Simulation of concrete add-on armor on example of the M4A3 tank. 7.5cm Pzgr 39 (6.8kg APCBC projectile) at 850 m/s (velocity achievable for Panther gun) Vs 63.5mm 240 BHN armor plate at 47 degrees. M4A3 tank hull front armor.
Yeah this makes a lot of sense. Un-reinforced concrete is not particularly strong and is prone to shattering/crumbling, so I wouldn't imagine it would really have helped all that much.
I remember reading about a general (I think it was Patton but I can't recall) specifically ordering men under his command to stop putting ad hoc concrete armor onto the Shermans because it wasn't going to help and all it would do is strain the tank's suspension and engine. One of my favorites you've done so far, it's very interesting getting an idea of how effective/useless this idea was.
He actually compromised by allowing the troops to weld on more steel armor, usually cannibalized from other tanks. This probably would work to stop pzgr 39.
It was Patton, but I believe it was regarding adding track and sandbags as extra armor, since it would make the vehicle heavy and tracks also helped in normalizing shells that struck the tank. And apparently many soldiers ignored that order, not because they didn't believe him, but because despite all that it would give them psychological comfort.
Definitely the Old Blood and Guts. It was about sand bags though. Negligible protection against tank shells for the weight it gives, plus Sherman already had problems with weight distribution, being rather tall boy. Funny enough, there WAS a lightweight option to protect the tank - aluminum sheets at extreme angles. But the swimming tank craze was far future at that point.
It was just last week that a friend asked me if the improvised armour actually did anything. To judge this setup, we would need the test without the concret, as you said. I think the chieftain once said that the americans during WW2 did some tests on several improvised armor adons and concluded that they didnt offer much more protection, but that the extra weight on the tank was a problem. So some units forbade the use of improvised armor, but others allowed it for morale reasons.
@@Landgraf43 Were that the only problem... Depending on the amount of weight and its location, one might run into problems with reliability and flotation.
@@thecodeofreality are you joking? This is a tank round simulation channel. Obviously we all know about spaced armor. You're not nearly as smart or slick as you think lol. "social disorder"?
Based off stats I've seen for battleship shells against reinforced concrete compared with the same shells against armour plate, the difference between the two forms of protection is truly colossal. Like one example for a 16 inch shell is 664mm of vertical armour plate at 9,144 metres, and *8.4 metres* of reinforced concrete at the same range
The function of concrete in a defensive structure is protection from shock waves from explosions. In terms of stopping power sand bags are much more effective
@@ahtheh I honestly hadn't really considered that much tbh. I assumed it was just a weight, volume and cost consideration. For structures weight and volume matters far less than for any kind of mobile vehicle
So the roof of a U-boat shelter could conceivably resist the impact of a single shell, hitting the roof at an angle. FYI, some of them had 8 meter thick steel reinforced concrete roofs. I'm not sure if a 16 inch shell, or any other Battleship shell were ever fired at one of these in war time. But they were immune to all but the largest allied bombs, i think the 22 000 lb grand slam, and the 12 000 lb tall boy bombs could.
@@novat9731 I don't have precise armour penetration stats in mind, but I'm confident in saying that both the horizontal (deck) armour of warships and the horizontal armour on structures like U-boat pens were armoured as heavily as they were to protect primarily against bombs. With battleship shells from the second world war period, even the ones that are most optimised for deck penetration require really very long range engagements to actually stand a good chance of going through common levels of battleship deck armour
Sadly the most critical part was lost to the bug, but it seems like the main body of the shell practically didn't suffer at all. Only the cap crumbled away.
I remember watching one of The Chieftains video's where he talked about ad hoc armor and how many times it actually caused shells to penetrate better than if there was nothing. Apparently the softer ad hoc armor doesn't do enough to break up the shell and since the shell can dig into it, it tends to pull the shell into the armor rather than skip off.
Since you're testing concrete, it would be interesting to see the same layout against HEAT-rounds like the panzerfaust. And also reinforced concrete. Best channel on youtube!
@@dejmianxyzsimulations4174 Aww shucks. they gotta hurry up and make those quantum processors I guess. Until then, have you thought about cloud processing or shared computing, if possible with the software?
