Tank Busting Armaments... Whats The Best Setup???

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lesofprimus said:
Unfortunatly (or fortunatly), not very many aircraft could carry the Mk103 on the wing......

The only one i know off the top of my head was the Fw 190A8/R3 and the Fw 190F3/R3, both of which carried them in under-wing gondolas....
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These proved unsuccessful and very few were fielded, and all were converted to some other configuration fairly quickly. The gun just had too much recoil.

I agree the MK103 firing AP ammo could defeat almost any tank (possible exception - JS-II/III).

=S=

Lunatic
 
It could most likely defeat the IS-2 as well, it's top armour wasn't anything to go nuts about. I don't know about the IS-3 because the 'frying pan' turret was a well protected shape, but that never saw service.
 
plan_D said:
It could most likely defeat the IS-2 as well, it's top armour wasn't anything to go nuts about. I don't know about the IS-3 because the 'frying pan' turret was a well protected shape, but that never saw service.
Click to expand...

Top armor on the IS-2 was 30mm and of excellent quality. Given a reasonable angle of attack of about 30 degrees or less (0 degrees being perpendicular) this was enough to stop the MK103. The 190 could not dive steeper than this in such an attack, 30 degrees is quite generous.

=S=

Lunatic
 
Have you just stated that the IS-2 armour was of excellent quality. Where did you get this information, might I ask?
The IS-2s armour was of extremely poor quality, it collapsed on many an occasion. It was never rectified either. The IS-2 was designed to be invincible to German tanks, but the poor quality on the thick armour did not provide this invulnerability.
 
The lighter, more compact and faster-firing MK 103 used a hybrid gas+recoil system and was belt-fed. Various AP rounds were used, but the most effective was the Hartkernmunition, which had a penetrating core of tungsten carbide sheathed in a light-alloy shell with a sharply-pointed profile. This could penetrate 75-90 mm / 300 m / 90 degrees (depending on the type of armour), dropping to 42-52 mm when impacting at 60 degrees.

Tony Williams
 

Everything I've seen says that Soviet armor plate in 1944 was of decent quality, though not as good as the German armor because of the quality of the seams. Still, 30 mm of such armor was more than enough to protect against an MK103 given realistic attack angles.

=S=

Lunatic
 
No, you'll find that Soviet armour was not of decent quality at all. It was shoddy workmanship by the hands of over-worked and malnurished workers.
The IS-2 was a tank to suffer greatly from it. A short section from 'Russian Tanks of World War II : Stalins Armoured Might' (which I believe is quite bias towards Soviet armour, but it provides good information).


"Russian Tanks of World War II - Stalins Armoured Might" - Tim Bean and Will Flower. (2002)

The late war German armour was inferior to the armour before it, due to Allied bombing and shortages of manganese. Although, I've read countless times it didn't come into effect until late 1944.
 
Another thing is the material of the armour, wich not always is Steel.

The cast iron is more easy to pierce than steel

The russian many times used the cast iron for his tank turrets. This material is not actually steel, being much more fragile and with tendency to crack by nature. The only advantage is that is more easy to handle in hot than steel, forming the turret in one step. The germans used only the welded contruccion, this is cutting steel plates forming the turret and the hull, keeping it together with electric welding. The lack of manganese was solved in part increasing the amount of chrome and carbon in the alloy.

That diferent contruccions can explain some of the catastrofical failures seeing in the russian tanks when it got hit.

Example:

In March of 1943, during a tank battle around Belgorod, Rudel knocked out his first tank with his new tank-busting Stuka - After a single pass and four shots "... I feel my rear gunner shout who said that the tank exploded like a bomb and he had seen bits of it crashing down behind us." (Hans-Ulrich Rudel).
 
The Germans used high-carbon steel alloyed with nickel in an attempt to replace the shortage of manganese. It was brittle, but better than nothing. It certainly didn't make up for it.
 

Which would be less than 30 mm at 30 degrees, penetration drops off more than proprotionally to the change in angle. And by 300 meters range the angle of attack would likely be even less than 30 degrees.

Also, Hartkermunition ammo was extremely rare - tungsten was in very limited supply by 1944 (the time of the JS-II). Most that was available was consigned to machine tool bits with which make armor rather than 30 mm class ammo to attack it. What tungston was used for penetrators was utilized in 75 mm and 88 mm class weapons, not in large numbers of small caliber 30mm class rounds (most of which would be wasted).

=S=

Lunatic
 

Cast iron is not "easier to peirce" than steel. It is easier to shatter. Cast iron is much harder than typical steel, but also more brittle. It is more likely to resist penetration, but also more likely to splinter or shatter.

By the time of the Tiger and Panther tanks German steel used for tank armor was not of the best quality either. Typically it was below 200 brinell, too soft to effectively resist penetration. The Germans countered this by using even thicker plates.

Also, the Germans used bolts a lot too, not just arc welding. And by late 1944 the Russian's had significant supplies of high quality steel alloy's from the USA which were utilized in some of their tanks.

=S=

Lunatic
 
CharlesBronson said:
Excuse me...

The part that I wrote "This material is not actually steel, being much more fragile and with tendency to crack by nature" mean something to you..?

Click to expand...

Yes... but

CharlesBronson said:
The cast iron is more easy to pierce than steel
Click to expand...

Also means something... and this part is wrong. The point is cast iron is probably more likely to fully defeat a flat angle hit (30 degrees or less) than is steel because of its hardness.

=S=

Lunatic
 
interesting thought on the Tungsten cored rounds via being a rare commodity. Seems that the SG 9 equipped with MK 103 Hs 129's had enough to go around as witnessed by their successful Geschwader history as well as the Panzerstaffels flying 3.7cm equipped Ju 87G-1's with SG 2, 3, 77 till wars end.

E ~
 
I should say " the cast iron is less resistent to impact than steel"

But still I do prefer be protected for a steel plate,.. let say a SAE 8620 face hardened, and not the shitty cast iron. ( I say shitty because I have to turn and drill bars of this material many times and is really dirty)
 

The tungsten tipped rounds were not used exclusively by these units, and were not necessary to kill the target tanks. And, there were relatively few of these aircraft in service anyway.
 
Expend tugsten core amunition on aircraft is a very expensive bussines.

But even in 15 mm there was a version of the Hartkermunition. Is the H panzergranate from Mauser Heavy machinegun ( not cannon ) Mg-151/15.
15x96mm.




 

Wouldn't 8620 steel would be too hard for good armor, IIRC it's rated up around 400 Brinell. Isn't it stainless as well?

I'm not sure you can compare modern steels to what was avialable to Germany in WWII, smelting, heat treating, and alloying processes have come a long way. Also, I've seen a fair number of discussions of armor quality that seem to indicate that face hardened plates were generally not worth it except in very thick ship applications.

The best tank armor possible in WWII, as far as I know, would have consisted of layered plates of US tempered steel armor. You sometimes see photos of Sherman's with as many as three 1" plates on the front, though no tank was constructed using it. That stuff was increadibly good (both hard and good ductility), but limited to flat ~1 inch or thinner plates because of the requirements for back-tempering it. It was mostly used in aircraft armor.

=S=

Lunatic
 
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