Quote Originally Posted by Ken White View Post
It's also noteworthy that the primary tank gun in the USSR during WW II was an 85mm. Toward the end of the war, they want to a 100mm, both ten mm bigger than the US and German 75mm and later in the war US 90mm. The wild card is the German 88mm -- that probably killed more USSR tanks than anything, yet they didn't develop a 98mm...
85 mm was only important in late '43 to '45. most of the time the Soviets used much more of several 76.2 mm gun types (interchangeable ammo tank <-> field gun) and the 76.2 mm calibre remained very important until post-war (no wonder with more than 100,000 guns built!).

The Soviet 100 mm (D-10) proved to be superior to even the L/71 88 mm in post-War tests. the long 88 couldn't take on a T-54 frontally with an acceptable chance of success.
The U.S. insistence on 76 mm for a long time after the war was likely a result of the British great success with the 17 pdr gun (~77 mm IIRC) which equalled the German long (L/70) 75 mm gun in performance which in itself was almost identical to the early war (L/56) 88 mm in penetration. So basically the U.S. was stupid enough to stick for a decade with a gun that couldn't defeat an IS-2 or T-44 head-on and had at most adequate HE effect. South Korea would probably be gone if the North Koreans had had T-44's instead of T-34/85s in 1950. The normal (60mm) Bazookas were inadequate against T-44's from almost all angles.


About 98 mm; funny story. Due to the modern arms limitations treaty (forget the abbreviation, but it restricted all ordnance 100 mm or bigger), there are now a couple 98 mm mortars which are perfectly in between 81.4/82 mm and 120 mm in mortar bomb weight...
This makes as much sense as did all the Washington Treaty light cruisers; 10,000 tons but only 6" guns...