The best WW2 tank ever made by a minor nation: Hungary's 44M Tas

Yeah, I agree, I think the Chi-Ri is a good comparison for its completeness. Pictures were probably taken of the 44M Tas hull, but since so many documents/pictures were lost during and after the war, there is a good chance that any images of it did not survive. Also, some information is only found decades later such as the images of the scale mockup of the Tas which were found in a Czech archive in the 1990s. If an image of the 44M Tas hull is still out there, it may still be lying in some old Russian archive until the 2040s or something. Anyway, that shouldn’t prevent the Tas from being added to WT.

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Wow. Great find! Honestly, I’m impressed, but not too surprised that I was right about the reverse speed. Hungarian WW2 tank designers seemed to love good reverse speeds!

But seriously, can you just imagine a heavy tank with great armour and a nice gun reversing at more than 44 km/h! Now if it gets smoke (I don’t know if it was planned or not), then this would be so survivable in a retreat. Honestly this could be the better Panther depending on the 80 mm gun’s performance.

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+1.It looks really cool

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It is a shame Hungarian Sub-Tree does not came with 44M Tas, would be great addition. As I’ve suggested back then, you better of making two separate suggestions for 75mm and 80mm armed Tas. Anyways, great addition.

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Thanks mate, that will be very good evidence.

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Hi guys!

I got in to connection with one of the Haditechnika magazines writer and I asked him about the 29/35.M shell that would be fired from the 80mm gun. I have the blueprints for some time now but never posted it so I will post it now.

Now, we can read that the shell is 8 kg in weight and has 230 g of explosive mass, which is a LOT. If I remember correctly the 80mm cannon would fire the shells with 872 m/s. Using Gaijins penetration calculator and enabling that this shell is APHECBC, we have a penetration of ~156 mm.

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That’s awesome! Great work in finding it and sharing with us.
Do we know what kind of filler it had? Standard TNT, I assume?

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Thanks!

Its TNT if I am right, so you assumed correctly and 230 g of it is a huge amount.

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That‘s very impressive, and it was an APHECBC, which will better than USSR 85mm shells

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I don’t know about separating them out, they really are the same vehicle, one is more of a temporary version while the other is the finalised version. Other than the gun, nothing else really is different about them. I think it makes more sense to keep it the way it is.

Wow, amazing find, well done!

However, that shell is the 80 mm 29/35M. It is a 1935 model, so I think this is the shell for the 80 mm AA gun rather than for the 29/44M tank gun of the 44M Tas (but idk why you’d need an APHECBC round for an AA gun). Considering the tank gun was developed from the AA gun, I would assume this should be compatible with the 29/44M tank gun, but I’m not exactly sure if this is the main round that it would have fired, surely a new more powerful round was made for the 29/44M tank gun? I read that the AP… round of the 80 mm tank gun could penetrate 171 mm of armour, but idk, maybe that’s wrong, maybe it fired this shell.

Edit: On the blueprint it says “lgv.páncélgránát” which probably stands for “légvédelmi páncélgránát” which means “anti-air armour piercing round”. This confirms what I was thinking, this isn’t specifically the round for the 80 mm gun of the 44M Tas but for the 80 mm AA gun instead. Whether the Tas would fire this or something better, I do not know, but it would likely fire something even better than this.

But either way, this gives us a vital starting point for the performance of the 80 mm gun. 872 m/s does seem to be the correct velocity, yes. 156 mm of pen should be enough for a BR of 5.0-5.3. And the 80 mm tank gun would either fire something this strong or even stronger. Btw, did you use this calculator? New formuls for calculating of the armour piercing — War Thunder Wiki

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Yeah no. It literally has different armament, it does not matter if it was finalised configuration or not. We have several prototypes in-game, and their production version more or less same situation.

Which is the main factor here, that affects game play and rating.

We had this argument before, however you see it fit. I do not see how you can justify having two vehicles if they are the same.

Yes this is for the 80mm AA gun, the AA gun had HEAT too. The guns had them because of anti tank capabilities same as the 88mm flak (if I am right).

It should be compatible. We dont know if it would be the main round fired, this is the only AP round and there was no development of a new round for the 29/44.M, maybe if the project wasn’t stopped because of the bombing there would be a new shell, but sadly that did not happen.

Yes it says anti air, this is for the 80mm AA guns but could be used by the Tas’s gun, same as the 40mm bofors AP rounds could be used for the Turáns 40mm.
The only problem that I can think of is that maybe the 80mm shell could not handle the pressure, but I am not sure.

Sadly there was no new development for a better round.

Yes I used the calculator you linked.

Edit: The HEAT was not accepted into service for the AA guns but the person who I talked to said that it would have certainly be put into service by the Tas.

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I get what you’re saying, and ofc in-game the Tas could certainly be two separate vehicles, but for the sake of having all of the information, history, poll, and discussion regarding the Tas in one place and not having to invent fake names for the tank like “44M Tas Prototype” and “44M Tas Production”, I think it’s simpler to just leave it as it is. I don’t see how separating them out is beneficial.

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What do you know about this 80 mm HEAT round? Do you know its penetration or can we calculate it? Would it be more useful than the APHECBC, or would it be like the HEAT round for the 75 mm 43.M gun which is mostly useless against tanks and is used as a HE shell instead?

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I would guess the HEAT is based on the German 75mm round, but modified to the 80mm gun, kind of like how Finland did with the BT-42’s gun.
Either way, it’s a WW2 heat round so it likely has only around 80-120mm of pen. A nice alternative to HE but not a primary round. Its APHE-CBC round is quite good, especially post-pen with 230g filler, so the HEAT round will not have a big impact on the vehicle I would wager. Still nice to have though.

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I feel like this should not be 5.3 if it was added, the prototype should be 5.3 or 5.0, and the production version should be 6.0.

The shell had a length of 856mm, case length of 559 mm, shell weight of 5.8 kg and the gunpowder charge had a weigth of 515 g.

Also the shell had a velocity of 482 m/s and was effective at 1300m.

It penetrated 90mm of armor at 60 degrees.
The above mentioned infos are estimated.

It is said that this shell had a similar penetration to the AP shell (from the 29/38.M cannon - 750m/s).

Sources:
http://real-j.mtak.hu/11731/1/Haditechnika_2010.pdf at page 307
http://real-j.mtak.hu/11709/1/Haditechnika_1988.pdf at page 42

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We dont have information if it was based on it or not.

But you are correct on the penetration part, it is estimated that it penetrated 90mm of armor at an angle of 60 degrees.

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Very interesting, that information gives us quite a lot to work with.
I noticed that the charge weight was almost identical to the Italian “EPS M42” HEAT round we already have in the game. 515 vs 513 grams. The muzzle velocity is different but that is to be expected and doesn’t matter gameplay-wise.
EPS M42 warthunder