SABOT rounds

[istol]

how these SABOT rounds actually work

do they compete against HEAT armor if so how strong is them is SABOT 30 more effective than HEAT 30 round ?

[Griefbringer]

SABOT rounds are kinetic penetrators, so they should not be affected by the HEAT armour in the game.

[Listy]

Sabot rounds are like AP rounds, just with different stats. I don't know if they're an exact clone of AP or not. As the Range increases, the AP score drops off. So firing at long ranges its better to use HEAT warheads. The Difficulty in this is that Ant-HEAT armours and ERA can cause the HEAT rounds to just ping off.

[istol]

so ERA does not protect from AP rounds ?

[Marcello]

In the game
Advanced ERA will protect against AP (when it works) basic ERA does not.
SABOT will face steel armor, not HEAT. In regards to effectiviness it depends. Against modern MBTs a Sabot with less penetration than HEAT may actually be more effective since they have much better armor against HEAT than against Sabot (the same applies in real life too).

[Suhiir]

Originally Posted by istol

how these SABOT rounds actually work

do they compete against HEAT armor if so how strong is them is SABOT 30 more effective than HEAT 30 round ?

To get back to the origional question...

SABOT rounds are basically a sub-caliber AP penetrator with a discarding casing (the sabot) of a lighter material to make them fit tightly in the bore of the gun. When fired this casing drops away, as it does so it increases the velocity of the penetrator (some physics thing I'll not get into).
Keeping good old E=MC2 in mind this increased velocity make SABOT rounds penetrate much better then normal AP, but as mentioned this penetration drops off with range.
In general an AP or SABOT round will have better penetration then a HEAT round of the same caliber at short to medium ranges. Also as mentioned neither is effected (except to some extent by the most advanced ERA HEAT armors) by HEAT armor.

The key issues are :
AP and SABOT have better penetration then HEAT at short to medium ranges.
The penetration of a HEAT round is not effected by range.
AP and SABOT are generally not effected by HEAT armor.
And, most importantly, AP and 'specially SABOT rounds, are difficult to manufacture and much more expensive then HEAT.

Thus while in general SABOT rounds are superior to HEAT cost means everyone uses HEAT against lighter armored targets (APC's and such) and saves the SABOT ones for opposition tanks.

[Marek_Tucan]

Originally Posted by Suhiir

Keeping good old E=MC2 in mind

Nitpick Not E=m*sqr(c) as the round does not annihilate and if it did, this energy is independent on velocity, but E=0.5*m*sqr(v) Also momentum is important, p=m*v

To add to theory, SABOT rounds tend o have different ranges in-game. Why? Because they are of different types and generations. To put it roughly, you can have:
APCR/HVAP (Armor Piercing Composite Rigid/High-Velocity Armor Piercing) - shot with subcaliber body and rings of light metal attached to it to seal the barrel (also called "arrowhead" etc.). Light, with penetrator from hard and dense metal (sually tungsten, or maraging steel). Used during and after WWII, effective at short ranges because their small mass combined with high drag (given by full bore diameter) slow them down considerably.
APDS (Armour Piercing Discarding Sabot) - designed by Brits during WWII, these have subcaliber hard and dense core and sabot that detaches upon leaving barrel, thus giving much lower drag to the round, apart from high velocity. In use for a long time.
APDSFS (or APFSDS) - Fin-Stabilised Discarding Sabot, "arrows" with fins on one end, tendency is to have them as thin and as long as possible. Thin to get the shot energy on a small area, long to get the mass required to gain the energy. Most modern penetrators have diameter of some 22-24mm. Materials vary, usually some tungsten alloy or tungsten or depleted uranium, though Soviets made rounds from maraging steel for export and training use (it seems that those BM-17 rounds were the only Sabot rounds used by Georgia in recent conflict and Russians didn't have much better, with HEAT being also 70's stock so bot side's T-72B cannot penetrate their opposite numbers from the front). Russian APFSDS also limited by short length of separate loading 125mm ammo. First generations suffered problems with stability, so new rounds often have lower velocity compared to the older ones, to be more accurate, and higher penetration is acquired by other means. Range-wise, the thinner the round, the longer range and less velocity drop it experiences.