Awesome and precise explanation. I always knew the general gist of the Brit’s wanting to hold onto HESH, and how rifled barrels were worse for APFSDS, but never knew the physics of why. This is a video I will use as reference for a long time, thank you!
When whatching these videos I'm always waiting for the "what will he miss". Nope, nothing missing here. I totally second using this video for reference.
There are two additional advantages smoothbore tanks guns have over rifled ones. The first is that they last a lot longer. There is far less wear on a barrel when a round goes through a smoothbore since it’s not having to force itself through the rifling. This both reduces maintenance costs and can keep a tank fighting in a heavy combat situation. The second is mostly an advantage for Soviet/Russian/Chinese designs in that it’s far easier to fire a gun launched ATGM through a smoothbore. The Soviets began using these for long distance fire as their optics and ballistic computers aren’t near as good as western ones. One of the many flaws of the M551 Sheridan was that its rifled cannon barrel needed a key slot cut through it to keep the missile from spinning when it was fired as spinning would make the guidance fail. This compromised the barrel and made it wear out even faster.
Another interesting point is that there is a large number of other types of ammo that are available for NATO smoothbore guns that are not available for the British 120mm. These include anti personnel fragmentation, anti personel canister and guided rounds. I guess my analogy would be that the 120mm rifled gun is like sticking with VHS format when everyone else went to DVD.
Additional advantages of smoothbores include but are not limited to: 1. Higher accuracy due to the missing rotation of the projectile which makes it slightly veer off to the side. (Heat/HESH FS for example) 1.1. " also due to a higher muzzle velocity so theres less time between firing and impact and a flatter trajectory. 2. Higher potential penetration due to increased projectile speed 3. Assuming identical performance HEAT ammuntion works slightly better at impact when not spinning 4. Less friction in the barrel keeps it cooler and slightly more accurate long term (Most modern tanks got equipment to compensate for heat induced deformations of the barrel) Disadvantages include but are not limited to: 1. Fin stabilized ammunition is a must and generally more expensive. 2. Slightly decreased hesh effectiveness which benefits from impacting while spinning. 3. Assuming identical calibres rifled guns can fire stockpiles of older guns (Not entirely sure but some maybe all types of ammo are interchangable between chieftain and challenger)
@@reyvan3806 I agree with what you’ve said but the analogy is a bit off imo. In terms of smoothbore vs rifled barrels its more analogous to sticking with DVD (Rifling coming after smoothbore) when everyone else has gone back to using VHS (smoothbore being an older design). Talking about ammunition though, yeah your analogy is perfect. Idk I’m drunk this may not make sense lol sorry if so
something generally not mentioned is the fact that Smoothbores can aswell shoot HE shells which are used by the russians since the beginning of those types of Barrels being used about accuracy of both iirc it was said that rifled guns have a slightly better overall accuracy with a less predictable shot pattern while smoothbore guns have very slightly less accuracy with a more easily predicatble shot pattern @Pit Friend fyi russian gun launched missiles are SACLOS so if their sights are so much more inferior they cant even use the effective range of said missiles but yes generally speaking older russian tanks have worse optics (T-64/early T72) while modern ones have comparable optics (incase of T-90A. T72B3 modification or T80BVM the Thermals have a slightly better resolution then current western Tanks since west simply did not upgrade them as often specially in 2000s+) funny how you showed a Panzerschreck when talking about Panzerfaust tho
@@TheDude50447 OK, so a few things. 1) Rifled guns are generally more accurate than smoothbore, not less. It is why people went for rifling in the first place, even with modern technology there is some windage with smoothbore ammunition. What I mean by that is a gap between the round and the barrel that affects accuracy. It is something that even with the good tolerances modern industry is capable of you are NOT getting rid of. 2) Velocity, sorry, but you are wrong here. The Velocity of the two guns using sabot rounds is almost the same. 1650m/s with the British L30 using APFSDS, the German Rh120 is travelling at 1640 - 1750 depending on the sabot round used. So no, velocity is not an issue with the rifled gun. Those figures are both from the most recent iteration of the guns in question, so the 55 calibre Rh 120, not the older 44 calibre, which actually has lower velocity than the L30 (which only has one version). 3) Penetration, this is nothing to do with the gun in this case. Velocity is about the same as I demonstrated above. The real difference is the mass of the penetrator rod, and that comes down not to the gun but to the ammunition. The British ammunition is 3 piece, the projectile, charge, and detonator. The smoothbore rounds are single piece. This means that the smoothbore rounds can have a longer penetrator rod simply by extended it into the main body of the shell. This means that penetrator rod has more mass. Penetration of Kinetic rounds is a function of velocity and mass. If the British L30 used single piece ammunition the penetration values would be the same as the velocity, so close that its not really worth discussing. The main reason the British are moving to the smoothbore is ammunition availability. That is pretty much it. The British still prefer HESH as their primary HE round, fact is there is no better anti bunker round for a 120mm gun out there. That being said there are some very advanced main gun rounds developed, or in the process of development for the smoothbore simply because its the gun everyone else is using. It is not because a smoothbore is intrinsically better than a rifled gun. Both have advantages and disadvantages. It would probably be possible to get many of the more advanced rounds working in a rifled gun, the question though is is it worth the extra cost? And its that ammunition that is key. The main reason the Challenger III upgrade is so expensive is because of that move from three piece ammunition to single piece. It means the entire ammunition stowage has to be redesigned, which means much of the interior of the vehicle has to be rebuilt for the new ammunition. Another major disadvantage with single piece ammunition is its far more difficult to move around in the turret than the three piece ammunition, making the loaders job more difficult. That ammunition size is why, despite many armchair warriors spouting their usual drivel, no one has taken up the 130 mm gun yet.
Another advantage with smoothbore is that even when you miss your target entirely, chances are you will still nail your neighbour's dog before having to resort to the canon mounted ontop of your stairs loaded with grapeshot
I find interesting to think that the arrow was invented thousands of years ago and still we go back to it in modern warfare. Edit: In Spain, spanish Leopard 2 crews name apfsds "Flecha": arrow ammo, arrow of war ammo, they name it.
I totally agree - a lot of things were cleared up for me. We are not all ex tank aces or military analysts - so its nice to have some things explained, that everyone seems to take for granted. I personally don't have time to research this, but I have wondered about it - so thanks to Red Wrench for making this.
One major difference is the lifespan of the guns. The Challenger 2 rifled gun needs replacing after 400 shots while the smooth-bore Rheinmetall gun used by Leopard 2 and Abrams last well over 1500 shots.
Because they didn't they where just the first to use in as a main armament. The French in exile developed APDS which was used by the British and the German developed the first APFSDS also in ww2 (Peenemuende Arrow)
An interesting footnote that warrants it's own discussion is scale. Smaller guns typically use simpler ammo, since the precision necessary to make fancy bullets is far too expensive for a small projectile measured in millimeters. At the same time, the smaller size means you can fire more projectiles at a time since the forces the machine has to experience will be smaller. Not to mention space. It's honestly fascinating to consider since it explains so much of why we don't just upscale and downscale the same designs over and over.
Just how imprecise do you think small projectiles are? I doubt you have a clue. A point to ponder is that since smoothbores mentioned often here don't rotate the shell, the rotational balance isn't critical, unlike shells for rifled barrels. Sabot roundness for good fit with smoothbore is important but that applies to shells meant for rifled barrels as well. There are scale (strength and aerodynamic) reasons why you don't have say .. a tungsten dart in every caliber from rifle up to tank. Maybe check into external ballistics? You need some learnin for I'm shakin my head here as you've said nothing detectably correct .. yet 68 people agree with you. Playing World of Tanks 24-7 never made anyone an expert ..
that just makes me want to see a tank with something like 12 gauge buckshot goodness what would it even be classified as if we use the shotgun gauge system
*The US Military has be testing smooth-bore Sub-Machine guns for the same reasons. The Bullets have a high grain weight but are a smaller diameter and shaped more like small arrows with the flight-fins almost touching the primer! The cost is expensive so they may only end up in single shot semi-auto sniper rifles. The performance is excellent in this roll delivering half the drop at a mind blowing 5100 FPS.*
Amazingly simple and clear explanation! I know there's much work behind trying to condense something into an easily understandable package so great work!
Big question tho: how do smoothbore tanks use HE shells against infantry in entrenched positions? Do they just lobe them like ye-olde smoothbore cannon? Tank on tank combat is incredibly rare, as we've seen from the Ukraine war.
@@RazorsharpLT Yes that's something I don't get. Tank on tank is extremely rare and never a main thing in any war, the Sherman's 75mm was preferred over the 76mm due to it's better HE shell and it's still true in modern times, very weird yes
I already have a vague idea regarding how APFSDS works but your detailed explanation answered a lot of the questions I have regarding this. Simply brilliant video!
The change (or lack thereof) was simply down to the GBs tank doctrine. As mentioned in the video, GB wanted to use their tanks as multi-role, rather than just Anti-Tank. Given the modern state of warfare, I feel like this makes sense.
This is not true... At all. Smoothbore guns can fire a far greater range of projectiles for more applications on the modern battlefield. This was known long before Challenger 2 was even designed. Britain chose the rifled gun because of: -Stubbornness -Cost -Poor insight into the near future Breaking these down, Challenger 2 was actually planned to replace Chieftain and operate alongside Challenger 1. The UK had a large stockpile of HESH rounds and it was considered cheaper and "more sensible" to have ammo commonality between both British tanks. Shortly after work on Challenger 2 production began, though, Challenger 1 was retired completely. After that, cuts in the budget closed the factory making out gun barrels and our ammo, leaving Challenger 2 with a unique gun/ ammo combo in NATO, eliminating both the ammo availability and cost arguments entirely. There never was a capability argument. We knew that rifled was worse from the get-go, and the testers on the selection team specifically requested many times that the rifled gun be dropped from the tank, and a smoothbore with NATO ammo commonality used instead, but were ignored, again on grounds of stubbornness and cost. It was initially a lot cheaper for the UK to keep using existing ammo stocks... Emphasis on initially. The decision to save money in the short term has cost the British army capability, and the taxpayer much more money in the long run, as reconfiguring the tank for smoothbore has neccecitated a totally new turret and complete hull layout redesign, at tremendous cost per tank. There is no world in which the rifled gun was the smart or correct decision. It was sheer stubbornness to see the writing on the wall that saw the UK, uniquely in the world, miss out on such an obviously meccesary change in technology.
@@AllThingsCubey They also chose it because they wanted the tank to be as "British" as possible and didn't want to get the German 120 mm gun or any copy of it
However, the cost of the plumed shells themselves is higher, which somewhat equalizes the costs. Therefore, this innovation was first of all approved by the crews themselves, who did not have to clean the gun barrel so tediously after firing.
An excellent presentation comparing the two types of gun on a tank. Compared to other styles of presentation you find on this channel it is delivered clearly, concisely and at a tempo that enables you to take in all of the information. Thank you.
Challenger 2 does use APFSDS, but to enable it to fly straight, the petals are banded in a sacrificial ring of plastic which allows it to engage with the chrome rifling, spinning the petals but not the sabot. You could also draw the conclusion that with Challenger 3, higher pressure and projectile speed will be required to defeat future armour and as such barrel life of rifling will be severely reduced (adding cost) and maximum energy needs to be given to the projectile and not lost in friction from rifling. It will be interesting to see what the maximum engagement range will be in the future, HESH was 5km but you could chuck it further with reducing accuracy but the shell didn’t lose its effectiveness. APFSDS was 2km but penetration drops off dramatically beyond that as the round slows down.
One point in addition to your excellent points on the flexibility of HESH,during the cold war and for some years after the UK had a huge stockpile of 120mm rifled tank rounds,of which some of the older ammunition would have still been useful against older tanks or against the side armour of newer ones. The cost of rebuilding up such a stockpile,whilst still in a cold war with the soviets,would have been significant and risky
Ok, I'm dubbing you the "tank professor" as your videos are so incredibly informative and entertaining. The exceptional quality of your research and the way you package it for our viewing is second to none. I agree with your comment that anyone who is familiar with firearms may find a switch to smoothbore an odd decision. A good analogy of the difference would be to compare a smoothbore shotgun to one with a rifled barrel. Each have there own distinct advantages depending on the type of ammunition used. I totally agree too with your comment that the switch to a smoothbore gun may be less about performance and more about standardization with NATO. Thank you again, and as always, I'm looking forward to the next one! 👍👍👍
I was asking myself why the Brits are moving away from HESH with their new Challenger 3 Upgrade since i saw it on the news. Thanks for the clear up and great job on explaining all the different grenades in a very clear and easily understandable way!
@@robertharris6092 yes I've heard that too. The Challengers armour seems to be quite good with it withstanding a barrage of RPG hits as if it was Tuesday in the Iran war early 2000
@@robertharris6092not only that, but it was a HESH in an open commander’s hatch. Even then, a HESH round hitting the open hatch only managed to kill 2 out of the 4 crewmen.
Absolutely awesome video as an WT player it explained a lot what those words stands for of each ammunition type and why more modern tanks dont have rifled canon.
Armor Piercing Fin Stabilized Discarding Sabot Armor Piercing High Explosive Armor Piercing High Explosive Fin Stabilized Discarding Sabot Armor Piercing High Explosive Fin Stabilized Discarding Sabot High Explosive Capped Ballistic Capped Armor Piercing High Explosive Fin Stabilized Discarding Sabot High Explosive Anti Tank High Explosive Capped Ballistic Capped *B E S H*
Hypothesis: For HE and other non-anti-tank rounds, the improvements in accuracy *besides* the barrel, such as optics, targeting computers, stabilization and integrated combat systems makes the loss of rifling not that much of an issue.
What should be mentioned as as well is that APFSDS rounds fired from smoothbore guns, do inflict less wear and tear on the gun barrel as when fired from rifles guns. Secondly modern programmable HE-rounds ( like the German DM11 or the American M1147 AMP) that are currently replacing HEAT-MP rounds in most western militaries, are far superior in an anti infantry role as HESH rounds, due to their airburst capability. The Rh-120mm L55 A1 gun - which will be used by the Challenger 3 - is of course able of fire this type of ammunition, so there is really no need for the Royal Army to use rifled guns any longer. And of course it would be economically senseless to try to develop a replacement for the L27A1 CHARM 3 round for just 150 MBTs or so. So there is no alternative for the UK to abandon the 120mm L30A1 rifled gun in favor of the Rh-120mm L55 A1 gun!
