Why don't the Red Army have APCR while the Germans do?!!
- Thread starter HSCN-II-gd1944
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HEAT. High Explosive Anti Tank. Also known as a self-forging penetrator. Basically, it's an inverted hollow cone - wide end facing forward - whose inside walls are covered with explosives. The center (sometimes) contains thermite. When the round detonates, the explosives around the outside fire off, but because of the shape, the blast is directed inward and the thermite-ish stuff becomes 'self-forged' into a jet of superhot metal. In theory, it cuts through the armor and causes massive fires inside.
The only thing that penetrates is just the jet of liquid metal, so the hole is VERY small.
Because the round doesn't depend on kinetic energy for the kill, it is just as effective at the end of its flight as it is at the muzzle. Also, rifled barrels are not optimal. Smooth bore is the best for modern tank rounds - both APDS and HEAT - just the HEAT rounds have to be properly designed as smoothbore rounds. ERFB, etc.
The only thing that penetrates is just the jet of liquid metal, so the hole is VERY small.
Because the round doesn't depend on kinetic energy for the kill, it is just as effective at the end of its flight as it is at the muzzle. Also, rifled barrels are not optimal. Smooth bore is the best for modern tank rounds - both APDS and HEAT - just the HEAT rounds have to be properly designed as smoothbore rounds. ERFB, etc.
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For HEAT round, the spin of the projectile interfers with the formation of the jet.
For APFSDS, the fins are not as effective if the penetrator is spinning in flight.
WWII era APDS did not use fins, probably as the penetrators weren't long enough to bother as well as rifled barrels being the standard.
But I wouldn't say the metal liner of a HEAT round became "superhot" or "super-heated", as sometimes people describe it.
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It's a jet of liquid metal. In what way would that not be considered 'super hot?' I mean, yeah, the heat isn't what makes it effective - it's just a cool acronym - but it's still super freakin' hot.
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The Soviet army had no it in the beginning of war. For the first time it has appeared in army in the summer 1943. The German army used it from the beginning of war.
The first generation the HEAT not similar modern shels .
Penetration for Soviet = calibre , or calibre + 10% .
for German =calibre +20% .
confusedFaustpatron was effective because had huge calibre.
It had very unsuccessful ballistics. A working distance up to 500 meters. It very much did not love high muzzle speed, and spin . It was for self-defense , for howitzers and field guns . Such shell is much cheaper than a APCR .
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Well, that would be nice feature and would bring more depth to tank combat if it would be implemented realistically. For example your precious APCR would go trough T-34 like hot knife trough butter, but you have only three or four of them and there are also bigger threats like IS-2 so you'd have to decide when it's time to waste them. And same thing with T-34 versus possible Tigers. And CS tanks like Pz4 Ausf F1 could have few HEAT round that would have some effect against T-34. Smoke rounds are also very important. Though current ammunition selector should then be replaced, IMO it sucks arse even with two ammunition types. I like more the feature for example Panzer Elite has where there's an own reloading key for every ammo type. Much more intuitive, for example num pad could be used for that. When the breech is empty you just press the "reload AP" -button which is as close as possible to shouting loader what to reload, and much better in the heat of the battle than fooling around with some weird selector.
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And about HEAT and rifling, at least some Soviet post-WW2 field guns such as D-30 have HEAT rounds. Rotating caused by rifling is negated by making the lead ring (don't know it this is correct English term, the ring around the round made of soft metal such as copper that bites the rifling when round is loaded) freely rotating. So when the HEAT round is fired, the round itself stays relatively stationary in respect to rolling while the ring around it is rotating. It should be investigated if this was invented and used already during WW2.
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*investigates*
My Grandad says it was
Like many Tread Heads I think there could be so much more done with the tank aspect of RO. I know there are other games out there that are dedicated to tank warfare and do it in detail. But I like the fact that in RO there are infantry about, and you actually feel like your an asset to the team, not the team in itself.
Personally I would love to see, more hit locations within the tanks including crew, proper enter and exit animations, more handicap for solo tankers, and an end to Satchels killing tanks. Unfortunatly I find the prospects of such big changes happening at this point in ROs life unlikely.
