France until the AMX-50/90:
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In game, yes.
IRL, no.
Not really. The topic of realistic damage has already been discussed quite a bit in the forum, and in reality APHEs would have around 10% more spalling, with this spalling being in a cone and not in a sphere.
At the same time, Full APs do not necessarily pierce more because they are Full APs, since in many APHEs with little explosive capacity they would not break as easily, so it would not affect penetration as much.
Penetration is based mainly on the speed and weight of the bullet, then there are somewhat minor variables such as the shape of the bullet’s tip, its heat treatment, whether it is APC or if it has more or less interior space in APHEs. Penetration at 0º, 30º or 60º is also different. Realistically, APHE are essentially something inherited from ship projectiles, and that is why at the end of WW2 practically all countries abandoned APHE, since they were more complex to manufacture, more expensive and did not provide a very large improvement in damage compared to Full AP.
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Thanks for restating exactly what I said…?
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Apologies, was partially unaware.
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Not true.
The British intentionally embrittled their AP shot to try and reclaim some post penetration. But it also meant that the shot performed very badly. 17 pdr APCBC couldn’t pen Panther glacis at point blank unless the armor failed, unlike in Gaijin land.
Similarly, after firing some 20 APHV rounds into the 50mm front of a Panzer III, only one penetrated at point blank. This was the standard. 2 pdr was helpless against German tanks.
In North Africa, German 50mm APHE had a decisive advantage in lethality, so the British resorted to armoring their ammunition racks, because they kept burning up. While 2 pdr AP repeatedly failed to do the same to the Germans.
WAllies used TNT/CompB filler which is significantly inferior to RDX/A-IX-2 fillers used by German/Soviets.
At the time, Britain had 1 factory with negligible R&D, and the 2 pdr APHE is an uncapped ‘poor quality’ SAP. It’s gigantic tracer meant it didn’t have much filler either.
It was only going into 1944 that Britain began to use noticeable amount of ballistic capped ammo. But even then US forces shot AP over APCBC at a ratio of 2-1 from 57mm ATG.
No problem, I didn’t put a lot in my comment to begin with
Ah, so you’re the reason War Thunder still has OP unrealistic and trash APHE simulation.
Your hatred of balance is sad.
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And so we persist with a physics-defying model where the velocity of the APHE projectile is completely dissipated at a point midway inside the enemy vehicle’s crew compartment, and the projectile magically detonates in a perfect circle.
Incredible, thank you for the small part that you played.
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I mean, let’s be honest- even if the fragments did fly out in a cone the round would probably still turn the inside of a tank into a blender. An explosion from a shell inside a tank would, likely, at the very least, rupture eardrums, and cause many other injuries that will put the crew out of a fight.
So if Gaijin tries to simulate everything as close to real life as possible we will circle back to APHE one–shotting tanks anyway
Also, a round would absolutely lose some if not most of its velocity after penetrating armor
And an AP round smashing through the armor shouldn’t do much the same?
To say nothing of the mess that is HESH, or early APDS…
An AP round smashing through the armor does everything the same as APHE, except the part where it explodes and does the things most of my reply was focused on.
HESH being goody and not working properly is a separate matter that won’t be fixed by changing APHE
APDS is pretty much the same story as AP
I know that people often bring up that AP/APDS was effective in real life, but I have to ask- how is that effectiveness defined? Because IRL a round that goes in front and out back, destroying transmission, controls, engine etc, miraculously avoding all crew, would be considered a huge success since it completely disabled a tank. In WT- it means a 30 second repair
Because if Gaijin removed the ability to repair an engine which had a 76mm shell pass through it then AP and APDS suddenly be much better than APHE due to the usually higher penetration while dealing damage that puts the tank out of a fight anyway