Hi Boom
it's quite a big subject. Ian V Hogg's 'Encyclopedia of Ammunition' is a good starting point tho not specifically on tank ammo or WW2. The same author's 'German Artillery of WW2' is also useful as tank guns often had anti-tank gun versions and the book gives decent coverage of ammo, fuses and so on.
In short, nearly all tank guns fired two basic types of projectile - Armour Piercing(AP) and High Explosive (HE). The greatest variety was with AP ammo. The two main differences are:
(i) German AP projectiles were actually shells, with a small HE charge fused to detonate after penetration, while British and I think US AP projectiles were solid shot, with no HE. Both types started as plain AP then became APC (AP Capped, the cap designed to stop the round shattering on face-hardened armour) then APCBC (APC + Ballistic Cap, the latter to improve streamlining). German AP rounds are generally designated PanzerGranate 39 (PzGr 39), regardless of gun.
(i) the British 2pdr (40mm) and 6pdr (57mm) tank and anti-tank guns generally fired only solid shot, HE rounds not being issued, for the 2pdr at least.
There were also three other reasonably commonly-used anti-tank rounds:
1. HE Anti-Tank (HEAT) - this used a shaped charge warhead and had the advantages and disadvantages associated with that eg spinning in a rifled weapon tended to reduce the penetrative power of the penetrating jet but doesn't need fired from a high-veliocity weapon. The Germans made a lot of use if this, including issuing it to artillery pieces to give them an AT capability.
2. APCR (AP Composite Rigid) - called HVAP (High Velocity AP) by the Americans. Used in some weapons like the German 28mm light AT gun and the US 76mm (mostly reserved for Tank Destroyers) and many German tank and anti-tank guns but was often in short supply. This had a heavy tungsten sub-calibre core in a fixed sheath or carrier. Because it concentrated the kinetic energy of the AP round on impact onto a smaller spot it had higher penetration than the same gun's normal AP round; but because cross-sectional density was less, the velocity fell off faster and the extra penetration died off at longer ranges. German APCR rounds are generally designated PanzerGranate 40 (PzGr 40), reagrdless of gun.
3. AP Discarding Sabot (APDS) - a British development used by the 6pdr and later the 17pdr. Similar to APCR but the carrier - the 'sabot' - fell away after firing so the velocity didn't drop the way an APCR round's did.
Some nice illustrations of the different rounds here, which also give an idea of which wpn fired which round:
http://www.quarry.nildram.co.uk/tankammo2.htmPS just found this, in the World of Tanks site, you can search by different criteria. It's presumably a list of what ammo is available in WoT, so not sure to what extent it represents real-life availability for example it lists HE rounds for both the 2pdr and the 6pdr:
http://www.worldoftanksguide.com/cgi-bin/gun_db.cgi