What unit is barrel length in?

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All Forums >> [Current Games From Matrix.] >> [World War II] >> Steel Panthers World At War & Mega Campaigns >> What unit is barrel length in?

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What unit is barrel length in? - 4/24/2006 9:56:52 AM

Jh316

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Such as, with a 3.7cm Kwk38 L48, what's the length? 48 cm? That seems awfully short for a cannon.

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RE: What unit is barrel length in? - 4/24/2006 10:12:17 AM

Gloo

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From: Chapelle-Guillaume
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quote:

ORIGINAL: Jh316

Such as, with a 3.7cm Kwk38 L48, what's the length? 48 cm? That seems awfully short for a cannon.

That's right, panzers didn't go to war with shotguns mounted in the turrets

To calculate the actual german barrel length (other nations, as britains (wonder why...

) used different formulas) is really simple! In your example, 3,7 is the caliber in millimeters and L48 means Lang 48 (lang is the german term for length, kurz being it's counterpart for short), wich designates a gun barrel equivalent to 48 x it's caliber. So, this gun was 3,7 millimeters of caliber multiplied by 48: 177,6mm.

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RE: What unit is barrel length in? - 4/24/2006 10:14:01 AM

Jh316

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From: Statseboro, Georgia USA
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Thanks.

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RE: What unit is barrel length in? - 4/24/2006 10:15:27 AM

Gloo

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quote:

ORIGINAL: Jh316

Such as, with a 3.7cm Kwk38 L48...

Oh! Just in case you wonder, KwK stands for "Kampfwagen Kanon", and means: gun for combat vehicles.
Hope it'll help.

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RE: What unit is barrel length in? - 4/24/2006 10:16:35 AM

Gloo

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My pleasure

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RE: What unit is barrel length in? - 4/24/2006 10:17:17 AM

Jh316

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From: Statseboro, Georgia USA
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quote:

ORIGINAL: Gloo

quote:

ORIGINAL: Jh316

Such as, with a 3.7cm Kwk38 L48...

Oh! Just in case you wonder, KwK stands for "Kampfwagen Kanon", and means: gun for combat vehicles.
Hope it'll help.

Ah, I just assumed it was the same as the US's Mk. designations.

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RE: What unit is barrel length in? - 4/24/2006 9:34:19 PM

Riun T

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The "L" also designates the propellent casing length in cm. { the L28-48 were infantry gun low velocity and L48-70 high velocity tankkiller or AT configurations.

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RE: What unit is barrel length in? - 4/24/2006 10:05:50 PM

greg_slith

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Actually, it is 37 millimeters not 3.7 millimeters. That would be one thin gun

quote:

ORIGINAL: Gloo

quote:

ORIGINAL: Jh316

Such as, with a 3.7cm Kwk38 L48, what's the length? 48 cm? That seems awfully short for a cannon.

That's right, panzers didn't go to war with shotguns mounted in the turrets
To calculate the actual german barrel length (other nations, as britains (wonder why... ) used different formulas) is really simple! In your example, 3,7 is the caliber in millimeters and L48 means Lang 48 (lang is the german term for length, kurz being it's counterpart for short), wich designates a gun barrel equivalent to 48 x it's caliber. So, this gun was 3,7 millimeters of caliber multiplied by 48: 177,6mm.

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RE: What unit is barrel length in? - 4/25/2006 1:46:31 AM

264rifle

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The "L" had only to do with barrel length and nothing to do with propellent case length.

While it is true that the longer "L" guns had higher velocity than the guns with lower "L" numbers, and that the higher "L" number guns did in general have longer propellent cases than the Low "L" number cases the number itself has no relation to actual case length.

See German 75mm/L43 and 75mm/L48 tank guns. Both used the same cartridge case. Some what bottle necked in apperence but shorter ( the easier to work in an AFV) than the straight sided ( or gently tapered) case used in the 7.5cm/L46 anti-tank gun or with the case mouth slightly enlarged to 76.2mm used in the 7.62cm Pak 36 (r)

In fact the cartridge cases used in the 7.5cm Pak 40 may have been longer than the cases used by the Panthers 7.5cm/L70 gun. Just a lot skinner.

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RE: What unit is barrel length in? - 4/25/2006 4:07:19 AM

Goblin

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The Goblin tank gun has a high L factor.

