British 76mm 3in QQF 20cwt ammo

Coincidence? I think not.

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Now why would a gun that was originally an anti-aircraft gun fire an AP round with 853m/s but an HE shell with merely 600m/s?

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It just seems too convenient that the US 76mm 3in gun also fires a 5.83kg HE round with 853m/s.

Feels awfully like the US AA gun was based on the British AA gun and fired a similiar HE round.

Or did the shell velocity and weights get mixed up?
5.83kg is awfully light for an 76mm AP round while 7.26kg would make perfect sense.

Well, and there’s this:

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And what in god’s incarnation is that?

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That’s (almost) like the HE filler weight that the Churchill CG has at the moment but it says it’s a SAP shell.
The 15.2kg are obviously some typo. Maybe it was supposed to be 5.2kg.

To me it sounds like there should be a 7.26kg SAP shell with 320g explosive and a 5.3kg HE round with 530g explosive.
Could be the other way as well. US 76mm HE also only carries 390g after all.

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Because AP shot was literally more solid and so could sustain a larger propulsive charge than a HE shell with relatively thin walls?

The weapon is, of course, the old naval 12 pder from pre-WW2 - not much around about bursting charges tho - Britain 12-pdr [3"/45 (76.2 cm)] 20cwt QF HA Marks I, II, III and IV - NavWeaps

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There are no relatively thin walls with merely 500g explosive filler.

In-game the 17pdr fires a 7kg shell with 580g filler at 883m/s.

I’m also not sure that argument ever makes much sense. Mineshells can be fired at much higher velocity and thin 20mm HE round are often fired at velocities ranging from 800-1000m/s.

There were apparently problems with Japanese 20mm HE rounds, so they changed the construction from a cylinder shaped hole to two cylinders, with the bottom one being smaller, resulting in thicker walls.
Something that can often be found in other Nations HE rounds as well.

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Iiirc, the 17 pdr had such a He shell, not because stress, but to simple get similar ballistics to the AP round.

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All HE rounds have thinner walls than solid shot by definition.

Wow, glad you cleared that up. I’m sure I never would have realized that a piece of metal with no hole drilled through it actually is sturdier than one that is hollow.

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Yes - I got that impression.