Re: armor penatration - angle is important

Roger Books wrote:

> >I am new to the list so if I goof up on this, have some forgiveness
and
> >don't flame out.
> >Let me know if  "wrong list", "off the subject" or something else
wrong.
> >
> >I read one of the articles about angled armor and I believe the
author
> >missed the point. The angle that an AP (armor piercing) round hits at

> does matters
> >and makes the armor effectively thicker.
>
>Sorry about the late reply, I'm going through old e-mails.
>
>What was finally determined is sloped armour is no better for
>thickness of armour than an _equivalent mass_ of non-sloped
>armour.  As a matter of fact it may be a bit worse because
>you need a larger undercarriage to have the same internal
>volume.
>
>However... Sloped armour increases the chance of a glancing shot.
>This is where you gain.

Sorry for the even later reply, but... er, no, that's not it :-/
Glancing 
shots are not very common at all - IIRC a modern round (KE or HEAT,
doesn't 
matter much) needs an angle of attack of 80 degrees or more from the 
perpendicular to have a significant chance of being deflected

However, there are at least four other areas where you do gain:

1) the sloping armour also serves as your top armour

2) if the hit does not hit perpendicular to the armour face in the 
horisontal plane - and it usually doesn't - then a sloping armour plate 
"gains thickness" much faster than a vertical one (this can be shown by
, and

3) if you're talking about composite armours rather than WW2-style solid

steel, sloped armour layers are much better at breaking up a KE
projectile 
or HEAT jet than vertical ones.

4) if you *are* talking about WW2-style solid steel plates, it is much 
harder to make thick plates of armour-grade steel than it is to make
thin 
plates so by sloping your armour you improve the effective armour
thickness 
without having to increase the actual thickness of your armour plate.

I'll stop here :-/

Later,

Oerjan
oerjan.ohlson@telia.com

"Life is like a sewer.
  What you get out of it, depends on what you put into it."