected tanks, but not for the Soviets? Right.

bf109xxl said:
The muzzle brake was fitted to the rechambered guns. It is possible that the Germans had less fear of demasking because of the poor visibility from the Soviet tanks.
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Pak 36(r) was a rechambered F22.
It is possible that Germans played it safe, since firing the 2.7 kg of propellant is a much different game in a gun that was initially rated for 1-1.5 kg of propellant.
 
tomo pauk said:
IMO, a matter of doctrine, not a matter of feasibility, as seen with the German conversion.
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The Soviets already had better guns - any improvements to the F-22 were more difficult and costly under the circumstances than producing relatively cheap and simple new guns.
tomo pauk said:
Any actual German photos of the pak 36(r) without a muzzle brake?
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tomo pauk said:
Source?
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For what? Pak 40 had problem with mobility: you need a tractor to move it after several shots. You will find it in any source on this gun. If Soviet tankers had been better trained, they would have known this flaw and exploited it. Even the large horizontal aiming angle of this gun wouldn't help. Maybe someone knew and used it, but I think not many.
tomo pauk said:
Provided they have tungsten, yes, it was. Otherwise, it will struggle with the KVs and ISs.
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Tungsten was not necessary. The characteristics were sufficient to knockout KVs and ISs.
tomo pauk said:
So it is strongly advised for the Germans to increase the caliber in order to deal with the ever better protected tanks, but not for the Soviets? Right.
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Approximately. "Increase caliber" means the use of 57mm instead of 50. 75mm was quite enough, but the charge could be reduced to increase the mobility on the battlefield.
tomo pauk said:
Pak 36(r) was a rechambered F22.
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Not all the captured F-22 were rechambered, however they get a new designation as well.
 
Given the shortage of tungsten, was there any consideration of using steel penetrators in APCR style shells? Something like that could have provided better penetration than the "standard" APCBC?
 
bf109xxl said:
The Soviets already had better guns - any improvements to the F-22 were more difficult and costly under the circumstances than producing relatively cheap and simple new guns.
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Another way of saying that Soviets went for quantity as the priority no.1.

bf109xxl said:
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Ah, yes.
Post the pic of the museum piece, taken decades after the fact, and pretend that it proves your point.


Nobody said that pak 40 was perfect. But even imperfect it took a toll on the Soviet tanks, and that was in good part due to the actual ability of the gun to do it's job. The Soviet way of using of the tanks helped with the kill score.

bf109xxl said:
Tungsten was not necessary. The characteristics were sufficient to knockout KVs and ISs.
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Same as with the 5cm pak taking against the T-34 and with PzGr.39 - provided the enemy makes mistakes, like exposing the weaker sides on the short ranges, and that hit is perfect (ie. shot does not hit anything before the actual armor, like the headlight, tools, spare tracks etc.).

bf109xxl said:
Approximately. "Increase caliber" means the use of 57mm instead of 50. 75mm was quite enough, but the charge could be reduced to increase the mobility on the battlefield.
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In my book, 'increase of caliber' means that Germans move to the 50/52mm by the time French and Czechs were moving on 47mm, as well as that German 75mm guns (like the 75 n.A., or the FK 38) are anti-tank-capable ASAP, with AP abilities no worse than the French 75 by 1939.

bf109xxl said:
Not all the captured F-22 were rechambered, however they get a new designation as well.
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I know that not all the F22s were rechambered. These that were, were called pak 36(r).
These that were not, were still called FK 36(r) - if we believe Wikipedia - or the FK 296(r).
 
There are some rules of thumb that can be applied to armor penetration.
Rules of Thumb, not carved in stone.
They also hit limits at the extreme which was another reason for Tungsten Carbide.

Some of the this is from memory (a bit faulty)
at the same velocity a larger projectile will have more penetration than a smaller one. More weight per unit of frontal area.
Flaw here is that some calibers have a rather wide range of projectile weights. Heavier shot for size penetrates more.
Penetration goes up with the square of the speed. 10% more veleocity means 21% more penetration in theory.
Here is where projectile construction comes in.
Germans added about 22% to the velocity of the 50mm and got 28% more penetration. The heat treatment and construction has got be be correct for the impact velocities.
There are rules of thumb about when you need to go to a piercing cap instead of plain steel but that also depends on the manufactures ability to vary/taper the heat treatment (hardening) of the point on the nose/forward body of the projectile. Germans may have been exceeding the limits of the projectile a bit and having it break up. At longer ranges the L60 gun shows a bit better performance, around 33-36%.

Now if you over match the armor enough (penetration exceeds thickness) it doesn't matter if the projectile breaks up on impact, it simply punches a hole right through the armor. At longer ranges with a lower velocity impact the round doesn't breakup/shatter and the the heat treatment works the way it is supposed to until at really long range the impact veleocity has fallen to a point where the projectile does not have the energy needed to successful penetrate all the way.
One reason for ballistic caps. Pointy sheet metal cap allows for higher impact velocity for the same muzzle velocity, but at higher manufacturing cost.

Somewhere around 3000fps they hit the limit for steel shot even with a piercing cap. This is impact velocity and not muzzle velocity. The tungsten alloy would hold together and penetrate at high velocity. Except that Tungsten is about 2.6 times as heavy as steel and you can't make a projectile out of Tungsten alloy and fire it at a useful velocity. Thus the sub caliber projectile or APCR, which is a bit different from the Armour-piercing, composite non-rigid used in the taper bore German guns.

The French were fooling around with a discarding sabot round in the very late 30s and may have put some into service in 1940 but this was to improve their somewhat low velocity 37mm ( or 47mm?) tank guns and may not have needed Tungsten.

The British had the Little John and somebody figured out that they could leave the smooth bore adaptor off the end of the muzzle and it went through abut the same amount of armor at close range and had the benefit of not having to have 1 or 2 of the crew climb out of the vehicle (armored car) under fire to unscrew the device before they could fire an HE round. They were fooling around with a 6pdr APCR shot in 1943 when they figured out that if the arranged for the sabot to just fall off as it exited the muzzle the carbide core could fly to the target (with a lot more weight per unit of frontal area) and hit the target going faster than the full body projectile with the aluminum sabot slowing things down.
A very short condensed history for non naval weapons is they went from simple one piece steel shot (not shell) to tungsten core APDS in less than 10 years and all the kinetic energy projectiles in-between. Year if not season/month is rather important as to who could do what when.
 
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