anti-tank deficiency

After going through the articles on this website I got the impression that the Romanian army's light anti-tank guns were obsolete against Russia's main battle tank T-34 and behemots like the KV series. But after doing a closer inspection of the light AT guns I thought that they were not as obsolete as some people and writings say. If I remember correctly, a good part of Romania's AT gun pieces were 37mm (Bofors) and 47mm (Bohler, Breda, Schneider). The armour penetration numbers seem to confirm 120mm's theory that lower calibers can penetrate as much armour as bigger AT pieces. Take for example the 37mm Bofors:

Penetration (AP shell, 30 degrees):
300 yards: 40 mm
457 yards: 33 mm
600 yards: 30 mm
900 yards: 20 mm
1200 yards: 15 mm
(source is wikipedia)

300 yards is 274.32 meters for those of you who don't know and this is a decent distance to engage a T-34 considering that the 37mm is very small and thus hard to spot. If this gun can trully penetrate 40mm of steel slopped at 30 degrees, then in *theory* the shell should be able to penetrate the front hull of the earliest T-34 model. But in practice this would require some luck and proper training and experience of the AT gun crew. But if APCR ammunition is used then it is very probable to destroy a T-34M41 anywhere. Yes, APCR ammunition was scarce but from what I've read they were still distributed to romanian tank crews in 1945. From this range, a 47mm Breda could destroy a T-34M41 with normal ammunition and if APCR ammunition is used it can most likely destroy a T-34M43 too which was the height of the T-34 series before the T-34/85 was introduced. And according to an article on wikipedia if HEAT ammunition is used, the shell can penetrate up to 120mm which is excellent.

So why do people insist that Romania was defficient in anti tank capability?
Why did the romanian army rely on Germany to provide 50mm and 75mm PAK's when they could've spend money to improve the lighter AT munitions? In my opinion would have been a better option because 50mm and 75mm PAK's (including Resita clone) demanded more ressources to produce and Germany couldn't spare many for Romania. On the other hand improving and mass producing munitions can be done locally.

Hi dmw,

Presumably you could ask the same question of every other army that began the war with a 37mm anti-tank gun and upgraded to 75-76mm. (This includes all the major powers).

If it was that easy to give 37mm anti-tank guns better ammunition to tackle heavier tanks, one has to wonder why none of them did so effectively? If the industrial giants failed to do so, why should an industrial minnow like Romania succeed?

Some, tried. The Germans developed squeeze-bore barrels and tungsten ammunition. However, the barrels wore out very quickly and tungsten was in short supply (I think most of their supply came from unreliable Turkey).

Cheers,

Sid.

The information on Wikipedia might be defective, or based on ideal range conditions, which wouldn't apply in real life. You would probably need some information deriving from tests made by the Romanian army, or other armies, and more or less contemporary battle reports to assess how effective these weapons were in battle conditions.

Off the top of my head, I think the Romanian army tested the Skoda (?) 37mm gun with which the R2s were armed against a captured T34 and found that it was unable to make a dent on it.

The British Army used the 2pdr widely in the first years of the war, and it's performance exceeded that of most 37mms as far as armour penetration was concerned, but it was soon found wanting against panzer III and IV in the desert.

I imagine any government would have been very pleased if it could make do with much cheaper 37mm or 47mm anti tank guns, the fact they were replaced by every nation as quickly as was economically feasible suggests that they weren't much use, as Sid said in his message. Other Nations with these feeble small calibre weapons (eg Italians) had similar problems as the Romanians on the eastern front.

The T-34 made in 1940 had in front 45 mm of armor.
The T-34 made in 1941 had in front 52 mm of armor.
The T-34 made in 1942 had in front 65 mm of armor.
The T-34 made in 1943 had in front 70 mm of armor.

The T-34/85 had in front 90 mm of armor.
Moreover, all these frontal armors were sloped - thus with a bigger equivalent thickness.

It seems the 37mm could "kill" a T-34 only from its flank, and this was quite common: the 37mm of the PzIII could do it.
Unfortunately, all the canons you listed could not harm the T-34 with a frontal hit, other than a "lucky shot" in a track.

This post has been edited by Florin on June 20, 2006 02:19 am

I second Sid and Florin's views on the subject.
Although the Bofors 37mm was not as useless as some would think, it clearly lacked the penetration, and, more importantly, the stopping power to knock out a T34 at any but the closest ranges.
The only whothwile solution would have been to purchase new AT guns, but, despite getting some 50 and 75mm PAKs from the Germans and building our own AT gun (the 75mm Resita DT-UDR 26) from 1943 onwards, that was, in my oppinion, too little, too late.
I wonder one thing though- does anybody know about the projectile weight /muzzle velocity ratio needed for a sucessful AT gun to penetrate at least 100mm of armour at 1000m? Because if we can get the numbers straight, maybe we can see if any other gun could have been used in the AT role. (I'm thinking AA, field artillery pieces, maybe old WW1 vintage fort guns?)

This post has been edited by Wings_of_wrath on June 19, 2006 05:45 am

Regarding the projectile, in addition to mass and speed, it is important the hardness of the material and the shape of the tip. Also in the 1970's the Russians realized that a projectile which does not spin around its axis of movement is more efficient, and that's why the canon of T-72 is not rifled, and its shell is stabilized by fins, and not by self rotating around the axis of movement.
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Regarding the armor, the quality of steel is also very important, in addition to thickness. As far as I know, Soviet Union produced tanks with frontal armor as thick as Tiger II, but while the front of the Soviet tanks could be penetrated by shells, the Tiger II couldn't be. Even though the quality of material used for the armor of Tiger I and Panther was better than the one used for Tiger II.