T-34 vs Panther Armor hardness

[Mako_Reizei1 275]

Panther Armor Report

T-34 Armor Report

 

Those link above will send you to PDF file that show report of both Tank armor in detail, alot of thing in there i dont understand but what i do understand is T-34 have double the hardness of german Panther? can somebody explain it to me?

 

T-34

 

Panther

 

 

Edited June 8, 2021 by Mako_Reizei1

[PantherAl 4,883]

Different ways of thought on armor and it’s fabrication.  Don’t have my books with me in the office so don’t have details, but generally the Germans wasn’t huge fans of super high hardness armor as they felt it made it too brittle when under impacts. 

[nuketuga 161]

15 minutes ago, Mako_Reizei1 said:

Panther Armor Report

T-34 Armor Report

 

Those link above will send you to PDF file that show report of both Tank armor in detail, alot of thing in there i dont understand but what i do understand is T-34 have double the hardness of german Panther? can somebody explain it to me?

 

T-34

 

Panther

 

 

High hardness present in steel used to buid russian T34s comes from the low quality of the steel used. Just to keep in mind, high hardness in tank warfare is not a good thing at all, since it means that when the armour is hit by projectiles, there is the risk that portions of it might break or create spall. 

 

You can see this behaviour with materials like glass, high hardeness means that they have a fragile behaviour, meaning that it responds very badly to impacts.

Edited June 8, 2021 by nuketuga

[TwitchyNGL 595]

Over hardening plates is not always good but higher hardness can be favorable to it's protection against perforation up to the point of about 360bnh. It is also more difficult to maintain a homogeneous thickness on very thick plates. However lower hardness is not always guarantee that things won't shatter, it's manufacturing method, it's heat treating and the metals used in it's alloy also have an effect, many German and Czech tanks are famous for cracking under pressure more often than American and British equivalent armour. 

[Mako_Reizei1 275]

11 hours ago, TwitchyTrooper said:

Over hardening plates is not always good but higher hardness can be favorable to it's protection against perforation up to the point of about 360bnh. It is also more difficult to maintain a homogeneous thickness on very thick plates. However lower hardness is not always guarantee that things won't shatter, it's manufacturing method, it's heat treating and the metals used in it's alloy also have an effect, many German and Czech tanks are famous for cracking under pressure more often than American and British equivalent armour. 

 

So both armor are weak?i have read that late german steel were very brittle due poor quality steel is this true? also somebody sent me this link about armor hardness and its really interesting 

 

[_Iluminas_ 3,769]

10 hours ago, Mako_Reizei1 said:

 

So both armor are weak?i have read that late german steel were very brittle due poor quality steel is this true? also somebody sent me this link about armor hardness and its really interesting 

 

It was not necessary that late war german steel was bad

If i remember correctly on this very forum there was a similar diskussion and as it turns out there where some steel fabrics that had late in the war problems with quenching or heat treatment wich led to a more brittle steel

then there where other factorys that had no problem at all  dont know if u can still find that thread it was in 2014 or so before the forum was reworked

 

sry for spelling

Edited June 9, 2021 by _Iluminas_

[PantherAl 4,883]

Some late war German steels was more brittle than they should have been, but it wasn’t very common.  But like anything else, rare occasions of this and that are often seized upon as a indication of the whole.  

 

(See below for a good example of this)

[TwitchyNGL 595]

4 minutes ago, PantherAl said:

Some late war German steels was more brittle than they should have been, but it wasn’t very common.  But like anything else, rare occasions of this and that are often seized upon as a indication of the whole.  

 

[PantherAl 4,883]

1 minute ago, TwitchyTrooper said:

 

Which still only amounts to a very small percentages of tanks manufactured. 

 

 

[TwitchyNGL 595]

1 minute ago, PantherAl said:

Which still only amounts to a very small percentages of tanks manufactured. 

 

 

Theres not really been much to suggest that it's even unique to Panther, more than it's more well documented on Panther. Rather that after 1942 armour quality in general decreases and Panther was the most common new German vehicle to test weapons on, with US, British and Russian testing all coming to similar conclusions. 

[PantherAl 4,883]

5 minutes ago, TwitchyTrooper said:

Theres not really been much to suggest that it's even unique to Panther, more than it's more well documented on Panther. Rather that after 1942 armour quality in general decreases and Panther was the most common new German vehicle to test weapons on, with US, British and Russian testing all coming to similar conclusions. 

