Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

So I saw a simulation video on YouTube and it has the shell up against a T72. There was one against a Maus as well which actually did a little better than the T72. 😄 Now, the thing does go through the front armour but only just. In fact it looked like it does worse than a lot of other projectiles.

Now, this is just the impact of the shell and not the part where it goes boom. I am still looking for a video that shows what would happen if an Iowa hit an Abrams. 😄

But is that right? You’d assume that a big shell fired from a big gun would achieve a better outcome. Like I saw one video from the Gulf War where this guy could put his finger through the entry hole on this T72 and outwardly the tank looked fine; but everything inside was scrambled when they had a look. Is there just some very complex physics involved here that means you don’t need a sixteen inch shell to get this result?

It could also be a scale thing because the shell is punching a much larger hole than the smaller shell and having move a lot more armour out of the way?

The small entry hole is from a shaped charge - basically if you make a cone (or other complex shape) of explosives the explosion sort of pushes in from all sides and superheats a piece of copper or other material that melts through the hull.

Big shells don't use that method of action - they rely on a big explosion (usually 30-40 pounds of TNT or equivalent).

 ScarletRose wrote:
The small entry hole is from a shaped charge - basically if you make a cone (or other complex shape) of explosives the explosion sort of pushes in from all sides and superheats a piece of copper or other material that melts through the hull.

Big shells don't use that method of action - they rely on a big explosion (usually 30-40 pounds of TNT or equivalent).

How do you get something hot enough to melt steel or whatever it is instantly? I thought you needed massive industrial blast furnaces to do that slowly? Plus a guy can just be standing next to molten metal perfectly fine so how would you stop the heat dissipating immediately? Also, couldn’t just put a piece of slate over the tank or would it be hot enough to melt rock?

How much bang is 30-40 pounds of TNT.

 ScarletRose wrote:
The small entry hole is from a shaped charge - basically if you make a cone (or other complex shape) of explosives the explosion sort of pushes in from all sides and superheats a piece of copper or other material that melts through the hull.

Big shells don't use that method of action - they rely on a big explosion (usually 30-40 pounds of TNT or equivalent).

You're off by about half an order of magnitute: The Iowa's explosive shells carry about 150lbs of explosives. The armor piercing shells are the ones that carry only about 40lbs, relying mostly on being a giant block of high speed metal to blow through around two feet of armor. Mind, even if the 16" shell somehow didn't penetrate an Abram's armor (it's got about 20" of it at best angle), the sheer size of the blast would kill the tank rather effectively by spalling and just concussive force turning the crew into jelly (and also flipping the tank on its back or burying it twenty feet in the ground).

Anti armour weapons can be lumped into 3 specific types I think. Shaped charge, kinetic penetrator and explosive impact

Kinetic penetrators tend to be hard and narrow and fired really fast to punch holes in things

Shaped charges use special explosive effects to create a really effective plasma spear







And explosive effect weapons are either big enough to crush their way through the armour with explosive force, or make stuff inside the armour fly off and shred the interior and the crew (see spalling)


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I would imagine that the sheer momentum of a battleship shell would do a fair amount of damage even before the thing goes boom.

 Laughing Man wrote:

You're off by about half an order of magnitute: The Iowa's explosive shells carry about 150lbs of explosives. The armor piercing shells are the ones that carry only about 40lbs, relying mostly on being a giant block of high speed metal to blow through around two feet of armor. Mind, even if the 16" shell somehow didn't penetrate an Abram's armor (it's got about 20" of it at best angle), the sheer size of the blast would kill the tank rather effectively by spalling and just concussive force turning the crew into jelly (and also flipping the tank on its back or burying it twenty feet in the ground).

During the Battle of Mobile Bay, the Confederate ironclad Tennessee was set upon by the Union squadron. As was the custom, they closed the iron doors while reloading to protect the crew. The armor was proof against Union shot and shell, but eventually all the doors jammed shut. An engineer leaned against one of them, trying to pry it open and a Union shot hit the outside of the plate. The concussive impact shattered his bones, and his remains were scooped up in a bucket to get them out of the way.

So yeah, the tank would be demolished simply by the weight and velocity of impact and the crew would be turned into goo.

You need a blast furnace to melt lots of material. If you have lest material you need less energy to melt it, and explosions happen so quickly that all of tue heat that gets dumped into the copper lining of the shaped charge doesnt have time to dissipate. A shaped charge plasma jet is only effective over quite short distances, like a couple of hundred mm. that’s enough to get inside the tank armour and mess up the fragile gubbinz inside, like the crew and equipment.

