T-72 have we been using the wrong round all this time?

[lukeyu2005]

Hey guys I just did some reading on the 125mm smoothbore gun used on the T-64, T-72, T-80, M-84, T-90 etc and found a page listing all the ammunition it used

125 mm smoothbore ammunition - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

And i noticed all the HEAT rounds had more amour penetration than the APFSDS-T rounds.
And we were always told APFSDS-T for heavy armour and Heat for soft targets.
Have we been using the wrong ammo types all this time?

[ComradeHX]

As far as I recall, I have only seen frag and apfsds-t.

HEAT is on RPG-7 and SPG-9.

I would love to fire some missiles from 125mm gun, though(that will actually make them balanced against Challenger 2).

[L4gi]

The AP round still does the most damage. We've tried it out.

[40mmrain]

The AP round still does the most damage. We've tried it out.

you mean you shot a T90's APFSDST and HEAT round at some giant steel plates at 2000m?

The OP means that the real HEAT round supposedly is better at penetrating armour, but that begs the question, what's the point of the round if HEAT is better in every way? Surely there's a misread stat.

The most recent HEAT rounds tout about 800mm a penetration, and thats the same as the APFSDST's, older rounds and the HEAT is flat better than APFSDST which is what the MEC would probably use..

I have to ask, how is penetration calculated?

[godfather_596]

Not the first time I've heard about HEAT having higher penetration than APFSDS. I know the primary advantage of APFSDS is the longer range (only thing longer is AT missile). Also as an extra Abrams has poorer protection against HEAT due to depleted uranium melting at lower temperatures (saw that somewhere) but as a plus since depleted uranium is so dense it makes it extremely armored against kinetic energy penetrators. Also HEAT doesn't have a blast radius since it is a shaped charge technically (High Explosive Anti-Tank) so I think the blast radius is strange. They developed the canister shell for the Abrams for this reason since it had no effective anti personnel/anti building rounds like HE-Frag or HESH

[M42 Zwilling]

you mean you shot a T90's APFSDST and HEAT round at some giant steel plates at 2000m?

The OP means that the real HEAT round supposedly is better at penetrating armour, but that begs the question, what's the point of the round if HEAT is better in every way? Surely there's a misread stat.

The most recent HEAT rounds tout about 800mm a penetration, and thats the same as the APFSDST's, older rounds and the HEAT is flat better than APFSDST which is what the MEC would probably use..

I have to ask, how is penetration calculated?

Here's my understanding of how it works. It's more about damage than penatration. I'll use the M1's APFSDST projectile as an example.

It has a damage value of 1200. Its actual damage though depends on the type of surface it hits. When a projectile with the material assigned to PR's AP rounds hits a certain material, it has a damage modifier specifically assigned for instances when those two materials contact. The damage modifier for when an AP round hits frontal tank armor is 0.4, or 40%. So when that projectile hits, the game takes the projectiles orginal damage value of 1200, multiplies it by the damage modifier of 0.4, and comes up with a final damage of 480. This value is then subtracted from the HP of the object being hit. Since PR's T-72 has 1700 hit points, it will have 1220 HP after being hit on frontal armor by an AP round from an Abrams. Naturally, it will do more damage if it hits side or rear armor.

For comparison, an M1's HEAT has a damage of 1000. HEAT rounds have a damage modifier of 0.1 to frontal armor. So a T-72 will only lose 100 HP from a frontal hit by a HEAT fired by an M1.

BTW, AFAIK the M1's HEAT and APFSDST rounds do exactly the same damage as the equivalent rounds fired by all other tanks in PR, except for the T-62's HEAT, which has a damage of 800. The amount of HP is all the same too, once again with the exception of the T-62.

[40mmrain]

Not the first time I've heard about HEAT having higher penetration than APFSDS. I know the primary advantage of APFSDS is the longer range (only thing longer is AT missile). Also as an extra Abrams has poorer protection against HEAT due to depleted uranium melting at lower temperatures (saw that somewhere) but as a plus since depleted uranium is so dense it makes it extremely armored against kinetic energy penetrators. Also HEAT doesn't have a blast radius since it is a shaped charge technically (High Explosive Anti-Tank) so I think the blast radius is strange. They developed the canister shell for the Abrams for this reason since it had no effective anti personnel/anti building rounds like HE-Frag or HESH

Actually HEAT rounds are useful against material, but dont really explode like HEFRAG rounds, like they do in PR. HEAT rounds are usually seen as anti infantry rounds, and APFSDST as anti vehicle rounds, when not so, they are both anti vehicle rounds. Coax weapons should do most of the anit infantry work for tanks, but theyre really underpowered in PR.

[SShadowFox]

HEAT rounds are better against a BRDM-2 than a APFSDST.

[godfather_596]

It is true in that case I think that HEAT should be replaced by HE-Frag or HESH for anti infantry role for realism (although we stumble onto a problem with the Abrams which has neither, and canister may prove problematic). Also coaxes lack significant cover penetration so dedicated tank rounds are a must when dealing with entrenched infantry. In any case i guess the more the merrier in this situation and the more types of rounds at our disposal the better (staying within ammo constraints of course...)

[40mmrain]

HEAT rounds are better against a BRDM-2 than a APFSDST.

it instantly annihilates MTLBs, BTRs, and such instead of causing them to go into flames, scoring kills. It instantly tracks BMPs instead of having them go on fire, which would result in an inability to return fire.

If there are no enemy tanks, HEAT is your best choice.

[Hunt3r]

IRL even though HEAT has higher RHAe penetration, many armor compositions are much more effective at stopping HEAT than APFSDS. AFAIK the Abrams mantlet has something like 700mm APFSDS protection, but 1400mm HEAT protection (in terms of RHAe).

[Bringerof_D]

yes this may be true, however lets remember that these tests are done using just armor plates. yes HE technically does give better penetration and do much more damage on regular armor. however reactive armor and such things as bird cages drastically reduce the effectiveness of HEAT rounds or other such explosive ordinates.

also some of the in game characteristics have been mentioned by others here. some of them i never knew before such as their faster affect on APCs and lighter armored vehicles.

[Truism]

The did all the tests a while back and you're actually usually a bit better off loading heat by default.

[AnimalMother.]

can't remember which testing cycle it was (might have been 096x) but one of the test items was making sure that AP tank rounds did more damage than HEAT. That was for both the M1A2 and the T72 iirc

agree though that most of the time you're better off with HEAT loaded as it is mroe effective against more target types. Has been a while since I last played mind