The best way to get that is have a different design be called the Panther. Say a 75mm L48 VK3002D. In that case it would be less well armored and have a lower ranged gun, but it would be better than the T-34 and capable of fighting well in the East. In the West it would find that the M4 Sherman would be more able to handle it. Production won't be that much better, but the reliability increase would mean what was there would be more able to stay in combat. The issue then is combat losses and with Wallied air power and the general wastage rates in Normandy and Italy it probably won't make much of a difference unless they can make a LOT of them.
Just curious how do you envision this happening ? (Ie. amongst other changes do the Germans get the machine tools and materials needed to mass produce the originally intended final drives or is the design of the Panther changed so that a reliable tank can be mass produced by the historical German WW 2 economy ?)
The larger bore presumably would have lead to a more effective HE projectile ?
Correct better HE performance, which is what I was thinking of in terms of increased universal utility; the long 75 was great for killing tanks, not so good for anything else.
Yes....
Right, which is why it would get redesigned for that role, like the 88mm FLAK 36 was altered to become the KWK36. I'm not suggesting that an unmodified FLAK gun get tossed into a turret.
And how would this be achieved? Are we going with Alien Space Bats "just is", or do we need to establish how this happens in the first place?
Ok that makes sense, but then why not start with a clean sheet of paper and work backwards from the effects you want to shell to have ? (Ie. Ask for a gun that fires a shell capable of producing X number of fragments each weighing between Y and Z grams, with a muzzle velocity of ZZ M/s, with a overall cartridge length not to exceed YY mm etc..). Let the weapons makers decide how best to realize the goal, pick the best design and move on ?
The caliber is smaller than the existing 88, but bigger than the 75, has lower propellant usage than the 75 long, but greater shell mass. Effectively though with the existing barrel design all they would need is a redesign of the recoil system to get it to fit in a turret rather than having to start designed a gun from the ground up. They did the same with the 75mm L70 for the historical Panther, it was based on an existing Krupp FLAK gun, which they had to lengthen to improve the AP value at long ranges, while also modifying it to fit in existing turrets. They didn't have to start from scratch, they had the ground work done, so it was a modification job. That is why I'm suggesting using the existing Czech gun, plus they have ammo production already going.
Ok that makes sense. The point I'm trying to make is that I believe there should have been more emphasis put on the performance of HE shells for tank guns. There seems to be lots of info about their AT performance but realitively little about the actual effects of their HE shells.
The Panther HE was pretty garbage and it was really high velocity, so the HE effect didn't work well on the receiving end.
And to rehash a topic from a prior thread I've never seen a good explanation as to why there wasn't a greater use of lower velocity HE shells with better fragmentation effects in World War Two.
If you are referring to the 75mm gun I suspect that was because it was based on a field artillery piece ?
Much lower velocity weapon. The HE had a chance to work properly.
Yes, French WW1 75mm field gun.
Because they had to fight enemy tanks? What's your criteria? The Germans used 105mm and 150mm howitzers in their Assault guns, the Soviets 122mm and 152mm as well. The Germans even had a 380mm rocket gun!:
At 70 caliber lengths that's not possible. At 50-58 it is. Hence my idea for the 8.35cm gun.
