KBO wrote:
Another thing that must be remembered is that the APDS rounds made by Britain were better for penetation than the APCR rounds made by Germany, but it was not because the germans couldnt make thier APCR rounds penetrate more, but they just werent prepared to offer accuracy for it like the British.
The early APDS rounds certainly suffered in dispersion (i.e. target range accuracy) although they recovered this to some extent because the very high velocity gave them a flat trajectory and a short flight time, both useful in minimising the effects of aiming errors.
But the british only got this by offering Accuracy for penetration in thier designs wich ment that the APDS rounds made by Britain seldern were used beyond 1000m... These designs were also used by the americans.
Not as far as I know - the US used APCR rather than APDS.
The germans rather wanted a higher penetration compined with also higher accuracy, wich ment they had to make compromises wich also ment a lesser penetration than possible traded for higher accuracy...
There were some interesting trade-offs made with APCR design. You could go for a heavy APCR which had much the same ballistics as the APCBC but offered better penetration at all ranges (as the Americans preferred) or you could go for a light very high-velocity APCR which gave much better penetration at short range but lost this more quickly at longer ranges (which is what the Germans generally preferred).
But when using APBC ammo wich was the best AT ammo in ww2 (because of blast effect after pen), the german guns were far superior too any allied counterpart....
Yes, when the fuzes worked properly - which wasn't that easy. The British found the base-fuzed APHE shells so unreliable that they didn't bother with them and relied on solid AP shot only. The Americans used APHE.
No Tankgun used during ww2 using APBC ammo could penetrate as much armor as the 88mm L/71 gun mounted on the TigerII.. "Reason" because of the Extreemly High kenetic energy developed by the 88mm L/71 gun, this energy was unsurpassed by any tankgun in the world, until a good time after ww2
Well, the British 32 pdr AT gun, which was based on the 3.7 inch (94mm) AA gun, developed slightly more muzzle energy than the 88mm L/71. This gun was made experimentally during WW2 and also fitted into the 70-ton Tortoise SPG, but not used operationally. Three years after WW2 ended, the British also introduced the 20 pdr tank gun in the Centurion III tank. This was a much smaller and lighter weapon of 83.5mm calibre, but generated almost exactly the same muzzle energy as the 88mm L/71 - and it had a more accurate APDS available from the start.
Tony Williams