# Shell hits tank
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shell-hits-tank/75410
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [August 8, 2001, 4:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shell-hits-tank/75410 "2001-08-08T04:08:01Z")
**Posts on this page:** 15
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Princhester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Princhester)
#### Post date: [August 8, 2001, 4:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shell-hits-tank/75410/1 "2001-08-08T04:08:01Z")
A recent question regarding tanks by Whack-a-Mole brought this thought to mind:
A tank is hit by a shell, rocket, whatever on a heavily armoured part and the tank and crew survive. What is the experience like for the crew? OK, the tank is massive and that will absorb much of the heat, shock, sound etc but nonetheless the crew have just been on the wrong end of a hell of a lot of momentum and a few feet from a huge explosion and I can’t imagine it’s much fun.
Anyone know what it’s like, (or even better, been through this experience)?
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### Author:  [@pluto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pluto)
#### Post date: [August 8, 2001, 4:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shell-hits-tank/75410/2 "2001-08-08T04:21:37Z")
IANATAS (I am not a tank attack survivor) but don’t dismiss the momentum effects. Sudden accelerations are deadly. You don’t need to suffer wounds and/or broken bones to be severely injured.
One way they measure explosive force is by “overpressure” – the pressure effects of the explosion, ignoring any shrapnel or other effects. Any explosion nearby will cause this overpressure and tanks aren’t pressurized. Although the openings into the tank body are small and may dissipate some of the effect I believe they will still be significant.
In short, if you survive an attack on your tank you may not be bleeding but you will probably be hurting. At the very least you’ll have one hell of a headache.
FWIW, some antitank munitions are designed to transfer their impact to the inner walls of the tank. The desired effect is to cause the interior metal to spall and fly around the crew compartment. The exterior will show little damage but the crew will be killed. And then there are those designed to push a jet of molten metal through the armor – same scenario as above but the shrapnel is also very, very hot. Being inside a tank isn’t necessarily the best place to be if your enemy is well-equipped.
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### Author:  [@Whack-a-Mole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whack-a-Mole)
#### Post date: [August 8, 2001, 4:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shell-hits-tank/75410/3 "2001-08-08T04:26:11Z")
Having never been in a tank much less one hit by an attack I can only guess. That such things have happened is without doubt as the quote in my other thread illustrates (where a German Tiger tank took at least five direct hits from other tanks and drove away from the experience apparently none the worse for wear).
The two things I’d imagine a tank crew would experience would be to get jostled around but good and probably a deafening noise.
My big question is what a shockwave would do to the body. The Tiger tank crew in my quote were obviously in enough shape to drive their tank away but neither did they continue the fight. Was it because the odds weren’t good or was it because they were seriously rattled and not good for much beyond getting the hell outta Dodge? I couldn’t say…anyone else know?
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### Author:  [@Mekhazzio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mekhazzio)
#### Post date: [August 8, 2001, 8:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shell-hits-tank/75410/4 "2001-08-08T08:03:55Z")
Modern tanks _are_ pressurized, so they can deal with the ominous triumvirate of nuclear/biological/chemical weaponry. Being inside one that takes a completely non-penetrating hit is probably not really a big deal. These tanks are on the order of 60+ tons (the Tiger was somewhere along those lines as well, although most WW2 tanks were much lighter) so a hit isn’t really going to bother it. I’ll leave it to someone else to hunt up the shell mass, muzzle velocities, and do the comparative math to see how much the tank would be affected, but basically it’s functionally nil – you just don’t see weapons strong enough to do that (with one caveat, which I mention later)
Imagine being inside a steel drum (albeit not directly connected to the outside, seats and such) that gets banged with a sledgehammer. It’d ring your bell, but probably not be any real concern physically. Psychologically might be a different story 😉 In general, if you live long enough to realize that your tank just got hit, you’re fine.
As for tank weaponry, the main modern anti-tank weapon employed by tanks is the kinetic dart, the current US piece being the M829A2 Armor-Piercing Fin-Stabilized Discarding Sabot. This is a (I’m guessing) 50mm wide, 1-meter long depleted uranium dart carried inside a spool-like sabot to fit it in the 120mm smoothbore (German 😉 ) gun tube on the M1A1/A2/A2SEP main battle tank. There’s no explosive at all in the round itself, it’s merely a giant spear of dense material fired at high velocity that pokes through the armor and sends high-speed fragments (of the armor, and the penetrator itself) inside the crew compartment, turning the crew into jelly, starting fires, possibly [detonating ammo](http://home.hiwaay.net/~sickler/opforstuff/vids/JavelinLiveFireVsT72.mpg).
