Russian AP: Sucks or Under-Modeled?

[Sanok]

I'm playing the Russians in a pbem that takes place in July 1943. Early in the game, I had a KV-1 battle with a Pz IIIM. Both were stationary and were 160 meters apart. My KV scored six hits, all on the front armor. Five were penetrations and one was a ricochet. The Pz IIIM was still firing until after the fifth hit.

Later in the game, I had a T-34 fighting a Pz IIIM in scattered trees. Both were stationary. My T-34 fired a shot from 46 meters and got a ricochet off the front armor. The Pz IIIM backed away, but was killed by the next shot.

Did Russian AP suck that badly or did BFC drop the ball on Russian 76.2mm guns?

[Vixen]

I understand there was a lot of quality control issues with Russian AP shattering on face hardened armor. Read that in some book a while ago but can't remeber which.

[Corvidae]

As far as i am aware, soviet ap ammo was not very good, at least not in the early to mid war period, Later ammo seems to have been better made,

I suspect that a lot of Soviet equipment was poorly made in order to facilitate greater volume of production, quantity over quality

[securityguard]

April 1944 is when the Soviets began to use APBC ammo. Before then they used uncapped AP, and poor quality AP rounds at that. The manual states 45mm in 1941 was especially bad.

[Sanok]

I was wondering if I was just cursed with bad luck in that game. Turn after turn, my tanks are hitting the enemy tanks, but I'm getting ricochets by the cart load. A lot of the fighting is at longer ranges, but the 160 and the 46 meters ricochets were unbelieveable.

[Hensworth]

The in game effect of brittle AP rounds is shells breaking up, not ricochets.

You're shooting at tanks with 50+20mm of frontal armor. Add the angle and you're getting pretty close to the limit of what a 76mm gun can penetrate in CM.

So it's normal that you get a lot of ricochets.