25 mm Hotchkiss anti-tank gun

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.

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.

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 2,5 cm Pak 113(f). Some captured guns also made it into Italian service in North Africa as alternatives to the Solothurn S-18/1000, under the designation cannone da 25/72.

Finland purchased 50 French 25 mm M/37 antitank guns during Winter War, but only 40 of them were delivered in February 1940 through Norway. The remaining ten guns were captured by the Germans when they invaded Norway in spring of 1940. About half of the guns, which had arrived during Winter War saw frontline service during it and three of them were lost in battle. During Interim Peace the Germans sold 200 captured guns to Finland. 133 of them were model M/34 and 67 were model M/37, and they were designated 25 PstK/34 and 25 PstK/37, respectively. They were withdrawn from front-line use by 1943.

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

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.