WWII Ostfront Bullet Ballistics

Panzer War doesn't need an analysis of bullet ballistics for an infantry vs. infantry fight. Only the abstract killpower is ever used.   The ballistics might be used in machinegun vs. armor contest but that is fairly limited.
However, in the computer game Panzer Command the ballistics are needed because unlike PW the infantry unit has to be hit before the kill-power can be applied. 

So I am going to have to run the bullet ballistics of infantry weapons.   Starting out I'll analyze the primary weapon systems of the Ostfront rifle squads.  This is the 7.92mm K98k rifle of the Germans and the 7.62mm Mosin-Nagant rifle of the Russians.  The cartridge of both can be used in the squad machine-guns.  So in effect the ballistics of the squad machine-guns will be taken into account as well. 
This is not an easy search.  There is only one place I found that had the ballistic firing table of the K98k.   Hopefully this is a WWII era bullet. 
As can be seen there is a heavy bullet and a light bullet.   The heavy bullet the s.S. Patrone was used during WWII while the light bullet was discontinued in the 1930s.
Also this site shows the armor penetration of the K98k of 5mm at 100 meters and 3mm at 600 meters
As with all German armor penetration tables we have to assume this armor is at a 30° angle.  And the values are given for a 5 out of 5 chance of penetrations, i.e. 100% chance to penetrate.  Or, at least a ~92% chance.     

I found only one ballistics firing table for the Russian Mosin-Nagant. This has a number of different bullet choices.  The one that best matches data from a 1947 pamphlet that included a  Marksman chart is the M91 Finnish bullet.  We can't assume the Soviets were using Finnish ammunition during WWII.   However, this is in 1947 chart so Soviet quality could have improved. 

The ballistics does match the time-of-flight of the chart for each range except at 100 meters.  At the same time the M91 Russian bullet has the same ballistic coefficient.  So this may be a computer generated table.

The Marksman chart has a armor penetration value of 6 mm for vertical armor at 100 meters.  As with most Russian armor statistics it usually is for the Certified criteria which is an 80% chance to penetrate.
In both cases the rifles penetrate 85 cm of pine wood at 100 meters.  That would mean 6mm of Russian steel is equivalent to 5mm of German steel.  Not likely on this scale unless the German steel was at a 30° angle.

The penetration numbers do give an idea of the armor penetration at 100m.  I also ran a simulation of penetration using Nathan Okun's armor penetration formulas on homogeneous armor.   This doesn't use lead bullets so I used a ratio of steel bullet penetrations.

Generated firing table and ballistic chart of K98k fired 7.92 x 57 s.S. Patrone 197.5 grain heavy ball round (760 m/s,  B.C G1=0.576).

Generated firing table and ballistic chart of Mosin-Nagant fired 7.62 x 54 148 grain Type L light ball round (865-870 m/s, B.C. G1=0.363).

Mosin-Nagant accuracy.   According to the Marksman site the group spread at 800 meters was a width of 52cm and height spread of 65 cm.  This is equivalent to 65 x 81.25 at 1000m.  However, this is a 70% zone.  To convert a 70% z to a 50% z we have to divide by 1.55.  Thus our 50% zone would be 0.419 x 0.5226m @ 1000.

The carbine with MV of 800 m/s was 67cm x 81 cm or 83.75 x 101.25 or a 50% zone of  0.54 x 0.653.




The DP-28 machine gun with either the light bullet or heavy bullet is well documented and the references are included below.

So how would this translate to PCO if included in the game?   The tables on the right give some idea. 

Furthermore vehicles and guns would have to be changed to show armor factors to the nearest millimeter and not as it presently does to the nearest 0.5 mm.

20mm & 7.62mm DT MG  L ball bullet pdf
100mm & 7.62mm DT MG D ball bullet pdf

Generated firing table and ballistic chart of Mosin-Nagant fired 7.62 x 54 185 grain Type D heavy ball round (800 m/s, B.C. G7=0.246).