 

Yes, and the majority of the time of vehicles recovered from the battle field - most of which was burned out to one degree or another.  Guess what?  How do you harden metals?  Apply Heat.   Funny how that works out.

 

 

Yes, there was batches of bad steel - especially in 45.  A lot of people point to the fact they had to make changes in the formulation of the steel due to the lack of certain materials.  This is indeed the case, but what they replaced those materials with is now used across the board in armor steels, so it isn’t like they used bad materials, just different.  Have to get back to my books at the house to point which ones they was, but I can do that later.  Is it plausible that they got the formulations a little wonky?  More than a little - after all, they was doing what they could with what they had. But it was not the norm.  

 

And oh, best not to rely on the Russian tests - they took some amazing shortcuts in the testing process.   My personal favorite is when they declared the transmissions liable to catch fire after shooting a tank nearly a hundred times and a fire started - never mind that they admitted they removed said transmission and left the floor of the tank awash in oil before they started testing.

[TwitchyNGL 595]

1 hour ago, PantherAl said:

 

Yes, and the majority of the time of vehicles recovered from the battle field - most of which was burned out to one degree or another.  Guess what?  How do you harden metals?  Apply Heat.   Funny how that works out.

 

 

Yes, there was batches of bad steel - especially in 45.  A lot of people point to the fact they had to make changes in the formulation of the steel due to the lack of certain materials.  This is indeed the case, but what they replaced those materials with is now used across the board in armor steels, so it isn’t like they used bad materials, just different.  Have to get back to my books at the house to point which ones they was, but I can do that later.  Is it plausible that they got the formulations a little wonky?  More than a little - after all, they was doing what they could with what they had. But it was not the norm.  

 

And oh, best not to rely on the Russian tests - they took some amazing shortcuts in the testing process.   My personal favorite is when they declared the transmissions liable to catch fire after shooting a tank nearly a hundred times and a fire started - never mind that they admitted they removed said transmission and left the floor of the tank awash in oil before they started testing.

 

I'm sincerely sorry to tell you you're fighting a lost battle here and deflecting it as Communist nonsense doesn't really help your case. Anyway if you're interested heres a nice video explaining some of these issues by Ed Francis. 

 

 

[PantherAl 4,883]

Once more, I said that while it is largely a myth that all German armor was bad, there was examples.   Reliance on a British test that many in the field look at with some askance - the tests was run on tanks that was either battlefield salvage and burned out - heat form the flames do have an effect on the quality of the metal, and tanks produced after the war in bombed out factories with materials exposed to fire and the elements prior to assembly by labor that had no desire to do a good job.

 

If you want to use a report to try and prove your point, I would avoid that British one, and instead go with this: 

https://apps.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a954940.pdf

 

This is a test the US ran on a 2” thick plate that was blown free from a panther - and therefor not exposed to high heats.  Further, it goes into detail the exact reasons it was brittle (And they are particularly harsh on late war German welds, those was getting pretty horrific). This is a good tool for those wanting to say “All German armor sucked!” And have a leg to stand on.

 

 

However, as mentioned before, this was an exception, not a rule, and was far more common on 1-2” thick plates as the treatment processes was different. 

 

[TwitchyNGL 595]

35 minutes ago, PantherAl said:

Once more, I said that while it is largely a myth that all German armor was bad, there was examples.   Reliance on a British test that many in the field look at with some askance - the tests was run on tanks that was either battlefield salvage and burned out - heat form the flames do have an effect on the quality of the metal, and tanks produced after the war in bombed out factories with materials exposed to fire and the elements prior to assembly by labor that had no desire to do a good job.

 

If you want to use a report to try and prove your point, I would avoid that British one, and instead go with this: 

https://apps.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a954940.pdf

 

This is a test the US ran on a 2” thick plate that was blown free from a panther - and therefor not exposed to high heats.  Further, it goes into detail the exact reasons it was brittle (And they are particularly harsh on late war German welds, those was getting pretty horrific). This is a good tool for those wanting to say “All German armor sucked!” And have a leg to stand on.

 

 

However, as mentioned before, this was an exception, not a rule, and was far more common on 1-2” thick plates as the treatment processes was different. 

