rexford Posted January 10, 2001 Share Posted January 10, 2001 American tests in France conducted during August '44, against 3 captured Panthers, are summarized below, with some important conclusions regarding CM combat results: 1. Guns aimed at glacis from 200 to 800 yards range, following accuracy is based on % of shots striking glacis: 76 HVAP 83% 17 pounder APCBC 87% 17 pounder APDS 53% 2. American crews said 76 HVAP was most accurate ammo they had ever fired, hit % slightly smaller than 17 pdr APCBC but spread of shots around aim point may have been smaller. 3. 3 penetrations of exposed glacis/nose weld line in 56 glacis hits, weld line resistance to penetration about 68% of what good quality glacis would generate. 4. 2 of 13 hits by 17 pounder APCBC crack glacis, follow-up hits near crack penetrate due to lowered resistance. Hits that crack glacis have about 73% of penetration needed to fully pierce good quality plate. 5. 76 HVAP penetrates glacis once at 200 yards on 6 hits, no other Panther glacis defeats by HVAP. 6. No penetrations of hull MG on 56 glacis hits, only 1 hit on MG port and it bounced. 7. Panther nose armor resists penetration like good quality plate without flaws, even on Panthers with defective glacis armor. 2 of 3 76 HVAP hits on nose at 400 yards penetrate, both nose hits at 600 yards bounce. Theoretical nose resistance at 600 yards equals 60 x 3.35 slope effect for 55°, or about 200mm at 0°, and 76 HVAP penetration in U.S. tests is 202mm at 0° so about half hits should bounce. 0.85 modifier for sub-quality armor does not appear to apply to Panther nose, based on analysis of all hits against Panther nose (front lower hull). 8. 2 of 3 Panthers exhibit defective glacis armor, 1 glacis reacts like good quality plate. 9. Hits near cracks on Panther glacis indicate that hits resisted with 65% of good quality resistance. CONCLUSIONS 1. 0.85 multiplier for inferior Panther glacis armor appears to be warranted after comparing penetration figures to armor resistance with slope effects. 2. Front lower hull nose armor resisted like good quality armor and did not exhibit the lowered penetration resistance, or a tendency to crack, like the glacis. This suggests that the 0.85 modifier should only apply to Panther glacis. The above conclusion is supported by other U.S. test results, where Panther mantlet resisted 76mm APCBC hits like good quality cast armor and the side hull armor did not show significant differences from good quality armor resistance. The poor resistance of the Panther glacis has been attributed to the size and hardness of the plate, and the timed quenching procedures adopted by the Germans to substitute for rare alloys such as Nickel. Nickel allows armor treatment to generate good quality armor with variations in treatment from standards, Germans used multi-quench treatment instead of Nickel but it was sensitive to a few seconds variation and the bigger the plate the greater the chance for defective armor. We believe that the Tiger II and Panther glacis armor was consistently poor, but smaller plates and cast on the rest of the tank did not show poor resistance. Put another way, if cast Tiger mantlet armor was generally of good quality, why would Panther cast mantlets be consistently defective during the same time period. And if PzKpfw IVH 80mm rolled armor was generally good quality (did not require a multiplier like 0.90 or 0.85), why would Panther side hull be consistently poor. The only difference between Panther armor and other tanks with good quality plate was the size of the glacis. Jagd Panther lowered the hardness of the glacis from 280 Brinell on Panther to 220 Brinell on Jagd Panther, which appears to have eliminated most or all of the substandard resistance problems (low hardness may be easier to consistently heat treat). Our analysis suggests that large German armor areas with Brinell Hardness over 250 had consistently poor resistance, other areas were good. 3. Tests support slope effects in U.S. firing tests of 76 HVAP, 3.33x at 55° while CM has 2.87x at 60°. