WT E-100 – what penetration will that 150mm L/38 have?

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Hello everyone,

since the disclosure of the second German tank destroyer line, a lot of people have been showing concern about how the high-tier 150mm guns (L/29,5 and L/38) will perform. Specifically, a lot of people fear that the guns will have low penetration and the WT will end up with an autoloaded version of E-100′s gun, because the caliber and barrel length is apparently the same and lots of people don’t see beyond that.

This article is here to actually alleviate some of the “fears” of this.

Tx1

Let’s start from the beginning then.

German 150mm is not exactly a great caliber/weapon to be an anti-tank gun (which is what World of Tanks are all about). As early as 1942/1943, a 150mm gun was proposed for the early Maus prototypes, but the idea was scrapped for several reasons.

For one, the shells are huge and heavy. A new two-part shells were envisaged for the Maus (or Tiger-Maus) 150mm guns (L/37, L/40 and L/38) are mentioned, but two-piece shells do decrease the rate of fire such a gun can archieve. There were other issues too (we’ll get to that) and the gun idea was scrapped. Later, the 150mm emerges again on various self-propelled guns, but those were artillery pieces, not direct fire guns.

Now: notice the difference between tier 8, 9 and 10 guns. Tier 8 gun is L/29,5 and has muzzle brake:

T81

Tier 9 is L/38 WITHOUT a muzzle brake:

T91

…and tier 10 has muzzle brake yet again. Those more perceptive might have noticed one thing: with these guns, only caliber and barrel length are mentioned, not the actual gun model. That’s clue number one. Clue number two are the muzzle brakes.

150mm L/29,5

If we have a look at that tier 8: the L/29,5 caliber is pretty specific. Where have we seen that before? Ah yes, that’s the good old sFH 18. That’s an artillery piece, right? Well, yes, but it could serve a variety of roles and fire all sorts of ammunition:

zastreln__listek_sfh18_148

Above, you can see a test protocol of one such sFH howitzer. Apart from being interesting by itself, have a look at lower right corner, that says what shells was the gun tested with. That’s a proof that the shells I am going to mention were in active use.

Specifically, we are interested in three shells in particular:

Gr.39 HL/A, PzGr.39 TS and SprGr.42TS.

The Gr.39 HL/A is a HEAT shell. It could be used for the destruction of enemy armor and other hardened subjects. Here, HL means Hohlladung (hollow charge), German designation for cumulative projectiles. In real life, it penetrated cca 160mm of armor (at any distance, it weighted cca 25kg and its initial velocity was 465m/s), yet in the game, it can penetrate 180mm+ and in one case even 240mm (sFH43 on GW Panther), despite there being no serious historical reason for doing so (at least I know of no such reason, but I am not an artillery “expert” or anything). So, that’s 160-185 penetration for tier 8 150mm gun for a start. Not a bad start anyway (solid shot would have much worse performance).

It gets better. Meet PzGr.39 TS, German 150mm discarding sabot:

150mm_Pzgr_39_TS

This was a real shell, used for the sFH18 L/29,5 gun. It consists of 150mm sabot with 88mm APCBC core. It could penetrate 130mm of armor (30 degrees, eg. 149,5mm) at 1000m (Source: Hogg, German Artillery of World War Two), initial velocity was 880m/s. I haven’t found any reliable penetration table for it, but by rough estimates, it could be as much as 195-220 pen in WoT terms. Not bad for an artillery gun!

Sprenggranate 42 TS was also a discarding sabot round, but as the name suggest, it was a HE shell, designed to improve the range of the shells, so that’s outside of our scope. There were actually German APFSDS shells being developed too (it was called Pfeilgeschoss and it was developed in Peenemünde) for various calibers, but that’s a story for another time.

So, you see, the old sFH itself can pack quite a punch. There’s one problem though: the tier 8 vehicle has a muzzle brake. TS shells cannot be fired with a muzzle brake. Furthermore, the L/29,5 has two recoil drums above the barrel, while sFH has one. Conclusion:

The gun on tier 8 tank destroyer is not the sFH18 and it cannot use TS shells.

