"Tank turret ring armor" Topic

We all know turret rings are a weak spot on a tanks armor layout. However, I'm having a hard time finding information of the turret ring thickness for most tanks.

I'm considering using half of the turret armor if I can't find any values and penetration of 50% will jam the turret.

Any suggestions?

Thanks,
Wolfhag

I think it's not so much a part, like the mantlet or the glacis plate, but the join between the turret and body of the tank.

Jamming a turret doesn't so much rely on damaging the bearing or ring by going through the armor as much as getting the projectile or surrounding armor to intrude into that tiny gap between the hull and turret thus stopping rotation. This is the most common reason for a jammed turret with actual penetrating damage to the ring being like hitting the lottery

effective thickness will be difficult to establish because you have the body ring and the turret that fits inside it, in effect giving two thicknesses to consider.

I would be tempted to simply rely on the dice to give the effect you want – using something like critical hits or the 'to hit' dice generating the chance of a ring hit etc. Some systems, having got a hit, will differentiate between a mobilisation hit, gun hit and outright kill. Either way, designing it into the range of outcomes might make for an easier and fairer way to bring this extra dimension into your game.

Tractics-in general, 1/2 turret side value-if a round gets in it's usually over anyway, this generalisation stops low caliber rounds from affecting heavier tanks.

The turret ring is a "weak spot" as it is the join between the turret and the body of the tank.

For some reason (beyond my comprehension),this was recognised by the tank designers of the time and steps were made to protect the turret ring. There's a lot resting on the turret ring. (Forgive the pun).

What scale of game are you working at?

I don't understand what your question is to be honest. A jammed turret would be more likely due to an electric failure from a hit at another point, rather than a hit at the point between the tank body and turret.

You've not been watching Patton for your inspiration?

Is the turret ring really a weak spot? Consider that the turret is in fact resting freely in the hole and is moved about via gears and a ring and so forth. All fine. What I am finding hard to believe is that a shell that is many times lighter than the turret could cause significant damage in that spot. Sure there are pictures of tanks with turrets blown clean off. However, it was likely caused by a significant explosion…1000 pounds of ordinance dropped from a plain or the tank brewing up in a catastrophic fashion.

If it is a high velocity round (an 88 or a 17lbr) hitting a heavily armored vehicle (Churchill, Tiger I) I suspect it would go through that area like it would any part of the tank. That's just what happens. If it is a relatively low caliber round (a 37mm or short 50mm round) I suspect it will have great trouble doing anything significant to the tank whether it hits the ring or not.

Personally I think this sort of thing is overly hyped by one or two anecdotes.

The chance of actually hitting the turret ring is not easy, maybe 2 or 3%.
What we did in the past was any round below 75mm jammed the turret if it hit the ring. Anything at 75mm or larger was a penetrating hit. Keeps it simple.

Who asked this Joker.

wrgmr1.

Shall we let it lie?

And content ourselves with there is nothing like a stupid question as a stupid answer.

I try to help. Then wonder why.

Apologies didn't see the irony. iron, iro, ir, I!

There's a Tiger at Bovington with this kind of damage.

'On 21 April 1943, a Tiger I of the 504th German heavy tank battalion, with turret number 131, was captured on a hill called Djebel Djaffa in Tunisia. A 6-pounder solid shot from a Churchill tank of the British 48th Royal Tank Regiment hit the Tiger's gun barrel and ricocheted into its turret ring, jamming its traverse and wounding the commander. The crew bailed out and the tank was captured'

Wouldn't like to say how often it would happen.

link

Just noticed the round tumbled in off the barrel!

Knew the Bovington Tiger had been abandoned due to a turret ring hit. Had forgotten it was a ricochet off the gun barrel.

That would have gotten past the protective ridges added to various tanks over the years. Apparently some designers worried about them…

The chance of actually hitting the turret ring is not easy, maybe 2 or 3%.

I'm curious. Is the 2-3% based on data or is it just a guess? Not trying to be snarky or anything. I was just wondering how you came up with the number.

I don't think the issue is armor thickness, but distortion of the ring gear to the point it wouldn't turn. You only have to distort the ring a few thousands of an inch to jamb the turret. Every tank I have ever seen with the turret off has either thicker armor or a ridge protecting the ring. Modern tanks have a space between the turret armor and the ring to allow room for turret armor to bend without distorting the ring.

