PzII with a 75mm Gun

If they manage to get it out before Invasion of Soviet Union it could have a significant impact. The T-34 will look a lot less scary if they have a tank that can deal with it.
 
And even if it was you still have what amounts to a glass cannon. It'd probably be able to deal with most Soviet armour, but I think it'd be able to be destroyed by most of them at fairly long ranges
 

Deleted member 1487

Is it possible to mount the 75mm LG40 recoiless gun in a turret suitable for the PzII?

http://www.militaryfactory.com/smallarms/detail.asp?smallarms_id=666
You're better off just going with the Marder II. The recoilless gun would need an open turret at least, like the 75mm mount on the Puma, but wouldn't be widely used due to the huge propellant waste of the recoilless guns that Germany couldn't afford. Better to use this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raupenschlepper,_Ost

Or this:
http://forum.worldoftanks.com/index...pfwagen-38t-with-pz4-turret-and-8-cm-paw-600/
 
You're better off just going with the Marder II. The recoilless gun would need an open turret at least, like the 75mm mount on the Puma, but wouldn't be widely used due to the huge propellant waste of the recoilless guns that Germany couldn't afford. Better to use this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raupenschlepper,_Ost

Or this:
http://forum.worldoftanks.com/index...pfwagen-38t-with-pz4-turret-and-8-cm-paw-600/

Marder II also had the advantage of being able to mount a variety of guns, including captured Soviet weapons. Link to the Raupenschlepper was interesting, never knew that existed until now.
 
Well there was never an issue with weight...

After World War II, there was little money for defense spending while the nations of Europe rebuilt their industry and society. When there was some cash to spend, one had to be creative to stretch it as far as possible. The French probably accomplished the most astounding example of that with the ACMA Troupes Aeról Portées Mle. 56. Deployed with their airborne forces, this was essentially a militarized Vespa scooter outfitted with a 75mm recoilless rifle. Five parachutes would carry the two-man gun crew, weapon, ammunition, and two scooters safely to earth, and the men would load the weapon on one scooter and the ammo on the other, then ride away. More impressively, the recoilless rifle could be fired effectively on the move by the best of the gun crews. Total cost? About $500 for the scooter and the recoilless rifle was war surplus. Were they successful military machines? Well, the French Army deployed about 800 armed scooters in wars conducted in both Algeria and Indochina.
 
And even if it was you still have what amounts to a glass cannon. It'd probably be able to deal with most Soviet armour, but I think it'd be able to be destroyed by most of them at fairly long ranges

Post WWII, the French did the AMX-13

Big gun, tinfoil armor on a small chassis
 
So far I have not heard of any projects for a Panzer II with a recoilless gun, which of course does not prove that there has never been one.

I have, however read about two projects for recoilless guns on two other armoured vehicles, the Panzer IV and the Schwerer Ladungsträger Borgward IV (heavy explosive carrier Borgward B IV).

This is a picture of the mock-up of the Panzer IV with two 75mm recoilless rifles (If the information from these two sites is correct). I think there is also a mention of this project by Walter Spielberger and Hilary L. Doyle on the Panzer IV.

I do not know what the point of this project was (if these were really 75mm guns and not a bigger calibre), since the Panzer IV could easily carry convential 75mm guns and the recoilles rifles would use much more propellants than conventional guns and require the loader(s) to partly give up the protection of the turret if they wanted to fire these guns more than once.

pzivrecoilless.png
 
This is a picture of the Borgward IV with a 105mm recoilless gun. The chassis and the forward superstructure seem to be a real steel vehicle, while the gun and its armoured protection seem to be a wooden mock-up. The site from which this picture is taken calls the recoilles gun a 10,5 cm LG 5.240 (with LG standing for "Leichtgeschütz" or light artillery piece).

Pictures of a very similar mock-up, showing presumably the same chassis and forward superstructure, but a shorter barrelled gun (also clearly of a recoilless type), can be found in Walter J. Spielberger's Spezial-Panzer-Fahrzeuge des deutschen Heeres from 1977 (I do not have any more recent editions available). The gun there is called a 10,5cm Leichtgeschütz 350.

105cm_auf_gep_185.jpg
 
One way to reduce propellant usage is to fill the back of the shell with sand.

I vaguely remember a 1960s-vintage infantry (AT) rocket that blew plastic chaff out the back so that you could fire it from inside a building but not have the back-blast kill all your buddies.

Again, the key dilemma is minimizing recoil, while not blowing your supporting infantry off their feet, while not creating a cloud of smoke that attracts counter-battery fire???
Pick any two.
For example, vigorously ejecting a brass casing out the back would solve 1 and 3, but still thin the ranks of supporting infantry.
 
What about putting the Panzer II Ausf. M into service and then upgrading it to a 75Mm ? it would be open topped but it be the German Hellcat. A 75mm on a fully rotating turret.
 
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