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Old March 11, 2013, 09:55 PM   #91
James K
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Join Date: March 17, 1999
Posts: 24,383
The .50 was a scaled up .30-'06, or at least Browning said it was, and I think he should know.

But in the area of small arms, it is pretty awesome. It won't penetrate a modern tank, of course, but it will do serious damage to lighter armored vehicles.

Note: AP ammo does not penetrate armor through pure force, like a .22 punching a hole in a can. The bullet is stopped by the armor, causing a massive energy dump and melting the steel, allowing the AP core to penetrate. But to do that, the armor has to be thin enough that it doesn't act as a heat sink. If it does, the core will just stick in the armor as it "freezes". There was a German tank turret at Aberdeen with dozens of .30 AP cores sticking in it, sort of like a pincushion with sort pins.

Jim
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