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Ammunition for 37 mm automatic anti-aircraft guns
Region
Egypt
China
Pakistan
Category
Ammunition, Missiles and precision weapons
The Ammunition for 37 mm automatic anti-aircraft guns is all rounds fired by the 37 mm automatic anti-aircraft gun M1939 series are fixed. The projectiles are rigidly crimped to the cartridge cases by two 360º crimping rings seating into two pronounced cannelures towards the projectile base. The forged steel projectiles are fitted with a single wide drive band (over 12 mm) pressed into place and, where applicable, are fitted with nose fuzes made of steel. The cartridge cases are lacquered steel or 70:30 drawn
brass and are fitted with base-mounted Type T-1 or KV-2 percussion primers. The propellent load is usually 200 to 207 g of 7/14 granular single-base propellant plus 4 g of S-1 decoppering agent. The 37 mm automatic anti-aircraft gun rounds of Russian Federation and Associated States (CIS) origin, most of which are now out of production but still in widespread use, are as follows: FRAG-T, OR-167 This round uses a projectile weighing 730 g with a high-fragmentation forged steel body. The projectile walls are relatively thick and the otherwise solid base houses a No 5 tracer element. The two types of fuze that may be threaded into the nose are the MG-8 or the MG-37. Both fuzes are point detonating with self-destruct devices operating between 8 and 12 seconds. The OR-167N cavity is larger and the walls of the forged steel projectile are thinner, enabling the explosive filling to be increased to over 400 g of A-1Kh-2 (RDX/Aluminium/Wax). The nose fuze is a B-37 point detonating fuze made of steel although a modified MG-37 may be fitted, neither of them having a self-destruct function. The projectile weight for Yugoslav -produced rounds is given as 710 g but an OR-167N round originally produced for the East German Navy used a projectile weighing 1.024 kg. With the latter round the explosive filling was 37 g of A-IX-2 (RDX/Aluminium) and the cartridge case contained 210 g of 7/14 propellant; muzzle velocity was 880 m/s. AP-T, BR-167 This round is now rarely encountered other than with 37 mm naval mountings. The projectile has a solid, heat-treated, heavy steel body with the blunt nose protected by a pressed-on light steel windshield to preserve ballistic properties.