What does that mean for us?

It means one thing: that despite a historical alternative being available, the L/29,5 gun is some sort of paper proposal and the way it performs is ONLY dependent on Wargaming.

In other words: if they want to give it 220+ penetration, they can. The muzzle brake and additional recoil compensators suggest that more powerful (paper/fictional) ammo could be used (after all, the KwK 44 E-100 150mm ammo is IMHO fictional too, I haven’t found any serious evidence of its performance apart from a few mentions in Panzer Tracts 6-3).

150mm L/38

So, how does this concern tier 9 and tier 10?

Very. Notice how the gun on tier 9 has no muzzle brake (can use TS) and the gun on tier 10 has one (cannot use TS ammunition). That suggests one thing: the tier 10 version will be even more powerful than the tier 9 one (via different ammunition, why would a HEAVIER and more stable platform need a muzzle brake plus a bigger recoil compensator otherwise?).

Now, you’ve seen the penetration power the L/29,5 can reach. Imagine what the same core shell could do, when introduced to the L/38 barrel (88mm APCBC can survive around 1000m/s). And that’s just a start: since WG already “makes up” the massive AP shells, they might as well imagine the 88mm itself having a H-Kern (APCR core) from Wolfram (Tungsten) or Uranium (yes, Uranium – the same stuff the 30mm Luchs gun gold shells are made from). Or a hardened tip. Or, or, or…. and that’s just tier 9, as I said, tier 10 shells might get even more powerful.

So, to sum it up:

At this moment there is absolutely no reason to believe that the top gun of the WT E-100 will be identical in penetration to the top gun of the E-100 itself. Those guns are not the same (there is a reason why no designation was revealed) and the amount of penetration depends solely on Wargaming’s decision, as anything between 220mm and (say) 280mm is historically justifiable.

So, don’t panic. Not yet at least :)

Sources:
Hogg: German Artillery of World War Two
Pejčoch: Obrněná technika
www.valka.cz
Special thanks to Daigensui for a lot of insight

97 thoughts on “WT E-100 – what penetration will that 150mm L/38 have?”

      • Unitary 150 mm shell? Now that’s quite a rarity. Hard to imagine handling 70 kg package would’ve been faster than 45 + 25 kg separate packages.

        • The 15cm round was two part in the artillery Verison Because of the need to measurement powder bag for propellant. In this tank verison theory hat time would there no need to measure powder Since you want the round to travel to its maxium range as fast as possible

  2. Yay!… just what this game needs, more tier 10 TD’s with autoloaders, because the Foch 155 just wasn’t enough. gg…

    • The Foch can take some serious beating unless arty hits or you flank it. Plus it is fast as hell. I don’t think the WT E-100 has good armor (open topped) nor great mobility. After all it weighs around 90t.

        • The E-100 does weight 130t and its turret 58t. Given the fact that there is some armored roof which will weight a few tons itself I think 80 – 90t is realistic unless they scrap some armor of it.

          • WG stated that the chassis will also be less armored than the original E-100. (means less weight, also as you can see there are no sideskirts)
            Also notice that the backside of the chassis is esentially cut off to make place for the gun mount.

            • It should be the 1200hp engine.

              I mean, this vehicle basically has no armor, and by the looks of it will have no camo…so if its slow, once uncovered (wich will be easy, since it has no camo) it will be dead, since everyone knows its an easy target, and it cannot move out so quickly.

              So it should be at least mobile, if not fast.

            • Ok then, they lightened the chassie. Then I hope they will give it the 1200HP engine. Maybe it will be some form of non-armored Foch, curious what the ballance will be for the non-existing armor. The gun? More manuverbility?

    • Yay! Another whiner with even more bs whining about everything…. You guys are the core of the playerbase unfortunaly, WG does GJ. I really understand why serb is so fed up with the majority of WoT players… Whine whine whine…. *how terrible*

        • Nah, I would rather see some of the obscure german designs than another generic Henschel/Porsche/MAN “Fahrgestell” with the same guns but slightly different guns.
          Fair enough these are again very similar bodies but the open topped guns with rotating mechanisms give this line a unique character. And that is what I want to see.
          The Jagd E-75 would be just another Foch…

        • JagdMaus yes, JagdPanzer E-75 no or at least not more than WT E-100, I’m still hoping it’ll get 12 cm gun with 6 shells in drum instead of another 155mm gun… this is already boring among Tier X TD’s and I’m hoping that WT E-100 will bring some variety to the bunch.

          • Maybe they’ll make that available as an option, a 120 mm gun as stock with 6 shots, with an optional upgrade/sidegrade with a 150 mm gun with 3-4 shots.

        • I personally would like the JagdMaus because it looks badass :P. And the JagdPanzer E-75, because we need JagdTiger-like gameplay at tier 10. And no, object 263 with its pathetic arc and gun depression does not suffice.

            • 15cm L/67 plus Maus hull and JPz E-100 casemate doesn’t sound to me.
              Of course, 20kmh will limit it quite a bit.

          • Having a turretless, immobile vehicle dosent seem very nice to me. Even the armor wont save it. You wont be able to go close range cause you will get flanked and you will strugle finding targets at long range cause of bad mobility and traverse.

      • Why tough? does the discarding part of the round fall off just after it leaves the gun and into the muzzle brake?

        • German muzzle brakes looked conpletely different as in your photos. I could imagine the discarding parts getting stuck there.

          • To say the discarding sabots are incompatible with muzzle brakes is a bit like saying they are incompatible with rifling. While in some cases it may be true, the general statement is not. Numerous guns firing discarding sabot ammunition use muzzle brakes.

            Sabots can be disrupted by large-chambered brakes like this one

            http://media.midwayusa.com/productimages/880×660/primary/603/603848.jpg

            but not with simple brakes like are shown for the German vehicles in WoT, they would most likely be fine. A simple “slat” or “beehive” muzzle brake does not have a big enough opening to disrupt the sabot. Thus, the sabots are most likely, though not definitely, compatible with those guns sporting brakes.

    • British 17 pounder fired APDS shells and had a muzzle brake.
      en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ordnance_QF_17-pounder#Ammunition

  4. I am pretty sure that HL means Hochladung (means in german high charge) is wrong, it should be Hohlladung (hollow charge) which is the german term for HEAT ammo.

      • Just trying to get those fixed before they get into the peoples head like Könisch Gun instead of Konisch.
        I think you handle the german quite well most of the time, i doubt i would get this far with anything in czech language, heck we even say in German “Das sind Böhmische Dörfer für mich” (That are bohemian villages for me) if we can´t figure something out.

          • It’s not false if you write “Waffenträger” like this “Waffentraeger”, because “ae” is pronounced the same as “ä”. Mostly in Germany you use “ä”, “ö”, “ü”, in other non German speaking countries you have the problem that you mostly don’t have ä, ö, ü characters on your keyboard, therefore you use ae, oe, ue as replacements for ä, ö ,ü. Also what I heard that it can be easier for people who are learning the German language using ae, oe, ue, but don’t pin me down on that.
            You are handling those cases without any problems, just wanted to give a little explanation.
            Is there really written “…/treager”? Never seen it written like this.

            • Treager can be just typo done due to reasons you are talking about. I know how to enter umlauts in non-German keyboard but most people will use “ae” and will not see difference when there will be “ea” instead.

          • And in America, the expression is simply “It’s Greek to me”. Why Greek, instead of…say…Russian (French is excusable, since “French” is a euphemism for the use of swear words)? I have no fucking idea.

  5. oh cmon
    people are worried about new vehicles – wg will do everything to make them attractive, so why worry about that?
    they can put 2 visibly identical guns on 2 different tanks but give them different stats, what was the case many time before
    people just need to moan about something, aye

      • even the guns on T62a and ob140 have exactly the same guns(same name) but if you look at the stats you can see that there are differences in aimtime and accuracy.

