Technichly this isn’t for armor, but I figured you would be the best guys to ask. I need to simulate heavy damage, like that of a anti armor missle hitting it’s target (like a tow missle) I dont want it to be a totally destroyed piece more like just taking a section of it out, like a crater in the armor
Anti-armor rounds don’t make much of a hole… Pretty insignificant as a matter of fact… HEAT leaves a hole that’s kinda ragged and small, while AP just punches a hole the size of the round… Kinetic Energy rounds are about the same as AP.
The damage comes from the jet of molten steel that sprays inside the tank… Shot gouges (rounds that hit but don’t penetrate just leave a small “crater” a little bigger than the round’s diameter, or dig a “trough” if they’re glancing shots…
look through here:
http://images.google.com/images?hl=en&q=Anti+Tank+hits&gbv=2
how would I do that kind of damage?
A bazooka round or Panzerfaust hit would leave a hole about the size of a dime in armor plate. There would be searing around the impact area but that’s all.
For AP and APFSDS (SABOT) kinetic penetrating rounds, they leave a small hole from either the round or the penetrator and have minor melting around the hole.
To replicate them, drill a hole the size of the round and slightly melt around the hole.
HEAT rounds and AT Rockets penetrate by a molten jet from a shaped charge (RPG, PanzerFuast, Bazooka, TOW, Javelin, AT-4, etc.) The hole is usually about the size of a quarter and there is radial spalling, gouging, and burn marks coming from the hole.
It can be replicated by drilling a small hole and then melting it a little with a soldering iron. Also use the soldering iron to make the spall marks. You can make grooves from deflected rounds with the soldering iron as well.
If you don’t have a soldering iron, a sewing needle, or even a piece of wire, held in a pliers and heated red-hot will suffice to make both the hole and the spalling marks…
If thats all the damage they do, why didnt they just make the armor plating thicker and completly neutralise these AT-AP rounds
You’re just seeing the damage to the armor… The damage it does to the crew and ammo, getting sprayed with red-hot and molten steel that sets off the ammo and shreds the crew is what you don’t see…
In the fight between armor and warhead, the warhead is always ahead of the armor…
It’s pretty simple why they don’t make the armor thicker, Smeagol… Weight… Engines & transmissions have to be able to move that weight around, and the more weight, the more HP you need… There’s a limit on how heavy something can be and still move… Not to mention, they have to be rail, water, and air transportable, and be able to cross bridges… At 66 tons, the M1-series is about as heavy as things wll get, IMHO… The secret to defeating HEAT is the Chobham armor, or spaced armor if you will… Kinetic energy rounds like the 120mm SABOT round will defeat all known armor you know… And it’s pure speed and mass that does it. There’s no explosive in the Silver Bullet…
Nothing in life or engineering is free. If you layer on thick enough armor to make the tank literally impervious, it would weigh so much that it couldn’t move.
What kind of rounds do tanks fire, do they use AP rounds like that or…? What kind of rounds just blow hunks of the tank appart?
It depends on the type of tank and type of ammo. The most common now are HEAT and AP kinetic penetrators.
The Brits also liked using HESH (High Explosive Squash Head) rounds. HESH is a hard case w/soft, plastic explosive inside. When they impacted, they splatted on the hull like putty, then detonated. This causes a large chunk of the interior to splinter and send chunks of metal flying around the interior, shredding most things in their way. The HESH round is pretty much obsoleet now with advanced armor and ERA blocks defeating them.
Most tank kills are as described above w/HEAT and kinetic energy penetrators though.
Artillery will blow a tank and softer pieces of it apart though. A direct hit can penetrate the hull depending on where it hits too. Artillery usually kills by firing HE (High Explosive) rounds that burts as airburst or on impact and destroy things by fracturing the metal case and sending large chunks of razor sharp metal flying through the air. These pieces, called schrapnel, will cut through most softskin and lightly armored vehicles. Also, the blast overpressure will liquify soft tissue (people), shred sheet metal pieces, and blow apart weld seams, etc.
What exactly are you looking to depict?
Its for a scifi build I’m working on. More or less a 100 or so mm cannon shell hitting an armored vehichle.
It depends on the type of shell and the type of armor. A 100mm HEAT round will slice through rolled steel armor no problem. It will barely make a dent in modern Chobham and depleted uraniam armor like the Abrams has though.
Whats chobam?
Chobham armour is a multi-layer laminate composed of layers of steel armour plate, ceramic and other materials, and is primarily designed to resist hollow charge (HEAT) type warheads. On the Abrams it has been supplemented with DU (depleted uranium) armour, making it more effective against KE (kinetic energy) penetrators too.
What kind of rounds would a tank fire if its trying to break through something that doesnt have personal inside (so you cant use that heat stuff to kill whatevers inside with molten metal)
Smeagol,
I wasn’t an armor guy, just a grunt machine gunner, however I spent quite a few years of my Law Enforcement career in the Bomb Squad. The amount of energy transferred by any one of the described rounds is tremendous. The effects inside the tank, are profound. Quite frankly manned or unmanned matters not as the end result will be a disabled AFV. Dude we’re talking molten metal, high density penetrators, extreme overpressure, etc etc etc. Get my point?
Chobham armor is by the way named after the town in England where it was developed.
True, its just you see all these pics of damaged tanks and stuff, especially in the wwii photos with massive holes and hunks blown out of them
It’s not necessarily the round striking the target that does the most damage. In a lot of those situations (ie pics of blown up WW2 tanks), the initial penetration may have cracked or otherwise weakened the armour. Secondary internal detonations (think fuel, ammo etc) can literally blow a tank apart at the seams, blow out panels, blow out broken/cracked armour.
I see I see, thank you