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This is a question I've always wanted to ask. When did sloped armour become a prominent feature on tanks? How was sloping tank armour 'discovered' as a viable defensive mechanic? Is there one tank in particular which points to significant advancements in sloping armour?
I'd love to know the answers to these questions.

Thanks

if you go by timeline the IS-1 was the first to take full on approach of that, and a serious threat to the tiger, just their luck the germans just made the king tiger ready with a bigger gun, while germans prefered to just add more steel on everything, while sloping was just done to safe a bit of space and weight. you can also see that up to m4/m6 the US tanks didnt go much into slopes, with the m3 lee the worst offender which was like a siege tower on tracks nearly upright sloping even on front (and large sillouette), but with t29 and pershing things surley changed a lot.

but mostly the brit/us design changes were from captured russian t-34, IS and t-54, as far i know the hungarian let the brit embassy study those tanks, and it influenced future tank designs of the western countrys



but if you insist of slopping at all: it was discovered already in the 16th with the upcoming gunpowder weapons as you can see with the central ridge on conquistator armor, which was in basic just to make the armor more sloped to the front and withstand rifleshots better (also those armors already used spaced armor techniques with being made of several layers to even further the strength)

This is what Wikipedia says about it.

Quote

Link:
http://en.wikipedia....i/Sloped_armour
Edited by FritzKrieg, 04 July 2012 - 04:51 AM.

The t-34 is the clasic example , developed in the late 30's but the BT-series before that had sloped armour aswell. BTW try take a look at the frence ww1 tank, Schneider CA1, it could be intentional or by chance but it has nicely sloped fromt aswell.

-When did sloped armour become a prominent feature on tanks?- My answer is sometime in the first half of WW2 when Germany designed Panther. After that all 3 of the Tank-powers (US, USSR, Ger) had recognised the walue and incorporated sloping armour on their tanks, Panther, T-34 and Sherman.

But we need to go way back to aniquity where sloping armour 'was discovered' as a viable defensive mechanism. In defensive arcitecture, a roundet surface or tower was able to deflect a shot that a flat sidet tower could not. A thing forgotten and rediscovered by europeans during the first crusade.
Similar, the heavy turnament armour of the midieval games, were designet to deflect the oponents lance, not stop it.

 KillSlim, on 04 July 2012 - 04:17 AM, said:

As far as I remember first sloped armor was on French tank. T-34 was the first tank that utilized it advantage on scientific basis. That's why T-34 and Tiger I are "Mother" and "Father" of modern tanks.

russian t34 was first who get sloped armor in ''action''! (BT tanks got some sloped armor as well but it wasnt so efective as on t34)

 Yamaxanadu, on 04 July 2012 - 10:12 AM, said:

Tiger I didn't have sloped armor... It was literally just thick 90 degree steel plate... not sloped at all.. You could say the Panther and especially the Tiger II were the Father's maybe..

 Sean473, on 04 July 2012 - 11:14 AM, said:

Tiger I gave to modern tank not a sloped armor but overall width-length ratio...

 Rhenaya, on 04 July 2012 - 04:26 AM, said:

Didn't the T-34 exist before the IS-1?

Anyway, I think we will never really know for sure who the first intentional users of sloped tank design was. Because not everything is intentional - I might design something and not know the full effect of it, but it might have looked nice.

But, as stated above, it is reasonable to think that sloped armour as a concept has been know for quite some time and in several industries.

 Yamaxanadu, on 04 July 2012 - 10:12 AM, said:

and how they got it on! i think no tanks got more penetration action than those too *coughs*

 Sean473, on 04 July 2012 - 11:14 AM, said:

he didnt say the tiger was the father because of the sloping, you know you can have your mothers nose but your fathers shoulder width etc :p



edit: IS was the first that toke sloping to extremes with a very flat design like most modern tanks look today, t-34 was still quite "bulky" compared.
Edited by Rhenaya, 04 July 2012 - 11:50 AM.

 Steffenkbh, on 04 July 2012 - 10:09 AM, said:

Mostly this really, except that in my mind, knights' armor were rounded to deflect a thrust, since the force delivered didn't limit itself to just the impact.
If you truly want to see first examples of sloped armor to counter cannon fire, take a look at star forts, and more specifically Vauban forts.

As for its use on tanks, I would say it's even earlier than the T-34, at the BT series shows some serious frontal slopes. Heck, even the grandfather of all tanks, the FT-17 shows signs of armor sloping, though I'm not sure if it's just an interior design choice, or made specifically to help with stopping bullets.

many interwar British designs incorporated sloped armor to some extent, matilda 2 for example though people rarely comment due to the less angular more rounded appearance of it, then look at the front of the light tank mk 4 etc or the med mk2

 Steffenkbh, on 04 July 2012 - 10:09 AM, said:

The German panther design was based on studies with captured Soviet T-34's...

There are plenty of sources that claim sloping was implemented earlier, but the Soviet T-34 was the first active tank during WW II to use sloped armor as a defensive measure. And it proved to be very effective against the early German tanks like Pz III and Pz IV.
Edited by AliceUnchained, 05 July 2012 - 09:54 AM.

The first tank that had sloped armour is the first tank ever built 'Little Willie' followed by the British Mk 1 in WW1. Both had sloped glacis plates and lower front armour.

As to how much it was a design feature to protect the vehicles who knows, I would assume it would help deflect incoming rounds and shrapnel by shape rather than the protection from increase of line of sight armour thickness.

Pre WW2 many nations tanks and armoured cars featured sloping armour to one degree or another, it was not a new idea. The first tank to probably claim the title of all round use of sloped armour, being produced in significant numbers and used in combat would be the T34 (itself based on BT series test vehicles which adopted the sloped armour from the Christie tanks).

The whole thing was probably made up a lot earlier.

Some medieval armours were designed to make swords glance off.

 Tigger3, on 07 July 2012 - 05:47 PM, said:

Let's say that T-34 was the first tank which had the rationally sloped armor. Not by design but by calculation.

 Sean473, on 04 July 2012 - 11:14 AM, said:

That seemes to have been a very deliberate choice at the time though as the Germans were already well aware of the combat advantages. Tiger I manual (got the PDF somewhere) included instructions for the "Mahlzeitstellung", which is basically on-the-go sloping of armour.

As someone here mentioned earlier, the 'sloped armor' case was well-known before first tanks even appeared.

Contrary to popular beliefs it offers no weight benefits, while making tank interior more crampy. Moreover tank's engineering, factory machining and field repairs are more difficult. That's why it wasn't popular before WW2.

The are benefits of sloped armor, but they became meaningful once anti-tank weapons reached certain level of firepower. I am not exactly sure, but I believe high speed, high kinetic energy shells are more likley to bounce or shatter on a sloped armor.

 Exocet6951, on 04 July 2012 - 12:50 PM, said:

We can agre that it was roundet to deflect an impact, but what forces are you thinking of other than the impact?

On the trace italienne topic. Let us just say that Sébastien Le Prestre de Vauban are perhaps the best known. But he was late, born more that 100 years after the first starforts were build in nothern italy, and in no way a pioner. He was more of a perfecter (if that word exist).
Allso remember that the wast majority of deffensive arcitecture from that era are earthern works, designed to absorb not deflect shots.

ameircan civil war sloped armour was used on the monitor type ships ( watched a program on discovery about it once ) so its benefits must have been known even then!