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47 mm APX anti-tank gun

WW2 French anti-tank gun

Field	Value
image	47 mm APX CFB Borden 1.jpg
image_size	300
caption	47 SA 37 preserved at Base Borden Military Museum at CFB Borden Ontario, Canada
name	canon de 47 mm SA mle 1937
type	Anti-tank gun
origin	France
design_date	1936
manufacturer	Atelier de Puteaux
production_date	1939–1940
number	1,268
used_by	France
Nazi Germany
Kingdom of Italy
wars	World War II
caliber	47 mm
length	4.1 m
part_length	2.49 m L/53
carriage	Split-trail
weight	1,070 kg (2,359 lbs)
width	1.6 m
height	1.1 m
cartridge	Fixed QF 47x380 mm. R APCBC
cartridge_weight	1.73 kg (3.74 lbs)
elevation	-13° to +16.5°
traverse	68°
velocity	855 m/s (2,805 ft/s)
range	2,000 m (2,187 yds)
rate	15 to 20 rounds/min
crew	6

Nazi Germany Kingdom of Italy |}} The 47 mm APX anti-tank gun was a French anti-tank gun that saw service in the first years of the Second World War.

Development

In the 1930s, the French Army sought a replacement for the derivatives of the 75 mm mle 1897 field gun it used as an anti-tank gun. The soixante-quinze was an effective anti-tank gun but was heavy and much harder to conceal than the newer, small, high-velocity, small calibre anti-tank weapons. The chosen weapon was a design of the state-owned arsenal Atelier de Construction de Puteaux workshop (abbreviated to APX) located in Puteaux, Paris, and was named the canon de 47 mm semi-automatique mle 1937. A similar model designated the canon de 47 mm semi-automatique mle 1939 was also produced. Both were efficient weapons, especially given the thin armour of contemporary German tanks. The gun could pierce 60 mm at 600 yd or 80 mm at 200 yd. Unfortunately for France, the 47mm SA mle 1937 and 47mm SA mle 1939 were still rare weapons at the time of the Battle of France.

Foreign use

Examples captured by the German forces were used under the name 4.7 cm Pak 181(f) for the mle 1937 and 4.7 cm Pak 183(f) for the mle 1939. The guns were used in Atlantic Wall fortifications and armed a number of their Panzerjäger self-propelled tank destroyers.

4.7 cm Pak 181(f) oder 183(f) auf PzJäg Lorraine Schlepper (f) - mounted on a French Lorraine 37L tracked artillery tractor chassis
4.7 cm Pak(f) auf Panzerspähwagen P204(f) - mounted on a French Panhard 178 armored car chassis
4.7 cm Pak(f) auf PzKpfW I - mounted on a Panzer I chassis
4.7 cm Pak(f) auf PzKpfW Mk.II 748(e) - mounted on a British Matilda II tank chassis
4.7 cm Pak 181(f) oder 183(f) auf PzKpfW 35R(f) - mounted on a captured French Renault R35 infantry tank chassis

Variants

47mm SA mle 1939 TAZ - a variant on a tripod, capable of 360° traverse, which did not enter production.
47mm SA 35 mle 1935 - an earlier variant, mounted on tanks such as the Somua S35 and the Char B1, used a shortened 47×193 mm R cartridge.

References

Sources

Ferrard, Stéphane. France 1940 l'armement terrestre, ETAI, 1998,

References

Chamberlain, Peter. (1974). "Anti-tank weapons". Arco Pub. Co.
"47mm Mle1937 Anti Tank Gun".

Info: Wikipedia Source

This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page.

world-war-ii-artillery-of-france world-war-ii-anti-tank-guns 47-mm-artillery military-equipment-introduced-in-the-1930s

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