Effects of non-explosive armor piercing rounds on tanks

KE rounds at the start of the war were steel from what I recall. Later in the war there were some tungston alloy penetrators I believe.

 

[SIZE=12.0000019073486px]Bit of clarification about HEAT -- the slug get's it energy from the jet formed by the explosive but the penetration is more dependent upon the plasma jet than the copper slug. [/SIZE]



"HESH or HEP (High Explosive Plastic I think). One is UK usage the other US I never can remember which is which."

HESH is the British designation. Trivia on HEP -- Israelis noticed HEP had same trajectory as co-ax MG in the M-60 105mm gun so they would "Index co-ax, Fire HEP" at longer ranges to drop HEP on top of tanks at 3000m ranges, beyond the effective range of the 105 sabot.

While I was at Ft. Knox they had a piece of 6" armor plate showing effects of SHOT,HEAT, HDP and Sabot rounds. I don't know what happend to it when they moved to Ft. Benning but it may be in the museum there.

 

I believe that Telly was in a Tank Destroyer, which is an open topped turret...maybe an M-10?

 

From my reading that is a false dicotomy. The penetrator is the "jet" which is a combination of solid, liquid, and plasma. Furthermore the solid components of the "jet" are responsible for most of the penetration.

 

These should've been added to the list earlier

2nd Armoured Battalion Irish Guards, GAD, Tank Casualties, 1945

4th Armoured Brigade, Tank Casualties, 1945

7th Armoured Division, Tank Casualties, 1945

8th Armoured Brigade, Tank Casualties, 1945

 

I am pretty sure the vast majority of armor piercing ammunition fired by tank guns contained high explosive fillers. The German stuff certainly did, as others have stated. The standard US made 3 inch, 75, 76, and 90 mm armor piercing rounds all contain a high explosive filler. The Soviet armor piercing stuff should be the same. The British reportedly removed the fillers from their 75 mm armor piercing shells to bypass the faulty fusing which decreased probability of penetration. The exception was tungsten carbide rounds which was limited issue in all armies.

Modern long rod perpetrators have tremendous kinetic energy and would make very hot, high speed shrapnel out of the defeated armor plating, quite apart from the incendiary properties of depleted uranium rounds.