HE rounds r made wrong?

[Matchstick]

As Normal Dude says it's sloppy wording on my part.

I suspect that going back and editing my post to say "If HE is such a useful tank killer..." would cause complete confusion at this point but it would be much clearer.

[met1966]

Bad. I hate to heap more upon you for I am no armor/ammo expert (far from it) but from my viewpoint it would help if you'd provide sources/data for your claim. Appears to me that folks in this room know quite a bit about ammo types and effectiveness but you've yet to demonstrate the same. I dont mean that to be an insult and you could be right...I dont know...but without some support you're not engaging in a helpful discussion. Just my opinion...again...I dont mean to insult.

[Jippo]

Originally posted by FinnN:

I believe I read that spalling is in the game, and it seems to be born out by my experience with crew casualties.

Yep. Spalling and concussion through the armor wins a price.

But they don't ki11 t3h cr3w. They may and kill and injure individual crew members, but to disable a tank crew? Rarely, and yes there are instances of that happening but the game has got it pretty much right as is. HE shouldn't be and isn't a tank (crew) killer.

[Sneaksie]

Try 122 or 152mm on Pz3 and 4, you'll be satisfied (up to complete destruction).

On larger Tigers and Panthers they have a little or no effect (immobilization, gun hit if lucky). This is historically accurate.

In the game HE effect is calculated as follows (said by developer). Around point of hit a 3d sphere is drawn, it's radius based on HE power. If it intersects with weaker armor somewhere (roof usually), and HE penetration rating exceeds armor thickness, there is a penetration. Thus SPA's with open roofs are killed from HE hits, and thin roof can be broken.

[K9crump]

If this helps, during one of the kursk maps(played as russians) I had a su-122 that hit the side of a mkIII from close range with a HE round and it destroyed it. It no longer had HEAT rounds and so it had to be an HE round that did it.

Mike

[K9crump]

OH yah, one more. When playing as Wittman in the german map about villars bocage I destroyed an Archer with HE also. My 2 tigers were engaging infantry just prior to engaging the archer, and they did not switch back to AP rounds. When I finally went back over to them, I was tied up with something else going on, they just destroyed it. I dont know how many rounds it took, but they did it.

Mike

[FinnN]

Originally posted by Jippo:

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

I believe I read that spalling is in the game, and it seems to be born out by my experience with crew casualties.

Yep. Spalling and concussion through the armor wins a price.

But they don't ki11 t3h cr3w. They may and kill and injure individual crew members, but to disable a tank crew? Rarely, and yes there are instances of that happening but the game has got it pretty much right as is. HE shouldn't be and isn't a tank (crew) killer. </font>

[Bad]

Originally posted by K9crump:

If this helps, during one of the kursk maps(played as russians) I had a su-122 that hit the side of a mkIII from close range with a HE round and it destroyed it. It no longer had HEAT rounds and so it had to be an HE round that did it.

Mike

cool, so HE do work as they should

to rest, I never stated that they werebetter then AP/APHE, just said that large calliber HE shells should be able to kill med tanks, as i never had it happen in the game, even tho my tanks did shoot other tanks with HE i figured it wasnt moddeled

and as you can see just because it cant penitrate, it can kill

[SlapHappy]

One reason why this is hard to see is because the lighter armored tanks mostly appear in games where the guns themselves were much smaller in calibre as well. Try an ahistorical setup where large calibre guns are using HE against the lighter early war tanks and I think you will see some results.

BTW, while it is possible to see your own crews become KIA in tanks (their icons become transparent), it is not possible to see this in the AI vehicles. Doesn't mean it isn't happening though.

[SlapHappy]

One thing I think is definitely wrong however is the 20 mm HE rating. All the regular cars and trucks in the game have an armor rating of "5". 20 mil HE has a penetration rating of "3" max.

So I scripted up 5 russian tanks and a 222 scout car. I let it blast away at the trucks (close range) and watched. Oftentimes, the driver would be killed, unless you were shooting at the passenger side of the vehicle, but the truck itself went undamaged. Switching to 7.92 mm machinegun allowed me to devastate the trucks while the driver usually bailed.

????

This just seems wrong on the face of it, but I can't present any source to qualify my argument.

P.S. Not the MG part, the 20 mm part.......

[Pvt. Ryan]

Originally posted by Normal Dude:

Pvt Ryan:

Care to elaborate?

I was joking. I really can use propper spelling and grammar. See?

[ChrisND]

Originally posted by Pvt. Ryan:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Normal Dude:

Pvt Ryan:

Care to elaborate?

