Chinese 96-A
- Thread starter Agonizing Bliss
- Start date
Black Shark
Junior Member
I think you missunderstand the entire point here. The accuracy of a projectile comes from weight and its SURFACE that is exposed to airdrag and wind. APFSDS have little to almost non affects to win at short ranges, while HEAT rounds are bigger, having much more surface, bigger fins and are inbalanced, meaning low weight at its tip due the necessary airgap infront of the copper jet cone and majority of its weight is mid to rear with explosive charge and detonator and casing, meaning it has higher weight but the weight only place a basic role when it is a solid object and not a hollow object with inbalanced weight on its inside.
Everything you need to know about both projectiles is long range shooting, APFSDS will win everytime in accuracy.
Weird..wasn't the crew compartment supposed to be at the front?
That is not the whole story, what you have said is true for the final phase of the flight where the sabot have separated from the spindle. How the spindle separate from the spindle is very chaotic event and never happens as it is intended to. if one pedal of the spindle is a fraction of a milligram heavier than the others, or that if the powder burn is not 100% even, and maybe one of the spindle separates a tad faster than the other or that the thermal barrel warp makes one pedal separate slower, it will cause the sabot to vibrate in flight and change it's direction. This is the main source of inaccuracy for APFSDS. HEAT does not have this problem and is mainly influenced by cross winds. Infact, rifled guns have better accuracy than APFSDS, the Challenger II's 120mm with rifling; L31 HESH is supposed to be an accuracy of 0.14 mil or 300mm @ 3kM. which is significantly better than APFSDS rounds. BUT all of these information is somewhat classified hence, there is many alternative values out there.
Thats not exactly true,
"Accuracy" is not "Precision" is not "Hit Probability"
Accuracy is how on target the shell hits the intended target (i.e. dispersion)
Precision is how much variation the subsequent shells without adjusting the settings (i.e. standard deviation of the dispersion)
Hit probability is how probable it is to hit an intended target. it is a function of:
- fire control
- accuracy of shell
- weather conditions
- movement of target
- etc,
What you have shown is "hit probability" not "accuracy";
A simple fire control with an projectile that have a short flight time and flat flight will have a better hit probability than a simple fire control with an accurate but slow shell.
Also, the T62 is not that good an example, its 50 years old... it is like trying to compare first generation APDSDS with mature APCBC shells, it will show that the matured APFSDS as inaccurate.
Black Shark
Junior Member
Rifled guns lack firepower and are completley useless today for Anti Armor role since they can not use HEAT rounds, the spinning has a massive negative effect on the coper jet when it tries to form, meaning centrifugal force is flattening it out, making it useless as a penetrator also APFSDS rounds with their small fins are not good in rifled guns it also destablizes them during spin.
You do know that most autocannon nowadays are rifled?
Also the rifled 105mm L7 fire HEAT and APFSDS; actually even the ww2 rifled guns like the german 88mm kwk 43 (Gr. 39/3 HL) fires heat.
Although HEAT fired from rifled guns have reduced the spinning, it is still not as effective as smoothbore. M456 HEAT can penetrate only 350~400mm.
For T-62, it was because someone wrote that the Soviets during the cold war preferred HEAT rather than APFSDS due to higher level of accuracy. As you know, although the accuracy and dispersion of the round is higher for HEAT than the APFSDS, it is only one of few factors that determines the probability of hit, and for this case, the former is obviously lower than the later.
TerraN_EmpirE
Tyrant King
It's a Question of Intended Role. M230 Doesn't need the huge punch but a modern MBT does.
Black Shark
Junior Member
Still it was designed to operate against LAV's but instead of using APHE rounds or APDS rounds they decided to use HEAT rounds, well the M230 is a low pressure cannon not really suitable for APDS rounds but it still lacks penetrative capability that could have been achieved with SAPHEI ronds which are today in production.