Man, it’s been a while since the last one of these. Let’s see what’s clogging up the ol’ mailbox.
Q: Several sources state that Soviet tank crews were forbidden from opening their hatches in combat and had to fight while buttoned up, reducing their ability to observe the battlefield. Is this true?
A: Not entirely. TL;DR: Soviet tank crewmen must observe their surroundings with open hatches out of battle. When contact with the enemy is made, they must close the hatches, but may reopen them if the target is lost. In urban combat, hatches must remain closed.
Q: Is it possible to ignite a T-34 by shooting at external gas tanks?
A: External gas tanks were either emptied or removed when entering combat, so their presence would be unlikely. Even if the vehicles were attacked mid-march, the fuel tanks are not connected to the fuel system, and if one catches fire or explodes, it will not destroy the tank.
Q: Do you have any information on reclamation of tanks and weapons? I heard that the Soviets didn’t start cleaning up the battlefields until the 1970s.
A: Soviet recovery teams searched battlefields immediately after the battle for tanks that could be towed back to recovery areas (SPAMs) and either repaired there or sent to back to a factory for refurbishment. However, tanks stuck in forests or swamps that were lost without a trace remained there for ages. Some are still there to this day.
Also, there was a significant drive to recover steel after the war, so it’s unlikely that perfectly good materials would be left for decades. I’ve talked to people that were born in the early 40s, and they recall playing in salvage yards filled with rusted tanks and guns in their childhood, which would put the start of massed recovery efforts into the late 40s or early 50s.
Q: What is a good guide for ranges at which German tanks could penetrate Allied armour?
A: For nice colourful diagrams, there is always the Tigerfibel. For other vehicles, Osprey books have tables of how far tanks have to be from each other to penetrate various parts of their armour, but I haven’t looked into how accurate they are or whose sources they use.
Q: PzIII, PzIV and Panthers had side skirts to protect their side armour. How effective were these modifications?
A: The side skirts protected from only anti-tank rifles, and were ineffective against any cannon caliber. I’ve read reports that the side skirts were extremely unwieldy, especially when driving in wooded areas, and would always get caught on things, but were useful in urban combat.
Q: How is an HE shell’s performance evaluated? I thought that a bigger caliber HE shell would perform better.
A: Effectiveness of shells is evaluated by the amount of lethal shrapnel produced, and how far it flies. Bigger shell does not necessarily mean better HE action. If you put too much explosive in a shell, it will explode into dust, generally having a poor fragmentation effect. Too little, and the shell will crack open into only a few fragments, barely killing anyone at all. A good HE shell has a balance of explosive substance.
The material the shell is made of also matters. American research showed that Soviet HE shells made of cast iron fragment better than American made shells of similar calibers, but are restricted to lower muzzle velocities.
As for the standards of effectiveness, the Soviets define an area of effect as a rectangle in which at least 50% of the targets are struck by lethal shrapnel. The British define this area as an area “on which the average density of throughs and deep strikes on vertical wooden targets is 1 per 10 square feet”. I haven’t come across German or American standards, but even these two show that the evaluation of HE varied from country to country, as did standards for AP penetration.
Q: You mentioned you had a table of ranges at which the T-34 can penetrate a PzIII. Can I see it?
A: Certainly. Digits cut off by the scan are shown as Xes.
|
Armour component |
Thickness |
Angle to vertical |
Distance for complete penetration |
||||||
| 90 deg. | 80 | 70 | 60 | 50 | 40 | 30 | |||
| Upper front plate | 40 | 48 | 800 | 800 | 700 | 560 | 370 | 230 | xx |
| Lower front plate | 40 | 15 | 1900 | 1800 | 1630 | 1360 | 1040 | 720 | 35x |
| Turret platform front | 50 | 8 | 1860 | 1970 | 1940 | 1720 | 1380 | 890 | 50x |
| Turret front | 50 | 10 | 1900 | 1970 | 1940 | 1720 | 1380 | 890 | 50x |
| Upper rear plate | 50 | 5 | 1800 | 1940 | 1940 | 1760 | 1380 | 940 | 50x |
| Middle rear plate | 50 | 0 | 1680 | 1900 | 1940 | 1760 | 1380 | 940 | 50x |
That’s enough for today, I suppose. Don’t hesitate to send more questions to tankarchives@gmail.com.
