75mm HL rounds?

[Mattias]

Fleischer/Eiermann writes in their book "Die Deutsche Panzejägertruppe 1935-1945" that during the last year of the war it was the stated policy / doctrine that:

The 75mm PaK 40, as a rule, should engage armoured targets with the hollow charge 38/HL C round.

The reason for this was that this round required less powder to fire and produced less wear on the barrel, while still being an effective tank killer. A matter of cost efficiency that is.

Two main weaknesses were recognised. Firstly, the HL round was unreliable at "short" range (due to the high velocity imparted by the L48 gun) and, secondly, layered armour was harder to defeat.

The standard solid shot AP round, Panzergranatpatrone 39 was to be fired only when the situation absolutely demanded it (the term "zwingend", forced, is used).

The high powered Pz granatpatrone 40 was at this time hardly available at all.

Now, seeing this got me wondering if this was an idea produced by some HQ or rear echelon supply officer that never really was implemented by the front line troops. Anyone else know more?

Another thing came up while looking through the books on this subject. What kind of HC grenade is CM modelling for the 75mm guns, short as well as long?

While the PzGr 39 (solid shot AP) in CM follows the German figures (always given at 30 degrees from the vertical), it looks like the HL grenade is much too weak.

The penetration characteristics given in CM matches those of the Gr38 HL/B while at this point in the war the round in use would have been the Gr38 HL/C, as far as I know. It seems the only HL round made available for the 75mm/L48 gun was the HL/C variant.

In terms of penetration the HL/C clearly outperforms the older HL/B, penetrating 100mm of armour @ 30 degrees (form the vertical), whereas the older round is rated at 75mm (compare to the 74mm used in CM).

Again, does anybody have sources stating otherwise?

Both questions has implications for CM but mostly I’m interested to hear if anyone knows more.

M.

[tss]

Mattias wrote:

Now, seeing this got me wondering if this was an idea produced by some HQ or rear echelon supply officer that never really was implemented by the front line troops. Anyone else know more?

I don't know more but since the shaped-charge round had significantly worse penetration than the AP round and relatively few AT guns survived long enough for the barrel wear to really matter, I would guess that most gun crews would happily ignore that policy and continue firing AP.

- Tommi

[Mattias]

True Tommi but there is the basic problem of availability. If there ever was a shortage of PzG39 rounds, which my source seems to indicate, there is reason to believe that the towed Pak units would have been the very last to have been issued the "best" ammunition. Tank and SP PzJg units would always have preferential treatment in this case.

In short, the crews probably didn't have a choice in the matter.

Perhaps it was less of a problem than one might think though, considering that the HL round they received was, at least, equal to the AP shot at most ranges as far as penetration goes. Granted, at the cost of all the weaknesses that a HL round has.

Concerns about barrel wear was also, as I recall, one of the reasons given for not arming the Shermans with a high velocity weapon.

M.

[This message has been edited by Mattias (edited 01-12-2001).]

[Olle Petersson]

As I've posted before:

The figure I have from second hand sources say that of the anti-tank rounds fired from German tanks, about 1/3 were HEAT/HC and 2/3 were AP.

If the assumption that towed ATGs got a higher percentage of HC, then it must have been something like 50%.

IIRC none of the above have any HC at all in CM...

Cheers

Olle

------------------

Strategy is the art of avoiding a fair fight...