British "75mm AT gun"...

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David W
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Re: British "75mm AT gun"...

#16

Post by David W » 10 May 2009, 02:46

All of the action reports for Murphy's regiment-7th NZ Anti-Tank-refer only to 18pdrs and 2pdrs. Italian 75/27 guns were used by British and Polish troops in Tobruk at the time, but apparently not outside the fortress.
Agreed.
Only you had better add the Aussie bush artillery to your list as well! :wink: :)

dor1941
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Re: British "75mm AT gun"...

#17

Post by dor1941 » 10 May 2009, 04:23

David W wrote:
All of the action reports for Murphy's regiment-7th NZ Anti-Tank-refer only to 18pdrs and 2pdrs. Italian 75/27 guns were used by British and Polish troops in Tobruk at the time, but apparently not outside the fortress.
Agreed.
Only you had better add the Aussie bush artillery to your list as well! :wink: :)


Absolutely! 8-) No slight intended (in fact, I substituted Polish in place of my initial "Dominion" and still mucked it up!) :oops:


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David W
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Re: British "75mm AT gun"...

#18

Post by David W » 10 May 2009, 11:07

No worries! :wink: :D

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nuyt
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Re: British "75mm AT gun"...

#19

Post by nuyt » 10 May 2009, 13:59

I have a problem with the numbers.

Franz Kosar's artillery book states the US 75mm 1917 "British" gun had just 909 pieces built by 1918. I assume production in the US was halted at the end of WW1.

But Chamberlain and Gander mention 895 75 mm pieces delivered to the UK in 1940, "the bulk of which were M1917s". If the Fins received 200 pieces in 1940, the Dutch East Indies received 50 in 1942, the Phillipines (afaik) another 50, that would bring the maximum of the guns delivered to Britain at approx. 600.

Apparently the British received also the 75mm US "French" 1897 gun in 1939-40: the Belgian forces in the UK received 8 pieces in 1941, the Belgian Congo forces received a small number of these guns around 1942, through South Africa (source LÁrtillerie a lÁrmee Belge by Jacques Champagne). It is of course possible that these guns were direct military aid (Lend Lease?) to Belgium and the delivery did not pass through the hands of the British. The US deliverd 230 pieces of 75mm field guns (alltypes) under lendlease to Britain (170) and "other countries" (58) as wel as Latin America (2).
"Other countries" must include Belgium, as USSR, French, China, Brazil, Canada and The Netherlands have their own entries in the Lend Lease docs.

Anyway, could it be the number of 895 pieces sent to the UK as mentioned by Chamberlain/Gander included the US French 75mm as well? If so, we have another candidate for AT guns with the Home Guard and field pieces in the MIddle East....
Last edited by nuyt on 10 May 2009, 14:25, edited 2 times in total.

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nuyt
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Re: British "75mm AT gun"...

#20

Post by nuyt » 10 May 2009, 14:00

David W wrote:
Slightly off-topic: it is possible to rebore 76,2 to 75 mm.
You just beat me to it!

Yes, by the insertion of a sleeve.
Agreed, but then it's not reboring but inserting 8-)

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David W
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Re: British "75mm AT gun"...

#21

Post by David W » 10 May 2009, 15:54

No, it's reboring.

If you are taking 76.2mm and going down to 75mm you don't fit a .6mm sleeve, it's too thin.

You rebore, to say, 85mm & fit a 5mm sleeve.

So technically it's both! :wink: :)

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nuyt
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Re: British "75mm AT gun"...

#22

Post by nuyt » 10 May 2009, 15:56

ok, I got it, that makes a lot of sense!
Thanks

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Re: British "75mm AT gun"...

#23

Post by phylo_roadking » 10 May 2009, 21:10

Nuyt...I tried this a couple of years ago - adding up the various allotments I could see - and got wildly-varying totals! Reading what I did last weekend...items like those you mentioned being issued to the Belgians in 1941 and 1942...aren't going to be released from unused stock - 1940 was too much of a panic for any A/T rated weapon to be sitting unallocated in a depot somewhere; they're going to be either transferred ON from British use - or of course from stock AFTER British use and replacement :wink: During 1942, for example, the RAF Regiment AND the Home Guard where applicable were ALSO starting to be issued with 25-pdrs in the 2-per-airfield A/T role to replace the 75mms.

