tiger's frontal turret is penetrated by sherman???

[LachenKrieg]

30 minutes ago, xthetenth said:

The most likely mistake, by far, has to do with you using the length from the bore, which is not visible in the picture and is thus a guess, rather than using measurements where both sides are defined by a clearly visible point in the picture. Past that it's a silly easy pair of ratios.

 

Also, I independently did the same technique and apart from thinking the mantlet is 129mm high my figures agree with sith's.

What is the unit of his product? Pixelmm?

 

Go back and read my post again. The distance from the bore center is factual. I said "MY QUESS". I simply took the number of penetration marks it would take to go from the side of the mantlet to approximately the center of the bore. The number I came up with was 7. If the number is closer to 8 then 105mm. If 6 then 140mm.

 

The purple line he uses to measure is inside bore, so there may be some deformation of the projectile and the hole it leaves behind may be smaller then the initial size of the projectile.

[F.Circusxthetenth]

Just now, LachenKrieg said:

What is the unit of his product? Pixelmm?

 

Go back and read my post again. The distance from the bore center is factual. I said "MY QUESS". I simply took the number of penetration marks it would take to go from the side of the mantlet to approximately the center of the bore. The number I came up with was 7. If the number is closer to 8 then 105mm. If 6 then 140mm.

 

The purple line he uses to measure is inside bore, so there may be some deformation of the projectile and the hole it leaves behind may be smaller then the initial size of the projectile.

 

The unit of this product is mm, because you took a figure in mm/pixels and multiplied it by pixels. Elementary school physics is gonna be rough if you can't keep this stuff straight, so I recommend practicing keeping units straight in simple algebra like this.

 

The distance from the bore center is factual. Your guess as to where the center of the bore is is considerably less so. Also, out of curiosity, did you happen to use the deformed metal or just the interior hole? Because the hole is the bit the projectile fit through (And generally due to momentum, they're empirically usually a tiny bit to a significant bit bigger than the projectile depending on the armor's thickness, not smaller unless you're dealing with subcalibers like HEAT or APDS).

[LachenKrieg]

1 hour ago, xthetenth said:

 

I missed this incidentally. How in the world are you getting a thirty degree angle on sherman shells from 1 km out?

 

I'm sorry, what?

 

Did you just use the typographic measurement of a pixel based on a 96 DPI screen and assume that the pixels on an arbitrary image map perfectly to a screen standard half a century from being invented when the picture was taken in its original form and likely a decade out of date when the image was digitized?

 

In a picture, the pixels are an angular measurement, that's it. No more, no less. You find the length of the arc that a known distance covers and how many pixels it is. That gives you the conversion between pixel distances (angle measurements) and linear distances in that plane in that particular image. In the case of this tiger's mantlet, it's 450mm / 130 px = 3.461... mm/px. Then you measure the thing you want to measure, in this case 22 px. It's ???? mm, but you know that ???? mm / 22 px = 3.461... mm/px. So multiply both sides by 22 px and you get 76.153... mm.

The bore doesn't look like 76mm to me, that is why I asked him what PX stood for because the question you asked me is something along the lines of what I thought he did. I have been googling to try and find any reference to the size of impact marks left in the linked photo, but was not able to. A member that commented on it in this thread claimed that they were left from a 120mm shell, but I haven't found a reference for that.

 

The height of the Tiger mantlet from the information I was able to find has it as being 550mm and not 450. Here is one source https://tiger1.info/EN/Turret-dimensions.html

 

So when I take the purple line and measure it against the red line, I get 5.2x. So if the mantlet is 550mm, then the bore is 105mm.

 

But lets say the hole is 76mm, it couldn't have come from a Sherman which is what this thread is about.

 

 

Edited June 14, 2021 by LachenKrieg

[[F.Circus]MoerasGrizzly]

2 hours ago, Irishratticus72 said:

Until May of '43, you are correct, even then, the HEAT was marginally more useful. 

Considering the picture we're discussing was taken in February 1943, I do doubt that this penetration shot came from the SU122.

38 minutes ago, LachenKrieg said:

The bore doesn't look like 76mm to me, that is why I asked him what PX stood for because the question you asked me is something along the lines of what I thought he did. I have been googling to try and find any reference to the size of impact marks left in the linked photo, but was not able to. A member that commented on it in this thread claimed that they were left from a 120mm shell, but I haven't found a reference for that.

 

Dude, *you* made that claim. The 120mm shell claim is from your post.

38 minutes ago, LachenKrieg said:

So if the mantlet is 550mm, then the bore is 105mm.

 

What soviet guns in February 1943 used 105mm AP shells?

  

37 minutes ago, LachenKrieg said:

But lets say the hole is 76mm, it couldn't have come from a Sherman which is what this thread is about.

Except that the Sherman 75mm has better penetration then the soviet 76mm.

Also why do you post the image of an up-armored Tiger now?  thought we were looking at the picture Sith posted of the Tiger that's actually modelled in the game?

Like, the point here is that that optics hole is a known weak spot of the tiger. The nazis knew it: That's why they up-armoured it in the image that you and Noel posted. The M4A2 Sherman was deployed on the soviet front from late 1942 onwards, and it's shells have better penetration then T34s based on the data in the game itself. Being indigenous or even intentionally obtuse about that won't change that.

Edited June 14, 2021 by [F.Circus]MoerasGrizzly

[Irishratticus72]

43 minutes ago, [F.Circus]MoerasGrizzly said:

Considering the picture we're discussing was taken in February 1943, I do doubt that this penetration shot came from the SU122.

So can I take it that you`re not familiar with the reports of Soviet army time travel during the Great Patriotic War?

[[F.Circus]MoerasGrizzly]

7 minutes ago, Irishratticus72 said:

So can I take it that you`re not familiar with the reports of Soviet army time travel during the Great Patriotic War?

Fair, but in that case the shot could also have come from a 1945 Sherman

Edited June 14, 2021 by [F.Circus]MoerasGrizzly

[Irishratticus72]

6 minutes ago, [F.Circus]MoerasGrizzly said:

Fair, but in that case the shot could also have come from a 1945 Sherman

But was the Sherman travelling at 88mph?

