Friday 23 October 2015

Boundless Optimism


"To the artillery commander of the 169th Infantry Division

When shooting at the front armour of a Tiger tank from a range of 600 meters with the AP-I shell from the 45 mm anti-tank gun, the armour is not penetrated, and the shell bursts on impact.

When using a subcaliber shell at this distance, the shell ricochets.

The shells work well against the suspension.

HQ Chief, Captain Derish"

Via altyn73.

8 comments:

  1. They should explore the probability to hit the center of the barrel instead.

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    1. One guy did it and got an Order of Lenin, so I imagine the odds aren't very high: http://tankarchives.blogspot.ca/2014/03/dancing-with-tigers.html

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    2. Yes I am very aware of comrade Choboyans record Peter. Probably the most epic article I have ever read from your blog ;)
      He probably hit the barel from the side, but I would like to know where he hit it because the Tiger has the collar arround its gun, in the middle one, on the back in front of turret there is another one and I have doubts whether the penetration would be enough for that area !

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  2. The easy way to do that is get a front view plan of a Tiger I, (or any other tank) and lay a transparent grid over it, or draw on your own grid squares and count them.
    You'll find that the % frontal area of the gun barrel is perhaps 1%, whereas the tracks are circa 10-15%, the hull 45-50%, and the turret 35-40%. Historically most gunenrs aimed at turrets, but most hits were on the hull front. Just hitting, when you shooting at often fleeting targets, 700m away on average, in dusty or smokey conditions, would be considered an achievement in it's own right. (most tank combat was not like the WoT game is ...)
    I know many guns could and can shoot 1500m 2500m 3500m whatever, and get kills, but what you don't hear mentioned very often is the amount of ammo fired to get that hit.
    This will obviously vary from tank to tank, and it's shame there isn't a free online graphic programme that does this so that wargame designers can do hit location charts for individual tanks. The results could be quite varied I imagine.

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    1. Yes you are absolutely right. Even from the short distance like 100m and enemy wouldnt be aware of you it would be more than imposible because the projectile would at that angle get to the muzzle brake and burst in it. Hitting the center of the barel frontaly from short distance would be more possible with anti-tank rifles.

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  3. I like the somewhat manic cheer of that last paragraph.

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  4. Peter, you left out the part where this is a 45mm gun.
    And I can't make out the date. It looks like 194 '1/' but can't be 1941 as there were no Tigers nor sub-caliber 45mm.

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