I have the German field maintenance crew. Can I use the Panther shells/crate with the Mrder III. Were the shells similar is size/shape?

Hi Marlowe , according to Wikipedia the rechambered 7.62cm shells were 715mm long by 100mm wide.
The Panther's various 75mm rounds were between 875.2mm(APCR) 893.2mm(APCBC-HE) and 929.2mm ( HE ) long
Here are some pix of the containers for the ammunition.

7.62cm





7.5cm







Here is the link to the site for the photos.

http://wehrmachts.kisten.free.fr/categories.htm

You will find some further information regarding box sizes in the "Antichar" and "Blindes" sections.


Hope this is of some help to you

Best regards

Paul

Thanks, I guess I can't use the shells from the maintenance crew kit. Mayber I'll have them handling fir tree branches for camoflauge instead.

ammo for the Pak 40, with the long skinny cases. If anyone makes Pak 40 ammuniion in 1/48, that's what you want.

Bandai had shells and cases with their 75mm Pak 40 kit but they were rudimentary in appearance

Someone please enlighten me. The Russian 76.2 gun was rechambered to take which ammo? 75mm Pak 40, or not? If so, why do the ammo boxes pictured above say '76.2 mm' on them? If not, (and obviously not the Pak 40, judging by the comments) then which?? Perplexed!!

with the Russian Pak 39(r) is very similar in appearance to the ammunition for the 7.5cm Pak 40. For modeling purposes, they are identical in 1/48. I don't know if anyone offers this ammunition in 1/48.

Leo, the reason why the Germans used the Russian 76.2mm gun AND the ammo for them was that at the beginning of the push into Russia and subsequent satelite states, they captured not only vast quantities of these guns, but also the manufacturing facilities including the ammunition depots. They didn't need to use their 75mm guns and ammo for these conversions because they had so many of the Russians just lying around. They kept the 75mm's for other purposes until they had enough made.

Ken

I am a little confused. All of my research material states the the 76.2mm guns, both on the MarderIII, Sdkfz 139 and the towed guns were rechambered for German PAK 40 rounds. I doubt the Germans would have used the greatly inferior Russian AP round. The Panzer Grenate 39 AP round was a superb round that introduced both ballistic caps and HE fillers. What I beleive the Germans did was to bore out the firing chamber to hold the larger PAK 40 rounds and develop a Pzgr39 round with slighly altered driving bands to support the 76.2mm bore and somewhat different rifling on the 76.2mm barrel. The bore length was shorter on the 76.2 then the PAK 40 resulting in about 5% less penetration.

If all of this is correct then you may use PAK40 rounds. They would have brass casings with OD green shells and brass fuses for HE and all black shells for AP.

Hi Guys -

Here's a website with much information on German ammo, which has a picture of a Pak 36(r) round. These look pretty easy to make out of styrene rod, there's no neck on the cartridge case.

http://www.germanmilitaria.co.uk/ammu.htm

Cheers -

Malcolm

Well, if I am wrong, please accept my humble apology. All the research and info I have speaks otherwise. Go figure.

Just as an example, I have the MBI book on the Marder III and Grille. In it, it states, "The soldiers obtained their first "seventy-fives" in February 1942, and one month later the assembly lines supplied the first Pz.Kpfw IV tanks, armed with the KwK 40 version, and Sturmgeschutze with the StuK 40. Even before that the enemy supplied the Germans with an excellent antitank weapon - the 7.62 cm divisional gun F-22, introduced in 1936. Incidentally, this gun was originally developed by the German Rheinmetall company. Thousands of these excellent guns with full munitions depots fell into German hands during the first six months of the Eastern campaign. Tests have shown that after small modifications the gun could be used in the antitank role. The Wehrmacht thus accepted the guns under the designation 7.62 cm Pak 36(r). The guns penetrated at 1,000 meters 83 mm of armor, and 112 mm with the new subcaliber ammunition. These guns bridged the time period before the wide availability of the new Pak 40 guns, as their adaptations could be made quickly by the German gun manufacturers."

I take this to mean that these Russian guns and ammunition were used as a stop-gap solution until more Pak 40's were made. I can't see the German Wehrmacht retooling these guns for Pak 40 ammo at this time when "full munition depots" were on hand. Also, wouldn't they want to supply their own soldiers using these as towed antitank weapons, and the later Panzer crews with their Pz.Kpfw IV's with all the Pak 40 ammo they were producing?

If someone can wade in here and let me know if I am wrong, please do. I like to get things straight myself as well.

Thanks,
Ken

the KwK 40 tank gun and StuK 40 assault gun weapon did not use the same ammunition. The Pak 40 round had a long tapered straight sided case that was not much bigger in diameter than the projectile itself. However, it was very long and not suitable for use in the confined interiors of armored vehicles. Thus, the tank/assault gun weapons used a shorter, fatter case with a smaller neck to carry the projectile. If you go to the above referenced website and scroll up and down, you'll find examples of all the WW2 German AFV and towed AT gun ammunition. As Mark mentioned above, the 7.62cm Pak 36(r) used the Pak 40 case with projectiles adapted to work in the Russian 7.62cm bore. Since the projectiles were different, the 7.62cm ammunition was separated from the standard 7.5cm Pak 40 ammo. Again, for 1/48 modeling, Pak 40 ammunition would be an excellent match.

I have similar info as Mark Gilmore in that the Russian guns were rechambered (for a different ammo). If the Germans merely used captured Russian ammo for the guns then there would have been no reason to rechamber the guns at all. So either the guns were, or were not, rechambered. Unless the Germans used the guns un-rechambered with the original Soviet ammo until such time that they (the Germans) had sufficient stocks of Pak 40 ammo and THEN had the soviet guns rechambered for the Pak 40, or some other, ammunition.

You learn something everyday!

But what did the Germans do with the Russian ammo?

Ken

Ammunition is ammunition, so I would imagine it was all used up in captured guns which had not been rechambered.

Here is a nice link to a walk around of the F-22 76mm gun used on the Marder, including some shots of its ammunition. You can see that the case used in the F-22 is a straight taper round, very similar to the longer Pak-40 case (the feature which permitted the Germans to re-chamber these guns) and may well have even fit the rechambered guns in a pinch.

http://www.primeportal.net/artillery/yuri_pasholok/76mm_f-22_divisional_gun_mod.1936/index.php?Page=1

Konrad