The official AHF Winter & Continuation War quiz thread

[Karelia]

Clue #2: it was not a Finnish unit.

[Karelia]

No-one?

Clue #3: it was a German unit.

[Karelia]

Clue #4: it's summer 1944.

[Panssari Salama]

Image is a bit blurry, but clearly those are not 'Greif' talons in the insignia. Would you have another picture to share?

[Juha Tompuri]

Like this?


http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic. ... 0&t=182904

Sturmgeschütz-Brigade 303 schwimmwagen at Helsinki?

Regards, Juha

[Panssari Salama]

Hah, obviously you knew something I didn't! A very nice color picture of the insignia

[Karelia]

Exactly so, Juha! Near hotel Torni. Did you know the answer right away or did you have to search a bit?

Anyway - it's your turn!

[Juha Tompuri]

Hi,

At first glance I thought the photo would be from Northern Finland, but noticing the 303 emblem pointed a bit more South.


New question, identify this piece of weapon:

[Karelia]

A Tampella 75 K 44 (an experimental 75 mm AT-gun)?

[veeteetee]

Yes, the prototype of the Tampella 75 K/44 it is.

Quoting myself ("From Tampella to Patria - 70 years of Finnish heavy weapons production", published in 2003):

75 K/44 - THE FIRST FINNISH ANTI-TANK GUN

At the beginning of the Continuation War the Finnish anti-tank guns were the Bofors-designed 37 PstK/36 and ex-Soviet war booty 45 mm guns. As the war progressed they became increasingly underpowered against the ever heavier tanks and a new gun was needed.

M.Sc. Hans Otto Donner of Tampella suggested a radically new gun to be designed, in which the barrel axis would run through the carriage wheel axis, thereby minimising recoil movements and gun height. The first draft drawing of the new "57/76 Pst" anti-tank gun were made in April 1942: 57/76 refers to the shell case, which was made by adding a necked down shoulder part to a 76 mm case and loading this new case with a 57 mm / 2,4 kg projectile, to be propelled to over 1000 m/s muzzle velocity. A wooden full-sized mock-up of the gun itself and its ammunition were made in the spring of 1942 and presented to General V.P. Nenonen, who gave his acceptance and the work was continued.

The gun itself looks decidedly different: the cradle is mounted into an opening in the wheel axis on bearings, which allow traverse by means of a hand-wheel driven gear mechanism, elevation is achieved by means of a screw mechanism between the left trail leg and a lever on the wheel axis. The slender monoblock barrel is 4250 mm long, it is equipped with a harmonica-style muzzle brake and it also forms the breech ring. The breech block is of the wedge type and automatically slides down and ejects the empty shell as the barrel returns to battery after recoil movement. Two hydraulic recoil brakes are mounted in the cradle on each side of the barrel, recuperation is carried out by a heavy compression spring between a barrel flange and cradle front, covered with a jacket. Trail legs are also very slender and can be folded for towing with horse(s) on each side of the barrel. A periscope type optical direct fire sight looking over the armour plate front shield was planned.

The barrel was proofed in the summer of 1943 and late that year the actual gun was taking shape. At the same time the controversy about changing its proprietary caliber to that of the already fielded German 7,5 cm PaK 40 a.k.a. Finnish "75 K/40" was raging and the net result was that the gun was modified, thus becoming officially "75 K/44", 150 pieces of which were to be made. The 75 mm gun was fired for the first time on 16th March, 1943, and problems with semi-automatic mechanism parts breakages were encountered. Also, no final decision on optical sight had been achieved and design work suffered from the lack of skilled labour.

A large demonstration of 75 K/44 was held at Niinisalo proving ground on 24-25th June, 1944, under the supervision of Major General Svanström. The gun was fired against a KV1 tank chassis, with good penetration results, However, parts still broke down occasionally, trail legs were bent and towing the gun with four horses was difficult due to the protruding breech piece. The gun was still at prototype stage, but was judged as if it were a mature construction, which gave an unnecessarily bad impression of its performance.

The Continuation War ended in an armistice in September 1944 and the peace agreement was signed in Moscow on 19th September. The gun development came to an abrupt end: weapons development was banned and all semi-finished materiel was to be sent to army depots. Still, Tampella decided to continue its work at own risk, despite the negative feedback from the army, which regarded 75 K/44 as inferior to 75 K/40. The main reasons for army´s dislike were the gun´s weight, difficult towing and periscope type sight combined with low barrel axis, which made hitting an obstacle in front of the weapon position possible and the requirement for digging earth banks and crew pits in fire position.

Tampella now had a problem: a prototype the customer did not want and material for another 50 guns at the workshops. A fight over compensation from the army resulted.

In March 1945 75 K/44 was demonstrated to the representatives of the Allied Forces in Finland, with the same problems as previously, which probably saved the gun from being sent over to Soviet Union. The gun was left alone until 1950, when Tampella re-started its weapons production and upon Hans Otto Donner´s urging the gun was modified in order to rectify the problems: a gas spring was used for recuperation, firing mechanism was rebuilt, a cover was added on breech to protect the gunner, the semi-automatic mechanism and trail legs were reinforced, whereby "75-mm Antitank Gun mod. 46" was created and sent over to Soltam Ltd. in Haifa, Israel, for testing in 1954, never to return.

Tampella did build another gun for own ammunition test testing purposes, but the era of rifled anti-tank guns was quickly coming to an end as recoilless rifles and missiles come to use. 75 K/44 did however play an important role in the development of 155 mm Tampella guns in 1967, when it was used as a 1:2 scale model for the Broadwell´s ring type obturation system. One surplus barrel was modified for this purpose. The increased pressure loaded area was too much for the gun´s open-rear breech ring and this had to be reinforced before the testing could carried out, successfully. The obturation principle was successfully carried over to 152 and finally 155 mm guns. The only remaining 75 K/44 was given by Patria Vammas Oy to War Museum in 1999, where it remains as the final reminder of its era. For the Finnish war effort 75 K/44 had no positive effect and some negative, but it did prove, that guns can be both designed and produced within Finland.

Final note: the sole remaining 75 K/44 was fully restored by gunnery master Antti Linfroos of Patria in the spring of 2012 and the gun is now on display at the Finnish Armour Museum in Hämeenlinna.

[Juha Tompuri]

Yep, a Tampella 75 K/44 it is.
Photo soure SA-photo #167405
http://www.sa-kuva.fi/

SA-photo #167404

SA-photo #167406

veeteetee, thanks for the professional additional info about the gun.
Karelia, your turn again.

Regards, Juha

[Karelia]

Thanks, I was a bit lucky to find out the correct photos quite quickly. Will come back with the question soon...

[Karelia]

Sorry for the delay...

This might again be too easy, but here we go anyway. Finland was in principal only fighting against the soviets, despite of the declarations of war by the British Empire and Czechoslovakia. However there was one rather significant battle against the Western Allies, in which Finland had pretty crucial role.

How and which battle?

[Panssari Salama]

One of the Arkangel convoys (PQ 17?), with Finns having deciphered a radio signal and having passed it to Germans?

[Karelia]

You got it right, except it was PQ18 in September 1942, which lost 13 out of it's 40 ships.

The Finnish intelligence got Russian messages from the Germans, which had not been able to decipher them. Together with their own captured messages the Finnish radio intelligence was able to decipher them, and passed on the information to the Germans.

The Allies saw the the outcome as a success, since the Germans were not able to destroy it totally like the PQ17 and also suffered heavy casualties. However AFAIK the convoys were stopped for three months, despite of the favourable time of the year.

Your turn, Panssari Salama!