I remember an article somewhere about early log armor accidentally making German panzerfausts more effective. Apparently the panzerfausts fuses detonated too early but the log would space it out a bit and allow for a more fully liquid stream
I believe the log armor increased the effectiveness because it gave the charge enough distance to complete the forming of the penetrator. HEAT penetrators cannot be too near or else the penetrator won't form, nor too far or else the penetrator won't touch. The log might have just given the charges a standoff distance.
That is true. Early HEAT often didn't have standoff 'probes' like you tend to see on modern HEAT-FS rounds and anti-tank rockets. The increased distance created by the logs gave the round that perfect standoff distance.
I think using panther shell isn't best indicator. Maybe use weaker 75mm pz4 gun or 88mm tiger gun? Or really just try to achive penetration or no penetration at longer distance (lower velocity) with and without concrete addon and compare distances of armor alone and with added concrete plate.
@Timothy that's more of a generally yes but also no. The distribution ratio is 60-40 in favor of the eastern front. With attrition rates the panzer 4 is still the majority but it's close enough and with the lack of manufacturing to say that by winter that is not true
I talked to a WW2 vet bout ten years back, he was a tanker. He told me that despite the concrete armor not being the best choice, it had saved several lives of those who used it including his.
I bet that the armor would have worked much better if the steel was only half as thick but two such plates sandwiching the concrete. I just don't know if the simulation would take into account how the expansion of the concrete would be impeded...
Basically, what you are proposing is a early form of Composite Armor which would probably work much better than what we see which is definitely going to get a crew who has over confidence in their armor killed.
@@Predator20357 I’d agree, they would probably only be able to shrug off a few shots before their armor is too weak to withstand another shot, due to how much it cracks and shatters.
@@charlieyes4946 like maybe it’ll stop a far range Panzer 4 shot making it have to close the gap a bit more but the destruction to the suspension and such is not worth it for the original slap on Concrete, maybe it’ll do better with Panzerfaust just due to sheer mass
Great way to make your tank vastly heavier without improving protection. That said to my knowledge there was also some Shermans that used frontal armour from scrapped Shermans welded to the front plate to increase protection (the Soviets also did this). I imagine that would fair at least somewhat better?
Yes it was the only add on armour Patton permitted. As it's literally doubling you armour thickness for not too much added on weight. Most add on armour either did almost nothing or actively aided the shell fired at you
They would do the same with Panther's front hull, cut it out then weld it on, kinda what the engineers got the idea when they decided T26E4 needed extra protection. Either way, only good thing comes out of the extra "protection" was better morale
So the concrete wasn't particularly effective and probably strained the engine+transmission, however we must take into account the morale boost improvised armor provided.
I read about this on ships. It was abandoned because it did not work well against strafing cannon fire. What replaced it was hard granite pebbles embedded in asphalt. The hard granite gave a little in the aaphalt sapping energy
I was one of those kids of the 70's who built plastic model tank kits and tested their armor with BB guns, fire crackers, and whatnot. Perhaps that's why your simulations most always get my clicks.
From the comments I read most missed the actual issue. So in some cases from WW2, it's quoted that improvised armor actually helps penetration. If you watch, imagine the concrete acting like a tube, holding the round in its original path and preventing deflection. The same goes for a round that normalizes, nullifying the action. The concrete is soft, may slow down the round a little, but nullifies the deflection, leading to more penetration than normal. I know it's a late comment but yeah.
To be fair most of the "improvised" armor was intended to provide standoff protection against German hollow charge weapons (Panzerfaust, etc) I asked my grandfather who commanded an M4 with the 17th Tk Bn about it once and he confirmed that no one really thought logs or concrete would stop a German 75 or 88, but it gave some "placebo effect" as he called it especially when there were forced to go through close towns etc, and there was "some value" in that
That's really interesting! I've heard that the improvised armour inadvertently gave the Panzerfaust a better stand-off distance and so it ended up being more effective than if it wasn't there at all, not 100% on that though. The morale thing is a great point too, pretty damn important to have regardless.
