Story of the Tin Foil - Armored PSWs!?

[Zaffod]

I was playing a TCP meeting engagement with a friend last week which happened to get into fairly close quarters by the time the end of the game came. I had only 3 m10s and a handful of 50 cal HTs as the americans. He had many hetzers and pumas and a few 75mm HTs. Near the last round his puma was inching up past some wooded area that concealed 1 of my HTs and kind of exposed his flank (maybe at a slight angle) to my 50 cal HT. More of his flank was exposed than his front to the HT, but not by much. Anyway.. a bazooka took a shot at his puma.. missed by far and the HT then fired a single burst which instantly knocked it out.. It was no more than 70 meters from my HT. My friend instantly went crazy and said that this was just simply bull****. I usually am able to back stuff up like that, ive been wargaming for a good number of years.. but i must admit.. that made me kind of leary myself... I WAS firing at his HTs earlier in the round w/ my 50 cals (granted, at a much longer range) and not knocking them out.. and here his puma gets a little close and instantly gets knocked out by a single burst of 50 cal fire. I told him that i thought the 50 cal really made a difference up close compared to long range (especially in accuracy) let alone hitting power.. I would just like to hear from ya'll about how accurate this occurance was. Is that pretty historically accurate to take out a PSW at that close w/ a 50?? Have you seen similar incidents happen? any feedback would be greatly appreciated.. thanks,

Zaff'

[Guest Germanboy]

Originally posted by Zaffod:

Is that pretty historically accurate to take out a PSW at that close w/ a 50?? Have you seen similar incidents happen?

Yes and yes. There is a chart of .50 penetration power floating around the board somewhere, best do a search. It has been toned down at longer ranges, but at close ranges the .50 is still a very good killer of anything lightly armoured.

------------------

Andreas

Der Kessel

Home of „Die Sturmgruppe“; Scenario Design Group for Combat Mission.

[Jeff Heidman]

A .50cal can penetrate a modern IFV at short ranges.

It most certainly can take out a armored car from the flank at short range.

BTS should have the .50 show pen values on the info screen, just too deal with this issue. I can see how someone who was not aware of the power of a .50 would be surprised that a machine gun is so effective at killing light armor.

Jeff Heidman

[Wolfe]

Originally posted by Germanboy:

Yes and yes. There is a chart of .50 penetration power floating around the board somewhere

http://www.bigtimesoftware.com/images/mgvsht.jpg

This is against HTs, but gives some idea of the penetrating power. The .50cal can even take out Hetzers and StuGs from the side and rear at short ranges.

And I ran some tests vs. a few vehicles for my unit database:

http://users.erols.com/chare/cm/

- Chris

[Ben Galanti]

This question leads to one of my favorite quotes from Charles

And imagine what it's like. It's not a single shell penetrating. It's five, ten, maybe twenty or more. All richocheting around inside the tiny crew compartment, fragments flying everywhere. And more shots coming very quickly (no need to reload some big cannon, just squeeze the trigger!). The side of that Hetzer would look like Schweizer Käse. The .50 cal is a big bad mama jama.

I love the 'mama jama' line. I should figure out how to put that in my sig... Anyway, another quote from Charles in the same post.

The U.S. .50 cal was designed to destroy light armor. It can penetrate 12.7mm at 1000m, and 19mm at 550m, according to "Hell On Wheels" referencing the War Department's "Defense Against Mechanized Units". Obviously, at point-blank range, the penetration would be even greater (somewhere in the 22-25mm range, IIRC, sorry I don't have my data in front of me at the moment).

Hope that helps.

Ben

[This message has been edited by Ben Galanti (edited 02-26-2001).]

[jasoncawley@ameritech.net]

NATO currently rates the penetration of the .50 cal at ~30mm of rolled steel at ranges from point-blank to about 200 yards. That is enough to penetrate most modern IFVs (the Bradley has 40mm front armor to prevent precisely this).

The Puma and the whole PSW 231 series is based on the same chassis used for the SPW-251 series of halftracks, using wheels instead. The side and rear armor of German armored cars is no thicker than on halftracks, although the engine may provide a bit more protection in the rear facing.

The *front* armor of a Puma is only 30mm, at the edge of what a .50 cal can punch through. .50 cals can penetrate German halftrack armor at just about any range, any angle, just somewhat less likely at long range from the front.

Pumas are not tanks. And the .50 cal, as everyone has already said, was designed to kill light vehicles, from aircraft to halftracks. There is certainly no need for that monster-sized bullet to deal with soft human targets.

[Guest machineman]

Browning's .5in (12.7mm) round was based on the 13mm Mauser TuF (Tank und Flieger) round, designed for a single shot anti tank rifle and later a heavy Maxim machinegun. It could penetrate 28mm of armour plate at 55 yards with a single shot and was designed specifically to take out Allied tanks in WWI, when all tanks had fairly light armour by todays standards.

So the 50 cal has a tank killing 'pedigree' from way back.

[Guest Michael emrys]

The 0.50 caliber Browning was used to good effect by the Airforce to penetrate the boilerplate of steam locomotives, something in fact it was still doing by the time Korea rolled around.

My next door neighbor was a gunner on a B-26 in Korea. The version of the plane that he flew could have as many as 16 forward-firing 0.50s with the turret locked to fire forward. He has related stories to me of hitting locomotives and blowing them literally off the track.

