Quote:
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Unit 3 FT-18: called FT-17 "male" in Finland. No APCR ammo was available, so Weapon 12 (37mm Puteaux) should be modified to have an AP Penetration of 1 and the Sabot rounds transferred to AP. Correct total number of rounds was 233. No radios, radio code 1.
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Why does everyone
assume that a sabot round
has to be a superior anti-tank round over any plain AP???
This gun is the precise opposite. It was
deliberately given a short-range special round so it can only penetrate armour at minute range, but still have a decent range for its (primary) HE round.
Note the range for the sabot - the only AP round for the Puteaux 37mm! - is
4 hexes... it is
not a tungsten-carbide HVAP!. (If you gave it an AP round with 1 AP value it would be able to plink armoured cars etc with 1 armour at its maximal range of 1.5 km on occasion.)
And we have been saying that for as many years as this game has been out but still somebody comes along, does not look at the basic game data, and
assumes its a super-hot "silver bullet" round that the 37mm Puteaux has because its a "sabot"!.
In fact - due to the rapid pull-down in AP value over a range of merely 4 - its optimal anti-tank performance is in the
1- or perhaps 2 hexes range. Look at the figures in APCalc for that gun and generally ignore the "best" result as that is the once in a blue moon case.
The 37mm Puteaux is one of the
few (or only?) cases where AP round #2 (commonly called 'sabot') - is an especially slugged item. Its there for throwing HE and if you want to kill tanks - then you'll have to waddle up and place the muzzle against the enemy tank's paintwork, basically...
Andy