A comment below mentioned using shaped charge warheads (ie panzerfaust) against this simulation, neat idea! Would you do any simulations like this? Like man portable antitank weaponry? Panzerfaust, panzershrek, bazooka/super bazooka etc? I'd be really interested to see these if you haven't done them already! Love the channel!🙌
He has tried multiple times. HEAT munitions are very very difficult and finnicky to simulate; i don't know the exact reasons but it's why he's only done one or two tests and no more
another interesting test might be replace some of the outer layer of concrete with a (relatively) thin layer of either armor or mild steel (armor steel to be more effective, mild steel to get more of the ad-hoc effect). Almost making a basic composite armor layering.
Looks like it acts like an ablation layer. Maybe good for some rounds like shaped charges and HE. But no kinetic penetrators. Would be interesting to see if high concentration fiberous concrete would make a difference. Same ablation properties, but wouldn’t crumble. Like a giant cut off wheel.
This result is not surprising with a kinetic round. What's interesting though is concrete effectiveness against shape charge projectiles. Even here tests showed a need of about 12 inches of concrete in order to stop PF60 or a Panzerschreck round. However, thinner applications did benefit the crew's survival rate against HEAT rounds. Armor historian Harry Yeide describes the effects as follows: "In tests conducted by the 709th Tank Battalion in February 1945 German Panzerschreck antiarmor rockets penetrated the concrete and the tank’s skin. The concrete, however, reduced the effectiveness of the German warhead inside the tank. According to the 753rd Tank Battalion, poured concrete reduced the danger of the crew being killed even if the tank was destroyed."
As far as I can recall, the Allies did a fair bit of testing for improvised armour such as Concrete to see whether or not it really was any good. Non-reinforced concrete was something like 10% as effective at stopping a projectile as steel, and that's on average. In thinner amounts, concrete is even less effective as it has less of it's own material to help keep it together and prevent it from fracturing and shattering. So this pretty much checks out. It does have a tangible effect on the shell, but it's not even close to being an effective difference. Sort of like the difference to being shot at from 10 yards or 100, if the bullet hits you you're in a bad way in either case.
My understanding is the concrete armor was used by troops to stop shaped charges. Tankers knew it would have little affect on AP rounds unless it hit at extreme angles.
All material is unlikely to help in protection if their strength is low. Strength is usually defined by how dense the armor is. If there would be something super dense instead, no matter of the properties of the material, it is likely to have a positive effect. The untapped market in armor technology is shielding armor in an external shell of a super-dense material. All armor struggles to resist incoming projectiles exactly, because RHA is mild. It is soft metal by comparison to the projectile which is impacting it. If it would be other way around, projectile would shatter of get blunted rapidly per mm of armor.
It definitely didn't stop the round, but it is a Pzgr 39 shell fired from a Panther (probably at close range too), so I'm not sure if that is all too surprising. I'll have to see comparisons to more accurately assess the efficacy. There is an obvious disadvantage made evident in this video, in that the concrete creates a lot more spall inside the vehicle during penetration. The concrete would also probably weigh quite a lot. I feel like the benefits are outweighed by the cons. I am curious as to how improvised armour using tracks would fair.
What’s funny is that some People in charge of Tank squads had told Crewmen to stop placing Concrete on their tanks because it’s fucking up the suspension and other stuff that’s carrying it
If it were spaced from the steel it would be more effective. It seems like the concrete here is easing the round in the transition from air to steel, preventing deflection.
From understanding of Panzerfaust which are HEAT warheads there’d be effect but not a ton. The warhead would basically activate slightly farther back. What I wonder about is HESH whether or not the interior would still spall
@@legozeke246 for HESH I am not sure, but since it relies heavily on the explosion, with the concrete to absorb more energy I believe there would be far less spalling. But I have no idea of what would actually haplen
There might even be a case made that the concrete does more harm than good by making it much more difficult for the shell to ricochet as its sort of forcing it to dig in.
This is why Tracks and armor plates were the only accepted add on armor by General Patton He didn’t like the look of concrete, sand bags or wooden armor, and he firmly believed they didn’t do anything Funny enough, he was absolutely right Tracks would help, not considerably, but would, and extra armor plates obviously would
The russians put a lot more concrete around T-34s at one point, when they were desperate to try anything that might help. In some areas they added like a half meter of it, but it was pointless, because they had to leave a big gap right in the front of the hull.
