Russian AT weapons?

[Paul Lakowski]

Its been shown experimentally that when AP type shells penetrate a target the material moves out of the way slower than the striking velocity, thus the tip of the penetrator is always slower than the tail...with modern APFSDS @ 1500m/s the difference is 2/3.

In any event this always leads to erosion on the penetrator and added stress. As long as the projectile is penetrating the armor , the projectile is 'supported' by the crater its generating. But the moment it clears the rear of the plate, the projectile is no longer supported and the residual stress waves will strain the projectile, while the velocity of the tip tries to equalise with the tail.

If the projectile is strong steel [not hard], this will mean a small amount of the penetrator will be lost, but if the penetrator is some brittle material like tungsten carbide , it will shatter.

With the mesh the penetrator takes the path of least resistance and yaws severly. Again its been shown experimentally that even strong steel penetrators will break in two if they experience lateral velocities of even 70m/s.Under these stresses, WC will shatter into small pieces.

A whole line of modern armors are based on this concept [On LEopard tank].

[Andrew H.]

I've read reports that ATR gunners at Kursk aimed at the guns of the big German cats in an attempt to cause gun damage. I don't know how effective this was, but it doesn't seem like a bad idea. You don't even have to get a penetration to be effective; just cause an indentation on the inside of the barrel. I suppose it's even better if the German doesn't know that the gun has been damaged until he fires the main gun...

WRT MGs vs tanks - I believe that MGs can have some effectiveness vs. early war riveted tanks, such as the Pz 35(t). IIRC, if a MG bullet hits a rivet just right, the inside of the rivet can break off and ricochet inside the tank with something approaching the speed of the bullet that hit the rivet.

[YankeeDog]

Originally posted by Andrew Hedges:

WRT MGs vs tanks - I believe that MGs can have some effectiveness vs. early war riveted tanks, such as the Pz 35(t). IIRC, if a MG bullet hits a rivet just right, the inside of the rivet can break off and ricochet inside the tank with something approaching the speed of the bullet that hit the rivet.

I've heard of the rivet-shear problem before, never in reference to MG fire - did rifle caliber bullets really have enough energy to cause this effect? I had assumed that the threshold was somewhat higher, but I've never seen hard data on it.

[killmore]

Originally posted by Mike:

Yeah - your math is wrong!!

.........

the chances of getting 0 (zero) "penetrations" from 300 shots in this case are about 99.875%

So you have about .125% (1 in 800) chance of getting at least 1 bullet through the hole cleanly.

Thanks for correction! I was very busy when I wrote it and I had no idea about how big the hole would be.

However if MG is able to put all its bulltes into plaing card then we only have an area of 90mm by 60 mm thats 540mm. The effective area of the hole is as 37.2 sq mm (as you said).

That would make it 37/540 = 6.8%

So a bullet would have 6.8% of penetration.

So out of 100 bullets say 6 will go into the hole. Now that exciting

Feel free to fix my math!

[Guest Mike]

you're assuming the machine gunner knows where the hole made by the ATR is!!

[YankeeDog]

. . . not to mention that an MG gunner could actually put all rounds into a playing card - sized area.

[Bastables]

Originally posted by YankeeDog:

. . . not to mention that an MG gunner could actually put all rounds into a playing card - sized area.

I'm sure he could, if the MG was 20cm away from the card.

[killmore]

Hey see what Mike posted --- this is a "theoretical math" - just for fun!

Originally posted by Mike:

well I know the Bren was regarded as too accurate when I was doing my time in the infantry because it could put all its bullets into a playing card at 500 yards in the hands of even an average gunner, and that is NOT what it was supposed to do!!

But guess what - I think now that assuming you know where hole is you have a chance to penetrate tank. Say 1 in 100.

[ August 27, 2002, 10:43 PM: Message edited by: killmore ]

[Guest Mike]

Good try - but I don't think the russians used any Brens!! lol

[killmore]

Hey - I am not crazy just stiring up the discussion and having fun with it! :cool:

My conclusions are that it is on the border of needing to be modeled. If so called weak spot penetrations are 1/100 and that darn Daimler nailed my Tiger through front armour at 650m...

... bullet seems to have as much chance of killing someone inside the tank through the ATR hole.

By the way what about say 88mm clean shots through Sherman - That leaves a nice large hole! You would have much larger chances of bullets going in...

