The 75 SA 50 (french: 75 mm Semi-Automatique Modèle 1950; en, 75 mm Semi-Automatic 1950 Model) also called 75 Mle 50 or CN 75-50 is a French 75 mm high-velocity rifled gun. Although originally designed for the
AMX-13
The AMX-13 is a French light tank produced from 1952 to 1987. It served with the French Army, as the Char 13t-75 Modèle 51, and was exported to more than 26 other nations. Named after its initial weight of 13 tonnes, and featuring a tough and r ...
light tank, the SA 50 has also been used on the
EBR wheeled reconnaissance vehicle and foreign medium tanks such as the Israeli upgraded
Super Sherman
The Sherman M-50 and the Sherman M-51, both often referred to abroad as the Super Sherman, were modified versions of the American M4 Sherman tank that served with the Israel Defense Forces from the mid-1950s to early 1980s. The M-51 was also refe ...
.
History
By the end of 1944, the chief engineer Lafargue considered a more powerful alternative to the 75 mm SA 44 developed for the upcoming
ARL-44 transitional
tank destroyer
A tank destroyer, tank hunter, tank killer, or self-propelled anti-tank gun is a type of armoured fighting vehicle, armed with a direct fire artillery gun or missile launcher, designed specifically to engage and destroy enemy tanks, often wi ...
. The new 75 mm gun should have ballistic performance similar to the German
7.5 cm KwK 42
The 7.5 cm KwK 42 L/70 (from 7.5 cm ''Kampfwagenkanone'' 42 L/70) was a 7.5 cm calibre German tank gun used on German armoured fighting vehicles in the World War II, Second World War. The gun was the armament of the Panther tank, Pa ...
; which means firing a round weighing a little more than 6 kg at a muzzle velocity close to 1000 m/s. A longer gun barrel (L/70), an increased chamber volume with a higher chamber pressure were thus required to achieve such performance.
The new gun was made from existing components (breech block, gun tube, ...) developed clandestinely during the
German occupation
German-occupied Europe refers to the sovereign countries of Europe which were wholly or partly occupied and civil-occupied (including puppet governments) by the military forces and the government of Nazi Germany at various times between 1939 an ...
.
Although not retained for the ARL-44, the gun was later selected for the AMX-13 prototype and was subsequently standardised as 75 mm SA 50.
Second life
In 1962, the decision was taken to rebore the SA 50 to the internal dimensions of the D 921A 90 mm low-pressure rifled gun (CN 90 F1) of the
AML-90, allowing the retroffited AMX-13 to also use the powerful OCC 90 EMP Mle 62 fin-stabilized
HEAT
In thermodynamics, heat is defined as the form of energy crossing the boundary of a thermodynamic system by virtue of a temperature difference across the boundary. A thermodynamic system does not ''contain'' heat. Nevertheless, the term is al ...
shell but fired at a higher muzzle velocity of 950 m/s. A single baffle muzzle brake replaced the original double baffle muzzle brake.
The re-bored 75 SA 50 took the factory designation of D 960 and was later known as CN 90 F3 (french: CaNon de 90 millimètres modèle F3; en, 90 millimeters gun F3 Model).
After a preliminary study and testing carried out between 1964 and 1966, 675 FL 10 turrets were transformed between 1966 and 1970.
Ammunition
*POT-51A : a 6.4 kg APBC-T with a muzzle velocity of 1000 m/s, it is able to penetrate 110 mm of
RHA at an angle of 0° at 1000 m.
*PCOT-51P : a 6.7 kg APCBC-T with a muzzle velocity of 1000 m/s, it is able to penetrate 170 mm of RHA at an angle of 0° at 1000 m
*75 OE : a 6.2 kg high-explosive shell with a muzzle velocity of 750 m/s.
*SC 75/54/40 : a 3.9 kg tungsten carbide APDS with a muzzle velocity of 1310 m/s. It is able to penetrate 300 mm of armour at an angle of 0° at 1000 m or 80 mm at 60° at the same range. Developed in 1956, it was never adopted by the French Army.
*75 CC : a
shaped-charge
A shaped charge is an explosive charge shaped to form an explosively formed penetrator (EFP) to focus the effect of the explosive's energy. Different types of shaped charges are used for various purposes such as cutting and forming metal, init ...
shell.
*75 canister : a 6.4 kg
canister round developed by Advanced Material Engineering for the Singapore Armed Forces (SAF). The steel-aluminium projectile contains 1200 steel spheres, each 9 mm in diameter and are projected in a 9°cone with a maximum range of at least 200 m.
*75 APFSDS : a Singapore
APFSDS
Armour-piercing fin-stabilized discarding sabot (APFSDS), long dart penetrator, or simply dart ammunition, is a type of kinetic energy penetrator ammunition used to attack modern vehicle armour. As an armament for main battle tanks, it succeeds A ...
developed in the late 1980s by Singapore Technologies Kinetics Ltd under the codename ''Project Spider''
for their upgraded AMX-13 SM1.
See also
Weapons of comparable role, performance, and era
* British
Ordnance QF 17-pounder
The Ordnance Quick-Firing 17-pounder (or just 17-pdr)Under the British standard ordnance weights and measurements the gun's approximate projectile weight is used to denote different guns of the same calibre. Hence this was a 3-inch gun, of which ...
* Soviet 85 mm D-70
* United States 76 mm Gun M32A1
References
{{Reflist
External links
COMHART Tome 9 L’armement de gros calibre(history of the development of French tank guns and artillery of the 20th century by former French weapon scientists)
Cold War weapons of France
Tank guns of France
75 mm artillery
Military equipment introduced in the 1950s