Sunday 1 February 2015

PzIII Skirt Effectiveness

The Germans were fans of putting extra armour on the PzIII and PzIV. First, screens were bolted on or welded on, later they introduced skirt armour for hulls and turrets. This armour was very thin, only 5 mm, but it was placed some distance away from the tank's main armour. The result was significant deformations of brittle fast-moving projectiles, such as APCR shells and anti-tank rifle bullets. The following scans are from Andrei Ulanov's lecture on infantry anti-tank measures.

"Photo #14. PzIII with screens after being shot in the side by 15P-II and RKS anti-tank rifles."

"Photo #15. Side. Armour thickness: 30 mm. 15P-II anti-tank rifle, OKB-44 bullets.
1 and 2: range of 100 meters. Dents in the main armour after penetrating the 5 mm armour screen."

As you can see, this measure was very effective against rifles. However, by the time these armour screens were introduced, the original reason for anti-tank rifles (to supplement losses of light anti-tank guns) was remedied, and infantry units could face enemy tanks with 45 mm cannons, which were unaffected by 5 mm screens.

13 comments:

  1. Did the 45 mm M-42 ever replace the 53-K completely in service?

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    1. I don't know for certain, but if I had to guess I would say it didn't.

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  2. The Schutzabdeckungen; shortned Schürzen, was a direct Fuehrerbefehl, although it proven to be very effective (shooting trials, combat reports) it was still disliked by the Panzertruppen and Generalinspekteur Guderian. So no, the germans were not fans of it.

    Some close up views:
    http://fs1.directupload.net/images/150205/7c685j3i.jpg
    http://fs1.directupload.net/images/150205/ltwbl5f8.jpg

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  3. The americans were much more fans uf such kinds, uparmoring with 2 inch concrete, sandbags, logs and even welded extra steelplates:

    http://ftr.wot-news.com/2014/01/13/okinawa-sherman-possible-us-premium-tank/

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  4. " which were unaffected by 5 mm screens."

    Where does it say that?
    The thickness of the side plates 5 & 8mm were more than enough for cap stripping to transpire to calibers up to the 45mm more so given the sloping nature of the plates.

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  5. "15P-II anti-tank rifle, OKB-44 bullets"
    What anti-tank rifle and ammunition is this?
    Is this a prototype/limited production weapon?

    I know the russians made use of the Pzb-39 (they ironically produced them for spell), PTRD & PTRS during the war.

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    1. Yes, it was a prototype. It went to the drawing board after this test to make it defeat armour screens like these, but that was not achieved until 1945, after the war was already over.

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  6. Thought so I am uninterested in developments for any country past the war time items.
    It is also important to note that by the time the PTRD and RS became available ~ 1942 most vehicles it encountered were not immediately vulnerable to the ATRs. These weapons were already having limited effectiveness at penetrating vehicles namely due to up-armoring and removal of more obsolete vehicles from important roles.
    There was a Wapruf test (it was the first or second one April 1943 or December 1944 ?) made where it was determined that the soviet anti-tank rifles did not really have enough power to penetrate the 30mm side of the vehicles effectively however the ATR calibers would typically gouge ( non-penetraing scoops) the 30mm armor plate pretty significantly which required the vehicle to undergo pretty lengthy maintenance.The side skirts were produced specifically to counter that rather than the actual penetration of the side plate.

    The side skirts also were implemented to protect against HE attack & had some effectiveness vs WWII era HEAT <-that's important.
    The HEAT performance is evidenced by British testing, Russian accounts in Berlin( kiss of the witch, mounting side plates), your own findings (T-34 screens amongst other articles), Vorpanzer testing by the Germans and Allies, and some interesting notes on how to defeat shaped charges conduced by the rest of the Western Allies during WWII as well as German resigning of the Panzerfaust 150 warhead to counter side skirt armor.




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    1. There is also a cap stripping element to the 5mm an d8mm skirts to consider as well, there was a nice PDF read about this somewhere I am unable to find the link again, I'll see if if I have it captured somewhere on my HD.

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  7. How about the effectiveness of PZIII M and N spaced armor at front of the hull and gun mask? I am very keen to read something about this pretty interesting armor design....

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    1. I haven't seen anything like that, but I'll be sure to post it if I find something.

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    2. I am looking forward to see what will pop-up from the archives about it. As far as i know no other tank at WWII used such type of frontal armoring as PZ III (M and N modes)....

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    3. Correction - L and M models...

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