Armor quality of the Tiger I

[Michael Kenny]

Do you know where this picture was taken from?

It appears to be a grab from Pinterest so I am guessing the poster has no info on the context..


It is sPz Abt 507 (100% certain) and there is an earlier photo of what could be the same tank (60% possibility). There are differences so it is not a given but in this photo the damage is clearly caused by standard demo charges carried by the Tiger.

[Yoozername]

Maybe you need to put your nose closer to the screen? That isn't the same tank. LOL. 60% possibility. Too funny.

Track damage is different. Front wheel damage is different. Cupola damage is different. Driver's roof area is different. Actual hull seam is different. Mud guards different. I am surprised it took me more than a minute to notice these..

[Michael Kenny]

Maybe you need to put your nose closer to the screen? That isn't the same tank. LOL. 60% possibility. Too funny.

Track damage is different. Front wheel damage is different. Cupola damage is different. Driver's roof area is different.

You missed the most obvious difference. One that could not be explained by later movement of the wreck.

[Yoozername]

from a Tiger commander...to put a charge in that driver's area seems very odd.

gaykenny.jpg (93.08 KiB) Viewed 2393 times

[Michael Kenny]

Maybe you need to put your nose closer to the screen? That isn't the same tank. LOL. 60% possibility. Too funny.

Mud guards different.

Not necessarily so. It is possible that a section was removed between photos. You can only say for certain a piece would not be added.

[Yoozername]

(sad...kenny thinks he has found a friend)

[Avalancheon]

I had some free time today, and felt like doing something unique for a change. I wanted to estimate the velocity of the 6 pdr gun at various distances. I used the tried and true ''World War II Ballistics'' for help with this.

Unfortunately, their calculation is over complicated and does not work. I certainly can't extract relevant numbers out of their method. The fact that Bird and Livingston didn't actually show an example of how to use their calculation certainly doesn't help. The reader is left to figure things out for themselves...

[Mobius]

I had some free time today, and felt like doing something unique for a change. I wanted to estimate the velocity of the 6 pdr gun at various distances. I used the tried and true ''World War II Ballistics'' for help with this.

Unfortunately, their calculation is over complicated and does not work. I certainly can't extract relevant numbers out of their method. The fact that Bird and Livingston didn't actually show an example of how to use their calculation certainly doesn't help. The reader is left to figure things out for themselves...

That seems fairly straight forward as a logarithmic velocity decay. The actual ballistic formula is more complicated. But, for the 6 pdr velocity at various ranges it is best to go to the source and ask whelm if he can post British ballistic graphs: OB/CV 37, and OB/CV 39. Here is CV25.

[Avalancheon]

That seems fairly straight forward as a logarithmic velocity decay. The actual ballistic formula is more complicated. But, for the 6 pdr velocity at various ranges it is best to go to the source and ask whelm if he can post British ballistic graphs: OB/CV 37, and OB/CV 39. Here is CV25.
6_pdr_AP_CV25.jpg

Thanks for the chart, Mobius! Thats exactly what I needed.

I had previously asked Mr. Kenny if he had such a chart, but it seems he was uninterested

[Michael Kenny]

I had previously asked Mr. Kenny if he had such a chart, but it seems he was uninterested

I am a simple soul.
I don't need no stinkin' graphs

If I want to know if anti-tank gun X can penetrate tank Y I look for examples of tank Y with holes from gun X.
If I find such then its game over for me. If it happened then I have no need to try and work out if it is theoretically possible.

That said here a bone for you.

[Yoozername]

That is simply ridiculous. Then again, its your movie (or blurry pictures), inside the movie, inside your head. Hopefully, the thespians (inside your head), find you less ridiculous....

That bone is just proof the armor didn't crack...without range or velocity, it is mostly just titillating to you.

[Don Juan]

Notice that in all cases the plate was dislodged completely from the hull. This points towards the possibility that the connection between hull and plate was somewhat intentionally designed as a weak path in order to predefine a more benign failure path in damaged condition.
Propellant is stored in these sponsons and if the burn can vent early, there is no large pressure build up and the burning rate will remain sufficiently low as to preclude catastrophic overpressure. An intentionally weak plate connection here will contribute to venting outwards rather than invards to the turret, particularly past the choke point of pressure build up. Propellant fires are exercises of gradual to rapid pressure increase. For openings not specifically designed to pass gas efficiently the rate of flow will be quite high until the gas becomes supersonic, at which point the vent tends to 'Choke‘. Past that point, the pressure builds up rapidly to the point of critical failure- either this connection fails or the turret get blown out.

I think it would be impossible, even nowadays, to design a weld that was deliberately weak so as to allow an armour plate to entirely "pop off" in order to prevent a build up of internal pressure without so weakening the structure so as to make it more vulnerable to external attack. Such a strategy would also indicate the presumption that any attacker would not have sufficient ammunition to fire an extra shot into open side of the tank once the plate had been dislodged.

What is notable about the photos of the Tigers with the side plate dislodged is that the dislodged plate itself is not in the picture. This means that the best you can say is that this panel was particularly convenient for the Allies to remove for armour testing. It is at least as likely, however, that the welding for this panel was below par.

[critical mass]

I don’t think it was impossible. It’s probably even underappreciated how long this has been part of the structural design considerations. Mr.Jurens stressed that even pre WW1, Naval turrets were designed with intentionally weak connections of some members to facilitate venting in a damaged case. Krupp certainly considered this too, judging by BAMA sources detailing the venting of SEYDLITZ. With mixed success. I inferred the possibility from the observation that all tigers with missing sponson plate burned down, yet they had their turret still in place, rather than blown out. The degree of heat exposure involved a severe temper embrittlement to the plate, and this somewhat contradicts the possibility of salvage for the purpose of armor testing.

[Don Juan]

Yes, but how do you make the welds amenable to internal pressure but resistant to e.g. non penetrating external HE impacts? Even if this was possible, you would need to ensure 100% conformity in production, therefore more intensive inspection etc.

This may be worthwhile on a battleship, but on a mere tank? It seems excessive to me.

[critical mass]

It´s a technical question, and not too dissimilar to the problem of navy turret roofs. AP (or for that matter HE) strikes come from extern and put pressure on the plate and it´s connections along a different plane and from a different direction and regime than propellant pressure buildt up slowly (at first) from within. It´s not too difficult to provide constructional solutions for angular connectors which become weak from attack of one direction and strong in resistence to attack from a different one.
The opened weld line of the TIGER sponson side plate, which did not completely seperated shows this, along with failure of the sponson side plate / to front plate connectors, it also failed along all it´s connections with the thinner roof plates. The hull roof plates, originally connected with the sponson side plates bend up by overpressure (caused by, what cannot be anything else than overpressure from the ammunition storage in the sponsons underneath them) with the largest gaps beeing between at what previously had been the connection to the side plate, implicating that the rupture first originated along the connection with the side sponson plate. This appears to me as a desirable failure once the ammunition caught fire.
However, unless primary source evidence gives support also from the document side, I would hesitate to state this in anything else than an informal board. What I intended to point out with this is, that one should be open to view weld failures with consideration paid to more aspects than rigidity of the weld under attack. Welds are constructional components of the hull and therefore, one might argue that the reduction in focus on ballistic factors to judge wwlds may not be to their full credit.