7,5/5,5 cm Pak 41 KwK 41 or Waffe 0725

[Ghostmaxi]

I did some digging, because id love to see some vehicles such as the Pz III or Vk 3001 or 3601 with the 7,5/5,5 cm Gun in game and was wondering what to expect and perhaps i missed something.

But in the suggestions about the above mentioned vehicles is so few written about the 7,5/5,5 cm Pak 41 or Waffe 0725. Or in this case will be 7,5/5,5 cm KwK 41 L/57

Reloadspeed was also to be found of up to 4 Sec so it wont be that bad!

So here are some specs you can wait for

Name: 7,5/5,5 cm KwK 41 L/57

Caliber: 7,5/5,5 cm (on statcard it will show 5,5 same as on the allready in game 2,8/2,0 cm s.Pz.B. 41)

Ammo Types: APCR, APBC and HE.

More precice list:

Apcr: Pzgr. 41 H.K. and Pzgr. 41 StK. | Apbc: Pzgr. 41 W | He: Sprgr. 41

Pzgr.41 H.K. Test showed 120mm at 30° (but unknown ammo kind and they only had 1 Shot XD and by the Mv it is guessed to be the St round) and calculation was 195mm at 500m and 170mm at 1000m. (seems a bit high idk) But it could by the Panzerbeschusstafel penetrate the T-34 up to 400m (as well as the St. grenade and this is meant by beeing a tat lower than the normal 60° cince it is a book for a possibly even slightly dug in AT Gun with the Splittrail!)

Weight: 2,6 Kg

Mv: 1260 M/s

Core diameter: 30mm

Core weight: 1,00 Kg

Calculated Pen at 10m 219mm

Pzgr. 41 StK.

Weight: 3,00 Kg

Mv: 1170 M/s

(cince its heavier the core is also bigger but i couldnt find info of it, if by the picture the core weight and diameter is the same it will be 198mm)

Pzgr. 41 W (Apbc) (It is written to be softsteel, it doesnt pierce the armor but pushes through/deforms it. Especially effective againdt high hardenes armor irl).

Weight: 2,5 Kg

Mv: 1230 M/s

Pen at 10m: 175mm (Shure its flathead but so are the Soviet Aphebc which also dont get a flat pen reduction as well as material quality isnt represented)

Sprgr. 41 (He)

Weight: 2,62 Kg

Mv: 900 M/s

Exp.Mass: 186g of Fp.02 and Np. 10 so TNT Aquivalent of 199,02g (Found it in the Geschossringbuch)

Spoiler

The T 34 B (verstärkt) (reinforced) are meant the T 34 Stz etc. which have the 15mm extra plate for up to 60mm front armor!)

One Souce tho in german (but has neat pictures) (which even shows that the Training/none core Apbc/Apcbc round was used for main combat) Deutscher Leitfaden für den Kampf gegen feindliche Panzer. 7,5 cm Pak 41 Panzerabwehrkanone

https://wiki.warthunder.ru/New_formuls_for_calculating_of_the_armour_piercing

[_PabloSniper]

I suppose the best opportunity to have this weapon in the game will be the VK3601

[FlipAllTheTables]

@Ghostmaxi

Pzgr. 41 W (Apbc/Apcbc) (It is written to be Softsteel but there where also some found with higher strength!)

Weight: 2,5 Kg

Mv: 1230 M/s

Pen at 10m: 175mm (Shure its flathead but so are the Soviet Aphebc which also dont get a flat pen reduction as well as material quality isnt represented)

I feel like you’d have to show a source for it not being soft steel because so far you’ve only provided something that says it is soft steel, and from searching online it seems to have been a training round for these cannons.

[Ghostmaxi]

The Panzerbeschusstafel gives the ranges for it. Which i even put into the spoilerl. Kw 2 side at 600m and T 34 at even 1000m

[FlipAllTheTables]

This is not proof that the round is made of anything but soft steel. In fact it reinforces it as the in-game calculated pen value for the round would be 175 mm as you showed. One of the tanks picked is an up-armored KV-1, and it says 100 meters for Pzgr.41 W, I’m assuming against a total of 100 mm of side armor.

Spoiler

So far everything I’ve seen points to this being a training round specifically made of soft steel, and as such the normal calculator that is used for normal armor piercing rounds simply should not apply to it.

[Ghostmaxi]

Idk, i made that a long time ago, i copied over from me of the old forum. But ist still used as field round and as i sayed material quality and penetrator shape isnt represented in game or else the russian ammo would be the first to take a big hit.