 

It's at the very top of this thread thanks but I already read it, as I'm sure you didn't watch what I shared. 

I'm not saying all German armour sucked (early war documents suggest it was quite decent) but you dismissing it as just an anomaly when British, American and Russian testing all seem to have not only found examples of poorly manufactured plates and welding but tend to describe it as a common occurrence is very silly.

 

And even you say the argument has a leg to stand on, well you haven't got one to stand on of your own as your only basis is yourself stating it was an anomaly. Whereas the other side of the argument has quite a lot of evidence. 

 

Heres one on Tiger actually, not an example of cracking or brittleness in plates but of poor welding, 17Pdr shot is the first impacting the side of this empty Tiger, and after penetrating the 80mm~ the shot then goes onto completely dislodge the side armour plate on the other side. 

 

 

[KillaKiwi 5,477]

On 09/06/2021 at 05:36, Mako_Reizei1 said:

So both armor are weak?i have read that late german steel were very brittle due poor quality steel is this true? also somebody sent me this link about armor hardness and its really interesting 

Well, German late war steel was brittle because they lacked alloys, so it was so to speak of poor quality.

T-34s on the other hand had good quality armor but high hardness armor is less resistant when hit by overmatching shells, thus making high hardness armor less effective when it's used as sloped armor.

 

 

Edited June 12, 2022 by KillaKiwi

[venator56 185]

On 09/06/2021 at 21:03, TwitchyTrooper said:

It's at the very top of this thread thanks but I already read it, as I'm sure you didn't watch what I shared. 

I'm not saying all German armour sucked (early war documents suggest it was quite decent) but you dismissing it as just an anomaly when British, American and Russian testing all seem to have not only found examples of poorly manufactured plates and welding but tend to describe it as a common occurrence is very silly.

 

And even you say the argument has a leg to stand on, well you haven't got one to stand on of your own as your only basis is yourself stating it was an anomaly. Whereas the other side of the argument has quite a lot of evidence. 

 

Heres one on Tiger actually, not an example of cracking or brittleness in plates but of poor welding, 17Pdr shot is the first impacting the side of this empty Tiger, and after penetrating the 80mm~ the shot then goes onto completely dislodge the side armour plate on the other side. 

 

 

I don't think that the shoot dislodge the other side. I do not see any hit mark on the plate as lies on the ground. It is most likelly gas cut.

[Peasant_wb 331]

TL;DR: 45mm/60° of stalinium soviet armour is equivalent to 45mm/50° of "bad quality" german armour.

 

Spoiler

 

Spoiler

 

Edited June 10, 2022 by Peasant_wb

[KillaKiwi 5,477]

On 10/06/2022 at 09:21, Peasant_wb said:

TL;DR: 45mm/60° of stalinium soviet armour is equivalent to 45mm/50° of "bad quality" german armour.

Can you go into more details?

 

So it takes around 105-110mm of armor penetration for a 57mm projectile to defeat 45mm @60° high hardness armor. Explains the ability for the PaK 40 to penetrate the armor at +1000m and why the 50mm PaK 38 could only do so at 100m.

 

If I'm not mistaken the early style T-34 driver hatch could be knocked off at 500m by the 50mm PaK 38.

Considering the reinforced driver hatch had the same toughness as the frontal armor, it explains why the in-game 75mm thick driver hatch has around 130mm protection at max.

Gaijin considers the T-34 frontal armor to have roughly 130mm of armor protection, so they ended up using this value.

Edited June 13, 2022 by KillaKiwi

[Chomusuke1 1,217]

On 09/06/2021 at 13:12, TwitchyTrooper said:

deflecting it as Communist nonsense doesn't really help your case

https://forum.warthunder.com/index.php?/topic/523629-sturmgeschütz-iii-g-late

 

[ShOt_MaCkEr 296]

55 minutes ago, Chomusuke1 said:

https://forum.warthunder.com/index.php?/topic/523629-sturmgeschütz-iii-g-late

 

Why can't I open this? I'm interested

[KillaKiwi 5,477]

5 hours ago, ShOt_MaCkEr said:

Why can't I open this? I'm interested

It probably got archived.

[PantherAl 4,883]

For everyones convenience, I went ahead and copied the attachments from that post to here - I make no claims as to the sources or the like, as this was from a post by Chomusuke1