L-11 (76 mm)

Description

The L-11 (76 mm) is a Soviet tank gun found on early Soviet tanks.

Vehicles equipped with this weapon

• SMK
• T-34 (Prototype)
• T-34 (1940)
• KV-1 (L-11)

General info

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Available ammunition

Penetration statistics
Ammunition	Type of warhead	Penetration @ 0° Angle of Attack (mm)
		10 m	100 m	500 m	1,000 m	1,500 m	2,000 m
BR-350A (MD-5 fuze)	APHEBC	78	76	69	61	53	47
BR-350SP	APBC	93	91	83	74	66	58
OF-350M	HE	10	10	10	10	10	10
Sh-354T	Shrapnel	37	35	29	25	20	17

Shell details
Ammunition	Type of warhead	Velocity (m/s)	Projectile Mass (kg)	Fuse delay (m)	Fuse sensitivity (mm)	Explosive Mass (TNT equivalent) (g)	Ricochet
							0%	50%	100%
BR-350A (MD-5 fuze)	APHEBC	615	6.3	1.2	14.0	150	48°	63°	71°
BR-350SP	APBC	615	6.78	N/A	N/A	N/A	48°	63°	71°
OF-350M	HE	615	6.2	0.05	0.1	621	79°	80°	81°
Sh-354T	Shrapnel	615	6.2	0.5	8.0	85	62°	69°	73°

Comparison with analogues

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Usage in battles

The L-11 (76 mm) is more suitable for close to medium range combat. The penetration rate is lacking, however, the explosive mass in the BR-350A (MD-5 fuse) shell will make short work of any tank it penetrates.

Pros and cons

Pros:

• Huge 150 g of explosive mass in the BR-350A (MD-5 fuse) shell, will one-shot if it penetrates the enemies' armour
• Medium-high shell velocity

Cons:

• Struggles to penetrate heavily armoured targets
• APBC round only has 92 mm of penetration at point-blank range
• Quite long reload rate for its calibre

History

The L-11 was designed in 1938 by IA Makhanov of the SKB-4 design bureau at the Kirov Plant in Leningrad. It is rumored that the L-11's design was based off that of the 76 mm air-defense gun M1914/15, however this is unconfirmed. Although inferior to many other tank guns that were available or being developed at the time, mainly the F-34, bureaucracy led to the earliest models of the T-34 and KV-1 being fitted with the L-11 instead. Tests however showed that the L-11 lacked the necessary power required to defeat foreign tanks, thus the L-11 became a stopgap solution until better guns for the two tanks could be produced. This came in the form of the F-34 for the T-34 and the F-32 for the KV-1, which began replacing the L-11 on production lines during 1941, finally providing the the two tanks with the necessary firepower required to defeat foreign tanks, although the F-32 was itself later replaced with a modified F-34 due to it only having marginally better performance.

Media

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See also

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• reference to the article about the variant of the cannon/machine gun;
• references to approximate analogues by other nations and research trees.

External links

• [Wikipedia] L-11 76.2 mm tank gun