Logo from Scott Cunningham.
Logo from Scott Cunningham.
he first anti-tank projectiles to be developed were similar in design to Naval projectiles of the late 19th century. They were a full calibre cylinder of solid steel with an ogival head, and are called AP (armour piercing) projectiles. This simple design was sufficient to severly overmatch the thin armour used on vehicles before World War II, but rapidly became obsolete as vehicle armour increased and projectile designs improved. Nonetheless its simplicity allowed for rapid production and it was retained in many cases because industrial resources could not produce sufficient quantities of more sophisticated designs.
A cutaway of an APBC projectile. Note the solid body, truncated nose and the thin, light weight ballistic cap. From the Russian Military Zone.
Some AP projectiles were developed with a truncated nose or blunt tip, as if the end had been sawn off. Such projectiles were less prone to ricochet from highly sloped armour. The truncated nose also has better penetration above certain velocities, particularly when it overmatches the target armour plate and when the plate is prone to brittle failure.2 However the lack of streamlining adversly affected the projectile’s flight characteristics. So the blunt tip was covered by a light weight ballistic cap to improve flight characteristics and the projectile became known as an APBC (armour piercing with ballistic cap) projectile. This was a common projectile for the Soviet Army in World War II.
USA ammunition nomenclature in World War II did not recognise the addition of a ballistic cap, so it rather confusingly uses AP for an APBC projectile.
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