Service
The ROQF 75 mm was chiefly used on the Churchill and Cromwell tanks. The weapon was used in Italy and Normandy Invasion (and possibly in Burma against the Japanese) until the end of the war. While the 75 mm was a conversion from the 6 pounder, some units retained a number of 6 pounder gunned tanks, due to its superior anti tank firepower over the 75 mm, especially as the 6 pounder could use the even more effective APCR and APDS rounds.
Externally the gun was nearly identical to the 6 pounder gun. The 14.9 lb (6.76 kg) HE shell fired at 2,050 ft/s (625 m/s) was found to be the best available - superior to that of the 6 pounder, M7 3 in and 17 pounder all chiefly anti-tank guns. However, against armour its AP shell was the worst, penetrating only 68 mm of RHA at 500 yards (460 m) and a 30 degree angle of attack, whereas the AP shells of the others penetrated between 57 mm and 76 mm in Normandy during 1944. The AP shell for the 75 mm gun was a 15 lb (6.8 kg) projectile with a couple of ounces (60 g) of HE filling propelled by a 2 lb (900 g) charge to 2,000 feet per second (610 m/s). In British service the AP shell was used without its explosive filling and as such was referred to as "AP Shot M61".
Gun | Shell weight | Muzzle velocity | Muzzle energy | ||
---|---|---|---|---|---|
(lb) | (kg) | (ft/s) | (m/s) | (kJ) | |
2 pdr | 2 | 0.9 | 2,650 | 810 | 295 |
6 pdr AP shot |
6 | 2.8 | 3,000 | 910 | 1,100 |
75 mm | 14.9 | 6.8 | 2,050 | 620 | 1,300 |
17 pdr | 17 | 7.7 | 2,950 | 900 | 3,100 |
Read more about this topic: Ordnance QF 75 Mm
Famous quotes containing the word service:
“Let not the tie be mercenary, though the service is measured in money. Make yourself necessary to somebody. Do not make life hard to any.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (18031882)
“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 (18721945)
“The service a man renders his friend is trivial and selfish, compared with the service he knows his friend stood in readiness to yield him, alike before he had begun to serve his friend, and now also. Compared with that good-will I bear my friend, the benefit it is in my power to render him seems small.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (18031882)