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3.7 inch AA gun - our 88mm?

Millsman

Well-Known Member
Premium Member
It has just occured to me that British tanks were outgunned by the German 88mm for much of the war, yet we never seemed to employ the 3.7 inch (95mm) AA gun to anti tank use or even consider putting it in a tank.

Was this ever considered? If it was too big to go into a tank it could still have been used as an anti tank gun, but I don't recall it ever being used for that. We certainly had a good example from the German's use of the 88 in North Africa. Was there no armour piercing shell for it?

Is this a silly question?

John
 
As early as 1940 it was realised that the 3.7" would make an excellent AT gun and in some British invasion defence plans, it says when AA sites are about to be overrun by tanks they are to cease their AA role and engage the panzers.

3.7" WERE used in the AT role abroad. There has been quite extensive correspondence about this role in the letters pages of Britain at War magazine last year, listing examples, locations etc.

I think they could not produce enough of the guns to also use them solely in the AT role as they were very expensive and used a lot of parts. But think on this... imagine a British tank with a 95mm gun! How different the battles in the desert or Normandy may have been....
 
But think on this... imagine a British tank with a 95mm gun! How different the battles in the desert or Normandy may have been....

Yes that was my thought exactly. Instead of losing 5 tanks to get a Tiger the ratio could have been reversed. Even if too big for a turret it could have been mounted on a tracked chassis as a tank destoyer.

John
 
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The 17-PR had better performance than the 3.7-inch Mk 1, and the 17-PR could be mounted in tanks and self propelled guns.

Its also worth remembering how much trouble the RA had in getting the 2+ tons of 17-PR into action, gun tractors, gun pits etc. how much harder would it have been with the much larger and heavier 3.7-inch?
 
The 3.7 inch was much heavier than the 88mm L/56 and nowhere near as handy to use in the AT role. There also weren't that many of them initially, and there was a strong preference to keep them back from the front line and reserve them for the AA role (although in confined places like Tobruk they didn't have much choice).

The gun was enormous even without the AA mounting; there was an anti-tank gun on a low-angle mounting derived from it, designated the 32 pdr, but only a few were made - it was absolutely massive. The gun was too big to fit into any turret of that era, the only AFV which mounted the 32 pdr was the Tortoise, a 70-ton self-propelled assault gun - again, only prototypes made.

On the other hand, the old 3 inch 20 cwt AA gun, which dated from WW1 but remained in service until after WW2, was far more portable. The cartridge case was adopted for the 77mm gun used in the Comet tank towards the end of the war, so it had the potential to be very useful in the AT role.
 
Yes Tony, it's clear size and weight was against it being chassis mounted but surely someone could have thought about scaling it down, making it lighter, perhaps in the same way the oerlikon was simplified by the Polesten team? Scaling down from 95mm to something near 88mm would have surely been possible? I think there was a lost opportunity back then.

John
 
Yes Tony, it's clear size and weight was against it being chassis mounted but surely someone could have thought about scaling it down, making it lighter, perhaps in the same way the oerlikon was simplified by the Polesten team? Scaling down from 95mm to something near 88mm would have surely been possible? I think there was a lost opportunity back then.
In a way, they did scale it down - to the 17 pdr. As Quatermass pointed out, his was enough gun to deal with almost any AFV in the war (and with APDS, make that any AFV), and a lot more manoeuvrable and concealable than any 88mm. It was also small enough to fit into a Sherman turret.
 
I agree the 17 pdr was a very good gun but the 3.7 actually looked like the 88mm whereas the 17pdr had a different recoil system design. When you see the 3.7 mounted on its mobile chasis the similarity to the 88 is striking.

I think this page maybe sums it up

http://www.worldwar2database.com/html/artillery5.html

John

John,

Surely the issue of guns looking similar is of minor consequence. The most important thing was that the British Army finally ended up with a superb tank killer in the 17pdr, as both a towed weapon and mounted (Firefly and Archer). The sad part is that its development was somewhat protracted (or so I understand), and as such it only got to the front fairly late in the war. It would have been good to have had it available at least in Tunisia, and then Sicily and the early Italian campaign, to even the contest.

On that score, much is made of how invincible the German Tiger tank was with its 88, and what an elite the crews were, with "aces" like Michael Wittman. This one-sided argument was suitably redressed when a prewar shoe maker, one Joe Ekins, a gunner in a Sherman Firefly, used his 17 pdr to destroy three Tigers in quick succession in Normandy, August 1944. One of these was Wittman's. Such exploits as this tend to be overlooked.



Tom.
 
3.7aa

I recall reading a book about a unit if thats the right collective of 3.7in AA guns that used them to shell various land targets like 'normal' artillery when based in Italy. The book was a regimental type history, a good read, sorry cant remember more details. 2pr
 
Interesting thread this.
Now what would the performance be like if someone had made a 3.7 inch Mk 6 with and apds projectile.........just dreaming here.......it would be a hell of a nice looking round!

On the subject of the 32 pounder, has anyone got a specimen they can post a photo of. I know the case looks nothing like the 3.7 AA cases (the 32 pounder being parallel sided much more like a giant 2 pounder tank case). I've seen one but never got a chance to photograph the headstamp etc.

Dave.
 
I agree the 17 pdr was a very good gun but the 3.7 actually looked like the 88mm whereas the 17pdr had a different recoil system design. When you see the 3.7 mounted on its mobile chasis the similarity to the 88 is striking.
The 88mm and the 3.7 inch look similar because they are both mounted very high on their mountings so that they can be loaded when the guns are elevated straight up for AA fire. That is a major handicap for anti-tank use as it makes them very big and obvious targets for any artillery or aircraft in the area. Proper anti-tank gun mountings were far lower and more easily concealed - and more difficult to hit.
 
I recall reading a book about a unit if thats the right collective of 3.7in AA guns that used them to shell various land targets like 'normal' artillery when based in Italy. The book was a regimental type history, a good read, sorry cant remember more details. 2pr

I've read of the same done in Burma and Normandy with the 3.7" AA gun
 
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