Re: Need Expert on armor-piercing

Duke of URL wrote:
Murfreesboro, Tennessee (AP) -- When US soldiers need to penetrate a tank's armor from a mile away, they count on a weapon that evolved from the garage tinkering of a former wedding photographer.

[This sounds fishy to me, since even anti-tank weapons have difficulty puncturing the armor; Does anyone in here know for certain if this is true/false?]

The article doesn't say what kind of tank. It would no doubt penetrate the gas tank of a typical truck. Doesn't that makes the statement true? Surely you don't doubt the part about Ronnie having been a wedding photographer.

However, a .50 BMG rifle even with tungsten core SLAP ammo won't penetrate the armor of any modern battle tank at point blank range, yet less at a mile. SLAP has the best downrange armor penetration of any .50 BMG round though it's accuracy isn't spectacular.

Part of the article is correct. A .50 BMG rifle is treated the same under Federal Law as other centerfire rifles with the same style of action (bolt action or semi-auto). Some states (California for example) treat it differently. Just think of .50 BMG as a 30-06 with four times the muzzle energy, four times the bullet weight, and about 50% more supersonic range because of the higher ballistic coefficient bullet. At a mile there are many lighter rifles which are more accurate, have flatter trajectories, and at least as lethal for anti-personnel use.
(7mm STW, 300 RUM, 338 Lapua, 408 Cheytac, et al)

In my opinion that article was intentionally anti 50 BMG with some glaring errors. Besides overstating the ability to penetrate armor, another blunder saying that a Browning .50BMG (M2HB) couldn't be fired from the shoulder because of it's recoil. In reality the recoil of an M2HB is very mild because it weighs around 100 lbs. It's because it weighs too damn much to lift, has no shoulder stock, and the trigger (butterfly) is at the very rear that it can't be fired from the shoulder! I shoot a .50 BMG Carbine which weighs only 24 lbs from the shoulder, standing, sitting, or prone, with no problem. It has a decent muzzle brake.


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