        • Although aim time and accuracy are probably more balance stats than related to reality, the same gun in different tanks could differ in this way due to differences in optics, ammo, crew comfort and tank design, despite the guns being identical, or near enough (Leo 1/Cent 7/M48)

  6. That 128mm would be much finer … Atleast it would have penetration values which would be enough… and 3 or 4 clip would be no problem… I tend to dislike the bigger guns all the time.. more alpha always more alpha…

    • Hell yeah
      I would like to have a 12,8cm L61 as the one from the JagdTiger with a 6shell autoloader:)

    • Yeah, it’d be like the tier 6 and 7 vehicles on the same trees you’d have a lower-alpha but higher penetration and more accurate weapon (at mid tiers, the 75 mm L/70, aka the “KV Killer”) or a more powerful but less accurate and less penetrating gun (at mid tiers, the 88 mm L/56, aka the “Tiger Gun”)

  7. So we can bet that the WT-E100 uses a 150mm gun that fires APCR as standard ammunition?
    And again…is it possible to mount a 128mm gun as an alternative?

    Also didnt know that they already experimented with APFSDS by WW2…..Oo
    (I bet it wasnt as effective as in WW2 until much much later, when smoothbores came along)

    • Fin stabilized ammunition only really makes sense in smoothbore guns since in rifled the shell is stabilized by centrifugal force of the spin much like a gyro. Winglets on it would have not much sense since they would either act as breaks in the air slowing the spin or just be useless extra weight since the shell spins and is already stabilized.
      The idea of fin stabilized shells go way back and isn’t something new, but it didn’t really make any sense to use it up until high velocity smoothbore guns.

      • Indeed, the idea of fin stabilization is older that the gun itself in fact, first appearing on the Bow and Arrow around 12,000 years ago.

    • IIRC the “fins” were related to diverse “super-cannon” projects intented for extreme-range bombardement…

      • the 15 cm sFH 18 was able to take out every tank in ww2 because it dropped a giant he shell on their head ….

    • Impressive to see something like that used in a direct fire role. It says little of my courage but I think as an artillery crew I’d be a little worried if enemy armour was within 3km of me.

      • Nah; when they’re a kilometer and a half or LESS away, THEN you should be worried (since an skilled gunner back then could hit a target about that far away in tanks like the Tiger or IS-2).

  9. Another useless derp incoming anyway. If theres something i hate about all the current t10 tds its the combination of really low shell velocity, shit aimtimes, relatively poor accuracy and shit gun traverse. What i would love on t10 td is the long 128 with 276 penetration, with 0.3 accuracy, 1.9 aimtime, at least +- 12° gun traverse and at least -8° gun depression and no autoloader. But i suppose we will never get such TD but only megaderps that trade everything that makes a TD fun for retarded alpha and penetration.

    • and to complete the vision… 5.75 – 6 rof with the mobility of jgpanther II (before incoming nerf) with similar armor tier for tier.

      • but i dont want stupid autoloaders, and if it gets 128 autoloaded i hope it gets 3 or 4 shells at max with 22/30 second reload at max.

        • I dont know, slow moving shells are kind of a bonus to me, since I can trace targets better than with guns that have fast shells. But thats just my opinion.

          Alltough i’ve allways wanted a fast stealthy TD with no armor (probably the Kanonenjagdpanzer with a buffed L7 from the leo 10)

  12. At this moment there is absolutely no reason to believe that the top gun of the WT E-100 will be identical in penetration to the top gun of the E-100 itself.

    I have a very solid reason to believe that.

    What is it you may ask? SerB.

  13. That was a relief. I don’t want a JPZ4 at T10. As far as I know sabot shells can be fired only trough smoothbore guns. Does this mean we can expect some amazing gun with 400mm pen+?

    • Sabot shells can be fired with riffled guns. Which almost all guns in WoT are and will be. But the performance of sabot shells drops tremendously with riffled cannons(specially with WWII guns). So no, I don’t think we will get 400mm+ pen sabot shells.
      Unless its Russian.

