Tiger I able to penetrate T-34 front upper hull from over 2000m

[Amizaur]

I've read about a Soviet test where they shot a T-34/76 from a Tiger I gun at 1500m.

The T-34 was additionally set at 20deg side angle.

Results - there were a clean penetrations of the lower front hull, at the joint of lower and upper plate, and a partial penetration (small hole pierced, but shell bounced into the turret) at the upper right corner of the upper front plate. No other clean hits at the front upper plate, unfortunately.

http://forum.axishistory.com/download/file.php?id=239068&t=1&sid=2c95cb50a1329b2d1fb11597cb27beb0

Additionally an 88mm HE shell hit the very center of the T-34 front upper plate, with devastating results (driver's hatch torned off, the whole plate bent down, some welds broken).

(I think a 122mm HE shell hitting this plate would just either break it or throw it to inside of the vehicle)

I interpret the results (only partial penetration in front upper plate) in a way, that 1500m is the edge of good penetration performance of 88L56 against 20deg angled T-34 upper front plate.

Of course it could be incidental that the only clean hit was a partial penetration, other hits at front upper place could have been clean troughs, but I don't think so.

If the T-34 was front-on, non angled, the range would be a little longer (more than 1500m).

Out of curiosity I set up this situation in the editor - 7 Tigers E (Med) vs various models of T-34 at 1500m, the T-34s angled at exactly 20deg side angle. I expected penetrations and many partial penetrations of T-34s front upper plate, but there were only clean penetrations - so I quickly changed the setup to 2000m distance to catch the edge of good performance (T-34s still angled at 20deg).

The result at 2000m is as follows:

Clean penetrations: 14

Partial penetrations: 0

No penetrations: 0

At 2000m Tiger E cleanly penetrates 20deg angled front of T-34s hull. Really cleanly. I wonder where the border of 50% penetrations lay, at 2500m or what ?

Do you think it's ok ? Or Tiger Pzgr39 performance against sloped armor is overmodelled ?

Additionally in one 2000m test the T-34/85s were firing back (I forgot to block this with cover arc). Of course most of hits on Tigers were ineffective, but there was a single clean Tiger's E (mid) front superstructure hull penetration (between the front light and driver's visor, with vehicle knock-out) by T-34/85 (M1943). At 2000m .

Additionally I have noted the number of casualities caused by all penetrations of T-34 by 88mm shells in 2000m tests. Here it is:

0 casualties: 2

1 casuality : 13

2 casualties: 0

3 casualties: 0

4 casualties: 0

5 (explosion): 1

One casualty was the most popular result, with other options only accidental.

I wondered if energy of penetration has any effect on number of casualties. Maybe small average number of casualties was because of low shell energy after penetration?

I run one round of shooting at only 100m, results are somewhat different, there is a spread of results with the averate around 2, and much wider bell curve:

0 casualties: 4

1 casuality : 6

2 casualties: 4

3 casualties: 1

4 casualties: 0

5 (explosion): 0

[Vanir Ausf B]

T-34 lower hull is 45mm thick at 60° from vertical. I haven't done any math on it, but most Soviet armor is high-hardness RHA, which loses resistance at an accelerated rate against overmatching (via thickness/diameter ratio) penetrators, which would certainly include 88mm APCBC.

[MikeyD]

About mid-war the Soviets were applying applique armor plates to the upper bows. The thickest I heard of was 35mm(?), which maxed out the suspension but made it pretty much immune to Tiger I 88 at combat range (80mm at 60 degrees). Then they began producing bigger, heavier turrets. You can't uparmor the bow and carry an 85mm gun turret at the same time.

[Vanir Ausf B]

T-34 upper front hull armor is 45mm at 60° on all models. It was the front turret and mantlet that was progressively up-armored.