Part of the logic of using HESH is how it's a good, cheap compromise for a multi-purpose round. If you have to carry ,say, one less ammunition type, that is an advantage in itself, and I think those logistical aspects typically get overlooked. Modern programmable rounds can absolutely do everything HESH can do but better and are the future, but they are *way* more expensive - but of course there's the upside of there being an entire alliance's logistics behind them
@@tommeakin1732 its quite bad as multi purpose round, due to not having much of an area of effect due to lack of fragmentation, no real effect behind softer cover (meaning sandbags, earth berms, clay walls etc) and only works effectively when hitting a homogenous steel target.
Here is a fun little story about tanks at 1:05 In the 1920's British tanks with these kind of tracks couldn't climb a grassy hill when it was wet and they had to drill holes and put screws in the tracks to finish their demonstration for the top brass. Lol.
When I went through the Armor Officer's Basic Course (AOB) at Ft. Knox in 1975, we were taught that a smooth bore main gun allowed higher operating pressures than rifled guns, giving higher muzzle velocities. This also extended bore life. The trade off with smooth bores is that you have to used fin stabilized projectiles. Apologies if you covered this point in your presentation.
With a bib bore tube, there is more surface area behind the projectile to push it out at a higher initial velocity than a narrower tube. To maintain velocity on it’s ballistic path, a submunition caliber projectile is used. Case in point is the old Remington deer rifle sabot cartridges that would give you 500 fps more velocity.
@@vladimir0rustechnically that’s correct as well you’re using energy to spin it and having to force the round through the rifling causes a not insignificant amount of energy loss due to friction.
When I was in ROTC (back in the early 80s), one of my instructors had been on the team that studied this issue. They found that there was no appreciable decrease in accuracy at the ranges most tank shots were made -- especially with modern ammunition.
people think that technology is infallible and just because it can do more on paper means it’s going to be better. I’m a mechanic. Everything these days is electronic and data linked. We have so many problems with communication errors, sensors going bad that no longer can provide a solution since computers have to have all of their inputs typically to create an accurate picture of what they’re doing otherwise they fail since they’re not humans that can extrapolate information. Anything that can be electronically programmed, can be counter programmed or jammed. I do not have faith in technology-based weapons. Not saying to be a Luddite and use sticks and stones, but I think the overly high tech approach is not doing as good considering it’s being used to replace the critical skills of a soldier, how to range how to fire how to use a different ammo types. Now it’s just point click and shoot since the soldiers are practically retarded these days it seems.
@@maximilianavdeev7363 Newsflash, western tanks have had modern FCS' for years that are capable of automatically leading and ranging the target. That's the reason why they've been so effective in tank combat. Programmable fuses have existed for a long time, hell we had proximity fuze munitions for ships during WW2. The tech works, it's proven that over the years. If you wanna be the dude in a T-62 manually calculating range and lead while fighting the M1A2 Abrams where the gunner puts the gun on your tank, lazes you, and it automatically leads your tank from a mile away go for it. But I know I'd rather be the dude who has the digital FCS.
One last possible point. In 2003 the US developed the M908 HE-OR-T 120mm round, or High Explosive Obstacle Reduction Trace round. Found to be as effective as a 165mm HE round in obstacle destruction, this may have had something to do with the UK finally going smooth bore, a replacement for HESH in the anti obstacle and anti infantry role. There's also the German DM11 programmable frag round for anti infantry role, which only came along in 2009. It seems after the Iraq war, NATO militaries also remembered that tanks are primarily for infantry fire support!
Scene 8:57 - You forgot two more types of ammunition that benefit from a smoothbore gun: close in anti-personnel rounds such as the M1028 Canister Cartridge, and cannon-launched guided missiles such as the LAHAT and the 9K112 Kobra.
So why the US and German didn't have any atgm tank round for their tanks since they already try tht in the past with mbt70/kpz tank ( as far as I know ) ??
@@SgtShnackendale I knew the Soviet tanks were lighter is for the purpose crossing bridge etc but never would have thought that even a 30 tons weight could have a significant effect in shooting
@@uthopia27 as mentioned above, no need for gun launched ATGM. Another reason was advances in penetrator technology, wich increased performence on NATO side. Also doctrinal use. NATO geared up for multi layered delaying actions with MBT´s and IFV´s forming the fighting rear guard of the NATO Armys, pulling back over the north german plains and central&south german mountain regions towards the Rhein Defense Line, where NATO expected to hold until REFORGER kicked into action and poured in a few more divisions. The Sovjets intended to use their MBT´s differently. Sovjet armored doctrine intended a bataillon to have 41 tanks in 4 companies of 10. 3 companies would form the spearhead of the bataillon, supported each by an mechanised or motorised infantry platoon, while the 4. company and HQ would follow up with the rest of the infantry a about 500-1000m to the rear. The 4. company was equipped with ATGM guidance units to support the spearhead formation with long range overwatch fire. Today there is no real advantage to an 120mm or 125mm gun launched ATGM over an APFSDS, same with the top attack ammunition for K2. If you want to shoot atgm you take your IFV´s or tank hunters and do it.
@@zhufortheimpaler4041 Its also harder to dodge a tank round, plus you only have to 'peak out' shoot and you can go hide. An ATGM at least a big long range one you have to fly it to the target, and it has significant airtime. Also like you said, ATGM's can be stuck on cheaper/lighter/more plentiful vehicles than MBTs.
awesome video, answered all my questions except one about shooting balls or spheres, though you made up for it by answering good questions I had not thought to think about, nice, good job, thank you.
Brilliant impartial and objective video, loved it. Was a nice touch to mention the military doctrine of Brits using armour to support infantry and showing why they valued their explosive shells so highly. Also liked that you mentioned the decision for Brits changing to smoothbore being more in the name of standardisation with NATO allies rather than a decision based on tech. Lots of nuances that I didn’t consider here, good stuff!
There is also the fact that we can't make the bloody guns any more since Royal Ordnance went under. It was only a matter of time before the spares ran out.
That doesn't really make sense as a reason though, a smoothbore gun can also fire bog standard HE. It makes about as much sense as anyone saying the US preferred the 75mm Sherman becuz HE rounds, which isn't true.
@@alexisborden3191 I suggest you look up what HESH can do. As I understand it that stuff does not play well with smoothbore. Suffice it to say it can be devastatingly effective against light to medium armour and defensive structures. It's all about the spelling.
@@alexisborden3191 sorry I should have highlighted HESH when I referenced explosive shells. In the video from 6:48 onwards, the video does a great job of explaining the point.
It was something I’d been working on for a little while but it was actually your comment that prompted me to make this video! Appreciate your comments :)
Armor piercing ammunition is very hard and will quickly ruin the softer metal that makes up the rifling of barrels, if a sabot isn’t used. There are also A.P. bullets for handguns that are Teflon coated. People were saying the Teflon caused them to defeat body armor, and that wasn’t true. It was there only to protect the rifling of the barrel. The hard bullet was what defeated the body armor.
HESH is actually an absolutely awful round for literally every situation. Myth 1. Its good against fortifications FALSE. Tests have demonstrated how appalling HESH is at removing anything. In tests a a 120mm subcaliber (MPAT derivative) round performed BETTER at removing obstacles than a 165mm HESH even though the latter has literally nearly TEN TIMES the amount of explosives. Myth 2. Its good against armor. FALSE. There is no actual evidence of it being good against any meaningful armor. Lightly armored vehicles would be shredded by a generic HE round, MP round or HEAT. There is no advantage in HESH in an anti armor capacity. Drawbacks - HESH does not offer significant fragmentation nor is compatible with programmable fuzes. If its so amazing, why does literally NO ONE use it? No one does because its awful. Why did UK stick with a rifled gun and HESH? Because of lobbying by local defense companies and people believing moronically illogical propaganda about Brits being so smart to use HESH and the rest of the world are just dum-dums. Rifled guns dont slightly affect the muzzle velocity, they affect it A LOT. As a result the APFSDS in the Challenger 2 had to use ball bearings to NEGATE the rifling. Which is hilarious because they have to spend more money to make more complex projectiles to negate the key attribute of their supposedly better gun. Spin with HEAT. Also not actually an issue. Basic math shows how the spin rate and the centripetal forces are completely negligible relative to the velocity of the jet. And, more importantly, fin stabilized projectiles ALSO SPIN at comparable rates shortly after leaving the barrel, as every slow motion shot of any fin stabilized projectile will show you.
Thank you SO much for actually making this fully understandable to even the dumbest of viewers (i take a bow!) The info along with the animations make things clear and easy to understand.
A straight forward and easy to understand video about a complex topic. This video reminds me of the loads of fun I had playing From the Depths messing around with different ammo types, and noticing several of the same things mentioned in this video.
Small additions, smooth bore guns can still operate HE rounds or rounds with similar effects, the Germam DM 11 round or the American AMP are good examples of that. The Challenger 2 also consistently had less overall accuracy than their NATO competition in all sorts of tank trials, but i do not know if thats due to the rifled gun or the FCS.
That was down to the FCS, which worked poorly in competitions, but superbly in actual warfare. That reputation for lack of accuracy was down to the pre Gulf War tank gunnery competitions. Irony is the same FCS that let the Challenger I down so badly in those competitions worked exceptionally well in actual combat. Shows the perils of purely relying on range shooting vs actual combat shooting to determine the effectiveness of a weapon.....
@@alganhar1 Even in competitons after the Gulf War with Challenger 2s They often had about half the hit probabillity of Abrams's, Leopard 2s and even Leclercs. Still impressive at about 40-45% at 3.5 km but noticeably worse than it's allied tanks.
@@spyran5839 There were two competitions where most of the Challenger's low score was actually down to optics and viewports getting covered in mud that the crew had no effective way to remove.
@@alganhar1Actually the FCS didn't work superbly in combat at all. It frequently failed entirely. Crews trained to fire and observe fall of shot, then adjust, and first shot hit rates in the Gulf War were actually kinda pathetic for Challengers, with the famous "longest range kill" happening after multiple misses against a stationary, much closer target, before the gunner found the range. The FCS actually didn't function for APFSDS shots beyond 1200m, and was not even used for the famous long range kill, which was a combination of manual aim and luck (in the gunners own words). There is no world in which a technical system that fails to work on a range in peacetime suddenly starts to work in the hardships of a war. That's the inverse of reality, and an utterly ridiculous comment to make. The success of Challengers in the Gulf was entirely down to the quality of British crews, and the abysmal quality of Iraqi crews and vehicles, which barely put up a fight. No Challenger even took a return hit from an Iraqi tank.
To be fair, the original discarding Sabot ammo was developed for the 6 pdr and 17 pdr British AT guns during WW 2. Solid AT ammo has a tensile problem when spinning and fired at more than 1,000 m/s, it can shatter on impact. This became important as armour got thicker. The kinetic energy of a round is F= 1/2 MV-2. So if you double the mass of the shell you double the kinetic energy (while also doubling the amount of explosive required to accelerate the shell in the barrel) but if you double the muzzle velocity you quadruple the kinetic energy. Much better "Bang for the buck". Whether black powder field cannons or AT guns, it was always about the muzzle velocity. We needed higher muzzle velocity but the steel AP shells would shatter so we needed something harder. Then came the tungsten rounds. These wouldn't shatter at the higher velocities but were much heavier than steel by volume. That meant we had a round that would survive the 1,000 m/s+ velocity but required too much explosive to accelerate. To withstand the pressure the AT gun would need to be much bigger and stronger, harder to move and easier to hit. So how do you make a round that has the same mass as the usual AP round when the material you're working with is twice as dense and therefore the projectile is half the volume? Put wooden shoes around it. And the "Armour Piercing, Spin Stabilised, Discarding Sabot" was born. I know this can get boring but I found it interesting while researching the 17 pdr. Apparently AT rounds were observed to shatter when hitting the Tiger 1 armour. At first it was thought to be faulty shells but after testing it was realised that roughly 1,000 m/s was a physical limit for solid steel AP rounds of the time. Germany didn't have the problem because most of their AT guns couldn't develop a high enough muzzle velocity. (There's also the problem that they didn't have tungsten to waste on ammo, it was needed for machine tools.)
Thank you. Your explanation was very clear with excellent graphics to show your points. I never knew why there was a shift back to smooth bore. With the improvement in armour and the penetration becoming more difficult, it seems like a light bulb turning on moment realizing why they are going back!
Beautifully presented and extremely well thought out presentation. My mate was a former gun fitter and explained this to me a long time ago.. He also used the shushpreg round as an example but thats secret so shhhhh! Nice one
Tbh, I already knew part of the answer to the video's tittle, but you explained it in a way that made me realize I'm person bad at explaining stuff lol. Good content as always! 👍
That is the best video / explanation on the subject I've seen so far. You didnt miss a single point ! I'll link to your video as reference next time I have to explain this to someone. Many thanks !
You did mention the use of HESH against structures, but I really want that to be stressed. In these online circles, people seem to be entirely focused on use against other tanks; but from all of the evidence I've seen, demolition work is, by a pretty big margin, the thing that HESH is best at, and the specific role that really makes it stand out. Also, it's a good multi-purpose compromise round that isn't seriously expensive. There's advantages to carrying a less diverse array of ammunition that can still meet all requirements. I'm not making the argument that it's the future or something, but it's annoying to see the dominant lines of discussion missing pretty major factors
Yes we Brits are fond of multi purpose tools in war. When you have not got the mass numbers you have less room for specialisation units. Take the harrier not exactly the best in any one department save the VTOL capacity but one of the best multi role warplanes of its era. Well we will seen sooner rather than later how a challenger 2 will fare in Ukraine against the amour it was most designed to fight. I have heard people complain that the challenger 2 is a 40 year old design. Yeah sure the outside might not have changed massively but the stuff inside I am sure has. Plus you cant beat a tank that comes complete with tea making facilities as standard. Troop morale is a Always a good thing to cater for and we brits do love a good cup of tea. I hear the yank took the idea from the brits and they come with coffee instead of tea.
