Pale Rider
Active member
Really there are only a few systems. The russian 125mm, the American 120mm and its clones/veriants, and the british 120mm...You could count the German 120mm L55 as the fourth maybe...
It is really what you would call German 120mm clones, L44 in American inventory is called M256 built under license. The list of countries that use this gun is long. The French went their own route design with the 120mm, designation for theirs is called CN120-26 with a barrel length of 52 calibers.
125mm designation 2A46M series is also cloned by many countries, the most promising version would have to be the 2A46M1 with a barrel length of 47 calibers.
I should also add that Russia does offer a low pressure 125 mm with the designation of 2A45M, their new Sprut vehicle is sporting this.
One 125mm that is also worth mentioning would be the Ukrainian KBA3 125mm serving on Ukrainian T-64s thru T-84s,Pakistan also uses this gun on AL-Khalid and T-80/84. Some would debate that this gun is better than the Russian one.
What makes the 125mm at this time not on par with 120mm actually has to do with KE projectile performance, the Russians and Ukrainians are at their limits in projectile length due to auto loader size, I will bet we will see in the future a bustle mounted auto loading system mounted on Russian tanks because of this, it already has been tested and can be retrofitted to T-90 series.