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AMX-13 HE shells


usernamedeleted

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Most reference works say that the AMX-13 autoloader was rough on 75mm HE shells, to the extent that they would need to be hand-loaded instead. This seems like a big disadvantage. Was this ever overcome in the 75mm armed versions? Did the AMX-13 90mm or 105mm have the same issue, or was it fixed?

(I imagine it was fixed, if they were principally to use HEAT)!

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I have no idea, but I know that when the French needed a light tank capable of slinging HE at insurgents, they relied on the old M24 Chaffee.  When those tanks started to wear out, they mounted the M24 turret on an AMX-13 hull, resulting in the AMX-13 Avec Tourelle Chaffee.  AMX-13 started out as an air-transportable tank destroyer as far as I understand it, so I guess it was never intended to be a great HE chucker?  Anyhow, none of that answers the question posed by the OP, but heck, I wanted to post a picture of the AMX-13 with Chaffee turret.  It's honestly one of the worst looking tanks of the early cold war period. k2i7slN.jpeg

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10 hours ago, Walter_Sobchak said:

When those tanks started to wear out, they mounted the M24 turret on an AMX-13 hull, resulting in the AMX-13 Avec Tourelle Chaffee.   war period. 

They also tested a combination of and AMX-13 hull and FL-11 turret. This turret deletes the autoloader. By the time the initial batch of 5 vehicles was built in 1954, the First Indochina War had come to an end and the need for this tank had evaporated, resulting in the cancellation of the order for 15 more units. You can read more about it here: https://tanks-encyclopedia.com/coldwar-france-amx-13-avec-tourelle-fl-11/

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I don´t know, if you all have seen the AMX 13 "Loader".

It´s principally two drums - HAND turned - to the turrets back.

As the turret is oszillating, the drums are always in line to the cannon.

So regardless of round used, the cannon fires, one of the 2 men in the turret rotate manually one of the two drums, and slide the chosen shell into the cannon. In Line.

AMX ( and later Kürassier ) is rather a self propelled gun, than a Tank. More in line with the Marder II / III than a Centurion.

The AMX 13 is the Panther ´s gun on a cheap, quick, agile suspension.

Shooting HE is simply a waste. AP is the intended round.

The kind of shell in the drums and on the way into the gun is totally irrelevant.

Hermann

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3 hours ago, Arminius said:

Shooting HE is simply a waste. AP is the intended round.

The kind of shell in the drums and on the way into the gun is totally irrelevant.

I hadn't known that the drums were hand-operated. Very interesting, rather more primitive than I'd imagined.

As for HE, I am not sure that the rest of your claims are too defensible. There were definitely issues with HE in the autoloader, as it is described (in, for example, Robinson, Lau, and Gibeau) to have a distressing tendency to blow up when rammed from the revolver.

As an example of relevance, the AMX was used in Algeria, where there were not exactly many tanks to fight. So HE would be of great value - and there was, of course, such a round available for the 75mm. Likewise, the later 90mm re-bore conversion mostly used HEAT shells: so if this issue existed, I imagine it would be absolutely necessary to fix it eventually.

The US had a similar tank destroyer concept in the form of the M50 Ontos. But, they had no issue in using it as an HE slinger in Vietnam. Indeed, the Americans had found that tank destroyers in WW2 were commonly called on to support infantry, and I strongly suspect the Germans had the exact same experience.

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6 hours ago, usernamedeleted said:

...There were definitely issues with HE in the autoloader, as it is described (in, for example, Robinson, Lau, and Gibeau) to have a distressing tendency to blow up when rammed from the revolver...

Sorry, but that looks like "arm eating Soviet autoloader" myth. HE shells can not fire by having fuse smashed, they need acceleration of being fired to arm that fuse. WW2 era shells fuses could withstand fall from 2m directly on the fuse on concrete w/o exploding, I really doubt that manual ramming of a shell would be able to produce such forces to overcome safety features.

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19 hours ago, usernamedeleted said:

I hadn't known that the drums were hand-operated. Very interesting, rather more primitive than I'd imagined.