 Flinty wrote:
You need a blast furnace to melt lots of material. If you have lest material you need less energy to melt it, and explosions happen so quickly that all of tue heat that gets dumped into the copper lining of the shaped charge doesnt have time to dissipate. A shaped charge plasma jet is only effective over quite short distances, like a couple of hundred mm. that’s enough to get inside the tank armour and mess up the fragile gubbinz inside, like the crew and equipment.

This is why spaced armor became a thing. If it impacts on the outer plate, the jet hits the main armor and the space in between is enough for the jet to dissipate.

In Iraq they put slats on the outside of vehicles for this purpose. The slats were spaced so that the projectiles would detonate, but the gaps gave better visibility.

Reactive armor is another solution to disrupt the jet.

And that led to dual penetrator munitions, where the first explosion clears the spaces armour allowing the second charge to get the juicy stuff behind. I actually feel a bit weird putting it in those terms given The sheer number of these things being used in anger in Ukraine just now.

It’s fun with two silly guys in a quarry with some mannequins. Not so fun when they get used for their actual purpose :(

 Flinty wrote:
And that led to dual penetrator munitions, where the first explosion clears the spaces armour allowing the second charge to get the juicy stuff behind. I actually feel a bit weird putting it in those terms given The sheer number of these things being used in anger in Ukraine just now.

It’s fun with two silly guys in a quarry with some mannequins. Not so fun when they get used for their actual purpose :(

It's all fun and games until someone loses an eye. Or their head. Or their husband.

Wargamers spill tons of imaginary blood, but when push comes to shove, it's not just a game played over beer and pretzels.

 Totalwar1402 wrote:
I am still looking for a video that shows what would happen if an Iowa hit an Abrams.

The tank ceases to exist.

The Abrams has a 120mm gun firing either a ~30kg HE shell or a ~5-10kg sabot round at ~1750m/s.

The Iowa's 16" (406mm) guns are firing a 2700kg shell at ~750m/s. That's 50 times more muzzle energy than the 120mm sabot round, a round which is designed to kill comparable enemy tanks. Even if the tank's armor somehow holds together the sheer shock of impact is going to mission kill it without any doubt. The tank's only hope is that the battleship isn't designed to engage something as small as a tank with its main guns and is unlikely to score a direct hit before the tank can run away.

And just to make it clear what level of firepower we're talking about, this is a shell crater from a battleship main gun decades after the bombardment:

Aecus Decimus wrote:


And just to make it clear what level of firepower we're talking about, this is a shell crater from a battleship main gun decades after the bombardment:

Most army "heavy artillery" would be (at most) a secondary armament for warships.

The concussive shock from 155mm HE shells was considered lethal to most tanks - or their crews. I mean, if you flip the thing upside down, how much of a threat is it?

Commissar von Toussaint wrote:

 Flinty wrote:
And that led to dual penetrator munitions, where the first explosion clears the spaces armour allowing the second charge to get the juicy stuff behind. I actually feel a bit weird putting it in those terms given The sheer number of these things being used in anger in Ukraine just now.

It’s fun with two silly guys in a quarry with some mannequins. Not so fun when they get used for their actual purpose :(

It's all fun and games until someone loses an eye. Or their head. Or their husband.

Wargamers spill tons of imaginary blood, but when push comes to shove, it's not just a game played over beer and pretzels.

Rather a pity we can't resolve real wars using tabletop rules.

Even if a 16" shell with no explosive mass(IE: solid metal) hit a tank, any tank, it would completely destroy it. It would be in excess of 3 tons of steel moving at supersonic speeds.

At those speeds, impacting metal behaves more like a liquid than a solid. The shell would ooze its way through the tank, and the tank would smoosh away from it like pushing your finger through a clay model of a tank. At some point any munitions in the tank cook off from the friction of the impact setting them off and rapidly disassemble the tank into its constituent parts. The battleship shell continues into whatever is behind the tank.

The only thing that can withstand a battleship shell is many meters of solid steel armor OR many many meters of steel reinforced concrete, dirt, and other materials. And its still going to have one heck of a dent in it.

Really, nothing can compare to the destructive power of battleships other than tactical nuclear bombs.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Totalwar1402 wrote:

 ScarletRose wrote:
The small entry hole is from a shaped charge - basically if you make a cone (or other complex shape) of explosives the explosion sort of pushes in from all sides and superheats a piece of copper or other material that melts through the hull.

