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caid’s suggestion #177
i would like to suggest an interesting version of one of the most famous Swiss tanks. the Panzerkanone 68
The Panzerkanone 68 or Pzk 68 is a Swiss artillery tank built on the Mpz 61 chassis. developed in the middle of the 60s, the tank was proposed by the Federal Construction as an artillery tank as requested by the Swiss army. the tank offered a high firepower in a mobile and flexible platform. a total of 4 prototypes were built with small differences from each other.
the tank was built in 1969. after initial testing, 4 tanks were built and issued to the military units for field testing in 1970. the tank performed fairly well but the project was cancelled in 1972 when Switzerland obtained the license to build the M109 howitzer tank. yet the tanks remained in the army until 1974 when the army received the first artillery tanks. of the 4 pre-production models, 2 remained preserved in the Panzermuseum of Thun and Full respectively.
Firepower
the main armament of this tank is a 15,5cm Panzer-Artillerie Kanone 68 L/46. this tank gun was mainly intended to fire HE around long range like a proper artillery tank. the power of his High explosive can prove to have a devastating effect on the battlefield and can even destroy an MBT in a direct hit. this gun essentially uses the American 105mm round but the different guns offer a higher velocity and longer range than the standard American guns. the turret can rotate 360° and have an elevation of -3° to +70° which allows it to fire directly at a tank on the ground. for close defense, a 7.5mm MG 51 was installed on the cupola with an elevation of -4° to + 77°. A total of 34 rounds for the 155mm are carried and 3000 rounds for the 7.5mm. the main gun has a fire rate of 6 rounds per minute which is not bad for its size.
Mobility
The PanzerKanone 68 was built on the base of the Panzer 61. as such it feature most of the same parts mechanically wise. powered by a 8 cylinder V90° engine four stroke MTU MB 837 Ba-500 auxiliary motor 4 cylinder engine Mercedes Benz OM 636 providing 660 hp, the tank weight 47 tonnes which makes it one of the heaviest Swiss tanks (2nd after the Panzer 87 series). this gives the tank a top speed of 51 km/h amd a power-weight ratio that is still interesting with 14 hp-tonnes. while not very fast, this tank will move well on the battlefield and will not feel any slower than most early MBT.
protection
as an artillery tank, this tank wasn’t intended to be on the front line but rather on the 2nd line. this means it was not excluded to have some dirrect engagement from forward units that may had to sneak behind the front line, such as the light airborn vehicles and infantry. As such it was mounting a turret capable of giving some protection. estimated at 30 to 20mm of armor for the turret, the tank would normally be capable of taking HMG fire and shrapnel. despite his look, the tank is fairly small because the Panzer 61 on which it was based was a very small tank amount of the MBT. but the larger turret still brings it to the proximate size of the M60 Patton. the turret features 6 smoke launchers on the roof to give the tank a way to escape from a bad situation or cover its movement. an additional 6 pieces of smoke are stored inside the tank to reload the smoke dischargers. the crew includes 5 men of which a driver sit at the front and 4 more men in the turret to operate the gun. there was a
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