As for HE, I am not sure that the rest of your claims are too defensible. There were definitely issues with HE in the autoloader, as it is described (in, for example, Robinson, Lau, and Gibeau) to have a distressing tendency to blow up when rammed from the revolver.

As an example of relevance, the AMX was used in Algeria, where there were not exactly many tanks to fight. So HE would be of great value - and there was, of course, such a round available for the 75mm. Likewise, the later 90mm re-bore conversion mostly used HEAT shells: so if this issue existed, I imagine it would be absolutely necessary to fix it eventually.

The US had a similar tank destroyer concept in the form of the M50 Ontos. But, they had no issue in using it as an HE slinger in Vietnam. Indeed, the Americans had found that tank destroyers in WW2 were commonly called on to support infantry, and I strongly suspect the Germans had the exact same experience.

 

Do you know what you want to say or prove???

Either you had a little too much of ... whatever, or you are just arguing for arguing´s sake.

Your post is totally confusing. Mixing HE / HEAT and Vietnam era vehicle with RCL guns with WWII TD´s operation ...

Hermann

 

 

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4 hours ago, Arminius said:

Do you know what you want to say or prove???

Either you had a little too much of ... whatever, or you are just arguing for arguing´s sake.

Your post is totally confusing. Mixing HE / HEAT and Vietnam era vehicle with RCL guns with WWII TD´s operation ...

Hermann

Now, now, no need to drop to ad hominem attacks.

What I am trying to in-artfully say is that other nations had built similar tank destroyers, and unsurprisingly ended up using them for infantry support. France did the same with the AMX-13. Thus my original question.

 

16 hours ago, bojan said:

Sorry, but that looks like "arm eating Soviet autoloader" myth. HE shells can not fire by having fuse smashed, they need acceleration of being fired to arm that fuse. WW2 era shells fuses could withstand fall from 2m directly on the fuse on concrete w/o exploding, I really doubt that manual ramming of a shell would be able to produce such forces to overcome safety features.

Indeed, it does sound extreme as a claim. I wonder if there were any cases, or if the tale just grew long in the telling.

I will include some of the relevant sections from "The AMX-13 Light Tank" that inspired this post.

"An important limitation of the Mle 51 as a combat weapon against infantry was the inability of the autoloader system to handle high explosive rounds (which the commander had to load manually) and the small amount of coaxial machine-gun ammunition carried. The Mle 51 only carried 900 rounds of such ammunition versus 3,750 and 2,280 rounds stowed on the M24 Chaffee and EBR respectively. The 75mm (and later 90mm and 105mm) armour piercing rounds had a pointed nose that slid easily into the gun breech from the autoloader tray, whereas high explosive rounds were fused and presented serious risks loading with the automatic rammer (and a very real risk of high explosive rounds detonating if the round fouled the edge of the breech block instead of the chamber). The use of 75mm high explosive ammunition for range practice using the CN 75-50 in the French Army was a rarity in peacetime. In practice, from its earliest trials, the French found that the ideal use of the Mle 51 was as a tank destroyer.[73]"

[73] "Guy Gibeau could still recall many years later when one of his subordinate AMX13 SS11 tank commanders loaded high explosive rounds into an AMX13 SS11’s barillets in defiance of recommended operating procedures during a range period in West Germany. The rammer slammed the high explosive round into the breech fouling the edge. The result was one 75mm high explosive round with the shell crushed back into the casing. Tense hours followed as the horrified crew and their officers removed the impacted round to a safe location for detonation, fearing every moment that the shell would detonate."

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On 5/1/2023 at 5:09 PM, usernamedeleted said:

Most reference works say that the AMX-13 autoloader was rough on 75mm HE shells, to the extent that they would need to be hand-loaded instead. This seems like a big disadvantage. Was this ever overcome in the 75mm armed versions? Did the AMX-13 90mm or 105mm have the same issue, or was it fixed?

(I imagine it was fixed, if they were principally to use HEAT)!

