17pdr vs. 88mm vs. USSR 76mm vs. US 90mm

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Caldric
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17pdr vs. 88mm vs. USSR 76mm vs. US 90mm

#1

Post by Caldric » 24 Jun 2004, 22:44

Which of these guns do you think were the best for tanks? Not only in killing power but accuracy and production. I may be asking too much for one thread.

I was not sure if the t-34/85 76mm was on par with these others or not. I am not sure which main gun was considered the best for the USSR. Also the US 76mm was a decent weapon also but the 90mm AA gun was converted to compete with the German 88 mounted tanks. I have read the 17pdr (76mm?) was still better then the US 90mm in terms of accuracy and penetration.

Do you think the 17pdr was the best? Or does the 88 still win out?

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Re: 17pdr vs. 88mm vs. USSR 76mm vs. US 90mm

#2

Post by Oleg Grigoryev » 25 Jun 2004, 07:24

Caldric wrote:Which of these guns do you think were the best for tanks? Not only in killing power but accuracy and production. I may be asking too much for one thread.

I was not sure if the t-34/85 76mm was on par with these others or not. I am not sure which main gun was considered the best for the USSR. Also the US 76mm was a decent weapon also but the 90mm AA gun was converted to compete with the German 88 mounted tanks. I have read the 17pdr (76mm?) was still better then the US 90mm in terms of accuracy and penetration.

Do you think the 17pdr was the best? Or does the 88 still win out?
Ah Caldric... T-34/85 is called this way becouse it had 85mm canon (derrived from 85mm AA weapon) - not 76mm :)


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#3

Post by Tony Williams » 25 Jun 2004, 07:46

These fall into two pairs:

The British 17 pdr and US 76mm were both of 76.2mm calibre, the German 88 and Russian 85 were, well of 88mm and 85mm! This is complicated by the fact that there were two very different 88mm tanks guns: the L/56 in the Tiger 1, and the much more powerful L/71 in the Tiger 2, Elefant, Jagdpanther.

Penetration of each at 1,000 yards, striking at 30 degrees from the optimum, was as follows:

76mm: 89mm (134mm with HVAP ammo)
17 pdr: 118mm (170mm with APDS ammo)
85mm: 84mm
88mm L/56: 101mm
88mm L/71: 167mm

So the 17 pdr was (just) the penetration king, but the APDS ammo was less accurate than standard AP shot.

Having said that, the bigger calibres fired much more effective HE shells so were better for general-purpose use. But of course, the 88mm L/71 was a huge gun compared with the 76mm ones, and needed a much bigger tank to carry it.

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Oleg Grigoryev
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#4

Post by Oleg Grigoryev » 25 Jun 2004, 07:55

hm it appears Tony that for the Soviet weapon you gave data for the BR-365K rather than for BR-365P which at 1000m and at 60 degrees could make it through 118mm of armor.

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#5

Post by Tony Williams » 25 Jun 2004, 20:33

Could be - my (fairly basic) source does not distinguish. In fact, little seems to have published in the West about the different Russian guns and their performance, by comparison with other nations' tank guns.

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Re: 17pdr vs. 88mm vs. USSR 76mm vs. US 90mm

#6

Post by Caldric » 25 Jun 2004, 20:54

Oleg Grigoryev wrote:
Caldric wrote:Which of these guns do you think were the best for tanks? Not only in killing power but accuracy and production. I may be asking too much for one thread.

I was not sure if the t-34/85 76mm was on par with these others or not. I am not sure which main gun was considered the best for the USSR. Also the US 76mm was a decent weapon also but the 90mm AA gun was converted to compete with the German 88 mounted tanks. I have read the 17pdr (76mm?) was still better then the US 90mm in terms of accuracy and penetration.