I was joking.See? </font>Oh, well sorry about that.

[Jeff Duquette]

HE has never been particularly effective at destroying tanks -- with a few notable exceptions -- like British 25-pdr crews talking about direct hits on panzer-IIs and III's being able to knock a turret a-skew. But HE's lack of effectiveness against armor plate is kinda' why armor piercing shot and armor piercing shell were invented It's kinda why 25-pdrs also started including armour piercing shot in their ammunition load outs. It's kinda why most artillery units by wars end typically included HEAT or Armour piercing projectiles in their ammo load outs. Just in case the battery were about to be over-run by tanks.

Nose fuzes used on HE are relatively fragile. They are crushed when PD-delay is used on armor and the shell happens to hit a tank. The shell casing is than just a thin fragile cylinder of mild steel. Hardly an optimal shape or optimal casing hardness for perforating armor plate. If the fuze is destroyed by crushing on armor plate – well you might get some detonation of the bursting charge in the form of low order deflagration -- and you might get some minor penetration from the kinetic energy of the thin shell casing -- assuming it doesnt shatter on impact.

PD-super quick will give you high order blast and fragmentation but not much real penetration -- the shell explodes too quickly for it to penetrate. As to PD-quick or superquick scabbing or spalling armor plate ala HESH or HEP, point detonating fuzes employed on HE don’t create the appropriate conditions for such an effect. Moreover HESH and HEP employ a base detonating graze fuze. The nose of HESH crushes up against the armor, than the base fuze initiates detonation of the bursting charge. The blast wave\blast pressure transmits from the rear of the bursting charge toward the crushed nose of the HESH projectile. The high pressure detonation wave propagating toward the armor and into the armor plate creates one of the key conditions for back-surface scabbing or spalling. Conversely, PD-fuzed HE shells result in the complete opposite direction of blast wave propogation – i.e. the blast wave is initiated at the nose fuze and propagates backward toward the base of the shell. Common HE shell creates little or no real potential for back surface spalling from blast pressure\blast wave propogation into an armor plate. I suppose with poor quality – thin armor and PD-dely – there might be sufficient kinetic energy from the shell impact itself to knock off a back surface scab. But again an HE shell consists of a rather thin mild steel cylinder with a relatively fragile nose fuze – fragile with respect to impacting armor steel.

Artillery delivered HE vs. tanks is traditionally not considered a target destruction mission. It’s more of a target suppression mission. Fragmentation, and to a lesser extent blast, can destroy vehicle optics – it can get crews to button up – it can also generate F-Kills or M-Kills from direct hits or near misses by larger caliber HE shells, but rarely does it generate K-Kills against tanks. It’s sort of why modern artillery turned to Copperhead, EFP and similiar warheads when engaging tank formations in which the target effect required is destruction rather than suppression.

WWII statistics for tanks being K-killed by HE shell fire are relatively low and typically run around 5% to 10% of all tank kills studied for a typical BDA operational report -- or a BDA report for a specific operational stomping ground. The vast majority of tank K-Kills were generated by either other tanks or antitank guns firing AP-shot or AP-shell. Second highest source of kills is invariably mines. Air to ground, infantry antitank weapons (bazooka, panzerfaust, magnetic hand placed mines etc etc) and artillery make up the remaining tank kills with each weighing in at around 5 to 10% of total tank losses. A notable exception regards very late war statistics in which we occasionally see German infantry hollow charge AT weapons accounting for up to 20 or 40%(+) of all tank kills for a specific operational study.

For those looking for references, these sorts of statistics can be found by anyone willing to put a little bit of elbow grease into studying the subject – and by elbow grease I don’t mean a quick goggle followed by perusal of the latest Wikipedia disaster.

Best Regards

Jeff

[ June 02, 2007, 11:05 AM: Message edited by: Jeff Duquette ]

[SlapHappy]

Originally posted by SlapHappy:

One thing I think is definitely wrong however is the 20 mm HE rating. All the regular cars and trucks in the game have an armor rating of "5". 20 mil HE has a penetration rating of "3" max.

So I scripted up 5 russian tanks and a 222 scout car. I let it blast away at the trucks (close range) and watched. Oftentimes, the driver would be killed, unless you were shooting at the passenger side of the vehicle, but the truck itself went undamaged. Switching to 7.92 mm machinegun allowed me to devastate the trucks while the driver usually bailed.

????

This just seems wrong on the face of it, but I can't present any source to qualify my argument.

P.S. Not the MG part, the 20 mm part.......

