Karl_Smasher

Why do you think that stug's penetrated from the front by 76mm would affect tiger side armor. Apart from the tiger's side armor being a single plate of RHA 82mm (not 80mm like stug) it was accoring to the BIOS report produced with the highest quality contorl of any german tanks/assault gun armor in the war, far better than the stugs. There are Russian firing tests (Actual firing tests not estimates) from September 1943 (use search on forum) where Russian 76mm,57mm and 85mm guns failed to penetrate a captured tiger side armor at 100mm 0@degree angle. The side was only penetrated with an 85mm 'special round' at 200m.

Taken from microfilm at the National Archives in Washington. example of Tiger losses. Tiger losses at Kursk, southern front (4th Panzer Army). 4th July, Onhand 89 PzVI's. Day (DESTROYED + ABANDONED) 4 0 5 2 6 1 7 1 8 1 9 0 10 0 11 0 12 0 13 0 14 1 15 0 16 1 17 1 18 0 Formations which lost the Tigers. (DESTROYED + ABANDONED) 3rd Pz Corps - 3 DR SS PzGrD - 1 LSSAH PzGrD - 1 T SS PzGrD - 1 UNATTACHED - 2 The entire southern Front at Kursk lost 8 Tigers from 4-18th July. No Tigers were lost at Prokhorovka, only 14 took part in that battle on the 12th. 6 Tigers are listed as damaged end of day on the 12th. All were returned on by July 18th. Returns Day #PzVI 13 4 14 10 15 5 16 6 17 4 18 0

The September 1943 test is the more significant one to be analysed. Ignore the Fleischer excerpt, the book is 1989, it appears he has a 1997 edition out and re-examining the book from the Library it appears to be penetration estimates based on the captured tank T34/85 tank. [ January 10, 2004, 06:25 PM: Message edited by: Karl_Smasher ]

The report broken into parts is in the following long thread http://www.battlefront.com/cgi-bin/bbs/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=23;t=006743;p=2 I'm' surprised you forgot(or lost) the report because later in the thread you reply to many of Jonh Walter's posts. Saenko, Melnikov, Satel Verified: Ustinov, Voronov September 11, 1943" PAK 40: "In spite of the fact, that this captured artillery system reliably penetrates the armor plates of 80mm and 85mm thickness from the testbench at the virtual distance of 600m, during the firing at "Tiger" tank by two pieces with 30 AP rounds each from a distance of 600-500m no full penetrations of side armor were obtained." About the above excerpt, did the soviet use high- hardness cast armor as test plate when testing their guns?. The report above has Pak 40 reliably penetrating their own 85mm testing plate, but failing on RHA armor on a Tiger side. Would you put this down to shatter gap and/or higher quality tiger plate compared to there own test plate. The data you have for 85mm and 57mm guns may come from high quality 'test rounds' while the September test are production ammo what the front troops got. Also the shatter gap against Tiger armor seems be a big issue, not just with Russian as shown in British and U.S Tests. In reply to the the 85mm results, do you have the German report of firing trials using a captured T34/85 tested April-1944(wolfgang Fleischer book "WEAPONS TESTING") at Kummersdorf. The T34/85 failed against front hull and turret at 500m0degrees. Penetrations by 85mm were obtained against the side armor of the Tiger at 500m@0degrees by 85mm BR-365K. Note BR-365 (flat nose) failed at all ranges, rounds rounds broke up. It mentions BR-365K was more effective against the vertical tiger armor than the other flat 85mm nose rounds. Again these rounds tested were all captured from the inside the tank. Eiter high quality 'test rounds' that are not availbe to front line troops, or 85mm BR-365P. and 57mm gun is odd, or is it british 6lb or US 57mm. [ January 07, 2004, 12:27 PM: Message edited by: Karl_Smasher ]

Lorrin, note, the John Walters' soviet Pamphlet also said in Russian the tests were firing Trials.(later showed to be estimetes by the issue date) Is the report on the Czech site Verified. So far we don't even having this Russian 1993 magazine. We don't even know what source is used for the article IN the magazine. With regard to the czech data(if indeed it is verified as firing test), how is this data any more comprehensive than the Russian September 1943 firing trials on a Tiger E. (which took place 5 months later) Copied below from John Walters post/ Have you read the full report on the september tests from john walters. [ January 05, 2004, 04:36 PM: Message edited by: Karl_Smasher ]