@@lordomacron3719 The French used wine or even cognac for this. And I don’t know who spied on whom, but in Europe they learned how to make wine much earlier than bringing tea. And yes, we Russians are looking forward to the appearance of British tanks in Ukraine, because we must definitely check how high his tower takes off, and how the detonation of ammunition from HESH or DUP shells affects this height.
Challenger didn't have HE round! As you yourself said, on the west tanks were seen mainly as tank killers, so they were armed with anti-tank weapons. That is why Challenger 2 didn't have HE, while all the others did, but never in great quantities (except Russian/Soviet tanks). One more thing with HESH: spaced armor (sideskirts, cage or even empty cavities within composite or rubber) will render HESH useless. Even if a tank is hit, it largely depends where in order for HESH to be useful. On top of it all, add kevlar paddings and HESH becomes extremely unreliable in anti-tank role. Only for demolishing concrete buildings. But even for that, HEAT is pretty useful since it will go through concrete much farther than through steel. That is why everybody else didn't want HESH... Why rely on it so heavily when other ammo types will get the job done just as well?
HEAT is not as good a general purpose munition as HESH. Iraq was proof of that. Houses, reinforced walls, lightly armoured vehicles, commandeered civilian vehicles, and fuel tankers are all perfectly demolished by HESH, more so than HEAT. 120mm bucket load of high explosives so it’s not surprising and in some cases the explosion was too much so crews would fill inert training rounds with concrete and fire those too.
Because HESH is not used as an anti tank round in British tanks. It is used as the general purpose HE round. I think you need to get your head around that. For anti tank the British use a fin discarding sabot in the L30, for almost everything else they use HESH. It is a superb general purpose HE round. As 80% of a tanks ammunition loadout tends to be HE, you MAY begin to see why the British valued an excellent all round HE munition such as HESH so highly.....
As mentioned, HEAT is not a good general purpose HE round - it is optimised to explode almost entirely in a narrow straight line and doesn't do a lot of damage otherwise. Also, without delayed fusing (which is available on more modern HEAT rounds) it is almost useless against large bunkers and other soft targets, which a HESH will easily kill.
For anyone with any knowledge of antiarmor munitions, they know rifle spin stabilization is inefficient for subcaliber pentrators or shapecharge munitions, which are the most common and efficient antiarmor munitions.
From my, civilian understanding, british military docterine is that Tanks are infantry support first, tank killers second. Im sure its not so clear-cut in reality but thats why they maintained the HESH, because its so good for taking out fortified positions, bunkers, emplacements n whatnot, which infantry assualts would likely end with casualties. I predict that the switch away from this is mostly to align with other Nato countries for ease of logistics...
also performence. HESH is only very good vs steel. vs concrete etc it quickly looses effectiveness. And the 120mm smoothbore has programmable ammunition (DM11 / M1147) that do a better job in every area than HESH
Honestly, I don't think the "infantry support"-thing makes much sense. Everybody knows that the reason why the Germans were able to easily defeat the French in WW2, despite French tanks being arguably superior, is that the French made the mistake of splitting their tanks up, spreading them out and peppering them over the whole defensive line, while the Germans focused their tanks together and thus were easily able to break through the French lines. There is no good reason for why a modern army would refuse to learn from that lesson. Why repeat the French mistake? Sure, it is nice for the infantry if you can assign tanks to them to support them, but who is doing the important job of breaking through the enemy lines or stopping such a breakthrough, when the tanks are busy babysitting infantry? MBTs in a infantry support role are a luxury a army that only has a few hundred tanks can't really afford. It makes no sense, strategically. Imagine medieval or ancient armies would have split their cavalry up and spread them out over their infantry units to support them, instead of using cavalry for fast, sweeping movements, for flanking and for breaking through enemy lines. That would have been stupid back then and it is stupid now to do that with MBTs. That is the one big lesson learned from "Blitzkrieg" and WW2 tank warfare in general. At least that applies to real wars where both sides have tanks. In some "insurgent" war, sure, there you can afford to slave MBTs to infantry, but weirdly enough the Challenger 2 never really was used that way. When it actually saw combat in Operation Desert Storm, it was used like MBTs are supposed to be used, as a spear point weapon for breaking through enemy defenses, not as a gun carrier for infantry or as a modern "StuG". Weirdly enough, it was mostly the Leopard 2 used by Canada and Denmark in Afghanistan, which was used as a infantry support tank, despite being designed for MBT vs MBT combat. My point here being, even when you intend to use a MBT that way, it still makes little sense to specifically design it for that role and make it worse in the tank vs tank role. This "the Challenger 2 was never meant to fight other MBTs and was basically a modern version of the Churchill Gun Carrier"-narrative is new. I have heard and seen hundreds of heated debates about the pros and cons of different tanks in the last 30 years and not once have I ever heard any defender of the Challenger 2 bring up this "infantry support" idea before. I heard that for the first time a few months ago, after the Challenger 3 with the smoothbore gun was unveiled and the Challenger 2 fanboys didn't need to defend the rifled gun any longer. It seems they are just shifting the goal post. For decades they claimed the rifled gun is superior, including against MBTs and now all of a sudden it never was supposed to be used much against other MBTs. I think the people who designed the Challenger 2 were just overly conservative and prideful. The old L7 105 mm gun was the pride of British tank design for decades, so they rather went with a bigger version of it than to suffer the humiliation of putting a German gun on their tank, or spend another 20 years developing their own smoothbore gun.
@@TrangleC i think one of the the reason for the brits prioritizing the Infantry Support role even greater is that they also had to fill the role of AVREs, as the doctrine is being phased out in favor of purely Engineering vehicles. also might i adress your statement of "everyone knows that the reason why germans were able to easily defeat the french in ww2 despite the french tanks being arguable superior", i don't think that is completely realistic considering tank development of the french at the time, including their infrastructures were in shambles, majority of their tank designs were built upon the perspective that the next war would be no different from that of WW1 (there's also politics coming into play of going for big tanks instead of multiple smaller ones). in the case of medieval armies splitting up cavalry, that's a different thing because they work in very different ways or doctrines, mind you they had vastly limited technologies in compared to modern day equipment that is meant to work in their own army's doctrine. the only story i've read for the reason of the Challenger 1 and Challenger 2 primarily ended up with Rifled guns is due to Margaret Thatcher's interference for economic reasons, leaving the British army with very little choice, thus staying with the rifled gun as that's what they had in terms of infrastructure to manufacture and give the british army a tank, i think it was an NY times article from the time of Thatcher's regime that i got that idea from, but i don't remember which specific article it was. the point of an MBT in the first place, is not specifically just for MBT vs MBT, they're made to fullfill a variety of roles, whichever the army of a nation emphasizes to use them for, ranging from assisting the infantry as an assault gun, as a spearhead for a breakthrough, as a heavy asset for reconnaissance. speaking of assault gun, the US is reintroducing them, a very specific doctrine, so as to give the infantry battallions a dedicated direct fire large caliber gun on the move for their own uses. might i also add, personally, just don't compare each army doctrines of different eras, things work differently back then that it is now, even if they seem similar or if they're somehow rooted to one another.
@@TrangleC It was wise to keep the rifled gun for Challenger 2 because of HESH’s effectiveness in Iraq. The APFSDS lethality was still adequate for what it was most likely to encounter. Realise that weather in infantry support or fast blitzkrieg offensive, a tank will be shooting a variety of targets, not just anti-tank. The problem was not developing a smoothbore replacement with a replacement for HESH shells while Challenger 2 was in service. That way they could’ve maintained it’s general purpose capability while increasing it anti-tank capability. They just built the tanks, sold off the tooling and left it at that. Crap. Thankfully Challenger 2 was a pretty good tank anyway so it has served pretty well. However it had potential and the underpinnings to becoming the best tank in the world but the government didn’t want to pay to upgrade it until now.
@@nightshade4873 The issue is basically Game Theory. When one side in a war concentrates their tanks and uses them for break through and flanking actions by overwhelming the other side in strategically important points while the other side doesn't and instead confuses the use spectrum for their MBTs, the "radical" side will almost surely win. Whether MBT could be used for other stuff or not is just irrelevant because of that. There is one thing no other weapon system can do as well as a MBT, so using your MBTs to do that job and that job alone is the most effective and smartest way of using them. That is just basic logic and there is no getting around that. And that is why old fashioned cavalry is indeed a apt comparison. Cavalry could in theory do other stuff than classical cavalry work too, but doing so would mean needlessly reducing the overall effectiveness of your fighting force. As you surely know, some armies classify their tank forces as "cavalry". They don't do that because tanks are something you ride around in and that reminds them of horses, or whatever. They call them cavalry because they are supposed to do the same job cavalry used to do. There is another case study lesson from the early days of WW2 and Blitzkrieg. People make jokes about how the Poles supposedly tried to stop German Panzers with cavalry charges. That isn't what happened though. What actually happened was that the Poles successfully used cavalry against Wehrmacht infantry units and then the Germans brought in their tanks to neutralize the Polish cavalry. The point being that even defensively it is smartest to use your tanks like cavalry, for decisive counter charges, instead of misusing them as mobile pillboxes and scattering them about the place. Besides, there are other holes in the "infantry support MBT" narrative, which I hadn't mentioned yet. Yeah, having a tank to support you when you are trying to storm a pill box or something like that might be nice when you're infantry, but how much storming of pillboxes would realistically have happened in a potential WW3? Like every other modern western tank, the Challenger 2 also would have had to face "The Red Army Steam Roller" or whatever other nicknames people came up with. Pillboxes can't really have been that much of a consideration at the time when the Challenger 2 was designed. Whether correctly or not, strategists and every leading commander in NATO assumed that WW3 would be a highly mobile one, whether on the offense or on the defense. A MBT specialized on infantry support makes no sense and as I pointed out with the example of Danish and Canadian Leopard 2s in Afghanistan, a MBT fully specialized on MBT vs MBT duels and cavalry action can still easily do the infantry support role, if it has to.
I add a few points from a German tanksters perspective: - the rifled barrel is higher maintenance and a nightmare to clean, compared to the smoothbore. Which means the smoothbore has a higher endurance and a lot less downtime during combat. (I was serving on Leo 2 but heard stories and curses from Leo 1 crews...) - while HEAT seems to be all the hype with the shaped charge and its physics, note that MBTs only use kinetics against other MBTs. (Why do English use that horribly long abrev for KE "kinetic energy" ammo?) - HEAT is named "multipurpose" ("MZ" for Mehrzweck) ammo in Germany and is only ever used on softer targets, which from a MBT view is anything that isnt another MBT. Also MZ explodes just like HESH, just a bit smaller. MZ even has that stinger in front, that makes it "decide" to wether just go boom or to form the shaped charge penetrator. - HESH flies very slowly. I dont know how a round with such low V0 can have such a long range. While the highly precise KE hits your targets in the blink of an eye, literally. The gunner has a 1 second shutter come down after each shot, so they dont get blinded by the muzzle flash and the KE usually hits its target right after that shutter comes up again. On shooting ranges with its lower target ranges the gunner usually wont see the hit at all. To me, the whole HESH idea is redundant: Its useless against composite armor and the rifled barrel makes the KE less powerful. Also, if you want to drop a big boom on something, just call in a mortar or artillery strike, but dont waste precious ammo storage on a 3rd type of ammo, when you could load more KE instead. That said, taking a non penetrating hit on a MBT is like a car crash and you dont even have seat belts inside and a HESH must have a lot of stopping power. I am always amazed about stories of tank crews taking many hits but getting out totally unharmed themselves.
Really good video. Also I heard nations that used export L7 rifled gun (mainly US and Germany) used some kind of gyro stabilization for their HEAT round so they weren´t spun up by the barrel. Brits never use HEAT sooo it wasnt an issue for them. Also i hope they´ll dont give up on HESH. After all its the only thing that destroyed Challenger 2. ( HESH into the open commander´s hatch in one of the Friendly fire incident)
@@alganhar1 against older tanks that dont have modern armor HESH is still a viable AT round depending on what your shooting at HESH would be better as it cant over perpetrate like modern rounds can. APFSDS against something like a LAV would punch a clean hole though both sides. even against modern tanks it would still be useful one HESH round could clean off a sizeable chunk of ERA leaving nice clean armor for a HEAT round to go through.
@@viceralman8450 HESH is may not be able to totally destroy a tank but it will damage the structure of vehicle, destroy the gun sights, and can blow out the suspension and running gear. All of these will make the tank useless and considering that HESH can be shot out higher ranges than APFSDS and HEAT, means that it is not as irrelevant as you may think.
unless something drastic changes in the near future i dont see riffled guns making a return especially with government's actively researching EM weaponry such as the rail gun
the barrel life on rail guns is incredibly short, rifled guns are still going to exist because scaling down fin-stabilized munitions has a lot more drawbacks (like the bullet being like .5mm)
just as a minor correction, the large chunks of metal produced from a HESH shell are referred to as scabs, named after the scabs that form on cuts being large masses of material that comes away in large solid chunks, spall is simply just the tiny fragments that are released as any AT munition passes through armour plate and is what causes the majority of the damage while the main penetrator has gone in a straight line.
I learned a word today. Thank you for that. Having seen the result of HESH from old videos and photographs I found that a perfect "scab" looks more or less like a mushroom detached from the interior of the armor. Maybe it's just easier nowadays to say "spall" just like everybody says "schrapnell" for any shell splinter.
