Hungarian Tank Guns
The 20 mm 36M Solothurn AT gun
The Toldi I A20 and B20s turret interiors were too cramped for the Solothurn to be used with it’s standard 5-round magazine so the engineers made a 4-round magazine for the Toldi.
-""effective range of the weapon was 1500 meters but could fire up to 5500 meters. It was relatively accurate with 25x25 cm spread at 500 meters, 100x100 cm at 1000 meters.""
-""rate of fire of the weapon was 22-26 rounds/min depending on the experience of the operators, some of them were capable to shoot 30 rounds in a minute but slower ones shot only 10 or so""
Ammunition
36.M 20 mm APHE-T(black paint)
36.M 20 mm HE-T(green paint)
Penetration with APHE-T(velocity: 762 m/s):
35 mm - 100 m - 90°
27 mm -300 m - 90°
17 mm - 1000 m - 90°
Hungarian 4 cm 37/42.M tank gun
Converted from the 4 cm 37.M tank gun of the Hungarian Straussler V-4 prototype tank. The 37/42.M tank gun was made in 1942 and was used in the Toldi IIA light tanks, Toldi IIAK prototype and Toldi III tanks - it was later renamed simply to 42.M tank gun.
The original 37.M tank gun of the V-4 had L/49 gun caliber (1950 mm length) and had a different muzzle break. The modified gun - now named as 37/42.M - was shorter, it had L/43 (L/42.5 to be exact) gun caliber with 1700 mm length, had a completely new muzzle break, furthermore, the barrel was rebored. Because of the rebored barrel, the tank gun was able to fire the Bofors AA autocannon's shells as well which the original 37.M tank gun wasn't able to.
Thanks to these modifications the 37/42.M tank gun had a larger muzzle velocity (800 m/s, muzzle velocity of the original 37.M tank gun is not known) and because of that, it had larger armor penetration as well.
With a 36.M APHEBC-T shell the 37/42.M tank gun was able to penetrate 46 mm of armor at 100 meters, 42 mm at 300 meters, 36 mm at 600 meters and 30 mm at 1000 meter at 60° from horizontal.
The gun used the 43.M APBC-T shells too from 1943 which had even larger penetrating capabilities - around 10% as much as an APHEBC-T shell.
With an experienced crew the gun had a fire rate of 16/min.
The exact number of produced 37/42.M tank guns is not known, there were 80-90 for sure for the Toldi IIA tanks and Toldi III's.
The 40mm 41.M Turán I tank gun
Main gun of the Hungarian 40.M Turán tank (seen in picture No. 3). The gun was a Hungarian 40 mm L/51 caliber barrel which was fixed on the gun cradle of a Czech 3,7cm ÚV vz. 38. The tank gun fired the same shells as the 40.M AT gun and the 36.M AA autocannon but the 42.M fin-stabilized shell was not used by the Turán I. The breech of the tank gun was still opened by the crew, it was not semi-automatic at the beginning but later in the war it might have re-modelled just like the 40.M anti-tank gun.
The 75 mm 41.M Turán II tank gun
The main gun of the Hungarian 41.M Turán tank. The tank gun was converted from the 18.M field gun by the Swedish Bofors. The 41.M was the first Hungarian tank gun which had a horizontal semi-automatic sliding block.
The 7.5cm 43.M tank gun of the Turán III and Zrínyi I
Two were manufactured,these were built into the Turán III and into the Zrínyi I.
This gun should NEVER be confused with the German PaK 40s tank gun version, the 7.5cm KwK. Because the Hungarian 43.M was not built on the license of the German KwK 40, BUT it was developed from the blueprints of the PaK 40, converted in a Hungarian style.
10,5 cm 40.M tank howitzer
This gun was used in the Zrínyi II assault howitzer. The main structure of the gun didn't changed but it had a different firing mechanism and safety systems. The gun had a primary pneumatic and a secondary mechanical firing mechanism. The safety system was an electric circuit, the loader had to push two buttons with his thumbs two close the circuit which made it possible to fire the gun otherwise it didn't fire, this procedure was used to prevent the loader being hit by the gun when fired. Some characteristics of the howitzer also changed; it fired a HE-T shell with 471 m/s and a HEAT-T shell with 444 m/s.
The tank guns of the 44.M TAS prototype
According to the original plans and the 1:10 scale model the Tas would have had an 80mm gun.
In 1943 when the blueprints were made Hungary had two such guns.
The 80mm 29/38.M Bofors AA cannon and the 80mm crenel-shooting gun L/70.
We don't know if the convertion of the gun from an AA cannon to a tank gun actually started but we do know that there was the 80mm crenel-shooting gun,converted of the same gun which was made in 1942. Perhaps the engineers planned to use that or waited for an actual converted tank gun.
However during the building state of the Tas it became clear that the convertion of the 80mm Bofors AA gun would progress slowly and the Tas project would be held back because the engineers would had to wait for the guns. That's why the designers decided to use the same 75mm gun for the prototype which was used in the Turán III and the Zrínyi I. That 75mm gun already had 2 finished models so the production of the gun would go more smoothly than waiting for the gun factories to change their equipment to convert and produce the 80mm tank gun. With a 75mm cannon the finished sample vehicle made of iron could be tested on the field and later could be easily modified to build in the 80mm gun which was predicted to be ready by the time a serial vehicle made of armor plates would be finished.
However - due to material shortage - the third 75mm gun was never finished by the time when the Tas prototype was destroyed and the DIMÁVAG factory which produced the gun was later captured by the USSR.
The original plan was to give one extra 80cm Bofors cannon barrel to every 15 cm 31.M howitzer (license-built Bofors 150 mm Howitzer Model 1931) which 80cm Bofors cannon barrel could be mounted on the 15 cm 31.M howitzer's gun carriage, So that when our artillery has to blow up bunkers, they can switch the 15cm to the 80cm and shoot precisely into the bunkers crennels.
The experiments were a success, the gun could even be used as an Anti-armor gun, but for some reason, the project was shelved.