So, with the benefit of hindsight, what would have been the ideal thiccnesses and angles for tank armor at the front/sides/back during WWII?Obviously, it depends on the year, but if you have a design that works for 1945 making it lighter in earlier years is much less of an issue than designing for 1939.I feel like it's probably a lot lower than one would think from modern video games, considering how many more shots people at the time needed to defeat tanks even with higher calibers and good ammo/precision.
>>65172718Tangentially related, but the Schmalturm seems to be the most efficient turret design.
>>65172722Info:https://tanks-encyclopedia.com/schmalturm-turret/
The rear armor, which did not contribute much to combat effectiveness, served as a mass balancer for the front armor and large-caliber, long-barreled guns.
>>65172728Sounds like a good argument for the whole engine-in-the-back doctrine.
Take 10mm of armor from the upper-front armor of the Panther and apply 10mm to the sides and you'll have a pretty decent setup
>>65172730CAS goes BRRRR
>>65172735There's only so much those old transmissions and final drives could take back in the day, you can't just slap more armor on without consequences
I'd like the Panther's hull to be more like Schmal's. Couldn't they have done something about it, like getting rid of the overlapping road wheels which didn't really serve much purpose?
>>65172740That's why we're looking for the ideal amount, not the maximum amount.However, most trannies and final drives were more limited by the initial design space that intended significantly less weight, as you probably know, weight balloons over the development of a tank, which is why modern tanks are planned with the ability to add about a third of its original weight later. The experiences of WWII led to that.The Panthers are a good example, but basically every tank of every nation had that issue. There was also a new final drive designed and produced for the Panther, but it seems to have gone to the Jagdpanthers in priority and maybe exclusively both due to the larger energies those had to endure and due to late war production bottlenecks making prioritization necessary. The standard FD was improved as well and reliability rose, but probably not to the degree the freshly designed one offered.
>>65172747>like getting rid of the overlapping road wheels which didn't really serve much purpose?They actually acted as additional armor to the bottom portion of the sides, a happy accident with the fancy arrangement
>>65172747>Couldn't they have done something about it, like getting rid of the overlapping road wheels which didn't really serve much purpose?The purpose was to achieve a much smoother ride, which was achieved. Comparative videos are out there and you'll probably be surprised at how much bumpier other tanks were on bad terrain or test installations. Smoother rides mean a more alert crew, a lot less maintenance on basically every part of the tank (except, you know) since things break a lot less if they aren't shaken with 50 tons of momentum constantly and faster firing in battle.
>>65172747>overlapping road wheelsThe Panther had interleaved wheels. The Tiger II had overlapping roadwheels, which always seemed like an overall superior compromise for WWII technology to me.Pic related is the difference.
>>65172756>>65172747Gif related smooth ride. Maybe that doesn't sound important for a tank, but a crew being comfortable DOES increase combat effectiveness
>>65172784this nigga comfy
increase upper frontal sloping by 10 deg while reducing its thickness to 60-65 mm (panther frontal is 80mm/55 deg).Keep lower frontal armor to 50mm/65 degree (Panther G already reduced to 50mm, just with less sloping) 10mm more to the side armor to mitigate soviet at rifle ambushes.
>>651727183 inches of frontal armor angled at 3 inches with a 3 inch gun would be sufficient.
>>65173449>10mm more to the side armor to mitigate soviet at rifle ambushes.Wasn't that problem solved with the side-skirts anyway?And why the rest?
>>65172718250 up front 180 on sides
>>65172784Gun stabilisation without gun stabilisation.
Lose armour, ignore it, push it down to 20mm. Losing proposition, literal dead weight. Gain mobility Gain reliability Gain numbersGain strategic deployability1943 model, 30 tons >HullWidened T-34>EngineMaybach HL 230>Transmission Whatever the Shermans were using>Suspensionsingle-row torsion bar, no interleaved road wheel nightmare>Turret3-man, sloped like a panther>GunGerman 75mm L/70, anything bigger is needlessly heavy >RadioAmerican of course, SCR-528 or something >OpticsGerman, Zeiss, first hit is a priority Really what we're trying to do is build a smaller Panther
>>65173533So, something similar to the T-44?
>>65172718later Panther versions with its first version defects eliminated was closest to ideal. Other tanks with turrets were either too heavy/complex/expensive or too light/death trap/too boxy. This is purely from tactical and operational standpoint of course. Strategically what decided the war was US, its population quality during that time and its geographic position. Armor angles and gun calibers don't matter in that context//thread
>>65172718I would say that the Bongs already did this homework for you, OP.
>>65173533>Gain numbersArmour was not the limiting factor for tanks. Crews, guns and engines were all much harder to procure.
>>65173540Yes pretty much, which makes sense because it evolves into the T-54 and then we're into cold war tanks
>>65173547mid
>>65173533>Really what we're trying to do is build a smaller PantherJust take the panther prototype before it was uparmored then and throw in a transmission with a hering bone transmission.
