Armor quality of the Tiger I

[Peasant]

I have opened a new thread for discussing this, but that discussion is intimately related to this one, so I leave a link: viewtopic.php?f=79&t=270182

[Peasant]

Here is some interesting info that I don't believe we've yet seen in this thread:



Source: "AFV News, 1995, Vol.30 No.3"

[Peasant]

Came across this photo today. Penetrations look very clean. No cracks seen in the armor.

[Peasant]

...45mm gun Mod.1942 leaves only 50-60mm dents in the frontal armor of Pz.IV F-G and side armour of a Tiger. From 3 hits on the lower side armour of a "Tiger" (62mm thick) from a distance of 200m, only one managed to hole the armor (it was a solid shot BR-240SP)

My own estimates place the penetration limit of this gun at 200m distance as 60mm/0°.

Source: "Stalin's SPGs" M. Svirin, ISBN 978-5-699-20527-1

Edit:

Shelling of the 100mm thick armour using the 85mmMod.1939 gun, also did not meet the expectations of the testers, as despite the expectations, the AP shell with inert filling, was left stuck in the superstructure front plate when fired at 30° angle from equivalent distance of 500m. Although this should not come as surprise as the AP shell weighting at 9,2kg was able to perforate only 91mm at this angle from 500m, and 86mm at 1000m. And 105mm and 100mm at normal respectively.
The 57mm gun mod.1941 was also powerless against the frontal armour of the Tiger at 500m distance. The AP of this gun did not perform satisfactory when fired against a 60mm cemented plate at angles over 25°. It also didn't perforate the Tiger's side armour reliably enough, but there were no quick alternatives.

I'll just say that according to my best penetration model so far the 85mm shell should have exactly 100mm/30° limit thickness at 500m distance.

[Peasant]

Source: https://community.battlefront.com/topic ... ent=454996

The Watertown Arsenal(WAL 710/542) on the Tiger E armor, points out instances where the armor was ballisticly not up to par with other German plate examined previously, the PzKpfw III, and indicated a decline in German quality control. The Report was done on an Tiger E from Tunisia.

Ie:

Hull Side plate: 3.2in thick 352 BHN.

'All Plates except one, the hull side plate, were of acceptable quality steel. Excessively large amount of segregated nonmetallic inclusions, which appeared as laminations in the fracture test, were observed on examination of this plate'.

Main Front plate 4.0in 321BHN

'Improper heat treatment of the main front plate and the hull side plate wa1s reflected in poor notched bar impact strength which,in turn, would be associated with poor resistance to cracking under ballistic attack.

Heat-treating tests were conducted which revealed that approximately the same notch bar impact strength could be obtained by a normalize and draw of a small section as was observed in the 4" main front plate as received."

The report goes into detail on German welding practices as well:

Welding and Joint design:

'The Joint design is characterized by grooves machined in the heavy section of each weld joint to give a fitted or mortised joint which is in compression on impact from the direction of principal ballistic attack. Fit-up is fairly good.'

'Rough surface appearance, severe undercutting, and failure to completely fill the joint grooves with weld material indicate inexperience or carelessness on the part of the welders.'

'All welds were made up of multiple overlapping beads and appear to have been deposited, without preheat, on the armor in the final heat-treated condition. Very extensive base metal cracks were present in the heat affected zones of the three weld joint samples and sections from the samples break through these cracks on light impact with a hammer'.

This examination revealed an amazing lack of concern by German fabrication and inspection facilities, for base metal cracks which (1) would ordinarily be expected in welding of this high carbon armor plate, (2) must have occurred soon after welding and were so extensive that they probably could have been detected by any of the usual inspection methods, and (3) are universally recognized to have a very serious effect on shock resistance of the welded structure.'

The Plates examined were:

Hull Roof Plate - 1.0in 363BHN

Turret Roof Plate - 1.0in 321BHN

Hull Side Plate - 3.2in 352BHN

Turret Side Plate - 3.2in 352BHN

Main Front Plate - 4.0in 321BHN

Front Glacis Plate - 2.4in 352BHN

Regards, John Waters