Tank Turrent vs Rifle bullet question

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"But no WWII or later tank armor is thin enough to be penetrated by any AP bullet using that principle."

Japanese and Italian "tanks" had notoriously thin armor that could be, under the right circumstances, penetrated by heavy machine gun fire or anti-tank rifles.

The Soviets had little trouble at all with the Japanese tanks that they faced in Manchuria.

The PTRD and PTRS (I think that's correct) 14.5mm anti-tank rifles made mincemeat out of them out to 300 meters or so.


"Um, Actually, I think a hit on the explosive 'filler' in an HE shell might just go off if it was hit with a high powered rifle round."

You're forgetting that the shell that's being fired has to withstand the shock of being fired, which is likely a LOT more violent.
 
I'm so glad to find this thread, I ALWAYS thought the same thing! I've got a rifle, I'm looking down the bore of a 75mm tube, what the heck why not? Aim for the top rim to account for sight offset, and say a little prayer, which that sniper already had covered!

And what might happen, if lucky, would be that you could in fact damage the fuze! If the round does not blow up in the chamber, then perhaps the fuze will be damaged so it will not blow up on impact, and it will blow a hole in the stone structure. You'd have bits of flying rock stuck in you, and you'd be super deaf from muzzle blast, but if you could still see you'd have a chance to get out of the tower before they reloaded. Maybe. Ok so you'd be dead from muzzle blast. Good point.


As for the quoted post, I believe that nothing actually melts on impact. OK I have heard of tankers in WW2 who got burned by little bits of molten lead from MG fire that hit their glacis and flew in the vision port, but that's all. When a bullet hits a steel plate I don't think the metal melts, it just flows like it was melted. But it's not melted. Like when you put a really heavy weight on the end of a steel pole, it will bend like it's melted at that one point, but it's not actually melted - it just flows. Plastic deformation iirc, when the elongation to break is exceeded.

So when a bullet hits and metal is forced outwards around it, making a crater, it's just pure brute force making metal flow like toothpaste. And when shaped charges hit armour they do the same thing, just at 10,000m/s instead of 1000m/s.

fig11.jpg
"Jim Keenan
I think a lot of people have a vast overestimate of the capability of small arms armor piercing bullets and a vast underestimate of the hardness and thickness of tank armor.

Just FWIW, AP bullets like the .30 and .50 do not actually penetrate armor like they penetrate wood or sheet metal. When a bullet is fired, it has a certain amount of energy, the same energy you see in ballistics tables. When a bullet strikes a steel plate, that energy is instantly converted into heat. The heat melts a part of the plate, creating a shallow hole and raising "splashes" of steel that freeze instantly, looking like those strobe photos of a milk drop. The AP core remains intact and drives through that molten steel (if the plate is thin enough) and does damage behind the plate. In thicker and hardened plate, it can create a shallow "dimple", if it has any effect at all.

But no WWII or later tank armor is thin enough to be penetrated by any AP bullet using that principle. Tank and artillery anti-tank shells use the shaped charge principle, as do weapons like the RPG and "Bazooka". AP rifle and MG ammo was issued in combat in WWII not to stop tanks but to shoot through the sides of trucks and other light vehicles as well as thin cover of other kinds. In most cases, those did not offer enough resistance to even cause the AP to function; the heavier bullet simply gave better range and penetration in the normal manner.

As to shooting down the barrel of a tank cannon, the shell would not be bothered a bit by a small caliber projectile wedged in the bore. The bullet would be simply "ironed" into the bore. Some types of fuses might be touched off by a bullet, causing a bore premature, but the odds are so high as to be ridiculous.

Jim"
 
Indeed, you'd probably be better off throwing rocks and debris into the barrel. Or even mud. A wad of mud lodged in the barrel could cause serious problems.
 
Trying to stay on Topic but want to revist Prvt. Ryan..

Would the,"bang fuse and toss" method of arming and "firing" the untubed mortor rounds be able to take out the tracks on that tank like the "sticky bombs"? How bout if you got close enough to,"stuff one down the pipe"? :uhoh: :evil:

PS: Armor rocks and tanks are the bomb!!lol
 
The sniper was engaged against a Marder (or facsimile thereof). Unlike the movie, the real Marder was open topped and the sniper should have been able to engage the gunners. Even if it was a field expedient closed top model, at that distance, a 50 could penetrate the roof. The Hetzer was a real Hetzer and the replica Tiger was based on the chasis of a T-34/85.

