Does anyone have any thoughts.
Yes same gun and same BR and thats definetively where all the similarities end. /s
Balance. And nothing more, there is nothing stopping it from using apds of course (afaik) but because it doesn’t have the smaller secondary belt like the gepard gaijin just omitted the apds entirely since its pretty clear how unbalanced a full 600+ round belt of 35MM apds at 8.3 would be and Its already good enough with the DM13 as is so its unneeded.
It should be noted they didn’t give apds to the ZA-35 for the same reason.
Two different prototypes were tested for the Division Air Defens DIVAD project: the Ford XM247 with 2 x 40mm Bofors L70, also known as Sgt. York, and the General Dynamics XM246 with 2 x 35mm Oerlikon KDA.
Both were tested exclusively against helicopters and ultimately rejected.
This meant that there was simply no anti-tank ammunition available in US stocks in case of emergency.
Because unlike the Gepard’s, Type 87’s or Marksman turret, the XM246 doesnt appear to feature the emergency-use belts for APDS rounds (20rds/gun).
However, the XM246 DID have access to oerlikons 35x228mm APDS (or APDS-T, I can’t remember - likely the latter) rounds.
The problem with that is simply that neither gepard, nor type 87, nor marksman, nor XM246 can mix oerlikons APDS rounds with any other type of ammunition (HEI [MSD], HEI-T [MLD], SAPHEI-T [PLD]) in the same belt as it would make it virtually impossible for the fire-control- and lead-calculation- computers to properly lead the tracked target.
The reason for this is that all other rounds (Except the 1968 era HVAP, modern APDS/FAPDS and APFSDS) feature a muzzle-velocity of 1175m/s, whereas the APDS has a muzzle-velocity of 1385m/s.
(ingame it’s still 1400m/s I think? Which contradicts oerlikons 1994 KD-series ammo brochure [1440m/s] and pretty much every secondary source [which claim 1385m/s for gepards APDS])
As far as I can remember, the gepards FCS actually needs to have the muzzle-velocity manually set to a fixed value, which then could not be changed during regular operation.
The emergency-belt isnt affected by this, since those rounds are intended to be fired using the roof-mounted periscopic sights - against surface targets and not against aerial threats, thus they do not require to be aimed through the FCS.
Therefore if gaijin was to add the APDS(/APDS-T) on the XM246 that’d basically force them to give it a full belt of it, i.e. 640rds.
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The ZA-35 does not appear to have had access to APDS rounds.
The manufacturer does however lists a round called “Solid Core Armour Piercing - Tracer” [APCI-T], which looks quite similar to Oerlikons 1968 ed. APCR/HVAP round;
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Except it does, it’s just that Gaijin hasn’t modeled this because they don’t trust the source (Jane’s). They have a blanket ban on everything from there because they got burned once.
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Hmm, interesting tbh.
Could you link the related bug-report? Would be kinda interested at taking a look at it.
Though to be fair, Jane’s makes a lot of assumptions when it comes to the stuff they write (especially vehicle-characteristics).
Also you can technically still cite them to e.g. back a secondary/primary sources’ claims.
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Sure! It’s these two
https://community.gaijin.net/issues/p/warthunder/i/ObOL36k2Upef
https://community.gaijin.net/issues/p/warthunder/i/bgEWnl77KJv5
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oooh it’s that topic…
I actually remember it now - I thought that ““controversy”” (not accepting jane’s even when the graphic comes from General Dynamics) was solely about the belt not being placed properly and didnt notice the secondary belt being absent aswell.
Thank you for clarifying!
All I see is a mechanism to change the direction of the ammunition.
So unless there’s a clearer illustration, that one shows nothing.
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It’s not really visible for the left gun, however you can see the additional belt for the right gun.
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Without a more detailed diagram or illustration, that can be an x-ray of the other side.
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