German WW2 SPAAG Flaks 15-50mm and their Ammunition

Is the Flak 13/36/37 ammunition historically the same on the BK 3.7? APHE on german 37mms would be nice to have

Yes it is. All 4 guns Flak 18/36/37 and Bk 37 are even the exact same gun, the Flak 18. The 36 and 37 are just different mounts and sights and the Bk 37 is upside down and adapted for remote shooting. Only the Flak 43 and Bk 43 are different guns.

The ammo is also shared. Main types for air were the same as for ground: Sprgr.18 L’Spur, Brsprgr.18 L’Spur, Brsprgr. Vk. L’Spur, Brsprgr. o.L’Spur, Pzgr.18 L’Spur, H-Pzgr.L’Spur and M-Gr.18 L’Spur.

I also made reports about that, that have yet to be implemented, the H-Pzgr. is just complete overkill at Br 1.3 and 1.7, more after effect (especially given how low the ammo count is on the Ju 87 G) would be awesome.

https://community.gaijin.net/issues/p/warthunder/i/gUwXLNPXLl3g

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If I had to guess it’d be the usual suspects again. Trying to maintain production up, not wanting logistics to have to deal with yet another type of 37mm ammo, etc…

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Yeah, i thought so too. But with the same casing, the already (throughout the war) 730g shells (which were continued to be used with captured 61-K guns). Would simplefy the production and longer barrels wouldnt be so much so a production hurdle.

How much heavier the longer barrel would be? Maybe it would have been an issue for mounts?

The L/77 barrel is 95 kg. I dont know how heavy the L/57 barrel is.

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I found a bunch of data on the 5,5 cm Gerät 58 (Flak 58), was it test mounted on something?
And iirc there should be some more info in the Bundesarchiv.

Development and stats 5,5 cm Gerät 58








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Interesting.
" 4cm Flak 28 (Bofors) L/60

This weapon was originally a 1924 Krupp development. The Reichswehr was not interested, and the gun was apparently sold to Sweden."

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Big news, with the upcoming 2 part vehicles such as this
EldE 98: Missile Trolley we can suggest a pulling vehicle and a gun on a standart lafett, if it can be used in the pulling configuration. Such would be an example Sd.Kfz.7 with 8,8 cm Flak or so.

So maybe the Gerät 58 which also had its lafett build could potentially be suggested.

And maybe some other guns.

So for the Gerät 58 we would need to know what vehicle pulled it on the proving grounds.

Otherwise feel free to post here pictures of AA guns that are on a trailer or with trailer and pulled, that can be interesting and suggested after the update is live.

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Maybe they did change to the full 37x380mmR casing?
By an earlyer chart with propellant testing they used an 735g round with some 392g, which is already more than the original 364g.
Google sayes the full length is however some 516,5mm, while the full length of the 341 is just 420mm.

So maybe it uses a full new casing? With a little math i come to a maybe 283,5 or 284 or 285mm case?

Thanks, I guess we can only hope for uit to be added now.

I found another source giving the Flak 18 830m/s for 635g shell. So 835m/s for 610g (FES) shell is easily reachable. Angaben über Heeres-Geschütze Konstruktion Rheinmetall und eingeführte Geräte.

3,7 cm Flak 39 L/57 (Basically a Flak 18 where the gunnerposition was made for 2 persons with split up horizontal and vertical traverse and a shorter loading tray.)
Made for Export, in this case Hungary. They survived a long time as they were left in storage.

In contrast to the army, the propellant powder used by the navy was dibasic, i.e. impregnated with nitroglycerine. This increased the weight of the propellant charge but not its volume. As a result, the propellant charge not only has a much higher energy content, it is also virtually insensitive to moisture and wetness.

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Cool, as a side note, i found out that it used a new 280mm casing.

Isn’t there some downsides to using nitroglycerin?
Why wouldn’t anyone use that?

I think there were plans to super charge the TNSh (ShVAK) ammo using that method but in the end they didn’t adopt it.

In a report about Ho-5 ammunition the examined shells contained ~19.4g propellant but it also talks about shells with 21.5g containing nitroglycerin.

Put simply, nitrocellulose powders with added nitroglycerine, the so-called dibasic powders (or double base powder), have the advantage over pure nitrocellulose powder that they have a much higher energy content for the same powder volume. The disadvantage is a higher combustion temperature and therefore greater wear and tear on the barrel and greater sensitivity to higher temperatures during transport and storage. There is a risk that the nitroglycerine will be sweated out and the ammunition will become unsafe to handle.

Attempts are being made to counter this with multi-base powders. In addition to nitroglycerine, nitroguanidine is added, for example. This lowers the combustion temperature, which is more gentle on the barrels.

There are other explosives that are added as well as other additives that make the propellant powder safer to handle, but I am not aware of them.

As a reloader for handgun cartridges, I only know black powder and black powder substitutes as well as NC and dibasic powders.

As far as I know, there are no polybasic powders on the market for this area of application.

DVC!

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So it’s similiar to Cordite, that it increases chamber pressure considerably but also produces a lot of heat.
Which lead to British Browning .303 MGs to be built as open bolt guns, to prevent cook offs.

With the Ho-5 using the heat senstivive Ma-202 fuzeless shell, they probably got rid of the nitroglycerin, as both higher velocity shells and nitroglycerin would cause the barrel to heat up more quickly.

No problem for a changable heavy flak barrels but for autocannons that could quickly lead to overheating issues.

Interestingly, ShVAK cannons originally fired 91g shells with cordite propellant, but they later switched to N.C. flakes.

New Info on 20mm Flak ammo, also removed the Mg 151 and Mg FF from here, its still (and more up to date) in the Aircraft armarment section, link at the top of the Post.

Instead i have also chonsen to add some captured armarments to the list, and possibly Towed Flaks, since there is still a possiblity that they will some day also come to the game.

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Just because we mentioned Cordite and I just stumbled across this video, have fun:

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