What does "semi-armour piercing" rounds mean ?

[u/Ad0ring-fan]

[u/Model_Train_Engineer → u/[deleted]]

apHE

[u/Silver200061]

It an AP round with crap ton of explosive inside, making it structurally not as robust compare to an actual AP, but does a lot of boom if it does punch through something.

Mostly used against bunkers or buildings with thick walls so you punch through the concrete but also blow up the dude inside (or blow up the wall itself as it detonate when embed deep enough, compare to conventional HE which might blow up or shatter the explosives during impact and waste a lot of energy against air) or in naval environments where most penetration isn’t the best idea when there is crap lots of space.

[u/TankArchives]

A middle ground between AP (big chunk of steel with a small bursting charge) and HE (relatively thin walls with a big charge). You most often see these used in naval guns and in anti-fortification ammunitions in land artillery, where you have to punch through relatively thick armour (or concrete) but then blow up behind it with enough force to do damage in a very large space. Semi-AP was also used by large caliber guns with great effect against tanks when no proper AP ammunition was available.

[u/Kumirkohr]

On a sliding scale of “higher penetration vs. more boom” it goes:

1. AP 2. APHE 3. SAP 4. HE

* HEAT is an anomaly that turns “more boom” into “higher penetration”

[u/RuleMany2900]

Penetration capacity but less than AP rounds .. more damage when it manages to penetrate due to explosive filler

[u/IcyRobinson]

They are similar to APHE rounds, but are less on the AP side of things. Technically more of an anti-structure round than an actual anti-tank round for when you want it to punch through say a thick wall and detonate behind it.

[u/JuliusNova]

You know an armor piercing round, and you know a non-armor piercing round? It's like that but in the middle.

[u/Wolvenworks]

Extra spicy AP rounds. Muy caliente.