>>65173556Presumably more resources can be dedicated to acquiring all of those if less time and materials are spent on armour.
The E22 standard armor plates used on the Panther tank were a disastrous product, as they had given up on adding nickel and molybdenum.
>>65173573"Given up" is a weird way to put it and it did okay, considering the circumstances.
Think of T-34-85, but more space and far better driver controls.Think of Sherman, but you with good load of ammunition ready in turret and engine with far more torque.Boxy armor and turret machine gun aside, they got many things right with this thing. It did evolve into Type 61, yet it would be interesting to see alternative history without that 15 years development gap.
>>65173773>cracked on almost any hit like a whore's asshole>did okay
>>65173956>>cracked on almost any hitIt didn't.
>>65173965Yes and Germany won.
>>65173987Why are you so butthurt that you'd lie about the quality of armor in WWII?Seems like such a random thing to be emotionally attached to.
3rd penetrating 90mm into right cheek cracked the turret face.Hull did not crack after 2 90mm and 4 smaller caliber hits. The 1st 90mm into hull barely penetrated. They removed the clocked round.
>>65174042The silence is deafening.
>>65174003Projecting wehrapoo, kek.
>>65175674Not even that anon, but pleddit is the other way if your faggot ass cannot prevent wehraboo from living rent free in your head like that :^)
>>65175697Exploded like Dresden.
>>65175703Hmm so obsessed :^)
>>65175703nta but retards like you nake me wish the lolocaust actually happened.
>>65174042Is this image part of a larger report that can be downloaded as a pdf?
>>65173945t-34, in all of its versions was an absolute unergonomic and inaccurate shitbox. Definitely overrated by propagandistic myths. They were just easy to spam out, specially since pidor union was getting free ammo and fuel thanks to US support to keep spamming them. While crews were cheap meat, basically worthless
The frontal armor largely compensated for the material's shortcomings through its thickness and sloping effect. The problem lay in the thin sides.
>>65175728>They were just easy to spam outthey weren't even that easy either, US estimated they'd cost as much as M4s to produce if they had to do it after examining the captured ones in Korea. soviets just spammed them anyways which is why polished steel instead of mirrors, welds that you can poke fingers through, armor that spalls into the crews from 37mm hits and transmission that dies within double digit kilometers from the factory all were endemic.>pidor union was getting free ammo and fuel thanks to US supportand rubber and aluminum and copper and gunpowder and explosives and even steel, not to mention the factory equipment to turn it all into finished goods.
>>65175674See >>65174042
>>65175820See >>65175703
>>65172722Schmalturm is great if you don't have large castings. Large cast turrets are objectively the best even if they look like dogshit.
>>65172718Drop the hypervelocity giga 75mm and go to the 88mm caliber.Most shots are going to be at infantry anyways so more HE=More better within reasonMaybe try to squeeze out more penetration out of the Tiger's 88mm with spicier loads, or use a slightly longer/wider case.
>>65175996There are 2 major issues with that. 1. Ugly tanks are gay and make you gay if you're in them.2. American cast armor at the time was only 80% as strong as rolled armor and I doubt other nations were doing better than America.>>65176010The 75mm round was good enough for infantry, people autistically compare the grains there, but in almost all cases it really didn't make a meaningful difference against infantry.
>>65172729
>>65176025>American cast armor at the time was only 80% as strong as rolled armor and I doubt other nations were doing better than AmericaIt was weaker than RHA, but not by that much.WW2 cast armor was about 5-10% weaker than RHA. But this was more than made up for via superior ballistic protection shaping.
>>65172718Data mine your military secrets elsewhere, Chang. DON'T FEED THE SPIES!
>>65176025>The 75mm round was good enough for infantry, people autistically compare the grains there, but in almost all cases it really didn't make a meaningful difference against infantry.88 is still just going to be better and won't require the autistically long and expensive barrels the Panther needed. A more reasonable velocity cannon of the L/55 or L/60 sort of length makes way more sense.
>>65176034If cost is an issue then 88mm is a no-go, takes up way too much design space.The lower velocity cannons are worse because infantry is not an issue for tank cannons, but tanks are.And high velocity guns aren't just more effective against armored targets, they are also much easier to shoot which translates to more hits and thus more kills.
>>65176039Anon, the Sherman 75mm fucking midget cannon killed more Germans than the 17 pounder giga-cannon ever could've dreamed of.Giant fuckhuge railguns don't kill people, reliable and reasonably sized cannons do.For a tank nearing 50 fucking tons, the Panther needed an 88. It was underarmed given that a fucking Panzer 4 could nail infantry just as well as it could.
What's interesting about the Soviet 76.2mm gun is that it had HE fragmentation shells and Shrapnel shells.
