If you have the Black Prince you have an ok tank to go with it.
my dear, you have a HESH (does not work) vehicle or another shell-shatter tank.
UK 6.0-6.7 GRB is their worst BRs. Sending anything up and well they aren’t playable in that BR range. on BR and lower is the only time you aren’t the worst vehicle on your team.
So what happens when you see them in 6 to 7, dont forget if you see them in a 5.0, there is only 4 tanks at that BR
As it stands the US 90 mm is arguably a bit better than the Panther’s 75 mm. For the last couple of months it has received consistent buffs such as being more accurate, M82 having less drag and higher velocity. It’s pretty nice.
You can’t be serious… there’s no way anyone could possibly believe that.
Relative to their competition (i.e. their effectiveness against the amount of armor it has to penetrate) it’s no contest- the 75mm is better unless you’re factoring in HEAT, but the HEAT has a slower velocity and higher arc.
Objectively I’d still give an edge to the 75mm. A 75mm on an m36 chassis would do better than the 90mm.
Yes, I do believe it.
Before we start, all weight, velocity, etc values are from datamines. That’s why I know the velocity of M82 is 853.44 rather than just 853 m/s.
Flat pen of M82 at point blank, using the calculator available on the WarThunder wiki.
Same thing for Pzgr.39/42
Using this flat pen value and applying the slope effect of capped AP rounds weilds us this penetration graph, where X is degrees and Y is penetration in millimeters. I have coded a calculator that simply gives me these results after many hours of testing to see how slope modifiers work.
(Before you ask, the penetration values for 80+° are purely theoretical. That is to say, the slope modifiers exist for those angles, but the rounds are going to ricochet, specially Pzgr.39/42, not to mention that 90° pen is actually impossible, but again, the values for 90° pen are still there in Gaijin’s slope effect tables. The actual armor thickness that can be penetrated at those angles can be obtained by dividing the caliber of the projectile by 7, which means complete overmatching, and in this case means M82 will be superior).
As evident, higher angle leads to less of a pen advantage for Pzgr.39/42. By the time it reaches 45°, M82 takes the lead by a few decimal places. You can even test it yourself that both M82 and Pzgr.39/42 have 101 mm of penetration at 45°, and just about go through the UFP of a T-54 if shooting at 45°. Additionally, at 100 meters, Pzgr.39/42 will have 99 mm of pen at 45°, and M82 will have 100 mm.
As I stated previously, M82 received a drag buff. This can be easily noticed by looking at the wiki for any tank that utilizes M82, as the wiki hasn’t been updated from the old values. The wiki for the M36 says that penetration at 2 kilometers is 132 mm with M82, but in reality it’s 140 mm.
Here the stat card for M82 at 853.44 m/s.
Here the wiki penetration table for the M36B2 showing values before the drag buff.
As noted from the stat card, at 500 meters it reaches 173 mm of flat penetration. This coincides with Pzgr.39/42 on the Panther, and means that past this distance, M82 will actually have better flat penetration than the Pzgr.39/42. Roughly the same distance works for the 17 pounder as well, although it reaches 172 mm at 500 meters.
So the penetration advantage of Pzgr.39/42 is not only limited to under 45°, it also decreases with distance until 500 meters, where it has no advantage, and past 500 meters, M82 is simply better.
So in short:
That and other advantages such as significantly better damage make me wholeheartedly believe that M82 is the superior round.
That’s bizarre and doesn’t match up with my in-game experience at all. To the contrary, I feel like I have waaaaaayyyyyy less of a chance of bouncing with the 76mm than the 90mm. The mantlet of the Panther absolutely eats 90mm but struggles against the 76mm.
But to my other point, the german 75mm begins at 5.0 and there is absolutely nothing that it even has a chance of bouncing against if they aim center mass. The 90mm begins at 5.3 and struggles against just about everything with any kind of good sloped armor like T-34s and Panthers.
Which isnt to say that you arent theoretically correct- it just doesnt translate well because of where it is in the tech tree and other factors of the vehicles.
Every other shot shatters after gaijin obliterated APDS, so the gun is pretty mid. I’d rather have the Panther’s 75 for the postpen and reliability until Gaijin fixes APDS.
And what do you mean “trolly armour”? Bouncing someone’s UFP because you didn’t bother aiming isn’t trolly, the cent’s lower plate is weak, the turret has a huge weakspot in the angled roof being pennable by pretty much anything, the turret cheeks aren’t particularly thick for the BR. You just have to aim a bit, though maybe that’s where the German and Russian mains start to struggle.
