Pak 40 Walk Around And Firing

[DKTanker]

Thought some would find this interesting.

 

http://youtu.be/T7fhBm1ouSU

Edited September 20, 2014 by DKTanker

[Mr King]

That channel is full of good stuff. Do they take that brass and reload it to make new shells? If not where do they find ammunition for it?

[Argus]

They reload, AIUI with the semi-auto disabled on the breech to spare the brass getting dinged up, keep the loads moderate and the cases will last more or less forever, the only wearing part being the adapter in the primer pocket but that's replaceable.

 

shane

[rmgill]

Yep. They make up giant case resizing dies and use a press to seat them. I looked at getting one of the 37mmx223R reloading systems. Reloaders complain about the cost of a .50 big reloading kit, but holy cow, for a larger cannon case...

 

Something that takes a jug or two of powder per shot....$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

[Stargrunt6]

That dude's hair going everywhere when he shot it was the lulz.

 

 

Never would've thought that it used such simple optics.

[Ken Estes]

That dude's hair going everywhere when he shot it was the lulz.

 

 

Never would've thought that it used such simple optics.

 

The optics didn't look correct, more like an adapted rifle scope. There was no sign of the range settings and other aspects of a very sophisticated sight for both the gun and the StG III.

 

Here is our own TNetter Vlad Yakubov's walkaround of the Littlefield 7.5cm, for instance:

 

http://svsm.org/gallery/75mm-PaK40/IMGP2811

Edited September 24, 2014 by Ken Estes

[shep854]

From the speaker's comments, the scope was indeed standard for the gun; a simple 'point and fire' setup. I'd imagine engagements were pretty much point-blank affairs.

[L.V.]

From the speaker's comments, the scope was indeed standard for the gun; a simple 'point and fire' setup. I'd imagine engagements were pretty much point-blank affairs.

 

The guy in the vid went through the sights pretty damn fast.

 

The sight had a lead lever that moved the telescope sideways. It had five positions (in relation to the target's line of travel): "straight", "oblique to the right", "oblique to the left", "right" and "left". These positions assumed a target travel speed of 20 km/h. In addition to this it had a mil based reticle that could be used in determining the correct lead. The range drum could set for different ranges by turning the elevation handwheel. It was graduated for 200-1800 m for armor-piercing and 400-2800 m for HE. The gun could also be fitted with a separate dial sight for indirect laying.

 

[Ken Estes]

Thanks, I could not remember exactly what I had seen inside Littlefield's StG III but it was a similar setup and very well engineered, with careful attention to the demands of precision gunnery at long ranges.

[rmgill]

Flat trajectory due to the high velocity will make some of the aiming simpler.

[Ken Estes]

Not at long ranges, where a mil represents a meter off per kilometer of distance.

[Colin]

Hetzer, sigh I only took a picture of the driver part, Eureka! I had this labelled Hetzer but it is the Stug!!!! but an exterior shots shows it had the stereoscope bino's

 

Edited September 26, 2014 by Colin

[Ken Estes]

Well done, Colin. I could see that it had many controls for its reticles but did not know at the time I was inside the vehicle what its capabilities really were, such as mechanical lead offset, much easier to use than stadia lines on the reticle. Another thing I could appreciate in StG III was the close grouping of the crew, almost like the Luftwaffe doctrine evidenced in the Ju-88 and Dornier 17 series. The guys were so close that they could even work without intercom. The vehicle commander had the bino RF and the gunner the rest of the controls, the driver close at hand for quick fine movements and so forth.

 

These features plus the powerful ammunition explain why the Allied troops saw 88s everywhere in WWII, when usually it was more likely a Pak 40, or even the captured Pak 36(r] when rechambered for the Pak 40 round. The Pak 40 type optics used by both clearly supported gunnery at 2Km and more.

 

You remind me to check my own pics from Littlefield's and I did have a partial view of the range drum of the Pak 40 sight, which is rotated 90 degrees in your StG III image of the periscope mounted variant. The other pic shows the business end of the gun and the healthy size of the ammunition, and the APCR had a respectable MV of 990 m/s.

 

 

 

The indirect fire sight [the mount is upper right of primary sight] was apparently the Aushilfsrichtmittel 38 (ARM38):

 

data at http://www.lonesentry.com/ordnance/aushilfsrichtmittel-38-auxiliary-quadrant-sight-38.html

Edited September 26, 2014 by Ken Estes

[L.V.]

Well done, Colin. I could see that it had many controls for its reticles but did not know at the time I was inside the vehicle what its capabilities really were, such as mechanical lead offset, much easier to use than stadia lines on the reticle.

 

The StuG III was equipped with the Selbstfahrlafetten-Zielfernrohr 1a (Sfl. Z. F. 1a) periscopic sight that was slaved directly to the gun so that whenever the gun was traversed the sight moved with it. Therefore I don't believe it had a mechanical lead function.

 

The first photo shows the two different reticles (models 1 & 2) that were used in the Sfl. Z. F. 1a and the second photo shows the dial sight that could be used with the Pak 40.

 

 

[iamcanjim]

Later in the war, Pak 40's were used a regular artillery in place of the various 105 mm guns. Did they get different sights?

[Tony Evans]

Not at long ranges, where a mil represents a meter off per kilometer of distance.

 

More practically, at 500 m, firing at zero superelevation would cause a miss short by a considerable distance. Firing at a superelevation for 500 m was probably good enough out to 700 or so meters, if you're just trying to hit somewhere on an enemy vehicle 6-8 feet tall. But if you're trying to hit a specific spot, or at longer ranges -- still well within the effective range -- one would have to be able to set a more precise superelevation.

 

BTW, the range drum does show up in the video, at 1:30 to 1:45. It's been painted over with the same paint as the rest of the gun.

[Colin]

We have gotten howitzers back from workshop where they have painted over scales, bearing surfaces and bubbles.

[Tony Evans]

We have gotten howitzers back from workshop where they have painted over scales, bearing surfaces and bubbles.

 

Okay, I'll bite -- doesn't it say in the maintenance manual where the paint is supposed to go, and where it isn't?

[Colin]

These are the main workshops for the forces, one would think they knew, cared and were inspected prior to shipping back to the unit.

[Tony Evans]

These are the main workshops for the forces, one would think they knew, cared and were inspected prior to shipping back to the unit.

 

What I meant was that manuals for paintable military equipment generally include instructions for painting, and that those manuals are supposed to be available at whatever echelon that maintenance is accomplished.

[Colin]

the 202 workshops were the main workshop for the whole army, these guys were the specialists or supposed to be. We got a howitzer back from them which had a failure of the recoil system (thankfully going back into battery) We took it to the weapon techs at Shilo and they found the workshop had left metal filings in the system, which gouged the walls of the recoil system when they got caught up in the pistons.

[Puckett]

thank you for the walk around. I liked it.