I was an Armor officer with the Singapore Army in the 80s and our tank fleet consisted of around 450 AMX-13 - 75. I must have put hundreds of 75mm tank rounds down range in my time with the Army, I can't even begin to recall how many. I think there are some misunderstandings in your post about the AMX-13. If I may, .........

1) The AMX-13 DOES not have an autoloader. By that, I mean it does not have a system where you press a couple of buttons and the computer spins the carousel and read the bar code and selects the correct round, load it, ram it into the breech etc. In the AMX-13 system, a human has to be involved from start to end. The system consists of 2 X 6 round drum magazines, which can be pre-loaded with whatever mix you want. eg. One drum could be HE, one drum could be smoke, or APFSDS. In my time with the SAF, we used exclusively HE rounds. The procedure is to unlock the drums, and select which side you want. Then you hand crank the drum, if I recall corectly, either the commander or gunner can do this. The drum rotates, and one round slides out onto the tray. The crew then has to activate another lever, which is attached to a ramming rod, which then rams the round into the breech and the breech automatically locks after the round goes in. So, a crew has to manually rotate the drum, and then manually activate the rammer on every single firing. SO, not a true autoloader. More like a SEMI AUTOLOADER in my opinion.

2) Since HE rounds were all we fired, I don't recall the loading system being rough on them at all. I never had a failure on the loading system. Most of the time, if there was a failure, it would be the recoil system. Occasionally, the rounds may not align properly with the breech and so when the rammer hits it, it bounces against the breechblock and gets damaged. I know a tank commander that repeatedly tried to ram in a live HE round damaged in this way, until the head of the round was so disfigured, it got jammed in the breech and could not be extracted. Fortunately the rounds have a minimum distance fuse on them, or else, it would have exploded in the turret. LOL. Other then that, the loading system worked well with HE rounds. I could probably fire 50 HE rounds during an exercise with no failure in the loading system.

3) The only ammo that are hand loaded are the 5 rounds in the turret basket on the commander's side. Most of the time, the rack is empty as the commander's station is tight enough as it is. But if we carry a full belly load, the 5 ready rounds there are supposed to be HEAT rounds, which don't fit in the drum magazines. Of course that is the SAF's belly load. The French, IDF, etc might have a different use for that space.

4) I have lined up my platoon of 3 tanks on the firing range, and we have discharged all 12 rounds in the drums within one minute. That's 36 X 75 mm rounds in a minute. There is no faster firepower in any tank platoons that I know of. The rate of fire is a force multiplier.  Great for ambushes, and hit and runs. So, as far as I can say from my personal experience, this was never an issue that had to be overcome.

 

 

 

Edited by On the way
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Exactly my opinion: the AMX13 ( and the Kürassier ) are more like self propelled AT guns, armoured only against small arms fire and up to 40 mm ( 80´s ammo! NO APFSDS, only APDS  ) at the front.

Use is in ambush, and the amount of short time firepower is impressive.

75 mm is Panther gun copy, rebored 90 and later 105 mm use Obus G = Gessner or Geßner Granate. A German or Austrian engineer. It´s a spin stabilised HEAT round.

Hermann

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29 minutes ago, Arminius said:

...75 mm is Panther gun copy...

It is not. Ammo is not the same, gun construction is not the same, barrel length is not the same.

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23 hours ago, bojan said:

It is not. Ammo is not the same, gun construction is not the same, barrel length is not the same.

I said copy, and I mean in regards to performance.

And that it is.

Hermann

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To quote user "On the Way", without his permission:

"Gender:Male

  • Interests:Why the hell did the French stop making that tracked sports car with the pirated German canon? Point me to the tank races."

😁

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1 hour ago, Arminius said:

To quote user "On the Way", without his permission:

"Gender:Male

  • Interests:Why the hell did the French stop making that tracked sports car with the pirated German canon? Point me to the tank races."

😁

58668a745e52ce3981b741b7d6ef2527.jpg

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On 5/11/2023 at 1:20 PM, Arminius said:

Exactly my opinion: the AMX13 ( and the Kürassier ) are more like self propelled AT guns, armoured only against small arms fire and up to 40 mm ( 80´s ammo! NO APFSDS, only APDS  ) at the front.

