Belisarius
Posts: 4041
Joined: 5/26/2001 From: Gothenburg, Sweden Status: offline
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quote:
ORIGINAL: ILCK Another sort of OT type thing. I'm in mid 1941 with my campaign as the Germans and I'm more and more impressed by what the Germans did in WW2 since their equipment isn't inherently better than their foes at this point. One thing I'm curious about, I'm on the IIIg and I'm still working the short barelled (at least the picture makes it look short) 50mm, the IV's still have short 75's and I have one unit with short 37's. Why did the Germans use the short barrelled main guns? Seems most of the other nations had longer barrells (again pictures might lie). Was it purely a cost thing or was their some doctrinal reason for this type of tank development? A little bit of both. The 75mm is really easy - the PzIV was initially developed as a support/breakthrough weapon, and on paper it didn't need a long-barreled gun. The 75 L/24 is a good infantry support weapon and can deal with heavier targets in short distances. For which it was intended. The 37mm was the prime AT gun when the PzIII was developed. This was pretty much the case for all armies. It did the job in the 30's, unfortunately (or should we say fortunately), tank protection outpaced gun improvements in the early war years. Introducing a long barrel wasn't just to say "hey! we got a long barrel! let's bolt it in!" As always, you needed development of ammunition, a mount that will fit the turret, trials in the field as well as static ones, documentation, implementation etc etc. So, it's a combination of technology outrunning the design and also the tanks finding themselves in roles they weren't intended to be. And then again it wasn't always clear what was the best. For the Panther, Guderian was initially very opposed to equip it with the 75mm L/70 gun as he considered the 75 L/48 to be adequate, and that was already in tested and in good use. Why then use time and resources on a completely new tank gun? In the early years, it's not the gun that makes the German tanks good. Neither is it the armor. They are outclassed on both accounts by French and British tanks. What they excel in is speed. Use it. Lastly, about length: Other armies' tanks didn't have much longer guns, but they were bigger and quite good against German armor. The difference in armor made the German guns inadequate.
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