Alternative light and anti-tank guns, 1935-45

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Maybe not the answer for anti-tank artillery, but back in '36 someone had the idea of taking over the anti-tank part of the panzerwaffe with half-tracks armed with a relatively short 75mm L40.8 gun. The idea did not go through, the cannon was not further developed. At the end, it was only in 1941 that two copies of the Pz.Sfl. II finished in North Africa. The gun itself wasn't too impressive (for 1941) but in 1938/40 it would have been a significant improvement over the Pak 36. And it might have been small enough to cram into a PZ III or convert into an AT gun variant. In any case, it would make confusion in the classification / doctrine between PZ III / PZ IV because it would be a stronger AT than the 3.7 cm KwK 36 and more destructive than the short 7.5 cm KwK 37 L/24. If that gun had been adopted early enough and had proven successful, the question is whether they would make two (medium) tanks at all, and what the battles during Barbarros (or in N. Africa) would have looked like.
 
Zmauky said:
Maybe not the answer for anti-tank artillery, but back in '36 someone had the idea of taking over the anti-tank part of the panzerwaffe with half-tracks armed with a relatively short 75mm L40.8 gun.
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I'd say that the L40.8 gun would've been just fine for the AT gun role for the 1st 30 months of the ww2. Sorta equivalent of the Soviet 76 mm guns made in tens of thousands, or the French/US/Polish 75mm gun that were made in many thousands.
Also very suitable for arming the tanks and Stugs.
 
The 75 mm Modèle 1897 guns modified with a lowered mount used by the 1st Free French Brigade at Bir Hakeim were peculiarly efficient against the German and Italian tanks.




Photo (C) Paris - Musée de l'Armée, Dist. RMN-Grand Palais / image musée de l'Armée
 
z42 said:
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?
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Yes, the Brandt steel-core APCR, with the French also testing steel-cored rounds for APDS and squeezebore rounds due to tungsten not being well-known yet and being rarer and more expensive. Tungsten was deemed promising however.

The British studied steel-cored APDS in the 1950s. In general, this was better than full bore APCBC (almost not advantages at high angles, but better penetration at low ones and a longer point blank range owing to the higher velocity) while still being worse than tungsten cores.
Shortround6 said:
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.
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It was in service, the mle.1935 and 1937 steel-core APCR were selected since 1935 (along with new HE pending some testing with the fuzes). In fact, a letter from early 1935 noted that the short 37mm had been intended to be removed from service, and as a result the stocks of old AP and HE were rather depleted. When it was decided to keep it in service longer, it had been urged to refill the stocks with Brandt APCR and HE. I have never been able to have full numbers for stocks but this projectile is explicitly mentioned in accounts of the Battle of France. In fact, it was mentioned in reports that 37mm ammo was solid shot, which the obsolete mle 92-24 APHE wasn't. In period accounts of the battle, the Brandt projectile is often mentioned, along with the fact that it could still penetrate the 30mm of german tanks at short ranges and could be effective in spite of the gun's extreme weakness. The issue was that standard loadouts called for a very high proportion of HE. Throughout the battle, the proportion of APCR increased 30 and eventually 60%. What was not in service yet was the 37/25 APDS, of which 200 thousand had been ordered.
 
tomo pauk said:
Another way of saying that Soviets went for quantity as the priority no.1.
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I don't see any logical connection. ZIS-3 is a rare example when both quality and quantity were not in contradiction. ZiS-3 was extremely technological, but not at the expense of performance, it was a minimal compromise.
tomo pauk said:
Ah, yes.
Post the pic of the museum piece, taken decades after the fact, and pretend that it proves your point.
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What exactly are the claims to this photo? The story of this gun can be requested from the museum staff. And it is not the only one of its kind.
tomo pauk said:
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.
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If the Soviets had not helped, the imperfections of the gun would have shown up much more vividly. Estimates of effectiveness without taking into account enemy strength are not correct. One should read what the Allies write about the use of the Pak 40 in the West - I have too superficial ideas about it.
?? PzGr39 penetrated even T-34 frontal armor using the normalization effect provided by the welded cap of high hardness. I have already mentioned it above. No special tricks were required. The 57mm BR-271SP projectile was guaranteed to penetrate the frontal armor of any Soviet tank at a range of about 600m for heavy tanks and 1000m for medium tanks.
The Germans needed to go further - up to 57mm as the main anti-tank caliber. 75mm as a reinforcement, but without excessive power.
tomo pauk said:
I know that not all the F22s were rechambered. These that were, were called pak 36(r).
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According to the Russian wiki the rechambered guns were designated simply Pak 36 (without the "r", the 37mm German anti-tank gun designated 3.7cm Pak 35/36), but I'd like to find German references - unfortunately I have just some fairly superficial books on German artillery.
tomo pauk said:
These that were not, were still called FK 36(r) - if we believe Wikipedia - or the FK 296(r).
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I would appreciate a bit more reliable source.
 
