Originally posted by CAV
The main gun on the PANTHER was a 75 mm Rheinmetall KwK 42 L/70 with 79 rounds supported by two MG 34 machine guns. 75 mm was not a particularly large calibre for the time. Nonetheless, the Panther's gun was one of the most powerful tank guns of WWII, due to the large propellant charge and the long barrel, which gave it a very high muzzle velocity. The flat trajectory also made hitting targets much easier, since aiming was less sensitive to range. The 75 mm gun actually had more penetrating power than the 88 mm gun of the Tiger I, although not of the Tiger II.
CAV,
You can't figure it just by muzzle velocity alone - there are many factors such as range, accuracy and type of rounds used as outlined below:
In May 1941 the German general staff had demanded a new Kampfwagen Kanone (Tank Gun) specification for the TIGER; it had to be capable of penetrating 100 mm at about 1,500 meters and the improved Pzgr.39 could approach that. This is one of the two reasons why the 88 mm KwK 36 L/56 was retained as the main gun of the TIGER I, instead of the Rheinmetall 75 mm KwK 42 L/70 (Gun used on the PANTHER). The other reason was the fact that at that time, armor penetration was mainly a function of thickness to diameter (T/d) ratio. During World War II, the Armor Piercing (AP) round relied on its own weight (and a 88 mm KwK 36 L/56 gun APCBC shell weighed 10.2 Kilograms, as opposed by an 75 mm KwK 42 L/70 gun APCBC shell, which weighed 6.8 Kilograms) to penetrate the enemy's armor. Theoretically, the higher the muzzle velocity, the more penetration any kind of AP round would have, all other variables remaining constant. In real World War Two tank combat, however, other important variables intervened, such as the thickness to diameter (T/d) coefficient, which means that the higher the diameter of any given round relative to the thickness of the armor it is going to strike, the better the probability of achieving a penetration. Furthermore, if the diameter of the armor piercing round overmatches the thickness of the armor plate, the protection given by the inclination of the armor plate diminishes proportionally to the increase in the overmatch of the armor piercing round diameter or, in other words, to the increase in this T/d overmatch. So, when a Tiger hit a T-34, the 88 mm diameter of the Tiger's round overmatched the 45 mm glacis plate of the T-34 by so much that it made no difference that the Russian tank's glacis was inclined at an angle of 60 degrees from vertical.
(There is much more to this report but you get the idea.)
Originally posted by SMIDSY
jester, the king tiger didnt use the same gun as the regular tiger. the gun that was shoehorned into the king tiger was a magnum 88 as i understand it. i am quite shure it also had a longer barrel. and also, the main gun of the panther had better AT capacity than the 88 fitted into a tiger.
Yea, Smidsy,
I knew they were different guns, I was refering to the 88mm cannon family in "General" & the 88mm of the TIGER I in particular as that is the model of the Tiget Tank we have in the game. From the early Flak Gun models used for anti-tank work to the 88mm models built for the Tigers, Jagdpanthers, Elephants & Nashorns even though other guns may have been close or larger size or longer caliber than the German made 88's - NONE had their scheer killing power, range, very effective anti-tank rounds, optics & ease of handling in reloading all rolled into one package.
The German 88mm cannon family was pretty much "King of the Battlefield" in WW2 as far as anti-tank guns go.
