Technical question - Armoured Skirts

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Technical question - Armoured Skirts

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Technical question - Armoured Skirts - 12/30/2002 5:42:23 PM

Jakub

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Joined: 12/5/2002
From: Poland
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How the armored skirts (Pzkw IVh) are employed into the game?

Are they simply added to basic armour (what about the angles of basic armour? or maybe there is a two step calculation?

Can they be damaged once hit?

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- 12/30/2002 6:57:42 PM

Supervisor

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For that particular vehicle, I'm showing a value 41. To the best of my knowledge SPWAW skirts don't have individual slope ratings(at least it's not incorperated into the OOB), they are added protection. When a hit probability is calculated a skirt can be hit as randomly as any other armor piece given the circumstances. Yes a skirt can be damaged I've seen this tons of times. I don't know the calculation routine so I can't tell you how the hit probability is calculated. I'm preety sure that in Combat Leader skirts will also contain slope ratings to be added into it's calculation routines, I'll have to look at OOB data from it.

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Skirts continued - 12/30/2002 7:07:25 PM

Jakub

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I am not sure whether I understand it correctly....

Is skirt treated as a third piece of tank (Turret, Hull, and Skirt)?

or mayby when it is calculated computer decides what has been hit either hull or skirt

or maybe it is somehow added to the basic hull armour? and it could be 41 (skirt) + 33 (side base hull armour)*modification for slope of side hull?

or maybe two step - first hit skirt and then (with lower impet) hull, provided that the bullet went though the skirt?

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Post #: 3

- 12/30/2002 9:08:09 PM

Voriax

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Hello

In case of Pz IVH, the value of 41 does not mean skirt thickness. First number means the armour quality, and I have forgotten what '4' meant..face hardened perhaps.

The '1' is the skirt thickness, so 10mm in this case.

Again, unless my memory fails me, skirts give protection against shaped charge warheads (HEAT). When tank suffers a hit from this type of ammo it's possible that it hits the skirt and tank will suffer no damage. As for normal AP I think the value is added to the armour thickness.

Btw, a not SPWaW related fact but I've read from several sources that skirts or russia-style spring 'armour' that was supposed to detonate heat rounds before they hit the actual armour in fact increased the effectiveness of said round. This is because HEAT round needs to detonate at some distance away from target so that the penetrator can form completely (3-5 x round diameter). Such a flimsy skirt/spring did just that...

Fact or fiction..that i don't know for sure. Similar case is adding tank tracks as extra armour....and because of this track a round that would've otherwise ricocheted 'bit' in the track and penetrated...

Voriax

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Post #: 4

- 12/31/2002 12:49:45 AM

rbrunsman

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Voriax, IIRC, the shaped charge of the HEAT round was designed with the optimal spacing to get the jet of energy to penetrate the armor from impact. Any discrepancy seriously reduced the lethality of the HEAT, so armored skirts and sandbags and anything else added to the outside of a tank helped reduce the effectiveness of HEAT. But it is also true that some items helped AP rounds "bite" better (like tracks). Someone posted a website with the details of how HEAT works many months ago. It was very intereting.

My research led me to believe that SPWAW doesn't distinguish between types of armor skirts. So it doesn't matter that the skirts are face hardened or just cast iron, or whatever. I think the key to remember is that the second number is the important one (e.g. 41, 51, etc.). If you have a zero after the first number, you don't actually have armor skirts (e.g. 40, 50 or 60).

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- 12/31/2002 12:58:18 AM

Goblin

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I just recently saw photos where they used wire mesh for skirts. Anything that set a HEAT round off before it hit a tank ruined the kill.

Goblin

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- 12/31/2002 2:52:10 AM

Voriax

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I still stand behind my claim that a certain standoff distance is needed for optimum HEAT performance. This is the reason why many modern ATGM's have relatively sharp and narrow point. 'Milan' being probably the clearest example. I seriously doubt that all aspects of the penetrator forming were understood during the WW2. And in case of Pzfausts there is practically no distance between charge and target armour.

In general WW2 era HEAT rounds performed very poorly, as nowadays they achieve penetrations of approx 5 times the warhead diameter. Back then it was usually 1,5 - 2 times.

As for good website, the 'Panzerfaust' is a good one. http://www.geocities.com/Augusta/8172/panzerfaust.htm

Hm, it also seems to say that spacing worked..perhaps it's so.

Voriax

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Post #: 7

- 12/31/2002 7:56:00 AM

Supervisor

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Thanks for the assistance guys on the reasoning and explaination. I checked Combat Leader and it won't use any slope vaules, but it will handle them much more acurately as it does involve settings pertinent to all sides of the vehicle individually, to also include individual setting for both main body along with turrets (for those that had them). I've asked for permission to post some Combat Leader MGDB(Matrix Games Database Editor, high tech term for the next generation OOB editor) to show you guys the amount and type of information that will be used in the newest generations of OOB's. Once I get the OK I will post some.

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Post #: 8

- 12/31/2002 8:02:47 AM

Svennemir

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Well, tankers found out that spaced armor worked - it might be difficult to explain exactly how judging the optimal distance, but since the skirts have shown effectiveness on the battlefield, it's obviously an advantage. Maybe the jet forms correctly only when detonation occurs in the air. That could explain a lot.

Anyway, IIRC:

40 means superior/face hardened.
50 means low quality
60 means very low quality
70 means cast (also kinda low)

The second number depicts actual thickness/10 (I think) as stated before.

The Armoured skirts are considered to be placed on the SIDEs of vehicles. So if you hit the 30mm side armour of a StuG, you'll have to penetrate 40mm base total for AP ammunition. But if you use HEAT, you also have to "penetrate" the air between skirt and side, greatly increasing actual thickness. Try shooting a StuG with a bazooka: it's no easier to take it out with side hits than with frontal hits. But skirts fall apart gradually when fired at, so after a number of shots they'll be no good anymore.

I don't know whether REAR is considered covered by skirts.

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Post #: 9

- 12/31/2002 11:57:57 PM

AbsntMndedProf

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Svennemir posted:

"But skirts fall apart gradually when fired at, so after a number of shots they'll be no good anymore."

I also recall reading that German armor skirts had an annoying habit of working lose and falling off. Especially when the vehicle they were attatched to was traversing rough terrain.

Eric Maietta

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Post #: 10

- 1/1/2003 1:30:40 AM

rbrunsman

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[QUOTE]Originally posted by Svennemir
[B]Anyway, IIRC:

40 means superior/face hardened.
50 means low quality
60 means very low quality
70 means cast (also kinda low)
[/B][/QUOTE]

I would put them in this order of quality (best to worst):
40, 70, 50, 60. But I still believe that SPWAW makes no distinction between quality. It is more of a yes/no decision when calculating penetrations.

My question is, does a rating of 40, for example, mean that it has a thickness of 10mm, so 41 would mean 11mm of thickness. Or does 40 mean no skirts on this type but a later model may have 41, meaning 10mm thickness?

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Post #: 11

- 1/1/2003 2:19:57 AM

Svennemir

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40: no skirts, but good quality armor.
41: 10mm skirts,
42: 20mm skirts (if I'm not mistaken)

If you want to compare effectiveness of different armour types, use the alt+l combat logging and view log.txt in SPWAW root directory.

The armour quality factor is listed among other things.

[QUOTE]I would put them in this order of quality (best to worst):
40, 70, 50, 60.
[/QUOTE]

BTW I heard that 70 is actually the worst one. Maybe someone has the time to enlighten us all.

What I know: "70" vehicles are priced much lower than "50" vehicles. There are two almost identical shermans priced much differently only because of armour quality.

Also (armour thickness)/(round diametre) (or T/d ) plays a big role. IIRC small rounds are relatively better against lower quality armour (50,60,70).

Also interesting, the WARHEAD factor is translated directly to round diametre, meaning rounds with certain WARHEAD values are considered 75mm/76mm, or 85mm/88mm etc.

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Post #: 12

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