[SlapHappy]

Sorry...mis-post!

[Flatline]

Lets just look at the post.

"HE was usefull vs tanks, not as good as AP vs thick armor"

No major objection to this -- AP is better than HE vs. thick armor. The word "useful" could be objected to by some, but I suppose HE could be useful if you had nothing else handy. You will have almost no chance to actually kill a tank with it, but taking out a track with a good hit can happen. Plus the big HE rounds can create spalling (which is where the shockwave from an exterior hit causes flakes of metal to break off on the inside and kill crew).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_explosive_squash_head

"but vs med armor they were great ( from big caliber guns)"

The word "great" is what people object to since it implies that it was something people would happily use in that situation. This is inaccurate for WW2 era equipment.

A HE round is basically a big explosive surrounded by something meant to shatter (shrapnel). It is used to kill soft and semi-soft targets. Imagine hitting a tank with a big hammer -- that is a HE round (the shrapnel effects are inconsequential in anything but the lightest of armors). If the hammer hits hard enough it would kill (or more likely damage) a tank, but it is far from a "great" weapon against them. Instead you fire at the tracks and hope for a lucky hit to kill the track.

[Urban Shocker]

I think what FinnN has said nicely is that the burden of proof is squarely on the shoulders of the person making the claim not the person(s) doubting it.

Proof in this case would be construed as a page in a book written by an authoritative source or a web site of similar quality. Hopefully said source would have solid data to support the claim or thesis and not just assert it as true.

Edit: Well as I was writing this post (and watching the US men's soccer team pound China) Jeff D gave a good example of what I wrote above.

[M Hofbauer]

Originally posted by Bad:

I know that HE we have are wrong

...

Originally posted by Bad:

cool, so HE do work as they should

teh funny.

[Bad]

Originally posted by M Hofbauer:

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

I know that HE we have are wrong

...

Originally posted by Bad:

cool, so HE do work as they should

teh funny. </font>

[Bad]

Originally posted by Flatline:

Lets just look at the post.

"HE was usefull vs tanks, not as good as AP vs thick armor"

No major objection to this -- AP is better than HE vs. thick armor. The word "useful" could be objected to by some, but I suppose HE could be useful if you had nothing else handy. You will have almost no chance to actually kill a tank with it, but taking out a track with a good hit can happen. Plus the big HE rounds can create spalling (which is where the shockwave from an exterior hit causes flakes of metal to break off on the inside and kill crew).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_explosive_squash_head

"but vs med armor they were great ( from big caliber guns)"

The word "great" is what people object to since it implies that it was something people would happily use in that situation. This is inaccurate for WW2 era equipment.

A HE round is basically a big explosive surrounded by something meant to shatter (shrapnel). It is used to kill soft and semi-soft targets. Imagine hitting a tank with a big hammer -- that is a HE round (the shrapnel effects are inconsequential in anything but the lightest of armors). If the hammer hits hard enough it would kill (or more likely damage) a tank, but it is far from a "great" weapon against them. Instead you fire at the tracks and hope for a lucky hit to kill the track.

ok, lets see, for an example you have sherman 76 500m or so from side of lets say pz4, instead of firing AP round that might just enter and exit without much damage, firing HE round would be far mode devastationg ( no, not APHE, just HE)

[ChrisND]

Do you have a source to back this up? I'd be interested in seeing it.

JD's post makes a lot of sense.

[Jippo]

Originally posted by Bad:

ok, lets see, for an example you have sherman 76 500m or so from side of lets say pz4, instead of firing AP round that might just enter and exit without much damage, firing HE round would be far mode devastationg ( no, not APHE, just HE)

But that is BS! Study first, then make claims.

[Bad]

Originally posted by Jippo:

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

ok, lets see, for an example you have sherman 76 500m or so from side of lets say pz4, instead of firing AP round that might just enter and exit without much damage, firing HE round would be far mode devastationg ( no, not APHE, just HE)

But that is BS! Study first, then make claims. </font>

[ChrisND]

Bad, just in case you didn't know, the person making the claim is supposed to provide the evidence. Asking the other person to (un)prove it themselves completely invalidates your position.

EX:

Hey, guess what, I think Elvis is living on mars. Prove me wrong or I'm right.

[Jippo]

Yes, usually the person who makes the claim has the burden of proof.

Number 5 is large caliber HE hit on T-54( or T-55, can't remember) turret side. IIRC it was 100mm HE. Penetration in this case is roughly 10mm, and fuse has been a delayed one.