BTW, only the very early WW II tanks could be penetrated by a .50 cal M-2. This would include the Pzkw II and some of the British cruiser tanks. By 1943, most of these tanks were out of service and tank armor became heavier. Still, there were the open top tank destroyers (SU-76, Marders, Nashorn, M-10, M-36) or SPGs (Wespe, M-7 Priests, British Saxon, Hummel) but these normally didn't engage in close in fighting.
 
I've heard that the big issue with those "sticky bombs" was that they would stick to the thrower if he was at all careless, and couldn't be pulled loose. Some records for stripping pants off were broken as a result of bumping them on a leg!
 
With the renewed acceptance of Anti-tank rifles, now called anti-materiel rifles, will armoured vehicle design be affected?

For instance the Tiger had 100mm armour at the front and 80mm all-around, and even MkIVs and MkIIIs had added side armour to defeat ATRs. Today tanks like the Abrams have armour thin areas of 20mm.

And a popular story is how a Marine sniper with the Barret light 50 destroyed attacking BMP column in Iraq using AP or SLAP ammo.
 
Explosive projectiles are bore safe -- there is no way to activate the fuze before it leaves the bore. And a mere hit with a bullet will not set off the filler.
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The first purpose of the .50 Barretts was to be used by EOD crews to remote detonate unexploded ordinance. The bullet would have enough energy to set off the explosive chare. As I recall, they also use M14s to do some munitions, which means that the .30-06 might have enough. Don't know about a tank shell, but a thin walled bomb would be game.

The SLAP rounds developed for the M2 I think would take just about any of the WW2 tanks, at least the early ones. They have a significant amount of penetration.
 
Hi, Lucky,

Thanks for quoting me, but the fact is that what I said is true. Bullets do melt on impact with a steel plate and the part of the steel in direct contact also melts. Anyone who has done any shooting at steel (not recommended in built up areas because of the danger of richchets) has seen the "splash" pattern I mentioned.

As for shaped charges, they obviously do not work by "brute force". The projectile from a 4" rocket launcher is not moving fast at all; it can be easily followed by the eye, and any thin steel plate could easily stop it. I think you need to read up a bit on shaped charges and how they work.

As to a rifleman against a tank, it seems to have escaped notice that tanks are made to be impervious to rifle bullets. I doubt very much that a shell in the barrel could be set off by a rifle bullet, even if the bullet hit the fuse, so I suspect shooting into the gun barrel will result in nothing except a bullet nicely ironed into the barrel of the gun as the round comes out on its way to blow the sniper into eternity.

If faced with buttoned up armor, a man with only a rifle and rifle ammo has two choices: 1) hunker down and hope to God he doesn't see you or, 2) run like hell and hope the guy on the coax can't shoot.

Jim
 
I think you're right that lead can melt on impact, because I read about tankers in WW2 that got lead burns from bullets hitting their glacis and bits of molten lead flying in through the vision ports.

But I think the mechanism that craters the steel plate is brute force, not heat. It's like gold, it's a solid, but you can crater it if you bite it with your teeth. And for HEAT jets, I'm pretty thoroughly versed for a duffer. I even learned a previously unknown and rather new discovery that there are actually 2 parts to a jet! there is the very fast slim part, which flies first, then the much slower fatter slug that follows it. It looks like pulling apart a chunk of bubble gum, sort of. The property that damages, aiui, is erosion. The solid metal is flowing like a liquid does, and it erodes the armour just like a garden hose will dig a hole in dirt.


Also I question the whole SPR movie, because aiui that guy wasn't a sniper at all. Everything he does fits the description of a designated marksman, to a T.
 
As for shaped charges, they obviously do not work by "brute force". The projectile from a 4" rocket launcher is not moving fast at all; it can be easily followed by the eye, and any thin steel plate could easily stop it. I think you need to read up a bit on shaped charges and how they work.
Click to expand...
There's really two ways to use a shaped charge. First is direct, and the second is a self-forging fragment(SSF). The first acts much like a cutting torch: the high pressure jet of hot gas burns it's way through the armor. They will usually put a copper disk in there, which helps in some way I'm not familiar with. The SFF uses a slightly different aproach. A thick disk of metal is put in front of the explosives. When it's detonated, the disk is formed by the explosion into a projectile that is moving at the rate the explosives drive it, generally over 5,000 ft/sec; much faster than any current gun can do. This penetrates like a normal projectile. This is used in the TOW 2 missiles and anti-tank cluster bombs, IIRC, and a SSF can be detonated farther away and still work than a HEAT charge, as it relies on the projectile, rather than the stream of gas that quickly dissipates.

