Is there any reason why HESH is less effective at overpressure than HE?

[HeatedWafflez]

This seems incredibly odd. It's a directed explosion and shockwave towards the interior of a tank. Shouldn't this be more effective if anything? Instead, the complete opposite is true, HESH is much less capable of overpressure than HE.

Why can't it work like HE initially, and if it isn't able to overpressure given its explosive yield, it instead behaves like HESH where it checks if it's able to penetrate armor and then creates scabbing.

What is the theory behind making it less effective than HE anyways?

[Chaoslink]

Depends on what you're overpressuring I'd imagine. If its open top, it shouldn't matter, but if you mean the kind of overpressure that gets through roof armor or something, it'd likely be because the explosive from HESH is designed to be a shape charge that will focus the blast directly on armor. Think kinda like the explosives that police might use to blow out just the hinge on a door or something like that which wouldn't damage the surroundings.

Basically, the pressure from the blast isn't going down through the roof armor, its only being directed at the armor directly, meaning there isn't really pressure going towards that part of the armor. If the armor you're hitting is super thin, it should still work as normal theoretically. Consider the explosion to be something like a cone rather than a sphere.

That's how I imagine it'd work anyway. Note, I have basically no experience on it though as I don't play a tier where HESH exists.