20° oblique angle only increases the compound angle to 62°. At that angle 45mm resists 88mm APCBC equivalent to 130mm vertical armor. However, Soviet armor of that thickness was very hard, typically around 450 BHN, and therefore quite brittle. Brittle armor plate is particularly vulnerable to projectiles that are larger in diameter than the plate's thickness. So at that BHN and T/D ratio the effective armor resistance is lowered by 26%, leaving the unfortunate T-34 with only 96mm of effective armor resistance. The 88L56 cannon on the Tiger I will penetrate that easily at 2000 meters (penetration = 116mm). In fact, it will penetrate it out to at least 3000 meters (penetration = 97mm)

[Der Alte Fritz]

About mid-war the Soviets were applying applique armor plates to the upper bows. The thickest I heard of was 35mm(?), which maxed out the suspension but made it pretty much immune to Tiger I 88 at combat range (80mm at 60 degrees). Then they began producing bigger, heavier turrets. You can't uparmor the bow and carry an 85mm gun turret at the same time.

That is true because it was the Christie suspension that was the limiting factor. Each of the road wheels sits at the end of a large spring that runs the full height of the hull. This allows a huge range of independent movement for each wheel which in turn allows a high cross country speed. The cost of this is that it limits the weight you can put on the hull in the case of the T34 to about 35 tonnes.

[Michael Emrys]

Out of curiosity I set up this situation in the editor - 7 Tigers E (Med) vs various models of T-34 at 1500m, the T-34s angled at exactly 20deg side angle.

How many iterations of each of your test ranges did you run?

Michael

[siffo998]

T-34 upper front hull armor is 45mm at 60° on all models. It was the front turret and mantlet that was progressively up-armored.

20° oblique angle only increases the compound angle to 62°. At that angle 45mm resists 88mm APCBC equivalent to 130mm vertical armor. However, Soviet armor of that thickness was very hard, typically around 450 BHN, and therefore quite brittle. Brittle armor plate is particularly vulnerable to projectiles that are larger in diameter than the plate's thickness. So at that BHN and T/D ratio the effective armor resistance is lowered by 26%, leaving the unfortunate T-34 with only 96mm of effective armor resistance. The 88L56 cannon on the Tiger I will penetrate that easily at 2000 meters (penetration = 116mm). In fact, it will penetrate it out to at least 3000 meters (penetration = 97mm)

well i might be wrong but according to the table shown in here (out of jentz tiger book):

http://www.fprado.com/armorsite/tiger1.htm

a tiger tank must be 100m or closer to penetrate the t34-85 front hull if the t34 stands in a 30° angle to the tiger.

the data from this stems from a Wa Prüf 1 report dated 5th October 1944.

on the other hand the t34-85 needs to be 300m or closer to penetrate the front of the tiger (at 30° angle).

[Amizaur]

Van ir, all calculations that you write are, with all regards, but a theory. A theory may be good but some data it uses is wong, and it would give wrong results. So there is a need to verify the theory by test results and combat results.

Here we have a test result where 88L56 didn't penetrate front upper plate of T-34. No problems with lower plate, but only partially pierced the upper plate. So in _THIS_ single test this shell obviously didn't have 2000m+ penetration potential.

So either it was an anomaly, and other hits at upper plate would penetrate, or some coefficients in armor penetration calculations are not right. For example the shell performance against highly sloped plate, or the armor brittlenes (after all, it the plate didn't crack, and German "softer" plate of similar thickness from Panther side armor - most likely would) or something other. I tried to treat the result of this Russian test (unfortunately, a single test) as a veryfication of theorethical armor calculations.

How many iterations of each of your test ranges did you run?

Michael

As I said this was a quick one, unfortunately I don't have time to make long tests.

You see from the results how much hits I counted - 14.

But when you get a proportion of 14:0 then you really don't need 100+ data points to see what happens. A chance that there is _really_ let's say 70% chance of penetration and 30%

chance for partial one, and I got - accidentally - 14 clean penetratons in a row, are really, really, really small . There is no need for a greater sample really, when the probabilities drop below 0.01% .

The probability of partial penetration (if there is any) at that range is well below 20%, most likely below 10%. Or I had a really bad day .

