rexford Posted January 10, 2001 Share Posted January 10, 2001 During August of 1944, the U.S. conducted firing tests on 3 captured Panthers using a variety of guns and ammo, including 17 pounder APDS. The ammo proved to be wildy inaccurate. Of 13 shots aimed at the Panther glacis at 200 and 300 yards, only 7 hit the target. 1 penetration occurred. Only 1 of 7 glacis hits penetrated at 200 and 300 yards. The inaccuracy and inability to consistently penetrate were attributed to unbalanced rounds due to uneven shedding of sabot pieces. British observers noted that in earlier trials at Balleroy, 2 hits out of 4 on the Panther glacis penetrated at 700 yards. British penetration data for 17 pounder APDS is at 30°, using U.S. HVAP slope effects the 700 yard penetration at 0° would be 245mm. The Panther glacis armor is 80mm @ 55° which is equivalent to 268mm at 0° using U.S. firing test HVAP slope effects. If 17 pounder APDS penetrated Panther glacis on half the hits at 700 yards, this may approximate the ballistic limit and the armor quality vs. APDS would be (245/268), or 0.91 when penetration = effective armor resistance. This analysis suggests that 17 pounder APDS can be modelled with U.S. firing test HVAP slope effects, which exceed CM figures. The results also support the theory that APDS was inconsistent and could vary widely in accuracy and penetration, sometimes failing to penetrate at 200 yards and then penetrating on half the hits at 700 yards. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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