Hi,
can someone explain how armour piercing projectiles works. On the wikipedia I found several types of AP projectiles like:
HEIAP - High Explosive Incendiary/Armor Piercing Ammunition
HEAT – High explosive anti-tank warhead
APFSDS - armour-piercing fin-stabilized discarding sabot
Shaped charge
Armour piercing shot and shell
but I don't really understand how they penetrate the armour.
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Re: armour penetrating projectiles
APFSDS:
It has 3 components on the projectile.
-The fin part
-The main penetrator body
-The sabot
The fin part is for aerodynamic stabilization of the penetrator body. Because when the length of the penetrator is 20 times larger than the diameter, it wont travel straight and smooth in the air. so the fin part is for stabilization. The sabot is the holder binded to the penetrator body. When the propellant ignites, expending gas pushes the sabot out of the muzzle and because of the design of the sabot, it got seperated at the moment it leaves the muzzle (the reverse force of air saparates it) . So only a large arrow body fly through the air to the target.
Penetrator bodies are variying in weight. There are penetrators from 4 kg to 10 kg. The muzzle velocities are also from 1200 m/s to 1800 m/s. If you calculate the total energy of this, you can see that at that velocity, 4 kg penetrator hits the target with 3 and a half tonnes. Because the penetrator point is like 1 mm2 or 1 cm2, that much energy transfered to a very small area. Thats why the armor cannot withstand these bullets.
The other penetrators are working in this principle but smaller bullets dont need fins. Also HEAT is another topic here. APFSDS are pure kinetic bullets.
It has 3 components on the projectile.
-The fin part
-The main penetrator body
-The sabot
The fin part is for aerodynamic stabilization of the penetrator body. Because when the length of the penetrator is 20 times larger than the diameter, it wont travel straight and smooth in the air. so the fin part is for stabilization. The sabot is the holder binded to the penetrator body. When the propellant ignites, expending gas pushes the sabot out of the muzzle and because of the design of the sabot, it got seperated at the moment it leaves the muzzle (the reverse force of air saparates it) . So only a large arrow body fly through the air to the target.
Penetrator bodies are variying in weight. There are penetrators from 4 kg to 10 kg. The muzzle velocities are also from 1200 m/s to 1800 m/s. If you calculate the total energy of this, you can see that at that velocity, 4 kg penetrator hits the target with 3 and a half tonnes. Because the penetrator point is like 1 mm2 or 1 cm2, that much energy transfered to a very small area. Thats why the armor cannot withstand these bullets.
The other penetrators are working in this principle but smaller bullets dont need fins. Also HEAT is another topic here. APFSDS are pure kinetic bullets.
