Talk:7.5 cm Pak 40

Production Number
I don't have the encyclopedia to which you refer, so I can't check its bibliography, but it can't have used the original German production reports. The German production reports show that Waffenamt accepted the first 7,5 cm Pak 40 in February 1942, and Feldzeuginspektion accepted the first 7,5 cm Pak 40 in March 1942. The first ammunition for the 7,5 cm Pak 40 was not receive by Feldzeuginspektion until April 1942, so it couldn't have been in active service before this time.

The production number you reverted to would appear to be based on a mis-reading of the German production reports. The total production from February 1942 to March 1945 is 20 001 towed guns. I don't have the number for April 1945, but it is unlikely to be in the thousands. The number of 23 500 does quite closely match the total number of 7,5 cm Pak 40 if including the number of Marder I, Marder II, and Marder 38T mounting the gun (23 324 from February 1942 to March 1945). Including these in the total for an article about the towed gun, and which in the article text are explicitly mentioned as being in addition to the 23 500 guns. Christian Ankerstjerne (talk) 00:09, 21 September 2014 (UTC)


 * Regarding the date, this can be found on page 184 of the Encyclopedia. See here http://books.google.com/books?hl=nl&id=MuGsf0psjvcC&q=PAK+40#v=snippet&q=PAK%2040&f=false. It's said in the first paragraph of the PAK 40 7,5cm piece. The production figure is copied from what's written in the wiki-article itself later on (23,500 made and 6000 more used to arm tank destroyers). I suspect that your figures could be incomplete, ie. not from all factories and timeperiods (including not from 1941 and no prototypes) although this need not be the case if the number in the article isn't more than just a rough estimate. We'd have to know what vehicles it was mounted in and howmany of said vehicles were made (should be around 6000 then). JamesRussels (talk) 01:00, 21 September 2014 (UTC)


 * The production reports I have cover the period from September 1939 to March 1945, with two different report sources for most months. These are the numbers that were accepted at the factories by the assigned Waffenamt inspectors, and the numbers that were received by the army. Any clerical errors were fixed, as the reports all included one or more previous months. I don't know where the 6000 figure comes from, but I suspect that someone may at some point have lumped the vehicles armed with the 7,5 cm Pak 39 together with those armed with the 7,5 cm Pak 40. Regardless, the production number for the towed 7,5 cm Pak 40 was 20 001 guns, not including the April 1945 production. Christian Ankerstjerne (talk) 01:44, 21 September 2014 (UTC)


 * I asked because earlier you said 20,001 was for February 1942 to March 1945. Meaning 1941 is not included (and April 45 neither). I think the number should be changed to an estimate of about ~21,000-21,500 keeping these things in mind. The Marders were about 2,800 made in total I believe. So that 6,000 number should be changed to ~3,000 for good measure as well. JamesRussels (talk) 11:30, 21 September 2014 (UTC)


 * There was no production before February 1942. It is explicitly stated in the production report that the number of guns accepted by Waffenamt from December 1941 to January 1942 was zero, and the comments that accompany the report quite clearly states that there was no prior production. Furthermore, production for all of 1941 was 1354 guns, so even if there were a couple of prototypes made that were never accepted by the army, it would not be a discreprency of anywhere near the magnitude you are suggesting. I have transcribed and tabulated the complete production history on my website, where you can verify the numbers, but I'm unsure about whether this is an acceptable source for Wikipedia (while I have contributed to other people's books on Germany's army equipment during the Second World War, I haven't written any myself).
 * My main concern about adding the production number for the Marder series armed with the 7,5 cm Pak 40, to which should be added the Sd Kfz 251/22 and Sd Kfz 234/4, is that it is not really relevant to the article on the towed gun. It would seem better to me to link to these vehicles, and state the production numbers there. Either way is fine with me, though. Christian Ankerstjerne (talk) 19:48, 21 September 2014 (UTC)


 * I wouldn't consider this Encyclopedia as first line book, far too many errors in the small excerpts about german tanks (Pz III M with 75mm gun, Pz IV is the Batallionsführerwagen (old myth), soviet tanks use german nomenclature for subversions, improper PS/hp/kW conversion, in the Marder III section the Pz 38(t) became a Skoda product, and many more). So changing the date based on this work should not be done unless there's evidence in specialized books from reputable authors. --Denniss (talk) 22:16, 21 September 2014 (UTC)