My Grandad says it was
Like many Tread Heads I think there could be so much more done with the tank aspect of RO. I know there are other games out there that are dedicated to tank warfare and do it in detail. But I like the fact that in RO there are infantry about, and you actually feel like your an asset to the team, not the team in itself.
Personally I would love to see, more hit locations within the tanks including crew, proper enter and exit animations, more handicap for solo tankers, and an end to Satchels killing tanks. Unfortunatly I find the prospects of such big changes happening at this point in ROs life unlikely.
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Shouldn't be any modeling required... the tanks would still be destroyed at the end.
I'm not disputing this in any way. It's correct. But I guess my question here, then, would be that if they knew about this as far back as the late 1940's, then why didn't they start using smoothbore tank guns back in the 50's, at least? Why the hell did it take them until the second-generation M1 Abrams (first gen used a 105mm rifled barrel) and the Leopard to start using smoothbore guns? The British, with the Challenger 2, are -still- using rifled barrels, so far as I know ...
(Note: Yes, I know that the T-64 had a smoothbore gun in some variants, back in the early / mid 60's. The effect of this on APFSDS / HEAT ammo was only secondary, though: it was primarily intended for use as a rocket launcher. Kruschev was obsessed with missile-armed tanks.)
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I believe the reason most countries maintained using rifled barrels quite late on was that they are needed in order to stabalise a HESH shell in flight, or rather were.
Bear in mind that the apearance of smoothbore barrels in main battle tanks coinsides with the apperance in large numbers of discarding sabot rounds. If your only planning on using you tank to take out other tanks then a smoothbore allows you to fire sabot rounds at higher velocity. But if you want to use your tank to shoot up concrete bunkers and the like your going to have a lot harder time hitting them with a full bore shell.
Since HESH was fairly effective, and still is, against most older armoured vehicles, not to mention decidedly cheaper. Why take away this ability untill you need to?
Bear in mind that the apearance of smoothbore barrels in main battle tanks coinsides with the apperance in large numbers of discarding sabot rounds. If your only planning on using you tank to take out other tanks then a smoothbore allows you to fire sabot rounds at higher velocity. But if you want to use your tank to shoot up concrete bunkers and the like your going to have a lot harder time hitting them with a full bore shell.
Since HESH was fairly effective, and still is, against most older armoured vehicles, not to mention decidedly cheaper. Why take away this ability untill you need to?
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With respect to smooth bore high explosive rounds, may I direct your attention to the PzH-2000?
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Yes I am aware of this, and infact it looks like the British Armys Chalenger will also be going this way with the introduction of a new type of HESH round. But the question I was responding to was relating to why the change to smoothbore as gun of choice in main battle tanks only happend recently relitivly speaking.
Anyway hasn't this thread got pretty far off topic?
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Okay, my 2 pfennig's worth on the APCR/AP/HEAT/etc loadout issue:
The PzIII has a dedicated APCR loadout to balance the vehicle's game peeformance; it may or may not be historically 'correct' but it goes a long way in the playability category.
Now, it's been noted that other tanks carried a variety of rounds- an dI certainly don't disagree. HOWEVER, for playability, let's assume the developers (and this is pure conjecture) had in mind to use the two primary rounds employed by tanks- these being AP and HE- in an effort to 'unclutter' the already hectic turret management problem (that being the phenomenon of a 1-man turret all around).
Let's assume, for argument's sake, that a tank gunner knows his stuff and will call for whatever he thinks is necessary at the time. So a RL gunner has AP/APDS/APCR/etc at his disposal- could ALL of these not be encompassed by the overall 'AP' category? The same applies for HE rounds; the gunner has HE/HEAT/HESH/etc to choose from.
So you don't get to choose *exactly* what round you personally want in a given situation? Maybe you DID get that APDSFS round and it was ineffective; maybe that HESH round you blasted Ivan with didn't do squat. What does a competent gunner do? Try something else, or fire from a different angle, or any number fo remedies.
