I've been reading quite a bit about the development of armour shielding and tank defence and I came across a story of a tank ace (Wittman maybe?) putting a round through the barrel of an enemy tank to effectively put it out of service.

Now, I'm wondering if modern tanks have taken armour for the barrel of the tank into account with their new designs or is it left unguarded?

If left unguarded then it would seem to me that the proper munition could effectively put the main gun out of commission with a well placed shot and that in increasingly urban environments, getting close enough to make that shot would be more feasable then say, in a fielded battleground.

So does anyone know about barrel shielding or is the barrel left bare?

iam pretty sure it was witman, ive heard that story before

Frank

According to the book "Panzer Aces", it was Hermann Blix in his Panzer IV shooting into a KV 1. The book says he did it several times after witnessing his 75mm rounds bouncing off the KV1's armor plate! Great book by the way. (If Whittman did do it, I haven't gotten to that part yet. :-) )

Jesse

I wonder what the odds of shooting at the barrel and hitting it are I would think chances are very low in being able to hit it I say that because a barrel would be such a small target

I'm inclined to agree with Chad, this is more along the lines of fluke shots rather than a deliberate aimed shot. I've seen photos of a Pz IV barrel with a shot hole through it from the side which must also be a fluke.

In the book, Blix moved in to point blank range and told his gunner to shoot the barrel. I'm just going by what the book says. Still, pretty neat thought!

point blank range???

wow, i'm guessing the crew of the KV1 was sleeping or something :-)

Compared to the rest of the tank, the barrel is such a small target that deliberately aiming at it is a last resort. And a desperate one at that.

Holed barrels in pictures of KO'd tanks are very rare, I can only think of a handful.

wow, must be some gunner (if in fact it wasnt a 'fluke' shot) I wonder if anyone has shot a round INTO the barrel :-) :-)

I don't know about INTO the barrel, but I have personaly seen several instances of civil was bullets that met in mid air! Now that is cool stuff to imagine.

You have to figure that statistically some tank somewhere was knocked out by an extremely lucky shot that sheared off the gun tube or holed it.
Like Jesse said about the civil war musket balls hitting each other: With that lead flying around it was bound to happen occasionally.
Aimed shots for the main gun manlet or the gun tube would have to a last ditch effort, I would think. Heck, if you are close enough to think you could actually hit the gun tube, why not just ram them?

Just my thoughts,

Shaun