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Old February 8th, 2007, 05:50 AM

chuckfourth chuckfourth is offline
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Default Re: Rocket inconsistencies.

Hello again
Hi Thatguy96 I have no doubt that Andreas Parsch's site is correct. However his site is not WW2 specific, for instance the MK 16 zuni wasnt used until after the war. Tarrifs site that I pointed out is restricted to WW2. As the Holy Moses was still in use during the Korean War I suspect that the 3 mile range would be for the post WW2 version. The period between the two wars is probably long enough to have improved the explosive used to propel the rocket giving the greater range. So tarrifs site (2200) is no doubt correct for the WW2 version and Andreas Parsch's site is probably correct for the Korean war version.
The Holy Moses SAP version according to Tarrifs site appears to be a solid shot. At the velocities these rockets traveled at they are not particularily good at getting through armour. for instance the British 60 pounder HE/SAP penetrates 33 mm of steel and the Holy Moses solid shot penetrates 38 mm of steel. This may only equate to half these figures when hitting proper armour. As the solid shot has no explosive you really need to have planes armed with either the HE or the solid shot versions, though I doubt the solid shot version were used much as they are designed to penetrate ships. If you are firing the HE versions then the extra velocity would be lucky to buy you IMHO an extra cm of armour penetration. Of interest from
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawker_Typhoon
"Although great things were expected against the heavily armored tanks of the Wehrmacht, the rockets needed to hit the thin-walled engine compartment or the tank's tracks to really have any destructive effect. Analysis of destroyed tanks after the Normandy battle showed a 'hit-rate' for the air-fired rockets of only 4%"
Also I personally would be interested to Know how the HE Penetration and AP penetration values relate, ie a HE penetration of 22 is certainly not the same as AP penetration of 22 Ive found.
Best Regards Chuck.
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