DanTheFarmer
Member
Re: 120mm APFSDS rounds, the US uses a depleted uranium (DU) alloy for the penetrator. It is pyrophoric, meaning any shards or fragments that occur as a result of impact ignite. The results are a spectacular shower of sparks when the round hits the front of the enemy tank, horrific things happen inside the tank, and a spectacular shower of sparks when the round exits the far side.
My knowledge comes from training films viewed as an Army Ammunition Ordnance Officer in the mid-80's. We were training to pass out these goodies to the tankers. I'll defer to any actual users of these things but if they behave on real targets like they do in demonstrations there is no need to double up. You'll know when the bad guy has taken a hit.
US Navy 16" armor piercing rounds only had about 40 pounds of high explosive out of a 2700 pound as fired weight. The high explosive version for shore bombardment had 153 out of 1900 pounds as fired weight. Check out www.navweaps.com for oodles of details. These amounts of explosive seem low but in reality the US Navy put more explosives into their shells than did competing navies. Google pictures of the damage the USS Massachusetts caused to the Jean Bart, a modern, well armored battleship, with those AP shells with "only" 40 pounds of explosive each.
Hitting a destroyer with an AP shell wouldn't likely set it off. AP shells are base fuzed and the shell might not encounter enough resistance to set it off. If an HC shell hit a destroyer again it was an iffy thing. The shell might go off, the nose fuse might be destroyed on impact before it could activate, or the time delay may be set such that it detonates after passing through the "tin can".
Dan
Yes, if you look at the literature from the "big gun" era they typically quoted energy in foot-tons!
My knowledge comes from training films viewed as an Army Ammunition Ordnance Officer in the mid-80's. We were training to pass out these goodies to the tankers. I'll defer to any actual users of these things but if they behave on real targets like they do in demonstrations there is no need to double up. You'll know when the bad guy has taken a hit.
US Navy 16" armor piercing rounds only had about 40 pounds of high explosive out of a 2700 pound as fired weight. The high explosive version for shore bombardment had 153 out of 1900 pounds as fired weight. Check out www.navweaps.com for oodles of details. These amounts of explosive seem low but in reality the US Navy put more explosives into their shells than did competing navies. Google pictures of the damage the USS Massachusetts caused to the Jean Bart, a modern, well armored battleship, with those AP shells with "only" 40 pounds of explosive each.
Hitting a destroyer with an AP shell wouldn't likely set it off. AP shells are base fuzed and the shell might not encounter enough resistance to set it off. If an HC shell hit a destroyer again it was an iffy thing. The shell might go off, the nose fuse might be destroyed on impact before it could activate, or the time delay may be set such that it detonates after passing through the "tin can".
Dan
Yes, if you look at the literature from the "big gun" era they typically quoted energy in foot-tons!
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