Best tank gun of WW2???

The 100mm was a naval piece and it was out of production. The Soviets didn't have the machine-tools to make them and unlike the Germans, they were planning their military production ahead during 42-43. The Red Army was not going to wait for a gun to come back on line when an average army needed to be replaced every five weeks.

We are all entitled to our opinions. Zaloga and von Manteuffel thought otherwise and we will have to agree to disagree.

I simply do not and cannot agree that anti-tank performance is the single most important requirement of a tank. It is at most co-equal to infantry support and exploitation.

The tank is one arm in the combined-arms team. Infantry, armor, artillery and air all have their role in the team. A great antitank tank that had inadequate performance against infantry is helpless if the enemy did not oblige it by trying to fight it with tanks. Cf. Battle of Kursk, War of 1973 and 2nd Israeli Invasion of Lebanon.

Recent tank technological work reflects this. ERA, remote control weapon stations, infantry phones and active antitank defenses all share one thing in common. They are all dedicated anti-infantry gear.

When was the last time the Iraqis, the Syrians and the Egyptians fielded a real army?

That speaks volumes about Clancy's knowledge of Red Army's armor. No tanker who had been inside of a T-72 thought it possible to break one's arm in the automatic loader unless one set it up to break it.

Look at the date and read the context of that quotation.

The all-volunteer, state-of-the-art US Army that emerged at the late 80s paid for by Regean's deficit spending was not the same army that faced overwhelming WarPack strength in the 70s.

The Soviets was equal or superior to NATO forces in the 70s. If you'd like to dispute that, go to World Affairs Board, Tank-Net or Sino-defense and ask for the old timers. T-72 and T-80 were killing machines compard to what we had at the time.

But we digress. If you want to we can move this to general military history section.

 

As to penetration of the Soviet 100/60:

The BR-412 AP-T round does indeed penertrate only 150mm at 1000 m. But, the BR-412D APC-T round does 185 mm at 1000 m giving that round better performance than the 88/71. So, it really depends on what is being fired.

 

If the the 88/71 uses PzGr. 40 APCR rounds it can penetrate 193mm at 1000m, making it superior than the 100mm D-10 even if it using the BR-412D APC-T (which is a post war round by the way).

 

I think what Gardner is getting at is is that from an engineering perspective (correct me if I am wrong Terry, but aren't you a naval engineer?) the 100mm was superior because it would out-perform the long 88 when loaded with comparable quality ammunition. If my grasp on Soviet nomelature is as good as I hope it is, 412D is a ballistically capped APBC round, not an HVAP/APCR round that uses exotic alloys. Strictly speaking, the projo-gun combo of the long 88 might have superior power, but as guns, the 100mm clearly enjoyed greater longevity and post-war usefulness.

 

What's increasingly coming out here is a lack of consistency in comparison, esp. as regards the ammunition to be compared. Are "special" ammunition formats acceptable - for example a the PzGr.40 or APDS, & where they are do we take best example performance or account for teething troubles?

Furthermore do we look at the piece in isolation as a tank gun in its respective tank? Or should advantages of a smaller more compact gun, that can be put in smaller, cheaper & more varied packages be considered. Extending this also be taken as an ROI study of performance vs. things like manufacturing complexity, bore wear & the capacity of the design to be used in more numerous roles or developed further... (Truncated: Do we consider this piece of ordinance as the shiny new tube sitting in a tank or take a more holistic view of its wider potential)

It would be interesting to see a full allied testing review of the 88/71, this may be illuminating as to why they chose not to pursue the long barrel/"magnum cartridge" route in their tanks, even in regards post-war development. The fairly long 20 pounder relied on superior projectiles, rather than ballistics, to marginally (ignoring APDS) better the 88's penetration performance.

 

I have not disputed this. If you think I was then I either you misread or misinterpreted me.

This however I do dispute. Navies specified that shells should surivive penetrations at specific angles. The reading I've done indicates that the US shells in WWII were speced to a larger angle than those of other combatants. There is no way that I can see to determine if a shell is meeting spec in this regard other than to test it at said angle. While not defintive proof it certainly points to tests at angles other than o and 30 degrees.

It's not at all clear to me how you came up with that range. Comparing it to the table at: http://www.navweaps.com/Weapons/WNUS_14-50_mk11.htm
The striking velocities match up to a range of around 10,000 yards to around 30,000 yards

No I'm not.

