Is vehicle armour ablative?

[womble]

I've been doing a bit of testing to see how various German armour stands up to 76mm Shermans at various ranges (cos I'd gotten the impression from playing that Panther frontal armour doesn't have to worry much about it, even at sub-500m ranges, and I wondered how other tanks fared). I've set up 15 fire lanes separated by Bocage so I can have 15 Shermans firing at the same number of targets, one gun per glacis.

It appears that first few hits on Lower Front Hull had no chance of getting through; there were a whole bunch of them, then it seemed that every time LFH got hit, there was a penetration. Is this just randomness being streaky, as it is wont to do, or is there an element of armour degrading when it's hit by stuff that can nearly penetrate it? The latter would seem to make sense to include, after all, a sledge hammer can bust a hole in thin plate if it's swung repeatedly, even if the first swing only put a dent in the plate.

I've only done the 2000m test so far for Panthers, and after 5 minutes (75 aggregate tank-minutes) of firing, there's one dead Panther and 5 Gun hits (spread very evenly through the testing period). Interestingly, there have been some "Rear Top" hits, because, I presume, of the extreme range meaning that the shells are dropping relatively steeply. Still only partial pens though. The kill rate so far is similar to the Tiger, though that took no rear deck hits.

Edit: the Panthers have been told not to shoot back, BTW, so the Shermans will get to empty their AP load unhassled by HV 75mm incoming.

[Vanir Ausf B]

In my testing I have seen no evidence of armor degradation, though I have not specifically tested for it.

I've been doing a bit of testing to see how various German armour stands up to 76mm Shermans at various ranges (cos I'd gotten the impression from playing that Panther frontal armour doesn't have to worry much about it, even at sub-500m ranges, and I wondered how other tanks fared).

US 76mm can penetrate the Panther turret at least up to 500m and probably for a significant distance beyond, but not reliably. At this range shots that strike the "front turret" armor rather than the mantlet will usually penetrate, and since CM strangely models the Panther and Tiger mantlets as covering a smaller area than they actually do the 76 has a puncher's chance. I have also seen the rounded mantlet penetrated on occasion.

The glacis is usually proof against anything short of 17 pdr APDS, however informal testing has shown that 95mm HEAT will very occasionally penetrate. I suspect the same may be true of US 105mm HEAT but I have not tested.

IIRC the thickness of the lower front hull armor was changed significantly at some point so results there may depend greatly on which model of Panther you are testing.

[womble]

IIRC the thickness of the lower front hull armor was changed significantly at some point so results there may depend greatly on which model of Panther you are testing.

I had A, D and G types, and they all suffered. I think it was probably just streaky RNG, as some vehicles sustained several hits to the Lower Front Hull and didn't get penetrated.

[Vanir Ausf B]

I looked it up and the D Late lower front hull armor is 63mm FH while the G Early has 50mm RHA.

[womble]

I looked it up and the D Late lower front hull armor is 63mm FH while the G Early has 50mm RHA.

That's interesting; they reduced the amount of armour there?

[Vanir Ausf B]

Yeah, IIRC this was done to reduce weight, specifically to compensate for a 10mm increase in side armor thickness.

[womble]

Yeah, IIRC this was done to reduce weight, specifically to compensate for a 10mm increase in side armor thickness.

Nose-heaviness is always going to be a problem I guess, too, for any AFV.