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Mar 20, 2013

Straight Outta Luftwaffe

Straight Outta Luftwaffe - possible German tank weapon upgrades

Hello everyone,

today, we are going to check out some serious firepower the (future) German vehicles could carry. Alternatively, since Storm revealed the intent to add more alternative modules (possibly including guns) so the same vehicle has more "build" possibilities, these weapons could be used on (some) German vehicles.These weapons are mostly aircraft guns, not primary place where to look :)

MG-151/15 and MG-151/20


MG-151/15 was a heavy 15mm aircraft machinegun (the /15 in its designation reflects the fact there existed also a 20mm version), pressed into ground (antiaircraft and antipersonell) service in the late years of WW2. It was the German equivaled of the dreaded US M16 "Meat Chopper" self-propelled anti-aircraft carriage with quad .50cals. Each of those MGs fired at roughly 700RPM, creating a literal storm of bullets. In WoT this would be pretty epic I think, if such a gun was mounted on some "waffenträger" design, or possibly some sort of recon vehicle. The 20mm variant could come in handy too - it's a tradeoff really: these guns didn't have massive penetration (you don't need that in aircraft combat), but had higher rate of fire. The penetration of the 15mm solid shot AP round (15mm PanzergranatPatrole) at 100m was roughly 25mm (at 850 m/s). Why noone bothered to use this instead of the 7,92mm gun on the Panzer I Ausf.C, I have no idea. Perhaps the lack of APCR ammo? Nope, there used to be a tungsten core APCR Hartkern-Panzergranate with 1000 m/s shell velocity, intended for the fighter-bombers in order for them to fight tanks. It could penetrate 48mm of armor at 100m. An ideal lowtier weapon.
It's "bigger brother", the MG-151/20 could fire (amongst mostly WoT-useless ammunition such as incendiary rounds) also 20mm APHE rounds designated 20mm Panzersprenggranate 151, that could penetrate roughly 24mm at 100m (APHE in WoT terms = higher alpha though). There seem to have been also APCR ammo experiments, but I haven't been able to find any decent data on that. There also were possibly some uranium ammunition experiments going on.

MG-151/15

MG-151/20


Mk-101



In the game, there already is the Mk-103, the younger brother to this 30mm autocannon. This could be another nice lowtier alternative, with a twist: the Hs-129 version had a 30 round drum. This in the game could be "simulated" by the vehicle not having a drum at all, but very high rate of fire (with no designated loader).

The interesting part are the AP and APCR bullets for this gun. The AP ones are pretty average, but the APCR? Not so much. This is what the H-Panzergranate did to a KV-1 during the tests of 1941-1942 (this also gives us historical frame, which vehicles could use this gun).



 
Bordkanone BK 3,7



Now we are getting to the interesting pieces. BK cannon series were intended for ground attack aircraft - their purpose was to destroy armored vehicles. It's a 37mm cannon alright - but with an autoloader. It had one or two 6 round clips and fired at about 130-150RPM. By the end of the war, the leftovers could have been fitted into lighter vehicles, such as the scouts. This, along with its bigger brother, could have been a good weapon for the Aufklärungspanzer Panther. Hans-Ulrich Rudel's Stuka was equipped with these weapons.

The ammunition to this weapon was supposed to be interchangeable with the army 37mm rounds. The regular ammo isn't that cool, but the APCR tungsten H shell could penetrate 130mm at 100m distance. During the German tests in Rechlin, it ripped Shermans, KV's and T-34's to pieces. The shell muzzle velocity was also notable: 1170 m/s. All that with an autoloader.

Bordkanone BK-5


This is basically a conversion of the 50mm KwK 39/1 L/60 for aircraft use. It has one notable feature: an autoloader. That's right, autoloaded 50mm PaK. This would be another great weapon for hightier German lighter vehicles. The autoloader wasn't very fast and could be "simulated" by having a non-autoloader gun in the game, but with much higher rate of fire.

They installed this weapon on all sorts of platforms. As you can imagine, the effect of 50mm rounds on American and British bombers was devastating. They even installed it into a Me-262 "Schwalbe":



The gun could fire regular 50mm PaK ammunition, including the APCR PzGr 40. But was that enough for the Germans? Nope, they were just getting started. Meet...

Bordkanone BK 7,5 "Flying PaK"


I am putting this here not because of the gun's performance (that was roughly equal to PaK 40), but because the more advanced version had a 12-round carousel autoloader. That's right, this could work in the game (if mounted on some platform - possibly a Waffentrager) as an autoloaded 75mm. This is how the autoloader looked:

The rate of fire was 30-35 rounds per minute. The barrel was a bit shorter and the initial velocity was subsequently a bit lower, compared to the PaK 40 (725 m/s compared to 750 m/s of the PaK 40), the penetration was 112mm at 450m.