But you have done so by "cherry picking". Ie you have ruled out the more powerful US guns and better US AP rounds.

 

That's something along the lines of my thinking. The 88/71 overreaches on performance. One of the biggest problems with very long guns like the 88 is that it is, from an practical engineering standpoint, inaccurate and short lived.
The inaccuracy comes from a combination of barrel droop due to its length (gravity does have an effect here too) and is more exaggerated when warm after firing several rounds. The other is barrel vibration. The longer the tube the more it will vibrate when fired. This to increases dispersion of the rounds.
The short life comes from the errosion of the barrel rifling which is increased due to the higher velocity of the rounds fired. For example, the USN and RN looked at this problem between the wars for large ship guns. Both examined the possibility of smaller calibers firing at much higher velocities. They both found that barrel life became unacceptably shorter when the smaller high velocity gun was tested. In the case of Rodney and Nelson just different shells made a huge difference.
Tests of their 16" guns in development showed that a 2048 lb shell at 2670 fps caused a 1.5 fps drop per round fired and that maximum barrel life was just 180 rounds. To remedy this the RN dropped the charge from 525 lbs cordite to 510 lbs increasing barrel life to 200 rounds.
The 88/71 is no different. In fact, this is why the Germans chose to give that gun a loose liner; so it could be changed relatively easily when worn out. The US ordinance department diliberately chose to make their designs last longer by decreasing performance some. The Soviets did likewise. Both made up for this by using a larger gun.

Anyway, the 100/60 using capped full caliber ammunition is equal to the German 88/71 in performance with similar ammunition. It is also better using APCR postwar rounds compared to the AP 40 round the Germans used.

Basically what I'm saying here is that a gun that performs all around better (the 100 has a more effective HE round too) is a better choice for a tank gun than one based on its tank killing performance alone. The later is overreaching for one (and not the main) use of a tank in combat.

 

You need to put a couple of qualifiers on there.

First what do you mean "most powerful". Consider that the US put 105's on tanks and the Soviets 122's in quite a few tanks.

Second: As for most poerful gun into a rotating turret that goes to Yamato I think.

Third you probably need to state something to the effect of in a widely used vehicle. Otherswise theirs a number of other candidates with the Maus probably leading the list.

 

Really?!! Does this include prototypes?

 

And what they ended up with was a tank with a gun not suited for tank warfare or a tank of such size.

And judging by how quickly the Soviets set up new production lines during the war, I don’t believe they would’ve had much difficulty in setting up mass production of even an entirely new gun. Redesigning the D10 for increased production speed was not beyond the capability of Soviet engineers.

I really can't recall Zaloga ever writing that the IS-2 had any impact on the Germanys defeat, and looking through the books I can't find anything of the like either. Could you point me to the place you've read this?

As for Manteuffel, his division (Pz.Gr. GDD) boasted a 20:1 kill/loss ratio against the IS-2, and he is quoted as saying that the Panther was a much better tank than anything the Soviets came up with during the war. So I doubt his opinion of the IS-2 was particularly high.

Furthermore the Waffenamt carried out extensive tests with captured IS-2’s at Kummersdorf, and the end verdict was exactly the same as Manteuffel’s, the IS-2’s principal opponent the Panther is a much better tank.

IS-2 amonst other Allied tanks at the Kummersdorf proving grounds:

It is the most important requirement for any main battle tank, cause if compromises are made in this area you're likely going to be in serious trouble on the battlefield once you're faced with an enemy tank where such compromises haven’t been made.

Helpless? Very few tanks are helpless against infantry, regardless of their AT capabilities. You've got to remember that just because the AT capability is the no.1 requirement that doesn't mean all other roles are forgotten. Infantry support for example is a hugely important role for any tank, and any wise designer keeps that it mind when designing a new main tank. But what always had to come first is the armament & armour, simply because without adequate amounts of either one and you’re risking a beating by enemy armour.

To demonstrate why the AT capability and protection of a tank take the highest priority in main battle tank design: Imagine having two equally sized forces clash, lets say Black vs Yellow. Both sides have armoured support, side Yellows tanks are armed with guns featuring great HE capability but lacking in AT capability. Side Black’s tanks are armed with guns featuring less powerful HE rounds (but still powerful enough to be effective), while their armour penetration power on the other hand is excellent. What will happen is that the two sides tanks will clash heads at the very beginning, and side Black’s tanks are immediately going to start decimating the armoured ranks of side Yellow. Soon side Yellow will find itself without armoured support at all, their superior HE capability getting no chance at all to prove its worth. Side Yellow’s infantry are now at the mercy of side Black’s tanks.

