Or do you mean the RP rocket pods because they’re actually a different thing, basically HE SNEBs with a bigger pod and no radar fuse as there were concerns that naval radars would set SNEB fuses off as soon as they were armed.
Apologies for the confusion, I meant that the Shell, High Explosive, 60lb, Fragmentation, No.1 Mk 1 is not in game for that reason. You can see that the design is intended to send large splinters perpendicular to the impact, and that there is a lower explosive content when compared to the 60lb SAP (confirmed by weight).
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Oh yes, I know of that warhead. Did you know that later in the war experiments were done with another warhead based on this one? It was called Shell 60lb GP, and was this HE warhead for the 3in rocket projectile reconfigured with a HEAT hollow charge filler rather than pure HE in a fragmentation casing.
Here’s a photo of a Typhoon with the HE rockets.
Specifically the HEAT warhead was called Shell, HE, 60 lb, G.P.
Here is a link to a site with the statistics of the different warheads. Airborne Rockets Used By the British During WWII
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I’m no expert and wasn’t aware of the GP. Very interesting, something worth looking into!
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Doubt they would add it even if it was suggested, but in trials it could apparently pen 198mm of flat RHA, which is pretty decent considering it would also have overpressure if implemented.
Do you think it is even worth making the suggestion? There isn’t much info on it apart from on Wikipedia and the statistics page I provided.
If it never progressed past testing it might still be worth looking into what aircraft was used, as a suggestion could be made for it on that aircraft alone or for an event aircraft with the 60lb GP as a unique weapon.
Unfortunately it looks like it may have never progressed from ground testing.
Technically they were also used in low to medium angle of attack runs on merchant ships as when a rocket hit the water without detonating (as obviously the APs wouldn’t) they would pitch up. Therefore, hitting the target below the waterline where the armour is thinner, they could cause flooding and hit internal components which couldn’t otherwise be hit. Additionally, this pitching up would mean that from the side of a target vessel the total area that would ensure a hit was doubled as you could hit as far short of the ship as the ship was tall above its waterline. This meant that ‘missed’ shots were actually more deadly, and that hitting the target in general was far easier. This is why the Mk2s had a redesigned warhead to be more hydrodynamic.
For anyone who may be interested, I have done some further testing with RP-3 and both AP rockets using the ideas gleaned from responses to this post. I have found that - against large coastal vessels like corvettes, sub chasers and fast attack ships which are small, tall over the water, and small enough that the components are densely packed - that the AP rockets are arguably more effective than RP-3s in low angle runs. This is because they do approximately the same damage to these targets in low angle runs as RP-3s, but are higher velocity and slightly more accurate, so have a longer effective range. This means that you can fire from further out and pull off at a slightly safer distance from the target’s air defence while doing the same damage. In fact, in these kinds of shallow displacement vessels, the ammunition has to be stored above the waterline due to a lack of space, making it easier to hit in these low angle runs. Resultantly, you can occasionally ammo rack these ships with rockets, which the APs are actually more consistent at than the RP-3s (probably because the RP-3s tend to detonate before they can pen the ammo stowage), so the APs are actually more likely to kill the vessel in a single run.
In addition to this, I have also determined that there is a gameplay advantage to taking the AP Mk2s over the Mk1s: as in real life the Mk2s are aerodynamically superior to the Mk1s and so are significantly more accurate, particularly at longer ranges. This further improves their albeit niche advantages over the RP-3s in the aforementioned scenarios.
I hope that this information comes in useful to anyone who may want to use the APs effectively in gameplay, and that it improves their understanding and enjoyment of the game.