Use is in ambush, and the amount of short time firepower is impressive.

75 mm is Panther gun copy, rebored 90 and later 105 mm use Obus G = Gessner or Geßner Granate. A German or Austrian engineer. It´s a spin stabilised HEAT round.

Hermann

Yes, that's right. The later versions of the Singapore Army's AMX-13SM1 had additional turret armor protection for up to 20mm rounds. Also, don't forget the engine and transmission are in the front of the tank, so frontally, there is some decent level of protection.

The French keep claiming the AMX-13's 75mm is not a copy of the Panther 75mm kwk 42 gun. I think it is. The Panther's gun is a vertical breech block. Meaning it goes up and down. The AMX 13 is a horizontal breech block, with the breech going to right in open position. That is why on the gunners side, there is a plate that protects the gunner's laft arm from being hit by the breech block during firing. But the breech block assembly looks very similar in both guns. I would not be surprised if the French took a Kwk 42 and turn it on its side, in order to accommodate the low roof line of the turret. 

The Singapore Army never saw the need to upgun to 90mm or 105mm. The FRench did it order to give the gun a better anti tank capability because it could use larger calibre HEAT rounds. We just went with the development of an APFSDS round for the 75mm. 

 

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On 5/11/2023 at 1:51 PM, bojan said:

It is not. Ammo is not the same, gun construction is not the same, barrel length is not the same.

Personally, I think it was a copy. But not an exact copy. It was modified to fit the much lighter and smaller AMX-13. Up till today, I would say its the most accurate gun in the world under 100mm. The IDF love the accuracy, as did the Singapore Army. The last version that was developed for the SAF, combined with a laser range finder and ballistic computer, gave really good first hit probability at 1200m. You have 90mm Cockerills effective up to 900m. And then you have this gun, good up to 1500m and beyond.

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3 minutes ago, Stuart Galbraith said:

When it got the 105mm, did it still have the 'autoloader', or was it hand rammed?

I believe it still had the autoloader. The magazines might have been made larger to hold the rounds. I am sure the rate of fire is not going to be the same as 75mm due to the heavier rounds to crank. Its too bad this forum is not in French. LOL. I am sure some AMX-13 -105 tanker can shed some light on this.

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Ill be honest, im Brit centric, so Ive latterly paid little attention to AMX-13. But if it stillhad an autoloader, that is a pretty amazing capability in such a little vehicle. I can see why the Dutch kept it in their recce units so long.

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On 5/13/2023 at 11:51 AM, Tim the Tank Nut said:

gotta love it

post a question about an obscure tank and get a hands on answer!

Hahahaha. Yes. But only obscure in the US. LOL. 7700 all versions were built, which is a lot for a light /recce tank. By comparison other contemporary light tanks like M-24 Chaffee (4,731 built) and FV101 Scorpion (about 3000 built) were not as numerous. Used by many countries.

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Just now, Stuart Galbraith said:

Ill be honest, im Brit centric, so Ive latterly paid little attention to AMX-13. But if it stillhad an autoloader, that is a pretty amazing capability in such a little vehicle. I can see why the Dutch kept it in their recce units so long.

Yeah, for something that old, it was designed really well. Especially once it was updated to diesel engine and automatic transmission. The SAF tested the Scorpion with an eye to replacing the much older AMX-13. But in terms of mobility, armour protection and firepower, the AMX was still better.

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8 hours ago, Stuart Galbraith said:

Yeah, the Scorpion with 76mm was arguably undergunned by the 1980's. It was a bit more like it with a 90mm, but I gather that caused some cracking problems.

The version the Singapore army tested was the 76mm version. The advantage of that gun was the range of modern (at that time) ammo available to it, like HESH. In all other aspects, the 76mm gun was inferior by a wide margin to the AMX's 75mm. My understanding was the heavier 90mm gun caused cracks in the turret mount. Our issue was that the Scorpion threw track all the time when tested in our training area.

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