That is why you consider the AT capability of the main armament and protection value of the armour before anything else when designing a main tank. Does that mean the rest is unimportant, unnecessary or redundant? No! Capability in the other roles is crucial if you want a good tank which will do well in almost any situation it is faced with. And you can achieve this while still having AT capability and armour protection as priority no.1, you’re just not going to end up with the most effective anti personnel vehicle on the planet for example, but that doesn’t matter as long as it’s effective enough.

You can’t have something that excels in all roles, but you can have something which can perform all roles, a jack of all trades, but it is never going to be really good at any of them. The US tried this with the Sheridan. Therefore one has to realize what a tanks absolute worst enemy is, which is not necessarily its’ biggest threat (that would be RPG’s & AT missiles these days), but the inability to deal with an enemy tank is a potential disaster waiting to happen for your own tank and esp. the infantry supporting you. Thus a tanks worst enemy is another tank, and that is exactly why AT capability & protection are priority no.1 for main battle tanks.

That is hardly supportive of your argument as all things undergo improvement. If you think the development of new tank main armaments and armour protection technologies has stalled in recent years and taken a back seat to anti-personnel protection technologies then you’re mistaking.

So the anti personnel capability of tanks are being improved upon for sure, but so is AT & protection capability. A good example is the Leopard 2 tank, it got a huge improvement in armour protection in the 90’s, and most recently a higher velocity main gun, same caliber, only improvement was to armour penetration because of the increased muzzle velocity. These improvements were all aimed at improving the Leopards performance against other tanks.

Are you saying the Syrians, Eqyptians & Iraqis didn’t train their tank crews?? If so I know quite a few people who will strongly disagree with you! A couple who would’ve even been dead if it wasn’t for the much superior western equipment. Infact there were several incidents in Iraq for example where Iraqi tanks were masterfully operated, in end however this mattered little as the technological superiority of western tanks was so immense that it didn’t matter squat how skilled the Iraqi tank crews were.

In short the Syrian, Egyptian & Iraqi tank crews were definitely trained, perhaps not often to western standards, but enough to make sure that had the tanks been up to par with western armour then we would’ve seen far more coalition casualties then we did, both in 91 & 03.

Tom Clancy doesn’t speak of broken arms, he speaks of men losing an arm entirely. He also explains that the tank was so cramped inside that the Soviet military had to have special crews no taller than 1.60m in height to man the things. And even then it was munchkin land inside.

Triple C there’s no misunderstand what Tom says. He says that intelligence officers of the 60’s and up through the 80’s would only need to see some basic specs of some Soviet equipment before almost breaking into panic thinking the Soviets had finally figured it out. On the T-72 all they saw was a big gun (125mm), heavy armour and long operational range. They didn’t stop to think that a big gun doesn’t always translate into an effective gun, and that thick armour isn’t always the same as effective armour. And sure enough when the West finally get their hands on a T-72 they find it’s hopelessly inferior to most contemporary Western main tanks.

Look at the tanks the West had in the 70’s, and look at the combat record they have against Soviet armour.

 

Again you are mistaking TA Gardner. The BR-412D was a APBC projectile, and developed in WW2. And the performance of that round I have already posted once:

10cm D-10 L/59
Projectile: 15.8 kg BR-412D APBC
Muzzle Veocity: 887 + m/s
Penetration performance against 30 degree inclined Rolled Homogenous Armour
100m = 150mm
500m = 140mm
1000m = 130mm
1500m = 120mm
2000m = 100mm

The 185mm penetration figure you mention was achieved not at 1000m, but 500m and against vertical armour plates.