Cold steel,
Who asked this Joker may habe been polite. Looking at the picture supplied by leCM19 the ring looks to be about 20% of just the mantlet size. Assuming the arae of proability of a hit is all of the tank the turret has to be lets estimate at least 5 matlet rings wide and sat 4 deep. thats an area of 25 matlet rings so about 4% and that is an under estimate of the difficulty. The odds of hitting the barral in the right place would be about 100:1 on a mantlet so now say 20% of hitting the right spot (it can only go down and not that steep an angle so you grt 0.01*0.2 =0.002 or 0.2%. Not a lot and these crude estimates look to be underestimating difficulty of success. Like the lottery it happens but its not often enough to be statisticaly significant.

You have more chances to be murded than win the lottery, that brings level of risk we are proably talking aboutinto context. Not really whAT we are talking about but not credible without rolling a numbeR of D20's and them all being 1's.

Guys, thanks for the feedback. I already have hit locations figured out and it's not by a random % or rolling dice.

I was interested in data on armor thickness protecting the turret ring – if there is any armor there at all or maybe the turret armor should be used. I didn't have any solid info and though someone might. Like duncanh said many models had the ring protected, probably flush with the hull top but still suspectable to jamming. I guess what I'm really looking for is do certain model tanks have different turret armor thicknesses on the first 6 inches or so above the hull top other than the listed turret armor. Cast turrets can have variable armor thicknesses.

For example the T-34/85 (and most cast turrets) appears to have about 6 inches of the turret armor from the hull deck that is perpendicular to the hull deck before curving. Is that small area the same thickness as the rest of the turret? The Panther turret is not cast and does not have that as the turret front and side armor coming almost flush with the hull top. However, the Panther does seem vulnerable to a round getting jammed and penetration near an edge is more effective. So in that case probably a good rule would be a chance of a jam.

Also I think the Tiger 131 in North Africa they recovered from a jammed turret they were able to pull the 6lber round out and the turret worked after that. Looks as if a partial penetration jammed it.

FWIW I estimated the area of the front of a Panther turret that is between the mantlet bottom and hull top to be about 3.5% by comparing that area to the rest of the front aspect area.

Thanks,
Wolfhag

Wolfhag,
Having seen the odd tank up close in Bovington etc, vulneraqbility at the edge may be to the detrimental effects of welding at the edges. This extra heat and weld stresses would make the material near the edge less capable. I would guess the Germans being short on energy would not go overboard in anealing after welding.

UshCha,
I was referring to the edge effects when a round strikes within up to six calibers of the armor edge. In Livingston & Birds book on page 39-42 explains it and the penetration equations that Sandi Labs published in 1997 also takes into account edge effects. From what I understand the armor gives way more easily because it is not supported on the edge. I agree that certain types of welding on certain types of metal weakens it so that could account too.

Everything you want to know about German tank welding:
link

So far I'm leaning with the "turret ring" armor is basically the same thickness as the turret facing. With 50% penetration it jams. So I guess the turret ring is not actually hit but bent and jammed or the turret is bent inside the ring which would jam it or the round jams the between the turret and hull top effectively jamming the turret. They all work for me. That's how I see it. I agree, a lucky shot. Now I'll have to go back on my target graphics and highlight the areas suspectable to those hits.

Thanks,
Wolfhag

British tank crews were trained to aim for the turret ring, but I think that this was more about aiming for the centre of the target, rather than aiming for a particular weak-spot.

I think all gunners aimed at center mass or turret ring area unless they were close enough to aim and hit a specific weaker armored location. When you get within 200-300 yards of a static target under ideal conditions you can aim and have a fairly good chance to hit locations like hull machine guns and turret rings.

If a gun has a 1 mil accuracy (1 meter spread at 1000 meters) at 300 meters it would be one third of a meter or about one foot.

So if the vulnerable part of the turret for a turret ring jam is the bottom 3 inches of the turret my calculations show about a 20-25% chance to hit that with a 1 mil accuracy at 300 meters. At 100 meters it would be 60-75%. This is why the traditional generalized hit location charts that randomize a hit over the entire target area are not accurate or realistic unless the target is at a long range where the shot dispersion would cover the entire target. With a 1 mil accuracy that would be at a range of 2500 to 3000 meters for most medium tank targets. That's how I see it anyhow and why I think the characteristics of turret ring hits and protection are important.

Wolfhag