Michael

[Ari Maenpaa]

Originally posted by jasoncawley@ameritech.net:

NATO currently rates the penetration of the .50 cal at ~30mm of rolled steel at ranges from point-blank to about 200 yards. That is enough to penetrate most modern IFVs (the Bradley has 40mm front armor to prevent precisely this).

Isn't it quite likely that .50's current penetration performance is better than it was during WW2?

Many little things have been improved since then I believe. "Evolution" has touched the weapon and the ammunition.

Or are those .50s (and ammunition) currently in the line of duty still taken straight from the WW2 surplus stock?

Ari

[Ksak]

A .50 cal round is HUGE compared to what you normally think of as a bullet. Get a bunch of them moving at several hundred FPS and even wooden buildings should be at risk.

[Philistine]

Originally posted by Ksak:

A .50 cal round is HUGE compared to what you normally think of as a bullet. Get a bunch of them moving at several hundred FPS and even wooden buildings should be at risk.

Actually, it's a few THOUSAND FPS (about 2800). Quite a bit of energy. Below is a quote giving some idea of how powerful the .50 BMG (Browning Machine Gun) round actually is. (The rifle they are talking about is teh Barrett M821 sniper rifle, which fires the .50 BMG round. I believe that the round is essentially unchanged from its WWII configuration (but I could be wrong about this)):

The power of the .50 BMG round is difficult to grasp. Although surpassed by vehicular weapons, the enormous destructive potential that an M82A1 bestows upon a single person should not be underestimated.

At point blank range, a .50 BMG round is travelling at about 2800 feet per second (over 1900 miles per hour) and has kinetic energy equal to about 15700 Joules. For reference, this is enough energy to light a 100 watt light bulb for 2.5 minutes. It is also the same amount of energy exhibited by a 150 pound person falling about 77 feet.

A .50 BMG round is capable of punching through concrete, steel, glass, people, or whatever stands in its way. It is truly one of the most powerful human-portable weapons available. Ouch.

The M82A1 is often used by military forces to engage heavily-armored targets at distances of up to 1000 yards or more. Barrett and other .50 BMG rifles are also used in a number of shooting tournaments, including those coordinated by the Fifty Caliber Shooters Association. Some of their target shooting can take place at these distances as well. Having difficulty grasping just how far 1000 yards is? Check out this scope-eye-view of a target that's 1000 yards downrange.

What about the size of this round? I've been going on and on about how powerful it is, but how physically large is a .50 BMG round? Well, check it out. For reference, the leftmost round is a .223 (standard M16 round) and a 30-06 (a popular, powerful hunting round). The rounds may not be actual size based on your screen resolution and monitor size, but you can see their relative sizes.

Here is the site they link to for relative size of rounds:

http://filebox.vt.edu/users/rvervack/bullet.jpg

--Philistine

[This message has been edited by Philistine (edited 02-27-2001).]

[Terence]

In Mark Baker's oral history of Vietnam, one vet talking about the power of the .50 caliber MG says "If you look around the average city block, you won't see anything that will protect you from this weapon."

[jasoncawley@ameritech.net]

Yes, there are improved rounds made for the .50 cal these days. But the figures I gave are for standard ball ammo, not special AP penetrators like "SLAP" rounds and such. Upmarket .50 cal rounds will penetrate the Soviet Hind helo, and this mattered in Afghanistan. But the basic story with ball ammo hasn't changed. The other fellow's figure of 28mm penetration compared to the NATO figure of 30mm is about right.

The tales of moving heavy objects with packaged .50 cal fire are somewhat overblown, but not entirely so. If you imagine all the bullets from a 3 second burst from 8x50 cal, as on a P-47 Thunderbolt, ricocheting off a target (which imparts more momentum than penetrating and stopping, which in turn imparts more than passing clean through), then you get the following momentum transfer.

8 guns x ~8 rounds per second x 3 seconds = 192 rounds. 2800 fps and 15700 J energy implies ball weight of ~21 grams, so that is 4 kg of slugs hitting the target (about 9 pounds of ammo). The momentum transfer from an "inelastic" collision / ricochet, can vary from = the impact momentum to twice that (for right angle, and straight-back ricochets respectively). Call that very roughly 1.5 times, as an upper bound. Ignore the reduction in velocity from the muzzle.

Then 5170 kg*m/s of momentum will be imparted to the target. That is enough to make a car "run", or a truck "walk". Although, with such soft-skin vehicles, many of the rounds would pass straight through and thus not impart all of their momentum to the struck vehicle. A 12 metric ton Puma would be left moving about 1 mph away from the direction of the burst.

Incidentally, you can tell these numbers have to be roughly right, because it is possible to fire a single .50 cal from a jeep, without flipping the vehicle. All the arrival momentum has an "equal and opposite" departure momentum, except the 1.5 times "ricochet factor", which results from changing the direction of the bullet, and can thus exceed the momentum to change it from "standing still" to "going that-a-way".

The recoil of one .50 cal is thus on the order of ~145 kg*m/s (5170 as above/8 guns/1.5*ricochet/3 seconds). If you could fire one for a solid minute (you can't, it'd over-heat and besides you have to change belts), then you could get a jeep going about 20 mph just from the recoil. Might substitute a long burst / full belt for a faulty clutch to get to 1st gear - LOL.

I hope this is amusing.

[Barticus]

Yes, quite!

Jason, m'man, you have toooo much time on your hands.

(tick tick tick tickin' awaaay!)

sorry, couldn't help the musical reference.

Bart