大象传媒

Message 2 - APDS

Posted on: 17 July 2005 by jdbukis

the apds round after being sorted out so to speak was, acording to official documents i have seen referenced in, to be able to penetrate the glacias up to 700 yards with a single hit, probably by 50% of firings maybe not. it was first issued from what i have found in august 44 for 17pdrs and june 6th for 6 pounders. however i have been led to believe from another source the british had a apcr shell of there own issued from october 1943, if my memory serves me it was cancelled in september 44. apcbc from the 17pdr was capable but not dependable on to penetrate the glacias of the panther although, it was said to have been a much safer shot against the nose plate or the turret. apcr figures i have is 109mm at 500 yards witha 30 degree angle of impact for 6 pdr and 155mm for the 17pdr at the same. in tests of the us m1 57mm nose plate was penetrated at close range and so was turret with apcbc at 300 yards 2 degree angle of attack. just some random info i know. of course how figures relate to there real life performence is another issue

Message 3 - APDS

Posted on: 17 July 2005 by jdbukis

also i was read in one source. i will try to find it that the hvap for the us 90mm was experimental/ at the best incredibly rare.

Message 4 - APDS

Posted on: 14 October 2005 by Weaponcharles

US 90 mm APCR, according to copies of US army documents in my possession, was issued in March 1945 and was very rare. Some (secondary) sources state that it was available from about January 1945, and this is the date that was - erroneously - used in the Advance Squad Leader wargame. If the issue of 76mm APCR was anything to go by, crews were lucky to get two rounds each and tank crews especially were lower priority that tank destroyer crews and so had to 'scrounge' or barter to get any.

The 90 mm APCR rounds at the time had a 'T' prefix to indicate that they were non-standardised (whereupon an 'M' prefix was allocated) but the only real 'experimental APCR round in 90 mm calibre was that fired by the solitary 'Super-Pershing' fitter with the experimental T15E1 (?) gun, which used two-piece ammuntion and apparently only ever fired its gun once to destroy a German tank late in the war.

Message 5 - APDS

Posted on: 14 October 2005 by Weaponcharles

The only British gun to use an APCR round was the 6 pounder, which had it for a short time before APDS was perfected. There are some vague references to a 'new' type of AP shot in some rgimental reports cited in secondary sources, but only David Fletcher's Mr Churchill's Tank, Schiffer, Atglen PA 2001 (?) actually refers to it, as HVAP. It was issues to some Churchill units at least in Tunisia, and North Irish Horse for one had it. It was found to be "ballistically unstable".

The 109mm penetration for the 17 pdr at 500 yards is for uncapped AP shot from the sources I have; to the best of my knowledge APCR was never produced for this gun, though you never know. Panther's glacis was hard to penetrate for any round, due to the acute slope and the trials at Isigny in August 1944 showed that even APDS was marginal in performance. The best type of shot against sloped armour is a projectile with a bluntish nose, APCR and APDS, while having the velocity to often penetrate, tend to bounce off easier than blunt shot would. Blunt shot, of course, often cannot reach the velocity needed to penetrate. Hitting with APDS was the problem, as the round was terribly inaccurate (the 6pdr APDS tended to hit about 2 feet higher than the aiming point, for example) and figures showing this poor accuracy for 17 pdr APDS can be found in Mark Hayward's Sherman Firefly, Barbarossa Books, Tiptree, Essex c. 2001. Your issue dates are spot on, and the nose plate was more vulnerable to attack as the slope towards the projectile assisted penetration and the armour was thinner - 60-65 mm compared to 80-85 mm (batches varied) on the glacis. If you ever get to the Polish army museum in Warsaw, there is a Panther nose plate on exhibition outside with various 85mm rounds stuck in it, but from memory few penetrations. The panther turret was not that hard to pierce - 100-110 mm mostly near-vertical armour, the mantlet 100 mm curved but likely to deflect rounds up if the hit was above dead-centre, or down through the hull roof if hitting below the centre-line.

Message 6 - APDS

Posted on: 18 October 2005 by Weaponcharles

Correction! Not North Irish Horse (I did some checking!) but 51st RTR, who certainly had it at the 'Steamroiller Farm' action in Tunisia. According to David Fletcher's book, page 109, this unit had 20 rounds of 6 pdr HE (not very effective compared to 75mm HE in Grants, Lees and Shermans) and 4 rounds of 6pdr APCR per Churchill tank by about 13th April 1943.