You fool, Vickers Mark 1 and Centurions L28 shot is Tungsten Carbide too. The only not Tungsten Carbide APDS shots are L52 and L15.
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They have alloy cap. And modelled as alloy penetrators.
Compared to fully carbide penetrators, they have less flat pen but more angle pen, deal more damage, and shatter less.
They are not modeled as alloy penetrators. They have shattering problems as well, but lesser ones.
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They shatter very rarely. Shatter the same as fully alloy penetrators, like the one on the Chieftains. And as i said, they deal more damage, and have batter angle pen with less flat pen.
Fully alloy penetrators are not capable of shattering in the first place. Again, stuff like 105 mm L28 does.
L28 might have better slope pen than earlier APDS designs, but fully alloy APDS has even better slope performance.
Yet with the american APDS, i have seen it shatter a few times. As well as the ones on the Chieftains.
These are the lines that determine how APDS loses penetration with air gaps and multiple plates of armor. This specific example comes from 105 mm M392 APDS which is a licensed version of L28.
Fully alloy APDS like 105 mm M728, m/66, and 120 mm L15 simply do not have these lines of code.
Just aim better
They still act like full alloy. They shatter yes, but extremely rarely (EDIT: just like full alloy ones), and have good angle pen, tho (EDIT: a bit) less.
Ok so they seem to have changed how the APDS/APCR “new” shatter mechanic
works since last I checked? As previously you could very easily see how broken it was by aiming L1G or L28 at Elefants front hull plate and it showed that two laminate pieces of 100mm armour ended up providing 400mm protection? I havn’t heard anyone mention this until now.
This is how the problem worked before but now this doesn’t seem to work like this.
And testing against actual spaced armour gives some strange results? Seemingly Tungsten Alloy Core L52 (M728) works worse than L28A1???
How “shattering” works right now is that tungsten carbide cored rounds lose additional penetration when going through multiple plates of armor and airgaps.
As this mechanic affects the penetration of the round rather than the actual effectiveness of the armor, protection analysis doesn’t take it into account. So you end up seeing moments where the armor protection falls well below the penetration of the projectile, yet it does not penetrate, such as the shot you’ve shown with the Elefant.
Actually seeing “shell shattered” show up on the hit cam is highly inconsistent. But for all intents and purposes, it’s just a fancy way of the game saying that the APDS/APCR has lost too much penetration to penetrate the target due to multiple stacked plates of armor and/or air gaps.
As mentioned, fully alloy APDS rounds do not have this mechanic modeled.
They only changed the carbide penetrators (EDIT: meaning, after the initial change), or at least that’s what i noticed.
They went from completly useless to usable, and again useless, then to somewhat useful a couple times.
They are better than they were (not just the one you mentioned, but a Conqueror was completly incapable of frontally penning a Panzer III M xd.
EDIT:
This was after they made it somewhat useful. After the initial patch, it literally could not pen it unangled, and the non spaced armor parts on the turret are so far from crew, that it took multiple shots to kill the gunner. Shooting the armor convering the transmission just resulted in destroying it, but no damage to the crew.
END EDIT.
Once i actually shattered on the side os a ZSU, that has 15mm RHA+2x4mm structural steel (as a storage box).
Meanwhile “carbide” APDS, like L28A1, even at the start just went through spaced armor like hot knife through butter (Elephant, Super Pershing, even MBT/KPZ-70), even if it was angled.
And don’t even talk about APCR, it is officially useless xd.
Which is strange, since i have shattered on a Tam mantlet and side (hitting front track wheel from side on) with Chieftain APDS.
How long ago though?
This newer mechanic for APDS shattering was only implemented halfway through last year.
Yes because APCR didn’t have shattering mechanics at first.
The mantlet was right after the (initial) change, the track one was ~1-2 months ago.
There was also one with the Vickers Mk 3, shattering on the APDS ammo rack from the side of a gepard or Marksman, i don’t remember which one. This was between the 2 i already mentioned.
There have been a couple more, i just don’t remember the details.
I understand how it worked on the change, and how it was toned down the patch afterwards (but still not working as intended), what I’m not sure of is what happened between now and then specifically. Shatter just is not a fun mechanic, the fact no one seems to know how it’s working now is a sign of bad game design.
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Not just that. 17pdr can barely pen a Panther upper plate, or Jumbo at point blank. That is even if it can pen at all. From patch to patch it has been changing. One patch you can somewhat pen it, other patch, you can’t. Currently, you can, but we will see what happens next patch.
Same is true for the 83mm APDS, and the Conq, VS Tiger 2 upper plate.
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Penned Tiger 2 UFP almost 2km away the other day, usually goes through and destroys the engine, very rare if real example at all. Take it from person who has 1.5k+ kills in Conq and naturally earned ace crew.
100mm at 60o is enough for APDS to pen UFP of tiger 2 whereas 100mm at 60o pen AP cannot, because APDS has much better 40-50o modifiers that you cannot see, because of this, the Conq can pen the upper hull of the tiger 2 over 2km away.
Shattering rarely if ever occurs on homogenous armor, it only impacts spacing or for some reason 2 plates sandwiched together (this is the real ahistorical issue, 1mm of air shouldnt cause a round to lose all its pen)
Also if APDS keeps shattering when it pens then why isnt that represented in the damage model, that sounds like extra damage to crew if you ask me, and its a very hard and sharp material going at supersonic speed.
I will still chose APDS over AP in most situations as solid shot has no real advantages over (gAy)PHE whereas APDS has distinct advantages in its historic bracket such as very good ricochet angles and velocity.
Regarding shattering of the gen 3 APDS it shouldnt be happening at all and Gaijin said that themselves. I dont play those vehicles much because they are overtiered, but I havent witnessed it personally.
Besides I have sekrit document of Chieftain APDS testing this specific shattery scenario and it showed the round capable of penetrating several spaced plates at a 65o angle.
EDIT:
Document shows that the round can penetrate at least 105mm of very air spaced armor at 60o at 1000 yards, so this round should not be shattering by any metric at all, unless Gaijin intend to make it so that other rounds like AP can shatter under circumstances more stressful than that (examples of AP shattering such as the Maus experimental round and american US M62 shot in ww2)
Also HESH able to penetrate 600mm of reinforced concrete but unable to blast through 15mm of RHA with the HE content…
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