Edited June 14, 2021 by Irishratticus72

[LachenKrieg]

I said my guess is 120mm. The question was the size of the penetration mark and whether it could have come from a Sherman. The thread is discussing whether or not a Sherman could penetrate the Tiger's turret. Someone posted a picture claiming a weakness on the early Tiger's mantlet could be used to explain the in game result.

 

I asked you to identify the gun that fired the shot in that picture because it doesn't look like a 76mm shot IMO, and the Sherman we have in game doesn't have the penetrating power to do that,... empirically speaking.

 

If we look closer at the photo I just linked above, look at the shot higher up on the mantlet. Notice that it impacts just at and above the reinforced area, so it is affecting both the thinner and more reinforced area of the mantlet. I did another estimation, and it looks like that round is close to 76mm. In case you want to check it for yourself, the distance from the edge of the mantlet to the center of the two gun sight apertures was 365mm. I get pretty close to 4.8 times the projectile size from edge to center of gun sight. You will also have to make your best guess because the gun sight face is essentially obliterated by the lower left impact. But I think we can just see the lower margin of the left aperture.

 

We can also see that the higher up round impacted at a fairly flat trajectory indicating that the gun that fired it was probably at a closer range then the gun that fired the lower left round. Notice the impact angle of the lower left round. That round appears to be larger, and had an arc similar to what we would expect from a howitzer type gun, or an AP shell fired from a greater distance.

 

The lower right round, which also appears to be bigger, glances off the front plate and deflects up into the turret, which I believe causes it to crack. Based on the height of its initial impact and the large angle of deflection, my feeling is that the initial impact had a relatively flat trajectory and fired from a range that would allow that.

 

The forth impact that passes through the upper edge of the front plate just above the drivers visor impacts the bottom of the turret where there is no reinforcement. This round also looks to be about 76mm, and based on the angle of attack, may have been fired from the same gun that fired the round impacting the top of the mantlet.

[[F.Circus]sith1144]

using the same math but assuming the mantlet is 550mm the hole is 93mm across. This is perfectly consisentent with a 75 or 76mm shot, such as fired by a sherman or T-34, because impact holes are bigger than the pojectile. For example here http://www.tankarchives.ca/2013/03/soviet-85-mm-guns-vs-tigers.html The 85mm gun, surely the closest the soviets have to that size of hole, made breach entry holes 110+mm across. It does not matter if the shot was by a 75mm M3 or 76.2mm F-34, because the 75mm M3 has better penetration, so if the F-34 can penetrate so can the shermans gun. The picture you linked means nothing, it is of a different kind of tiger and thus *wholly* irrelevant.

[[F.Circus]MoerasGrizzly]

1 hour ago, Irishratticus72 said:

But was the Sherman travelling at 88mph?

No but the round almost certainly was ?

[LachenKrieg]

1 hour ago, [F.Circus]sith1144 said:

using the same math but assuming the mantlet is 550mm the hole is 93mm across. This is perfectly consisentent with a 75 or 76mm shot, such as fired by a sherman or T-34, because impact holes are bigger than the pojectile. For example here http://www.tankarchives.ca/2013/03/soviet-85-mm-guns-vs-tigers.html The 85mm gun, surely the closest the soviets have to that size of hole, made breach entry holes 110+mm across. It does not matter if the shot was by a 75mm M3 or 76.2mm F-34, because the 75mm M3 has better penetration, so if the F-34 can penetrate so can the shermans gun. The picture you linked means nothing, it is of a different kind of tiger and thus *wholly* irrelevant.

Not through 100-120mm of rolled steel plate it isn't!

 

Your not even in the same universe here, and you want to suggest what I posted is irrelevant?

 

This is a quote taken directly from the hyperlink you included:

 

"Recall that the T-34-76 had to close in to 500 meters to even have a chance of damaging a Tiger tank, even from the side."

 

Now go back and look at the velocities and weights of the projectiles from the two guns you are trying to compare.

 

Going back to the picture I linked, forget about the Tiger's mantlet for the moment, what is the size of the round stuck in the top of the mantlet in your opinion? Do you think it is less than 76mm? Because the relevance is you have two examples of what appears to be the same size round, and one of them is in a part of the mantlet where there was no reinforcement or modification, and it still didn't penetrate.

 

If the Sherman/T34 had no problems penetrating the Tiger frontally, then there would have been no need to redesign its turret, and the war probably would have ended at least 12 months earlier. But why are we going back and forth about a subject that is recorded in hundreds of sources if not thousands. The Sherman could not penetrate a Tiger frontally, and especially at a 1000m.

[[F.Circus]sith1144]

15 minutes ago, LachenKrieg said:

Not through 100-120mm of rolled steel plate it isn't!

 

 

There isnt 100-120mm of rolled steel plate in front of the gunner optics. Thats why its a weak spot. That they later added armour too. They redesigned the turret because the sherman et al *could* penetrate the turret with a lucky shot.

[LachenKrieg]

2 minutes ago, [F.Circus]sith1144 said:

There isnt 100-120mm of rolled steel plate in front of the gunner optics. Thats why its a weak spot. That they later added armour too. They redesigned the turret because the sherman et al *could* penetrate the turret with a lucky shot.

Can you provide me with a reference that describes how the German military redesigned the mantlet on the Tiger because the Sherman could penetrate it with a lucky shot?

 

And I am interested to know if you think all four shots in that image are from the same gun? Because apparently German tanks were often said to be outnumbered, so unless firing the same gun from the same angle and distance caused different size impacts, then it looks like the Tiger in that photo was facing 2 if not 3 different tanks.

[[F.Circus]sith1144]

why do you think they up-armoured the weak spot in the mantlet, if not to prevent it from getting penetrated by enemy tanks? 
as for the image, I only see the one impact mark, where it penetrated the mantled, so Im not sure what youre talking about (unless youre talking about the irrelevant picture of a tank with different armour to the one in game getting shot up a bit, I havent looked at it because its about a different vehicle and therefore irrelevant)

Edited June 15, 2021 by [F.Circus]sith1144

[ShampooX]

and of course the next question would be, if the exact same shot happened in the game would the outcome be identical?  I argue no.