Big shells don't use that method of action - they rely on a big explosion (usually 30-40 pounds of TNT or equivalent).

How do you get something hot enough to melt steel or whatever it is instantly? I thought you needed massive industrial blast furnaces to do that slowly? Plus a guy can just be standing next to molten metal perfectly fine so how would you stop the heat dissipating immediately? Also, couldn’t just put a piece of slate over the tank or would it be hot enough to melt rock?

How much bang is 30-40 pounds of TNT.

Technically, a shaped charge isn't melting through the hull. Its blasting a jet of molten metal that bores its way through the armor purely on its kinetic power gained from the explosion. The jet of copper just forces its way through the armor. Once the jet pieces the armor and into the crew compartment, the metal disperses and the fact that its molten and very hot can also contribute to it setting stuff on fire.

The armor of the tank will kind of look like it got melted through, but that is, as I said above, because metal behaves like a liquid when it is impacted at high velocity. Think of pushing objects through wet clay for an idea of how metal behaves with high speed impacts.

A kinetic round like an APFSDS round will make similar holes. They'll kinda look like they got melted, but that is because of the high friction and the way metal behaves under impact.

 Grey Templar wrote:
Really, nothing can compare to the destructive power of battleships other than tactical nuclear bombs.

Barnes Wallis would like a word…

Other than that, pretty much agree with everything you said.

Sure, there are individual bombs and missiles more powerful than a battleship shell. But you're never going to be slinging them out at a rate that matches the devastation of 2 rounds a minute from nine 16" guns.

 Totalwar1402 wrote:

How much bang is 30-40 pounds of TNT.

Battleship shell craters are quite distinctive, you can tell the difference between those and other craters after the battle, its the combo of bullet speed and tactical bomb size



Remember these images are of the payload, not the propellant case and shell head, battleship shells were propelled by charge bags which were loaded afterwards, up to four.

Now these bad boys packed more than 40lbs of explosive, while sturdier than gravity bombs they are not far off the ordnance size of bombs carried by a fighter bomber, or standard bombs from a medium bomber.

You can see why that combined with impact velocity made battleship shells distinctive.

Battleship shell craters were deep, more volumous than many tanks, which should be a clue as to a tanks fate..

Now because of the way artillery works the shell will have bled off much of its kinetic energy in its flight arc before it plunges onto its destination (I cant say target unless the target is itself a large area). But there would still be enough, there is zero chance a tank will survive this, any tank, any era.

 Grey Templar wrote:


A kinetic round like an APFSDS round will make similar holes. They'll kinda look like they got melted, but that is because of the high friction and the way metal behaves under impact.

The best result with one of those is for them to go straight through. You don't want those things rattling around inside...

Either way its not good for the crew. Especially if its a depleted uranium rod. Breathing in uranium dust is among the most unpleasant ways to die, and it has nothing to do with the small amount of radiation. This is assuming you survive the immediate danger of hot metal fragments and dust that fills the tank. If you are lucky, the ammo will cook off and you won't feel anything. Unlucky, you'll survive several minutes with hot vapor inhalation causing lung burns plus exterior burns or lacerations. Really unlucky, you'll have all that plus uranium inhalation killing you over the next few hours.

It makes me think of how unrealistic both versions of the rules have been with tank damage.

Most of the time if a shot penetrates the armor, the tank is dead. Tanks these days survive in a combination of not being hit and a lot of active defenses.

 Tyran wrote:

Most of the time if a shot penetrates the armor, the tank is dead. Tanks these days survive in a combination of not being hit and a lot of active defenses.

Except that is patently untrue.
Looking at the current conflict in Ukraine we are seeing reports of tanks being hit by multiple missiles and even other tanks, knocked out and the crew bailing. Some of these attacks are televised or end up on YouTube.

To be fair, he said the tank is dead. Not the crew.

Of course, tank crews historically bail even in situations where the tank is technically fine but it seems like its not. If an external fuel tank gets blown its going to spew fire everywhere and no tanker is going to take the chance that the fire is only contained to the fuel tank. They can always remount if it turns out its fine. This happened in WW2 where Germans would bail their tanks because white phosphorous got scattered around the battlefield and they got tricked into thinking their tank was on fire.

And you have to remember that fatal injuries are not always instant. Adrenaline is a heck of a drug.

 Tyran wrote:
It makes me think of how unrealistic both versions of the rules have been with tank damage.