Penetration performance of BR-412D against vertical Armour:
100m = 193mm
500m = 185mm
1000m = 175mm
1500m = 160mm
2000m = 150mm

And again the 8.8cm KwK43 for comparison:

8.8cm KwK/PaK43 L/71:
Projectile: 10.4 kg PzGr.39/43 APCBC
Muzzle Veocity: 1000 + m/s
Penetration performance against 30 degree inclined Rolled Homogenous Armour
100m = 202mm
500m = 185mm
1000m = 165mm
1500m = 148mm
2000m = 132mm

Penetration performance against vertical Rolled Homogenous Armour:
100m = 232mm
500m = 219mm
1000m = 204mm
1500m = 190mm
2000m = 176mm

And he is wrong I'm afraid. The 8.8cm KwK/PaK43 concentrated more energy on target than the 10cm D10, and would therefore outperform the D10 with similar ammunition types.

8.8cm KwK/Pak43:
Projectile: 10.4 kg PzGr.39/43 APCBC
MV: 1,000 m/s
Total KE = 5200 KJ
KE concentration = 85.49 KJ pr. cm^2

10cm D10:
Projectile: 15.88 kg BR-412D APBC
MV: 887 m/s
Total KE = 6246 KJ
KE concentration = 79.52 KJ pr. cm^2

Furthermore the BR-412D is a WW2 projectile, and its' performance I have already posted.

The penetration performance of the 10cm D10 first increased with improvements in design of the gun itself in the post war years. By the 1950's the muzzle velocity with the same rounds had been upped to 1,000 m/s, and the use of SABOT rounds was in full spin.

 

I'm sure tests at steeper angles were done, but they were not standard, and that's all. The standard was to fire against vertical or 30 degree inclined plates, and it's the results of these tests that we have.

I'm looking more at angle of fall for this one.

But that's not true lwd. I haven't been cherry picking at all, I picked the std. armour piercing round for both guns, infact the rarer late type for the 90mm M3. And exactly what more powerful US gun am I leaving out ? If you're talking about the T15 again two were sent to europe just before the war ended, and neither saw any combat. There were 44 times as many Jagdtigers around for petes sake. Furthermore the T15 gun was dropped right after the war in favour of the less powerful M3, the two piece ammunition and size of the T15 being to great for practicality.

 

1. The outperforms both the US 105 and the russian 122 in terms o penetration and accuracy.

2. I mean the most powerful gun ever put in a tank turret during WW2.

3. The maus would be relatively useless as a tank, as it really just is a semi-mobile pillbox with an enormous gun and massive amounts of armor. The KT was useful as a heavy breakthrough tank in the assault role, and as an extremely powerful mobile turret in the defensive role (similar to the maus but with greater mobility).

No, this does not include prototypes like the maus.

 

However, the BR-412D APBC has 3685.56 J more momentum

 

Must we include only guns that sen service on a tank? As I've asked before what if the Allies built bigger vehicles or used SPAT like the Germans did? Imagine the US 105mm or 120mm or British 3.7" AA on an SP vehicle. Also no comment on the discussion of German armor over on Tank-Net that I provided a link to?
The US 105mm T5 would penetrate 210mm at 100 yards at 30 degress compared to the 8.8cm/71's 202mm .

 

the 105mm T5 was a post war gun mounted on a post war tank. And if we are talking all guns, not just ones mounted on tanks then the 12.8 cm pak 44 id the most powerful. While its close range penetration is similar to the 88mm L/71, it maintains its effectiveness over long ranges. In terms of kinetic energy, the pak 44 is easily the most powerful gun ever put into a vehicle during world war 2, and delivers a stunning 12, 676 KJ of kinetic energy, compared to the 5700 KJ of the 88mm L/71. It was so powerful it could literally tear any other tank in half at ranges exceeding 2000 meters. And even if the round did not penetrate the tanks armor, the sheer kinetic energy of the shell was usually sufficient to destroy the target.

 

I afraid I am literally on the run for work so I can only quickly address your argument.

Zaloga and von Manteuffel's verdict on the JS-2 was quite different from the German Army trials. Ref. 12-16 on Zaloga's book on the JS-2; he considers the JS-2 to be an equal to the Tiger and enjoy significant armor protection and firepower advantages over the Panther. Overall they were well matched tanks. Von Manteuffel considered the JS-2 the best tank of the war bar none.

During WWII, doctrinally the #1 role of the tank is exploitation and pursuit. This was a constant across US, USSR and Wehrmacht though mileage may varry. Post-War American armor doctrine assigned shock and exploit as of coequal importance. The Soviets on their part remained to view tank as operational exploit forces, not line breakers.

Tanks are only useful in a combined-arms team. In your example you assume the two armies fight symmetrically, a classic fallacy in war games. Americans create units dedicated to play Red Force precisely because of this problem.

