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Anti-tank rifle vs infantry

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#41
Grobut said:
That, and the human body is about 70% water, and if you've ever watched the Mythbusters eppisode where they tested how far different calibers would penetrate water, you'll know that the higher velocity the caliber, the more violently it decellerates in water.

They didn't have a 14.5 to test, but they did have a 12.7, and it's projectile barely made it past the surface before it disintigrated from the violent decelleration.

This should absolutely apply to a 14.5 hitting human flesh, all be it to a lesser extend (because it's hitting 70% water and not 100% water), which means the projectile should either deform or fragment from the decelleration, and that means it should be leaving one very nasty exit wound.
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Water and flesh are not quite the same, mainly due to their surrounding volumes. If you fire a bullet into a body of water, the water doesn't really have any place to displace to since it's surrounded by more water. When a powerful round hits flesh it will generally cause some of the flesh to "fly away" from it on impact, so it will not decelerate quite so fast. Flesh is elastic and separates into clumps, water is fluid and moves as one body.

But overall, yes... it will probably disintegrate fairly quickly because of the density of material properties of flesh. I think most of the 14.5 mm ammunition used would be steel-core, so it would probably not break up quite as fast as standard FMJ, though it would still probably break up in a short time. water and flesh are high density materials and they are not rigid in the slightest, so bullet will generally break down from the intensive friction and energy dispersal.

Here's a lovely little set of comparison videos with various ammunition types and the same size cube of ballistics gel. Note that all of them are basically Hollowpoints and Dum-Dums, so this is a bit more grievous than you'd expect from Military FMJ. Hollowpoint ammunition like the ones in the video are basically outlawed for military use. Still, it gives you a good idea of the killing power difference between different calibers of ammo.

YouTube - 9mm vs Ballistic Gel
YouTube - 308 vs Ballistic Gel
YouTube - 50 BMG vs Ballistic Gel
 
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#43
Hypno Toad said:
I seem to recall the PTRD in RO is rather useless against the front armor of Panzers II+. My guess is AT rifles will work to good effect against the lighter tanks, but the heaviest tanks will be fairly immune.
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Nope. I just loaded up my old tank range map, and I could take out the Panzer IV F1 and F2 frontally with a single PTRD round from under 200 meters.

Panzer IV H and above can't be penetrated frontally.


By the way, water vs. flesh. Water is denser (or else you couldn't float). A better test would be to fire at a water balloon in the shape of a person. That way you don't have the issue of too much water around. Ballistic gel seems like the best option.
 
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#45
Placebo Cyanide said:
Panzer IV-H can be penetrated from the front, the required angle for penetration is just very small, closer to that of a Tiger. ;)
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Well that'll be useful relationship advice for a number of people who really take their love of history to the next level...I'll keep it in mind ;)
 
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#48
Mormegil said:
Nope. I just loaded up my old tank range map, and I could take out the Panzer IV F1 and F2 frontally with a single PTRD round from under 200 meters.
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Hmm, the rifle usually proves impractical when in *real* RO combat. I suppose if you get an opportunity to fire off a perfect shot then it may work, but it is fairly unrealistic that AP shells will often fail to penetrate tanks while an AT rifle can destroy most with a single shot.

I do hope the AT rifle does starts to play the role of an anti-material and anti-emplacement rifle in HOS, I think the biggest danger to tanks in Stalignrad would have been other tanks, and simply running into the environmental hazards of urban combat, such as slippery rubble piles or craters, and then getting exposed to close range anti-tank attacks while they are a fish out of water.

Even in the most optimal situation, an Anti Tank rifle would never be good up against the newer medium and heavy tank models. Tank optics, ventilation, and treads would really be the most damage an anti-tank rifle could do.
 
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#49
Hypno Toad said:
Water and flesh are not quite the same, mainly due to their surrounding volumes.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xYSGuiko6Gg&feature=related
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I know, and i covered that (70% versus 100%).

The point is that flesh is a dense material (it contains lots of water), and thus, a high velocity projectile won't pass through it without deforming, fragmenting or perhabs tumbling, something's gonna happen to it, it won't just go cleanly through, and the fact that it's a very powerfull round doesen't make that less so, quite the opposite.

To get a clean through-and-through, you would need less power, something like a .25 ACP for instance might make a wound like that (if it doesen't hit bone).
 
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#50
The other more predominant factor would be that most "ball" FMJ rounds are jacked with copper and nickel, and have a lead core. Not very hard materials, whereas armor piercing rounds will generally be copper/nickel jacketed with a hardened steel or tungsten core, which may be capable of flying through flesh or water without breaking up quite as much.

That said it may break up some.. I'm not sure. I don't think there have been many ballistic tests of armor piercing ammo against water-based targets since that's not what it's used for.

All of this is null anyways, 14.5 mm ammunition produces such a massive amount of energy that it will likely gib whatever human target it hits, armor piercing or not. I think ROOST did this properly, I frequently peg snipers and MG gunners with the PTRD in RO and it looks like it should for the most part, a large puff of blood and usually a missing limb. Frankly I don't think that RO: HOS is going to have a particularly detailed torso gibbing effects; most likely it will be the same as ROOST. and a 14.5mm sure as heck would not turn people into bloody mist like HE shells do, so it's probably going to stay the way it is now in ROOST.
 
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#51
Mormegil said:
Good to know. I'll still go from the flank, when possible.
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hmmm.....well, I suppose it all is a matter of preference, really. I mean, personally, I don't feel that kind of attraction to Panzers, so I can't argue either way, but it's always good to know for reference.

;) I wonder how many people are finally catching on?
 