Would be quite different story if I got 11 penetrations and 3 partials, and I wanted to _measure_ the probability of each outcome with good precision. I would need much more shots to do that. At least 100-200 samples.

[Vanir Ausf B]

well i might be wrong but according to the table shown in here (out of jentz tiger book):

http://www.fprado.com/armorsite/tiger1.htm

a tiger tank must be 100m or closer to penetrate the t34-85 front hull if the t34 stands in a 30° angle to the tiger.

the data from this stems from a Wa Prüf 1 report dated 5th October 1944.

on the other hand the t34-85 needs to be 300m or closer to penetrate the front of the tiger (at 30° angle).

Those are calculated results, as are mine. The difference is the ones from wa prüf 1 don't appear to match actual results. The OP links to a test that reportedly shows the Tiger penetrating the T-34 upper hull at 1500 meters at an oblique angle of 20°. Adding 10 more degrees to the oblique angle isn't going to suddenly reduce that effective range down to 100 meters. Effective resistance of 45mm armor at 60° from vertical and 30° off-set (64° compound angle) vs 88mm APCBC is 142mm without the high-hardness modifier. The Tiger penetrates 144mm at 750 meters. The high-hardness modifier reduces the effective resistance to 105mm.

[Vanir Ausf B]

Here we have a test result where 88L56 didn't penetrate front upper plate of T-34. No problems with lower plate, but only partially pierced the upper plate. So in _THIS_ single test this shell obviously didn't have 2000m+ penetration potential.

So either it was an anomaly, and other hits at upper plate would penetrate, or some coefficients in armor penetration calculations are not right. For example the shell performance against highly sloped plate, or the armor brittlenes (after all, it the plate didn't crack, and German "softer" plate of similar thickness from Panther side armor - most likely would) or something other. I tried to treat the result of this Russian test (unfortunately, a single test) as a veryfication of theorethical armor calculations.

A partial penetration is still penetration. Regardless of that, I wouldn't put too much stock into a singe shot. All of the other hits you mentioned were clean penetrations. Keep in mind that the thickness and slope of the T-34 upper and lower hull armor plates are that same.

[Vanir Ausf B]

Also, keep in mind there was a fair amount of variation in properties of armor plate from vehicle to vehicle, particularly in Soviet tanks, but also in German. Not all T-34 upper front hulls were exactly 45mm thick and 450 BHN. Ammunition quality also varied. Any calculated result will only be a typical result in real life. But it will be a very good predictor of results in CM where vehicle and ammunition quality is constant, assuming the numbers the game uses are the same.

[Amizaur]

A partial penetration is still penetration. Regardless of that, I wouldn't put too much stock into a singe shot. All of the other hits you mentioned were clean penetrations. Keep in mind that the thickness and slope of the T-34 upper and lower hull armor plates are that same.

Isn't the lower plate of T-34/76 sloped only at 53deg instead of 60deg ? I see both values.

The shell descent angle at range of 1500m would be in order of 1deg so it's less important than for example meking sure that the target tank is put on really horizontall piece of ground.

The penetration of the lower plate visible on the picture was very close to the "reinforced" edge (it was mentioned in the russian txt description of the hits), some plate-edge effects could be involved, it's not the same thing as penetrating a center of a plate.

The test without any doubt has shown, that Tiger CAN penetrate a T-34 front from that range (T-34 is not safe by any standards).

But not necessarily to penetrate reliably front upper plate if hit somwhere in the center (and not close to edges, driver's hatch, hull machinegun ect). If one shell of two failed to fully penetrate, this would suggest we are close to boundaries of shell penetration potential and much depends on various micro-details.

I admit that much can depend on the specific bath of armor plates the T-34 was made with, so I totally believe that sometimes Germans could meet T-34s which could be killed frontally from 2000m with ease, and the a month later they could meet 34s which were hard to kill from 1300m - without any up-armoring. Secodn T-34s could have just 2mm thicker and diffeerently tempered armored plates than the others and on such large angles of incidence this could make such big difference.

