Originally posted by SKurj:
Just curious, but these penetration figures are 1 round fired... If i fired 100 rounds and they all landed within say a 3-4ft square, do ya think they would fight through armor thicker than 3/4" ?
AKskurj
As far as real life goes, using AH for a model (For mixed belt purposes, on a plane set up on a gunnery range), let's say 500 yrds, 2 AP + 2 HE + 1 T(AP) belts so you figure the 40 HE rounds are going to be pretty much useless (different trajectory, impact fuse, no penetration, standard Mk 26 Hispano M2 shell) That leaves you with 60 AP rounds. At 500 yards, let's say they hit pretty much on at convergence and the guns are on a very stable platform, so 75% of the rounds land within that square. Thats 45 rounds.
Not taking into consideration armor slope, attack angle, and armor angle to the guns (say it's a chassis sitting broadside level with the guns) we have a prefect gun solution so to speak. More tedious stuff: Depending on how the belt is loaded, the rounds are not going to arrive at once, as some stray outside the square, the gap of HE impacting and popping between the next AP round, etc.
Therefore it's not nearly as many rounds landing on target as it would seem, and thats under Ideal conditions. With enough firing the armor could definately be breeched, but given the nature of how a plane must attack armor, multiple passes on the same section of armor is not a very viable option.
Once you bring a moving plane into the equation, the plane is always going to come in at an off angle to the armor (unless he dives straight down, again not a very good idea) and the rounds are not going to be nearly as concentrated as the move through convergence, etc. So that, and armor slope are most likely going to cut between 45% and 95% of the remaining shells depending on the angle. So let's say 20 rounds actually penetrate. In general the figures like 3/4 inch give a decent margin so the round actually does some damage after it penetrates (meaning it can go through more but will be so slow it won't do diddly). These aren't like large AP rounds, that explode after penetration...they have to do their damage based on speed, and mass.