[Michael Emrys]

Originally posted by killmore:

By the way what about say 88mm clean shots through Sherman - That leaves a nice large hole! You would have much larger chances of bullets going in...

Son, if you have anything as big as an 88 go through your tank you won't ever have to worry about MG bullets again.

Michael

[Guest Mike]

Aw shoot - why not just go the whole hog and drive around in trucks - that way the enemy's ATR/LMG combos will be useless!! lol

Hey - it's not gamey - it's a feature!! rofl!!

[Tero]

Originally posted by Determinant:

1. If SMGs don't suck beyond 50 metres then why do FINBAT in KFOR only seem to carry real rifles like everyone else?

They are only for show.

Besides, take a look at the caliber of the FINBAT rifles.

2. Generically one of the qualities of MGs is their 'looseness'. In a Brit context the Bren is considered to be a 'tight' gun that fires quite a concentrated burst while the GPMG (Belgian MAG under license) is considered 'looser' (burst spreads out more) and thus a better area weapon; and thus a better MG particularly when fired in the sustained role from a tripod.

The Bren is a first/second generation automatic, the GPMG you speak of is a third/fourth generation weapon. A lot has happened in the field of small unit tactics between the creation of the two. And many of the first/second generation LMG's manufactured before or during WWII did see service long after the third/fourth generation GPMG's had been introduced.

Interestingly if you follow this analogy a bren tripod would actually be quite a bad thing for infantry combat.

That is totally dependant on the target environment. If you think of the WWII era LMG's as precursors to assault rifles instead of GPMG's the entire prospect of the LMG concept does a flip.

During WWII only the German army had a belt fed LMG in the squad organization, the rest used magazine fed LMG's. During the war the Finnish army captured 9000 DT LMG's (over 9000) and other auto/semiauto weapons (PPSh, semiauto rifles etc). These were integrated into the squad organization to bolster the domestic production. The German MG34/42 family of weapons was not taken up because of the mismatch in the ammo caliber. (And because the availability of captured weapons made the spare part and replacement of existing weaponry damaged in the battle easier than having them bought off the Germans.) After the war a domestic belt fed LMG was produced only in the 60's when the RK-62 assault rifle was adobted as the main weapon. Both use the 7,62R39 round. Curiously enough that is the same caliber the AK-47 uses. And even more curiously the USSR/Russia still is our neighbour. And even after the introduction of these the WWII era weapons were used and stockpiled until the early 90's.

But let's not go there.

OK

3. But most importantly: 'Dies Irae' - the tournament. Stop wasting your time posting and send me a move. I haven't heard a peep from your Waffen GrenadierNichtMentionTheWarMenn for weeks...

I have been waiting a turn from you for a couple of weeks now. I'll resend tonight.

[killmore]

Originally posted by Michael emrys:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by killmore:

By the way what about say 88mm clean shots through Sherman - That leaves a nice large hole! You would have much larger chances of bullets going in...

Son, if you have anything as big as an 88 go through your tank you won't ever have to worry about MG bullets again.

Michael</font>

[MikeyD]

Ah! I just remembered that someone told me those 105mm and 75mm German recoilless rifles in CMBO had been introduced into parachute units as early as 1940! This came as a shock to me. Guess we could be seeing them for the opening of Barbarossa along with the other equipment, though in CMBB the 105mm RCCL is too bulky to be treated as mobile units like zooks. More like light anti-tank guns in the game.

[Tero]

Originally posted by MikeyD:

Ah! I just remembered that someone told me those 105mm and 75mm German recoilless rifles in CMBO had been introduced into parachute units as early as 1940! This came as a shock to me. Guess we could be seeing them for the opening of Barbarossa along with the other equipment, though in CMBB the 105mm RCCL is too bulky to be treated as mobile units like zooks. More like light anti-tank guns in the game.

The Red Army had recoilles guns (at least in the field test phase) already in 1939. A couple of them got captured by the Finns and IIRC one was sent to Germany for evaluation sometime in 1940/1941.

[Auggy]

The Red army used Recoiless rifles in their aircraft in the 30's to shoot down other planes! They were only single shot as well. So I'd have to say the soviets had recoiless guns in the field early on. Also the inventor of this "revolutionary weapons system" was sent to the gulag...thought about... redesigned it and was freed....more testing....thrown back in jail. I'd stop trying the first time.