I wonder what is range for reliable penetration of T-34s front upper hull by 75L48 in CMRT. Have to check.

edit: Just checked. A very quick check (maybe 10 hits). PzIV 75L48 vs the same T-34/85s at 2000m, angled at 20deg. Most hits at front upper plate are penetrations, with some partial penetrations (maybe 25%). No ricochets observed.

T-34/85 front hull seems to be really weak in game... even for 75L48 there is no problem to penetrate it (slightly angled) from up to 2000m, and occasionally at longer ranges.

I wonder if it has something to do with Panther front upper hull being vunerable to 85mm APs... It's too about angled armor.

[Vanir Ausf B]

I wonder if it has something to do with Panther front upper hull being vunerable to 85mm APs... It's too about angled armor.

I suspect the reason in both cases is the armor quality modifier. In reality the quality of both T-34 and late model Panther armor varied between individual vehicles from good to poor. I think in the game they are always poor.

Also, I've been doing some reading and it seems the actual measured thickness of the T-34 upper hull plate could vary from 42mm to 55mm. For highly sloped armor that is a huge difference.

[DMS]

In quick battle IS-2 didn't penetrate Pz V glassis at 500m... This seems wrong. (as old armor topic went down)

[Vanir Ausf B]

Which model of Pz V? Was the angle straight on or off-set? Was it just one shot? There is some random variation. I can tell you that from my own testing, the IS-2 will usually penetrate the Panther glacis at 500 meters in the game just fine.

[YankeeDog]

In quick battle IS-2 didn't penetrate Pz V glassis at 500m... This seems wrong. (as old armor topic went down)

That's not wrong, at least as a one-time thing. Assuming no armor flaws (which should be the case at least some of the time), Panther Front Glacis definitely *can* bounce A-19 122mm APBC. Definitely not always, but sometimes. More likely if engagement aspect is not flat-on so there's so some effective horizontal armor slope, or the Panther is sitting on a higher elevation or a reverse slope that gives a few additional degrees to the effective vertical armor slope.

Armor penetration is highly variable, IRL and also in CM. You need a large sample size under controlled conditions before you can really make any useful judgements regarding a specific armor vs gun matchup.

[Vanir Ausf B]

I need to backtrack a little on my earlier assertion that the Soviets didn't up-armor the hull. While the official base armor thickness remained at 45mm throughout, it appears that during the 1942-43 time frame several tank factories were indeed welding applique armor of various thickness onto the upper hull of at least some of the tanks they built. This seems to have been done to only a minority of the total tanks built during that time, but it could have nevertheless been a substantial number.

[Amizaur]

I think that CMx2 should model differences in armor quality and thickness between individual vehicles (ideally - for every plate). It should be randomised on the battle start to vary from full quality armor to badly inferior armor, based on assumed probabilities of bad/good quality armor for given vehicle/time period.

Such modification would not touch the interface or any game logic, just some database enhancement to introduce separate armor ratings for every tank on the map, and then randomise them a bit. It's the next logical step after the projectile penetration was randomised .

---> DMS - the outome of 122mm AP shell (there were no APBC used during the war) hitting the Panther upper front plate is really so uncertain - depending on so many variables like armor quality, actal armor thickness, shell quality, exact angle of incidence (tank angled, on the slope), and probably even more - that I believe EVERY result is possible (though some are more probably than others)

Everything could happen, from boucing the 122mm AP at 100m (some side-angle would definitely help) to armor being cracked, broken or even penetrated at 2000m. And everything in between, depending on all above factors and luck. But on average most penetrations would probably happen between 400m and let's say 1000m.

[Vanir Ausf B]

I think that CMx2 should model differences in armor quality and thickness between individual vehicles (ideally - for every plate). It should be randomised on the battle start to vary from full quality armor to badly inferior armor, based on assumed probabilities of bad/good quality armor for given vehicle/time period.

