- Yes
- No, it’s fine as it is
- Either way is fine with me
In WT all explosives use TNT equivalent but that’s a poor metric on it’s own.
In general you can devide the power of the explosives into two categories:
Brisance and Blast performance.
To put it simply: Brisance determines the destrutive strenght of the shockwave, while blast the effect of the pressure built-up.
If you want to cut down a tree with explosives, the higher the brisance the larger of piece you’ll blow out of the tree or the less explosive you need for the same effect.
Blast is the pressure generated by the explosive or incendiary material. It’s less destructive to highly resistant material but has more range and destroys things with a built up of pressure.
It becomes more effectiev when the blast is contained, like underwater or when exploding inside a structure, e.g. a building or an airframe.
High-Brisance:
- More armor penetration (destructive force)
- More fragments, carrying more energy from bombs and explosive shells
High-Blast:
- More and greater area of pressure (overpressure)
- Greater damage against air frames or targets in water
Here’s an example with Amatol. Amatol was created to by mixing TNT with ammonium nitrate, to an explosive that was cheaper to produce than TNT alone without losing too much efficeny.
While the brisance of Amatol decreased, the blast performance increased, due to greater amounts of gases released from the reaction.
An HE shell filled with Amatol would have less armor penetration and would produce less fragments or fragments carrying less velocity, compared to TNT.
At the same time the blast effect would increase, increasing overpressure ability and damage to airframes.
As result:
The shell would lose armor penetration (-6-26% of TNT equivalent) due to the reduced brisance of Amatol but the overpressure ability of open top vehicles would greatly increase (+20-30% of TNT equivalent).
The shells purpose was that of demoltion of infantry fortification and defenses, thus the shell is designed as a Mineshell with thin walls and high capacity, to have a high blast effect (resulting in very large craters)
Very similiar to the intended purpose of the KV-2 with it’s 152mm howitzer.
