7.5 cm Pak 97/38

Common card · No. 496546

The Pak 97/38 (7.5 cm Panzerabwehrkanone 97/38 and 7,5 cm Panzerjägerkanone 97/38) was a German anti-tank gun used by the Wehrmacht in World War II. The gun was a combination of the barrel from the French Canon de 75 modèle 1897 fitted with a Swiss Solothurn muzzle brake and mounted on the carriage of the German 5 cm Pak 38 and could fire captured French and Polish ammunition. Together with light weight, good mobility and sufficient anti-armor performance with a HEAT shell (enough to penetrate T-34s in most situations; the side armor of the KV series could also be pierced), it made the gun a decent anti-tank weapon. It had shortcomings, particularly its low muzzle velocity. Although this did not affect the armor-piercing characteristics of its HEAT ammunition, it meant insufficient performance when firing regular AP shells and - because of difficulties in hitting small mobile targets - its low effective range of about 500 m even with HEAT. The gun also had a quite violent recoil, especially...

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