Armour-piercing ammunition (AP) is a type of projectile designed to penetrate armour protection, most often including naval armour, body armour, and vehicle armour.
Rifling is the term for helical grooves machined into the internal surface of a firearms's barrel for imparting a spin to a projectile to improve its aerodynamic stability and accuracy. It is also the term for creating such grooves.
The 8.8 cm KwK 36 was an 88-millimetre (3.5 in) tank gun used by the German Army during World War II. This was the primary armament of the PzKpfw VI Tiger I tank. It was developed and built by Krupp.
The 8.8 cm KwK 43 was an 88 mm 71-calibre-length tank gun designed by Krupp and used by the German Wehrmacht during the Second World War. It was mounted as the primary armament on the Panzerkampfwagen VI Ausf. B Tiger II. The 8.8 cm Pak 43, an anti-tank gun, was very similar in design but mounted on tank destroyers or deployed stand-alone on the field.
Armor-piercing discarding sabot (APDS) is a type of spin-stabilized kinetic energy projectile for anti-armor warfare. Each projectile consists of a sub-caliber round fitted with a sabot. The combination of a lighter sub-caliber projectile with a full-caliber propellant charge allows for an increase in muzzle velocity compared to full-caliber rounds, giving the round increased armor-penetration performance. To further enhance their armor-penetration capabilities, APDS rounds typically feature a hardened core made from tungsten or another hard, dense material.
The 7.5 cm Pak 40 was a German 75 millimetre anti-tank gun of the Second World War.
The Littlejohn adaptor was a device that could be added to the British QF 2 pounder (40 mm) anti-tank gun. It was used to extend the service life of the 2-pounder during the Second World War by converting it to squeeze bore operation. "Littlejohn" came from the calque, i.e. literal anglicization, of the name of František Janeček, the Czech designer and factory owner who had been working on the squeeze-bore principle in the 1930s, and his son František Karel Janeček, who had brought his know-how to Britain after fleeing from German-occupied Czechoslovakia.
The 7.5 cm KwK 42 L/70 was a 7.5 cm calibre German tank gun used on German armoured fighting vehicles in the Second World War. The gun was the armament of the Panther medium tank and two variants of the Jagdpanzer IV self-propelled anti-tank gun. On the latter it was designated as the "7.5 cm Panzerabwehrkanone 42" anti-tank gun.
Sub-caliber ammunition is firearm ammunition where the projectile has a smaller diameter than the bore of the gun barrel from which it is fired. Firing sub-caliber ammunition has several potential benefits compared to full-caliber ammunition. It can for example allow for much higher muzzle velocities due to smaller lighter projectiles being fired from relatively larger propellant charges, but it can also lower the cost of ammunition due to less material being used to produce the round compared to a full-caliber ammunition etc.
The Pak 43 was a German 8.8 cm anti-tank gun developed by Krupp in competition with the Rheinmetall 8.8 cm Flak 41 anti-aircraft gun and used during World War II. The Pak 43 was the most powerful anti-tank gun of the Wehrmacht to see service in significant numbers, also serving in modified form as the 8.8 cm KwK 43 main gun on the Tiger II tank, the open-top Nashorn and fully enclosed, casemate-hulled Elefant and Jagdpanther tank destroyers.
2.8 cm schwere Panzerbüchse 41 or "Panzerbüchse 41" was a German anti-tank weapon working on the squeeze bore principle. Officially classified as a heavy anti-tank rifle, it would be better described, and is widely referred to, as a light anti-tank gun.
The 7.5 cm KwK 40 was a German 75 mm Second World War era vehicle-mounted gun, used as the primary armament of the German Panzer IV medium tank and the Sturmgeschütz III and Sturmgeschütz IV assault guns which were used as tank destroyers.
The 5 cm KwK 39 L/60(5 cm Kampfwagenkanone 39 L/60) was a German 50 mm calibre tank gun used during the Second World War, primarily as the main armament of later models of the German Panzer III tank from December 1941 onwards. It was produced when the well-armoured T-34 and KV-1 tanks were encountered in ever increasing numbers on the Eastern Front, although it was only partially successful in its role. It was later superseded by the 7.5 cm KwK 40 L/43.
7.5 cm Pak 39 (L/48)(7.5 cm Panzerjägerkanone 39) was a 7.5 cm German Second World War era anti-tank gun. The gun was used to equip Jagdpanzer IV/48 and Jagdpanzer 38 tank destroyers; no towed version of the weapon was made. The Pak 39 was an electrically fired weapon fitted with a semi-automatic breech mechanism and a 48 caliber long barrel. The gun was able to destroy the most common allied tanks at up to 1,000 meters. It used the same 75 x 495R ammunition as the 7.5 cm KwK 40 of Panzer IV and 7.5 cm StuK 40 gun fitted on the Sturmgeschütz assault guns. The Pak 39 was manufactured from 1943 onwards by Rheinmetall-Borsig AG in Unterlüß and by Seitz-Werke GmbH in Bad Kreuznach. The main types of ammunition used were: Panzergranatpatrone 39 (APCBC), Sprenggranatpatrone 37 (HE) and different versions of the Granatpatrone 39 HL (HEAT).
The 12.8 cm Pak 44 is a German anti-tank gun used during World War II. It was designed as a result of experiences on the Eastern front in 1943. The German Army came upon the Soviet 122 mm field guns and issued a requirement for a similar weapon. Development initially concentrated on a field gun known as the Kanone K 44. However, once heavier Soviet tanks such as the IS-2 started to appear, the design requirements were altered to include an anti-armour role.
The PAW 600 was a lightweight anti-tank gun that used the high-low pressure system to fire hollow charge warheads. In 1945, it was used operationally by the Wehrmacht in small numbers. Only about 260 were produced before the war's end.
The 7.5 cm Pak 41 was one of the last German anti-tank guns brought into service and used in World War II and notable for being one of the largest anti-tank guns to rely on the Gerlich principle to deliver a higher muzzle velocity and therefore greater penetration in relation to its size.
The 4.2 cm Pak 41 was a light anti-tank gun issued to German airborne units in World War II. This gun was externally similar to the 3.7 cm Pak 36, using a modified version of the latter's carriage, but used the squeeze bore principle to boost its velocity, and hence armour-piercing ability. The bore had a diameter of 42 mm (1.7 in) at the chamber, but tapered down to 28 mm (1.1 in) at the muzzle. Production was terminated in June 1942, after the delivery of 313 guns. By November 1943, 47 remained in service.
In artillery, caliber or calibre is the internal diameter of a gun barrel, or, by extension, a relative measure of the barrel length.
The high–low system is a design of cannon and anti-tank warfare launcher using a smaller high-pressure chamber to store propellant. It allows a much larger projectile to be launched without the heavy equipment usually needed for large caliber weapons. When the propellant is ignited, the higher pressure gases are bled out through vents at reduced pressure to a much larger low pressure chamber to push a projectile forward. The high-low system allows the weight of the weapon and its ammunition to be reduced significantly. Production cost and time are drastically lower than for standard cannon or other small-arm weapon systems firing a projectile of the same size and weight. It has a far more efficient use of the propellant, unlike earlier recoilless weapons, where most of the propellant is expended to the rear of the weapon to counter the recoil of the projectile being fired.