So, you think this is big enough for an aircraft? Well, not for the Germans. Meet the real nightmare:

356mm Gerät 104


Yes, they actually mounted a 356mm gun on an airplane. This is how the testbed looked:


It was a giant single-shot recoilless gun, intended to destroy ships. This monster fired an APHE shell weighting 700kg (!) at cca 320m/s and was utterly devastating. The Germans later abandoned this project and focused on things such as wire-guided bombs for obvious reasons: the weight and the stress of such a weapon was enormous.
I included this only as an interesting insight into German megalomania. Not sure this could be adapted into World of Tanks - perhaps as a tier 10 ultimate derp, but there was no such project in real life, any such vehicle would be entirely fictional. There was a "smaller" project such as this, called Dusenkanonen Duka 28. It had a 280mm caliber, the APHE shell weighted 400kg, travelled at 560 m/s and could penetrate 200mm of angled armor. This version remained only a paper project.

Duka 88


Alright, back to more "realistic" weapons. This is another interesting gun: basically, an autoloaded 88 with a drum 10 round magazine. It was a sort of recoilless gun (the massive recoil was compensated by venting the gasses thru the back side of the pod), it could fire cca 10 rounds per minute, the shells reached 765 m/s and its penetration was cca 90mm at 1500m (!). So yes, we can have an autoloaded 88 if Wargaming decides so, the system was already there. Could make a great improvement to the lighter Waffentrager line.

Well, this is it. Heavy machineguns, autoloaded 37mm, 50mm, 75mm, even 80mm - could all work.

44 comments:

  1. That 356mm weapon look like it fired a weighed projectile backwards to offset the recoil rather than the recoiless principle we commonly see.

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  2. Just forget it...Nice read but will never happen.

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  3. Not sure how useless AP would have been against an aircraft, likely just make neat entrance and exit holes unless it hit something inside it wouldn't bring it down. HE or incendiary is far more useful against aircraft.

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    Replies
    1. Yes, the low caliber autocannons fired primaril HE and tracer rounds (or incendiary), the AP and APCR was meant against vehicles.

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  4. as i know germans was making autoloader for 88 krk 43 gun for panther 2/e50 in skoda so you can try find soemthing about that:)

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    Replies
    1. The only Škoda autoloader I know about was meant for the A18 75mm gun.

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  5. Can you please name some sources for the "356mm Gerät 104"?

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    Replies
    1. German Aircraft Guns: WWI - WWII', Edward J. Hoffschmidt, WE Inc. 1969

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  6. but an automatic gun developed for aircraft can be fitted in a turret of a tank? they look very big...

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    Replies
    1. Depends. On a self-propelled chassis (Waffentrager) - definitely yes. The smaller autocannons would probably fit into regular turrets too.

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  7. do you have an artists impression of a plane with the Gerat 104?

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    Replies
    1. Just the 280mm version:

      http://img249.imageshack.us/img249/5189/ju288cannone261sk1.jpg

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    2. nice, thanks

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  8. They will never implement any user suggested idea/tree/build/tank/module whatever. Why do you keep wasting time with such posts?

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    Replies
    1. Because

      a) I like it
      b) Does not matter who suggested it, it's not like Wargaming will go "Oh that's actually a good idea, but since a player suggested it, we can't use it". Either they like it, or they don't. The important thing is they know about it
      c) At least one WG developer does read this blog

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    2. I'd definitely support an 88mm autoloaded weapon say for the Tiger II, its turret likely could fit it. It'd be an alternative to just having to go with a bigger gun to keep up.

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  9. One note about why the Pz1C has teh 7.92mm Mauser in game.

    It's because that is the gun it was historically designed with.

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    Replies
    1. More practically HMGs in the ~15mm range start rivaling full-blown autocannon in size; since the Ausf. C turret apparently could carry one of the latter without issues the designers probably figured they might as well use one of the latter and get a proper HE shell in the bargain, I'd imagine.

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  10. do you know that there was a Fallschirmjäger Sturmgeschütz abteilung (Airborne AssaultGun unit), equipped with Stug III and IV?

    My greatuncle served under those in the east, died in 44.

    Tbh i dont have any information on how and if there were deployed by aircraft or just like elite-groundunits. I guess that would be kinda interesting.

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    Replies
    1. Interesting. The only thing that could airlift the StuG was the Me 323 Gigant - and there weren't too many of those around. So it's likely your granduncle's unit was a ground-unit.

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    2. One thing to keep in mind, is that after Crete, the Fallschirmjäger fought primarily as light infantry until the end of the war. And since these units were fighting as normal infantry divisions, they were equipped with armour too, mostly in the form of assault guns. So there wasn't really a need to air lift a StuG, these Fallschirmjäger and Luftwaffe divisions were entirely ground based.

