Panther 100 mm Cast Plate Qualities

[Yoozername]

edit: It looks like posts were moved to another thread?

[Yoozername]

I found one source that says the Maus turret frontal armor is cast.

[Peasant]

Surprising to see this much difference in ballistic resistance between cast and rolled armor. Even if the rolled plate is 300BHN and the cast one is 240BHN the safety thickness limit at low obliquity should only be ~5%.
Since this cast armour is much softer than the rolled plate I'm not surprised by the advantage the latter has at 0° against uncapped AP shell, as I expected it to remain mostly intact here, but even at 30° the cast armor requires 14% more thickness to protect against the same threat. This got to do with the amount of damage its able to deal to the attacking shell, as such difference is unlikely to arise only from differences in mechanical properties of the material itself.

[Peasant]

Assuming the W/R limit to be equal to 2300fps, the mantlet on this tank was ballistically equivalent to a ~94mm/0° british 260 BHN RHA plate.

[Thoddy]

the blue curve (Sicherheitskurve) was valid for
steelquality 90-105 kg/mm²
its the same curve as mentioned in Bericht 166 Lilienthalgesellschaft Vorgänge beim Beschuß von Panzerplatten 1943.

Screenshot 2023-03-27 181838.png (158.32 KiB) Viewed 577 times

this curve indicates that performance of the uncapped 5 cm Pzgr (~1943) was significantly improved over the earlier pre ~1942 uncapped 5 cm Pzgr Gg
wich shows an relatively constant penetration for all velocities above ~630 m/s with about 55 mm.

5cm Pzgr Performance1945.jpg (46.81 KiB) Viewed 577 times

the performance of the uncapped and of the capped 5 cmPzgr at about 900 m/s at 30° obliquity seems almost identical (optimised heat treatment)

for these new shells the following observations were made:
-at perpendicular attack the uncapped shell performs better then the same capped projectile, approximately by the higher weight of the projectile body beeing responsible for this
-at around 30 degrees obliquity the performance of both shells beeing approximately the same
-at around 60 degrees obliquity the capped shell performs better by approximately the same value as it performs worser at 0 degrees.
(the hard AP-cap "suppress" the turning movement of the shell during the first phase of impact)
deflection uncapped shot at 45° obliquity

deflection uncapped shot.jpg (36.59 KiB) Viewed 557 times

deflection heavy capped shot at 45° obliquity

deflection heavy capped shot.jpg (32.82 KiB) Viewed 557 times

for this reason the capped shell takes a shorter way trough plate wich requires less energy.
ATTENTION: Cap shape and hardness of top of cap are of importance especially the edge of cap.
(too soft caps and caps without a sharp edge did not share this "feature")

[Peasant]

Surprising to see this much difference in ballistic resistance between cast and rolled armor. Even if the rolled plate is 300BHN and the cast one is 240BHN the safety thickness limit at low obliquity should only be ~5%.
Since this cast armour is much softer than the rolled plate I'm not surprised by the advantage the latter has at 0° against uncapped AP shell, as I expected it to remain mostly intact here, but even at 30° the cast armor requires 14% more thickness to protect against the same threat. This got to do with the amount of damage its able to deal to the attacking shell, as such difference is unlikely to arise only from differences in mechanical properties of the material itself.

I've realized that these curves cannot be compared directly, as the cast armour was tested at lower shell velocity than RHA: