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"Ball M2 AP"
No such thing. Bullets are either "ball" (plain inert bullet, usually in US service a lead core and gilding metal or gilding metal plated steel jacket), or a special bullet, like AP or tracer.
It is often said or written that AP bullets penetrate solely due to the hardness of the bullet and its velocity. That is not really true; the US AP bullet has a core of carbide inside a gilding metal or steel jacket, with the interior space filled with lead to lend weight.
When the AP bullet strikes armor plate, the outer jacket and lead filler instantly give up their kinetic energy in the form of heat, melting both the bullet exterior and the armor plate. The carbide core then penetrates the molten plate. If the plate is too thick, it will absorb the heat before the plate softens and the bullet core will not penetrate.
In the Aberdeen Proving Ground museum there is (or was) a German tank turret which had been hit by at least a dozen .30 AP bullets.* Of course, none of the bullets penetrated that thick armor, but they did melt the steel enough that the bullet cores stuck when the steel solidified. The turret had the look of a man's face with odd-looking stubble.
Jim
*In WWII, standard combat issue for riflemen was black-tip AP; ball was normally issued only for training stateside. The issue of AP was due to the need to penetrate light vehicles and aircraft; no tank worth fielding would have been penetrated by a .30 AP bullet.
JK
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