Armor Protection Question

Soldier · 04-13-2007, 11:15 PM,

Question for you experts on, armor piercing shells versus armor plating.

Playing Tiger Valley as axis. One of my Tiger (1) PzVIE (early) tanks has fired three shots, at a M3 Grand tank, from 98 meters, give or take a meter. All three shots hit the Grand's small 37mm gun turret.

First shell broke up. Second shell ricochet and the third one achieved only a minor penetration, at a weak point.

The Grants frontal turret armor is 76mm thick and slopes at 47 degrees. The sloping accounts for the second shell ricocheting.

In my novice opinion, each one of the other two hits, should have ripped that small turret right off the tank's hull!?

Were the M3 Grants really this tough?
Namely the turret, built to house such a small gun..

RedDevil · 04-14-2007, 12:13 AM,

Those Grants (British version) are MUCH tougher than the Lee (US version) Versions and that is a stout plate of armor at the angle.

I like using them hull down and letting the Germans bounce rounds off them while another tank shoots theirs up from a different area.

Wild Bill · 04-14-2007, 12:35 AM,

The 47 degree slope accounts for alot if you scored turret hits all three times.

76mm of armor at a 47 degree pitch is the equivilent of ~104mm of armor that is perpendicular to the incoming round.

X = Plate Thickness/Sin(Angle of Slope)

103.917 mm = 76 mm/Sin(47 degrees)

Soldier · 04-14-2007, 02:27 AM,

Thanks guys, for your explanation!
It's the range of less than a hundred yards. Just could not believe the results.. :-)

bluehand · 04-14-2007, 05:38 AM,

there's a good chance he may have suffered gun damage. some times you (the opponent) can't tell until you notice he ain't shooting back...

Soldier · 04-14-2007, 01:43 PM,

Yes, in fact the M3 Grant's 37mm gun was and is trained about a thirty degrees away from my Tiger tank. Indicating the gun unusable.

BTW.. the other weird think I've noticed about these unique tanks. Their main gun did not engage my Tiger at all. Dueled with three of'em by now, destroying two thus far and none used their howitzers to fire with, etc..
Why??

Fubar · 04-14-2007, 08:00 PM,

Soldier Wrote:......
BTW.. the other weird think I've noticed about these unique tanks. Their main gun did not engage my Tiger at all. Dueled with three of'em by now, destroying two thus far and none used their howitzers to fire with, etc..
Why??

I'm facing these guys in one of my games against Andre, they are kicking my PZIV's all over the place with some mean eyed shooting. I've also noticed their main hasn't fired at my tanks but i have seen it fire at my infantry....does that main gun have AP rounds?

cheers

RedDevil · 04-14-2007, 09:36 PM,

it has AP, but you have to be entirely exposed to shoot that main gun, if you're hulldown, only the Little gun can shoot.
I also think the 37 has better armor penetration than the 75 short and would prefer to use it anyways saving the 75 for softies.

Soldier · 04-14-2007, 10:07 PM,

The two M3 I've destroyed thus far were positioned on e paved road in perfectly flat terrain. Weirder yet, during the two minute duel, they've faced my tank at almost a 45 degree angle. I had a 50 percent chance hitting the frontal and or side armor..
Were those two crews dumb/green? :-)

Mad Russian · (This post was last modified: 04-15-2007, 07:19 AM by Mad Russian.)

Soldier Wrote:Yes, in fact the M3 Grant's 37mm gun was and is trained about a thirty degrees away from my Tiger tank. Indicating the gun unusable.

BTW.. the other weird think I've noticed about these unique tanks. Their main gun did not engage my Tiger at all. Dueled with three of'em by now, destroying two thus far and none used their howitzers to fire with, etc..
Why??

If one gun on the Grant is usuable so is the other. Just a fact of life in CMAK.

What is interesting is that in many cases a large caliber shell like that would cause the armour to weaken when hit in the same area multiple times..there is a term for that which escapes me at the moment...and CM doesn't model that.

Something else that often happened is that the turret could be blown off but not necessarily penetrated. There are many examples of this happening when large caliber HE weapons achieve hits on tanks. The blast of the shell seperating the turret from the tank.

In the early engagments between T-34's and Tiger I's the Tiger crews had a saying...T-34's tip their hats to the Tigers. In other words the turrets were blown clear off of the tanks.

This is not modeled in CM either.

Good Hunting.

MR