Seems kinda useless compared to the weight it would have added It is more effective to add another steel plate half the length of the 1st one --> jumbo
Is it possible to simulate a little bit more, it's a bit frustrating not seeing correctly if there's many shrapnels ..? Other than that, nice idea the concrete sim
Yes and no. Bigger model, longer and bigger simulation. It takes an unpleasant long time to calculate such a simulation. In this case, I ran out of disk memory, so without simplifications or a penny of video quality, a longer simulation would be impossible anyway. Small model (plate), longer simulation.
Yup sums it, I'm pretty sure the Unrebar'd Concrete made if worst as it normalize the shell like, Track and sandbags does. Not to mention the Strain you're giving to your suspension and drive wheel.
Concrete probably would have helped against HEAT projectiles such as the panzerfaust or against overpressure from any (not every) HE shell but against a solid projectile it would just shatter like glass.
If they would have put a high hardness steel plate on top of the concrete of around 20-30mm, they probably wound have gotten some interesting results. It might have been enough to destroy the cap.
Pretty foreseeable. Concrete is basically acting as a cap to prevent deflection. Concrete at front is bad. However, I would like to see second ad hoc concrete armor - namely that concrete is sandwiched between two steel (AR500 etc) plates.
concrete is far weaker than rha. if I remember, for the 89mm F1 anti tank system that was used by France during late cold war, the given penetration was 400mmrha and 1000mm concrete. so basically, 2,5times more theorical pen (and it was a shaped charge) against concrete than rha.
Given the density its actually more effective. If ceramics are supossedly very effective against heat i wonder why concrete which is also a brittle material isnt
@@krzysztofbroda5376 2.4g/cm3, vs steel's 8. so, steel is 3 times heavyer and 2.5 times stronger against shaped charge (and we know shaped charges got issue against thick but low density armor, so, against a a kinetic projectile, it would decrease) on top of that, add that concrete, like any mineral, suck at multihit compared to steel alloys. also, if you take into consideration the extra bulk caused by an equal weight of concrete, you will see that such volume, with lesser amount of steel for the same weight, would allow you to play with spaced layers and even do some NERA-like structures with thin inside plates. further increasing effectiveness. there is a reason why concrete is used for fixed fortifications (where weight and bulk doesn't matter, but cost does) and why AFVs still use metallic alloys (sometimes withsome ceramic applique in fornt of it it is true) as their main armor.
This doesn’t look like a Panther round.Rather a Panzer IV round with higher muzzle velocity.Panther’s round,Pzgr 39/42, used a much longer cartridge and it weighed 7.2 kg.
This would be ineffective against solid shot, but very effective against HEAT and particularly the magnetic anti tank grenades the Germans used. In a fight against another tank it wouldn't help all that much, but against infantry who only had chemical anti tank weaponry. The added concrete would also make some difference at longer ranges after the enemy shot has lost some velocity, and could be the deciding factor.
Can you do a comparison with/without concrete. I think concrete would just concentrate the AP penetrator like a soft cap does. Can we do another test with dsay 100mm or whatever is very close to the ap shells limit? So we can really see the effects of concrete.
Suggestion: Tallboy vs Yamato. I know that Tirpitz basically stood no chance at resisting the tallboys that were dropped on her, but I *believe* it could actually be somewhat close with Yamato
@@Noisykiller12 Well I'm talking about the main armoured deck - I'm not asking him to simulate it going through every deck into the magazines or something. I believe the primary bottleneck for these sims is time
Just quick wiki research says the Bismarck class had 120mm deck armor compared to 226mm on tbe Yamato class. Almost double as thick, that surprised me I thought it would be closer in thickness. Still i have a hard time seeing the Tallboy (a 12000lb bomb vastly outweighing the naval bombs used against the Yamato by an order of magnatude) not just digging straight into the ship.