Given a lot of hindsight and study it seems that the 57mm was pretty much in the sweet spot. Perhaps a 60 or 65m gun would have been better but tooling for 57mm ammo and barrels existed in a number of countries and existing tooling often trumped slight advantages in theoretical calculations.

The Soviet 57mm and British 6pdr are similar in capability and weight.
Unknown to both countries and the US was that rapid growth in tank size sort of leveled off in 1943-44 and that the 57mm would be a viable weapon for most targets for a while.
British 6pdr would punch through more armor than the 75mm gun on the Sherman, not a lot more but still
The weight of both guns was significantly lower the German Pak 40 or the US 76mm let alone the US 3in or British 17pdr so manhandling was still possible, even if not easy.

British 6pdr used two different barrel lengths and a wide variety of uncapped shot, capped shot, APCBC shot and finally the discarding sabot so published penetrations are all over the place.
Against the Germans the 57mm guns would handle everything but the Tiger I, the Panther from the front and the Tiger II but they only build under 500 Tiger IIs and lugging around 3000kg of towed gun to handle the Tiger IIs was pretty much a waste. 57mms would handle Panthers from the side or rear at well past 1000 meters or any practical range.
I am sure the Soviet 57mm would do pretty much the same.

The 57mm guns were heavier than the German Pak 38 or anyones 47mm but they were also a definite step up the ladder in capability against armor. They also would have been a step in HE capacity (and the British loaded more) but neither is close the 75/76 guns.
 
Shortround6 said:
The Soviet 57mm and British 6pdr are similar in capability and weight.
Unknown to both countries and the US was that rapid growth in tank size sort of leveled off in 1943-44 and that the 57mm would be a viable weapon for most targets for a while.
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I think we can add Germany to that list as well, considering they developed and deployed the long-barreled 88L71 and the monstrous 12.8cm AT gun. One wonders how many targets they really encountered where the shorter barrel 88L56 and the long barrel 75L70 wouldn't have been enough.
 
Best available source:


So far, it's clear that the version from Russian wikipedia is hardly substantiated - it's likely that the authors of the article were also based on Fleischer's book, where the author omits the (r) in the captions for photos.
The designation FK 296 (r) was used for non-chambered F-22s without muzzle break, but it seems that they were used as anti-tank guns in anti-tank units (Panzerjägerabteilung) as well. It is still not clear whether the elevating handwheel was moved to the left side of the carriage on all guns.
 
Hi
Reference 'manhandling' an anti-tank gun, the 6 pdr could certainly be manhandled by the crew even over rough terrain if necessary, as indicated by the following extract from my father's memoirs referring to trials undertaken in India:

Mike
 
bf109xxl said:
I don't see any logical connection. ZIS-3 is a rare example when both quality and quantity were not in contradiction. ZiS-3 was extremely technological, but not at the expense of performance, it was a minimal compromise.
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ZiS-3 was certainly a fine gun.
What was part of 'quality' and 'performance' when discussing AT guns was the penetration over the required distance band. This is where the ZiS-3 lacked, for example when we compare it with ZiS-2 or the Pak 40, so the 'quality' part does not get very good grades.

