Service
The PaK 38 was first used by the German forces during the Second World War in April 1941. When the Germans faced Soviet tanks in 1941 during Operation Barbarossa, the PaK 38 was one of the few early guns capable of effectively penetrating the 45 mm (1.8 in) armor of the T-34. Additionally, the gun was also equipped with Panzergranate 40 APCR shots which had a hard tungsten core, in an attempt to penetrate the armor of the heavier KV-1 tank. Although it was replaced by more powerful weapons, it remained a potent and useful weapon and remained in service with the Wehrmacht until the end of the war.
The Pak 38 carriage was also used for the 7.5cm Pak 97/38 and the 7.5cm PaK 50(f) guns.
Read more about this topic: 5 Cm Pak 38
Famous quotes containing the word service:
“The true courage of civilized nations is readiness for sacrifice in the service of the state, so that the individual counts as only one amongst many. The important thing here is not personal mettle but aligning oneself with the universal.”
—Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831)
“We too are ashes as we watch and hear
The psalm, the sorrow, and the simple praise
Of one whose promised thoughts of other days
Were such as ours, but now wholly destroyed,
The service record of his youth wiped out,
His dream dispersed by shot, must disappear.”
—Karl Shapiro (b. 1913)
“The more the specific feelings of being under obligation range themselves under a supreme principle of human dependence the clearer and more fertile will be the realization of the concept, indispensable to all true culture, of service; from the service of God down to the simple social relationship as between employer and employee.”
—Johan Huizinga (1872–1945)