Do you think the 17pdr was the best? Or does the 88 still win out?
Ah Caldric... T-34/85 is called this way becouse it had 85mm canon (derrived from 85mm AA weapon) - not 76mm :)

Err I knew that just testing you. :wink:

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#7

Post by Darrin » 26 Jun 2004, 09:17

Oleg Grigoryev wrote:hm it appears Tony that for the Soviet weapon you gave data for the BR-365K rather than for BR-365P which at 1000m and at 60 degrees could make it through 118mm of armor.

This seems unlikly the best 85mm round I see for pen at 1000m is the APBC round. It could pen 102 mm of verticle armour even the APCR round with tug could only match this. With a slope on the armour the pen would be even more reduced.

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#8

Post by Oleg Grigoryev » 26 Jun 2004, 10:28

Darrin wrote:
Oleg Grigoryev wrote:hm it appears Tony that for the Soviet weapon you gave data for the BR-365K rather than for BR-365P which at 1000m and at 60 degrees could make it through 118mm of armor.

This seems unlikly the best 85mm round I see for pen at 1000m is the APBC round. It could pen 102 mm of verticle armour even the APCR round with tug could only match this. With a slope on the armour the pen would be even more reduced.
I guess you don't see much then. Not a shocke really though.

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#9

Post by Darrin » 26 Jun 2004, 14:55

Oleg Grigoryev wrote:
Darrin wrote:
Oleg Grigoryev wrote:hm it appears Tony that for the Soviet weapon you gave data for the BR-365K rather than for BR-365P which at 1000m and at 60 degrees could make it through 118mm of armor.

This seems unlikly the best 85mm round I see for pen at 1000m is the APBC round. It could pen 102 mm of verticle armour even the APCR round with tug could only match this. With a slope on the armour the pen would be even more reduced.
I guess you don't see much then. Not a shocke really though.

It is primarily the muzzel vel of a round that determines the ammount of pen. All the rus 85mmL52 gun ammo had the same muzzel vel 2600 feet per second. Except for the APCR round which reached 3444 fps which had incred pen close up compared to the others but by 1000m was leval again.

The muzzel vel is primarily determined by barrel lenth. Longer is better up to approx L70. The US 76mm gun with a L52 barrel length had a MV of 2600 fps with the standard APCBC. This would pen about 110 mm at 1000m.

The US rounds apparently pen better due to being harder than the rus rounds even though the sov rounds were heavier. pen=KE=mv^2 which should give the larger heavier rus round a slight adv but not enough of one to offset the US hardness adv.

This is all aginast vertical arm and thick slabs. When it comes back to the real world the the slightly larger 85mm round tends to pen better than the smaller 76mm rounds. As well the APBC rus rounds might pen better than the US APCBC rounds against certain types of sloped arm.

Maybe you could explain to me how the rus equipment ignored the basic laws of physics.

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Re: 17pdr vs. 88mm vs. USSR 76mm vs. US 90mm

#10

Post by Darrin » 26 Jun 2004, 16:15

Caldric wrote:Which of these guns do you think were the best for tanks? Not only in killing power but accuracy and production. I may be asking too much for one thread.

I was not sure if the t-34/85 76mm was on par with these others or not. I am not sure which main gun was considered the best for the USSR. Also the US 76mm was a decent weapon also but the 90mm AA gun was converted to compete with the German 88 mounted tanks. I have read the 17pdr (76mm?) was still better then the US 90mm in terms of accuracy and penetration.

Do you think the 17pdr was the best? Or does the 88 still win out?


The 88mm guns came in 2 forms the shorter L56 varity in the Tiger II and the longer L71 gun in the Tiger II. The ger 75mmL70 gun on the panther was also good. In increasing pen order followed by accruacy ratings. If the acc rating isn't shown then likly it was avg or below or no data was found which I suspect many rus guns had little data.


US 75
Rus 85
US 76-excell
Ger 75
Ger 88L56-V.G.
Ger 75L70-V.G.
UK 17lb-good
US 90
Ger 88 L71-good


The 88mm german guns were never produced in high numbers on tanks. Comparinmg these aginst the rest is a bit unfair. The panthers gun was certainly good and intended to be produced in high numbers.