Suppose I know you have a massive armor advantage, like what the Wehrmacht had over the Russians from 1941-1943. I will not fight your tanks with mine in meeting engagement. I will attrite your armor with infantry, combat engineers and artillery by defending an objective that I know you must take. This is exactly what the Russians did at Kursk, Egyptians in 73 and the Hezbullah did in 2nd Lebanon.

Out of the context out of what I just outlined, ideally tanks do not seek to fight other tanks. Armor commanders today still would attack vulnerability whenever possible. The Russian doctrine have not changed. When your enemy's tank is significantly better than the other in antipersonnel firepower, operational mobility or numbers, you have an operational dilemma; your tanks might not be able to move fast enough to interdict enemy armored thrusts while your infantry is unable to counter enemy armor. Additionally the enemy might attempt to fix your tanks by sucking the armor into a tank and antitank weapons duel. That was the Soviet game in the Cold War. American officers did not fear Russian tanks. What they worried about was Russian artillery.

As for the Syrian, Egyptian and Iraqi troops, they were cannon-fodder. Western armies performed so well because Arab generals "don't know how to carry a bucket" to quote General Franks. The best that could be said about the cream of the Iraqi Army in '91, the Republican Guards, is that that they were of the same caliber as a indifferent Red Army Category III Motor Rifle Division. But far more serious than the short-comings of the Arab soldier were the numerous operational blunders, idiotic leadership and horrific organization of their officers--as the Israelis who fought in Golan Heights freely acknowledged.

As for superior Western equipment, I suggest you to cf. Victory Misunderstood which is an open source paper on the Battle of the 73rd Easting. Basically the analysts re-fight the battle with computer simulation changing different conditions such as reducing American ACR's technology to Iraqi levels, use less efficient offensive tactics or raising Iraqi tactics to meet criteria of basic competence and study the results. The conclusion is simple: the battle hinged on Iraqi incompetence. Even if the Americans kept all of their technological advantage and made the attack the same way, a competent Iraqi defense--one that used properly made defensive positions and deploying a covering force--the Iraqis would win.

Honestly I don't care what Tom Clancy said. Go to tank-net and ask Russian and US tankers who had been in the insides of a T-72 and ask them if amputation by autoloader is a significant risk. More pertinently, in the 1970s, the best American tank was the M-60A1 RISE. Unlike the T-72 it had no composite armor, the gun's stabilization was equal, less mobility and no advantage in night vision devices. It was not pretty and any Cold War vet who had been subjected to that condition hated it.

 

I think there were towed versions of the T5 being tested at the end of the war or it maybe it was the T8 which is even more powerful. All I'm trying to say is that the Western Allies had guns in the same league as the 8.8cm/71 & 12.8cm/55 IF they would have adopted the concept the Germans did in taking a tank chasis and equipping it with the next larger gun size up,i.e. like the Panther & 7.5cm/70 in turret upgraded to Jagd Panther with 8.8cm/71 or Tiger II with 8.8cm/71 upgraded to Jagd Tiger with 12.8cm/55. The MK III/IV chasis mounted the 8.8cm/71 in a lightly protected SP .The UK & US both had large AA guns that could double as AT guns along with having the chasis to mount them on.

Now all this being said I will agree it's hard to beat or equal the 8.8cm/71 as the best tank gun if one considers a gun fielded in any sort of quantity. However IMHO one must look at what is the best gun/tank for each country for whatever that country wanted to be able to do with their vehicles. I also just don't think sheer AP performance is the end all to be all in judging a guns effectiveness.

 

Possibly or not. Depends on what you get for those "compromises". In the case of the M-4 a better AT gun may not have helped much when you look at the overall result.

This is a rather classic stawman. What you are saying is if you hold everything else equal and give one side an edge it will win.

Not really. The Sheridan was never intended to be a MBT. It use was much closer in concept to a WWII US TD.

I've read professional military analysis that suggest that if we had exchanged tanks in either of the above cases that the win would have been just about as convincing. You simply don't seem to appreciate how much difference the training made in this case. Of course one of the other tradeoffs the Soviets made in their equipment was capability for numbers. In neither of those engagements were the opposing tanks deployed in the numbers the Soviets invisioned using against western formations.

That's not what I've read.

Again look at the training of their crews and the numbers employed.