Most of the time if a shot penetrates the armor, the tank is dead. Tanks these days survive in a combination of not being hit and a lot of active defenses.

GW based its rules mostly on WW II combat, and if the tank didn't catch fire, the crew would continue to fight even after a penetrating hit.

One of the issues with Allied tanks was exposed ammunition that would cook off when hot fragments of metal hit it. The wisdom of lining the walls of the turret with ready-use shells was...questionable.

The US adoption of "wet stowage" seemed to help and of course now just about everyone has the ammunition set apart from the crew.

The other issue was diesel vs gasoline fuel, which also affected whether the tank caught fire after a penetrating hit.

Of course, if a battleship hits the tank, none of this is relevant as everyone in it is dead.

 Orlanth wrote:


Except that is patently untrue.
Looking at the current conflict in Ukraine we are seeing reports of tanks being hit by multiple missiles and even other tanks, knocked out and the crew bailing. Some of these attacks are televised or end up on YouTube.

A good portion of that is because defenses like reactive armor. Solid armor alone has become a poor defense against state of the art anti-tank weaponry. Morever after a tank has expended such defenses, abandoning the tank is probably a good idea because it is unlikely to survive another hit.

Commissar von Toussaint wrote:

 Tyran wrote:
It makes me think of how unrealistic both versions of the rules have been with tank damage.

Most of the time if a shot penetrates the armor, the tank is dead. Tanks these days survive in a combination of not being hit and a lot of active defenses.

GW based its rules mostly on WW II combat, and if the tank didn't catch fire, the crew would continue to fight even after a penetrating hit.

One of the issues with Allied tanks was exposed ammunition that would cook off when hot fragments of metal hit it. The wisdom of lining the walls of the turret with ready-use shells was...questionable.

The US adoption of "wet stowage" seemed to help and of course now just about everyone has the ammunition set apart from the crew.

The other issue was diesel vs gasoline fuel, which also affected whether the tank caught fire after a penetrating hit.

Of course, if a battleship hits the tank, none of this is relevant as everyone in it is dead.

Heck, if the battleship hits near the tank...

That's the real danger to tanks. Direct hits are going to be one-in-a-million. But being within the blast radius is quite possible in battlefield conditions.

 Vulcan wrote:


Heck, if the battleship hits near the tank...

That's the real danger to tanks. Direct hits are going to be one-in-a-million. But being within the blast radius is quite possible in battlefield conditions.

I should add that by 1944, German tank crews were much less disciplined and would pull back once they started to hear rounds clang off the armor, even though they had little chance of penetration.

I've read accounts by Allied crews during the Bulge that the non-penetrating hits still scared the crews, so in a scenario where a given tank was out of HVAP ammo, or had an older 75, they'd still clang rounds off the hull just to distract the crew so that other tanks could score the kill.

I also came across a story where a platoon of Shermans was doing volley fire at Panther to pop the welds - and it worked! Part of the armor fell right off and the crew naturally bailed.

And if nothing else, add some drain pipe and bring those paint rounds!

 Flinty wrote:
And if nothing else, add some drain pipe and bring those paint rounds!

The paint could cover up the optics. In fact, the older Shermans used HE rounds for that very purpose.

Getting back to battleships, there are several instances of lightly armored ships surviving direct hits from battleship main guns because they had loaded armor-piercing ammunition and the fuses didn't trip.

So a 16" round created a 16" hole, which was fairly easily plugged.

Similar to the Argentine pilots' whose bomb fuses didn't go off, punching holes in British frigates.

Of course, more recently there was the realization that 250 lb inert bomb dropped from 30,000 feet is sufficient to ruin someone's day when it lands on their car. Less collateral damage that way.

Which just goes to show that context matters.

For a small, soft target like a car, 250 pounds of concrete will do the job just fine.

For a large, soft target like a destroyer, you need a significant amount of HE to inflict meaningful damage across a meaningful area. Taffy 3 did as well as it did largely because the Japanese misidentified their ships as cruisers and fired AP instead of HE. Once the Japanese realized their mistake and started loading HE, Taffy 3 didn't last very long.

It's worth noting that for shore bombardment, HE is the preferred choice. It's cheaper, and the MUCH larger explosive charge does a lot more damage to the typical shore target than an AP shell generally does.

Right now in Ukraine, HE shells from tanks and artillery are being used in indirect fire modes to knock out main battle tanks - and for larger shells, a near miss is enough to do the job

Given thee size of battleship shells, there is no doubt a git or near miss would be enough to disable a tank.