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It seems that the greatest symbol of modern military has a vulnerability. The armor, rated to be the best tank armor in the world, is quite vulnerable to HESH (High Explosive Squash Head) shells. HESH works by contacting armor, then a small explosive in the shell casing fires a hot jet of steel into the tank. The result is the contacted point on the tank is dissolved into razor sharp bits of metal, called spall, that bounce around inside the tank, killing the crew.   The Abrams reactive armor, which is coated with an outside layer of plastic explosives to counteract any oncoming shells, has nearly no protection against the HESH shell.

I've read about HESH shells before.  Seems like it would be overpowered in World of Tanks.

Hesh rounds are pretty old. Have you seen and tests against modern Armor? They were not that effective against WW2 erra armor

paradat, on Apr 06 2012 - 19:46, said:

Watched a demo before about the HESH on Abrams reactive armor. Wasn't too pretty for the interior.

Pershing75mm113, on Apr 06 2012 - 19:49, said:

Exactly, though in this case, the OP has HESH confused with HEAT - it is HEAT which sends the "hot jet of steel" into the interior of the tank. For many years after the development of HEAT, this was exactly how the effect was explained - but, during tests conducted at Aberdeen Proving Grounds and Ft Knox during the late 1970s, it was discovered via high-speed camera that the penetrator formed by the detonation of HEAT performs exactly as a sabot dart does. Thus HEAT has also been described as a self-forging round, the penetrator of which is actually copper-based. HEAT dates from the late 1930s, fielded by the Germans in 1942, and HESH dates from about 1944, having been fielded by the British in late 1944 / early 1945.  

The concept of HESH is to form itself to the outside face of the target, detonate, and via concussive force & reverb, dish-out the inside face of the armor concerned (leaving but a splash-mark on the exterior face), causing massive spalling and chunk-debris to ricochet about the interior, with the potential to puree crew members into a blush-colored paste ... If the HESH round is of sufficient bore-size, concussive force alone can kill or incapacitate the entire turret crew.

HESH (High Explosive, Squash-Head, also known as High-Explosive Plastic or HEP) was specifically designed for use vs thicker, homogeneous, cast and rolled armor, partially negating the range-attenuation of penetration potential inherent in KE rounds. Theoretically, because HESH "molds" itself to the target-face before detonation, the "bounce factor" would be near-zero. Late-generation reactive armor is capable of reducing the effect of HESH.

Chobham armor was developed specifically to resist penetration by KE (Sabot, pronounced SAY-BO in the US Army) rounds and is a manufacturing method of aligning the rolled "grain" of the armor steel so that any penetrator must traverse the length of the rolled grain as opposed to blowing-thru the cross-section of the grain at a near-perpendicular angle. Chobham armor, and it's evolutionary successor, are not bullet-proof, but as evidenced by frontal hits on the Abrams, proves the armor, and the Abrams, to be the King Tiger of it's age.

(Example cited for relevant combat data as a production vehicle; fantasy tanks are irrelevant for this example, as are the late-generation MBTs which have not yet been in combat).

Derp KV using HESH rounds, shiver.  Well I guess with the 7.3 update, it would be the KV-2 using HESH rounds.

SULOMON, on Apr 06 2012 - 21:13, said:

Wait till the British come....

More precisely the FV4005 and the FV215b (if it comes). Both share one thing in common, a 183mm gun which was designed to fire HESH rounds.

Modern composite armours are designed to deal with HESH. By having multiple different layers of differing materials the shock wave is broken up.

Many tanks even in the 1940's also had spall liners which (depending on the material used and thickness) help to mitigate the effects of HESH (as well as spalling from non penetrating AP rounds).

The British are probably one of the main remaining users of HESH (it really needs a rifled gun) as it makes a very good GP round for most targets and can knock out most armour fielded by 2nd and 3rd world nations (T72 and before).

The longest tank kill known to date by direct fire, was by a Challenger 1 against a Iraqi T62 at over 5100m (the gunner stated 5600m in an interview), the tank was moving out of its revettment when it was hit (the tank commander 'CO of the Scots Dragoon Guards' did not believe the gunner would be able to hit). The round was a 120mm HESH.

Its CHOBHAM.

Modern tank armour is designed to protect against all ammunition types. The level of protection is always theresult of a trade off between mobility, firepower and protection.

A well protected tank with a good gun will not be as mobile as a less protected tank with the same gun. Any combination is possible, smrthing will always give though.

TheHighRoller, on Apr 08 2012 - 20:24, said:

Glad I'm not the only one that noticed that.  Was about to ask the OP what the hell "chabom" was.  Seriously, would it kill people to just google what they're going to post about so they at least know how to friggin' spell it properly?

Here's a recent thread on Tanknet about HESH type rounds.

http://208.84.116.22...showtopic=35824