What is spall liner in tank? Image result for tank spalling Spall liners are made from rubberized aramid, high-performance polyethylene or fiberglass. The spall liner is mounted on the inside of the vehicle. It is designed to stop projectiles and small fragments and to reduce the damage inside the vehicle if hit by an overmatched threat. That is the official definition of spalling. As, the chucks are called "scabs" but the process the produces the chunks of metal is the process of spalling. (concrete also spalls, and is when flakes skim off of reinforced or non-reinforced concrete). There is no penetration as a result of spalling, and as such do not need as much force or explosive energy to take out armored vehicle. The "Silver Bullet" penetrator made of depleted Uranium, has 2 additional advantages in it use over Tungsten carbide (WC is harder, something like 9.3 on moh scale, means you can not machine it, has to be cast, and was a prob in ww2 and still is) DU is self sharpening and the dust ignites (which is why the video of A-10 w/ the 30mm Avenger rotary gun tearing up a tank looks like dozens of boxes of sparklers were set off w/ the tank.) But a prob for the HESH, HEMP, and Some other multi-letter round is stopped by spaced armor, which is just a gap of a couple inches between the impact point of the round and the inside of the tank, the energy of the RDX (C-4, or composition B) is vented when it reached to gap, and does not damage. A simple tank skirt of a couple inches does it well (a tank w/ a skirt or is it a kilt...sorry bad joke) Pentration is diameter times the velocity squared/.... I think... oh well take it light all --KB
Pretty good video, but I think there are a few things you got wrong/overlooked. HEAT ammunition was used (and I think also invented) before APDS, mainly for infantry anti tank weapons (magnetic charges, grenade launchers (PIAT, Panzerfaust, Panzerschreck, Bazooka, although Panzerschreck and Bazooka might be around the same time as the first british APDS shots) and tank shells (mainly to make the short barreled 75mm guns more useful). After WW2 most tanks continued to use AP variants but immediately started developing APDS rounds or HEATFS rounds once the soviets showed their new IS3 heavy tank, cause that scared the sh*t out of everyone (regular HEAT usually sucks on high velocity cannons). And you absolutely can use HE-Frag shells with fins, the Russians do that on their 125mm gun, western nations prefer multi-purpose HEATFS (with fragmentation belt, for anti personal use). I think their even is/was a HEATFS with a proximity fuze for anti air purposes for the 105 or 120mm gun
If you want to learn on the origins of the shaped charge as a weapon look up Edgar Brandt and Berthold Mohaupt. Munroe discovered the effect but it was lost to secrecy. Eventually HEAT ammo were first produced in France with the ideas of a Swiss engineer who had rediscovered this "lost knowledge". Fun fact: research continued in the not occupied regions of France. First to come out of this research was the "Law enforcement grenade model 41". A rifle grenade that was not meant for law enforcement at all. But that's how it was presented to the Germans ;)
@@herrhaber9076 the germans adopted HEAT rounds for the KwK37 75mm "Stummel" cannon in early-mid 1940, so ahead of the invasion of france. Shortly before that the british adopted a HEAT rifle grenade.
@@zhufortheimpaler4041 After Munroe, Lepidi (Fr) worked on shaped charges in 1890. In 1933 Lodati (IT) published several documents that woke up the French (again). Mohaupt patent no 919818 is dated from the 9th of November 1939 but he had been trying to push his inventions to the Swiss military for years before that. I question your information about a British HEAT rifle grenade in 1940 or before. After Dunkirk the Brits had barely not AT weapons anymore and resorted to research things such as the sticky bomb. In Germany regarding the ammo you mentioned: 109 Sd.Kfz. 233 "Stummel" were assembled between December 42 and October 43. Granate Hohlladung 38 ( Gr.38 Hl/1) was put into production in June 1940 (it was upgraded in later years, the first model barely being able to penetrate 44mm of steel; only 4mm more than the French rifle grenade!) That part is very interesting information and will give me a lot to research on, thank you ! But there is a clear discrepancy in the story here. *Everybody* acknowledges the work of Brandt and Mohaupt. When Swiss and French agree on something you'd better pay attention. The American Bazooka is a clear developpment of their works that was brought to the US by Colonel Paul Jean-Marie René Delalande BUT ! At the same time it's a documented fact that German troops used shaped charges during the attack of Eben-Emael Fort on the 10/11 of May 1940. HEAT rounds, demolition shaped charges... An argument could be made there but in truth when you start looking at how chaotic the period was it seems pretty unlikely we are going to untangle this.
Fantastic narration & animations ⭐⭐🌟⭐⭐. Few questions: 1. What is the *kinetic energy loss* of two identical APFSDS are fired - one from rifles barrel and other from smoothbore barrel - at a distance of 1-1.5 miles?
Jesus, the camera work at 1:30 is amazing. It's so easy to take for granted since we're used to images like this coming from renderings. However, to have an actual video that tracks the round in high speed to the point that you can make out the deformation of the air in front of the shell? What a cool shot.
What about using fins to impart spin to a HESH round? If practical, this could be a cheaper option than the expensive programmable ammunition being developed to give smooth-bore guns flexibility.
the required spin is too much. and HESH has vastly outlived its usefulness. For Multi-Purpose use the german 120mm smoothbore has progrgammable airburst/impact delayed/impact/HEAT-Frag-FS rounds that do very Job HESH could do just better. Is in service since 2014 in the Bundeswehr (DM11)
@@petesheppard1709 a "Fin" round spins 15-20 times slower than a HESH/Full Bore Round out of a rifled gun. And at that speed, the fins will act as an airbrake and increase drag beyond reasonable limits.
Tanks are not the best thing when you need to fight other tanks. The best way to fight tanks is either an ATGM or an ATGM placed on a lightly armored low profile vehicle. Airforce is also quite capable, but using it in an antitank role is only possible if complete air dominance has been achieved
HEAT warheads also generally need to be longer to be more effective which is both hard to stabilize with rotation and easy to stabilize with fins. As a rule, longer rounds are also more aerodynamic. Yes, you could negate most (or all) of the rifling spin with special bearings between the sabot and projectile but this adds weight and complexity.
Very informative and enjoyable video! Certainly learned quite a lot of new things. The chief problem with HESH is that it was intended to be a "jack of all trades" round, but in the modern era fails to accomplish any of its intended roles suitably. In the anti-infantry role HESH is inferior to normal HE. Because HESH also needs to be anti-armor the fuse ends up being much too long, allowing the round to bury itself into the ground and greatly decrease the effects of the blast and shrapnel. Modern HE with programmable airburst and even contemporary HE-FRAG would probably do better. Two rounds DM11 fired at the same position managed to take out 24 out of 30 infantry spread over a 85m by 50m area during firing trials. (For Americans thats around the size of a football field.) In the anti-tank role HESH also falls short. While it might have been effective in the days when the surfaces of Soviet tanks were smooth as a baby, the introduction of addon armor, composites and even just random clutter on tanks greatly reduced HESH effectiveness. The Germans actually developed cheap fiberglass rods for use as addon anti-HESH armor, and in testing it managed to defeat 105mm HESH. Spall liners only worsened the performance. No idea how to post the relevant documents here though. In these cases the only real usage of HESH would be for mission kills by damaging optics and barrels, which normal HE still excells in. As for anti-bunker usage, HESH has been superseded with HE-OR to great effect, which punches through the concrete in structures before detonating. I believe 120mm HE-OR has been found to have similar effects to 165mm HESH? Can't find a source for that one though, but it is certainly believable. Makes sense why the British Army is now leaning away from the rifled gun, and there are indications that this preference existed even before Chally 2 entered service. There was this gem of a quote from one contemporary document: > "It is recognised that the paper has to be balanced but at the same time it has the very critical duty to present the military case fairly but unequivocally. This is every bit as much in the national interest as certain other industrial/Treasury factors. We are therefore surprised at Paragraph 9 of the Conclusions. Reference B gave a firm steer towards smooth bore (SB) as the preferred Army option. To say that the Army "would be content with either option" is misleading. We would definitely prefer Leopard II. Challenger II (RB) is better than no tank at all but is very much a second best option."
German was experimenting with Smoothbore and Fin-Stabilized Discharging sabot in late WW2, this round is called Peenemünder Pfeil-Geschoss (PPG) But they actually do that to increase the firing range of the gun, this is usefull for Artillery Increase in muzzle velocity also help to increase chance hitting the aircraft for FlaK gun Since PPG was a High Explosive shell, you probably can call it HEFSDS 😅 For the FlaK they modifed 10,5cm FlaK 38 and 12,8cm FlaK 45, and the round was 10,5/4,5cm round for 10,5cm FlaK 38 and 12,8/7,3cm round for 12,8cm FlaK 45 They converted one of Krupp K5 Railway gun and instaled new 31cm Smoothbore gun on it, it can fire different ammunition, from 31/18cm, 31/17cm, 31/15cm, and 31/12cm, the 17cm one have penetrator on it, probably for anti-bunker I didn't really know why they didn't try to make AP of out it (for FlaK gun), probably because lack of material like Tungsten 🤔
3:45 Quick correction: That was a "Panzerschreck" (Panzerbüchse 54), not a Panzerfaust (Panzerbüchse 39), so, an improved Bazooka basically (Warhead was bigger). Lovely Video btw.!
8:40 It's more about how the british munitions industry has collapsed. We don't have the manufacturing capability to make more rounds. So, we switch out the gun and then we can call on rhinemetal and whichever amaerican manufacturers are out there to make the ammo for us. This has the side effect of standardising to nato specs and also means that we can nick some dm63's from sie germans if we need them in a pinch.
About Heat, French used a special round in two part, an external one spinning and an internal one for the explosive part hence reducing the dispersing effect.
Very good video - clear (animation was excellent), calm, factual, precise narration and educational. Title is exactly on point, no bait-and-switch. And no annoying, juvenile "music" to "entertain" the viewer. Watched it twice and will look out for more Red Wrench Films videos. Thanks, well done.
For people who don’t wanna watch full video Smoothbore Good for APDSFS because spin makes fin like paddle and pushes air Rifled Good for non fin stabilized rounds Uh I think that’s it
As I German I have to say I'm sad the Brittish didn't come up with another cool round just keep their special snowflake rifled gun. Like let's say a HESH round that can topple tanks around like when you put a turtle on it's back. Some of these weird Brittish things.
Long story short: projectile design has come a long way, and many projectiles are aerodynamically stable without spin. In fact, spin can destabilize many modern projectiles and make them less accurate. A smooth bore can accommodate a bigger variety of ammo vs rifles barrels.
Awesome and precise explanation. I always knew the general gist of the Brit’s wanting to hold onto HESH, and how rifled barrels were worse for APFSDS, but never knew the physics of why. This is a video I will use as reference for a long time, thank you!
Aw appreciate it man - I’m a big fan of your content too :)
Holy shit it's the funny tank man
Hi mr funny tank man
My thoughts exactly, simple and easy eplanation of it.
When whatching these videos I'm always waiting for the "what will he miss". Nope, nothing missing here. I totally second using this video for reference.
There are two additional advantages smoothbore tanks guns have over rifled ones. The first is that they last a lot longer. There is far less wear on a barrel when a round goes through a smoothbore since it’s not having to force itself through the rifling. This both reduces maintenance costs and can keep a tank fighting in a heavy combat situation. The second is mostly an advantage for Soviet/Russian/Chinese designs in that it’s far easier to fire a gun launched ATGM through a smoothbore. The Soviets began using these for long distance fire as their optics and ballistic computers aren’t near as good as western ones. One of the many flaws of the M551 Sheridan was that its rifled cannon barrel needed a key slot cut through it to keep the missile from spinning when it was fired as spinning would make the guidance fail. This compromised the barrel and made it wear out even faster.
Another interesting point is that there is a large number of other types of ammo that are available for NATO smoothbore guns that are not available for the British 120mm. These include anti personnel fragmentation, anti personel canister and guided rounds.
I guess my analogy would be that the 120mm rifled gun is like sticking with VHS format when everyone else went to DVD.
Additional advantages of smoothbores include but are not limited to:
1. Higher accuracy due to the missing rotation of the projectile which makes it slightly veer off to the side. (Heat/HESH FS for example)
1.1. " also due to a higher muzzle velocity so theres less time between firing and impact and a flatter trajectory.
2. Higher potential penetration due to increased projectile speed
3. Assuming identical performance HEAT ammuntion works slightly better at impact when not spinning
4. Less friction in the barrel keeps it cooler and slightly more accurate long term (Most modern tanks got equipment to compensate for heat induced deformations of the barrel)
Disadvantages include but are not limited to:
1. Fin stabilized ammunition is a must and generally more expensive.
2. Slightly decreased hesh effectiveness which benefits from impacting while spinning.
3. Assuming identical calibres rifled guns can fire stockpiles of older guns (Not entirely sure but some maybe all types of ammo are interchangable between chieftain and challenger)
@@reyvan3806 I agree with what you’ve said but the analogy is a bit off imo.
In terms of smoothbore vs rifled barrels its more analogous to sticking with DVD (Rifling coming after smoothbore) when everyone else has gone back to using VHS (smoothbore being an older design).
Talking about ammunition though, yeah your analogy is perfect.
Idk I’m drunk this may not make sense lol sorry if so
something generally not mentioned is the fact that Smoothbores can aswell shoot HE shells which are used by the russians since the beginning of those types of Barrels being used
about accuracy of both iirc it was said that rifled guns have a slightly better overall accuracy with a less predictable shot pattern while smoothbore guns have very slightly less accuracy with a more easily predicatble shot pattern
@Pit Friend fyi russian gun launched missiles are SACLOS so if their sights are so much more inferior they cant even use the effective range of said missiles
but yes generally speaking older russian tanks have worse optics (T-64/early T72) while modern ones have comparable optics (incase of T-90A. T72B3 modification or T80BVM the Thermals have a slightly better resolution then current western Tanks since west simply did not upgrade them as often specially in 2000s+)
funny how you showed a Panzerschreck when talking about Panzerfaust tho
@@TheDude50447 OK, so a few things.
1) Rifled guns are generally more accurate than smoothbore, not less. It is why people went for rifling in the first place, even with modern technology there is some windage with smoothbore ammunition. What I mean by that is a gap between the round and the barrel that affects accuracy. It is something that even with the good tolerances modern industry is capable of you are NOT getting rid of.
2) Velocity, sorry, but you are wrong here. The Velocity of the two guns using sabot rounds is almost the same. 1650m/s with the British L30 using APFSDS, the German Rh120 is travelling at 1640 - 1750 depending on the sabot round used. So no, velocity is not an issue with the rifled gun. Those figures are both from the most recent iteration of the guns in question, so the 55 calibre Rh 120, not the older 44 calibre, which actually has lower velocity than the L30 (which only has one version).
