Would HESH be overpowered if it "penetrating" a vehicle triggered overpressure?

The way HESH mechanically works is as follows:

Round impacts enemy armor with a delayed fuse. The shell has a relatively thin outer casing, enabling it to splat against the armor before detonating. The shockwave of the round is transmitted through the armor, causing inner lining pieces to spall at the crew.

Because the shockwave gets transmitted through the armor, which is quite literally a pressure wave, given combat reports of T-54 crews hit by 90mm HESH in Korea being totally incapacitated by bleeding eardrums even if minimal internal spalling occurred, doesn’t this sound awfully similar to overpressure?

Hence what I am wondering - would HESH rounds be too strong if them penetrating the crew compartment of a vehicle caused overpressure to trigger and one-tap said tank?

My thought process on this is generally NO.

  1. HESH rounds have much lower velocity than typical AP rounds, nevermind APDS rounds or larger.
  2. The handful of derp cannons with such rounds all have exceptionally low shell velocities (Centurion AVRE, M728 CEV, Lancia 100/17Ro) and/or very long reload times (all prior plus FV4005).
  3. The 106mm Recoilless Rifle light tanks have particularly bad shell velocities for their BR ranges of 6.7+ (less than 500m/s)
  4. The 90mm HESH rounds have comparable velocities but in many cases not enough penetration to reliably go through even the side of many opponents, nevermind the front, and most of those machines with such shells are either glass (M56, Jpz 4-5, etc.) or very high BR (M48s)

I am very skeptical that HESH would be truly game-breaking here. What are your thoughts on this matter?

8 Likes

If it’s realistic, add it. Besides, HESH could use a buff anyway, given the fact it’s explosive filler is practically non existent and it can never overpressure things it should easily be able to…

4 Likes

I would be all for it, BESH HESH needs the buff.

Strv 103 will be fun though >:3

1 Like

Gaijin will never fix it, otherwise some British tanks may become viable …and Gaijin hates Britian.

1 Like

Honestly, even for British it really will only be “good” on the already-8.0 Centurion Mk.10 and Vickers Mk.1. The derp launchers below that all reload too slowly to be all that incredible, even with this proposed change.

What i am reading boils down to making hesh be “if it damages the inside of a tank, one shot the tank”

Is this correct?

Well no, not exactly. HESH, because of the way it works, should be able to penetrate the same level of armour at any distance (exempting for where composites and ERA are used) - in the case of, say, the FV4005, that should allow it to basically ruin anything (and by ruin, I mean kill, unlike now where you can conceivably end up failing to kill a single crew member) in a single shot around its BR, with of course the obvious penalty of a 40 second reload and comical levels of protection.

The smaller HESH rounds, such as those found on the 105s, would probably be more effective against IFVs and other lightly armoured vehicles.

Basically, yes. The way the round operates - transmitting an explosion shockwave through the tank’s armor and causing the inner lining of said armor to spall inwards as if it was part of the shell’s casing - suggests it’s effectively using what could be reasonably understood as “overpressure.”

All the HESH rounds below 8.0 are either on glass cannons with far better rounds available most of the time (M56, M50, Type 60 SPRG, AUBL/74, R3 T106 FA, FIAT 6614, etc), near-8.0 mediums with far better Bread&Butter shells to use (M48s), or are glassy derp cannons with either better rounds (Conway), can be .50caled to death (FV4005), or have painfully low velocity (AVRE, CEV).

Thus I was thinking that giving HESH that sort of much greater ability to overpressure as a way to help make it unique, and most importantly WORK as it was intended to obliterate fairly thin sloped armor no questions asked.

2 Likes

'Cept for the 103s, but even they already have an excellent APDS round.

Even so, currently HESH doesn’t really have much in the way of purpose, especially on machines which have literally any other decent round to use instead.

I would like to think that making HESH overpressure if it penetrates the crew compartment would not be considered “overpowered,” but we have seen before the power the whining of major nations can have…

especially Soviets.

1 Like

I don’t believe the Strv 103s even have a HESH round, right? Plus aren’t all those 8.0+?

They do get one, and yes, they are all 8.0+. It might be different in arcade, though.

I don’t think any shells work differently postpen-wise, nor vary in availability, between modes.

They do, its slspgr m/61. They are all 8.0+ though.

Well then they would routinely run into ERA, making it a still very useful, but situational round if penetrating a vehicle’s crew compartment triggered overpressure.

It would also be an excellent way for others to kill the Strv 103s, given they are the thin highly sloped crap HESH was made to kill.

Well okay-

To be fair I have seen HESH ricochet off the 103s lmfao

I very rarely run into ERA at 8.0, really only do with M60s.

Agreed. Although, I did take the barn out, and exempting one shot where i derped it into a Tiger II engine deck I did alright with it. As in, one shots were a thing (except to a Tiger IIs turret front which was to be expected).

You’d like to believe, but my good sir, the insane amount of begging and pleading and whining got the L/I-1 for the ICE, yet the same volume of protesting got… nothing to improve the two new Brit air additions.

Hmmmm

2 Likes

Making overpressure happen for hesh in that manner would mean that all hesh slingers go up in br.

I would rather they revert hesh to what it used to be than make it so good that a huge amount of british tanks jump in br

Except they’ve already jumped in BR.

Back when HESH actually worked well (c. 1.69), the Centurion Mk 10 & Vickers Mk. 1 were both 7.0, fully stabilized, and doing far more postpen on their APDS than now. Likewise with both the Conqueror and Conway.

Whether HESH would be rebuffed to the 1.69 standard, or whether it got overpressure from penning due to how it functions like I suggest here, aren’t the “problem” machines already high enough in BR to make it a non-issue?

2 Likes

These are very different. Old hesh would be more consistant and go through thicker armor at higher angles. Adding your suggest means that all hesh will one shot if it can do any damage.
105mm hesh has 127mm of pen. This would mean that all you would have to do is hit an area with less than 127mm of raw armor and you insta kill them.

I am pretty sure that giving them what is basically the insta kill of a large HE but with better aiming and pen would increase their br.