I hope that you are aware that by far the most WW2 AP rounds were explosive rounds. For a reason. For instance, rounds having pierced armour do not retain most of their energy, unless the armour wasn't worth mentioning in the first place. Rounds without explosives usually were some hard core rounds (tungsten for instance), which offered superior penetration at the expense of damage capacity. In case of aircraft guns this often was a popular trade off, since the small calibre guns otherwise wouldn't penetrate at all.
For comparison, the very good German 30mm tungsten core round carried only 75% the energy of the standard AP round, at the muzzle. Further away, even less. It had far better penetrating power, more than two times as much at 500m, but if both rounds got through, the standard round would wreck far more havoc.
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10-31-2013, 08:15 PM
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