Whilst in Somalia ,our Canadian troops in LAV Cougars destroyed a cache of T-55s/54s with their 76mm HESH rounds,While seeming not to have penetrated the outer skin, the interior spalling effect was enough to deduce it would kill/disable both crew and vehicle.The spalling scabs were literally dinner plate to 1/2 metre in size.Against older armour HESH is a very effective anti-armour round.HESH will also be very useful in scouring large areas of reactive armour tile,exposing hull/turrets to more lethal fire.
Old exported T54/55s didn't have modern layered armour so HESH would be very effective, but even the field expedient of adding an extra layer of armour spaced from the main armour would defeat HESH and render it useless.
And when you are firing with HESH rounds upon an ERA covered tank it wan't make any difference if there is ERA or not, since rifled guns are not capable to provide any firepower to have a good effect on hard armored targets, while you are wasting time firing HESH rounds upon the Enemy he will do it with actual ammunition that can penetrate armor.
Not strictly true... the ERA should act as a layer of spaced armour so the spalling effect would be defeated and the vehicle left operational... so you got your first shot with your 76.2mm gun and you have no chance of penetrating... now they get a shot at you with their 100mm rifled gun... you might be in trouble if they know what they are doing... fortunately as often as not they didn't.
The Bundeswehr maintains large stocks of HESH,and nobody thought a 76mm gun could kill a t-55 on the front glacis at any decent combat range.As for the hesh effect,throw a ball off silly putty at a contoured surface and watch the spread...imagine this over a large surface of ERA tiles.Im not saying it will kill a modern MBT but it allows older,less capable systems a chance to play a role on the battlefield.
Against non armoured targets HESH is effective enough... it can demolish walls, or take out trucks and heavy non armoured vehicles.
As you mention, it gets its effectiveness from spreading on the target and then detonating with the shockwave travelling through the targets armour with light elements of the internal armour flaking off and bouncing around inside the tank with lethal effect... the problem is that if you have ERA blocks on the outside of the tank the spalling will occur on the back of the ERA blocks directly onto the main armour and will not penetrate into the crew compartment. The crushing effect of the HESH will not blow the ERA blocks off the vehicle they will more likely just compress them against the main armour and render the ERA ineffective for the next hit. The chance of hitting the target in the same place with the next shot is very low, and you have just alerted the target to your presence.
It would make rather more sense to try to work your way round to a flank and try to kill the tank with APFSDS rounds... or use a cheap missile like Metis-M1.
The relatively cheap and simple addition of anti spall liners also makes HESH rather less effective... any hit where the projectile comes within about 10% of penetrating the tank armour can create spall in a tank so anti spall liners are actually rather commonly used.
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