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rexford Posted January 10, 2001 Author Share Posted January 10, 2001 Following are hardness figures for large plate areas on Tiger II and Panther: Panther glacis 290 lower hull side 555/277 face-hardened tail plate 282 Tiger II (Henschel) Glacis 220 lower hull side 264 tail plate 225 turret side 280 supperstructure side 302 Maybe low quality armor resistance limited to figures near 300, maybe possible at all hardnesses but less likely near 200. Not enough data to say for sure Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PzKpfw 1 Posted January 10, 2001 Share Posted January 10, 2001 Rex the problem is the BHN results are from documented examinations of single vehichles, production vehichles plate could have varied either way higher or lower etc. Regards, John Waters ------------------ "We've got the finest tanks in the world. We just love to see the German Royal Tiger come up on the field". Lt.Gen. George S. Patton, Jr. February 1945. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rexford Posted January 10, 2001 Author Share Posted January 10, 2001 True, BHN could vary. Another good theory shot to pieces. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jshandorf Posted January 10, 2001 Share Posted January 10, 2001 But by how much? Using 3 Panthers, while not a large sample, would be a good indicator of if the BNH varied greatly or only by a little bit. And since the testers do not mention any sort of large variation in the BNH of the 3 captured Panthers one could assume they did not vary significantly. Thus you could infer they maintain a BNH factor close enough to 280 to infer from. Jeff ------------------ I once killed a six pack just to watch it die. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Juardis Posted January 10, 2001 Share Posted January 10, 2001 <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by jshandorf: But by how much? Using 3 Panthers, while not a large sample, would be a good indicator of if the BNH varied greatly or only by a little bit. And since the testers do not mention any sort of large variation in the BNH of the 3 captured Panthers one could assume they did not vary significantly. Thus you could infer they maintain a BNH factor close enough to 280 to infer from. Jeff <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Or it could be that they weren't testing whether BHN had anything to do with the results since all 3 test subjects were Panthers. It could be they overlooked the BHN or just assumed them to be the same, but regardless, I don't think the testers were trying to compare a Panther to a Tiger2, just what it takes to kill a Panther. I don't think there is enough evidence to make all the inferences you made and come up with a correct conclusion. All IMHO of course. ------------------ Jeff Abbott Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rexford Posted January 10, 2001 Author Share Posted January 10, 2001 The inferences regarding brinell hardness and low quality were pure speculation, the other inferences are on firm ground. Since Panther armor did not come from one factory devoted to Panthers, there is no reason to assume that the nose armor was as poor as the glacis, and this applies to the mantlet. Other firing test data suggests that only the Panther glacis was subject to regular cracking and lowered resistance on hits, which the original message mentions. 3 Panthers were tested, 2 had poor glacis armor, and none had poor nose armor. This is in line with other data we have. The pentration vs range data for 76 HVAP vs. nose armor is consistent with U.S. test data. Using CM data for 76 HVAP, the 55° slope multiplier is about 2.5, so 80 at 55° glacis resists CM HVAP like 200mm if good quality. Multiply by 0.85 quality for 170mm at 0° resistance from Panther glacis. CM slope effect and penetration data for 76 HVAP predicts that 170mm @ 0° armor resistance (0.85 quality Panther glacis) can be penetrated at 1100m, compared to 200 yards in American tests. And the 200 yard penetration was occurred 1 time in 6 hits. The firing test data suggests that Panther nose armor was not sub-par, and CM slope effects for HVAP understate armor resistance. Other data in our files is in line with this conclusion. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ari Maenpaa Posted January 10, 2001 Share Posted January 10, 2001 Pardon my ignorance, but I had not seen Isigny test results before...huh. I'm really getting awed by the Panther. I Always assumed that the Panther was quite easy to kill with HVAP-rounds. Not anymore. What a fine... cat Thanks again for another great post Rexford. Very clear and enlightening summary of the facts and also interesting, but plausible conclusions, I would say. Surely your theory is not shot to pieces yet. At least that's what I think although I'm not a scientist like some others here Ari Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts