Yak-9T - incredible firepower (or maybe incredible tank's lack of armor?)

[Pursuivant]

Originally Posted by JtD

I hope that you are aware that by far the most WW2 AP rounds were explosive rounds.

Actually, for much of the war, tanks mostly carried standard AP rounds. Ammo like HEAT/APEX or HESH were later war innovations and they were often in short supply, as were standard AP rounds with tungsten penetrators.

As I mentioned in my previous post, a simple AP round penetrating armor generates plenty of heat and shrapnel even without the benefit of an explosive charge. Obviously, APEX or its ilk are better, and tungsten core penetrates better, but ordinary AP is plenty deadly against armor.

Conversely, soft vehicles sometimes fared better when hit by AP rounds, since the round might penetrate without fragmenting (e.g., going through the wood and canvas sideboards of a truck) or produce minimal fragments (e.g., punching through the sheet metal of a car's body). Very soft targets, like canvas or flesh, might not even trigger HE rounds.

This also holds true for cannon shells against early war canvas-covered aircraft like the Hurricane. AP rounds would just punch a small hole in the canvas without weakening the plane's structure, and HE rounds might blow through without exploding.