Armour-piercing discarding sabot

Swedish "37/24 mm slpprj m/49" APDS projectile for the Bofors 37 mm anti-tank gun from 1949.
37/24 indicates full-calibre with sabot and sub-caliber without sabot — 37 / 24 mm (1.46 / 0.945 in).
Left object shows the projectile with sabot, central object shows projectile without sabot and the right object is the projectile's tungsten-core.

Armor-piercing discarding sabot (APDS) is a type of spin-stabilized kinetic energy projectile for anti-armor warfare. Each projectile consists of a sub-caliber round fitted with a sabot. The combination of a lighter sub-caliber projectile with a full-caliber propellant charge allows for an increase in muzzle velocity compared to full-caliber rounds, giving the round increased armor-penetration performance. To further enhance their armor-penetration capabilities, APDS rounds typically feature a hardened core made from tungsten or another hard, dense material.

For a given caliber, APDS ammunition can effectively double the armor penetration of a gun when compared to full-caliber rounds such as AP, Armor-piercing Capped (APC), and Armor piercing Capped Ballistic Cap (APCBC) projectiles.[1]

APDS-rounds were commonly used in large caliber tank guns up until the early 1980s, but have since been superseded by armor-piercing fin-stabilized discarding sabot (APFSDS) projectiles, which use fin-stabilization and can be fired from smoothbore guns.[2] APDS rounds remain in use for small or medium calibers, such as in saboted light armour penetrator (SLAP) ammunition.[3]

  1. ^ Shales, Julian. "WW2 People's War - Armour Piercing Discarding Sabot". BBC. Retrieved 10 December 2021.
  2. ^ an exemplary cut-away cross-section of the internal components of a 105mm APDS projectile
  3. ^ "ARMY AMMUNITION DATA SHEETS, SMALL CALIBER AMMUNITION, FSC 1305" (PDF). Archived (PDF) from the original on 2012-12-22.