Hi All,
I picked this up a few months ago, at the time it came with no primer and no base fuse, a couple of items that are frequently left off, but I found them both from a dealer here in the US. The neck of the case is also frequently cracked in firing, but not this one.
Although the Flak41 didn't quite make it out of it's shakedown phase before the Luftwaffe pulled back the remaining units
to Germany where they could be fixed as the bugs showed themselves, nobody seems to have complained about the basic soundness of
both the round or it's entirely new carriage design which was quite a bit lower than the Flak 18-36-37 models, making it an even more difficult weapon to identify and target.
This type was by no means the largest fixed round they made, it is pretty unwieldy to handle compared to the standard 8.8cm round,
but it had a max altitude of nearly 50,000 feet,and a muzzle velocity of about 3400 feet per second. Direct fire was also an obvious requirement for
anti-tank use, but actual data on the performance of this round is not very plentiful. The 8.8cm Pak43 became far more numerous but I have no
clear understanding of which was better, or if they were approx. equal in throwing a PzGr39 projectile and armor penetration.
If anyone has any data on the specific performance of this in comparison to the Pak-43, I would sure like to read it. The cases are visibly different,
but the taller but thinner case of the Flak41 could end up with the same propellant quantity as the Pak-43, which was a bit shorter, but wider. I read the Flak41 contained about 12 pounds of powder. In one picture below I have the case next to a British 6 Pdr. case for scale. I also have a problem with the threads in the base fuse I have to file out but have not gotten to yet.
Walt
I picked this up a few months ago, at the time it came with no primer and no base fuse, a couple of items that are frequently left off, but I found them both from a dealer here in the US. The neck of the case is also frequently cracked in firing, but not this one.
Although the Flak41 didn't quite make it out of it's shakedown phase before the Luftwaffe pulled back the remaining units
to Germany where they could be fixed as the bugs showed themselves, nobody seems to have complained about the basic soundness of
both the round or it's entirely new carriage design which was quite a bit lower than the Flak 18-36-37 models, making it an even more difficult weapon to identify and target.
This type was by no means the largest fixed round they made, it is pretty unwieldy to handle compared to the standard 8.8cm round,
but it had a max altitude of nearly 50,000 feet,and a muzzle velocity of about 3400 feet per second. Direct fire was also an obvious requirement for
anti-tank use, but actual data on the performance of this round is not very plentiful. The 8.8cm Pak43 became far more numerous but I have no
clear understanding of which was better, or if they were approx. equal in throwing a PzGr39 projectile and armor penetration.
If anyone has any data on the specific performance of this in comparison to the Pak-43, I would sure like to read it. The cases are visibly different,
but the taller but thinner case of the Flak41 could end up with the same propellant quantity as the Pak-43, which was a bit shorter, but wider. I read the Flak41 contained about 12 pounds of powder. In one picture below I have the case next to a British 6 Pdr. case for scale. I also have a problem with the threads in the base fuse I have to file out but have not gotten to yet.
Walt