[[F.Circus]MoerasGrizzly]

9 minutes ago, Shampoo_Actual said:

and of course the next question would be, if the exact same shot happened in the game would the outcome be identical?  I argue no.

It should be noted that in both the picture Sith posted of this model tank and the ingame picture of Noel's OP, the tank was hit in the same place with the same outcome (gunner KIA).

 

According to the Sherman data in IL2, the armour penetration of a Sherman M4A2 APHE round is 75mm at ~1000 meters. The armour at the optic of an early Tiger was 70mm. Since 75mm>70mm, penetration is possible.

Behold this side-by-side comparison of the ingame and the historical result.

 

 

Edited June 15, 2021 by [F.Circus]MoerasGrizzly

[LachenKrieg]

41 minutes ago, [F.Circus]sith1144 said:

why do you think they up-armoured the weak spot in the mantlet, if not to prevent it from getting penetrated by enemy tanks? 
as for the image, I only see the one impact mark, where it penetrated the mantled, so Im not sure what youre talking about (unless youre talking about the irrelevant picture of a tank with different armour to the one in game getting shot up a bit, I havent looked at it because its about a different vehicle and therefore irrelevant)

And comparing the 76mm gun to the 85mm gun is relevant?

 

The penetration mark in that image is closer to 105mm, so you are beholding nothing.

 

The image I posted shows two rounds still stuck in the mantlet. What size do you think they are? One of them is stuck in a part of the mantlet that had no reinforcement. Going back to your point. The hollowed out portion was only 35mm wide, so a 76mm shell would still have to penetrate 80mm. The M3 was rated for 73mm against rolled steel, and the T34 less. I acknowledge that this area was weaker.

 

Edit: Your explanation doesn't even make sense, because you just admitted that the penetration power of the in game Sherman is 75mm. the portion of the mantlet that is 70mm is only 35mm wide. So now you suggesting that a round capable of penetrating 73mm left a 105mm hole in 100mm thick steel? Good thing this is just a computer SIM.

Edited June 15, 2021 by LachenKrieg

[[F.Circus]MoerasGrizzly]

4 minutes ago, LachenKrieg said:

The image I posted shows two rounds still stuck in the mantlet

The image you posted is of a tank that is not featured in this game. It is of a later model tank then the one NoelGallagher was driving.

7 minutes ago, LachenKrieg said:

Edit: Your explanation doesn't even make sense, because you just admitted that the penetration power of the in game Sherman is 75mm. the portion of the mantlet that is 70mm is only 35mm wide. So now you suggesting that a round capable of penetrating 73mm left a 105mm hole in 100mm of rolled steel? Good thing this is just a computer SIM.

I'm utterly baffled by your complete inability to tell two people apart.

Edited June 15, 2021 by [F.Circus]MoerasGrizzly

[LachenKrieg]

1 minute ago, [F.Circus]MoerasGrizzly said:

The image you posted is of a tank that is not featured in this game.

Maybe so, but the part of the mantlet where the shell hit is the same. But I will let you read my last post because we both seem to be speed typing. But what you are suggesting is on the one hand the 76mm shell fit through a 35mm hole that was 70mm thick, but left a 105mm hole in rolled steel that is 100mm thick. Yeah no.

[[F.Circus]MoerasGrizzly]

1 minute ago, LachenKrieg said:

Maybe so, but the part of the mantlet where the shell hit is the same.

It is absolutely not which can be evaluated by simply looking at the two pictures. The image you posted features sloped, thicker armour. The older tiger has flat armour.

1 minute ago, LachenKrieg said:

But what you are suggesting is on the one hand the 76mm shell fit through a 35mm hole that was 70mm thick, but left a 105mm hole in rolled steel that is 100mm thick. Yeah no.

I have no idea why you continue to be unable to tell me and Sith apart.

[[F.Circus]sith1144]

24 minutes ago, LachenKrieg said:

And comparing the 76mm gun to the 85mm gun is relevant?

 

The penetration mark in that image is closer to 105mm, so you are beholding nothing.

 

The image I posted shows two rounds still stuck in the mantlet. What size do you think they are? One of them is stuck in a part of the mantlet that had no reinforcement. Going back to your point. The hollowed out portion was only 35mm wide, so a 76mm shell would still have to penetrate 80mm. The M3 was rated for 73mm against rolled steel, and the T34 less. I acknowledge that this area was weaker. 

the comparison to the 85 was to show how entry holes are larger than the shell that made them. Under what math is that hole 105mm? by my math with its 93mm in diameter. 

Once again, I do not care even the slightest about the other image because it. is. a. different. tank. The armour layout on the mantlet is different, it has eliminated the weakspot, it does not matter what can or cant penetrate that one.

"The hollowed out portion was only 35mm wide, so a 76mm shell would still have to penetrate 80mm." this shows a fundamental misunderstanding of how armour works. The armour is still weaker in this area. The armour there is not equivalent to an 80mm flat plate (which incidentally, a shell being rated for penetration generally doesnt even mean 100% penetration 100% of the time, depending on the country it generally refers to X% of the shell making it through the armour X% of the time.) The 75mm shell is also not a flat-faced cylinder, it has a pointy tip.

Fact is, the tiger ausf.H1 had a weak spot that was maybe 20x10cm across where shots could and did penetrate it, as evidenced by the photo of exactly that thing happening. You have run out of arguments and evidence and are just shifting goalposts now.

 

actually, having looked at the diagram, where are you getting this 35mm measurement from? the diagrams on that website show the area where the armour is 70mm thick to be roughly 9cm wide, of which parts *have no armour at all* to make room for the optics.

Edited June 15, 2021 by [F.Circus]sith1144

[LachenKrieg]

3 minutes ago, [F.Circus]sith1144 said:

the comparison to the 85 was to show how entry holes are larger than the shell that made them. Under what math is that hole 105mm? by my math with its 93mm in diameter. 

