I made a special trip to Fort Hood, TX to see this weapon as it is one of my favorites from WWII. There are very few examples remaining, and the pictures of existing weapons are few and of poor quality. I saw this gun in the past and recalled that it was still at the fort. It started life as a Russian F-22 76mm Divisional gun. The Germans captured thousands in 1941, and they converted many into the Pak 36(r) - the "r" meaning Russian. The F-22 is often called an antitank gun, but it was most definitely a field gun primarily for indirect fire. It uses the Russian standard PG-1 artillery sight, can elevate to almost vertical, and the transverse and elevation handles are on opposite sides of the breech - think of two guys trying to track a moving German tank. It did have AP ammunition.
The Germans cut off the top of the gun shield and used it to reinforce the remainder of the shield. They bored out the chamber to accept Pak 40 shell cases - it used special 76mm projectiles vs. 75mm for the Pak 40. That is quite a feat when you consider the Pak 40 case is almost twice as tall the standard Russian 76mm case. They also added a the Pak 40 sight mount so it could use the ZF direct fire telescopic sight. Finally, they moved the elevation crank handle to the left side of the gun by passing the drive shaft through the elevation gear. This cut down the max elevation to 18 degrees. Think of how far this gun has traveled: made in Russian, captured by Germans and modified in Germany, shipped to North Africa where it was captured by Allied forces and shipped to the US. These were also used in several models of the Marder tank hunter.
The Germans cut off the top of the gun shield and used it to reinforce the remainder of the shield. They bored out the chamber to accept Pak 40 shell cases - it used special 76mm projectiles vs. 75mm for the Pak 40. That is quite a feat when you consider the Pak 40 case is almost twice as tall the standard Russian 76mm case. They also added a the Pak 40 sight mount so it could use the ZF direct fire telescopic sight. Finally, they moved the elevation crank handle to the left side of the gun by passing the drive shaft through the elevation gear. This cut down the max elevation to 18 degrees. Think of how far this gun has traveled: made in Russian, captured by Germans and modified in Germany, shipped to North Africa where it was captured by Allied forces and shipped to the US. These were also used in several models of the Marder tank hunter.