Category:Ammunition types

Kinetic Energy

APC (Armour Piercing Capped)

A full-calibre armour piercing round with a soft metal cap to keep the penetrator from shattering when impacting the target.

APCBC (Armour Piercing Capped, Ballistic Capped)

An APC round with an added ballistic cap to make the round more aerodynamic. Developed in the 30s, and was prolific for large-calibre rounds during WW2, into the late 50s.

APDS (Armour Piercing Discarding Sabot)

A sub-caliber projectile, surrounded by full-bore "sabots" that are discarded when the round leaves the barrel. The sub-caliber round has a higher velocity than a full-bore round, and thus better penetration.

APFSDS (Armour Piercing, Fin Stabilized Discarding Sabot)

Unlike the APDS, which is fired from a rifled gun, APFSDS is designed to be fired from a smoothbore gun. The APFSDS is not spin-stabilized, but instead stabilized with a set of fins. Spin induces unwanted yaw on long penetrators, reducing their penetration power and accuracy significantly. Stabilizing the round with a set of fins allows the APFSDS to be longer than APDS rounds, and thus have higher penetrating power.

Chemical energy

HEAT (High Explosive Anti-Tank)

Uses a shaped charge to penetrate tank armour.

tandem warhead

Instead of a single HEAT warhead, this has 2 HEAT warheads mounted in tandem. This makes it able to penetrate tanks protected with explosive reactive armour.

top-attack

Unlike a regular round, a top-attack round is designed to penetrate the thinner roof armour of a tank and are generally some type of Explosively Formed Penetrator (EFP).

High Explosive

HESH (High Explosive Squash Head)

Designed to "squash" against armour before detonating, causing massive spalling on the inside of the armour. Also known as HEP (High Explosive Plastic).

HE-Frag

An HE round with strong anti-infantry capability; basically an oversize hand-grenade.

Dedicated Anti-infantry

Canister

These short range anti-personnel rounds generally contain several hundred to one-thousand round or cylindrical shot, and feature a "muzzle action", effective turning the tank gun into a giant shotgun.

Flechette

Also known as APERS or "Beehive" and containing several thousand aerodynamic sub projectiles, these anti-personnel rounds typically use a burster charge and mechanical time fuse, thereby operating at much greater ranges than Canister rounds.