Flak.37 (88 mm)

Description

The 88 mm Flak.37 is a German anti-aircraft cannon meant to reach high-altitudes, which gives its shells the characteristics of having high muzzle velocity that gives good trajectory against targets.

Vehicles equipped with this weapon

• 8,8 cm Flak 37 Sfl.

General info

This gun was part of the first generation of the 88 mm family. It had, like his predecessor Flak.36, a barrel consisting of two pieces in order to facilitate maintenance. The gun was provided with target indicators in order to coordinate fire with the other guns in the battery. Parts of the whole system were interchangeable with other versions in the family, i.e. Flak.17 e Flak.36, and often were mixed if necessary.

Available ammunition

There where only two types of ammunition: Armour-Piercing and High-Explosive. The first type (AP) was useful against armoured targets, even the heavy ones. The HE was employed against lightly armoured vehicles or aircraft. In this case, there was a timed fuse setting that let the shell explode at a given altitude.

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
Pzgr.	APCBC	153	151	140	128	116	106
Sprgr. L/4.5	HE-TF*	18	18	17	15	14	12

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%
Pzgr.	APCBC	810	9.5	1.2	14	215.04	48°	63°	71°
Sprgr. L/4.5	HE-TF*	820	9	0.2	0.1	698	79°	80°	81°

Comparison with analogues

• KwK36 (88 mm)
• Flak.36 (88 mm)
• 85 mm/54,6 ZIS-C-53 (85 mm)
• M3 (90 mm)

Usage in battles

The gun possesses a relatively flat trajectory with a good penetration for its rank, with no outstanding weaknesses outside of the vehicle's mounting.

Pros and cons

Pros:

• Flat trajectory
• Good amount of high-explosive filler

Cons:

• Slow reload
• Bounces easily
• No APHE shells

History

Examine the history of the creation and combat usage of the weapon in more detail than in the introduction. If the historical reference turns out to be too long, take it to a separate article, taking a link to the article about the weapon and adding a block "/History" (example: https://wiki.warthunder.com/(Weapon-name)/History) and add a link to it here using the main template. Be sure to reference text and sources by using <ref></ref>, as well as adding them at the end of the article with <references />.

Media

Excellent additions to the article would be video guides, screenshots from the game, and photos.

See also

Links to the articles on the War Thunder Wiki that you think will be useful for the reader, for example:

• 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] 8.8 cm Flak 18/36/37/41