8 cm PAW 600

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8 cm Panzerabwehrwerfer 600
PAW 600 at Aberdeen military proving grounds.
Type	anti-tank gun
Place of origin	Germany
Service history
Used by	Nazi Germany
Wars	World War II
Production history
Designer	Rheinmetall
Designed	1943-44
Produced	Dec 1944-Mar 1945
Number built	260
Specifications
Weight	640 kg
Length	2,951 mm
Crew	6

Caliber	81.4 mm
Breech	vertical block
Recoil	hydropneumatic
Carriage	split trail
Elevation	-6 to +32°
Traverse	55°
Muzzle velocity	520 m/s
Effective range	750 m (anti-tank)
Maximum range	6200 m (high explosive)

The PAW 600 was a lightweight anti-tank gun that utilized the high-low pressure system to fire hollow charge warheads.

[edit] Description

The German army was faced with various problems with regards their existing anti-tank designs in the latter stages of World War II. Some guns were too large or too heavy while others were not powerful enough.

Rheinmetall Borsig proposed a new design using the high-low pressure principle. This consisted of a light weight barrel with a heavier breech. A perforated metal plate connected the two parts which allowed the barrel to be lighter as it did not have to stand the full pressure of the charge while still providing reasonable range and performance. A simple light-weight carriage was designed for the weapon.

The gun fired a warhead based on the 8.1 cm mortar hollow charge bomb. Some 260 guns were completed, some rather than having the standard carriage, were mounted on Pak 38 carriages with Pak 40 muzzle brakes fitted.

Krupp was also developing an 10 cm design known as the 10 cm PAW 600 or 10H64 at the end of the war but none reached production.

[edit] Nomenclature

The PAW (Panzerabwehrwerfer [anti-tank thrower] 600 designation was used by Rheinmetall during the design phase. The service designation was 8H63 in accordance to the new designation system used during the last year of the war. In 1944-5 the Germans changed their system of artillery designations from the old "year" system. Each weapon was to have a number showing their caliber group, a letter denoting ammunition group, and the last two digits were from the weapon drawing number. In this case 8 denoted 81.4 mm caliber using the H group of ammunition. The shells were all to be designated as H with a 4 digit number, the first three were the drawing number and the last was the shell's category from the following list:

#	Shell type	#	Shell type
1	high explosive	5	gas
2	hollow charge anti-tank	7	incendiary
3	armor-piercing	8	leaflet
4	high explosive, high capacity	9	practice
5	smoke	10	proof projectile

PAW 600

[edit] References

Gander, Terry and Chamberlain, Peter. Weapons of the Third Reich: An Encyclopedic Survey of All Small Arms, Artillery and Special Weapons of the German Land Forces 1939-1945. New York: Doubleday, 1979 ISBN 0-385-15090-3
Hogg, Ian V. (1975). German Artillery of World War 2. Lionel Leventhal Press.

German artillery of World War II

Tank & anti-tank guns