PAK40 AMMO AND CASES

The 7.5 cm PaK 40 (German: PaK 40 - Panzerabwehrkanone 40) is a German 75 mm anti-tank (anti-tank) gun, developed in 1939-1941 and entered service on a larger scale at the turn of 1941/1942 . In total, about 23,000 examples of this gun were made in the years 1941-1945, and at the end of World War II it was the basic anti-tank weapon of many Wehrmacht units. This cannon fired three main types of ammunition. Chronologically, the earliest of these was the Panzergranate 38 HL / B, an anti-tank HEAT missile. Its weight was 4.57 kilograms, and it left the barrel of the gun at a speed of 450 m / s. Another type was Panzergranate 39 (German abbreviation: PzGr.39) with a weight of 6.8 kg and an initial speed of 790 m / s. Finally, the third type of missile was the Panzergranate 40 (German abbreviation: PzGr.40), which was a kind of "modernization" of the PzGr.39. In this case, the projectile weighed only 4.05 kilograms, but its initial velocity was as much as 990 m / s! At a distance of 1000 meters, the missiles of this type could pass an armor plate inclined at an angle of 30 degrees with a thickness of 75 mm (Panzergranate 38 HL / B), 80 mm (PzGr.39) and 97 mm (PzGr.40). These were the values that allowed you to easily fight the Soviet T-34/76 or KW-1 tanks at this or slightly lower distance.