[FlipAllTheTables]

Russian ammunition does not fall into the same category as the Pzgr.41 W round. Pzgr.41 W shows an in-game penetration estimate of 175 mm, but can’t even go through 100 mm of armor past 100 meters according to your own source.

It’s a soft steel training round, that likely is only in the book in the scenario where the H.K. and StK. rounds are unavailable, which is likely given the lack of tungsten that germany experienced.

There’s a difference between the quality of the steel used in the round being low because the Russians couldn’t make better steel for their projectiles, and the round being made of soft steel because it outright wasn’t meant to be actually used as an armor piercing round in actual combat.

[Ghostmaxi]

Either way, debating now about the penetration is futile, as at the end of the day gaijin will do their thing and decide on their own.

[O_HOgameplay]

Good concept, but Gaijin would just make it APCR, so it would be utterly useless, and a true pain to use

[Ghostmaxi]

Conciddering the raw penetration that it can offer at a reasonable low Br i think it may very well punch some holes in everything it sees from a reasonable distance with its 1230-1260m/s velocity.

[O_HOgameplay]

The Panther’s APCR has also very good pen, yet nobody uses it, because APCR is bad.

On tanks, that have APCR as a high pen round (and have non APCR rounds too), you will only shoot APCR, if you can’t handle the enemy with the other shell.

Just look at the Conqueror (or the Conway, it is even lower in BR). At a relatively low BR, they have more pen, than a DM33.

But then you realise, that the angle performance is pure garbage, and the damage is practically non existant. And those are APDS, that is BETTER, than APCR.

And also, high pen means nothing.

Look at the Challenger! It sits at 5.0, has high pen APDS, yet the tank is awful (and that APDS too).

When will you guys finally understand, that high pen is not something that makes a tank good.

[FlipAllTheTables]

@O_HOgameplay

The Panther’s APCR has also very good pen, yet nobody uses it, because APCR is bad.

To be entirely fair, the Panther APCR has high penetration but it’s also not very useful because the APCBC also has high penetration, with the difference ranging from 36 mm at point blank to 19 mm at 2 km. The APCBC that the Panther has can already penetrate just about anything, so there’s just no reason to use the APCR given the worse post pen damage, and barely higher penetration.

One APCR that could be considered “good”, however, is US 90 mm M304 APCR, at the BRs of 5.3 to 6.7. Despite being APCR, this round is unironically useful, mostly due to the fact that it actually gets close to it’s real life penetration, and consequently it is actually substantially more powerful than, for example, M82 APCBC (over 100 mm of flat penetration difference). In fact, M304 is so powerful that it can actually go through the Panther upper plate at 200 meters or less, and even the close range 60º penetration is higher for M304 compared to even 853 m/s M82.

However, this is just one exception among a sea of useless APCR rounds. The calculator should really be reworked, because a lot of APCR rounds right now just don’t get anywhere near close to their real life penetration values. Even the M304 APCR that I have mentioned only gets close because Gaijin mistakenly has given it a 38.1 mm core diameter, instead of 48 mm, making the core more dense than it should be and therefore achieving higher penetration. The calculator in general makes APCR rounds with smaller cores and big jackets overperform, such as BR-365P, while rounds with bigger cores and smaller jackets are underperforming.

That’s not to say all Russian APCR overperform though. There’s a very stupid case which is BR-412P for the 100 mm. This APCR round is so abhorrent that it actually has worse flat penetration than BR-412D APCBC.

I feel that if APCR got actually substantially higher flat penetration values than the basic AP rounds for the respective tank (as they did in real life), they would certainly be more useful. You’d have the option to sacrifice post penetration damage for the ability to just go through the tank more easily, such as using M304 APCR to go through the Panther upper plate, and taking out the gunner and driver on the left side, rather than using M82 and shooting the mantlet or another weak spot.

[O_HOgameplay]

Some of those APCR shells that have less, or almost the same pen as a normal round are just the remenants of the past, when they actually had more pen.

Also, your choice of M304, and a Panther are very odd to me. The standard APHE can pen the upper plate even at 500m, but you can just shoot for the turret front, and potentially 1shot the tank. Even if it is not 1shot, everything in the turret is destroyed.

Gaijin did this in the beta test of the tanks.

I just remember, that during the first iteration, APCR was the meta. It did basically identical damage compared to APHE (even on the soviet 76mm guns), and did not have bad angle performance, and did not loose that much pen at range.

After that, they just nerfed APDS to the ground, and it is still in that stage, or even worse, since now it just shatters on everything.

Most people use APCR as a last resort (or when the tank is stock. I am looking at you american tanks-and their other tech tree variants-).

For me, i can remember only 1 time when i used it in the past 2 years, and that was, because i ran out of normal shells.

