the myth of armour hardness

file · Post by **file** » Wed Apr 07, 2004 2:38 pm

hello,

did the german tanks later in the war have lower quality of armour. I keep reading about some material shortages which supposedly caused this but the bhn for the plates didn't seem to drop a lot. How did it compare to russian armour?

thanks in advance

Metroid 2 · Post by **Metroid 2** » Wed Apr 07, 2004 11:47 pm

Do you by any chance post at the History Channel boards?

file · Post by **file** » Thu Apr 08, 2004 2:00 am

nope.. why?

Metroid 2 · Post by **Metroid 2** » Thu Apr 08, 2004 10:59 pm

Almost all the type of German bashing, or allies bashing starts with for example if they were to bash the Germans they'd say "the myth of German soldiers individual superiority" etc.

JeffF. · Post by **JeffF.** » Fri Apr 09, 2004 7:43 am

Considering that there are strategic minerals needed for the construction of modern weapons, that Germany was not self-sufficient in any of these, and that by late 1944 she had lost most of her conquests where such minerals were found it is inevitable that the quality of her steel would deteriorate. Armor, ammo, aircraft, gun construction would all be adversely affected. In late 1944 German production was dependent on minerals that were "in the pipeline" but when they ran out in '45 they had no choice but to start making substandard products.

Christian Ankerstjerne · Fri Apr 09, 2004 8:10 am

The German steel contained a relatively large percentage of carbon. This makes the armour harder, but also more brittle and harder to weld.

Christian

file · Post by **file** » Fri Apr 09, 2004 8:42 am

thanks,

and what minerals made the armour stronger? any bhn figures for germans and russians? i found "only" this http://web.archive.org/web/200003111300 ... ction.html

Darrin · Post by **Darrin** » Fri Apr 09, 2004 9:23 am

file wrote:thanks,

and what minerals made the armour stronger? any bhn figures for germans and russians? i found "only" this http://web.archive.org/web/200003111300 ... ction.html

Hardness does not equal greater abilty to resist pen. Softer low hard ductile arm bends preventing pen and massive failur assosciated with high hardness and brittle arm. The russian T34 arm for example had a hardness almost twice the ger arm and when faced with shells greater than its own thickness tended to shatter easlily. This allowed greater pen and more interior damage and cas.

The ger did invent what they called face harded arm which had a thin high hard arm on the outside and normal low hardness for most of the inside. This meant the tip of the shell would be damaged as it travelled trhough the FH arm dereasing its ability to pen all the way through esp for softer rus shells. Sometimes the shells would also slidd along or bouce off the FH arm more as well. By the end of the war most FH arm had disappered in the ger army.

One of the reasons why the ger did this but the rus did not was it took much more time and resources to make these better quality arm. Although arm quality may off decreased later in war the due to short cuts to save time and mineral shortages the only common problem was the front glacis plate of the panther. Although the welding quality may also have decresed as well.

A good ref is a 100+page booklet entinled WWII balistics by bird and rexford you have to contact them directly and for 20$ us they will send you a copy.

JeffF. · Post by **JeffF.** » Sat Apr 10, 2004 7:55 am

File,

Copper is used to make castings and cartridge cases.

Bauxite is an essential ingredient for making of aluminum (e.g. for aircraft)

Manganese, molybdenum, nickel, tungsten, and chrome are necessary for high grade special steels for things like bearings, axles, crankshafts, armor plate and armor piercing ammo.

In 1939 Germany's control of areas bearing these was negligible (though they had sources while trade existed prior to hostilities and even a few after), by 1941 they had acquired signficant areas with thse resources. By the end of '44 they had lost virtually all the areas and the few trade links that still existed (e.g. Turkey for Chrome). With the drying up of these minerals in the 'pipeline' deterioration in quality of steel was inevitable.

Sources: The War Against Germany and Japan by Martin Campion
Strategy and Tactics Magazine #48 JAN/FEB 1975 and History of the Second World War by Lidell Hart

file · Post by **file** » Fri Apr 16, 2004 3:57 am

hi,

thanks for the replies.

I just found this info on another forum

[quote]Armor Fe-C alloys are develloped to have maximum resistence to impact. The quality of a Binary Carbon Steel alloy can be incresed with the presence of Nickel ( also excellent rolling properties and strengness ), Molibdenium, Vanadium and Volframium.

