25 mm Hotchkiss anti-tank gun

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canon de 25 mm SA mle 1934
25 SA 34 preserved at Musée des Blindés
Type	Anti-tank gun
Place of origin	France
Service history
Used by	France, UK, Germany
Wars	WW2
Specifications
Weight	480 kg
Barrel length	72

Shell	AP
Caliber	25 x 193.5 R mm
Rate of fire	15 to 20 rounds/min
Muzzle velocity	918 m/s
Effective range	1000 m

The 25 mm Hotchkiss anti-tank gun was a French anti-tank gun that saw service in the first years of the Second World War.

1 Development
2 Foreign use
3 Variants
4 Notes
5 References

[edit] Development

By the early 1920s the French Army had come to the realization that the armour-piercing capability of the 37 mm TRP infantry gun would be insufficient against modern tanks. In 1926 Hotchkiss proposed a 25 mm in-house design that was eventually accepted for service in 1934, under the designation canon de 25 mm semi-automatique modèle 1934 (generally shortened to canon de 25) . At the outbreak of World War II, it was the main anti-tank weapon of the French infantry.

[edit] Foreign use

When it landed in France in 1939 the British Expeditionary Force had insufficient numbers of anti-tank weapons such as the Ordnance QF 2 pounder. They were issued canons de 25 which became known as Anti-Tank Gun, 25-mm. Hotchkiss, Mark I on 25-mm. Carriage, Mark I in British service.

Examples captured by the German forces were operationally used under the designation 2.5cm Pak 112(f).

Germans sold 133 captured M/34 guns to Finland, which used the guns until 1943, when they were withdrawn from front line use.

In 1935 the Hotchkiss 25 mm anti-tank gun was purchased for evaluation by the US Army^[1].

[edit] Variants

25 SA 35 - a shortened variant used in tanks and armoured cars such as the Panhard 178.
25 SA 37 - a derivative designed by the APX with a much lighter carriage.