Once again, I do not care even the slightest about the other image because it. is. a. different. tank. The armour layout on the mantlet is different, it has eliminated the weakspot, it does not matter what can or cant penetrate that one.

"The hollowed out portion was only 35mm wide, so a 76mm shell would still have to penetrate 80mm." this shows a fundamental misunderstanding of how armour works. The armour is still weaker in this area. The armour there is not equivalent to an 80mm flat plate (which incidentally, a shell being rated for penetration generally doesnt even mean 100% penetration 100% of the time, depending on the country it generally refers to X% of the shell making it through the armour X% of the time.) The 75mm shell is also not a flat-faced cylinder, it has a pointy tip.

Fact is, the tiger ausf.H1 had a weak spot that was maybe 20x10cm across where shots could and did penetrate it, as evidenced by the photo of exactly that thing happening. You have run out of arguments and evidence and are just shifting goalposts now.

No one is shifting anything. I have asked you from the beginning what gun fired that shot. You told me you don't know, but you are insisting to claim that it was a 76mm shot.

 

Yes we can see that the tank was penetrated there, no one is disputing that fact. The question is by what and from what distance?

 

What gun fired that shot, and from what distance? Do you have any information regarding this. The photo was traced to 1943 according to you. How sure are you of that date even?

 

But if you don't know what gun was used, from what distance, then how can you maintain to know that it was a 76mm shot?

 

And regarding your understanding of how armor works, I agree when you read 73mm it does not mean 73mm can be penetrated every time. But you are not considering that a Sherman firing a shot from 1000m will have to adjust the gun elevation to hit its target. the trajectory of the shell means that it will be pointing down slightly as it contacts the armor surface. In this case, because the Tigers armor is flat, the armor thickness the shell has to pass through increases slightly.  And the shell would still have to spread 100+mm of steel  out to 105mm.

 

So unless you can provide proof of what gun fired that shot and from what distance so that we have a point of reference to go by, it is just as irrelevant as the 85mm gun discussion, and the picture I posted.

Edit: another point, the penetration mark in the photo you are using looks to be a fairly direct hit, meaning flat trajectory. This implies that it is not a shot from 1000m using a shell that has a starting velocity around 600m/s.

[[F.Circus]MoerasGrizzly]

18 minutes ago, LachenKrieg said:

And regarding your understanding of how armor works, I agree when you read 73mm it does not mean 73mm can be penetrated every time. But you are not considering that a Sherman firing a shot from 1000m will have to adjust the gun elevation to hit its target. the trajectory of the shell means that it will be pointing down slightly as it contacts the armor surface. In this case, because the Tigers armor is flat, the armor thickness the shell has to pass through increases slightly.  And the shell would still have to spread 100+mm of steel  out to 105mm.

This simple detail is accounted for in penetration statistics.

18 minutes ago, LachenKrieg said:

The photo was traced to 1943 according to you.

I'm once again surprised at your utter inability to tell the two of us apart.

18 minutes ago, LachenKrieg said:

So unless you can provide proof of what gun fired that shot and from what distance so that we have a point of reference to go by, it is just as irrelevant as the 85mm gun discussion, and the picture I posted.

 

At that point, we simply have the historical fact that the mantled's armour at the penetrated part in NoelGallagher's tank is 70mm thick, and that the M4A2 sherman APHE round is rated for 75mm penetration at 1km in the game. Since 75>70, penetration is possible. QED.

Edited June 15, 2021 by [F.Circus]MoerasGrizzly

[LachenKrieg]

Get in a Sherman and adjust your gun for a target 1000m away. How much do you have to adjust your elevation? The Sherman is rated for 73mm at 1000m against a 90 degree plate. It is not contacting the plate at 90 degrees anymore is it?

[F.Circusxthetenth]

  

17 minutes ago, LachenKrieg said:

No one is shifting anything. I have asked you from the beginning what gun fired that shot. You told me you don't know, but you are insisting to claim that it was a 76mm shot.

 

Yes we can see that the tank was penetrated there, no one is disputing that fact. The question is by what and from what distance?

 

What gun fired that shot, and from what distance? Do you have any information regarding this. The photo was traced to 1943 according to you. How sure are you of that date even?

 

But if you don't know what gun was used, from what distance, then how can you maintain to know that it was a 76mm shot?

 

And regarding your understanding of how armor works, I agree when you read 73mm it does not mean 73mm can be penetrated every time. But you are not considering that a Sherman firing a shot from 1000m will have to adjust the gun elevation to hit its target. the trajectory of the shell means that it will be pointing down slightly as it contacts the armor surface. In this case, because the Tigers armor is flat, the armor thickness the shell has to pass through increases slightly.  And the shell would still have to spread 100+mm of steel  out to 105mm.

 

So unless you can provide proof of what gun fired that shot and from what distance so that we have a point of reference to go by, it is just as irrelevant as the 85mm gun discussion, and the picture I posted.

Edit: another point, the penetration mark in the photo you are using looks to be a fairly direct hit, meaning flat trajectory. This implies that it is not a shot from 1000m using a shell that has a starting velocity around 600m/s.

 

You're saying that the effective thickness of the 70mm plate (disregarding holes) is 100mm because of the angle? Did you even stop to think what angle of fall would be required for that to be the case? Here's a hint. The cosine is the length of the hypotenuse over the length of the adjacent leg of a triangle, so if the adjacent leg is the 70mm line of sight thickness and the 100mm is the effective thickness of the plate at the angle of incidence, the inverse of that cosine is the angle of incidence. The inverse of trig functions like the cosine is called the arccosine. 70/100=.7, and arccos(.7)=45.572996 degrees.

 

So you are claiming that the 75mm gun on the sherman tank, with a muzzle velocity of 618 m/s, is travelling at approximately the same velocity in the horizontal and vertical axis. Think about that for a moment. The acceleration of gravity is 32 m/s. Is it customary where you're from to fire a tank gun and wait a tenth of a minute for the shell to land?

