Armoured Archives - Panther Armour Review

A very interesting video produced by Ed Webster from the Armoured Archives. This video was originally posted on his channel and kindly permitted to be reposted on our channel.

A thorough look at the metallurgical faults found in Panther tanks, and other German vehicles of WW2.

Sources:
- National Archives
- Panther armor trials at Shoeburyness
- Bovington Tank Museum
- NIIB reports
- Face Hardened ARMOR: Warship International

■ Source material: Report AT290 - National Archives - KEW
■ Armoured Archives Channel: @armouredarchives8867

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[motoerhead]

Fun fact is that I did a spectral analysis on some tiger steel too and I was suprised to find sulfur in it. Sulfur makes steel brittel and you dont want that. But there was no phosporus... And that is wierd because the proces of removing phosporus is the same that removes sulfur. Which means they purpesfully added that back into the mix. I was puzzles.... until I saw those pictures of the production lines where they have dozens and dozens of drills that drill the hull simultaniously. And then it hit me! THEY ADDED SULFUR SO THE METAL SHAVINGS BREAK VERY SHORT AND DONT TANGLE UP THE MASCHINES!!! They do that today in modern CNC Steels for the same Purpose. That blew my mind!

[CthulhuInc]

nice to see the Weald Foundation re-playing your videos, Ed!

[christophercripps]

The weakness of German welds under shock loading is amply demonstrated in your (Armored Archives) YT video “Tiger II v HESH.”
My understanding is thin armor plates can be made very tough and very hard. These are typically of 6 to 10 mm thick where heat can be transferred into or out of the depth of the plate. One if the USA halftracks was able to substitute 6.35 mm (1/4”) really hard but tough armor for 9.5 mm (3/8”) plate; however, the 6.35 mm plate could not be welded.
At one time the Brits classified vehicle armor as “high hardness” HH) and machinable quality (MQ).
Good armor piercing caps combined with tough bodied projectiles are the bane of face hardened armor. The cap can induce shatter in the armor with cracks spreading throughout. The cap shatters but a tough (blunt) projectile point survives. I’ve seen cross sections of US Army & USN WW II APC with the main projectile having a very rounded nose; the windscreen (ballistic cap or hood) is pointy and provides the ballistic low-drag coefficient.

[keithagnew]

Give us more please. A very high value watch.

[michaelguerin]

Another issue with manganese is that manganese steel is air-hardening, necessitating the use of an annealing oven to control that aspect. After WW2 the Japanese steel mills were throwing railway rails into the melting pot without consideration of the likely consequences. This may have been a result of experienced men being lost during the war.
The problem was discovered here in Wellington, New Zealand, just down the hill from where I live, at the old William Cable facility on the Hutt Road, opposite Ngaio Gorge. The front half is now a car park and the rear half is essentially a drapery cum craft shop.
A large steel beam—made in Japan—was lying on its side, intended for use in a standard NZ Railways ‘plate girder’ bridge. Some of the men sat on it to have their lunch and the works prankster decided to have some fun with them. He grabbed a ‘tripping hammer’ which was used to undo bolts on a ship’s engine cylinders and hit the beam in the centre of the web. The beam split down the middle, as witnessed by my now deceased friend who was an apprentice at the time.
The subsequent investigation revealed the aforementioned deficiencies at the Japanese steel mill and probably saved quite a few lives around the world.

[gusgone]

Nice video. The material science aspect of tank armour is often overlooked. Not all armour is equal as the people responsible for Chobham-Dorchester will tell anyone who will listen. Getting it just right can be a bit of a challenge OR a big part of a Challenger!
Sorry, couldn't resist.

[kimjanek]

Pz 38(t) and Pz III were overhardened because it protected the tank from low caliber ammunition.
A 30mm plate can easily penetrated by a 20mm AP round at normal impact but not when treated to a high hardness.
It decreases the effectiveness against larger calibers but that just means it will get penetrated at greater ranges.

So it's really more of a trade-off.

[gitfoad]

I've read that the best armour on any tank during WW2 was the Tiger, high nickle content I think was the reason for the right hardness-strength ratio.

[ianbell]

Brilliant
Great video.

For reason YOUTUBE appears to have unsubscribed me?
I just re-subscribed

[thhseeking]

I'd heard of the 38(t) having brittle armour, and I've wondered if that was also a problem with the TNHP sold to other countries, or whether it only applied to the tanks built for the Germans?

[warci]

fascinating stuff! Happy to see there's still some in-depth content that can be found on YT

[holgernarrog]

If you study the German German economy suffered very much from a shortage of steel alloy metals. It was in a lesser extent the tank type as P IV, Sturmgeschütz, Panther, Tiger rather than the availability of alloys. There might be a dfference in Czech that built the Marder, later 38T Hetzer as they had their own iron ore, steel manufacturing. I do not know. In the first years of the war the German armor had a high content of chromium, some nickel, manganese. The steel was air hardened. The alloy quantity was reduced especially the nickel. The steel became oil hardened. In 44/45 the armor plating steel was made with very low alloy content. It was water hardened. This steel did show cracks in some cases after the impact as shown in the video.

[melgross]

We do know that as the war came to less than a year before the end, Germany had problems keeping up the quality of their armor as some of the alloying ingredients were becoming more difficult to obtain. It’s always interesting to see people insist that the Germans had the best technology during the war. Some of it was excellent, to be sure, but some of it was dreadful.

[johnfrench]

Excellent - really looking forward to pt 2

[neilreynolds]

From what I know about how industry was being run by the party, there were layers and layers of people who didn't know what they were doing added to every enterprise to insure political reliability. It would be interesting to see if the papers were still in existence about how the choice to use brittle metal was decided.

[thunderace]

Thank you for making this informative and entertaining video for us.

[ned]

Pretty cool!

Looking forward to part II

[kimjanek]

Germany produced high quality AP rounds. So it's unlikely that they were lacking behind in metallurgy.
It's just some different approach. Each plate was designed to to offer high protection for the lowest weight, against the caliber it was supposed to protect against.
If you shoot a Panthers side armor with a 75mm, it will crack and spall. But it also was not designed to resist such calibers.
Every other medium tank in WW2 is easily penetrated from 75mm shells from the side.
Even the anemic German 37mm could penetrate a Sherman side armor from 200-300m at normal impact.

Almost every decision by the German Army in WW2 is based on maximium effecency for a certain criteria.
This however often lead to side effects that basically negated any of the positive gains.

The German mindset would want a weapon that is 120% as effective as the enemies, without considering that it will be only 80% effective in other scenarios.

[WildBillCox]

A fine primer on the topic of tank armor. Well worth auditing. Liked and shared.

[russellnixon]

Well explained complicated subject. I now know why German tanks have shattered armour plates. Would be looking for part two.