PaK 97/38

[cbo]

Originally Posted by sturmovik

I'm getting mixed messages on the German PaK 97/38 that was made from captured French 75's. About half the sources I can find (including Wikiepdia) indicate that the gun primarily used a HEAT round due to its low velocity and achieved a penetration of 90mm and that the AP round was not used/issues due to excessive recoil. Other sources say that the French and Polish AP rounds were used primarily because the HEAT shell was not developed was not developed until later in the war (or not at all).

Can anyone clarify how the PaK 97/38's were actually employed by the Germans? The HEAT load seems reasonable given that 75mm HEAT shells were appearing in the loads of the short barreled Panzer IVs about that time.

AFAIK the first guns were issued late spring/early summer 1942 as part of a crash programme to provide the troops with something more adequate that the 3,7cm anti-tank gun to supplement the 5cm guns and the few 7,5cm long guns available (re-chambered Soviet 7,62cm field guns being part of the same proramme).

With regards to ammunition, there were plenty of captured French HE available (5,5 million rounds) as well as stocks of French and Polish AP. Allegedly the captured ammo was used first, but 929,400 HEAT rounds were made in 1942 and 37,800 fired together with 91,000 HE rounds (no data for AP). So clearly, the HEAT round became available quite soon after the gun was introduced.

Production of the gun ran out in 1943 after 3700 had been made. Production of the HEAT round continued into 1944 with more the 2,5 million being made.

In 1943 371,000 HEAT rounds were fired together with 1,123,000 HE rounds, the figures for 1944 was 592,000 and 4,105,000 respectively. I guess it shows that while the gun is often seen as an anti-tank gun, in reality it was perhaps more of an infantry gun.

About 500 guns were lost in 1942, some 650 in 1943, some 800 in 1944. By March 1945, the German Army had 122 guns left and some 700,000 rounds of HE and 630,000 rounds of HEAT.

I doubt that excessive recoil had anything to do with few AP rounds being fired. IIRC the AP round and the HE round was roughly the same weight and fired at the same velocity, so recoil forces would've been similar. And the numbers of HE rounds fired clearly suggest that the gun was up to the task. Seems more likely to me that the AP round was abandoned as soon as the HEAT round became available because of the superior performance of the latter (70mm penetration in the 1942 round, up to 100mm in the later types).

A report on the gun from february 1943 states that the Soviet T-34 tank could be engaged with some succes at ranges from 200-800 meters. The gun was very good against enemy infantry, easily concealed due to its low heigt and easy to lay due to well-placed elevation and traverse controls. On the downside was the lack of tracer on the ammunition, the slow operation of the breech and the tendency of the gun to jump when fired. This lead to high ammunition expenditure and a slow rate of fire. One report speaks of 12-24 rounds fired in order to defeat an enemy tank, a lot higher than, say, the 7,5cm PaK 40.

cbo

[Cross]

Originally Posted by cbo

Production of the gun ran out in 1943 after 3700 had been made. Production of the HEAT round continued into 1944 with more the 2,5 million being made.

In 1943 371,000 HEAT rounds were fired together with 1,123,000 HE rounds, the figures for 1944 was 592,000 and 4,105,000 respectively. I guess it shows that while the gun is often seen as an anti-tank gun, in reality it was perhaps more of an infantry gun.

About 500 guns were lost in 1942, some 650 in 1943, some 800 in 1944. By March 1945, the German Army had 122 guns left and some 700,000 rounds of HE and 630,000 rounds of HEAT.

I doubt that excessive recoil had anything to do with few AP rounds being fired. IIRC the AP round and the HE round was roughly the same weight and fired at the same velocity, so recoil forces would've been similar. And the numbers of HE rounds fired clearly suggest that the gun was up to the task.

Help me out with these figures.

If 3,700 guns were made, and they lost about 1,150 before 1944, leaving 2,550. In 1944 they fired at least 4,697,000 rounds (592,000 HEAT plus 4,105,000 HE; not including AP)

Even if we don't consider the guns lost during 1944 (800) that's at least 1,842 rounds fired per gun in the year 1944.

Is that what these stats are saying?

I guess that's only about half a dozen rounds a day, and the barrel life may be over 10,000 rounds right?

cheers,
Cross

[cbo]

Originally Posted by Cross

If 3,700 guns were made, and they lost about 1,150 before 1944, leaving 2,550. In 1944 they fired at least 4,697,000 rounds (592,000 HEAT plus 4,105,000 HE; not including AP)

Even if we don't consider the guns lost during 1944 (800) that's at least 1,842 rounds fired per gun in the year 1944.

Is that what these stats are saying?

That stats are saying what the stats are saying - what we make of them is a different matter

You can average the figures like you do, but there are obvious problems involved in doing so. The 800 guns lost probably also fired some ammunition and some guns might have been deployed in places where they didn't get much of chance to fire while others got pleny of chances to do so.
Ammunition expenditure probably includes rounds fired in training and may also include ammunition lost when captured by the enemy.

So who knows how many shots the guns really fired...?

Originally Posted by Cross

I guess that's only about half a dozen rounds a day, and the barrel life may be over 10,000 rounds right?

No idea about barrel life of this gun. The 7,5cm KwK 37 L/24 used in the Panzer IV was rated at 12.000-14.000 rounds and the 7,5cm le FK 18 L/26 at 8.000-10.000 rounds. The 7,5cm PaK 40 L/46 was rated at 6.000 rounds. I suppose you could say that the French gun fell somewhere in between the former two and the latter in terms of barrel length and muzzle velocity and perhaps also barrel wear.

cbo