Tapered Barrels

[Rhet]

In driving back from work today I started to think about how the Germans manufactured tapered barrels? It is not only a difficult problem to taper the bore but then how do you rifle it? I can think of a few ways (mandrels, boring bars, etc.) but each is time consuming and very expensive. Does anyone on this board know how these barrels were actually manufactured? I would really like to know. We are getting a 50mm tapered bore AT gun in CM right?

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Rhet

[This message has been edited by Rhet (edited 08-13-99).]

[Guest Big Time Software]

By 1944 the Germans were no longer using taper-bore weapons in any significant numbers, so CM does not model them. These weapons used tungsten ammo and tungsten was in extremely short supply. What little there was, was used for machine tools.

Charles

[Mike D]

For those that may be interested,

In P. Agte's "Michael Wittman and the Tiger Commanders of the Liebstandarte" (just started reading it, but looks like another fantastic book full of great pictures taken by the actual Tiger tank unit crews during the war along w/ first hand detailed accounts of all the battles fought in Russia and the west, by Fedorowicz publishing) on page three and four he makes metion of the development of the Tiger I prototype by Henschel w/ a KwK 0725 prototype gun which apparently had the conical tapered bore toward the end of the muzzle. However, he goes on to say that, "As it used only tungsten solid-shot projectiles and tungsten was not available in sufficient quantities, Henschel called off the experiments". So the tapered bore gun never even made it into the production Tiger I and I'm not sure that I've ever heard that one was ever mounted in any other German tank either. Meanwhile Porsche, who was in competition w/ Henschel at the time to design and build the Tiger I, had Krupp convert the 88 mm Flak gun to a tank gun which was the first German tank cannon to incorporate a double action muzzle brake (would be curious if anyone can explain exactly what this means / does? Reduced recoil???). In any event, Henschel eventually won out in the competition, but ended up using the Porsche/Krupp developed gun which became known as the 88mm KwK 36 L/56 with which most of us are familiar as being the main gun on the Tiger I.

Mike D

aka Mikester

[This message has been edited by Mike D (edited 08-13-99).]

[Guest Big Time Software]

I don't know what "double action" means, but a muzzle brake is the funny shaped cylinder with a hole in each side that's fitted onto the end of a gunbarrel. When a shell is fired, the gases propelling the shell exit the barrel just after the shell. The muzzle brake "catches" some of this gas and deflects it back and to the sides. Newton's law says that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. So by "pushing" the gas backwards, it adds a forward force on the recoiling gun, which helps reduce the (backward) recoil.

Charles

[Mike D]

Charles,

Thanks for the reply. I thought that "thing" / slots on the end of the barrel was it, but wasn't sure. The double muzzle brake must refer to the fact that the Tiger I's muzzle brake has two pairs of slots vs. the single pair seen on most other tank main guns that you see from this period. At least that is what I see in the pictures in the book and elsewhere. Guess the double slots provide for more braking and therefore less recoil of the gun when it is fired.

Mike D

aka Mikester

[Herr Oberst2]

If you watch some of the old films of the Flak 88 firing, and the 3-4 foot travel of the recoil mechanism, no doubt the double muzzle brake was necessary to make it a tank gun. Otherwise, I'd imagine that the shear forces on the tank gun/mount/turret would cause major problems over time. Not much room for recoil insude a turret.

[Fionn]

Well actually the very first Tigers which went to Africa had NO muzzle brakes at all. The famous first picture of a Tiger to be published as it rolled through a North African town shows no evidence of muzzle brakes.

Very soon a single muzzle brake was added but soon the necessity for a second was seen.

So the Tiger could fire the gun without muzzle brakes it just was much safer and more comfortable to fit double muzzle brakes (since then it didn't recoil as much inside the turret).