 * It is actually not incorrect, because as I remember the Panzer IIIs had short barreled 75mms (L/24) installed in 1942-43 to be infantry support tanks when possible. I don't know what you mean with the PZ IV being the Batallionsführerwagen. If you mean that it had commander tanks, then that is absolutely not a myth since every German tank had a commander edition to lead from in the field. The Panzer 38 was indeed produced by Skoda jointly with Germany, from what I see on the wikipage. Furthermore, it is logical that a gun designed in 1939-40 would be introduced, prototype or not, somewhere in 1941, although not widespreadly.
 * It would help if Christian had the figures on hand, and that explicit part is especially interesting. Keep in mind that's from December-January though, and it says in this article (edited in by some other guy long ago) that it was first accepted in November. JamesRussels (talk) 12:55, 22 September 2014 (UTC)


 * I didn't check the articles to which Dennis refers, but as he presents them, his issues with the text are accurate. It was the Pz Kpfw III Ausf. N was that equipped with the 7,5 cm Kw K (L/24), not the Pz Kpfw III Ausf. M, the Pz Kpfw IV's code name was Begleitwagen, not Batallionsführerwagen, etc.
 * In regards to the production numbers, I included a link above to the production numbers that I transcribed from the production reports above. Christian Ankerstjerne (talk) 15:48, 22 September 2014 (UTC)


 * It says "Page not found" mate. I believe all remaining P3 models were modified to have the 75mm L/24. JamesRussels (talk) 20:00, 23 September 2014 (UTC)


 * No, ~600 III N were new-built and some 60 converted from older J/L/M. --Denniss (talk) 21:57, 23 September 2014 (UTC)


 * I see that I messed up the Wiki markup in the link - this is the correct one. Christian Ankerstjerne (talk) 15:09, 24 September 2014 (UTC)


 * Unfortunately it seems like there are no scanned papers or anything from a secondary source or verifiable primary source though. I'll have to trust you on your word as it seems unlikely you just made these numbers up (unless it's from the book that's for sale at the bottom). It's not that big of a difference regardless. JamesRussels (talk) 17:41, 25 September 2014 (UTC)


 * The primary sources I've used are verifiable to the extent that they are publicly available. It's not a requirement of Wikipedia that sources are available online. Uploading the, currently, 172 Gb of primary sources I'm using for my site is not really feasible, and would for at least some of the documents be a copyright violation as well. Besides, the book you quote does not appear to cite any sources at all. In regards to the article, the difference of 3000 guns seems pretty significant. Christian Ankerstjerne (talk) 11:02, 27 September 2014 (UTC)


 * Publicly available or not, they should be verifiable in one way or another. You didn't really cite anything on that site, not even primary source reports. How is anyone supposed to find what you want? You might as well put some unsourced sentence in and claim it's from tons of German reports, but if you cite none then it's not valid. As of now, a poor secondary source (mine) beats your non-source. The reason I'm not reverting is that I honestly do believe you have those lying around somewhere and aren't just making this up. As for the guns, that's said later on in this article itself, so that's where that came from. I don't really care about that since the book doesn't say anything about that either. JamesRussels (talk) 13:59, 27 September 2014 (UTC)


 * I've listed 28 sources on the page, includeing 22 production reports. How is this not citing sources? Also, a book is not a secondary source by definition. Since it doesn't cite any sources, the status of the book to which you refer can't be clarified, but should be considered a tertiary source at best. Christian Ankerstjerne (talk) 14:45, 27 September 2014 (UTC)


 * They were hidden in what I thought was another category for another article. All I saw at first was the 22 notes you had. I see you claim to have gotten the numbers from the Waffenamt reports. Very well. What's left now is to give that sentence where it's "explicity said" none were accepted/produced prior to early 1942, since that seems fishy. I also suggest a note for the production figure here, saying it does not include the figures for April and May 1945 (and the 1941 one, if that existed). Greetings JamesRussels (talk) 14:59, 27 September 2014 (UTC)


 * The production numbers of December 1941 and January 1942 are given as zero in the February and March reports. The April and March May production numbers are listed as N/A in the table. Christian Ankerstjerne (talk) 15:26, 27 September 2014 (UTC)


 * Are they given as zero though because they were prototypes or because none were actually made? By April and March you mean 1945? JamesRussels (talk) 11:02, 28 September 2014 (UTC)


 * They are given as zero because no guns were accepted by the Waffenamt inspectors. Some of the accepted guns were given to Wa Prüf for testing, so if there were prototypes built, they were not used by Wa Prüf. If you want to speculate that prototypes were built prior to the guns that were accepted by Waffenamt, you will need a source for it. And yes, I meant April and May 1945 (mis-wrote as April and March). Christian Ankerstjerne (talk) 14:18, 28 September 2014 (UTC)


 * Very well then. I suggest you add a note to the production figure saying April and May are not included, for clearancy. And change the figure in the text for 23,500. JamesRussels (talk) 17:13, 1 October 2014 (UTC)


 * Updated the production number (and the combat weight, which had been changed to one based on an American intelligence report in pounds). Fair enough? Christian Ankerstjerne (talk) 23:27, 20 October 2014 (UTC)

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