Best Tank Destroyer/ self-propelled gun

[Soren]

As you know delcyros its not only how hard the armor is which matters, and USSR armor tended to be too hard and brittle for most of the war.

The tank with the absolute best armor of WWII is the Tiger Ausf.E with its 255 - 260 BHN RHA armor of very high quality.

 

[delcyros]

I agree. I only wanted to be specific in this event. Plate toughness is not hardeness. The harder surfaces of soviet armour (esspeccially cast) is prone to cracks from high velocity projectiles, which otherwise would not defeat the plate. The soviet armour plate is harder but not tougher. One should keep in mind armour production technicques. Very hard surfaces, which are not treated minutely tend to produce bubbles, which are not much of a problem in cast plates but in rolled ones they are flattened out over a much wider area and thus act as laminations (gaps between layers), which tend to snap the plate into two if hit.
It would- however- be totally superior against any form of uncapped projectiles, which shatter against them but by then all had hard capped APCBC´s. Still, the SU tested their plates on the trial ground still at wars end against their UNCAPPED projectiles, hence the preference for extreme hardeness. Had they tested against capped APCBC rounds, they would soon see the problem...

 

[comiso90]

jagdpanther firing at Military Odyssey Show:


View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DFeGIm65Pe0

.. aHHHH... MUSIC!

 

[Joe2]

What i meant was:

can a good mathmaticion please work out the size of a gun needed to pierce 150mm of armour

 

[comiso90]

What i meant was:

can a good mathmaticion please work out the size of a gun needed to pierce 150mm of armour

A mathimaticion could test the feasibility but anything is a guess until practically applied.

Too many factors... slant, type of armor, veloity, range, energy, weather, density etc, etc

 

[delcyros]

can a good mathmaticion please work out the size of a gun needed to pierce 150mm of armour

Can do. 150mm are easily pentrable if that armour is VERTICAL by many ww2 high velocity AT-guns.
However, if You go for the 150mm DECLINED front of the King Tiger it´s getting harder. The declination of the plate presents the projectile a more difficult angle of attack and hence only the 128mm/55 PAK 44 and 128mm/60 PAK 41 have a reasonable chance to defeat that plate using "normal" APCBC rounds (from close distance). I am not sure about the US 90mm gun (long) used in the Super-Pershing as I have no datas regarding muzzle velocity and projectile properties but I give that gun SOME possibility to achieve full penetration at favourable circumstances.

Compare:
http://www.ww2aircraft.net/forum/ww2-general/tiger-ii-front-glacis-vs-guns-4193.html

 

[Soren]

The long 90mm T15 (which its called IIRC) doesn't stand a chance against the Tiger Ausf.B's glacis plate, and with a normal APCBC round it surprisingly (Considering the MV) doesn't perform as well as the 88mm Kwk43 L/71.

 

[delcyros]

The long 90mm T15 (which its called IIRC) doesn't stand a chance against the Tiger Ausf.B's glacis plate,

You are correct. The 90mm T 15 with 3227 fps striking velocity fails to hole the sloped upper frontal hull (glacis) by more than 200 fps. Altough it may pierce the lower frontal hull from close distance (<400 yards) and may also defeat the turret face (if it doesn´t hit the mantlet) at reasonable distance (<750 yards).

 

[falcon from sweden]

My choice must be the Jagdtiger

Not the nicest but one of the most powerfull

 

[Soren]

The JagdTiger was way too cumbersome... A famous German Tank-commander (can't remember the name) called it a complete waste of resources and meant that producing this beast instead of producing more Panthers was a crime towards the soldiers at the front considering the situation they faced. Had it been a war which was fought over long range on huge grassy plains then it would've been perfect, but thats not how the fighting took place.

 

[SoD Stitch]

Definitely Jagdpanther or Jagdtiger . . . in terms of "practicality", it would be the Jagdpanther; possibly the best all-around tank destroyer of the War.

But ya gotta love a 128mm cannon that'll destroy almost anything at extreme range. Yes, the Jagdtiger wasn't very manueverable; but by the end of the War, the Germans didn't need manueverability, just armor firepower, which the Jagdtiger had in spades. Most of the Jagdtigers "lost" during the War were abandoned by their crews due to lack of ammunintion, lack of fuel, or both. One Jagdtiger was abandoned on a road and held up an advancing American armored column until they could cut a path around it through the bordering forest. Even abandoned, the Jagdtiger did it's job.

 

[RAGMAN]

I have always liked the hetzer.Small but strong,easy to conceal too.

 

[Nachtmahr]

They don't get much more impressive than this.

The SturmTiger

 

[MacArther]

Yeah, and they don't get any more useless. First off, the thing weighed more than the King Tiger if I remmber correctly. Secondly they had something like 12 280mm rounds on board, and once that was exausted, the crane at the back had to be used to load more rounds. Good weapon for blowing up fortifications and bunkers, but in close combat against more manueverable and numerous tanks, its going to be over run very quickly.

 

[Denniss]

The Sturmtiger weighted about 5t less than the Königstiger. The crane was always needed to reload the mortar shell.

It is rumored that a Sturmtiger destroyer or disabled three Shermans with a single shot. Round hit between the tanks and destroyed one and heavily damaged at least two others, probably flipped over from blast.

 

[SoD Stitch]

The Sturmtiger weighted about 5t less than the Königstiger. The crane was always needed to reload the mortar shell.

It is rumored that a Sturmtiger destroyer or disabled three Shermans with a single shot. Round hit between the tanks and destroyed one and heavily damaged at least two others, probably flipped over from blast.

Entirely possible, but the Sturmtiger was anything but accurate; you have to remember the thing was originally designed to take out fortifications and troop concentrations, not pinpoint targets, like tanks. The Sturmtiger mentioned was probably aiming at something else when it took out those Shermans.

 

[Civettone]

That last bit I doubt. If a Sturmtiger (or any tank) would have come across three Shermans it would have fired at those, unless it was looking for its own destruction. I can hardly believe they would disregard Shermans at close range and carry on with taking out some kind of fortification.

Kris

 

[Civettone]

I would also like to make a case for these two projected tank destroyers. Not only would they have been very effective, they were also a lot easier to produce than their predecessors.
The E-10:

and the E-25:

Kris

 

[SoD Stitch]

I would also like to make a case for these two projected tank destroyers. Not only would they have been very effective, they were also a lot easier to produce than their predecessors.
The E-10:

and the E-25:

Kris

I was always partial to the E-100 myself . . .

 

[comiso90]

I like the E-10... u cant have a silhouette much lower than that.

German Tank Destroyer E-10

reminds me of a cross between a Hetzer and a Swedish S tank


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