Volframium is by far the best element to increase Rockwell or Brinnel number to maximise resistence and to absorb stresses and chocks. However is highly expensive and used mostly in gun barrels and breaches ( standard at the time and standard today too)

Vanadium is the second best choice to increse high impact resistence, like Volframium, Iridium and Osmium ( these last two are so rare and expensive that almost only F-1 sports car shafts use them )

Molibdenium has a property that can better be understood in lead - increases flexibility. Same goes to silicium, but the improvement in malleability deteriorates high impact resistence. The reason for stock low they state may not be the all true. The presence of Molibdenium makes rolled steel much more easier and faster to manufacture.

Rolling armour is made by hydraullic pressing heated steel ( near 300şC - 600şC depending on the industrial capacity you have) trought rollers of high resistence stainless steel. The forces involved to push the armour steel reach many times 300 tons

Looking at the thickness of the armor plates of the Koenig tiger, even today those plates are quite a challenge to manufacture and they still today take a lot of time. The decision to incorporate molibdenium may come from that point, as this element is as expensive in metallurgy as Vanadium.

The addition of Vanadium makes a far better steel for high resistence armour. The Brinell hardness of a Vanadium Steel is superior to Molibdenium but the torque resistence and impact resistence is far higher.[/quote]

and so my question would be what countries actually had these metals. I know that nikopol was quite an important "mining facility", and with its loss germany had to limit its expenditures of some metals.

thanks

file · Post by **file** » Fri Apr 16, 2004 4:02 am

oh and one more question...

if someone could answer what is the difference between the rockwell and brinell hardness.

ps. Darrin does this study broadly decribe the armour and armement of the 2ww.

thanks.

Darrin · Post by **Darrin** » Fri Apr 16, 2004 7:58 am

file wrote:oh and one more question...

if someone could answer what is the difference between the rockwell and brinell hardness.

ps. Darrin does this study broadly decribe the armour and armement of the 2ww.

thanks.

I suspect so at least some bits of armour. Althoguh I don't have anything right at hand that would tell me what coutries had what minerals to each and every degree. The high Carbon ger steels would have also decreased the effectivness of heat rounds such as bazokas.

I think the Bin and rockwell harness numbers were measuring the same thing with the same number scale. The difference was one of these was an accurte lab teast rockwell maybe. The other was a portable field test that was not as accurte and was apparently even more inaccurte then they first thought.

Attila Sipos · Post by **Attila Sipos** » Mon Apr 26, 2004 11:51 am

Hello!

For the Rockwell hardness, a steel sphere (type B test - HRB - for not so hard materials) or a diamond cone (type C test - HRC - for hard materials, layers of materials) is used as a penetrant. For the Rockwell types, there is no need to prepare the surface before the test.
The formulas:
HRB=130-(h/0.002)
HRC=100-(h/0.002)
Where h is the depth to which the penetrant returns after the penetration (due to the elasticity of the material). Also, a small pre-penetration is used at the Rockwell method (100N). There are also other types of Rockwell: D, E, etc., not so important.

For the Brinell hardness, a steel (HBS) or hard metal (HBW) sphere is used as a penetrant. With the Brinell method you can test heterogeneous materials, too, but you can't test thin materials with it.
The formula (same for the 2 types):
HB=(2*F)/(pi*D(D-sqr(D^2-d^2)))
Where F is the power used for penetration, D is the diameter of the sphere, d is the diameter of the penetration left on the material.

Also, there is a 3rd type of hardness, the Vickers (HV), where a diamond pyramid is used as penetrant.

Well, there are many more standards for every method, but I think it's already pretty boring

Hope this helped!

Roger Griffiths · Post by **Roger Griffiths** » Mon Apr 26, 2004 1:19 pm

I thought a significant, if not the main source of iron ore was Sweden. I can't remember the names of the two mining towns.

Perhaps the Allies owe Sweden a debt of gratitude, in not providing more. Perhaps someone knows more about this.

Roger

file · Post by **file** » Wed Apr 28, 2004 1:02 am

thanks for the replies.

I found the following data on another site but I don't know if it is true. The following are the compositions of german and ussian armour in 44 in %:

german:
C - 0,41-0,49
Mn - 0,80-1,20
Si- 0,50-0,80
Cr - 0,90-1,20
P - lower than 0,03
S - lower then 0,03
Fe - rest

russian (%)
C - 0,27
Mn - 1,34
Si - 1,37
Cr - 0,75
Mo - 0,15
Ni - 1,17
P - 0,014
S - 0,012
Fe - rest

My question is how do these figures compare to compositions of earlier years?

if anyone could give some additional info on what each of the metals was responsible for.

thanks

Feldgrau.net

the myth of armour hardness

the myth of armour hardness

Lower quality Armor in late war

Minerals for manufacturing