So you're always at risk of counting the same gusn TWICE - if not actually three times in some cases! 8O

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Re: British "75mm AT gun"...

#24

Post by nuyt » 25 Jun 2009, 22:42

Supplied to Greece indeed!

Britishpathe:

(BRITISH EQUIPMENT ARRIVES IN GREECE)

Unused / unissued material - location and dates unclear or unknown.

Greece.

Various shots of British military equipment being unloaded from ships in a Greek port. Equipment includes cars,barbed wire, bren carriers and other armoured vehicles. Greek soldiers look over the equipment.

Canister: UN 264 F Film ID: 1637.25
Sort number: UN 0264 F Tape: *PM1637*
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brit75mmgreece1.jpg (138.54 KiB) Viewed 1889 times

David Reasoner
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Re: British "75mm AT gun"...

#25

Post by David Reasoner » 26 Jun 2009, 00:23

Excellent find, Nuyt! Thanks for posting it.

David

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Manuferey
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Re: British "75mm AT gun"...

#26

Post by Manuferey » 03 Jul 2009, 14:25

Here are two pictures from ebay.de. The top one shows a British 75 mm gun captured by the Germans. The bottom one shows the gun's tractor. It looks a lot like the tractor on Nuyt's pictures above. The pictures have most probably been taken in Greece then.

Image

Image

Emmanuel

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nuyt
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Re: British "75mm AT gun"...

#27

Post by nuyt » 03 Jul 2009, 14:46

Good find!
Persia may also have had them in 1941:

1 battery unknown British gun (18 pdr?) (=4)

from
http://www.network54.com/Forum/330333/t ... of+Persia-

dor1941
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Re: British "75mm AT gun"...

#28

Post by dor1941 » 04 Jul 2009, 13:47

nuyt and Manuferey

Bless you both for posting the photos of these 75mm guns in the Med/ME.

Now if I only had a N.Z. or S.A. anti-tank gunner to confirm their use in Crusader (or perhaps Eighth Army's ammunition records for Nov-Dec 1941) then I'd be happier than Churchill after 2nd Alamein! :D

Good work! 8-)

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Re: British "75mm AT gun"...

#29

Post by Freebird » 02 Jun 2012, 04:50

nuyt wrote:
The guns lacked sights or any optical instruments. So they were useless as divisional artillery, but placed in prepared defences, where they were to be used in the direct fire role.

If the guns supplied to Britain also lacked sights, that may be the reason they were deployed as AT guns. Note that in the only pic we have so far of the gun during manoevres, the gun appears to be in the direct fire or possibly anti-tank role. Of course it may also have been a moral boosting measure, after Dunkirk, to name the guns "Anti-tank" guns.
How difficult would it be to retrofit sights?

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Re: British "75mm AT gun"...

#30

Post by Clive Mortimore » 02 Jun 2012, 09:57

nuyt wrote:
David W wrote:
Slightly off-topic: it is possible to rebore 76,2 to 75 mm.
You just beat me to it!

Yes, by the insertion of a sleeve.
Agreed, but then it's not reboring but inserting 8-)
The calibre of a gun is a nominal diameter when new. The wear on the rifling of a 75mm gun can be far greater than 1.2mm, most ww2 field guns have a rifling deepth of 2 to 3mm therefore the diameter can be as much as 79mm to 81mm on a worn barrel. The driving band on a shell is larger diameter than its nominal diameter as it has to form a seal in the groves of the rifling, if it did not then the propelling gases would go wizzing pass the shell and the shell stay in barrel. Many field guns could still be used until the rifling was almost worn down at the chamber end, providing the driving band engaged with what remains of the rifling a seal would be formed and the shell go in the direction of the enemy, but not quite as accurate as a new barrelled gun.

The Germans rechambered the Soviet 76.2mm field guns to fire the 7.5 cm Pak 40 ammunition without altering the diameter of either the shell or the barrel.

The US 75mm M1917 field gun as an anti-tank gun was an effective weapon in 1941-2. It fired the same AP round as the Grant and Sherman. Its problem was its carriage design, a field gun is harder to hide than a purpose built anti-tank gun.

Clive
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