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  11. 356mm gun on a german airplane? Seems legit.


    If the british put a 305mm naval cannon on a submarine, god knows what plans the germans had for their own...

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    Replies
    1. I'd love to see a German interpretation of the Ontos with them on a Maus chassis.

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    2. Err, crazy german planes? Maybe monstrous spg/tank destroyer
      P1500 Monster with estimated weight circa 1500 tons 'd fit perfectly into this category. D'oh, and it's 800mm weaponry also.

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  12. Most of this stuff is also in Zarax999 thread in EU forum:

    http://forum.worldoftanks.eu/index.php?/topic/61796-increased-gun-selection-for-in-game-tanks/page__st__120__p__4270296__hl__+increased%20+gun%20+selection#entry4270296

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  13. This post was freaking awesome, and this is why this is my first stop in the morning.

    I'm glad to see the devs have stated they intend to add more weapon options, that was a big weak point on some tanks. Good for them.

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  14. I'd love a Tier 2 TD looking like this: Panzer I with a MG-151 mounted on it.

    http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7099/6884324334_dd75792119_m.jpg

    Oh and while we're talking about the Drilling, I think this one is from Czechoslovakia.
    http://i63.photobucket.com/albums/h142/glaca79/MG151_20%20auf%20panzerwerfer42/2007-Pardubicemodely354_211.jpg

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    Replies
    1. Indeed, the amount of lead flying around would be insane :)

      And yes, it's a Czechoslovak picture, but I think this is a post-war one. The writing says "revolution guard", those were paramilitary post-war "units" of "partisans" (basically, every little rat that hid during the occupation entered en masse the guard units, where they terrorized and sometimes murdered anyone who they had personal beef with).

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  15. I just want the KwK 42 variant of this gun for the pz 1C and pz 2G

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2.8_cm_sPzB_41

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    Replies
    1. Those were fitted to some halftracks. The penetration table is also odd, other sources state it had notably lower penetration (around 25-30mm at 100m)

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    2. The 4.2 cm Pak 41 could be a better candidate, but the dev.s said there wont be another "Konisch gun"...

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  16. Actually the position on flak tanks is known: "no". But I think that some of the flak weapon mounts/configurations could be used for other vehicles, for example the Aufklärungspanzer Panther could work nicely with the twin 55mm cannon

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  17. According to...
    http://www.badassoftheweek.com/rudel.html

    Rudel is still despised in Russia (for good reason?) which is perhaps one of many reasons why we may never see the Bordkanone BK 3,7. I think the BK37 would make a great tier 6/7 light tank gun.

    The book Stuka pilot is still a great read.

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    Replies
    1. Indeed... he was a real badass tbh.

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    2. And his record of tanks destroyed does not check with real soviet loses at all, like reporting tanks destroyed where there were no soviet tank units in 100km.
      Which is kinda logical as most air-ground pilots overclamed by factor of 10.

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    3. Work of Soviet propaganda machinery. The same way they disputed score of Erich Hartmann (fighter ace of aces of all times) and many others. Suffice to say, their commanders ran out of medals to give them, they had large bounties on their heads, were given nicknames such as "Eagle of the Eastern Front" or "Black Death" and were genuinely feared by their enemies (and for a good reason). They couldn't over claim anything since they never flew alone and all their reports where checked at least three times before they were given any medal.

      Give a credit where credit is due.

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  18. I hate to ask you (But I would rather ask you than get a Serb answer), do you know why they won't be implemented?

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  19. They just said they won't do it. Probably something along the lines of "we have flakpanzers, so where are the airplanes"

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  20. Hammerschlag wrote:


    Nice finds really.

    Regarding ingame penetration, mostly it is completely wrong.

    But its very difficult to get a realistic value for them ingame.
    For example, the entire normalisation thing is wrong ingame.
    (i guess they made that balancewise)
    Normalsation of AP and APCBC, this covers most of ww2 ammo, has +5° and more nomalization. Yes, + !! not - how it is ingame.

    That explains for example that IRL the IS-3 UFP was not penable for the L/71, or the sovier 122 had problems with the panthers UFP.

    I might write an ariticle about that in the forums.. but not sure if its worth it.

    However best regards and great work

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  21. WG could we see a german light tank tree with this autoloaders plssssssss...

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  22. Nice reading, I was hoping for a BK for the Aufklarungspanzer Panther after the MK-103 was introduced, but alas....

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  23. Or, as they've answered before; each shell has its own flight calculated server-side which is quite intensive. They said the auto-cannons in-game are pushing acceptable limits.

    I can only imagine the clip size on these weapons. And if they changed the clip size, people would complain.

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