Quote:
Originally Posted by KnightFandragon
The Germans had problems w/ the rare mat's to make the rare rounds to being with. Those rare rounds were rare period.
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This kind of rounds have been rare for all nations. See the soviets did many times not even bothered to make APCR rounds for many of their guns as they tend to require not only experienced workers but also many complex machines. They have not seen fancy shells before the end of the war or even first after the war (like APDS which never have been used by the Soviets in WW2)
Its not like the Soviets have been dump or could not do them. They just had the fear it might slow down their production. One should not forget that the Soviets had to develope many things literaly in combat while Germany in the begining didnt suffered the same issues. Most of the comgat didnt happend on German ground and their cities and industrial areas didnt got overrun. It took the soviets much time to dissmantle their fascilities and organize their industry again deep in the Ural and further north again. But they managed this in record time. And one of the reasons was to concentrare not so much on rare and fancy equipment but rude, simple to manufacture and easy to maintain weapons.
But as said such shells have been rare for many. Not juts the Axis. HVAP rounds have been available in some numbers for the Sherman 75 and Sherman 76w. But never in large numbers. When they arrived in Europe at around 1944 the shermans had HVAP rounds ready for the Normandy invasion. But no Sherman had usualy more then 3 or 5 rounds of them ~ HVAP (High velocety armor pearcing) beeing the US APCR. With them even the 75mm could impose a threat to a Tiger I. But only under best conditions. The quality of US HVAP shells wasnt the best one and they many times would shatter on thick armor doing nothing. Better results could be achieved with the HEAT shells since those worked like shaped charges and could penetrate quite a lot of armor on every distance.
The Brits on the other side used APCR for their 2 pounder for example whiche gave it quite some power. Though only for the anti tank gun not for the cromwell which also had a 2pf. They did many different rounds for the 17pf some more others less succesfull. With the usual APCBC it had some power already (aprox 140mm penetration) but it could theoreticaly! even penetrate the turret of a Kingtiger with a APDS rounds from 400-500m. Issue was. The APDS was a terrible round. It many times failed in penetration, shattered on the armor or loost its stability in flight and accuracy was extremly poor you could basicaly hit nothing past 500m. Another issue was that once you fired a APDS you could not give acurate prediction about the next round loaded. But dont ask me why. I think it had something to do with the barrle and the APDS design. The APDS had many issues which only got solved after the war with the APFSDS which got fins to stabilize its flight. But at that point the brits already had their 84mm 20pf ready and later the extremly well done Royal Ordnance L7 105mm gun.
The APCR was a rare round in the German aresenal. But it was NOT uncommon. Most if not all tanks got them. At least fighting vehicles. From the Panther, to Tiger I, Tiger II and even Panzer IV and Panzer III (very limited). The only tanks which did not got them have ben tanks like the Jagdpanther, Maus and similar. They seen the APCR as unnecessary cause of the already formidable penetration quality of the APCBC rounds. So the Jagdtiger never had any APCR available.
In general the usual AP round of the Germans was better compared to the usual AP rounds the Russians and US had so was the standart for the Germans the APCBC while soviets many times used only APBC (T34-85, SU100 etc.) or APHE (IS2, ISU152 etc.). But that goes together with the fact that most armored vehicles in general have been better. In direct comparsion. The Panther and Tiger have been usualy superior to most common allied vehicles like the T34 and Sherman 76w and the Sherman 75 (one of the standart tanks in the US) was inferior to the Panzer IV. Only late war shermans could keep up a fight here with the 76mm gun. Armor qualities of the panther and in particular the Tiger 1 have been in general better compard to US and Soviet designs. The Pershing as late war design was not much better compared to the Panther and it used almost as much fuel like a Kingtiger. The IS2 was only slightly better compared to the Tiger 1, the Comet was also more or less equaly to the Tiger 1. But that is of course thinking about only direct 1 vs 1 scenarios. War as whole requires different qualities. It was in general easier to maintain and transport tanks like the T34 or IS2 compared to a Tiger 1 and not to mention the Tiger 2 which needed sepcial tracks for transport on train (the usual one are to wide). Also the axis lacked any air superiority which probably has cost them a lot of armor and initiative.