Soviet 85mm shells and performance?

[ThatZenoGuy]

So I've been reading some conflicting information on soviet munitions, in this case 85mm projectiles used by their tanks.

As I understand it there are several projectiles, although I am not sure if any are fake or redudant names.

BR-365
BR-365A
BR-365K

The first two are what confuses me, they're both APHEBC as I understand it, 'blunt nosed' with a ballistic cap and with an alleged 160 grams of explosive filler. Is this true? It seems like a rather massive amount for a projectile it's size, where under 60 is more usual.

And is there any difference between the two? Did either of them not actually exist and is just a name for the other?

And lastly the K shell being a 'sharp nosed' shell with much less filler, something like 70-80 grams. Did this come before or after the A shell? Was it superior? Why did either type exist?

[Mobius]

I don't know what the BR-365A is.

[ThatZenoGuy]

I don't know what the BR-365A is.

So THAT shell might be the mystery one. Its designation in War Thunder is APHEBC, so I guess its just a renamed BR-365?

[Mobius]

So THAT shell might be the mystery one. Its designation in War Thunder is APHEBC, so I guess its just a renamed BR-365?

I have a Soviet manual date of 1979 for the 85mm D-44 that has ballistic and penetration data of a BR-367 shell.
I also have US manual Foreign Firing Table FT-F-50 dated 1951 which has no BR-367 shell.

[Peasant]

From what I know about the performance of blunt tipped shell BR-365 and the sharp tipped BR-365K (I haven't seen any mention of "BR-365A" shell in any historical documents or book on the era), it seems that the sharp tipped shells were just strictly inferior to blunt ones because even though former were more efficient against homogeneous armour, because of lack of windshield they lost velocity faster and in almost every case the distance at which they were able to reliably defeat a given target (like, for example, Tiger I armour) was in fact shorter.

This begs the question why soviets used them in first place? Something tells there are things we don't know yet about soviet side, even more than 70 years after the war. We see plenty of documentation declassified, but little in the way of body related to research and testing of domestic equipment. Maybe the blunt tipped shells had some weakness we cannot see because the limited amount of data we have.

[Mobius]

If you look at the penetration curve the BR-365K will penetrate a bit more than the BR-365 at under 500m.

[Peasant]

If you look at the penetration curve the BR-365K will penetrate a bit more than the BR-365 at under 500m.

I always wondered why the penetration figures of other soviet sharp tipped shells(BR-271K,BR-412,BR-471) were not calculated with K=2275 if they really were that effective. Possibly because the results of the trial with BR-365K were just a fluke?