Another modern AT round is HESH, High-Explosive Squash-Head – this is what Whack-A-Mole was describing. It basically fires a large slug that flattens out against the enemy’s armor upon impact, giving it a good whang. Basically a king-size sledgehammer for your steel drum 😃 The idea is to flake off fragments of the armor inside the crew compartment, turning the crew into jelly, starting fires, possibly detonating ammo…but the actual combat effectiveness of this is questionable, and most countries don’t trust it. AFAIK, only the British actually stock it much.
The runner up old stand by is HEAT, High-Explosive, Anti-Tank, also known as the shaped charge. This is what almost all rockets, recoilless rifles (bazookas), mines and missiles use, since it’s not reliant on velocity. This is a cone-shaped jacket of copper (pointy end away from the enemy) with lots of explosive packed behind it. Upon detonation, the explosive pushes the copper into a high-speed, narrow jet of molten metal, which burrows through the armor, sending armor and jet fragments into the crew compartment, turning the crew into jelly and so on (seeing a trend here? 😉 ) HEAT is losing favor of late, however, since the march of technology is rendering it relatively easy to defend against – you won’t do much to modern tanks with it (but personnel carriers are a different matter) – however, it’s still the large majority of anti-tank weaponry, due to its age-old simplicity, low cost, and ability to be put as an active warhead on pretty much anything.
The main AT round in use in WW2 was merely plain old AP, an Armor-Piercing slug (with a hardened nose) that just tried to bash its way into the enemy…basically just a giant bullet. Upon penetration, it would send fragments of the armor and round into the crew compartment, etc, etc. If it didn’t penetrate, it would ricochet, or just plain break up if the armor was harder than the round itself. This is what happened to most Shermans before the upgunning, their shells would simply shatter on the heavy tanks.
So, as you can see, no matter what weaponry is being used, they all have the same major goal: to poke a hole in the armor and send pointy bits flying around and into the crew. If you don’t penetrate the armor, you’re not really doing diddly squat to the tank, it’s usually an all or nothing affair. A side benefit of this is that, since tank kills are really usually just crew kills, the tank itself is often still fully operational (although you’d have to replace the electrical system and such if it burned) and can be reused after giving it a patchup and hosing the inside out. This was very common with Shermans, and they went to great lengths to hide this fact from the new crews.
There is, however, one major exception to this rule: that of the Really Big Shell. We’re talking large-bore artillery, like modern 155mm howitzers, or the 12-16 inch shells of WW2 naval bombardment, and aircraft-dropped bombs. A few kills by 120mm mortars were recorded in WW2, as well. Basically, these don’t penetrate the armor, they just totally obliterate it. They often hit the top armor, the weakest part of a tank, and crush the tank like a bug.
And that’s all I have to say about that 😃
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### Author:  [@MonkeyMensch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MonkeyMensch)
#### Post date: [August 8, 2001, 8:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shell-hits-tank/75410/5 "2001-08-08T08:19:05Z")
[nitpick]
Actually, the penetrator and sabot (_say-boe_) on APFSDS is only about a third of the munition length. (I’ve seen pictures of rounds that were cut open to show construction.)
And a HEAT round, or any shaped charge weapon for that matter, are _inverted_ cones of explosive. The pointy cap on the front is just a shield to provide better ballistic and flight performance.
[/nitpick]
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### Author:  [@douglips](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/douglips)
#### Post date: [August 8, 2001, 2:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shell-hits-tank/75410/6 "2001-08-08T14:33:26Z")
We did this before - in the [Are Tanks Obsolete](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=44408) thread, ExTank casually mentioned
> [@](#):
>
> I know for fact that it [the Abrams tank armor] will stop a 125mm Sabot from a T-72.
.
I was all over this juicy tidbit, as I thought he might have been in a tank that got hit. It turned out it was a tank in his company. I quote ExTank from that thread, [page two](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=44408&pagenumber=2):
> [@](#):
>
> [Ears were ringing] About a day, according to the crew, along with a nasty headache.
> …
> [damage to tank:]Popped some turret circuit breakers (easily reset), knocked the electronic sights out of alignment (but not
> the optical, strangely enough), left a small hole in a dimpled depression about the size of a large dinner platter
> in the frontal armor and chipped some paint.
That thread kicks some serious ass, and needs to be read. Do it now.
