While Main Battle Tanks have very thick frontal armor, the sides are usually quite thin to keep the weight within reasonable limits. Myth #2: Main Battle Tanks are completely invulnerable to autocannon fire M60A3 Patton armed with a 105mm rifled gun Accuracy and precision was not achievable, but this was later traced to fin burning problems that resulted from a sharp fin edge and the issue was corrected.Ĭurrent APFSDS rounds fired from rifled guns use slip band technology – the penetrator rods rotate only very slowly inside the barrel, which is why rifled guns firing APFSDS rounds are not more accurate than their smoothbore counterparts. Not all of them were initially perfect - the M829 (120mm) armor piercing, fin stabilized, discarding sabot cartridge had problems in initial production. New types of ammunition had to be developed, such as the armor-piercing fin-stabilized rounds where shell stability was achieved by making the penetrator in the shape of an arrow with fins. Early smoothbores were horribly inaccurate because it is the shell rotation that gives it its stability and therefore accuracy and rotation is only achieved by rifling the barrel. This common misconception is actually based on some historical truth. Myth #1: Rifled guns are more accurate than smoothbores This article aims to dispel some of them. Unfortunately, many myths were born amongst the correct pieces of information and have since spread as unsourced “general knowledge”. However, the appearance of the internet and tank-related videogames aroused interest in armor among the general public. Before we go over some of the most common tank myths, we wanted to extend a very special thanks to Tovarish for running a thread dedicated to this topic and to Nemo for his valuable advice!įor a very long time ever since the end of World War Two, armored vehicles were the domain of close-knit groups of historians and researchers.

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