Repair of damaged armor [real world question]

[RS14]

I'm accustomed to seeing numerous "partial penetration" messages in my battles. But I've also, on this forum, seen a rather impressive photo of such a partial penetration.

What would happen to a tank if its armor was partially penetrated? Would it be written off for parts? Used regardless? Or is there some way to repair such damage?

[costard]

In this particular case the specimen was hacked out with an oxy-acetylene torch. You could get a much neater cut if necessary, and slot a piece cut to size back in. Not a 100 percent effective repair, but usefully quick. You can see that there would probably have been spalling of the back surface of the armour plate - some fairly large pieces of high energy steel bouncing around the interior of the tank in question. These tend to damage the more delicate instrumentation and have a demoralising effect on the crew.

[John Kettler]

RS14 (Russian ICBM fan?),

Welcome aboard! Sometimes, the tank's fought as is, especially if the situation's dire and a partially penetrated or even damaged tank is better than no tank at all (Heckmann's fabulous Rommel's War In Africa details an incident in which a 2 pdr shot pierced a Panzer III and wound up lodged in the ammo bin; after checking that the ammo was intact, the slug was removed and the tank returned to the fight. In another incident a partial penetration right in front of the driver's face caused the poor man to fail his morale check and bolt from the tank in terror). Other times, the offending intruder is driven out and some sort of steel is hurriedly welded over the gouge to provide at least some protection. The more elaborate repairs costard describes are the province of specialist units and can be extensive and time consuming.

Suggest you read Belton Cooper's Death Traps for an ordnance officer's views on U.S. practice (overview at http://www.3ad.com/history/wwll/memoirs.pages/cooper.htm ), see this short vid of such a tank repair unit at work and play

visit www.tankbooks.com for the online version of the brilliant Tanks for The Memories and the numerous tanker interviews, check out this Lone Sentry link to an Intelligence Bulletin on German practice

http://www.lonesentry.com/articles/tankmaint/index.html

, ponder this major Tiger 1 repair photo set

http://www.v-like-vintage.net/en/search~result/tiger%20tank/

and peruse this great thread on Russian WW II tank recovery and repair.

http://www.armchairgeneral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=76746

Aren't you glad you asked?

costard,

That is the back of the plate, with the nose of the projectile (believe it's a 17 pdr and display's at IWM) peeking out. Looks to me as though a substantial chunk was dislodged when the projectile broke through the back of the plate. Probably not fun for the crew!

Regards,

John Kettler

[RS14]

RS14 (Russian ICBM fan?)

Italian reconnaissance seaplane fan, in this case, though not properly punctuated, I'll admit.

Welcome aboard! Sometimes, the tank's fought as is, especially if the situation's dire and a partially penetrated or even damaged tank is better than no tank at all (Heckmann's fabulous Rommel's War In Africa details an incident in which a 2 pdr shot pierced a Panzer III and wound up lodged in the ammo bin; after checking that the ammo was intact, the slug was removed and the tank returned to the fight. In another incident a partial penetration right in front of the driver's face caused the poor man to fail his morale check and bolt from the tank in terror). Other times, the offending intruder is driven out and some sort of steel is hurriedly welded over the gouge to provide at least some protection. The more elaborate repairs costard describes are the province of specialist units and can be extensive and time consuming.

Suggest you read Belton Cooper's Death Traps for an ordnance officer's views on U.S. practice (overview at http://www.3ad.com/history/wwll/memoirs.pages/cooper.htm ), see this short vid of such a tank repair unit at work and play

visit www.tankbooks.com for the online version of the brilliant Tanks for The Memories and the numerous tanker interviews, check out this Lone Sentry link to an Intelligence Bulletin on German practice

http://www.lonesentry.com/articles/tankmaint/index.html

, ponder this major Tiger 1 repair photo set

http://www.v-like-vintage.net/en/search~result/tiger%20tank/

and peruse this great thread on Russian WW II tank recovery and repair.

http://www.armchairgeneral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=76746

Aren't you glad you asked?

costard,

That is the back of the plate, with the nose of the projectile (believe it's a 17 pdr and display's at IWM) peeking out. Looks to me as though a substantial chunk was dislodged when the projectile broke through the back of the plate. Probably not fun for the crew!

Regards,

John Kettler

Quite a lot of info; thank you.

I'm not surprised to learn that they were often usable, but I'm impressed that the more serious repairs were even possible. I'd love to have seen some of those in progress.

I've bookmarked "Tanks for the Memories," I'll need to return to it when I have more time.

[costard]

Thanks for the links John - that photo archive is... superlatives fail me.