My point is, just as a number of compromises have been made in the tank modelling, so too have they been made in the gunnery aspects of RO. We still don't have a 2-man turret, we don't have signal flags insted of radios for early war Soviet tanks, etc., etc., etc. So we are given a choice of AP or HE in battle- let's live with those two choices and (at the risk of sounding like a Real World Idiot) fight with the tank we HAVE, not the one we WISH we had. If a future update or mod comes out that accurately models the myriad number of tank ammunition choices, great- until then, I'm happy with the AP/HE mix.
The PzIII has a dedicated APCR loadout to balance the vehicle's game peeformance; it may or may not be historically 'correct' but it goes a long way in the playability category.
Now, it's been noted that other tanks carried a variety of rounds- an dI certainly don't disagree. HOWEVER, for playability, let's assume the developers (and this is pure conjecture) had in mind to use the two primary rounds employed by tanks- these being AP and HE- in an effort to 'unclutter' the already hectic turret management problem (that being the phenomenon of a 1-man turret all around).
Let's assume, for argument's sake, that a tank gunner knows his stuff and will call for whatever he thinks is necessary at the time. So a RL gunner has AP/APDS/APCR/etc at his disposal- could ALL of these not be encompassed by the overall 'AP' category? The same applies for HE rounds; the gunner has HE/HEAT/HESH/etc to choose from.
So you don't get to choose *exactly* what round you personally want in a given situation? Maybe you DID get that APDSFS round and it was ineffective; maybe that HESH round you blasted Ivan with didn't do squat. What does a competent gunner do? Try something else, or fire from a different angle, or any number fo remedies.
My point is, just as a number of compromises have been made in the tank modelling, so too have they been made in the gunnery aspects of RO. We still don't have a 2-man turret, we don't have signal flags insted of radios for early war Soviet tanks, etc., etc., etc. So we are given a choice of AP or HE in battle- let's live with those two choices and (at the risk of sounding like a Real World Idiot) fight with the tank we HAVE, not the one we WISH we had. If a future update or mod comes out that accurately models the myriad number of tank ammunition choices, great- until then, I'm happy with the AP/HE mix.
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It is accurate the Pak38 and 50mm kwk39 L/60 were armed with APCR in an attempt to deal with the Heavier Kv-1 and Kv2 (ost front beasts) a bit of a stop gap until the Pak40 was produced and distributed in ostfront. Also most German tanks even late in the war had an APCR/HEAT round mix although in the later war there was more HEAT than APCR.
True, Heat and APCR rounds for the Tiger and Panther (Panther never had any HEAT) were scarcely used, The AP of the Tiger I and Panther could kill every tank in the battlefield. In the ost front they were notorious for ripping the turrets off the T-34.
From what Ive read Soviet tanks recieved a few rounds standard (usually 4) of APCR in the spring of '44 onwards so on maps like RO-Debrecen the Russians should get some rounds. Although in the spring of 1944 the Russians should still have a lot of T-34/76's around.
True and false- It probably much harder to kill tanks in RL with ur life on the line poor visablity, and the General uncertainy of war but the Panzer IV ( I assume u speak of the 75mm kwk L/43 or L/48) could easily kill a T-34 up to 2000 meters (for the 75mm L/48 the latter is slightly less). Not sure which T-34 u are talking about but the T-34/76( M41-43) was inacapable in penetrating the front of the Panzer IV H-J's 80mm armor except at around 0-200meters at 90 degrees assuming there is no round shatter. With Apcr its better I think 600 meters not too sure?
The T-34/85 is alot better at about 1500 meters it can kill the Panzer IV G-J but the Pz IV still retains a slight advantage at longer range. Also in RL angling a T-34 will not deflect a round of this power. There are many articles about the theory of ballistics.
The Panzer III and IV always tend to be underratted by people
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from the "Pantherfibel":
http://www.panther1944.de/Panther/fibel/100-.htm
as you can see: the panthermen were told to shoot at less than 800m to ensure penetration of a slightly angled t34 hull (30
http://www.panther1944.de/Panther/fibel/100-.htm
as you can see: the panthermen were told to shoot at less than 800m to ensure penetration of a slightly angled t34 hull (30
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