Homogenous armor is not in any case worse than face-hardened armor, that should be noted here. Thor_Hammerschlag 16 August 2013 at 10:58 However, it is necessary to collect more information, as this armour could still be surface hardened. If soft armour continues to be used, we must explore the question of ballistic caps. Use of these shells against soft armour is suboptimal. It is possible that the enemy introduced softer armoured vehicles knowing that the Allies use armour piercing capped shells. The three aforementioned vehicles were built for the purpose of long ranged combat. Perhaps the softer plates were introduced to remedy these problems. The combination of these two connections reduced the ability to produce a large number of armoured hulls. The three aforementioned vehicles have interlocking armoured plates to increase the strength of the welds. There might be a shortage of equipment capable of processing thick armoured plates. It is very possible that the very amount of armour overloaded the German capacity to manufacture it, and Germany was forced to utilize heavier manufacturing, usually tasked with manufacturing simple armoured plates.