Adding anti-tank firepower to German armies, we have the PaK 38 50mm Anti-Tank Gun.
Even as the newly produced 3.7cm Pak 35/36 was being delivered to the German Army, it was realized that something more powerful was likely to be necessary soon, and work on a 5cm anti-tank gun was well advanced by the time fighting broke out in September 1939. The result was the Pak 38, a 5cm weapon that first reached the front line in the summer of 1940 – too late to participate in the overrunning of France and the Low Countries. Its first test was to be in the invasion of the Soviet Union the following year, and it proved to be a very good weapon, although in time, it too would become outdated as tanks with ever-thicker armor appeared. Nevertheless, it served for the rest of the war, and was made in large numbers.
The 50mm Pak 38 (Panzerabwehrkanone, in German – hence PaK) was a light and low weapon that was easy to move and conceal. In 1941, it was the only German anti-tank gun that could knock out the Soviet T-34, but it had to use tungsten-cored ammunition.
One particularly good feature of the Pak 38 carriage was the low profile, so naturally the crew would also have had a low profile while operating it, as we see with the miniatures included in this set.
