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Soviet IS2 122mm APHE

T

thehairbarebunch

Well-Known Member
Just landed (with a big thud). 122mm (122x785R) BR-471 APHE for the A-19/D-25 tank gun mounted in the IS2 (Joseph Stalin2). Cumbersome, separate loading ammunition resulted in 1.5 to 2 rounds per minute r.o.f, not helped by the crew number being dropped to four in the IS2 due to lack of space. The APHE projectile weighed 25kg alone.:tinysmile_eyebrow_t
 

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The projectile is in excellent condition for a Soviet APHE. Much nicer than my 122mm AP. Most are very badly pitted. Nice collection of WWII tank cannon ammunition; those are the same things that I collect.
 
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thehairbarebunch said:
You can well understand the low r.o.f when you pick it up though. Must've been hard work in the turret of a IS2.
Click to expand...

Well, looking at those KwK 43 King Tiger rounds next to it, working as a loader in it wouldn't be a piece of cake either...

That is a cool round, and an awesome collection, I'd love one of those short 75's for my collection, the one for the short barreled PzKfw IV's and StuG III's...
 
Thought the KwK43's would be a good comparison. Suppose the big advantage to loading the German rounds was the fact that they're a single unit and comparing all the available data I reckon around 5-7 rpm (practical not theoretical). Of course when the IS2 entered service late 1943 it wouldn't have been facing Tiger II's anyway. There was a better "Tank Killing gun" available to the Soviet's in the form of 100mm D-10, but HE performance was deemed to be more important than armour penetration.
 
Guess this is a more appropriate comparison for the D-25 time wise. 7.5cm KwK42, 8.8cm KwK36, 7.5cmKwK40, all dwarfed by the Soviet round.
 

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Awww, thats a minnow ;-)

Its not always about size, oh heck, who are we kidding, of course it is.....so weighing in at a toe shattering 48kg is the Russian 152mm BR-540 AP as used in the ISU-152 "Animal Killer" (with ML-20S gun) or the KV-2 (M-10T gun)
Interestingly, the muzzle energy carried by this projectile was only 8% greater than that of the IS-2's 122mm APHE projectile, due to the lower velocity, but 45% less than that of the 12,8cm Pzgr.43 projectile used in the PAK44 of the Jagdtiger

16,24MJ 122mm D-25T of IS-2/3
17,56MJ 152mm ML-20S of ISU-152
25.54MJ 12,8cm PJK44 of Jagdtiger

Russian 122mm and 152mm - 1600.jpg

Oh just for comparison the 20mm ShVAK AP in the middle carries an energy of around 0.0000073 MJ

Rich
 
You win Rich. Your tank ammo collecting Kung Fu is better than mine. Seriously impressive projectile you have there.
 
I think towards the back end of WW2 we're into the realm of diminishing returns as far as projectile/gun/ammunition size is concerned. The ever growing size of the gun and its resultant ammunition in AFV's had huge negative effect on the platforms usability and effectiveness as a tank killer.
As far as tank killing performance is concerned, on the German side at least, the 8.8cm KwK43 was the high watermark in tank armament, combining high muzzle velocity and resultant flat trajectory with good shot consistency and penetration.

The Soviets were prepared to accept the compromised AP performance of the 122mm D-25 (the 100mm D-10 was superior) in the IS2 on the grounds that it was a "breakthrough tank" first and foremost and was designed with the destruction of fortifications and strong points in mind. In this respect the emphasis on HE destructiveness was based on the kind of war the Soviet's were fighting (on the offensive) while post Kursk the German's were almost exclusively on the defensive.
 
One more thing to consider:
Jagttiger - 48
Tiger II - 372
ISU-122 - 645
IS-2 - 3385

The numbers differ from source to source but one can see the point :)
So the soviet ammo should be less difficult to collect.
 
I’d question your numbers but not the principal.
The 152mm AP was found by a good friend and was far far harder to find than the 12,8pzgr43.... in fact Id almost say the same of the 122mm AP

i think I wrote a thread once called rare common rounds and common rare rounds...on precisely this subject, sometimes logic doesn’t seem logical.

Fyi as as far as I am aware there were 88 Jagdtigers but still far less than the ISU-152s and IS-2s
 
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