 

Have you even stopped for half a second to sanity check your numbers, or are you just guessing and making us teach you trig?

 

If the former's the case you'll have no difficulty telling me what the angle of incidence that makes a 70mm thick plate appear 73mm thick to a shell is. If the latter's the case, consider it your homework and your tutor irked.

Edited June 15, 2021 by xthetenth

[[F.Circus]MoerasGrizzly]

3 minutes ago, xthetenth said:

or are you just guessing and making us teach you trig?

LachenKrieg has mentioned from the start that they were just guessing mind.

[LachenKrieg]

Its my turn. What? No that would be a stretch @xthetenth, and that is not what I am saying. The hollowed out portion is only 35mm wide. I am talking about the surrounding 100mm surfaces that the shell has to also pass through, and which would be slightly increased if the shell does not pass straight through.

8 minutes ago, xthetenth said:

  So you are claiming that the 75mm gun on the sherman tank, with a muzzle velocity of 618 m/s, is travelling at approximately the same velocity in the horizontal and vertical axis. Think about that for a moment. The acceleration of gravity is 32 m/s. Is it customary where you're from to fire a tank gun and wait a tenth of a minute for the shell to land?

Sorry I skipped over this the first time around. Are you saying that the shell is traveling faster when it hits the target 1000m away then it was when it left the gun due to gravity?

[[F.Circus]MoerasGrizzly]

9 minutes ago, LachenKrieg said:

g. The hollowed out portion is only 35mm wide. I am talking about the surrounding 100mm surfaces that the shell has to also pass through,

The hollowed out portion is 35 mm wide. The surrounding surface is 70mm.

At the hollowed out portion, there simply isn't any armour. Not only is this a 70mm section, it's not a solid 70mm section, which greatly reduces its armour effectiveness.

Edited June 15, 2021 by [F.Circus]MoerasGrizzly

[[F.Circus]sith1144]

Quote

 The photo was traced to 1943 according to you.

Wasn't me. Grizzly and I are different people, who know, think, and say different things. Because we're not the same person. Im not sure how to convey this concept in a way that is easier to understand. But think about how you and I are a different person. Its the same with me and Grizzly.
 

Quote

But if you don't know what gun was used, from what distance, then how can you maintain to know that it was a 76mm shot?

I don't, I just said its about the right size for a shot from that gun and it was the most common gun in soviet service, mounted on almost all of their tanks. Thefore it is Likely that it is a shot from a 76mm cannon or indeed a 75mm one. For all I know it could have been left by a particularly zealous PTRD gunner.

 

Quote

the trajectory of the shell means that it will be pointing down slightly as it contacts the armor surface.

lol go calculate the approximate angle of impact. Here's a hint: the circle on the shermans gunsight has a radius of 5 mils.

 

Quote

And the shell would still have to spread 100+mm of steel  out to 105mm.

how does a 70mm thick plate become 100+mm thick. The armour in the tiny box around the gunners eyeballs is 80mm thick with a further 10mm cut out bringing it down to 70mm. That is the weakspot that got hit in the picture of the penetrated mantlet. That is the weakspot that got hit by the sherman in the OPs post. You can find that weakspot in the game yourself, the soviet 76 guns will also happily penetrate it, if you manage to hit it, which is very tricky indeed even at point blank range.

I reiterate my position: the tigers mantlet has a tiny weakspot where the armour is only 70mm thick, surrounded by an area where it is only 80mm. Thin enough for a sherman 75 to penetrate. If another tank hits that it can penetrate it, as we know historically happened and the germans subsequently up-armoured this location. You say it is theoretically impossible, could you elaborate on the theory? Id like to see the maths behind it, because I think a sherman could easily penetrate an 80mm thick plate that has been weakened by someone cutting two holes into it, let alone a 70mm thick plate, on account of it doing so in ballistic trials (consider the side of the tiger they test again is even thicker than the weak spot in question, with no holes to weaken it, and is being hit to disastrous effects).

[LachenKrieg]

Yeah well at this point, does it really matter who is posting. You are both saying the same thing and have been from the start. I didn't mean to insult you by addressing someone else, but in my view, I am addressing the same argument anyway.

 

Regarding the dimensions, yeah I am talking about the hollowed out part, so I should have said 50mm. I never said a 70mm plate becomes 100mm. That is something someone else suggested I said.

 

The 76mm shell would have to enlarge the 50mm hollowed out section in an area where it is 100mm thick to make a 105mm hole.  And I am just pointing out that the angle of the shell and the plate in this case work opposite to when the plate is angled. In other words, the amount of armor the shell has to pass through in this case would increase not decrease regardless of how slight it is.

 

I didn't read over the entire page, but the link you provided seems to be talking about penetrating the Tiger from the side. So if the side was 80mm and the Sherman had to be around 700m to penetrate it, how do you expect it to penetrate 100mm at 1000m even if it hit the weak area around the gun sight. Do you have any proof to show that a Sherman could penetrate a Tiger there from 1000m? I would like to see it, and not just because we disagree, but because I am interested.

 

You showed a picture of a Tiger penetrated there, but by what gun and from what distance?

 

And regarding your request for theory, why don't we start like this since your the one claiming the myth. Show me penetration marks of the Sherman's gun at 1000m against 100mm of steel. Because the 76mm shell would have to be able to spread 100mm of steel in order to make the size of hole shown in that picture. So we are not just talking about the hollowed out port, or the area immediately around it. Your theory as you call it basically rests on the fact that 76mm guns were common and assumes that the penetration mark in the photo was made from 1000m away. How do you know the gun that fired that shot wasn't 200m away?

[F.Circusxthetenth]

11 hours ago, LachenKrieg said:

Its my turn. What? No that would be a stretch @xthetenth, and that is not what I am saying. The hollowed out portion is only 35mm wide. I am talking about the surrounding 100mm surfaces that the shell has to also pass through, and which would be slightly increased if the shell does not pass straight through.

