as i already said, the low caliber shots sure do suffer penetration loss because of filler. And the damage effect they get in return is minor. But its not the case with higher caliber shots which is certainly seen throughout the war. Especialy with US and USSR ones.
AND they had money problem as filler and detonator wound have make shots cost more, and require more powder which is limited in England.
You’re comparing guns from very different BRs. Other than the Archer I cannot think of a 17pdr at 3.7 or lower.
If you examine weapons at the same BR, you will find that usually APHE rounds have enough penetration to deal with the vast majority of targets they face from the frontal aspect. The trade off then begins to fall apart. If you have to choose between very high penetration or just enough penetration + post pen, you’ll pick the latter every time.
Until recently, the M-51 was at the same BR as the three later Panthers. Which round do you prefer using, the 400mm HEAT or the 39/42?
Sure, if you meet a Tutel or a T29 the HEAT can be nice. Although the Panther can still one-hit-kill the American heavies through the MG port thanks to the APHE sphere of death.
But in 90% of situations you’ll be better off with the APHE. Doesn’t matter that it pens less than half, because it’s enough. And this is an APHE with no overpressure, because the filler is small!
I play Tiger IIs a lot. Lost count of how many times a 7.7 medium has taken out my gunner but failed to detonate my first stage ammo, then I proceeded to replace the gunner, leave cover, fire the APHE at them and laugh because they explode in one hit.
You misunderstand the purpose of APHE in real life. It was to achieve fragmentation, and you could do that better by using HVAP, without the hassle of having to handle explosive and the risk that the fuze would fail.
A penetration in real life usually led to a crew bailing the tank even if everyone was alive.
Did they?
A lot of the claims are very suspect. Even those that are not suspect are more easily explained by the fact that they were fighting from prepared defensive positions. Attackers always take more casualties until a full breakthrough is achieved (which is why the last months of the war have a disproportionate amount of casualties for the Germans). All this is fairly basic stuff true to every industrial war.
Makes no sense because:
A tank is generally disabled with a single penetrating hit, yet real life doesn’t have a kill feed.
When you shoot a tank, you continue firing at it until you see the crew bail out or it catches fire.
Even when you fire a 88mm cannon against a Cruiser tank.
You never know, if the tank is still operational or able to return fire.
Even an abandoned tank might get shot, when it still looks operational.
All that APHE does is increase the chance of the vehicle being disabled in an instance, so less risk of the tank still being able to retaliate.
But in practice you have to deal with APHE not fuzing and you don’t even know about it.
So it’s just a psychological effect.
Our shell is APHE so it will cause more damage!
Vs. the reality of just shooting tanks until you are certain they had an effect.
An penetrating shots are going to have a much bigger effect than non penetrating hits….
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Okay, I can do the Chi-To and Sherman Firefly. Its just my previous experience talking as i gridned germany way back when PzIVH was 4.7
the M10 Achilles
they sure mostly do. HOWEVER solid AP launchers there usually can easilly pen those targets which APHE will have problem with (6pdr for example easilly pens KVs with whom Shermans have trouble with their AP), AND have no trouble being thrown to +1.0 where APHE suffers with penetration (e.g. T-34-42 meeting Churchull IV for example)
it is now i believe still at same rating with those.
Tho its more of a dillema about game balance. I highly appreciate the M51 as i can point-and-delete the King Tigers. But if i play WITH them in team? I would prever Panther`s cannon for sure.
depends on which enemies i would meet. Tho if i could have Panther with this 105 cannon, i would choose it easilly. Being able to delete IS-4, T34? you bet!
it mostly does severe damage tho. But the Tiger 1`s being able to oneshot t34 to the lower plate is also a good comparison showing that crazy damage
Again, depends on the penetration limits and wins. If i have PT-76, i will hardly use that APHE as it has such a low penetration for its rating. Different thing if i use M46 - i would use APHEs as main ammunition.
That sure depends on chassis and abilities tbh. Tho i agree that mostly the APHE with lower pen is more suitable for the situations you can get in. As not all of the enemies usually have decent armor.
Yes! IF its enough, you usually prefer APHE. I certainly agree with that point!
well, tiger 2 probably has best APHE launcher ingame. So no doubt it is that good. Compae it with, for example, the Pt-76 cannon. Or the 2pdr. OR the M46 M3A1 which forces you to use HEATs as much as APHEs. THere are different examples and all that comes back to game balance for sure, not the APHE realization
it sure is, but then there`s that thing called “irretrievable Losses”. Meaning the machinery that couldnt be retrieved, fixed and sent to another battle. At least in russia we cetainly felt that in WW2.