The US 90mm gun was never produced in high numbers it was mounted in the pershing towards the end of the war. The panther and pershing were about the same size and it required the larger tank with its larger turrent to mount the larger gun. The pershing came too late in in too few numbers to affect the war.

The CW 17lb was squessed sideways into a small 75mm sherman turrent. It was around in moderate but increasing numbers by Dday but no US tanks ever used it in battle.

The 75mm ger gun was around in large numbers. The 85mm was present in small but incresing numbers from early 44 onwards. The 76mm sherman gun was present in small but increasing numbers from the end of july onwards. All the US TDs had a gun of similar pen as this though. The 76mm shermans and all the M10 and M18 TDs accounted for 25% of all the US tanks by the 20th of aug. This of course incresed as the 76 mm tanks appeard in greater and greater numbers.

The three guns in the paragraph above had similar pen with normal ammo. The US 75 mm sherman had decreased pen and were common in the US and CW forces esp to start with and until the end of the war.

Now obviously having a gun like the CW 17lb with at least as much pen as the panthers gun is great. Esp since it was in a tank that was much lighter and present in large numbers as well. The one neg might be slighly dec acc. The larger panthers allowed the germans to carry a similar size gun in regards to pen but but much more arm protection. The panther was better than the firefly because of that.

Now pen does not allways tell the whole story in tank guns for example the 76 mm sherman gun pen 35% greater but the 75mm gun was 65% more lethal to soft targets with its HE round. There were many more soft targets for the allies to shoot at the problem was if the 76mm HE round was ineff it could just be fired again and might work. Where as the 75mm AP round if it failed likly could not just be fired twice with a smilar increase in sucess.

Having a balanced army with 17lb firefly backed up with equal numbers of 75mm shermans and some light recce tanks was probably the best sol'n. Or secondly 76mm sher with 75mm sherm or 85mm T34 with 76mm T34. The problem was the ger could not afford this sol'n by 42 even though they had toyed with this earlier in the war. They also would have benifited less from the HE specialist tanks since the allies had larger numbers tanks for them too knock out. Different sol'n for different armys were either req'd or forced on them.

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#11

Post by Tony Williams » 27 Jun 2004, 08:33

The problem with the HE shells in the 76mm and 17 pdr (not 17 lb) was that at first they were loaded to the same high velocity as the AP shells, so the shell walls had to be stronger and thicker than in the lower-velocity 75mm ones in order to take the stress, so there was less room for HE.

Later on, the British got around this by loading 17 pdr HE shells to a much lower velocity than the AP (which of course they could have done from the start). After that, the 75mm had no advantage.

The US 76mm proved rather disappointing, in part because the AP shells were initally not well made and tended to break up on impact. The British 77mm used in the Comet tank was better, although it only came out late in the war.

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#12

Post by Darrin » 27 Jun 2004, 11:10

Tony Williams wrote:The problem with the HE shells in the 76mm and 17 pdr (not 17 lb) was that at first they were loaded to the same high velocity as the AP shells, so the shell walls had to be stronger and thicker than in the lower-velocity 75mm ones in order to take the stress, so there was less room for HE.

Later on, the British got around this by loading 17 pdr HE shells to a much lower velocity than the AP (which of course they could have done from the start). After that, the 75mm had no advantage.

The US 76mm proved rather disappointing, in part because the AP shells were initally not well made and tended to break up on impact. The British 77mm used in the Comet tank was better, although it only came out late in the war.

Tony Williams


Other countries did this too but the drop in HE round speed was apparetly not so dramatic. For example the panther AP round had a muz vel of 1000 mps and the HE round 750 mps. Both of these were well in excess than the sherman 75mm AP muzzel vel of 600 mps.