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### Author:  [@Whack-a-Mole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whack-a-Mole)
#### Post date: [August 8, 2001, 2:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shell-hits-tank/75410/7 "2001-08-08T14:53:52Z")
> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by Mekhazzio \*
> \*\*So, as you can see, no matter what weaponry is being used, they all have the same major goal: to poke a hole in the armor and send pointy bits flying around and into the crew.
>
> \
>
> A few kills by 120mm mortars were recorded in WW2, as well. Basically, these don’t penetrate the armor, they just totally obliterate it. They often hit the top armor, the weakest part of a tank, and crush the tank like a bug.\*\*
I watched the video linked in Mekhazzio’s post. Cripes! I never knew that much damage could be done to a tank by portable anti-tank weapons (I’d expect to see that from a hit from a battleships main guns).
If anyone wants to see how you “crush [a] tank like a bug” I recommend watching that video. About the only good thing for the crew of a tank hit like that is that they probably don’t even know they are dead…basic instant destruction.
> [@](#):
>
> Another modern AT round is HESH, High-Explosive Squash-Head – this is what Whack-A-Mole was describing.
Actually credit for that has to go to **pluto**.
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### Author:  [@Mekhazzio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mekhazzio)
#### Post date: [August 8, 2001, 2:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shell-hits-tank/75410/8 "2001-08-08T14:54:54Z")
That’s…exactly what I said, in both cases. Usually people only nitpick on what’s incorrect 😉
The penetrator may not be full length in the round, but the [whole thing is pretty big](http://www.armorinaction.com/C66Ammoload.JPG) . I have one of those cutaway pictures on my harddrive somewhere, I can dig it up and link to it later. Still doesn’t hold a candle to some of the [older tank ammunition](http://www.armorinaction.com/AmmoLineup.JPG) – check out the 88mm L71, to put the Tiger’s cannon in perspective with even the later Shermans (whose ammo is on the left)
And actually, the probes on the front of HEAT warheads are there to provide standoff distance (allowing the charge to detonate early and form a more optimum jet before impact) and often incorporate precursor charges (to set off explosive reactive armor before the main jet hits)
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### Author:  [@thinksnow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thinksnow)
#### Post date: [August 8, 2001, 3:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shell-hits-tank/75410/9 "2001-08-08T15:07:30Z")
I’m loading the “are tanks obsolete” thread now, so if this is answered there, forgive me, but can’t the DU-sabot inflict rediculous amounts of damage with _glancing_ blows? I thought this one imparted so much momentum, the ultra-dense DU combined with 1-mile/sec velocity, that it would pop the turrets off it’s targets and render the occupants to jelly?
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### Author:  [@Mekhazzio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mekhazzio)
#### Post date: [August 8, 2001, 3:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shell-hits-tank/75410/10 "2001-08-08T15:09:30Z")
> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by Whack-a-Mole \*
> I watched the video linked in Mekhazzio’s post. Cripes! I never knew that much damage could be done to a tank by portable anti-tank weapons
Welll, that video is actually the subject of some debate, I linked it largely because it’s spectacular 🙂 The missile itself isn’t causing that, it’s just the typical HEAT warhead poking a hole in it. That massive explosion is the “ammunition” inside the tank detonating. In fact, most people think it’s not actually tank ammunition, since the only description anyone’s gotten of what’s in the tank is that of being “similar to an appropriate combat load” – which probably means it was stuffed with the same amount of explosive as would be in the ammunition, but instead of being individually encased in 40 chunks, inside the autoloader, it was probably there in one big lump, and probably of more potent stuff. Kablooey! Not that it really matters, an ammo detonation of any scale is usually lethal to a crew (barring design tricks like the M1 has) and, in fact, the crew can be killed from an AT hit without any real visible sign of damage on the outside. It depends on where the hit is, how the tank is built, and what the weapon is.
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### Author:  [@Trucido](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trucido)
#### Post date: [August 8, 2001, 3:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shell-hits-tank/75410/11 "2001-08-08T15:14:44Z")
As an addition, early Shermans, when taking non-penetrating hits, had a tendency to lose rivets. Said rivets bounced around the crew compartment. The effect was, as **Mekhazzio** put it so well, to turn the crew to jelly.
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### Author:  [@Mekhazzio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mekhazzio)
#### Post date: [August 8, 2001, 3:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shell-hits-tank/75410/12 "2001-08-08T15:17:30Z")
> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by thinksnow \*
> \*\*I’m loading the “are tanks obsolete” thread now, so if this is answered there, forgive me, but can’t the DU-sabot inflict rediculous amounts of damage with _glancing_ blows? I thought this one imparted so much momentum, the ultra-dense DU combined with 1-mile/sec velocity, that it would pop the turrets off it’s targets and render the occupants to jelly? \*\*
The dU sabots don’t generally deal “glancing blows” – one of the interesting properties of them is their tendency to dig into and penetrate a surface it hits…they only ricochet at a very, very shallow angle (~1 degree IIRC) However, the more sharply it turns to do this, the more energy it loses, as the penetrator twists and possibly breaks, and this could keep it from penetrating strong enough armor.