Currently, introducing a tank that only fires APCR is just going to make that tank absolutely useless. Worse than the Conqueror, and that says something.

And i get that this gun had a solidshot, but let’s be honest:
1, solidshot is not much better than APCR
2, do you honestly expect Gaijin to give it that shell(the solidshot), instead of just giving the tank 1 type of APCR and calling it a day?

[FlipAllTheTables]

@O_HOgameplay

Also, your choice of M304, and a Panther are very odd to me. The standard APHE can pen the upper plate even at 500m, but you can just shoot for the turret front, and potentially 1shot the tank. Even if it is not 1shot, everything in the turret is destroyed.

This is incredibly far from the truth. My assumption is that you are using protection analysis and aligning your camera angle with the barrel, like this:

Spoiler

Using protection analysis like this generally leads to awfully inaccurate results, because the shot comes from much further above than what actually happens in level ground. In this precise case, I am shooting 49º when the actual plate angle is 55º.

A generally significantly more accurate way to use protection analysis is by hitting the armor plate at it’s actual vertical construction angle, like this:

Spoiler

It might seem incorrect, but this is significantly more accurate and I have done multitudes of tests. Tank height and bullet drop (specially bullet drop) have such a small effect that it can basically be completely disregarded and you’ll end up with accurate results. Tank height can come into play but that only happens when you’re at 50 meters or even closer.
In short, M82 fired even at 853 m/s has basically no chance against the Panther UFP, as it only has 185 mm of penetration even at point blank.

For the sake of the argument I will add extra screenshots that show this against the Panther D in the test drive using the M36B2 with 853 m/s M82. It’s in arcade so that distance is visible. On a side note the pen indicator is broken, so each of the screenshots has a shot on the top left to see if it pens or non-pens at the given distance.

Spoiler

Non-pen at 70 meters.

At roughly 60 meters the indicator turns green, but even at 30 meters it is a non-pen.

Penetration achieved only at 25 meters.

Again, this is due to using the gun depression to nullify some of the angle of the Panther’s upper plate, rather than my cannon actually having the power to go through.

@O_HOgameplay

After that, they just nerfed APDS to the ground, and it is still in that stage, or even worse, since now it just shatters on everything.

Gaijin changed it in “La Royale”, specifically in update 2.27.0.22. To quote:

• Destruction mechanics of APDS and APCR rounds have been changed. Now, the projectile doesn’t destroy with impact, but loses armour piercing capability depending on thickness of the first armoured obstacle, as well as in the spaces between armoured elements affected.

It’s not perfect, but overall APDS is significantly more usable than how it was in “Sky Guardians”, where it was predetermined to shatter against specific armor plates, and overall didn’t make sense.

[O_HOgameplay]

I will just give in on the APHE vs Panther upper plate.

However, the choice of APCR still makes no sense.
Why would anybody fire APCR at the upper plate, risking things, like
1, It just bounces off randomly,
2, It just shatters randomly,
3, Even if pens, it is not guaranteed to kill either the driver, or the gunner

Just shoot an APHE into the turret. That shell has enough explosive inside to 1shot the tank fairly often, but even if it does not 1shot, the whole turret is non-functioning. Breech is out, turret ring out.
Just make a followup shot an the tank is dead.

About the last update on the APCR/APDS.
Yes, they removed this pre-determined shattering, and what we ended up with? A complete mess.
APDS, and APCR just shatters randomly on any plate. The only usable APDS rounds are the british L7 and the british 120mm on the Chieftains.

All other APDS is just useless. What do i mean?
Any APDS (ecept those i mentioned) will just shatter on spaced armor most of the time.
This includes those 4mm sheet metal boxes on the sides of the tanks.

Not only that, but they sometimes shatter on a single plate. For example 17 pdr and 83mm APDS just randomly shatter on Panther upper plate, or Conqueror APDS shatters on Tiger 2.
Yet, the worse one, Conq APDS shatters on a storage box on the side of a ZSU-57-2.

For APCR, it is even more random, with of course less damage, more pen loss at distance, worse angle performance, and more shattering.

The early APDS rounds (for exampe on the 17 pdr) have problems penetrating a Panther, yet before the update they had no problem. For the Comet, that can’t pen it most of the time.