The czech site is referencing sereral reoprts from 1943-44. Search the page, the part he copied has 'Ve dnech 24.-30. dubna' which is at the start of the report he selected, translated means 24-30 April. The exact same date as the kubinka trials. [ January 04, 2004, 08:33 PM: Message edited by: Karl_Smasher ]

First, didn't John Walters clear up this article months back. This czech site has the same dated article as the Instructions on fighting tigers, taken from the Russian magazine. The report is a set of Instructions on dealing with the Tiger E. The 45mm so called penetration on the tiger are estimates made using the De Marre/ARTKOM formula. The instructions were issued 5 days prior to the Actual LF tests vs the Tiger E conducted by NIIBT @ Kubinka April 25 - 30th 1943. 45mm HVAP and 75mm AP failed against the side amror in the actual tests. John Walters also posted the Russian firing tests of September 1943 which were fairly conclusive where 76mm APBC failed at 0degrees 200m. [ January 04, 2004, 07:46 AM: Message edited by: Karl_Smasher ]

The 120mm glacis is being mixed up with the 1943 model IS-2, which has a small upper section at 30 degrees. The Watertown Arsenal report 1945 measured a IS-2 (1944 model) and indicates it had 102mm upper glacis by actual measurement of the steel section. Vasiliy Fofanov posted this on the tankers forum "The sloped variant has 100mm cast armor both on the lower and upper front hull. There was also the parallel production run with 90mm RHA instead of 100mm cast. You (or whatever sources you are quoting ie. Russian battlefield) have clearly confused the early version, which indeed had a 120mm superstructure thickness, and the later model. Best regards, Vasiliy"

This was also posted ast the tankers forum "The sloped variant has 100mm cast armor both on the lower and upper front hull. There was also the parallel production run with 90mm RHA instead of 100mm cast. You (or whatever sources you are quoting) have clearly confused the early version, which indeed had a 120mm superstructure thickness but at @30degrees. For very simple geometrical reasons it is just impossible to provide a level of protection of 120mm@60 degrees while staying in the same armor mass. Posted by Vasiliy Fofanov, who is a friend of russian historian svirin, who I tend to trust more than an internet diagram.

I don't want to have a go at battlefront but they seem to have done poor research on the IS-2 armor values. According to svirin the WW2 IS-2/44 had two versions. The cast version had a front glacis of 100mm@60degrees and lower hull of 100@60degrees. The RHA version had 90mm@60 degrees for glacis and lower front hull. In the new patch it has the value 120mm changed from 105mm it had in version 1.1 which are both wrong.

What is the penetration of the 122mm AP compared to the APBC. It now seems certain according to Svirin that the APBC was never actually used in front line combat apart from field trials and rare tests. Heereswaffenamt august 1944 tests with JSII 122mm AP v Panther glacis, show it couldn't penetrate it at point blank range.

IS-2/m It’s odd that most sources have always reported the erroneous figure of 120mm@60degrees upper hull. This is still show on Russian Militay zone and other secondary sources. There’s an Israeli report from the 1960’s in the UK archives that measured a captured IS-2/m glacis at 103mm in thickness.

So the often quoted Russian military zone figure of the IS-2(1944) front glacis 120mm@60degrees is wrong then, you say it measured 110mm.

The history channel goof up alot. According to 'Weapons Testing Ground at Kummersdorf' by Wolfgang Fleischer, the Tiger was immune to the standard soviet 76mm from all directions and ranges. It states this changed in late 1943 with 76mm sub-caliber ammo penetrations reported at < 300m on side and rear plates. No frontal or mantle penetrations.

Actually there is no hard evidence that the 122mm APBC round was ever used in WW2 apart from firing trials. The last I heard was it entered producttion in January 1945, so it COULD have reached front line units by early spring '45.

In lorrins book the soviet 122mm and 152mm HE shells would penetrate 25-40mm of armor max. There's pictures of pz iv's and Panthers with direct 152 HE impacts and the armor looks slightly bulged inwards. Tiger I Late model top armor was changed to 40mm to be proof against 152mm artillery top hits. You need the AP shells for the big cats.