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Sooooo one quick crash-course in Blender, and here I am!
5435.56mm^3 = 5.43556cm^3
If we assume the density of Tungsten Carbide is 15,63g/cm^3, then this penetrator core weighs 84.9578g or ≈ 85g
So now 85 out of 108 grams is accounted for.
The remaining 23g of projectile weight is probably the aluminum nose cone and/or base plate? I will try to model these later
Update:
Phew, I modeled all the major parts!
Aluminum “Base” Cap - 16.83g
Tungsten Carbide Core - 84.95g
Aluminum Nose Cone - 1.17g
Plastic Sabot - 6.47
It all adds up to 109.4g, only 1.4g over the specified weight of 108g
This difference may be due to modeling errors, different densities, and/or missing tracer cavity (in the core)
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Weird, is that really the entire tungsten carbide core?
It has that subcaliber tip, which seems rather odd.
Maybe explains some of the performance results.
I remember that the round struggled to penetrate more than 60mm of armor, most likely because of that tip.
I can only assume that the design is a compromise for overall good penetration at all angles, and that the tip, probably breaking at higher impact angles, reduces the amount of deflection the round is going to experience at higher impact angles.
Edit: I think I was thinking about M601 when I wrote that, which should be the same as DM43.
There was this US document that showed that the 0° penetration was somewhat lacking.
But they just have a regular sharp tipped tungsten carbide penetrator, unlike the DM63.
So I’m not sure what’s going on.
