I wondered i f anyone could tell me what gun exactly the A7V had.
I have contradicting information on that subjet: there is talk of a captured russian 57mm sokol gun that was supposedly superior to anything the Germans had.
Or was it a Belgian Maxim-Nordenfeldt quick-firing gun that the German tank mounted?
from Hundelby and Strasheim: "Nobody in this period mentioned Sokol and no gun manufacturer of that name has ever been found, neither has anybody ever produced any documentary or photographic evidence. The explanation lies in a mistaken translation from German to English.
Two mountings were made for the 5.7 cm Nordenfelt gun, a buck or trestle mount called Bocklafette and a pedestal, pyramid, or socle mount called Socklafette. The tonal similarity between Sokol and Sockel is obvious, while the German habit of writing adjectives such as belgische (Belgian) with a small letter causes them to be missed. Without solid evidence, we may assume there were no Sokol guns."
The chapter then explains how the British Nordenfelt concern sold 5.7 guns to both Belgium and Russia, the development of the two types of A7V gun mounts, the post-Cambrai decision to use the inferior buck mounts in Abteilung I because the Socklafette mounts weren't ready soon enough, and the capture of many Russian 5.7 Nordenfelts wich were subsequently slated for use in the German tanks. All of the A7Vs were already armed with Belgian Nordenfelts by that point, so they would primarily have been used in captured British tanks. Some may conceivably have been used as replacement guns on a few A7Vs, but they were essentially the same gun. The chapter concludes:
"The real truth is that all the guns on all the tanks ought to be described as British."
I guess calling them Swedish guns would be too much of a stretch! ;)
