| 7.5 cm Infanteriegeschütz 37 | |
|---|---|
 At the Panzermuseum Munster | |
| Type | Infantry support gun |
| Place of origin | Nazi Germany |
| Service history | |
| Used by | Nazi Germany |
| Production history | |
| No. built | 1,304 |
| Specifications | |
| Mass | 510 kg (1,120 lb) |
| Barrel length | 1.8 m (5 ft 11 in) L/22[1] |
| Shell | Fixed QF 75 x 89 mm R[2] |
| Shell weight | 5.45 kg (12 lb) |
| Caliber | 75 mm (2.95 in) |
| Elevation | −10° to +40° |
| Traverse | 60°[1] |
| Muzzle velocity | 280 m/s (920 ft/s) (common) 395 m/s (1,300 ft/s) (anti-tank)[1] |
| Maximum firing range | 5.15 km (3.2 mi) |
The7.5 cm Infanteriegeschütz 37 (7.5 cm IG 37) was aninfantry support gun, used by Germany duringWorld War II. The guns were originally designated7.5 cm PaK 37. The IG 37s were manufactured from carriages of3.7 cm Pak 36s (and the nearly identical Soviet3.7 cm PaK 158(r)) and a barrel designed originally for theIG 42 infantry support gun. As an anti-tank weapon it used ahollow charge shell with 0.5 kg (1 lb 2 oz) of explosives to penetrate up to 85 mm (3.3 in) with a velocity of 395 m/s (1,300 ft/s). The first 84 guns were delivered in June 1944. By the end of the war 1,304 guns were operational.[3]
While the gun carriage was an old design, the gun itself was a new design created byKrupp, though the design had been shelved at the time of its conception. The gun has two distinctive features: the first is the large four-baffle muzzle brake and the second is the verticalsliding-block breech that was considered unusual for a Krupp designed gun. The breech operates in a semi-automatic fashion, in that once the gun was fired the breech block would open and eject the spent casing and remained open to allow for rapid reloading. The breech would then be closed once the next round was loaded and the gun was then ready to fire.[3]
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