 

Oh. Sigh. So I'm going to be dreadfully unprofessional here and just totally disregard edge effects, which are a huge deal in the propagation of stresses through armor steel and make a big difference in penetration effects because it turns out that unsupported steel is much more easily plowed through.

 

So keep in mind here that all numbers are lower bounds and actual numbers will be in excess, likely by a large amount (sorry but I cannot and will not do the numbers for the edge effect for the Tiger's armor construction in question unless as an example of a methodology I get a phd for. 

 

Okay. A 75mm radius (sic, that's diameter) circle is 4,417mm square. The tiger's mantlet construction is as follows:
Telescope openings in mantlet | TIGER1.INFO

 

That means that there's a 50mm tall slice of that circle that's only 70mm thick. That's 2500 square mm plus two of four remaining segments of a circle. If the shell hits the centerline of the weak spot, only 958 square mm of 4,417 that are in the shell's direct path are overlapping 100mm thick armor. (I'm disregarding the angle of incidence, as would you if you worked out the cosine of a relatively conservative 5 milliradians of drop (that's .28 degrees for those counting at home!)

 

Now because apparently German engineers are in league with my math teachers and want to make me suffer for assuming I wouldn't use my geometry skills after graduation, this thing has a tapered hole through it, that goes from 35mm to 13mm. So let's break down the armor penetration phenomenon being discussed here so we can see just how much material is in the way.

 

958 square mm are 100 mm thick. That's 95,800 mm^3 of material.

That leaves the remaining volume except for the hole at 70mm thick. That's 3,458 mm^2, so 242,125 mm^3.

Now we take the hole out. It's a circle, 35mm in diameter on one side and 13mm in diameter on the other side. Because I insist on being pedantically correct, I'm going to approximate this as a section of a cone, the area of which is just the area of a trapezoid of area 70(((35/2)+(13/2))/2) squared and then multiplied by pi for reasons that have to do with it just being the same integral that gives us the area of a circle being pi*radius squared. That gives us 21,124 mm cubed for the volume of the section removed from the armor for the actual viewing port. So there's a total of 242,125 + 95,800 - 21,124 = 316,801 cubic mm of armor. Spread out over the 4,417 square mm of the cylinder that's the shell's diameter, that's 71.72 mm on average. So even assuming the earth moving model of armor, where you're just moving material out of the way, the Sherman does in fact have more penetration than necessary to go through that armor half the time. Yes, I assumed a perfect hit. But I disregarded edge effect, which is significant enough that it probably stands a decent chance of penetrating if it were merely touching the edge of the shell to the side of the sight hole.

 

You see, when a shell slams into armor, it makes a big difference whether the edges of the armor are supported or not. When the edges of the armor aren't braced by a similar thickness of steel, it gets a lot more likely to be folded back and make a catastrophic, day-ruining breach in the armor.

 

 

This is an example on a tank with more brittle armor, which suffered what we'd call a calamitous failure of among other things the plate, the weld, and the head of any crew that were behind it at the time.

 

  

10 hours ago, LachenKrieg said:

And regarding your request for theory, why don't we start like this since your the one claiming the myth. Show me penetration marks of the Sherman's gun at 1000m against 100mm of steel. Because the 76mm shell would have to be able to spread 100mm of steel in order to make the size of hole shown in that picture. So we are not just talking about the hollowed out port, or the area immediately around it. Your theory as you call it basically rests on the fact that 76mm guns were common and assumes that the penetration mark in the photo was made from 1000m away. How do you know the gun that fired that shot wasn't 200m away?

 

The image is a rebuttal to an image of a Tiger E posted with similar lack of context in a thread discussing a game in which a penetration of a Tiger H1 occurred, so it's plenty good to counter that and leave us with math. Glorious, glorious math. Thankfully we don't even have to approximate edge effect, which is a serious, non-trivial thing that just isn't necessary because just by the numbers we've got already, we're under the rated thickness for 50% chance of full penetration of the gun at 1 km. (Also, note that close counts in horseshoes, hand grenades, and ruining the gunner's day by imparting energy into his skull through his optics)

Edited June 15, 2021 by xthetenth

[[F.Circus]sith1144]

10 minutes ago, LachenKrieg said:

I never said a 70mm plate becomes 100mm.

then why are you going on and on and on about how the shell would need to penetrate 100mm of armour in a place where theres 70? Im still waiting for the metholodogy for how that hole is 100+mm, show your work or shut up. 
Im not going to show the sherman penetrating 100mm, because its irrelevant, it needs to penetrate 70mm, because that is the thickness of the weakspot, as also demonstrated by Xthetenths maths. At what point will you recognize that your pre-existing bias that tigers have invulnernable fronts clashes with observable reality? even the nazis realized their tanks were vulnerable and added more armour to the very weak spot we are discussing! We have nothing left to discuss, because you deny reality and keep re-stating falsehoods asking for them to be disproved with extremely specific evidence of a type that rarely exists. I am convinced that even if we did find a firing trial where a sherman 75 penetrated a 100mm steel plate - which we dont need to because that is not the thickness of the weak spot - you would still not believe it to be a vulnerability until someone found a test report showing the allies specifically testing a russian m4a2 firing at just the weak spot from a distance no less than 1000 meters. This is an impossible standard, a little bit of deductive reasoning will be required.

So let me turn this around: please provide evidence to me that the sherman once hit the weakspot within 1000m but failed to penetrate. 

[LachenKrieg]

In your calculation, did you account for the size of hole in the picture your flaunting, or just the size of the shell? Because you might be a little short on the amount of material that has to be moved it you didn't. 

 

But if the hole in the Panther you posted was made by the British 17 pounder, that gun had a velocity of 880m/s. Like I said, that looks to me like a 76mm shot, and I don't think it compares well with the hole in the Tiger picture. The hole in the Tiger looks to be quite a bit bigger. And the Panther was hit several times, which also tends to weaken welds, joints, and the steel plate itself. 

 

But lets not move the goal posts, and stay on topic with the Sherman's gun.

[F.Circusxthetenth]

9 minutes ago, LachenKrieg said:

In your calculation, did you account for the size of hole in the picture your flaunting, or just the size of the shell? Because you might be a little short on the amount of material that has to be moved it you didn't. 

