A question for gun experts. How effective would a 75 mm HESH round be against later war era (Panther and Tiger tanks)?
75 millimetre HESH question.
- Thread starter Some Bloke
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If that's true, a quick search turns up lots of reports but no definitive instances, then comparing the armour on various tanks suggests that it would be able to deal with Panther and Tiger I tanks and potentially even Tiger IIs as well. Were there anything like spall liners used in WWII tanks? On the face of it HESH rounds would certainly seem to be a good way of providing an anti-armour/-reinforced structure capability for the 75mm guns alongside the already excellent high-explosive shells they used. It would give even lighter tanks and armoured cars a serious punch.
The problem with this is that you are looking at rounds that were created with many more years of development and refinement. The HESH rounds of 1944 did not have as many years of development or of explosives research as the rounds of 1990.
I think the main problem with the wide spread use of HESH rounds in 1944 would have been production capacity limitations. I'm not sure if there was enough capacity to produce the kinds of explosives needed in the volume needed to meet the needs of 'standard issue'
I've got some charts stored away at home I'll see if I can dig out and see what they say about actual effectiveness.
HESH or HEP to our American cousins does not work that well at high velocity, the British 76mm as used post war only had an Mv of around 500ms. This therefore makes them less efficent at obtaining hits on moving targets especialy at longer range. It does also mean that at longer range the round is dipping on impact. Whilst this will lessen the scab yield on a vertical plate to some extent, it could well have the obverse effect on an enclined plate such as a glacis. The other advatage of HESH is that range does not lessen its effect in defeating armour. If you reduce the propellent to give a viable Mv then it should be possible to lengthen the warhead to carry a greater plastic explosive charge.
Muzzle velocity shouldn't be too bad since the British QF 75mm gun, the 6-pounder with a re-bored barrel and modified breech so that it was able to fire American 75mm high-explosive shells, only had a muzzle velocity of 620 metres a second. Compared to an anti-tank shell such as the 6-punder armour-piercing or larger gun like the 17-pounder it certainly looks slow but it would probably be used as an extra, IIRC seventy-five per cent of targets in Normandy being non-vehicular ones, to give them some extra punch than as a replacement.