Hi all,

I got a turned barrel for the AMX-30, but I am seeing unclear information online. My barrel from Barrel Depot says it is smoothbore. I have seen info that shows the 105mm gun was rifled too.

Were both types of 105mm gun used?

Thanks.

The AMX-30's 105mm gun was rifled but because it was intended to fire primarily HEAT ammunition the riflling was very shallow. Unlike the NATO standard L7/M68 the GIAT gun was incapable of firing APDS. Otherwise much of the ammunition was interchangable between these guns.

Mark,

Thanks for the reply. So in 1/35 it would probably not be real visible anyways, so I guess the turned barrel will look okay.

Reagrds,

John

Hi John,
here is a pciture of the gun muzzle with the rifling.



BTW, the AMX30 also fired APDS rounds.

Olivier

Thanks Olivier! Appreciate the information.

As an additional little factoid, the GIAT 105mm HEAT rounds were quite unique. It was well known when the 105 was designed that HEAT rounds suffered serious degredation when they are spun by rifling. The problem was that the French wanted a weapon that could shoot kinetic rounds (APDS) as well as chemical rounds (HEAT) and, at the time, fin stabilised rounds were in their infancy. To shoot an APDS round you needed rifling.

What to do?

The unique solution by GIAT was to incorporate a ball bearing between the driving band of the rifling and the HEAT round. So, when fired, the driving band dug into the rifling and spun up and sealed the chamber providing the high pressure needed to fire the round, but the inner HEAT warhead didn't spin (much) and maintained adequate performance. Because of the lack of spin it had to be fin stabilised.

This design was acceptable in the early 60s when it was a toss-up whether kinetic or chemical rounds were better at defeating the current armour. Unfortunately, this design was overtaken by the design of the fin stabilised long rod penetrators which provided a definite killing advantage over HEAT and by the advent of composite armour systems that were too tough for the HEAT round to penetrate.

The British went a slightly different way with their chemical rounds at this time and adopted the HESH (High Explosive Squash Head) round which could be easily fired from a rifled gun, thus not needing a fancy HEAT round.

Just thought you'd like to know...

Paul