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I´m reading a book about Normandie written by two famous swedish writers called Zetterling and Tamelander. They have written alot of books about WW2 and I have read most of them. However they wrote something I found odd in this perticular book.

They were comparing the Tiger I and the Panther and I didn´t find anything odd until they wrote the following (translated by me from swedish!) "It was equipped with a 8,8 cm gun wich was adequate(!) against allied tanks although its perfomance wasn´t as good as the gun on the Panther".

I found this a bit odd since to my (limited) knowledge the 8,8cm gun is considered one of the finest antitank guns of the war?

this can (possibly) be due to having less shells
length/caliber being a bit less & accuracy falling a little
rotating of the turret being slower I think

The 88mm shell would do more damage, but the 75mm L/70's quite a bit more accurate and was easier to reload (lighter, smaller shell) and as such had a somewhat higher rate of fire.

The Tiger's turret rotation speed, or turn radius in general, was also slow as cpt flam noted.

Hi all,

ORIGINAL: ComradeP

The 88mm shell would do more damage, but the 75mm L/70's quite a bit more accurate and was easier to reload (lighter, smaller shell) and as such had a somewhat higher rate of fire.

The Tiger's turret rotation speed, or turn radius in general, was also slow as cpt flam noted.

Also, IIRC, the 75mm Panther shell was higher velocity than 88mm Tiger I shell...


Leo "Apollo11"

Adding something not mentioned:

The longer barrel of the Panther gun meant the shell reached higher muzzle velocity and obtained higher accuracy. This translates to more penetrating power even though the Panthers gun is of a smaller calibre.

Combine higher penetrating power, faster reload time/rate of fire and better accuracy and you would have a base for argumenting it's a more effective gun.

I would also have reacted to the usage of the word "adequate" for the tiger gun. Kind of an understatement.
Even though the Tigers gun were one of the finest tank guns of WW II, so was also the Panthers, so it would be a close race I suppose.

Remember that the Tiger I had a gun that was 56 calibers in length. It was shorter than the famous 88 of the AA and AT units (and Tiger II), which was 71 calibers in length.

While still a fearsome weapon (Wittmans Normandy fighting shows this), it was still less accurate and had less penetration than the 75 of panther (long caliber, lots of propellant, very high muzzle velocity).

I know, I know, I am repeating what others have said. I was just remembering the 75LL of Cross of Iron.

Thank you all for your answers!