[FlipAllTheTables]

@O_HOgameplay

However, the choice of APCR still makes no sense.
Why would anybody fire APCR at the upper plate, risking things, like
1, It just bounces off randomly,
2, It just shatters randomly,
3, Even if pens, it is not guaranteed to kill either the driver, or the gunner

1. APCR has lower ricochet chances than even APCBC in-game, to the point where it quite literally cannot ricochet off of a 55º plate. It can only ricochet from 66º and above.
2. Shattering only occurs if the round faces multilayered or spaced armor that it doesn’t have enough penetration to go through. Against single plates of armor, APDS and APCR will not shatter. This is the exact opposite to how it worked on the “Sky Guardians” update, where APDS would shatter on singular plates of armor randomly. To me it just seems like you have confused both of the shattering mechanics.

@O_HOgameplay

Yes, they removed this pre-determined shattering, and what we ended up with? A complete mess.
APDS, and APCR just shatters randomly on any plate. The only usable APDS rounds are the british L7 and the british 120mm on the Chieftains.

All other APDS is just useless. What do i mean?
Any APDS (ecept those i mentioned) will just shatter on spaced armor most of the time.
This includes those 4mm sheet metal boxes on the sides of the tanks.

Not only that, but they sometimes shatter on a single plate. For example 17 pdr and 83mm APDS just randomly shatter on Panther upper plate, or Conqueror APDS shatters on Tiger 2.
Yet, the worse one, Conq APDS shatters on a storage box on the side of a ZSU-57-2.

I whole heartedly disagree. The update did the exact opposite. I’ve already mentioned how the APDS and APCR shattering mechanic works now. On top of that, L7 105 mm rounds like L28, DM13, M392 and m/61 (all the same round just different licensed productions) still experience shattering. It is only the 105 mm M728 and m/66, much like the Chieftain’s 120 mm L15, that don’t shatter. This is because these rounds use tungsten heavy alloy cores, instead of tungsten carbide like all other APDS and APCR.

Since “La Royale” showed up, I haven’t seen a single example of APDS shattering on the UFP of the Panther or Tiger II, which is something that happened in the “Sky Guardians” update. And given that you also haven’t provided proof I simply cannot believe that claim.
The only times I have seen APDS shatter is specifically when hitting an area that is made up of multiple plates of armor, such as additional track armor or spaced armor.

@O_HOgameplay

The early APDS rounds (for exampe on the 17 pdr) have problems penetrating a Panther, yet before the update they had no problem. For the Comet, that can’t pen it most of the time.

17 pounder APDS goes through up to about 800 meters, bordering on 900 meters, as the Panther upper plate offers 231.2 mm of effective protection against early APDS rounds (slope modifier of 2.89 at 55º). Comet APDS can’t go through simply because it is actually garbage and just doesn’t have enough penetration. If the Panther angles, due to the nature of early APDS, the armor effectiveness will be increased substantially. At 59º, 17 pounder APDS stops being able to penetrate the upper plate of the Panther reliably. None of this has to do with shattering in the slightest, however. It is purely slope modifiers.

[O_HOgameplay]

Yes, it does shatter on single plates. Mostly with the 17 pdr, and the 83mm. I will not get to play those garbage tanks again, sorry for that.
And yes, the 17 pdr has problems penetrating a panther even at close ranges. Maybe due to the thypical crap damage and pen mechanics this game has, or due to the shell, i dont know.

Maybe if i get another shatter with the Conq on a Tiger 2 or something i will post a screenshot.

“It is only the 105 mm M728 and m/66, much like the Chieftain’s 120 mm L15, that don’t shatter.”
Yes, they do shatter. Both the Chieftain APDS (L15A3) and the M728 shatters (the latter on the front of an angled Conqueror last day).

If you have not experience something, it does not mean that it does not exist. Just saying.

[FlipAllTheTables]

If you won’t play those tanks, there’s even the possibility that the last time you did play those tanks was in the “Sky Guardians” update. After all, “La Royale” has been out for less than a month.

If you got M728 to shatter then you have proof. Even if you don’t have a screenshot at this precise moment, it shouldn’t be difficult to find the replay given it was “last day” according to you.

@O_HOgameplay

If you have not experience something, it does not mean that it does not exist. Just saying.

And you saying they do without proof doesn’t do any good either.

[O_HOgameplay]

Here is a screenshot i’ve found of an APDS shattering on the T-54’s turret front (tho the cam angle is a bit bad, it did hit the turret):

If you argue that “It ClEaRlY hIT tHe SiDe”, or other BS, here is another screenshot of a shell hitting the Tiger 2’s front frontally unangled. In the kill cam it appears that the Tiger was angling, but no. It penetrated above the radio, and an added bonus, it shows how little damage this APDS does:

[O_HOgameplay]

@FlipAllTheTables

And you saying they do without proof doesn’t do any good either.

And you are saying they don’t shatter without any proof.
Please upload all of your replays in which you shot APDS or APCR!