Some decent information there thanks Ensign. Will think of a few questions and send them in.
Is Ensign pro on russian tanks or how come “every” question is about ruskie tanks?
FTR Staff (Contact)
Ensign_Expendable (US server) – blog author, Russian tank specialist
“A: Effectiveness of shells is evaluated by the amount of lethal shrapnel produced, and how far it flies. Bigger shell does not necessarily mean better HE action. If you put too much explosive in a shell, it will explode into dust, generally having a poor fragmentation effect. Too little, and the shell will crack open into only a few fragments, barely killing anyone at all. A good HE shell has a balance of explosive substance.”
That gives me an idea: how about arty HE shells, with bigger splash radius, but ZERO penetration? Bigger chance to damage target, but zero chance to one-shot kill
I wish, but that’s probably too “complicated”. :(
Yeah, I think that would be nice, too. It would make campers suffer cause of splash damage and make arty useful, yet it would not one shot any heavy tank and it would probably cause arty to be more careful when shooting close contact targets.
Hardly matters how much pen they have, you hit a 15mm thick plate with a 200mm shell weighing +100lbs it’s gonna wreck it
Wtf is lbs and how much kg is it?
Troll ?
1 lb = 0.453 592 37 kg
Not going to convert those bullshit imperial units.
just divide the number (lbs) by 2 (two) and it will give you a estimate of kgs
Yes, it matters, even if thin armored targets will still suffer from splash, it wont be possible to oneshot an IS-3 from full health with a 1850 damage zero penetration shell.
bro, do you even math?
top turret armor in is3 is 20mm, so is the engine cover.
if you dropped a 50kg (something like M795 155mm) arty shell from the top of its arc, it would still penetrate the tank. gravity is a bitch..
that shell is detonating inside..
and that tank is dead..
It matters due to game mechanics. A shell could do 5k damage and have 50m of splash but with 0 penetration it won’t do anything unless there’s any 0mm armour lying around. HE shells use their splash mechanic to “find” lowest measurements of armour in the splash, but it still needs to defeat that armour to do damage, even splash damage (non-penetrating).
A non-penetrating HE shell with 150mm pen do the same damage than a zero penetration HE shell. For example a 2000 damage HE shell explodes next to the side of the IS-3. With 105 mm avg pen, it has good chance to pen its 90mm side armor.
When it pens, the IS-3 takes ~1000 damage (and possibly a bunch of module and crew damage)
When it does not pen, the HE damage will be reduced according to the following formula:
actualdamage = 0.5 x nominaldamage x (1 – impactdistance/splashradius) – 1.1 x nominalarmorthickness x spallcoefficient
a IS-3 with heavy spall liner will take maximum 872 damage from a non-pen 2000 dmg HE shell in this case.
And when said HE shell has zero penetration, it will never pen and it would never do 1000 damage (even if it hits a 20 mm part of the tank)
Yes but i talk about zero pen HE shells (its BS, but WoT is an arcade game, not a simulator) If a normal 203mm HE hits the top turret armor of the IS-3, its instant game over, but if a zero pen HE hits it, it causes “only” ~900 damage maximum(wich is not good either, but its still better than oneshotted)
but you cant have zero pen HE shells..
on account of its weight
it has mass. it has momentum. it WILL pen something..
It would depend if the shells were on a delay fuze. If they were not, then they wouldn’t have any pen since they would explode the instant they hit anything.
Also, gameplay>real life.
I like how they dont realise the size of arty shells: CGC: The standard shell weight was 290 pounds (130 kg), later marks had 11-18kg load of HE filled with Amatol, TNT or Lyddite. Barrel of 23cm*81cm flying in air, not gonna rect a thing, I suppose
Today, Germany counts the perforation of 2 mm steel plates as lethal.
off the topic: about the upcoming firefly line: I know there a info show that it will begin with tier 6. What I dont know is which tier 5 tank that already in the game will lead to them??
Anybody know about this?? thankyou
The line will not start at tier 6. It will start at tier 2, and initially consist of a bunch of clones of low-tier American tanks, including a Stuart, a Grant, and a non-Firefly Sherman, which is followed by the Firefly.
This is true, however, we do not know yet if there will be also a link to them from other branches (as it is e.g. from Jumbo MT to T29 HT, or through a separate tank (if I revall correctly KV13 etc.).