The 7.5 cm Pak 40 was a German 75mm anti-tank gun of the Second World War.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The gun was developed in 1939\u20131941 and entered service in 1942. With 23,303 examples produced, the Pak 40 formed the backbone of German anti-tank guns for the later part of World War II, mostly in towed form, but also on a number of self propelled artillery such as the Marder series of Panzerj\u00e4ger.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n
Development of the Pak 40 began after reports of new Soviet tank designs began to reach Berlin in 1939. The German army was equipped with the 3.7cm Pak 36 at the time. A replacement 5 cm Pak 38 was still in testing at this point, but it appeared it would not be powerful enough to deal with these newer designs. Contracts were placed with Krupp and Rheinmetall to develop what was essentially a 7.5 cm version of the Pak 38.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The project was initially given low priority, but following the invasion of the USSR in 1941 and the appearance of heavily armoured Soviet tanks such as the T-34 and KV-1, it was given an increased priority. The first pre-production guns were delivered in November 1941. In April 1942, the Wehrmacht had 44 guns in service; by 1943, the Pak 40 formed the bulk of German anti-tank artillery.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Pak 40 was the standard German anti-tank gun until the end of the war, and was supplied by Germany to its allies. Some captured guns were used by the Soviet Red Army.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
23,303 Pak 40s were produced, and about 3,500 more were used to arm tank destroyers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The weapon was effective against almost every Allied tank until the end of the war, only struggling to penetrate heavier vehicles like the Russian IS tanks, the American M4A3E2 Sherman ‘Jumbo’ assault tank and M26 Pershing[a], and later variants of the British Churchill tank. The Pak 40 was much heavier than the Pak 38; its decreased mobility meant that it was difficult or even impossible to move without an artillery tractor on boggy ground.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The 7.5 cm Pak 40 was a German 75mm anti-tank gun of the Second World War. The gun was developed in 1939\u20131941 and entered service in 1942. With 23,303 examples produced, the Pak 40 formed the backbone of German anti-tank guns for the later part of World War II, mostly in towed form, but also […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1881,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"set","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,32],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1894","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","category-wwii-artillery"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/infinitemodeler.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1894","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/infinitemodeler.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/infinitemodeler.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/infinitemodeler.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/infinitemodeler.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1894"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/infinitemodeler.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1894\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1895,"href":"https:\/\/infinitemodeler.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1894\/revisions\/1895"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/infinitemodeler.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1881"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/infinitemodeler.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1894"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/infinitemodeler.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1894"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/infinitemodeler.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1894"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}