3) Penetration, this is nothing to do with the gun in this case. Velocity is about the same as I demonstrated above. The real difference is the mass of the penetrator rod, and that comes down not to the gun but to the ammunition. The British ammunition is 3 piece, the projectile, charge, and detonator. The smoothbore rounds are single piece. This means that the smoothbore rounds can have a longer penetrator rod simply by extended it into the main body of the shell. This means that penetrator rod has more mass. Penetration of Kinetic rounds is a function of velocity and mass. If the British L30 used single piece ammunition the penetration values would be the same as the velocity, so close that its not really worth discussing.
The main reason the British are moving to the smoothbore is ammunition availability. That is pretty much it. The British still prefer HESH as their primary HE round, fact is there is no better anti bunker round for a 120mm gun out there. That being said there are some very advanced main gun rounds developed, or in the process of development for the smoothbore simply because its the gun everyone else is using.
It is not because a smoothbore is intrinsically better than a rifled gun. Both have advantages and disadvantages. It would probably be possible to get many of the more advanced rounds working in a rifled gun, the question though is is it worth the extra cost?
And its that ammunition that is key. The main reason the Challenger III upgrade is so expensive is because of that move from three piece ammunition to single piece. It means the entire ammunition stowage has to be redesigned, which means much of the interior of the vehicle has to be rebuilt for the new ammunition. Another major disadvantage with single piece ammunition is its far more difficult to move around in the turret than the three piece ammunition, making the loaders job more difficult. That ammunition size is why, despite many armchair warriors spouting their usual drivel, no one has taken up the 130 mm gun yet.
Another advantage with smoothbore is that even when you miss your target entirely, chances are you will still nail your neighbour's dog before having to resort to the canon mounted ontop of your stairs loaded with grapeshot
Just as the founding fathers intended.
God-tier comment mate lmao
Wtf is wrong with you? Leave the poor dog alone you psychopath.
TALLY HO LADS
Say what?
I find interesting to think that the arrow was invented thousands of years ago and still we go back to it in modern warfare.
Edit: In Spain, spanish Leopard 2 crews name apfsds "Flecha": arrow ammo, arrow of war ammo, they name it.
Which is similar and likely where the word flechette comes from^^
There are only two ways to stabilize a projectile; spin it in the barrel or spin it in flight.
German tankers call APFSDS as Pfeil which means Arrow.
@@CharliMorganMusic fin stabilized ammunition doesn't spin for stabilization though
Yea
A remarkably well balanced video, especially when compared to so many others that have been made on this topic recently. Bravo!
Thanks so much Trevor! I always try and keep things as objective as possible :)
I totally agree - a lot of things were cleared up for me. We are not all ex tank aces or military analysts - so its nice to have some things explained, that everyone seems to take for granted. I personally don't have time to research this, but I have wondered about it - so thanks to Red Wrench for making this.
Until Recently THIS was The Standard "Tone" For MOST MilitaryHistory/MilitaryEquipment Videos on RUclips.
Bravo chappies!!..We eventually learn from the Russians how to do warfare!!
One major difference is the lifespan of the guns. The Challenger 2 rifled gun needs replacing after 400 shots while the smooth-bore Rheinmetall gun used by Leopard 2 and Abrams last well over 1500 shots.
Well this is the first time that I learn that it was the Soviets who invented the APFSDS and used it on the T62.
Great video and great explanation
Glad you liked it!
Because they didn't they where just the first to use in as a main armament.
The French in exile developed APDS which was used by the British and the German developed the first APFSDS also in ww2 (Peenemuende Arrow)
@@Apophis40K so they were the first to use it thx
@Andrew yeah
They fielded it first, they didn't invent it.
My late brother trained at Bovington. They put animals in a tank and shot it with HESH. The animals all survived. This was in the late sixties.
An interesting footnote that warrants it's own discussion is scale.
Smaller guns typically use simpler ammo, since the precision necessary to make fancy bullets is far too expensive for a small projectile measured in millimeters.
At the same time, the smaller size means you can fire more projectiles at a time since the forces the machine has to experience will be smaller.
Not to mention space.
It's honestly fascinating to consider since it explains so much of why we don't just upscale and downscale the same designs over and over.
Just how imprecise do you think small projectiles are? I doubt you have a clue. A point to ponder is that since smoothbores mentioned often here don't rotate the shell, the rotational balance isn't critical, unlike shells for rifled barrels. Sabot roundness for good fit with smoothbore is important but that applies to shells meant for rifled barrels as well. There are scale (strength and aerodynamic) reasons why you don't have say .. a tungsten dart in every caliber from rifle up to tank. Maybe check into external ballistics? You need some learnin for I'm shakin my head here as you've said nothing detectably correct .. yet 68 people agree with you. Playing World of Tanks 24-7 never made anyone an expert ..
that just makes me want to see a tank with something like 12 gauge buckshot goodness
what would it even be classified as if we use the shotgun gauge system
Unfortunately, the square cube law often makes designs that work on a small scale unviable on the large scale.
@@The-Singularity-X01 darn
A 155 is hardly small and it is measured in mm.
*The US Military has be testing smooth-bore Sub-Machine guns for the same reasons. The Bullets have a high grain weight but are a smaller diameter and shaped more like small arrows with the flight-fins almost touching the primer! The cost is expensive so they may only end up in single shot semi-auto sniper rifles. The performance is excellent in this roll delivering half the drop at a mind blowing 5100 FPS.*
Amazingly simple and clear explanation! I know there's much work behind trying to condense something into an easily understandable package so great work!
Big question tho: how do smoothbore tanks use HE shells against infantry in entrenched positions? Do they just lobe them like ye-olde smoothbore cannon?
Tank on tank combat is incredibly rare, as we've seen from the Ukraine war.
@@RazorsharpLT they don't use HE shells from what I'm getting, they have special anti infantry rounds though
@@RazorsharpLT Yes that's something I don't get. Tank on tank is extremely rare and never a main thing in any war, the Sherman's 75mm was preferred over the 76mm due to it's better HE shell and it's still true in modern times, very weird yes
@@RazorsharpLT They use fin-stabilized HE!
I already have a vague idea regarding how APFSDS works but your detailed explanation answered a lot of the questions I have regarding this. Simply brilliant video!
The change (or lack thereof) was simply down to the GBs tank doctrine. As mentioned in the video, GB wanted to use their tanks as multi-role, rather than just Anti-Tank. Given the modern state of warfare, I feel like this makes sense.
Seems like a good HE-FRAG round would do much better in the multirole purpose.
Prob talking out of my ass but the lack of HE for NATO 120 are pretty fucking stupid
@@CloneDAnonyes exactly, modern multipurpose he rounds are way way better than hesh
This is not true... At all.
Smoothbore guns can fire a far greater range of projectiles for more applications on the modern battlefield. This was known long before Challenger 2 was even designed.
Britain chose the rifled gun because of:
-Stubbornness
-Cost
-Poor insight into the near future
Breaking these down, Challenger 2 was actually planned to replace Chieftain and operate alongside Challenger 1. The UK had a large stockpile of HESH rounds and it was considered cheaper and "more sensible" to have ammo commonality between both British tanks.
Shortly after work on Challenger 2 production began, though, Challenger 1 was retired completely.
After that, cuts in the budget closed the factory making out gun barrels and our ammo, leaving Challenger 2 with a unique gun/ ammo combo in NATO, eliminating both the ammo availability and cost arguments entirely.
There never was a capability argument. We knew that rifled was worse from the get-go, and the testers on the selection team specifically requested many times that the rifled gun be dropped from the tank, and a smoothbore with NATO ammo commonality used instead, but were ignored, again on grounds of stubbornness and cost.
It was initially a lot cheaper for the UK to keep using existing ammo stocks... Emphasis on initially.
The decision to save money in the short term has cost the British army capability, and the taxpayer much more money in the long run, as reconfiguring the tank for smoothbore has neccecitated a totally new turret and complete hull layout redesign, at tremendous cost per tank.
There is no world in which the rifled gun was the smart or correct decision. It was sheer stubbornness to see the writing on the wall that saw the UK, uniquely in the world, miss out on such an obviously meccesary change in technology.
@@AllThingsCubey They also chose it because they wanted the tank to be as "British" as possible and didn't want to get the German 120 mm gun or any copy of it
An additional advantage to smoothbore barrels that I haven't seen mentioned, is that they are easier (therefore cheaper) to produce.
I have also heard that they do not wear out so quick
However, the cost of the plumed shells themselves is higher, which somewhat equalizes the costs. Therefore, this innovation was first of all approved by the crews themselves, who did not have to clean the gun barrel so tediously after firing.
@@musicbruvbecause the friction between the inner wall of the barrel and the projectile is less
And friction causes wear
No forced quirkiness, no overly complex obfuscating language, just the facts. Very nice.
Thanks very much!
An excellent presentation comparing the two types of gun on a tank. Compared to other styles of presentation you find on this channel it is delivered clearly, concisely and at a tempo that enables you to take in all of the information. Thank you.
Thank you so much!
Challenger 2 does use APFSDS, but to enable it to fly straight, the petals are banded in a sacrificial ring of plastic which allows it to engage with the chrome rifling, spinning the petals but not the sabot. You could also draw the conclusion that with Challenger 3, higher pressure and projectile speed will be required to defeat future armour and as such barrel life of rifling will be severely reduced (adding cost) and maximum energy needs to be given to the projectile and not lost in friction from rifling. It will be interesting to see what the maximum engagement range will be in the future, HESH was 5km but you could chuck it further with reducing accuracy but the shell didn’t lose its effectiveness. APFSDS was 2km but penetration drops off dramatically beyond that as the round slows down.
One point in addition to your excellent points on the flexibility of HESH,during the cold war and for some years after the UK had a huge stockpile of 120mm rifled tank rounds,of which some of the older ammunition would have still been useful against older tanks or against the side armour of newer ones.
The cost of rebuilding up such a stockpile,whilst still in a cold war with the soviets,would have been significant and risky
Ok, I'm dubbing you the "tank professor" as your videos are so incredibly informative and entertaining. The exceptional quality of your research and the way you package it for our viewing is second to none. I agree with your comment that anyone who is familiar with firearms may find a switch to smoothbore an odd decision. A good analogy of the difference would be to compare a smoothbore shotgun to one with a rifled barrel. Each have there own distinct advantages depending on the type of ammunition used. I totally agree too with your comment that the switch to a smoothbore gun may be less about performance and more about standardization with NATO. Thank you again, and as always, I'm looking forward to the next one! 👍👍👍
Hahaha appreciate it as always Phil. Can always count on you to brighten up a Friday afternoon :)
Dunno, I'm having a hard time believing that the rifled round's spin has any effect at all on the scant milliseconds of warhead detonation.
I was asking myself why the Brits are moving away from HESH with their new Challenger 3 Upgrade since i saw it on the news.
Thanks for the clear up and great job on explaining all the different grenades in a very clear and easily understandable way!
HESH is bad yo!
My pleasure Richi I’m really glad you enjoyed :)
Ironicly the only thing to ever take a challenger 2 out of combat. Is a HESH shell from a friendly fire incident.
@@robertharris6092 yes I've heard that too.
The Challengers armour seems to be quite good with it withstanding a barrage of RPG hits as if it was Tuesday in the Iran war early 2000
@@robertharris6092not only that, but it was a HESH in an open commander’s hatch. Even then, a HESH round hitting the open hatch only managed to kill 2 out of the 4 crewmen.
Absolutely awesome video as an WT player it explained a lot what those words stands for of each ammunition type and why more modern tanks dont have rifled canon.
Armor Piercing Fin Stabilized Discarding Sabot
Armor Piercing High Explosive
Armor Piercing High Explosive Fin Stabilized Discarding Sabot
Armor Piercing High Explosive Fin Stabilized Discarding Sabot High Explosive Capped Ballistic Capped
Armor Piercing High Explosive Fin Stabilized Discarding Sabot High Explosive Anti Tank High Explosive Capped Ballistic Capped
*B E S H*
Hypothesis: For HE and other non-anti-tank rounds, the improvements in accuracy *besides* the barrel, such as optics, targeting computers, stabilization and integrated combat systems makes the loss of rifling not that much of an issue.
What should be mentioned as as well is that APFSDS rounds fired from smoothbore guns, do inflict less wear and tear on the gun barrel as when fired from rifles guns. Secondly modern programmable HE-rounds ( like the German DM11 or the American M1147 AMP) that are currently replacing HEAT-MP rounds in most western militaries, are far superior in an anti infantry role as HESH rounds, due to their airburst capability. The Rh-120mm L55 A1 gun - which will be used by the Challenger 3 - is of course able of fire this type of ammunition, so there is really no need for the Royal Army to use rifled guns any longer. And of course it would be economically senseless to try to develop a replacement for the L27A1 CHARM 3 round for just 150 MBTs or so. So there is no alternative for the UK to abandon the 120mm L30A1 rifled gun in favor of the Rh-120mm L55 A1 gun!
Part of the logic of using HESH is how it's a good, cheap compromise for a multi-purpose round. If you have to carry ,say, one less ammunition type, that is an advantage in itself, and I think those logistical aspects typically get overlooked. Modern programmable rounds can absolutely do everything HESH can do but better and are the future, but they are *way* more expensive - but of course there's the upside of there being an entire alliance's logistics behind them
@@tommeakin1732 its quite bad as multi purpose round, due to not having much of an area of effect due to lack of fragmentation, no real effect behind softer cover (meaning sandbags, earth berms, clay walls etc) and only works effectively when hitting a homogenous steel target.
Here is a fun little story about tanks at 1:05 In the 1920's British tanks with these kind of tracks couldn't climb a grassy hill when it was wet and they had to drill holes and put screws in the tracks to finish their demonstration for the top brass. Lol.
