APDS now shattering on IS-3 track armor

Machinery of War Discussion Ground Vehicle
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48

In the original there was nothing referring to distance.

Ahm, how?
It would be an overall less mobile Panzer 4 with less armor, a useless gun, and a turret that at that BR could actually bounce something (but would wtill prefer any Sherman over it just because they have APHE).
Iven at 4.0 in hulldown, there are 2.7 tanks that can just LOLpen the turret even at distance, and at 4.0, it would face tons of Panzer 4s, that are just better.
I’ve had countless examples with the Comet, where i shot a tank in the ammo rack 3 times for it to explode (things, like the 75mm Shermans full side on at point blank right into the ammo on the side).
The gun not just feels weak for the ~30mm less pen compared to the others, but many times even the 2pdr does just more damage.

Just to make a point here about APHE:
Look at my stats with the Churchill NA (aka “Not Awful”) 75 vs Churchill 7. I was struggling to get a decent amount of kills with the Ch 7 in a full downtier, while i was shredding Tigers with the NA, just because a single stat was different with their stats.
(and also despite the NA having less armor, tho not like the Ch 7 has any xd).

49

The gun is bad but its not as bad as you are describing, how is a Churchill NA playable to you with a turret far inferior to the Comet, and a gun that does more damage but is far less versatile? A Comet at 4.0 would be a slaughter. I usually despise Gaijins harsh BRs for Britain but I can only see a comet as low as 4.7.

Im also not aware of many if any 2.7s that can “lolpen” (which implies not having to aim) at a turret that is a minimum of 100mm but more importantly half of the structure is layered with another 100mm aswell as a bunch of sloped and jagged edges everywhere. Even with a Panzer 4 F2 (I believe that these Panzer 4s are undertiered personally because germany players are noobs) the best most reliable shot would be the very edges of the turret as the center can run you into a 200mm black hole.

When the APDS had good pen the Comet was a very strong hull down sniper, able to penetrate sloped armor well, bounce shots to the turret and also great optics to boot. It still has some advantages in its state that would make it an evil vehicle at 4.0, I mean, how is the American 75 going to pen your turret reliably, or the Soviet unless they all aim for the cupola.

50

Just by the fact that it has APHE. Again, compare my stats in the NA 75 and the Ch 7. I played both in the same 4.7 lineup.

Again, how?

Marders, SU-57s, ZiS-30, LVTA with the 57mm, swedish HEAT slingers.
If we go up a bit, then M4A3 105 with HE just overpressure, and pens it with HEAT, StuH overpressures and pens it with HEAT, soviet 76mm LOLpens the turret roof, SU-122 overpressure and pen.

If we go a bit up, to ~4.0 and over, there are basically every Panzer 4, StuGs, M10s (and every tank with US 76mm), SU-85s, Dicker Max, Emil, Flakbus, Hetzer, Jgpz 4, Protopanther, JaG-10, KV-85, Chi-To/Ri, Na-To, Italian Bredas, and Fireflies, M4A4 SA50, Pvkv TDs, Delete Tom.
And these are just those that come into my mind.
And the rest can still pen the cupola.

The Chinese M4A1 is much stronger in a hulldown (and in general), because of several factors:
Can reverse faster than the speed at which a continent moves
Has APHE, so 1 shot is enough most of the times
Has a stabilizer, effectively guaranteeing the first shot
Has a .50 cal, so many times you don’T even have to expose yourself.
Smaller target in hulldown.
Angled front makes it effective, while the Comet is just a box, that you can’t angle.
Much faster reload.
Ammo stored in the floor, instead of everywhere.
Nearly double the turret rotation speed.
Can turn on an incline.

Just like the Chinese M4A1. As i said it is even stronger in hulldown.
Or a T-34 1942/43 if you hide the neck. There are 4 small corners that you can pen, but for the rest you need ~130mm pen to go through the double layers.

51

Your perspectives are very strange I have to say, you are frequently comparing apples and oranges and unfairly stacking odds in your examples.

The Comet can hypothetically be lolpenned in the turret by things like the Marder, a dicker max, an emil, a hetzer, but most of these are very specific tank destroyers that they themselves are in every way except armament terrible OR something that most vehicles will struggle against. The comets bad because dicker max!!! But the dicker max sucks and can pen anything. A comet can take out those examples easier than the reverse. Tank destroyers arent a good argument against a Medium tank, even a hull down one. And against all of these vehicles the APDS will be able to penetrate frontally. I mean a Hetzer for example cant even go hull down at all. And still almost all of these will have to hit the right spots on the turret aswell because they cannot exceed 200mm of penetration if they dont.

A chinese M4A1 cant penetrate a comet hulldown unless it gets off a very good shot. T-34s are never hull down, never seen a T-34 player go hull down on purpose and the breach is always a massive target on those mid war russian tanks. It will also fail to penetrate a comet turret 4/5 times.

If a hull down tank was genuinely inpenetrable from the front then it is overpowered, as it stands against most of the vehicles you list there it has a better chance at taking out hull down targets than vice versa, especially goofy ahh tank destroyers that literally cannot go hull down so are always completely exposed.