    • You’re thinking APFSDS, Sabot can still be fired from rifled cannons, but lose out on the velocity of a smoothbore. Before APFSDS though it was the most accurate way you could fire a sabot.

  14. When they call the Waffenträger cannons PaK instead of KwK they can buff the performance as they want. The E-100 uses a KwK, so I guess a PaK version would be more powerful.

      • Protipp in real life: a KwK is an all around weapon, suitable to engage tanks, infantry, fortifications, houses etc. A PaK is a weapon optimised for anti tank engagements.

        • Exactly, the main difference being that it was optimized to give a higher muzzle velocity compared to a comparable KwK gun, allowing better penetrating stats.

  15. I believe people are concerned about the Tier 10, not so much the Tier 9 for a couple of reasons.

    The Tier 9′s gun is marked as a PaK version of the gun, so, in all likelyhood it will be different, there’s less worry that it will receive the same penetration values as the 15cm L38 and 235 would be manageable at Tier 9 anyway, it would be the lowest of the Tier 9s by far but it wouldn’t be horrible.

    The Tier 10′s gun is marked as a KwK, the same 15cm L38 KwK as the E-100 except with a drum. It wasn’t called Ausf. K, or anything else that would distinguish it as different from the E-100′s 15cm.

    That is why people are concerned.

  16. To everyone concerned, look at the E-50 and E-50M or the T95,T30 and T110E3, T110E4

    http://worldoftanks.com/en/news/17/tier-10-mediums-and-tds-announced/

    When it was announced the T110E3/4 was going to get the 155mm AT T7 gun which is 267mm penetration and 750 damage, but come the release of the vehicle, it was the 155mm AT T7 E2 which had 295mm penetration and 850 damage.

    For the E-50 and E-50M, their guns just differ by a letter which are B and K and yet the stat difference for the penetration is so large ,270mm VS 220mm, it would be safe to say until the stats are out and we know which variant of the 15cm Kwk44 L/38 the TD is getting, then can we start complaining. Now all we can do is worry.

  17. Do we know of fire rate? I predict this one will have extremely fast ROF but 30-40 second reload. Only real way to differentiate this from FOCH 155 is to give it faster shot instead of 2 sec reload.

  18. None of so called Peenemünder Pfeilgeschoss – experimental fin stabilized projectiles with discarding sabot – was armour piercing projectile. Calling it APFSDS is just a mistake. PPG were HEFSDS, long range artillery shells. It`s AP performance should be pretty mediocre.

  19. Check out the BIOS report.
    British Intelligence Objectives Sub-committee
    It has a graph of penetration some guns.
    There is one for:
    15cm KwK L/38 V0=740m/s.
    ~183mm @100 at 30°

  20. Perhaps WG could simply invent an entirely new premium round for the WT E-100. The 8.8cm sabot rounds are neat, but is there any evidence of a 15cm APBC round? If implemented it could have unique penetration and normalization performance.

    • 8.8 cm sabot round: RIDICULOUSLY-high penetration, with the alpha of a tier 8 gun…well…I suppose it won’t matter if you don’t fight alone; your ability to target weakspots and cripple an enemy tank so somebody else could kill it easier might be more useful than simply slamming it with HE to take off a little sliver of health.

  21. WG will do whatever the hell they want. Just look at going from T9 to T10 TDs now, +100avg dmg, etc. What they won’t do is make it the best TD though, because it’s a German T10. And WG must continue teaching Germany a lesson.

  22. The muzzle break on the Tier 10 and the tier 8 are different if you look closely which could possibly suggest a difference in the gun.

  23. I am still wondering if there were any projects that could be used as a historical replacement for the Waffentrager E-100.

  25. That’s a lot of words for ‘put a little bit of faith in WG to not screw over a German TD.’

    No offense, but that’s the bottom line.

    • Faith: belief without proof.

      If anything, their previous actions all suggest that we should expect the OPPOSITE of what we’re being told to have faith in.

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