When I went through the Armor Officer's Basic Course (AOB) at Ft. Knox in 1975, we were taught that a smooth bore main gun allowed higher operating pressures than rifled guns, giving higher muzzle velocities. This also extended bore life. The trade off with smooth bores is that you have to used fin stabilized projectiles. Apologies if you covered this point in your presentation.
nope, the author explains it wrongly 5:50:
"smooth bore has greater projectile velocity because no need to spend kinetic energy to spin"
With a bib bore tube, there is more surface area behind the projectile to push it out at a higher initial velocity than a narrower tube. To maintain velocity on it’s ballistic path, a submunition caliber projectile is used. Case in point is the old Remington deer rifle sabot cartridges that would give you 500 fps more velocity.
@@vladimir0rustechnically that’s correct as well you’re using energy to spin it and having to force the round through the rifling causes a not insignificant amount of energy loss due to friction.
finally, this is the first video on this topic that properly explained what are the different benefits of smoothbore vs rifled in tanks. Thank you!
Glad it was helpful!
love your videos! Great work!
Great video, i like your clean style of narration and your simple incorporation of B-Rolls and Graphics
Means a lot, thank you. I’ve been trying to do better narration recently haha
When I was in ROTC (back in the early 80s), one of my instructors had been on the team that studied this issue. They found that there was no appreciable decrease in accuracy at the ranges most tank shots were made -- especially with modern ammunition.
So you were a stabby rupert 40 years ago & you're still talking about it at the slightest opportunity? Sounds about right.
🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
great content as always, you never disappoint us!
with the new programmable HE ammunition, there is really no point of having the rifled gun
How available and expensive are those data linked ammunition? It is a good replacement but it’s not something immediately feasible.
people think that technology is infallible and just because it can do more on paper means it’s going to be better. I’m a mechanic. Everything these days is electronic and data linked. We have so many problems with communication errors, sensors going bad that no longer can provide a solution since computers have to have all of their inputs typically to create an accurate picture of what they’re doing otherwise they fail since they’re not humans that can extrapolate information. Anything that can be electronically programmed, can be counter programmed or jammed. I do not have faith in technology-based weapons. Not saying to be a Luddite and use sticks and stones, but I think the overly high tech approach is not doing as good considering it’s being used to replace the critical skills of a soldier, how to range how to fire how to use a different ammo types. Now it’s just point click and shoot since the soldiers are practically retarded these days it seems.
@@maximilianavdeev7363 Newsflash, western tanks have had modern FCS' for years that are capable of automatically leading and ranging the target. That's the reason why they've been so effective in tank combat. Programmable fuses have existed for a long time, hell we had proximity fuze munitions for ships during WW2. The tech works, it's proven that over the years. If you wanna be the dude in a T-62 manually calculating range and lead while fighting the M1A2 Abrams where the gunner puts the gun on your tank, lazes you, and it automatically leads your tank from a mile away go for it. But I know I'd rather be the dude who has the digital FCS.
@@maximilianavdeev7363 Its fuze is set in the breach of the gun .
One last possible point.
In 2003 the US developed the M908 HE-OR-T 120mm round, or High Explosive Obstacle Reduction Trace round.
Found to be as effective as a 165mm HE round in obstacle destruction, this may have had something to do with the UK finally going smooth bore, a replacement for HESH in the anti obstacle and anti infantry role.
There's also the German DM11 programmable frag round for anti infantry role, which only came along in 2009.
It seems after the Iraq war, NATO militaries also remembered that tanks are primarily for infantry fire support!
Scene 8:57 - You forgot two more types of ammunition that benefit from a smoothbore gun: close in anti-personnel rounds such as the M1028 Canister Cartridge, and cannon-launched guided missiles such as the LAHAT and the 9K112 Kobra.
So why the US and German didn't have any atgm tank round for their tanks since they already try tht in the past with mbt70/kpz tank ( as far as I know ) ??
@@SgtShnackendale I knew the Soviet tanks were lighter is for the purpose crossing bridge etc but never would have thought that even a 30 tons weight could have a significant effect in shooting
@@uthopia27 as mentioned above, no need for gun launched ATGM.
Another reason was advances in penetrator technology, wich increased performence on NATO side.
Also doctrinal use.
NATO geared up for multi layered delaying actions with MBT´s and IFV´s forming the fighting rear guard of the NATO Armys, pulling back over the north german plains and central&south german mountain regions towards the Rhein Defense Line, where NATO expected to hold until REFORGER kicked into action and poured in a few more divisions.
The Sovjets intended to use their MBT´s differently.
Sovjet armored doctrine intended a bataillon to have 41 tanks in 4 companies of 10. 3 companies would form the spearhead of the bataillon, supported each by an mechanised or motorised infantry platoon, while the 4. company and HQ would follow up with the rest of the infantry a about 500-1000m to the rear.
The 4. company was equipped with ATGM guidance units to support the spearhead formation with long range overwatch fire.
Today there is no real advantage to an 120mm or 125mm gun launched ATGM over an APFSDS, same with the top attack ammunition for K2.
If you want to shoot atgm you take your IFV´s or tank hunters and do it.
@@zhufortheimpaler4041 Its also harder to dodge a tank round, plus you only have to 'peak out' shoot and you can go hide. An ATGM at least a big long range one you have to fly it to the target, and it has significant airtime. Also like you said, ATGM's can be stuck on cheaper/lighter/more plentiful vehicles than MBTs.
awesome video, answered all my questions except one about shooting balls or spheres, though you made up for it by answering good questions I had not thought to think about, nice, good job, thank you.
Brilliant impartial and objective video, loved it.
Was a nice touch to mention the military doctrine of Brits using armour to support infantry and showing why they valued their explosive shells so highly.
Also liked that you mentioned the decision for Brits changing to smoothbore being more in the name of standardisation with NATO allies rather than a decision based on tech.
Lots of nuances that I didn’t consider here, good stuff!
There is also the fact that we can't make the bloody guns any more since Royal Ordnance went under. It was only a matter of time before the spares ran out.
That doesn't really make sense as a reason though, a smoothbore gun can also fire bog standard HE. It makes about as much sense as anyone saying the US preferred the 75mm Sherman becuz HE rounds, which isn't true.
@@alexisborden3191 I suggest you look up what HESH can do. As I understand it that stuff does not play well with smoothbore.
Suffice it to say it can be devastatingly effective against light to medium armour and defensive structures. It's all about the spelling.
@@alexisborden3191 sorry I should have highlighted HESH when I referenced explosive shells. In the video from 6:48 onwards, the video does a great job of explaining the point.
Great video as usual 🔥🔥
Essentially they no longer shoot bullets but shoot darts.
Perfectly explained exactly what I was curious about in under 10 minutes. Appreciate it!
I made a suggestion on this very topic, and you replied, saying it was a good idea. Excellent video and explains it so well. Thank you for making it.
It was something I’d been working on for a little while but it was actually your comment that prompted me to make this video! Appreciate your comments :)
@@RedWrenchFilms no worries. Look forward to the next one.
Armor piercing ammunition is very hard and will quickly ruin the softer metal that makes up the rifling of barrels, if a sabot isn’t used. There are also A.P. bullets for handguns that are Teflon coated. People were saying the Teflon caused them to defeat body armor, and that wasn’t true. It was there only to protect the rifling of the barrel. The hard bullet was what defeated the body armor.
Were usually equipped with a copper jacket
HESH is actually an absolutely awful round for literally every situation.
Myth 1. Its good against fortifications
FALSE. Tests have demonstrated how appalling HESH is at removing anything. In tests a a 120mm subcaliber (MPAT derivative) round performed BETTER at removing obstacles than a 165mm HESH even though the latter has literally nearly TEN TIMES the amount of explosives.
Myth 2. Its good against armor.
FALSE. There is no actual evidence of it being good against any meaningful armor. Lightly armored vehicles would be shredded by a generic HE round, MP round or HEAT. There is no advantage in HESH in an anti armor capacity.
Drawbacks - HESH does not offer significant fragmentation nor is compatible with programmable fuzes.
If its so amazing, why does literally NO ONE use it? No one does because its awful.
Why did UK stick with a rifled gun and HESH? Because of lobbying by local defense companies and people believing moronically illogical propaganda about Brits being so smart to use HESH and the rest of the world are just dum-dums.
Rifled guns dont slightly affect the muzzle velocity, they affect it A LOT. As a result the APFSDS in the Challenger 2 had to use ball bearings to NEGATE the rifling. Which is hilarious because they have to spend more money to make more complex projectiles to negate the key attribute of their supposedly better gun.
Spin with HEAT. Also not actually an issue. Basic math shows how the spin rate and the centripetal forces are completely negligible relative to the velocity of the jet. And, more importantly, fin stabilized projectiles ALSO SPIN at comparable rates shortly after leaving the barrel, as every slow motion shot of any fin stabilized projectile will show you.
Thank you SO much for actually making this fully understandable to even the dumbest of viewers (i take a bow!) The info along with the animations make things clear and easy to understand.
Thank you Dave! Means a lot.
Brilliant video, nicely presented and very informative. Thanks for your hard work on this.
Ok, I've seen your other videos and you don't over post rubbish, so I subscribed. I look forward to watching your back catalogue and the new stuff.
A straight forward and easy to understand video about a complex topic. This video reminds me of the loads of fun I had playing From the Depths messing around with different ammo types, and noticing several of the same things mentioned in this video.
Same here, I was noticing all the different shell modules
Small additions, smooth bore guns can still operate HE rounds or rounds with similar effects, the Germam DM 11 round or the American AMP are good examples of that. The Challenger 2 also consistently had less overall accuracy than their NATO competition in all sorts of tank trials, but i do not know if thats due to the rifled gun or the FCS.
That was down to the FCS, which worked poorly in competitions, but superbly in actual warfare. That reputation for lack of accuracy was down to the pre Gulf War tank gunnery competitions. Irony is the same FCS that let the Challenger I down so badly in those competitions worked exceptionally well in actual combat. Shows the perils of purely relying on range shooting vs actual combat shooting to determine the effectiveness of a weapon.....
@@alganhar1 Even in competitons after the Gulf War with Challenger 2s They often had about half the hit probabillity of Abrams's, Leopard 2s and even Leclercs. Still impressive at about 40-45% at 3.5 km but noticeably worse than it's allied tanks.
@@spyran5839 There were two competitions where most of the Challenger's low score was actually down to optics and viewports getting covered in mud that the crew had no effective way to remove.
@@maotseovich1347 Mud isn't a common issue in the Middle East, hence decent combat performance in the recent wars it's been involved in.
@@alganhar1Actually the FCS didn't work superbly in combat at all.
It frequently failed entirely. Crews trained to fire and observe fall of shot, then adjust, and first shot hit rates in the Gulf War were actually kinda pathetic for Challengers, with the famous "longest range kill" happening after multiple misses against a stationary, much closer target, before the gunner found the range.
The FCS actually didn't function for APFSDS shots beyond 1200m, and was not even used for the famous long range kill, which was a combination of manual aim and luck (in the gunners own words).
There is no world in which a technical system that fails to work on a range in peacetime suddenly starts to work in the hardships of a war. That's the inverse of reality, and an utterly ridiculous comment to make. The success of Challengers in the Gulf was entirely down to the quality of British crews, and the abysmal quality of Iraqi crews and vehicles, which barely put up a fight. No Challenger even took a return hit from an Iraqi tank.
To be fair, the original discarding Sabot ammo was developed for the 6 pdr and 17 pdr British AT guns during WW 2. Solid AT ammo has a tensile problem when spinning and fired at more than 1,000 m/s, it can shatter on impact. This became important as armour got thicker. The kinetic energy of a round is F= 1/2 MV-2. So if you double the mass of the shell you double the kinetic energy (while also doubling the amount of explosive required to accelerate the shell in the barrel) but if you double the muzzle velocity you quadruple the kinetic energy. Much better "Bang for the buck". Whether black powder field cannons or AT guns, it was always about the muzzle velocity.
We needed higher muzzle velocity but the steel AP shells would shatter so we needed something harder. Then came the tungsten rounds. These wouldn't shatter at the higher velocities but were much heavier than steel by volume. That meant we had a round that would survive the 1,000 m/s+ velocity but required too much explosive to accelerate. To withstand the pressure the AT gun would need to be much bigger and stronger, harder to move and easier to hit. So how do you make a round that has the same mass as the usual AP round when the material you're working with is twice as dense and therefore the projectile is half the volume? Put wooden shoes around it. And the "Armour Piercing, Spin Stabilised, Discarding Sabot" was born.
I know this can get boring but I found it interesting while researching the 17 pdr. Apparently AT rounds were observed to shatter when hitting the Tiger 1 armour. At first it was thought to be faulty shells but after testing it was realised that roughly 1,000 m/s was a physical limit for solid steel AP rounds of the time. Germany didn't have the problem because most of their AT guns couldn't develop a high enough muzzle velocity. (There's also the problem that they didn't have tungsten to waste on ammo, it was needed for machine tools.)
Thank you. Your explanation was very clear with excellent graphics to show your points. I never knew why there was a shift back to smooth bore. With the improvement in armour and the penetration becoming more difficult, it seems like a light bulb turning on moment realizing why they are going back!
Thanks so much Edward, it means a lot!
Awesome. Answered several questions I've had. Thank you.
Dont tell the british that HEAT rounds or HE round are enough for infantry support and building destruction
Beautifully presented and extremely well thought out presentation. My mate was a former gun fitter and explained this to me a long time ago.. He also used the shushpreg round as an example but thats secret so shhhhh!
Nice one
Tbh, I already knew part of the answer to the video's tittle, but you explained it in a way that made me realize I'm person bad at explaining stuff lol. Good content as always! 👍
I’m sure you’d have done a great job - it’s just practice! Thanks :)
That is the best video / explanation on the subject I've seen so far. You didnt miss a single point !
I'll link to your video as reference next time I have to explain this to someone. Many thanks !
Awesome, thank you!
You forgot to mention another plus of smoothbore weapons. This is the ability to shoot anti-tank missiles straight from the barrel.
Just how I like videos: clear, concise and full of information that is new to me.