When you consider the pressures involved, you can make metal move like liquid, while not actually melting it. Someone else will have to give that physics lesson. :neener:
 
I find myself in my normal state of affairs, confused.

I continuously read about making sure that your bore is clean so as to not restrict the projectile on the way through which would lead to high bore pressures.

Now I read that a bullet in the barrel will not cause any problems for the people firing a cannon.

Somehow, Somewhere I get the feeling some people are not telling the truth. Is it those who claim that an obstruction in the barrel is dangerous or those that claim it is of no consequence?

If the bullet was to lodge between the barrel and projectile it might do a fair job of plugging the barrel. Experience with using pennies wedged between rail and locomotive wheels to stop wheels from turning comes to mind. No, silly, I'm not talking about moving locomotives cause then mass comes into play.

I leave those who will willingly tell me that they claim to know more than I to respond.
 
Copper jackets are used on a shaped charge to enhance their performance.

Just as a rifle blank will shatter a melon at six feet, but do very little at sixty, the copper enhances the performance of a shaped charge. It does not actually melt thermally, but the phase charts are based on temperature *and pressure* so it may very well be a jet of liquid copper which causes an unsurvivable entropy increase in armor plating. The armor plating may in fact melt due to the pressure, but this will be based (almost) entirely on pressure, with no way of increasing the temperature of enough metal by several thousand degrees.
 
May I interject about ATRs? The PTRD and PTRS anti-tank rifles of WWII fame could penetrate 30mm of armor up to 400 meters, and sometimes farther. There is a verified case of a Soviet ATR disabling a Tiger by smashing the vision blocks and wounding the TC. Until the Panzer V, AKA Tiger was feildied, all German tanks had to be careful of thier flanks against ATRs. On the flip side, there was a great deal less inside the tank as today, and ATR rounds were known to penetrate both sides, hitting nothing on the way through...."just passing through, don't mind me!"
The German 7.92mm ATR was a differant design, with a small tungstun bullet driven to insane velocities by a huge case, with the oddest thing - a tear gas capsule behind the bullet that was supposed to disperse inside the target. Often, the capsule fell of the round, and hindered the Germans assaulting a disabled AFV. OOps.
Cannon barrels are tough - there was an early war case where Panzer IIs had to disable a KV2 heavy tank by shooting the barrel, and it took several hits to do so. That's a hard target!
I still want a WWII tank, though....there was a Hetzer for sale in OPhio a few years ago, with C&R eligible 75mm gun....yes, it IS C&R, though still NFA....
 
dustind,

I have seen German Tanks for WWII that have a 76mm AP round hit the barrel (and dent it pretty nice). It was only a glancing shot, but it didnt too all that much damage. Even the rounds the hit the sides, and frontal armor didnt do much but put a little hole about the size of your fist. Mind you this was on a Tiger II tank destroyer that has about 10in of frontal armor, with 128mm (I think) main gun. Those 76mm AP rounds might as well have been a BB gun, and about just as effective.
 
I would take Marshall Tito's advice: he was once asked how his men, armed with antique rifles, could possibly take on the Wehrmacht and its new tanks. His response: "Well, when the German soldiers inside their new tanks have to come outside to take a piss, then my men, with their antique rifles, will kill them."

Of course, this doesn't much help a sniper in a tower with a main gun swinging his way, but it is a good way of saying that the smartest thing is not to get one's self in that position in the first place.
 
In the First gulf War (Desert Shield/Storm) a Marine friend of mine squared off with three Iraqi tanks hiding near the plumes of a burning oil rig. They only had one anti-tank rocket, TOW? They blew the turret off of one of the tanks, and the other two backed off. They were planning to wait until the advancing tank got to within 20 feet or so, before they would get out of their trench/foxhole hiding area. They were told the T-72, or T-52, or T-something had a blind spot up close. They planned to get on top of the rear of the tank, and pull the lever for the internal fire extinguisher, which I guess flooded the tank with nitrogen. They would then shoot anyone who came out of the hatch. It was very cool in that the Marines had prepared and done their homework on all the capabilities of the various tanks and weapons they would face.
 
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