7.5 Cm Pak 97/38 - Development History

Development History

During the invasion of Poland and invasion of France the Wehrmacht captured thousands of 75 mm Model 1897 guns, built by the French arms manufacturer Schneider. These guns were adopted by Germans as 7.5 cm FK 97(p) and 7.5 cm FK 231(f) and used in their original field artillery role.

Soon after the German invasion of the USSR in 1941, Wehrmacht units encountered new Soviet tanks, the medium T-34 and the heavy KV. Thick sloped armor of these vehicles gave them invulnerability against German towed 3.7 cm Pak 36 anti-tank guns. The situation led to requests for more powerful weapons that would be able to destroy them at normal combat range. Since Germany already had a suitable design, the 7.5 cm Pak 40, it entered production and in November 1941 the first pieces were delivered. Until enough of those were manufactured, some expedient solution was required.

It was tempting to adopt the readily available French gun to the anti-tank role. In the original configuration those guns were ill suited for fighting tanks because of their relatively low muzzle velocity, limited traverse (only 6°), and lack of a suitable suspension (which resulted in transport speed of 10–12 km/h). It was decided to solve the traverse and mobility problems by mounting the 75 mm barrel on the modern split trail carriage of the 5 cm Pak 38 anti-tank gun. To soften the recoil, the barrel was fitted with a large muzzle brake. The gun was primarily intended to use HEAT shells as the armor penetration of this type of ammunition doesn't depend on velocity.

Interestingly, another major user of the French gun, the US Army, created and briefly adopted a similar expedient design, known as 75mm Anti-tank gun on Carriage M2A3.