You did mention the use of HESH against structures, but I really want that to be stressed. In these online circles, people seem to be entirely focused on use against other tanks; but from all of the evidence I've seen, demolition work is, by a pretty big margin, the thing that HESH is best at, and the specific role that really makes it stand out. Also, it's a good multi-purpose compromise round that isn't seriously expensive. There's advantages to carrying a less diverse array of ammunition that can still meet all requirements. I'm not making the argument that it's the future or something, but it's annoying to see the dominant lines of discussion missing pretty major factors
Yes we Brits are fond of multi purpose tools in war. When you have not got the mass numbers you have less room for specialisation units. Take the harrier not exactly the best in any one department save the VTOL capacity but one of the best multi role warplanes of its era.
Well we will seen sooner rather than later how a challenger 2 will fare in Ukraine against the amour it was most designed to fight.
I have heard people complain that the challenger 2 is a 40 year old design. Yeah sure the outside might not have changed massively but the stuff inside I am sure has. Plus you cant beat a tank that comes complete with tea making facilities as standard.
Troop morale is a Always a good thing to cater for and we brits do love a good cup of tea.
I hear the yank took the idea from the brits and they come with coffee instead of tea.
@@lordomacron3719 The French used wine or even cognac for this. And I don’t know who spied on whom, but in Europe they learned how to make wine much earlier than bringing tea. And yes, we Russians are looking forward to the appearance of British tanks in Ukraine, because we must definitely check how high his tower takes off, and how the detonation of ammunition from HESH or DUP shells affects this height.
Drones might make tank on tank warfare a thing of the past. Weird that the UK would make the change now.
Challenger didn't have HE round!
As you yourself said, on the west tanks were seen mainly as tank killers, so they were armed with anti-tank weapons. That is why Challenger 2 didn't have HE, while all the others did, but never in great quantities (except Russian/Soviet tanks).
One more thing with HESH: spaced armor (sideskirts, cage or even empty cavities within composite or rubber) will render HESH useless. Even if a tank is hit, it largely depends where in order for HESH to be useful. On top of it all, add kevlar paddings and HESH becomes extremely unreliable in anti-tank role. Only for demolishing concrete buildings. But even for that, HEAT is pretty useful since it will go through concrete much farther than through steel. That is why everybody else didn't want HESH... Why rely on it so heavily when other ammo types will get the job done just as well?
because 🅱esh
HEAT is not as good a general purpose munition as HESH. Iraq was proof of that. Houses, reinforced walls, lightly armoured vehicles, commandeered civilian vehicles, and fuel tankers are all perfectly demolished by HESH, more so than HEAT. 120mm bucket load of high explosives so it’s not surprising and in some cases the explosion was too much so crews would fill inert training rounds with concrete and fire those too.
Because HESH is not used as an anti tank round in British tanks. It is used as the general purpose HE round. I think you need to get your head around that. For anti tank the British use a fin discarding sabot in the L30, for almost everything else they use HESH. It is a superb general purpose HE round. As 80% of a tanks ammunition loadout tends to be HE, you MAY begin to see why the British valued an excellent all round HE munition such as HESH so highly.....
As mentioned, HEAT is not a good general purpose HE round - it is optimised to explode almost entirely in a narrow straight line and doesn't do a lot of damage otherwise. Also, without delayed fusing (which is available on more modern HEAT rounds) it is almost useless against large bunkers and other soft targets, which a HESH will easily kill.
@@alganhar1 A HESH round is also the only thing to have ever destroyed a Challenger 2.
For anyone with any knowledge of antiarmor munitions, they know rifle spin stabilization is inefficient for subcaliber pentrators or shapecharge munitions, which are the most common and efficient antiarmor munitions.
From my, civilian understanding, british military docterine is that Tanks are infantry support first, tank killers second.
Im sure its not so clear-cut in reality but thats why they maintained the HESH, because its so good for taking out fortified positions, bunkers, emplacements n whatnot, which infantry assualts would likely end with casualties.
I predict that the switch away from this is mostly to align with other Nato countries for ease of logistics...
also performence.
HESH is only very good vs steel. vs concrete etc it quickly looses effectiveness.
And the 120mm smoothbore has programmable ammunition (DM11 / M1147) that do a better job in every area than HESH
Honestly, I don't think the "infantry support"-thing makes much sense. Everybody knows that the reason why the Germans were able to easily defeat the French in WW2, despite French tanks being arguably superior, is that the French made the mistake of splitting their tanks up, spreading them out and peppering them over the whole defensive line, while the Germans focused their tanks together and thus were easily able to break through the French lines.
There is no good reason for why a modern army would refuse to learn from that lesson. Why repeat the French mistake?
Sure, it is nice for the infantry if you can assign tanks to them to support them, but who is doing the important job of breaking through the enemy lines or stopping such a breakthrough, when the tanks are busy babysitting infantry?
MBTs in a infantry support role are a luxury a army that only has a few hundred tanks can't really afford. It makes no sense, strategically.
Imagine medieval or ancient armies would have split their cavalry up and spread them out over their infantry units to support them, instead of using cavalry for fast, sweeping movements, for flanking and for breaking through enemy lines.
That would have been stupid back then and it is stupid now to do that with MBTs. That is the one big lesson learned from "Blitzkrieg" and WW2 tank warfare in general.
At least that applies to real wars where both sides have tanks.
In some "insurgent" war, sure, there you can afford to slave MBTs to infantry, but weirdly enough the Challenger 2 never really was used that way. When it actually saw combat in Operation Desert Storm, it was used like MBTs are supposed to be used, as a spear point weapon for breaking through enemy defenses, not as a gun carrier for infantry or as a modern "StuG".
Weirdly enough, it was mostly the Leopard 2 used by Canada and Denmark in Afghanistan, which was used as a infantry support tank, despite being designed for MBT vs MBT combat.
My point here being, even when you intend to use a MBT that way, it still makes little sense to specifically design it for that role and make it worse in the tank vs tank role.
This "the Challenger 2 was never meant to fight other MBTs and was basically a modern version of the Churchill Gun Carrier"-narrative is new.
I have heard and seen hundreds of heated debates about the pros and cons of different tanks in the last 30 years and not once have I ever heard any defender of the Challenger 2 bring up this "infantry support" idea before. I heard that for the first time a few months ago, after the Challenger 3 with the smoothbore gun was unveiled and the Challenger 2 fanboys didn't need to defend the rifled gun any longer.
It seems they are just shifting the goal post.
For decades they claimed the rifled gun is superior, including against MBTs and now all of a sudden it never was supposed to be used much against other MBTs.
I think the people who designed the Challenger 2 were just overly conservative and prideful. The old L7 105 mm gun was the pride of British tank design for decades, so they rather went with a bigger version of it than to suffer the humiliation of putting a German gun on their tank, or spend another 20 years developing their own smoothbore gun.
@@TrangleC i think one of the the reason for the brits prioritizing the Infantry Support role even greater is that they also had to fill the role of AVREs, as the doctrine is being phased out in favor of purely Engineering vehicles.
also might i adress your statement of "everyone knows that the reason why germans were able to easily defeat the french in ww2 despite the french tanks being arguable superior", i don't think that is completely realistic considering tank development of the french at the time, including their infrastructures were in shambles, majority of their tank designs were built upon the perspective that the next war would be no different from that of WW1 (there's also politics coming into play of going for big tanks instead of multiple smaller ones).
in the case of medieval armies splitting up cavalry, that's a different thing because they work in very different ways or doctrines, mind you they had vastly limited technologies in compared to modern day equipment that is meant to work in their own army's doctrine.
the only story i've read for the reason of the Challenger 1 and Challenger 2 primarily ended up with Rifled guns is due to Margaret Thatcher's interference for economic reasons, leaving the British army with very little choice, thus staying with the rifled gun as that's what they had in terms of infrastructure to manufacture and give the british army a tank, i think it was an NY times article from the time of Thatcher's regime that i got that idea from, but i don't remember which specific article it was.
the point of an MBT in the first place, is not specifically just for MBT vs MBT, they're made to fullfill a variety of roles, whichever the army of a nation emphasizes to use them for, ranging from assisting the infantry as an assault gun, as a spearhead for a breakthrough, as a heavy asset for reconnaissance.
speaking of assault gun, the US is reintroducing them, a very specific doctrine, so as to give the infantry battallions a dedicated direct fire large caliber gun on the move for their own uses.
might i also add, personally, just don't compare each army doctrines of different eras, things work differently back then that it is now, even if they seem similar or if they're somehow rooted to one another.
@@TrangleC
It was wise to keep the rifled gun for Challenger 2 because of HESH’s effectiveness in Iraq. The APFSDS lethality was still adequate for what it was most likely to encounter. Realise that weather in infantry support or fast blitzkrieg offensive, a tank will be shooting a variety of targets, not just anti-tank. The problem was not developing a smoothbore replacement with a replacement for HESH shells while Challenger 2 was in service. That way they could’ve maintained it’s general purpose capability while increasing it anti-tank capability. They just built the tanks, sold off the tooling and left it at that. Crap.
Thankfully Challenger 2 was a pretty good tank anyway so it has served pretty well. However it had potential and the underpinnings to becoming the best tank in the world but the government didn’t want to pay to upgrade it until now.
@@nightshade4873 The issue is basically Game Theory. When one side in a war concentrates their tanks and uses them for break through and flanking actions by overwhelming the other side in strategically important points while the other side doesn't and instead confuses the use spectrum for their MBTs, the "radical" side will almost surely win.
Whether MBT could be used for other stuff or not is just irrelevant because of that.
There is one thing no other weapon system can do as well as a MBT, so using your MBTs to do that job and that job alone is the most effective and smartest way of using them. That is just basic logic and there is no getting around that.
And that is why old fashioned cavalry is indeed a apt comparison.
Cavalry could in theory do other stuff than classical cavalry work too, but doing so would mean needlessly reducing the overall effectiveness of your fighting force.
As you surely know, some armies classify their tank forces as "cavalry". They don't do that because tanks are something you ride around in and that reminds them of horses, or whatever.
They call them cavalry because they are supposed to do the same job cavalry used to do.
There is another case study lesson from the early days of WW2 and Blitzkrieg.
People make jokes about how the Poles supposedly tried to stop German Panzers with cavalry charges. That isn't what happened though. What actually happened was that the Poles successfully used cavalry against Wehrmacht infantry units and then the Germans brought in their tanks to neutralize the Polish cavalry.
The point being that even defensively it is smartest to use your tanks like cavalry, for decisive counter charges, instead of misusing them as mobile pillboxes and scattering them about the place.
Besides, there are other holes in the "infantry support MBT" narrative, which I hadn't mentioned yet. Yeah, having a tank to support you when you are trying to storm a pill box or something like that might be nice when you're infantry, but how much storming of pillboxes would realistically have happened in a potential WW3?
Like every other modern western tank, the Challenger 2 also would have had to face "The Red Army Steam Roller" or whatever other nicknames people came up with.
Pillboxes can't really have been that much of a consideration at the time when the Challenger 2 was designed. Whether correctly or not, strategists and every leading commander in NATO assumed that WW3 would be a highly mobile one, whether on the offense or on the defense.
A MBT specialized on infantry support makes no sense and as I pointed out with the example of Danish and Canadian Leopard 2s in Afghanistan, a MBT fully specialized on MBT vs MBT duels and cavalry action can still easily do the infantry support role, if it has to.
I add a few points from a German tanksters perspective:
- the rifled barrel is higher maintenance and a nightmare to clean, compared to the smoothbore. Which means the smoothbore has a higher endurance and a lot less downtime during combat. (I was serving on Leo 2 but heard stories and curses from Leo 1 crews...)
- while HEAT seems to be all the hype with the shaped charge and its physics, note that MBTs only use kinetics against other MBTs. (Why do English use that horribly long abrev for KE "kinetic energy" ammo?)
- HEAT is named "multipurpose" ("MZ" for Mehrzweck) ammo in Germany and is only ever used on softer targets, which from a MBT view is anything that isnt another MBT. Also MZ explodes just like HESH, just a bit smaller. MZ even has that stinger in front, that makes it "decide" to wether just go boom or to form the shaped charge penetrator.
- HESH flies very slowly. I dont know how a round with such low V0 can have such a long range. While the highly precise KE hits your targets in the blink of an eye, literally. The gunner has a 1 second shutter come down after each shot, so they dont get blinded by the muzzle flash and the KE usually hits its target right after that shutter comes up again. On shooting ranges with its lower target ranges the gunner usually wont see the hit at all.
To me, the whole HESH idea is redundant: Its useless against composite armor and the rifled barrel makes the KE less powerful. Also, if you want to drop a big boom on something, just call in a mortar or artillery strike, but dont waste precious ammo storage on a 3rd type of ammo, when you could load more KE instead.
That said, taking a non penetrating hit on a MBT is like a car crash and you dont even have seat belts inside and a HESH must have a lot of stopping power. I am always amazed about stories of tank crews taking many hits but getting out totally unharmed themselves.
Really good video. Also I heard nations that used export L7 rifled gun (mainly US and Germany) used some kind of gyro stabilization for their HEAT round so they weren´t spun up by the barrel. Brits never use HEAT sooo it wasnt an issue for them.
Also i hope they´ll dont give up on HESH. After all its the only thing that destroyed Challenger 2. ( HESH into the open commander´s hatch in one of the Friendly fire incident)
HESH is obsolete.
@@viceralman8450 No actually it is not. It may be obsolete as an anti tank round, but there is no better anti building or anti bunker round out there.
@@alganhar1 There’s better bunker buster like thermobaric rounds or multipurpose HEAT in delay detonation mode.
@@alganhar1 against older tanks that dont have modern armor HESH is still a viable AT round depending on what your shooting at HESH would be better as it cant over perpetrate like modern rounds can. APFSDS against something like a LAV would punch a clean hole though both sides. even against modern tanks it would still be useful one HESH round could clean off a sizeable chunk of ERA leaving nice clean armor for a HEAT round to go through.