Yes, and the description of the Panther G in the manual suggests this is what happens. But my testing of the Panther G glacis suggests they are always flawed. Highly flawed.

(there were no APBC used during the war)

Debatable. But regardless of that I am moderately certain that all 122mm AP ammo in Red Thunder is APBC.

[Amizaur]

Maybe this should be corrected (APBC ammo for IS-2s). I've read in numerous sources that APBC was never used, that mass production was not started because APs become effective against Panthers so there was no need for APBCs anymore. Didn't see any info about it being used, but maybe it was used somwhere, in small quantities....

I checked longer ranges in PzIV vs T-34 shooting. I set the PzIVs on ranges from 2100 to 3000m from a line of T-34s.

Over 2300m the PzIVH didn't open fire at all to T-34/85 they spotted :-). I had to manually "target" the T-34s and after some time and some wasted shots, there were few hits.

I got few penetrations and few partial penetrations in 2100-2300m range, and some spalling at 2500-3000m so far. But I only got maybe 12 hits so far and it's late, so saved the test scenario. Will continue tomorrow.

[Vanir Ausf B]

Maybe this should be corrected (APBC ammo for IS-2s). I've read in numerous sources that APBC was never used, that mass production was not started because APs become effective against Panthers so there was no need for APBCs anymore. Didn't see any info about it being used, but maybe it was used somwhere, in small quantities....

Are you sure you're not conflating it with 100mm APBC? AFAIK, the use of 122mm APBC is fairly well accepted; it's the introduction date that is uncertain, with September of 1944 being the earliest possible introduction date and January 1945 being the latest.

Over 2300m the PzIVH didn't open fire at all to T-34/85 they spotted :-). I had to manually "target" the T-34s and after some time and some wasted shots, there were few hits.

I got few penetrations and few partial penetrations in 2100-2300m range, and some spalling at 2500-3000m so far. But I only got maybe 12 hits so far and it's late, so saved the test scenario. Will continue tomorrow.

Combat histories tend to suggest a maximum effective range of around 1600 meters for the 75L48 vs the T-34. Frequent penetrations beyond 2000 meters may suggest that CMRT has the T-34 armor too thin on the hull or too low quality, or a little of both.

[Andrew H.]

Combat histories tend to suggest a maximum effective range of around 1600 meters for the 75L48 vs the T-34. Frequent penetrations beyond 2000 meters may suggest that CMRT has the T-34 armor too thin on the hull or too low quality, or a little of both.

Isn't that discussion about the 75L43 and not the L48?

[Vanir Ausf B]

Yes, but it is applicable. The L48 fires the same round at a slightly higher velocity with an almost negligible increase in penetration. At 1500 meters the L43 penetrates 95mm, the L48 penetrates 97mm

[Childress]

Here's a link that explodes-convincingly- the myth of the T-34/76 as a revolutionary, war winning tank. The 34/85 was a significant upgrade but even that vehicle is overrated. Long, but worth the read.

http://chris-intel-corner.blogspot.com/2012/07/wwii-myths-t-34-best-tank-of-war.html

Conclusion:

The T-34 is the victim of Soviet and German wartime propaganda. The Russians had every reason to build it up as the best tank of WWII. The Germans also overstated its performance in order to explain their defeats.

If the T-34 was as good as propaganda made it out to be then it should have led to great Soviet victories in 1941-42. Instead what we see in that period is the poor performance of Soviet armored formations. In 1943-45 the T-34 was becoming outdated as the Germans used updated versions of the Pz IV and Stug III equipped with the powerful Kwk 40 75mm gun and of course they introduced the Tiger and Panther.

The ‘best tank of WWII’ suffered horrific losses against those tanks and even the updated version T-34/85 could not bridge the gap.

[warrenpeace]

That is an interesting article and makes many good good points. However, it does neglect one important point. The T34 had very wide treads and therefore had lower ground pressure than all of the other German tanks. This made it more reliable for off road work, which was very important in Russia.