Emmisive Armor for Dummies, please...

[tbontob]

Originally posted by LGM:
Some of the better combat systems I have seen have two weapon factors: Penetration and Damage. In world war two, there were two typical weapon types: Armor Piercing and High Explosive. Armor Piercing actually had little explosive power (usually none) but would penetrate the armor of a tank sending shell and hull fragments around the interior killing the crew, igniting fuel and ammunition. High Explosive would detonate on the outside and need a powerful enough of a bLast to get through the armor.

My understanding is that armor piercing shells were designed for heavily armored targets, whereas high explosive shells were designed for soft unarmored targets like troops, buildings etc.

As you mentioned, the armor piercing shells were designed to penetrate armor and thereby do damage. High explosive shells seldom did any major damage against heavily armored vehicles like tanks.

In the same vein, armor piercing were pretty useless against soft targets.

The above being so, the tank commander had to do some strategic thinking in determining the mix of shells he was going to carry for the upcoming battle.