@@coltinyancey6420 I've looked at a couple of sources, and after scrambling my brain trying to extrapolate naval gun data to armour piercing bombs; I *think* I'm correct in saying that the tallboy has enough *raw energy* to hypothetically go through something like 740mm of battleship deck armour (yeah...lol) *but* that isn't taking into account how the tallboy has not far off half it's weight in explosives, so that would reduce that figure by a large margin. Wikipedia (the greatest source) says the tallboy can go through 4.9 metres of reinforced concrete. I *believe* that could equate to about 387mm of battleship deck armour. Phew that took it out of me. But it would be interesting to see how low you could drop a tallboy (not allowing the bomb to reach terminal velocity) and still deal with a ship like Yamato
You should do this but against those soft Soviet shells. Even if it doesn't do much either, I bet the concrete will be visibly more potent. Also, in line with these improvised armors, you might want to test those wooden spaced armor used in the Pacific theatre. Since most of the guns the Shermans need to face are 37mm, 47mm, and 57mm, I think they would at least do something against those weak small calibers, especially the 37mm and 57mm.
I doubt it. This simulation isn't showing it much but basically that concrete is getting pulverized and turned into a harmless cloud as soon as the shell hits
Now the funny part is that if they had layered the concrete between steel plates than it woudl have helped as it woudl be effectively an early composite armor where concrete woudl work as a lousy copy of ceramics (energy expenditure layer)
Interesting! Can you do a simulation with some sandbags in front of the armor? I know a lot of soldiers put sandbags on their Shermans thinking it would help.
I'm immediately minded of the so-called 'plastic armour' on Royal Navy vessels during WW2, & the description of the R&D & composition of this armour from the book 'The Wheezers & Dodgers: The Inside Story of Clandestine Weapon Development in World War II' - by Gerald Pawle, Nevil Shute (Foreword by): effective against the likes of Condor FW200 strafing attacks & small naval craft(*splinters). Same people who worked on Hobart's funnies, like AVRE Churchill; also the Panjandrum.
Is somebody tried refrigerant gas trapped inside a multitude of plates ? It would work like reactive armor,but with expanding,vaporizing cooling gas,wich could help eliminate heat energy from impact.
I once heard that Panzerfausts had very unreliable fuses that could shatter when hitting hard steel, but the concrete may have actually helped them go off correctly. I don't know if that's true, but adding concrete to your tank certainly does not help in any meaningful way.
Could you for any sherman viriant test front back and side armor with tracks sandbag and logs and see what where the effects. tankers where not to sure about there safety so they added extra armor.
Leave it to the masons to fuck up your armor, by making it easier for the round to normalize and neatly penetrate it while being held "straight" by the concrete...
Mr. Dejmian, perhaps you could make HEAT vs different armor? Perhaps ERA, Composite armor, or just plain 500mm RHA? Also, it's quite interesting how the shell only affects 45° ( angle of repose? Shear angle? Forget the terms in English), this is actually the reason why concrete columns use stirrups. Concrete are horrible at taking load other than compression.
the advantage of sloped steel is given away with concrete addon..there is no rebounds or deflection possible, because concrete catch the bullet and give a safe way to the steel....
I suspected that concrete would do nothing to stop an incoming round. I bet it made the troops feel better about their safety, though. That can be almost as important as actual protection.
El blindaje de concreto no era para proyectiles ap ,sino para munición de carga hueca como panzerfäust.pero aumentaba el peso, solo pusieron bolsas de arena que protegía de los panzerfäust ligeramente lo explico por el tema de se piensa que servía para proyectiles de penetración dinámica o ap. blindaje compuesto tiene la misma función digamos que fue un antecesores pero rudimentario
También sirve para munición hesh. Y el blindaje espaciado no era munición de tanque sino para rifle anti tanque de 14mm ruso que estos se escondían en los bosques y disparanban en los laterales,parte trasera y cúpula de comandante
I think asphalt would probably be a better ghetto armor instead of cement the tar would act more like rubber while the cement is just turns into a rock
It looks like the concrete is just working as a detriment. I know it increases the millimeters of protection but it traps the shell because it’s softer than iron
I am sure I read or saw some where that the concrete was in some cases counter productive as it normalised (is that is the right word) some rounds that would have ricocheted off standard armour.