@@viceralman8450
HESH is may not be able to totally destroy a tank but it will damage the structure of vehicle, destroy the gun sights, and can blow out the suspension and running gear. All of these will make the tank useless and considering that HESH can be shot out higher ranges than APFSDS and HEAT, means that it is not as irrelevant as you may think.
unless something drastic changes in the near future i dont see riffled guns making a return especially with government's actively researching EM weaponry such as the rail gun
the barrel life on rail guns is incredibly short, rifled guns are still going to exist because scaling down fin-stabilized munitions has a lot more drawbacks (like the bullet being like .5mm)
just as a minor correction, the large chunks of metal produced from a HESH shell are referred to as scabs, named after the scabs that form on cuts being large masses of material that comes away in large solid chunks, spall is simply just the tiny fragments that are released as any AT munition passes through armour plate and is what causes the majority of the damage while the main penetrator has gone in a straight line.
I learned a word today. Thank you for that.
Having seen the result of HESH from old videos and photographs I found that a perfect "scab" looks more or less like a mushroom detached from the interior of the armor.
Maybe it's just easier nowadays to say "spall" just like everybody says "schrapnell" for any shell splinter.
What is spall liner in tank?
Image result for tank spalling
Spall liners are made from rubberized aramid, high-performance polyethylene or fiberglass. The spall liner is mounted on the inside of the vehicle. It is designed to stop projectiles and small fragments and to reduce the damage inside the vehicle if hit by an overmatched threat.
That is the official definition of spalling. As, the chucks are called "scabs" but the process the produces the chunks of metal is the process of spalling. (concrete also spalls, and is when flakes skim off of reinforced or non-reinforced concrete). There is no penetration as a result of spalling, and as such do not need as much force or explosive energy to take out armored vehicle. The "Silver Bullet" penetrator made of depleted Uranium, has 2 additional advantages in it use over Tungsten carbide (WC is harder, something like 9.3 on moh scale, means you can not machine it, has to be cast, and was a prob in ww2 and still is) DU is self sharpening and the dust ignites (which is why the video of A-10 w/ the 30mm Avenger rotary gun tearing up a tank looks like dozens of boxes of sparklers were set off w/ the tank.)
But a prob for the HESH, HEMP, and Some other multi-letter round is stopped by spaced armor, which is just a gap of a couple inches between the impact point of the round and the inside of the tank, the energy of the RDX (C-4, or composition B) is vented when it reached to gap, and does not damage. A simple tank skirt of a couple inches does it well (a tank w/ a skirt or is it a kilt...sorry bad joke) Pentration is diameter times the velocity squared/.... I think... oh well take it light all --KB
Fantastic video and extremely well explained. I always wondered how smoothbore guns work and now I know. Many thanks.
Thank you so much it means a lot :) hope you’ll stick around
Pretty good video, but I think there are a few things you got wrong/overlooked.
HEAT ammunition was used (and I think also invented) before APDS, mainly for infantry anti tank weapons (magnetic charges, grenade launchers (PIAT, Panzerfaust, Panzerschreck, Bazooka, although Panzerschreck and Bazooka might be around the same time as the first british APDS shots) and tank shells (mainly to make the short barreled 75mm guns more useful). After WW2 most tanks continued to use AP variants but immediately started developing APDS rounds or HEATFS rounds once the soviets showed their new IS3 heavy tank, cause that scared the sh*t out of everyone (regular HEAT usually sucks on high velocity cannons).
And you absolutely can use HE-Frag shells with fins, the Russians do that on their 125mm gun, western nations prefer multi-purpose HEATFS (with fragmentation belt, for anti personal use). I think their even is/was a HEATFS with a proximity fuze for anti air purposes for the 105 or 120mm gun
If you want to learn on the origins of the shaped charge as a weapon look up Edgar Brandt and Berthold Mohaupt.
Munroe discovered the effect but it was lost to secrecy. Eventually HEAT ammo were first produced in France with the ideas of a Swiss engineer who had rediscovered this "lost knowledge". Fun fact: research continued in the not occupied regions of France. First to come out of this research was the "Law enforcement grenade model 41".
A rifle grenade that was not meant for law enforcement at all. But that's how it was presented to the Germans ;)
@@herrhaber9076 the germans adopted HEAT rounds for the KwK37 75mm "Stummel" cannon in early-mid 1940, so ahead of the invasion of france.
Shortly before that the british adopted a HEAT rifle grenade.
@@zhufortheimpaler4041 After Munroe, Lepidi (Fr) worked on shaped charges in 1890. In 1933 Lodati (IT) published several documents that woke up the French (again).
Mohaupt patent no 919818 is dated from the 9th of November 1939 but he had been trying to push his inventions to the Swiss military for years before that.
I question your information about a British HEAT rifle grenade in 1940 or before. After Dunkirk the Brits had barely not AT weapons anymore and resorted to research things such as the sticky bomb.
In Germany regarding the ammo you mentioned:
109 Sd.Kfz. 233 "Stummel" were assembled between December 42 and October 43.
Granate Hohlladung 38 ( Gr.38 Hl/1) was put into production in June 1940 (it was upgraded in later years, the first model barely being able to penetrate 44mm of steel; only 4mm more than the French rifle grenade!)
That part is very interesting information and will give me a lot to research on, thank you !
But there is a clear discrepancy in the story here. *Everybody* acknowledges the work of Brandt and Mohaupt. When Swiss and French agree on something you'd better pay attention. The American Bazooka is a clear developpment of their works that was brought to the US by Colonel Paul Jean-Marie René Delalande
BUT ! At the same time it's a documented fact that German troops used shaped charges during the attack of Eben-Emael Fort on the 10/11 of May 1940.
HEAT rounds, demolition shaped charges... An argument could be made there but in truth when you start looking at how chaotic the period was it seems pretty unlikely we are going to untangle this.
This has been puzzling me for a wqhile. Thanks for a very clear, comprehensive and well put together video.
Fantastic narration & animations ⭐⭐🌟⭐⭐. Few questions:
1. What is the *kinetic energy loss* of two identical APFSDS are fired - one from rifles barrel and other from smoothbore barrel - at a distance of 1-1.5 miles?
Jesus, the camera work at 1:30 is amazing. It's so easy to take for granted since we're used to images like this coming from renderings. However, to have an actual video that tracks the round in high speed to the point that you can make out the deformation of the air in front of the shell? What a cool shot.
What about using fins to impart spin to a HESH round? If practical, this could be a cheaper option than the expensive programmable ammunition being developed to give smooth-bore guns flexibility.
the required spin is too much.
and HESH has vastly outlived its usefulness.
For Multi-Purpose use the german 120mm smoothbore has progrgammable airburst/impact delayed/impact/HEAT-Frag-FS rounds that do very Job HESH could do just better.
Is in service since 2014 in the Bundeswehr (DM11)
@@zhufortheimpaler4041 Thanks. I had thought about that, but still wondered. It is indeed amazing all the tricks M-PAT munitions can do!
@@petesheppard1709 a "Fin" round spins 15-20 times slower than a HESH/Full Bore Round out of a rifled gun.
And at that speed, the fins will act as an airbrake and increase drag beyond reasonable limits.
@@zhufortheimpaler4041 👍
Tanks are not the best thing when you need to fight other tanks. The best way to fight tanks is either an ATGM or an ATGM placed on a lightly armored low profile vehicle. Airforce is also quite capable, but using it in an antitank role is only possible if complete air dominance has been achieved
HEAT warheads also generally need to be longer to be more effective which is both hard to stabilize with rotation and easy to stabilize with fins.
As a rule, longer rounds are also more aerodynamic.
Yes, you could negate most (or all) of the rifling spin with special bearings between the sabot and projectile but this adds weight and complexity.
Didn't know Soviets invented smoothbores ! Nice video !
Thank you!
Very informative and enjoyable video! Certainly learned quite a lot of new things.
The chief problem with HESH is that it was intended to be a "jack of all trades" round, but in the modern era fails to accomplish any of its intended roles suitably.
In the anti-infantry role HESH is inferior to normal HE. Because HESH also needs to be anti-armor the fuse ends up being much too long, allowing the round to bury itself into the ground and greatly decrease the effects of the blast and shrapnel. Modern HE with programmable airburst and even contemporary HE-FRAG would probably do better. Two rounds DM11 fired at the same position managed to take out 24 out of 30 infantry spread over a 85m by 50m area during firing trials. (For Americans thats around the size of a football field.)
In the anti-tank role HESH also falls short. While it might have been effective in the days when the surfaces of Soviet tanks were smooth as a baby, the introduction of addon armor, composites and even just random clutter on tanks greatly reduced HESH effectiveness. The Germans actually developed cheap fiberglass rods for use as addon anti-HESH armor, and in testing it managed to defeat 105mm HESH. Spall liners only worsened the performance. No idea how to post the relevant documents here though. In these cases the only real usage of HESH would be for mission kills by damaging optics and barrels, which normal HE still excells in.
As for anti-bunker usage, HESH has been superseded with HE-OR to great effect, which punches through the concrete in structures before detonating. I believe 120mm HE-OR has been found to have similar effects to 165mm HESH? Can't find a source for that one though, but it is certainly believable.
Makes sense why the British Army is now leaning away from the rifled gun, and there are indications that this preference existed even before Chally 2 entered service. There was this gem of a quote from one contemporary document:
> "It is recognised that the paper has to be balanced but at the same time it has the very critical duty to present the military case fairly but unequivocally. This is every bit as much in the national interest as certain other industrial/Treasury factors. We are therefore surprised at Paragraph 9 of the Conclusions. Reference B gave a firm steer towards smooth bore (SB) as the preferred Army option. To say that the Army "would be content with either option" is misleading. We would definitely prefer Leopard II. Challenger II (RB) is better than no tank at all but is very much a second best option."
New tank smoothbore meta after 20.23 patch is wild
0:15 Waiting for a War Thunder fan to leak it.
hold my beer
Fr
Love your videos! :3 I would love to see sources in the description. I think it's what makes online documentaries trustworthy.
For ages I heard the "the tank X with a smoothbore canon" and wondered what this is and why. Thank you for lifting that mystery.
Hesh rounds are nowadays outdated since their anti infantery uses can be performed better by other types of ammunition.
German was experimenting with Smoothbore and Fin-Stabilized Discharging sabot in late WW2, this round is called Peenemünder Pfeil-Geschoss (PPG)
But they actually do that to increase the firing range of the gun, this is usefull for Artillery
Increase in muzzle velocity also help to increase chance hitting the aircraft for FlaK gun
Since PPG was a High Explosive shell, you probably can call it HEFSDS 😅
For the FlaK they modifed 10,5cm FlaK 38 and 12,8cm FlaK 45, and the round was 10,5/4,5cm round for 10,5cm FlaK 38 and 12,8/7,3cm round for 12,8cm FlaK 45
They converted one of Krupp K5 Railway gun and instaled new 31cm Smoothbore gun on it, it can fire different ammunition, from 31/18cm, 31/17cm, 31/15cm, and 31/12cm, the 17cm one have penetrator on it, probably for anti-bunker
I didn't really know why they didn't try to make AP of out it (for FlaK gun), probably because lack of material like Tungsten 🤔
The British used discarding sabot tank rounds in WW2.
Wow! Few of the hundreds of videos I've watched have taught me as much as this one. Thanks.
Great to hear!
why not develop HEDSFSSH
expand on that
AP-HE-FS-DS-BC-SH
This man is a genius
No No No develop the mighty APFSDSHEHESH
No the NMAP Nokia Made Armour Piercing only available in the nordics
3:45 Quick correction: That was a "Panzerschreck" (Panzerbüchse 54), not a Panzerfaust (Panzerbüchse 39), so, an improved Bazooka basically (Warhead was bigger). Lovely Video btw.!
8:40 It's more about how the british munitions industry has collapsed. We don't have the manufacturing capability to make more rounds. So, we switch out the gun and then we can call on rhinemetal and whichever amaerican manufacturers are out there to make the ammo for us. This has the side effect of standardising to nato specs and also means that we can nick some dm63's from sie germans if we need them in a pinch.
About Heat, French used a special round in two part, an external one spinning and an internal one for the explosive part hence reducing the dispersing effect.
You should check out my AMX-30 video! I talk about the Obus G in that.
I think its funny how a nation that basically created the tank is arguably the worst at making tanks.
These type of informative vid are my absolute favorites! Keep up the great work!!🎉
🅱️esh
Ah yes a man of culture
Very good video - clear (animation was excellent), calm, factual, precise narration and educational. Title is exactly on point, no bait-and-switch. And no annoying, juvenile "music" to "entertain" the viewer. Watched it twice and will look out for more Red Wrench Films videos. Thanks, well done.
Thank you so much Wayne! There is some music just to fill the gaps but I try and keep it subdued.
🅱️ E S H rounds
Ah yes a man of culture
Thanks for the AMAZING content. Keep em coming!!
This explains why I can’t find any fin stabilized Anti Tank ammo. My .22 pistol is rifled and not smooth bored.
Because it’s better to shoot an arrow that stabilizes itself rather than get a spiral on a rock and still miss
I guess you could think of it that way
For people who don’t wanna watch full video
Smoothbore
Good for APDSFS because spin makes fin like paddle and pushes air
Rifled
Good for non fin stabilized rounds
Uh I think that’s it
Now any proyectiles can be stabilized by fins so rifled is not needed anymore.
As I German I have to say I'm sad the Brittish didn't come up with another cool round just keep their special snowflake rifled gun. Like let's say a HESH round that can topple tanks around like when you put a turtle on it's back.
Some of these weird Brittish things.
Excellent video with the best explanation of why hesh favours spin and why heat doesn't, noone else has explained it as succinctly as you
Thanks so much Dominic I’m really glad you think so :)
@@RedWrenchFilms keep up the brilliant work, just discovered your channel today 👍
Long story short: projectile design has come a long way, and many projectiles are aerodynamically stable without spin. In fact, spin can destabilize many modern projectiles and make them less accurate.
A smooth bore can accommodate a bigger variety of ammo vs rifles barrels.
Abrams that fires APHEFSDS(something like that, its APFSDS with HE)
That was well explained. I had wondered about that for years. Thanks.
Very welcome
And when those bastards shoot APHEFSDSHEATHECBC they just be stylin
"Smart" ammo that can change its own trajectory.