Thread:Defender7881/@comment-35115325-20190801022242/@comment-34517845-20190806035627

Alias3002 wrote: so, because I realized i hadn't looked at this stuff in a while, I actually read about it briefly

some spin can be beneficial to an APFSDS round in terms of accuracy, but the rate of spin from a rifled barrel is much too high and significantly decreases velocity on impact. As a result, smoothbores are preferred when firing APFSDS ammunition. The same is true of HEAT rounds, which also suffer in terms of penetrating power when rotating, though this can be compensated for by altering the shaped charge. HESH rounds purely benefit from rifling, and british tanks have their own kinetic penetrator similar to american APFSDS. However, they are basically limited to HESH and this penetrator, whereas smoothbore guns have a wide variety of munitions available. Pretty much, rifled barrel technology died after the 120mm smoothbore cannon was made.

Also, rifled barrels tend to wear more often, obviously.

And Golurk, the Challenger II is pretty much a British M1 Abrams (The II series didn't exist until 1998. The M1 was already around, in its new A2 version)