I have always wondered why they could not make the shell travel even slower by using less HE in the proellent case. Are you saying thr CW did this with thier 17lb gun towards the end of the war.

The 76 mm AP shells tended to shatter as every shell might. The prob was when they tried to engae the tiger front with a 100mm of protection. The shell at long range perhaps 1000m might not shatter but barely had the speed to pen. At closer range the sheell shattered but at very close range the shattered shell still pen the tiger I front.

The 76mmm shell sould have been able too pen the front of the tiger fairly easily but it couldn't. Of course it could pen the side of any ger tank including the tiger I and II easily. By the summer of 44 prod of Tiger Is had stopped and by sep almost all the tigers in the field were tiger IIs. The tiger IIs and panther arm was far too thick and well sloped for the AP shell to pen the front glacis normally.

I wasn't aware the 76 mm had production problems or that the US noticed and changed it to latter im the war. The west tended to use ammo late in the war which was softer than the ger ammo and harder than the rus ammo. They did not employ the rus APBC shell design at all which partially compensated for the soft shells. Of course I am not an 'expert' on ammo like you.

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#13

Post by Xylitol » 28 Jun 2004, 14:50

Tony Williams wrote:
Penetration of each at 1,000 yards, striking at 30 degrees from the optimum, was as follows:

76mm: 89mm (134mm with HVAP ammo)
17 pdr: 118mm (170mm with APDS ammo)
85mm: 84mm
88mm L/56: 101mm
88mm L/71: 167mm

So the 17 pdr was (just) the penetration king, but the APDS ammo was less accurate than standard AP shot.

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Well, If we are strictly talking about guns then you really need to compare them with same type of ammo (Im sure that 88s with APDS type ammo would have had quite better penetration).

That would but 8,8cm L/71 best of them. US 90mm, 17pdr and german 7,5cm L/70 quite close each other (17pdr being best, but then again its APCBC ammo didnt have HE inside).

If we talk just about "killing power" then 17pdr APDS had best penetration but 88 and US 90mm gun wiht APCBC would much more lethal after penetration.

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#14

Post by Tony Williams » 28 Jun 2004, 16:53

Xylitol wrote:Well, If we are strictly talking about guns then you really need to compare them with same type of ammo (Im sure that 88s with APDS type ammo would have had quite better penetration).
Not in this case, because APDS was available to the Allies but not to Germany - they needed all their tungsten for making machine tools. So the Germans had to develop much bigger guns to achieve the same penetration.

You are right that the larger calibres did more damage after penetration. But the huge disadvantage of the 88mm L/71 is that it was so big that needed to be mounted in a very large tank - like the Tiger 2!

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#15

Post by Xylitol » 28 Jun 2004, 20:04

Tony Williams wrote: Not in this case, because APDS was available to the Allies but not to Germany - they needed all their tungsten for making machine tools. So the Germans had to develop much bigger guns to achieve the same penetration.
Yes, but germans did know how to make them (they did make some with steel penetrator -> much inferiour ofcourse). If we talk strictly about "guns" then you should not take account different ammo tecnology.

So all guns should be compared with APCBC ammo then all guns are same "starting" line.

Comparing APDS penetration values against APCBC is about same that comparing AP to HE (where HE behaves like much inferiour AP ammo).

Now if we talk which gun had best penetration all available ammo then 88mm L/71 is still better with APCR ammo at 1000m (193mm@30deg) than 17pdr with APDS

90mm HVAP has about same as 88 (199mm@30deg and 914m[1000yards]).
You are right that the larger calibres did more damage after penetration. But the huge disadvantage of the 88mm L/71 is that it was so big that needed to be mounted in a very large tank - like the Tiger 2!

Tony Williams
True, but 88mm L/71 most likely would have also better penetration than 17pdr with APDS ammo and thus "longer life" (the best gun would have probably been german 128mm L/55 gun with APDS. That gun would be quite potent even nowdays with modern sabots).

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