I'm not sure that it was even rated for the 1400g propellant load, like it was the case with the F22 and USV (normal proplellant load was 1080 g for the Soviet 76mm divisional guns), as well as the ZiS-2. 1400g of propellant + the longer barrel of the F22 will yield a much different muzzle energy than what will happen with the 1080 g load + the shorter barrel of the ZiS-3, and thus the possible penetration will differ.

Another alternative AT gun might've been the Soviet re-chambering the F22 for the AA ammunition of the same calibre + the muzzle brake, so the AP performance is in the ballpark with the German Pak 40 and Kwk 40 - basically mimic the work done to get to the pak 36(r) standard of penetration.

bf109xxl said:
What exactly are the claims to this photo? The story of this gun can be requested from the museum staff. And it is not the only one of its kind.
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Dozens of war-time photos show the pak 36(r) with the muzzle brake.


bf109xxl said:
I would appreciate a bit more reliable source.
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At least for the Pak 36(r), there are articles in the Waffen Revue, numbers 84 to 87.


The F22 as-is would've been just fine to kill a Soviet tank in the 1st half of the GPW, so using it as-is in the AT role can be only expected.
BTW - the AP ammo was standard issue for the F22, meaning that there is also some kind of direct sight attached to the gun, too.
 
Back in 1940, one of the prospective anti-tank guns the Soviets considered was precisely a gun based on the USV or F-22 modified to use the same ammunition as the mod.1931 AA gun , being a de-facto towed counterpart to the similar guns developped for tanks instead. No one knows what came of it. The biggest reason the tank version itself was abandonned was because the 76mm AA gun was being retired in favor of the new 85mm 52-K, ammo production would cease and it was expected that the ammo situation would be too complicated.

This is why research instead moved to guns compatible with 85mm 52-K ammunition. In practice, mounting either gun required extensive development of turrets, gun mounts and the guns themselves to arrive at something that could be reasonably used on the existing tank platforms anyway, the Great Patriotic War having disrupted Soviet development programs. Indeed, the final 76mm S-54 died in good part because 85mm-armed tanks were soon in hand in 1943.
 
tomo pauk said:
What was part of 'quality' and 'performance' when discussing AT guns was the penetration
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ZiS-3 was a divisional gun, fighting tanks was third on the list of the main tasks of this gun. The low armor penetration was due to poor quality/construction of the shells in the first place, and then to ballistics.
tomo pauk said:
over the required distance band. This is where the ZiS-3 lacked, for example when we compare it with ZiS-2 or the Pak 40, so the 'quality' part does not get very good grades.
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It would be strange if a divisional cannon outperformed anti-tank guns designed just for that purpose.
The F-22 was designed with the requirement to provide anti-aircraft fire. Therefore, it was initially allowed a higher ballistics. But it was not designed as an anti-tank weapon, and the quality of the shells was abominable.
The Soviets had the ZiS-2, which suited them just fine. The 57mm APCR could penetrate the frontal armor of a Tiger, even if only at short range - the Soviets were ready to trade several guns for one Tiger. But they were not ready to introduce a new ammunition with a new cartridge case.
tomo pauk said:
Dozens of war-time photos show the pak 36(r) with the muzzle brake.
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I didn't claim the muzzle brake wasn't installed. The question was only about the proportion of guns that received it. Judging by the museum photo, the F-22 could be modernized only partially. But yes, most of the modernized guns received a muzzle brake.
tomo pauk said:
At least for the Pak 36(r), there are articles in the Waffen Revue, numbers 84 to 87.
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Thanx.
tomo pauk said:
The F22 as-is would've been just fine to kill a Soviet tank in the 1st half of the GPW, so using it as-is in the AT role can be only expected.
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Only with German ammunition - both projectile and charge. The Germans were ready to produce such ammunition, so for them this solution was really quite attractive, perhaps the most optimal. But they could not produce the guns, and the captured trophies had run out. It was easier for the Soviets to produce the 57mm by crimping a standard cartridge case for the 75mm.
tomo pauk said:
BTW - the AP ammo was standard issue for the F22, meaning that there is also some kind of direct sight attached to the gun, too.
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According to wikipedia (sorry), the sight from the Pak 38 was used.
 