 

But if the hole in the Panther you posted was made by the British 17 pounder, that gun had a velocity of 880m/s. Like I said, that looks to me like a 76mm shot, and I don't think it compares well with the hole in the Tiger picture. The hole in the Tiger looks to be quite a bit bigger. And the Panther was hit several times, which also tends to weaken welds, joints, and the steel plate itself. 

 

But lets not move the goal posts, and stay on topic with the Sherman's gun.

 

The picture is entirely a demonstration of edge effect. The gun and tank involved are irrelevant outside as a material demonstration of how a hole nearby to a shell hit compromises the integrity of the armor plate and leaves it less effective than its nominal thickness.

 

As far as my calculation, I accounted for the relative areas in the path of the shell that are 100mm thick outside the 50mm tall weak spot and the 70mm thick weak spot, which is by far the majority of the area the shell has to travel through. Then, after adding those two, I subtract the volume of the hole from that sum. It's relatively self-evident, just building a shape up out of the sum/difference of basic solids. Do note, of course, that the hole, by virtue of being a hole, that is an area full of metal that is not there, is in fact less material to move out of the way.

Edited June 15, 2021 by xthetenth

[LachenKrieg]

1 hour ago, [F.Circus]sith1144 said:

then why are you going on and on and on about how the shell would need to penetrate 100mm of armour in a place where theres 70? Im still waiting for the metholodogy for how that hole is 100+mm, show your work or shut up. 
Im not going to show the sherman penetrating 100mm, because its irrelevant, it needs to penetrate 70mm, because that is the thickness of the weakspot, as also demonstrated by Xthetenths maths. At what point will you recognize that your pre-existing bias that tigers have invulnernable fronts clashes with observable reality? even the nazis realized their tanks were vulnerable and added more armour to the very weak spot we are discussing! We have nothing left to discuss, because you deny reality and keep re-stating falsehoods asking for them to be disproved with extremely specific evidence of a type that rarely exists. I am convinced that even if we did find a firing trial where a sherman 75 penetrated a 100mm steel plate - which we dont need to because that is not the thickness of the weak spot - you would still not believe it to be a vulnerability until someone found a test report showing the allies specifically testing a russian m4a2 firing at just the weak spot from a distance no less than 1000 meters. This is an impossible standard, a little bit of deductive reasoning will be required.

So let me turn this around: please provide evidence to me that the sherman once hit the weakspot within 1000m but failed to penetrate. 

Unfortunately you don't know me, because if you did you would know that your preconceived idea about my motives or whether or not I would listen to reason are wrong.

 

You and your partner/friend showed a picture as if it was proof that an in game result could be explained.

 

You don't know what gun fired the shot, and more importantly, you don't know from what distance. I pointed that out fairly early on, so don't blame me for the back and forth discussion.

 

The calculations that @xthetenth showed only accounts for a bore of 75mm. He/she uses radius, but I believe he/she means diameter because a circle with a diameter of 75mm has an area of 4400mm square. So his/her calculations in my view are incomplete, and not just because it does not account for edge effect. The picture you guys are flaunting with claims that it was made by a Sherman from 1000m has a much larger diameter.

 

Look, I'm not arguing that the gun sight isn't a weak spot. I am questioning the fact that you guys have no clue as to which gun made that hole, and from what distance, so don't tell me I'm the one requesting impossible standards.

Edited June 15, 2021 by LachenKrieg

[[F.Circus]sith1144]

2 minutes ago, LachenKrieg said:

In your calculation, did you account for the size of hole in the picture your flaunting, or just the size of the shell? Because you might be a little short on the amount of material that has to be moved it you didn't. 

 

But if the hole in the Panther you posted was made by the British 17 pounder, that gun had a velocity of 880m/s. Like I said, that looks to me like a 76mm shot, and I don't think it compares well with the hole in the Tiger picture. The hole in the Tiger looks to be quite a bit bigger. And the Panther was hit several times, which also tends to weaken welds, joints, and the steel plate itself. 

 

But lets not move the goal posts, and stay on topic with the Sherman's gun.

Oh i see where we have all gone wrong in this discussion. You don't know what deductive reasoning is! That's okay, not everyone knows how logic works. 

 

Basically, what people are doing is providing examples and sources that are about specific claims, such as the tigers weak spot being a certain thickness and the 75mm cannon being able to penetrate a certain thickness.

 

These claims are known as premises. We then apply deductive reasoning to these claims; the tigers weakspot is 70mm thick, the Sherman can reliably penetrate 75mm, therefore the Sherman can reliably penetrate the tiger tank.

 

So long as these premises hold up, the conclusion *must* be true. There is also a form of logic where it is merely likely, but let's not get ahead of ourselves.

 

This is where it gets a little complicated, because not all evidence for premises is equally valid or convincing! For example, the picture of the shells failing to penetrate the mantlet of the ausf. E is not convincing when talking about the ausf. H, because it has a different mantlet armour layout, and therefore is not relevant.

 

So how is that different from Xthetenth posting a picture of a panther? Well, she was not using it to support a premise about the tiger H directly, but to support her premise. Her own premise regarding the tiger is itself a conclusion based on different premises! I told you it would get complicated here!

 

She uses the panther picture as an example of edge effect, a complicated physics principle that i don't quite understand. She uses the picture to make it clear how important it is for the toughness of armour, together with the premises that the armour is thinner and that holes exacerbate edge effect, to conclude that the weak spot is indeed about 71mm thick. This conclusion itself is a premise for why the tiger could get penetrates. 

 

Are you still with me? I'm frankly starting to lose track myself! Ultimately the reason the panther photo is relevant but the ausf E isn't, is that the Panthers photo is an argument that the edge effect matters, while the ausf. e picture is an argument that the weakspot does not exist, which has been rejected because it indeed does not on the E because they fixed it.

 

If it's still a little complicated to follow, i highly recommend reading this primer https://simple.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deductive_reasoning

 

Since neither facts nor reasoning has so far proven to be persuasive, I will now be going to sleep. Maybe that is the key.