The flying turrets is a result of an ammunition explosion inside the tank – the pressure inside is so great it actually blows the turret right off the tank. The sabot isn’t actually doing it – the sabot penetrates the armor, sends hot fragments all over the crew compartment, which starts a fire, or perhaps just directly detonates the ammo itself. The crew’s already dead by then though. This isn’t a trait of the penetrating weapon so much as the design of the tank being hit, and where it’s hit. Some designs (such as most Russian tanks) are highly vulnerable to this, while others (such as the M1) go to great lengths to prevent it.
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### Author:  [@Tranquilis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tranquilis)
#### Post date: [August 8, 2001, 3:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shell-hits-tank/75410/13 "2001-08-08T15:19:49Z")
> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by Mekhazzio \*
> the Tiger was somewhere along those lines as well, although most WW2 tanks were much lighter) so a hit isn’t really going to bother it.
Reports from WWII German tankers were that the effect of the low-velocity 75mm main gun on most Sherman tanks was a painful ringing, like they were inside a church bell when someone rang it. There is one documented (Clark of St.Vith) case where a German _Panzerschreck_ squarely struck the side of a Sherman tank, penetrating the armor, decapitating the gunner, and _penetrating the far side of the turret_. A through-and-through penetration, leaving the tank still functioning, albeit minus the gunner.
> [@](#):
>
> As for tank weaponry, the main modern anti-tank weapon employed by tanks is the kinetic dart, the current US piece being the M829A2 Armor-Piercing Fin-Stabilized Discarding Sabot… …There’s no explosive at all in the round itself, it’s merely a giant spear of dense material fired at high velocity that pokes through the armor and sends high-speed fragments (of the armor, and the penetrator itself) inside the crew compartment…
The effect is called “spalling”, and it’s quite lethal. As a BTW, sometimes the penetrator does a “through-and-through” hit, and in many such cases the crew is first subjected to extreme over-pressure, then extreme _under_-pressure as the penetrator creates a vacuum in it’s wake. Messy.
> [@](#):
>
> Another modern AT round is HESH, High-Explosive Squash-Head – this is what Whack-A-Mole was describing. It basically fires a large…
Make that a large slug of _base-fused plastic explosive_, intended to spall the internal armor of the target. It’s usually quite effective in disabling lighter AFVs, sometimes literally blowing them to scrap. Against heavier targets, it usually causes much spalling, and the flakes of armor tend to be large and sharp. Against the heaviest armor, it’s less effective, but still very good at disabling the crew, whom generally are found to be bleeding from their ears and eyes. The US used this round in the now mostly retired 106mm recoiless rifle. It has the advantage of not needing a precise hit at high velocities, and is useful as an anti-material and -personnel round. Since the US has essentially given-up on large caliber recoiless weapons, this round is out of inventory.
As for reactive armor, two-stage warheads are coming into service to maintain the effectiveness of the shaped charge. The first stage is a small bursting charge that sets-off the reactive armor, closely followed by the initiation of the shaped charge, which punches through the space where the reactive armor _used_ to be. How long the HEAT-reactive armor war will last is a matter of speculation, but barring radical advances, the writing is on the wall for HEAT as a killer of MBTs.
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### Author:  [@thinksnow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thinksnow)
#### Post date: [August 8, 2001, 3:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shell-hits-tank/75410/14 "2001-08-08T15:21:12Z")
Thanks. So I was kinda, almost, right, it _is_ overpressure caused by the sabot, just not until the sabot causes an explosion. 😃
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### Author:  [@Danimal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Danimal)
#### Post date: [August 8, 2001, 4:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shell-hits-tank/75410/15 "2001-08-08T16:42:56Z")
> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by Trucido \*
> \*\*As an addition, early Shermans, when taking non-penetrating hits, had a tendency to lose rivets. Said rivets bounced around the crew compartment. The effect was, as **Mekhazzio** put it so well, to turn the crew to jelly. \*\*
I think you’re coonfusing the Sherman with the Grant. The Grant was notorious for killing crewmen with flying rivets when hit. I believe the Sherman always had a cast hull and turret, ergo nobody killed by rivets.