I just want them to fix APDS…
These buffs were somewhat recent.
For example, the “deletion” of early M82 with 813 m/s muzzle velocity happened with the infamous “October BR changes” last year, in which the M26s went to 6.7 and such.
The drag changes happened in update 2.31.1.36 in November 15th.
Assuming the “76 mm” means the 17 pounder, my two cents is that those aren’t “Panthers”, they are VK 30.02 (M)s, which have noticeably weaker mantlets for reasons I have already provided previously.
M82 has just an outright easier time against the T-34 UFP than Pzgr.39/42 so you’re simply incorrect there. At point blank both cannons have basically the same penetration past 45° (as seen by the graph), and as distance increases M82 will gain more of a flat pen advantage.
For example, the T-34’s UFP (which is 45 mm at 60°) will provide 117 mm of effective protection against M82 and 123 mm against Pzgr.39/42. At 2 km, that means M82 still cleaves through (140 mm of penetration) but Pzgr.39/42 can start to non pen since it has only 126 mm of penetration, so much so that at 61° the penetration and effective protection of the armor will match, while you need to hit the plate at 65° for that to happen with M82 at 2 km.
So, at point blank there is no perceivable difference, and as distance increases M82 will be able to penetrate the T-34 easier than Pzgr.39/42. There’s not much else to say there.
And yes, it can’t go through a Panther’s UFP, but neither can the Panther go through its own UFP.
Earlier you said the M36 (if HEAT-FS is ignored) would be better with the Panther’s cannon. How is that the case with everything I’ve said? The 75 mm is only “better” on the Panther specifically because the Panther doesn’t face many Panthers, so it has enough pen to go through most other tanks relatively easily, but an M36 with the Panther’s 75 mm wouldn’t actually get any benefit from it.
Also, little fun fact: M304 APCR (yes, APCR) can go through the UFP of a Panther at close range (up to 260 meters). This is something I’ve made use of myself.
Are you saying to use apds in 6.3 and use solid in down tiers?
Uhhh-
I was trying to make a point on how the UK doesn’t have the best shell in the game.
and the 6.0 is the start of UK’s nightmares but thinking about it I can’t remember if the Cent mk 1 gets that affected shell type so I might have actually lied. I just remember seeing a lot os “Shell Shatter” around that point in my grind.
All tungsten carbide cored projectiles have the “shattering” problem.
This to say: all APCR and APDS that isn’t 105 mm M728, m/66 and 120 mm L15, as these three APDS rounds have cores made of tungsten heavy alloy, and don’t experience shattering. Edit: I forgot autocannon APDS also doesn’t have shattering issues, at least that I know of.
For example, 17 pounder APDS right now struggles against the Jumbo’s UFP specifically because the first plate of the Jumbo will “break” the core a bit. That’s basically how Gaijin has modeled it.
Ah I see, but I have to say that O_HOgameplay is actually wrong.
The L28/M392/DM13 APDS for the L7 will still absolutely experience shattering issues, as only the tilt pad is made of tungsten alloy, but the actual core is still very much tungsten carbide. You can see this by testing it against something like the T26E1-1.
Edit: Here, as I mentioned.
Non-pen even though the equivalent protection is much lower than the penetration of the round. This indicates shattering.
That’s a great point that I had forgotten about, M304 is actually surprisingly useful as an APCR round due to it’s massive pen advantage over M82. It’ll go through most trouble tanks pretty easily if you pick your shots well. Panther/Jagdpanther UFPs, Tiger II H mantlets, Ferdi/Jadgtiger casemates, Obj 268s, even stuff like IS-6 turrets and the bloody Maus. You’re generally still better off with HEATFS on that tanks that have that option, but for tanks that don’t like the standard M36, Pershing, T25 etc, I always carry 5-10 rounds of the stuff.
Yes, M304 is perhaps the only “good” APCR in the game. Ironically that’s due to the fact that Gaijin has incorrectly modeled it but… I won’t complain, and certainly won’t bug report it (can’t bug report it either way as datamines aren’t accepted in the bug report webside).
Guess which major nation doesn’t have that problem
If you want to say Russia, then I’ll tell you now that 3BM-8 and 3BM-7/11 has the same shattering issues as L28/M392/DM13.
i’ve never had 3BM-8 shell shatter
Shell shattering is just a fancy way of the game saying that the APDS round lost too much penetration from going through secondary armor plates and air gaps to penetrate the main armor.
The code for 3BM-8, 7 and 11 for these “penetration loss” mechanics is identical to that of the early 105 mm L7 APDS.