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#52
Hypno Toad said:
Even in the most optimal situation, an Anti Tank rifle would never be good up against the newer medium and heavy tank models. Tank optics, ventilation, and treads would really be the most damage an anti-tank rifle could do.
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Optimal situation would be Pavlov's House. We know what the PTRD did to German armor there. Top armor was still pretty thin throughout the war. Granted, those were mostly against Stugs, and not later medium / heavies.
 
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#53
Hypno Toad said:
Tank optics, ventilation, and treads would really be the most damage an anti-tank rifle could do.
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I remember I had this one article on my old computer before it fried that made mention of the PTRD/S being used by to riddle holes in the sides of Panzer IIIs & IVs. They would aim for the tank crewmen as well as the tracks and optics -- but on rare occasion the tank's ammunition has been ignited.
 
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#55
Guys, not even your normal .50BMG will fragment when hitting human flesh, so the mythbusters argument doesn't even apply here. Just look up some ballistic gel studies, which comes pretty close to human flesh.

Also, all projectiles of the 14.5x114mm are AP, the original round had a tungsten penetrator (and a later one had a hardened steel penetrator) which makes it absolutely impossible that the round will fragment anywhere near what you guys talk about.

PS: the .50 BMG ballistics gel vid Hypno Toad posted has a hollow point, which makes that vid useless.
 
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#56
Grobut said:
The point is that flesh is a dense material (it contains lots of water), and thus, a high velocity projectile won't pass through it without deforming, fragmenting or perhabs tumbling, something's gonna happen to it, it won't just go cleanly through, and the fact that it's a very powerfull round doesen't make that less so, quite the opposite.
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7.62 round will go cleanly through human body compared to 5.56. Even 5.45 will fragment less than 5.56 in general. The problem with human tissue compared to solid water tissue is that most of it is soft, organic material that while it may slightly resist fast moving projectiles it is far more softer than solid mass of water. It's not impossible for bullet to achieve penetration for multiple humans in some odd cases until the bullet loses its kinetic energy or is simply deformed enough after several penetrations to simply not cause an exit wound anymore, while shooting the bullet in water would cause it to simply break apart within few feet.
 
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#57
Oldih said:
7.62 round will go cleanly through human body compared to 5.56. Even 5.45 will fragment less than 5.56 in general.
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No it won't, the 7.62 will tumble, and the 5.45 even more so, and the shockwave will pulp surrounding meat. That is not a clean through-and-through, and it is definately going to leave a bigger exit wound than the entrance wound.

Fragmentation is not the only way for a projectile to cause a huge mess.

Oldih said:
The problem with human tissue compared to solid water tissue is that most of it is soft, organic material that while it may slightly resist fast moving projectiles it is far more softer than solid mass of water. It's not impossible for bullet to achieve penetration for multiple humans in some odd cases until the bullet loses its kinetic energy or is simply deformed enough after several penetrations to simply not cause an exit wound anymore, while shooting the bullet in water would cause it to simply break apart within few feet.
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Enough of this guys, i have never, EVER, said that the human body is equal to water, never.

I used the water as an example of how a high velocity projectile behaves very differently to a low velocity projectile when impacting a dense mass, water beeing an extreme of this.

And then i went on to explain that the human body is also a dense mass (and made it very clear that it is not as dense as water too. Yes people, i do know that humans are not Jellyfish), and that here aswell, high velocity projectiles behave different to low velocity ones.

And they do, just watch ballistic-gel photage, read up on wound profiles, it's pretty common knowledge really, and it all points to one thing: Something as big and fast as the 14.5 cannot make a neat and tidy 14mm hole through a human, it's going to leave behind a big bloody mess, i would guess atleast a grape-fruit sized exit wound, and that's probably a conservative estimate.
 
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#58
Grobut said:
No it won't, the 7.62 will tumble, and the 5.45 even more so, and the shockwave will pulp surrounding meat. That is not a clean through-and-through, and it is definately going to leave a bigger exit wound than the entrance wound.
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The "clean" was mostly figure of speech and yes, I am fully aware of the cavity expansion that occurs once the bullet enters but regarding the 5.45 vs 5.56 vs 7.92:

ak74.jpg


wound1.gif


ak47.jpg


If we purely look from how much internal damage they cause 5.56 is going to be more ugly. Needless to say 7.62 makes nastier exit wound but analysing practical effects of internal damage vs 'clean' (so to speak) penetration is matter of asking which part of the body did it exactly hit then. Punctured heart with fragmentations basically means you're dead but depending how much there's oxygen left in your blood you could be alive and conscious for around 10 seconds.

Grobut said:
]Enough of this guys, i have never, EVER, said that the human body is equal to water, never.
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We never claimed you do, but the odd comparasion and bringing it up would almost sound like it's unintensional and misunderstood argument on both sides. Which seems to be the case as well ;)
 
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#59
Lol sometimes its so annoying to listen to people here quoting numbers and documentation they found from a webpage , thinking they know exactly how people fought.

All I know is , it fires a huge round that could potentially be used to hit infantry that are out of cover OR in fortified positions, in some cases. So why not use it?

Also anti tank weapons dont become obsolete over a year of fighting, for a weapon to be obsolete it needs to be 300 years behind , like a sharp spear vs a bolt rifle. Less effective mabye but no obsolete.
For example would you say a 6 pounder AT gun was obsolete vs a Tiger tanks armor? Well the first time they met the churchill hit the tigers turret traverse ring and the Tiger crew had to abandon it.
With AT rifle , yes mabye it wont penetrate the frontal armor like it used to a year before but it can still smash through a drivers vision slit, or detrack the beast, or damage the gun barrel, or pierce the hull mg port and kill 2 crew members by ricocheting inside and thats just the beginning of what it could do, granted you needed luck but thats what war is all about.

My point is, from what I have read and also using some common sense AT rifle should be included and could be used in a number of roles. And whoever says not well , I will enjoy destroying your tank experience in Q2 2011.
 
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