[LachenKrieg]

54 minutes ago, xthetenth said:

 

The picture is entirely a demonstration of edge effect. The gun and tank involved are irrelevant outside as a material demonstration of how a hole nearby to a shell hit compromises the integrity of the armor plate and leaves it less effective than its nominal thickness.

 

As far as my calculation, I accounted for the relative areas in the path of the shell that are 100mm thick outside the 50mm tall weak spot and the 70mm thick weak spot, which is by far the majority of the area the shell has to travel through. Then, after adding those two, I subtract the volume of the hole from that sum. It's relatively self-evident, just building a shape up out of the sum/difference of basic solids. Do note, of course, that the hole, by virtue of being a hole, that is an area full of metal that is not there, is in fact less material to move out of the way.

Are we back here again... irrelevant? The relevant part is not the plate failure. The relevant part to this discussion is the penetration mark left by a 17 pounder. That is a 76mm gun with a velocity of 880m/s. The hitting power of that gun is much greater than the gun in the Sherman. The relevant point is compare the hole in the Panther to the hole in the Tiger. The hole in the Panther looks like a 76mm round went through it. The hole in the Tiger image looks to be a lot bigger to me, which has been my point from the start.

 

Going back to your calculations, accounting for a 75mm hole in your calculation does not explain how it made an approx 105mm hole. If your trying to suggest that the increased hole size is due to failure from hitting a weak spot, then it would more likely cause an irregular shape and not a neat round opening. I believe we see a neat round opening because the size of the shell was a lot bigger than the gun sight openings, and the shell was able to penetrate through 100mm of steel. A shell capable of penetrating 100mm of steel would definitely round out that weak spot.

34 minutes ago, [F.Circus]sith1144 said:

Oh i see where we have all gone wrong in this discussion. You don't know what deductive reasoning is! That's okay, not everyone knows how logic works. 

 

Basically, what people are doing is providing examples and sources that are about specific claims, such as the tigers weak spot being a certain thickness and the 75mm cannon being able to penetrate a certain thickness.

 

These claims are known as premises. We then apply deductive reasoning to these claims; the tigers weakspot is 70mm thick, the Sherman can reliably penetrate 75mm, therefore the Sherman can reliably penetrate the tiger tank.

 

So long as these premises hold up, the conclusion *must* be true. There is also a form of logic where it is merely likely, but let's not get ahead of ourselves.

 

This is where it gets a little complicated, because not all evidence for premises is equally valid or convincing! For example, the picture of the shells failing to penetrate the mantlet of the ausf. E is not convincing when talking about the ausf. H, because it has a different mantlet armour layout, and therefore is not relevant.

 

So how is that different from Xthetenth posting a picture of a panther? Well, she was not using it to support a premise about the tiger H directly, but to support her premise. Her own premise regarding the tiger is itself a conclusion based on different premises! I told you it would get complicated here!

 

She uses the panther picture as an example of edge effect, a complicated physics principle that i don't quite understand. She uses the picture to make it clear how important it is for the toughness of armour, together with the premises that the armour is thinner and that holes exacerbate edge effect, to conclude that the weak spot is indeed about 71mm thick. This conclusion itself is a premise for why the tiger could get penetrates. 

 

Are you still with me? I'm frankly starting to lose track myself! Ultimately the reason the panther photo is relevant but the ausf E isn't, is that the Panthers photo is an argument that the edge effect matters, while the ausf. e picture is an argument that the weakspot does not exist, which has been rejected because it indeed does not on the E because they fixed it.

 

If it's still a little complicated to follow, i highly recommend reading this primer https://simple.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deductive_reasoning

 

Since neither facts nor reasoning has so far proven to be persuasive, I will now be going to sleep. Maybe that is the key.

While you sleep, here are a few points to consider when you wake if your still interested.

 

-The penetration power of the Sherman's gun is reported as slightly less than 75 depending on the source you use.

-Stating that the weak spot is only 70mm thick is only partly right.

-The hole in question isn't 75mm in diameter.

-You have no clue what gun made the shot, and more importantly at what distance.

-Your calculations are missing some 4200+mm square of material that is 100mm thick and would have to be moved out of the way.

 

Sweat Dreams. 

Edited June 15, 2021 by LachenKrieg

[[F.Circus]MoerasGrizzly]

3 hours ago, LachenKrieg said:

The hole in the Tiger image looks to be a lot bigger to me, which has been my point from the start.

Ofc. Whilst it looks bigger to you, you appear to be thwarted by the simple math and data that other users posted. You keep repeating an unsubstantiated 105mm claim whilst others have substantiated their claim with math and historical data.

 

So, okay, let's assume you eyeballed it correctly. Which Soviet guns used in February 1943 were capable of doing the things you claim it would have to do? The Soviets at that point in time used 76mm or less for their AT and tank guns. You've made your hypothesis, but just repeating your assumptions over and over again doesn't substantiate your argument: What gun did the Soviets use that can make a hole that is as big as you claim?

Edited June 15, 2021 by [F.Circus]MoerasGrizzly

[Dakpilot]

A cursory Google search gives info on zis-3 76.2 field A/T gun (most commonly found with more than 100,000 produced) it has better ballistics than T-34 gun, and crews were told to aim at Gun mantle on Tiger as a known weak spot. 

 

This is of course hearsay but does give credence to the 'lucky shot' Tiger penetration in Feb 43.

 

another line of thought could be where were Tigers in action on Eastern front in Feb 43

 

Cheers, Dakpilot 

[[F.Circus]MoerasGrizzly]

5 minutes ago, Dakpilot said:

A cursory Google search gives info on zis-3 76.2 field A/T gun (most commonly found with more than 100,000 produced) it has better ballistics than T-34 gun, and crews were told to aim at Gun mantle on Tiger as a known weak spot. 

I agree that this is a likely candidate for this kind of shot: Wikipedia's article on the gun helpfully includes an AP table which indicates it does have the performance required to penetrate 70mm of armour.