8.8 cm Pak 43

8.8 cm Pak 43
8.8 cm Pak 43/41 on display at a weapons show on the northern sector of the Eastern Front in 1943.
Type	Anti-tank gun
Place of origin	Germany
Service history
In service	1943–1945
Used by	Germany
Wars	World War II
Production history
Designer	Krupp
Manufacturer	Krupp Rheinmetall-Borsig Henschel & Son
Produced	1943–1945
No. built	~2,100
Variants	Pak 43 Pak 43/41 KwK 43
Specifications
Weight	See Specifications Table
Length	See Specifications Table
Barrel length	See Specifications Table
Width	See Specifications Table
Height	See Specifications Table
Shell	See Specifications Table
Caliber	88 mm (3.5 in)
Breech	Semi-automatic vertical sliding block
Recoil	hydro-pneumatic
Carriage	Cruciform mount (Pak 43) Split trail (Pak 43/41)
Elevation	-8° to +40° (Pak 43) -5° to +38° (Pak 43/41)
Traverse	360° (Pak 43) 56° (Pak 43/41)
Rate of fire	6-10 rpm
Muzzle velocity	See Ammunition Table
Effective firing range	See Ammunition Table
Maximum firing range	15,150 m (16,570 yd)

The Pak 43 (Panzerabwehrkanone 43 and Panzerjägerkanone 43) was a German 88 mm anti-tank gun developed by Krupp in competition with the Rheinmetall 8.8 cm Flak 41 anti-aircraft gun and used during World War II. The Pak 43 was the most powerful anti-tank gun of the Wehrmacht to see service in significant numbers, also serving in modified form as the 8.8 cm KwK 43 main gun on the Tiger II tank, to the open-top Nashorn, and fully enclosed, casemate-hulled Elefant and Jagdpanther tank destroyers.

The improved 8.8 cm gun was fitted with a semi-automatic vertical breech mechanism that greatly reduced recoil. It could also be fired electrically while on its wheels. It had a very flat trajectory out to 914 m (1,000 yd), making it easier for the gunner to hit targets at longer ranges as fewer corrections in elevation were needed. In addition to this, the gun's exceptional penetration performance made it able to frontally penetrate any Allied tank to see service during the war at long ranges, even the Soviet IS-2 tanks and IS chassis-based tank destroyers. The gun's maximum firing range exceeded 15 kilometers (9 miles).

KwK 43 and Pak 43s were initially manufactured with monobloc barrels. However, the weapons' extremely high muzzle velocity and operating pressures caused accelerated barrel wear, resulting in a change to a two-piece barrel. This did not affect performance but made replacing a worn out barrel much faster and easier than before.

The higher operating pressures of the new gun in turn required a new armour-piercing shell to be designed. The result was the PzGr.39/43 APCBC-HE projectile, which, apart from the addition of much wider driving bands, was otherwise identical to the older 10.2-kilogram PzGr.39-1 APCBC-HE projectile used by the 8.8 cm KwK 36 and Pak 43 guns. The wider driving bands resulted in an increased weight to 10.4 kilograms for the PzGr.39/43. However, up until the full transition to the new PzGr.39/43 round was complete, the older PzGr.39-1 was used for the KwK & Pak 43, but only provided the gun had been used for no more than 500 rounds. Over this, the expected barrel wear combined with the narrow driving bands could lead to a loss of pressure. The new PzGr.39/43 could be fired without loss of pressure until the barrel was worn out, thus requiring no restriction.