Elan Vital said:
Back in 1940, one of the prospective anti-tank guns the Soviets considered was precisely a gun based on the USV or F-22 modified to use the same ammunition as the mod.1931 AA gun
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I wonder where and who carried out such work? In 1940, V. Grabin, the creator of the F-22 and USV, was developing the 95-mm F-28 cannon. He took the initiative to place the barrel of an 85-mm anti-aircraft gun on the carriage of the F-28, resulting in the F-30 anti-tank gun, but it was not tested before the outbreak of war.
In addtiton: We may be talking about the USV-based ZIS-1KV, but it was 57mm caliber.
 
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Some heavier alternative AT guns for Germany:
- Repurposed 7.5cm Flak - LW does not want nor they need it, so Heer might try and get them for them ASAP before Navy gets them (for coastal defense?). MV was 860 m/s for the 6.5 kg shell, so there is certainly a potential for the AT work. The gun should be far easier to install on the halftracks and the like, when compared with the 8.8cm.
- 88mmL56 gun on the 10.5cm howitzer carriage - far less clumsy than the Pak 43, but main advantage is that it can be done fairly early, like before ww2. If Goering is against this, see what can be agreed with the Navy. It should also make the alt-Nashorn being a lower target, FWIW.
- 7.5cmL70 gun on the 10.5cm how carriage - sorta German 17 pdr for all intents and purposes. Also a candidate for a weapon of the Geshutzwagen III/IV.

Granted, these heavy guns will be beasts to manhandle, with weights going easily above 2500 kg. Advantage will be that Allied tanks can be tackled at distances beyond 2 km.
 

IIUIC these were never made in numbers, so there was never a big batch of them available for conversion into AT guns.


I think the undoing of all these is the weight. A Stug III cost about 6 times as much as a PAK 40, not including the prime mover. Yes, fewer barrels for the same price, but might be a better investment as the better mobility and protection makes it more likely to survive for the next day?

As a slight aside, the 75L70 was pretty good. Smaller and cheaper than the 88L56, yet better penetration. Good enough for practically anything armored it was going up against for the entire war.

I'm still slightly intrigued by the previously mentioned APCR with a hardened steel penetrator rather than tungsten. Yes, not as good as the tungsten one, but could actually have been available, and most likely better than APCBC.
 
z42 said:
I'm still slightly intrigued by the previously mentioned APCR with a hardened steel penetrator rather than tungsten. Yes, not as good as the tungsten one, but could actually have been available, and most likely better than APCBC.
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An awful lot depends on the gun it is fired out of. There are several things going on.
They loaded up a bunch for use out of the short ex WW I 37mm and they got a useful increase, But remember that the standard 37AP round was significantly less powerful than a 13mm mg.

Now the long range ballistics were not good. The 37mm used a 25mm core and the whole projectile may have weighed 390 grams( instead of 500) and fired at 600m/s instead of 388m/s.

The whole idea of using capped shot is that uncapped shot tends to shatter/break up with impacts approaching 2500fps/ 750mps but this depends on the armor and the heat treatment of the projectile.
You can use capped shot at impact velocities of around 3000fps/900mps but after that you tend to need Tungsten.

Using steel penetrators in either APCR or APDS projectiles out of low velocity guns does improve things somewhat but the APCR is really going to suck at long range and the even using a 57mm core out of a 75mm gun (like a French 75) in an APDS is going to give similar ballistics/penetration to a 57mm AT gun using full bore shot.

The APCBC uses the ballistic cap for better streamlining/improved penetration at long range. Unless you fit the core of of the APDS round with both the you are not going to beat the standard APCBC shot out of the AT gun.
The Russians may have used a APBC projectile or more than one. A blunt nose with no cap for a bit better performance (less chance of shatter) with a ballistic cap to retain velocity better. But since most Soviet 76mm guns only had around 700m/s velocity this trick may have worked.
Please note that 57mm AT guns had a velocity of round 4000fps and needed tungsten to work. Also note that APDS core made of tungsten weighed a lot more per unit of frontal area than a steel projectile and would retain velocity better.
 
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