Early in war USSR 76es were mostly armed with AP shots which made Germans retrieve much of the machinery and repair it. Comparing it after the APHE became mass produced, german irretrievable losses became much bigger. That being said, it may not be the first reason, but it sure is one of the big reasons to use APHEs - to make sure that machine wouldnt be easilly fixed and retrieved by forces, as war is firstly economics.
true
wasnt the whole purpose of APCRs (tell me if im wrong but HVAP and APCR are the same thing?) to penetrate solid piece of armor? I mean they have small solid core that surely wont do more fragmentation damage than AP shot that broke the armor?
I do believe it was, and i never insisted on tank keep fighting after penetration
Did they not?
I believe germans never had a solid AP shot, and they never had so much high density metals to equip all of them with APCRs
Pzgr.40(W) was used as primary ammo, because it offered good ballistics and penetration up to 1000m, it is however just a soft/mild steel cylinder with ballistic cap.
In the 7,5 cm Pak/KwK 40 and 8,8 cm KwK 36 L/56.
(Possibly even on the 5 cm Pak, however there is limited data, might not have used Pzgr.40(W).)
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7.5cm was the caliber for the PaK 40.
I feel like the Pzgr. 40 (W) was just a way to conserve Pzgr. 40 ammo since crews tend to use their best AP rounds whenever they can.
Since it’s ballistically identical to the Pzgr. 40 it could also be used for ranging shots.
But I remember it was also recommended against fast moving light targets since it required less lead while a Pzgr. 39 would be overkill anyway.
And KwK 40.
But the same round existed also for 8,8 cm Guns.
And it was in general used to preserve the more expensive Pzgr.39 and 40, along with the Gr.38, which was also rather cheap, tho ballistically suboptimal.
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Can you describe what`s the Pzgr 40W is? I find it hard to understand
Its basically a Pzgr.40 without the Tungsten core, instead a solid Steel cylinder.
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Wouldn’t that ammunition act like the Soviet flat nose bullets?
Yes, kind of. However there are things to concidder about both. This round is just mild steel, it doesnt penetrate but push through (that does make it more effective against harder armor tho).
And increased angled performance for this and the russian flat nose shells is relative, because while in game they are simply AP rounds with far greater angled pen, IRL they were worse at flat armor and still similar to conventional Apc rounds, In game it doesnt have a reduced flat pen, so simply completly overperforms at angles.
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Anyway, didn’t the same thing happen to APBC ammunition with a sharp nose? That upon impact with inclined targets, the tip would break, creating the effect of a flat-nosed bullet.
Yes, tho they are higher hardenes, they have both good flat and angled penetration. Iirc.
The russian shells were however a low quality trade off, rather on the softer side and less durable.
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They literally weren’t. The Mk1s, all the way up to the Mk6s all used a APHE round.
THE ROUND IS EVEN IN WARTHUNDER. look at the MkV event vehicle.
yeah, they didn’t even have the raw Materials past like 43 to make APHE properly, it was in very short supply.
40(W) was made as a stop gap, to give the tank crews SOMETHING to shoot at the enemy. And it DID work, it just did nothing upon penetrating. Because it was just a steel slug with No ballistic cap or anything, it made basically no fragmentation.
Cool how you are missing reading comprehension and didnt even bother to look at the drawing. No, it wasnt a stop gap, it was a cheap alternative with greater ballistics and it did have a ballistic cap.
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What do you mean standards dating back to WW1? They had APHE right until the start of the war. The 3-Pdr and 2-Pdr that replaced it had APHE projectiles. They even used the APHE rounds in service, because you’re not going to let warehouses full of usable ammo go to waste during a war.
They did extensive testing on APHE prior to WW2 and found the difference in spalling was negligible compared to the reliability solid shot provided so they stopped producing it domestically. That doesn’t mean they didn’t use it.
British testing on German 50mm APHE. 30 rounds, 6 detonations. In WT that’s 30 detonations. APHE damage is overperforming, so is the reliability. This is why the Americans stopped producing M61 APHE after they discovered fuse issues and began producing M61 shot. After they resolved the fuse issues they resumed production of M61 APHE which the British also used.
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