Goblin

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RE: What unit is barrel length in? - 4/25/2006 7:17:05 AM

Gloo

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quote:

ORIGINAL: ecwgcx

Actually, it is 37 millimeters not 3.7 millimeters. That would be one thin gun

Well, hmm... I was just testing as to... to verify everybody was paying attention!

(Sorry for my mistake and thanks for correcting me)

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RE: What unit is barrel length in? - 4/25/2006 5:50:10 PM

Riun T

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264, I've got a question for u then ?,, if the L43, and L48 guns used the same cartridge case, how come the L43 or CS tank version wasn't given near as much AP ammo, could it be that the chamber and headspaceing, or the projectile head shape for an AP round being forced to higher velocity from the same casing made them use AP less??
I've been looking for some pictures of the rounds in question, not because I want to argue, but because i'm sure I've seem somewhere that they had marked differances and was trying to find more info on the compression gaschecked rounds for the tapered rifling hypervelocity AT gun configurations. I can't find anything to tell weither or not the shorter barreled guns could fire these?? help me?? RT

APCR anyone, anyone??

< Message edited by Riun T -- 4/25/2006 5:51:32 PM >

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RE: What unit is barrel length in? - 4/25/2006 8:03:53 PM

264rifle

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Try www.quarry.nildram.co.uk/

Look in picture gallery and data tables.

What any tank in real life was issued might depend on month/year and how it's role was veiwed. Early MK IVs were veiwed as support tanks to fire HE and smoke to support MK IIIs which carried AP guns. Yes they did carry AP rounds but that was not their primary job. As the L43 guns came into service were they veiwed as tank fighters only or still as support tanks that had better AP capability???

THe MK IV with the L43 gun came out in march of 1942. MK IIIs with 50mm/L60 guns were made untill the spring/ summer of 43??

As The MK IIIs were phased out and the MK IVs with the L48 guns became the standard tank maybe their AP vrs HE load outs changed???

APCR for the 75mm guns stopped production before the 50mm ammo.
Short (L24) guns couldn't drive APCR fast enough to make it worth while. Could it have been done???? yes in therory. But with a very limited amount of tungsten available would they make a 75mm round that only improved the performance of the 75mm/L24 by 20-25% or use the same amount of material to make TWO 50mm rounds. Upping the performance of the short 75 would only make it equel to the 50mm/L60 using regular ammo.

THe tables in the back of "German Artillery of World War Two" by Ian V. Hogg give the taper bore guns cartridge cases of their own with different dimensions (leangth and rim diameter) from any other other gun.

Even if they could have crammed a case for the taper bore gun into a regular barrel they probably wouldn't have gotten a lot of performance out of it. the propelling charge would have been selected to give best performance in the taper barrel. firing it in a straight barrel would probably resulted in a fair amount of the propelling charge following the projectile out the barrel and burning there, contributing nothing to the projectile's velocity.

BTW, the American 75mm/L31 gun (Grant tank), the 75mm/L38 Feild gun (French 75), The 75mm/L40 gun (Sherman) all use the same ammo.

See Russians for an amazing variety of guns with different length barrels that all use the same ammo (cartridge case) in 76mm.

Problems in the game for the germans are not enough slots to represent different ammo load outs at different times (and trying to upgrade in a campaign).

Russians are badly modeled because at some some point somebody thought that each different gun should have different performance specs.

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RE: What unit is barrel length in? - 4/26/2006 7:16:26 PM

Riun T

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Ya I guess thats a funny way of making a 75, still a 75, thanks for the link good to have pictures to compare. RT

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RE: What unit is barrel length in? - 4/27/2006 7:38:19 PM

264rifle

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No problem Riun.
Next to no ONE source I have seen covers the guns and ammo with both pictures and tables so a student of weapons can really see the differences.

If you are intersted in Automatic cannon I recommend his book. Tables and drawings in the back plus chapters on gun mechanisms, cartridge design in addition to narative on the history of the guns. tabkes also list muzzle energy in jueles which is a nice indicator of the power of a cartridge if not an absolute reference on performance.

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RE: What unit is barrel length in? - 5/2/2006 6:44:36 PM

264rifle

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Jh316

If you are interested in a book that covers a lot of ground in Artillery I recomend

"The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Artillery" by Ian Hogg.

Shows up on e-bay and maybe Amazon used.

A short history followed by subjects in alphabetical order with gun lists for 15 countries. May not be infallable or have pictures of everything but does give one a very good start to understanding this subject.

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Post #: 16