Like the late t-34s dont seem incredible for the BR either, ok turret armor, but the hull armor also sucks at that BR and they are handicapped when it comes to uptiers more than the comet which can snipe in uptiers quite easily even with the nerfed APDS.

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52

Hitting with APDS was the problem, as the round was terribly inaccurate (the 6pdr APDS tended to hit about 2 feet higher than the aiming point, for example) and figures showing this poor accuracy for 17 pdr APDS can be found in Mark Hayward’s Sherman Firefly, Barbarossa Books, Tiptree, Essex c.

[image]

https://www.bbc.co.uk › stories

WW2 People’s War - Armour Piercing Discarding

53

Comets APDS was accurate enough to hit targets at the ranges in this game

It also doesnt matter because it was experimental ammunition during the second world war that saw brief improvement after the war before moving on to new ammunition

If the accuracy penalty is something that should be added for historical purposes at the same time Swedens pathetic 1949 APDS at 1.0 should be removed aswell

54

Shocked I say!

55

Gaijin can’t really apply an accuracy penalty to the 17 pounder APDS either way, at least not how the game is currently coded.

Cannons have set inaccuracy values, not the rounds they fire. All rounds fired from one specific cannon will have identical maximum dispersion.

In short, you can’t make the APDS inaccurate without making the normal AP rounds inaccurate, and the same for making the AP rounds accurate without making the APDS accurate.

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56

Wow, that explains why the accuracy of the 17Pdr seemed a bit bad to me compared to any other tank.

57

The 17 pounder currently has accuracy that more or less matches what is expected from the normal AP rounds.

The APDS was much worse in real life. Tests show it had a 57% chance to hit a Panther sized target from the front at 400 yards.

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58

Yes, it was supposedly because of the metal on the outside of the APDS, which stayed in the barrel and deflected the following projectiles.
In the game, the precision of the 17pdr has always seemed strange to me. I have hit the tigers without problems next to the driver’s sights with the M4 76w and the T-34-85, shooting and hitting exactly where I aimed, instead with the 17pdr Yes, I saw that there are shots in which it deviates to one side, causing the bullet not to go where it should and ricochet off the armor.

59

Issue is that some of these 17pdr figures were tested using a Firefly which may not be the best means to test the gun. Im not sure exactly what the issue was regarding the accuracy but for some strange reason the Comets 77mm gun which is very similar to it but unfortunately less powerful, was noticeably more accurate and more on par with your average tank gun in terms of accuracy. I was thinking that maybe the ammunition fired was too powerful but I think the comet fires the same ammo and propellant unless im wrong. Maybe some issue with the breach. I dont know how tank guns work, just spitballing.

Someone should if he hasnt answered already ask the chieftain why this is the case, as he has done some content regarding the accuracy of the 17pdr weapon and deemed it probably good enough for the engagement ranges of WW2. That is reflected in the game at least where it is accurate enough that you wont literally miss a target you were aiming at.

It should be noted that Russian guns during this period were not regarded as particularly accurate either, it wouldnt surprise me considering the frequency of overweight, oversized shells and comparatively short barrels to sling them, as well as notorious manufacturing doctrine.

60

I also read something similar, that the tests were using a Sherman Firefly, and that the sight did not have the references for the APDS, so the shots would be by eye.

What he shoots is the same bullet, but the casing is different and carries less propellant, which is why it did not have the same bullet speed.

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61

That would make more sense than the slightly shorter barrel resulting in the 25% or so less performance.

So the issue was the propellant most likely, it also explains why the APDS is more accurate on the Comet if the muzzle break is the issue. Maybe its those two factors combined that made it so inaccurate.

62

On one page I read that, that it was a problem with the friction bands of the APDS, when firing the first shot, pieces remained inside the barrel, so the second shot would deviate, and an APCBC would have to be fired to clean the barrel .

63

It’s not “one shot” it’s firing loads that caused fouling, modifications to the muzzle brake came swiftly to fix said issue.

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64

This is an issue with basically every weapon yes, they had to issue instructions for how to overcome this problem, something like set to 1/2 up to a certain range then 1/3

Chieftain only had one source for the whole inaccuracy thing anyway, and it is very CLEARLY due to a bad batch of ammo, the American documents say the British claim this, the British documents show it too. Bear in mind that test was done months before general issue.

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65

@poopooo @XreGenerations
I believe the difference in accuracy with APDS between 17pdr and 77mm guns, could be explained by the different rifling twist. If the rifling twist in the 17pdr (1 in 30 cals) was insufficient to stabilize the APDS shell, then perhaps the one in the 77mm gun was. But I was unable to confirm it, as the technical information about that gun is scarce.

66

I don’t know in reality what exactly the precision of those cannons was, but from what I have been able to see, in the game those cannons have been modified to have poor precision, which, added to the fact that they are Full AP, makes them horrible cannons. Now I’m playing with the concept 3 myself and the cannon is a disaster, it has a lot of problems destroying tanks, while with the Churchill NA75 with its APHE it is much more effective against any tank, despite having 50mm less penetration, a real shame the work that gaijin has done with the tanks with Full AP.

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67

I like the music