HEAT & SABOT Rounds

HEAT -- High Explosive Anti-Tank round.  Used for lighter armored targets. A shaped inverted explosive charge with a copper lining that once detonated forces a molten copper jet into the tank at up to 25 times the speed of sound, liquifying the armor and penetrating the crew compartment. Despite producing only a small hole in the armor, the fire and copper can have devastating consequences inside the vehicle.

HEAT - High Explosive Anti-Tank Round

APFSDS (Armoured Piercing Fin-Stabilised Discarding Sabot). Used for Tank targets, this is a high-kinetic “dart” made out dense material such as depleted uranium or tungsten steel. The Sabot allows the dart to be fired from a large calibre gun at high velocities. Once fired, the round sheds it’s outer jacket giving it a disproportionate high charge/propellant level to projectile weight/drag ratio. This provides massive energy transfer to the dart which travels at hyper-velocity to the target, penetrating the armor and instantaneously generating massive heat and pressure.  As the long rod penetrator enters the vehicle friction with the armour plate creates burning incandescent spall which sprays the interior. The burning spall has an explosive effect.

APFSDS (Armoured Piercing Fin-Stabilised Discarding Sabot)

Video showing the difference between HEAT and SABOT rounds used by the Abrams Tank.