More about AT aircraft - split from Best Tanks of WW2

Re: tigers

Very few tanks of any type were lost to air attack (at least on the Western Front). Examination of wrecked vehicles after the battles showed that the vast majority had been penetrated by tank or anti-tank guns - and that applied to Tigers as much as any other.

Tony Williams: Military gun and ammunition website and discussion
forum

 

The effect of aircraft Vs armoured vehicles has, I believe been somewhat exaggerated over the years. I think that they caused confusion & panic, more than they actually terminally destroyed vehicles. IMHO their greatest contribution was probably the destroying of the road & rail networks upon which the armour moved. And also the destroying of the fuel dumps & supply echelons that served the armoured units.

Tony, I read somewhere that on the Eastern front, more German armour was destroyed by artillery, than by tank/anti-tank or aircraft. Your comments please.

 

Note that the average column would be largely soft-skinned vehicles; cars, lorries and motorcycles, with a relatively small and probably quite thinly spread amount of tanks among them. Losses from air attack would easily be high, but those losses would rarely be actual tank losses. The troops being carried in those soft-skinned vehicles would add to the devastating reputation of tactical air strikes.

 

Both these Tiger Ausf.B's were knocked out by air-attacks, so dont come say that the Allied Typhoons etc.. didnt frequently take out German AFV's..

 

I would quibble the word frequently...
If you look up the Anti-Tank Aircraft topic in the Air Warfare category you will see various statistics etc pointing out that the rockets & bombs used by the Western Allies were far too innacurate to kill tanks frequently. If they scored a direct hit, they could and did make a terrible mess of a tank.
It is funny that, after the success of the twin 40mm cannon on the Hurricane, we did not bother with AT cannon on planes. Maybe we preferred to shoot up their suplies...

 

Well the 40mm cannon on the Hurricane could easely knock out the KingTiger, if the Hurricane decided to attack one !! The top armor of any tank is thin, and would without to much trouble be penetrated by the 30-40mm cannons on Allied Fighter-bombers...

KBO

 

Yes, they proved very successful in North Africa (admittedly their prey was mostly Pz IVs, but the Germans & Soviets did fine with 37mm)

I think it was felt that specific tank-hunting aircraft were all very well in the desert, but in the camoflage-rich French countryside would have a harder time finding targets. Plus of course the army might need you to knock over a bridge, or attack a defended area, or shoot some infantry, none of which a plave with AT cannon is particularly good at...

 

The number of tanks destroyed by Allied aircrafts was fairly low, primarily because of the great inaccuracy of the rockets used.

In total, 14 Tiger II were knocked out by fighter-bombers (hereof two on the eastern front), four were destroyed by aerial bombardment and five were lost due to freindly fire from German aircrafts.
In addition, one Tiger I was destroyed by fighter-bombers, along with 11 destroyed by aerial bombardments.

Not really an impressive total.

 

Yes and the rest of the Tiger I's were destroyed by Infantry AT weapons mostly, if i remember correctly.

KBO

 

The problem was the striking angle. The 40mm Vickers Class S carried by the Hurricane could certainly penetrate the roof of any WW2 tank, provided it hit at a very steep angle. But to achieve such an angle the plane would have to be practically in a vertical dive, from which it would have no time to recover. As the angle of attack reduced to something more reasonable, the penetration reduced sharply.

The normal attack profile for the Hurricane IID was a low-level run, in which case it was attacking armour at much the same angle as an anti-tank gun. It did have the advantage that it could fly around and attack the rear of the tank where the armour was thinner, but even so it proved incapable of knocking out the Tiger 1 tank in Africa, which is why it was withdrawn from service there.

Tony Williams: Military gun and ammunition website and Discussion forum

 

I would imagine that the Ju 87 was far better capable of performing such attacks, using its 37 mm. guns?

Christian

 

The BK 3,7 cannon had much better penetration than the Vickers 40mm because it used tungsten-cored Hartkernmunition, but one of the characteristics of that type of ammo was that penetration fell off even more sharply with the striking angle. This is a quote from 'Flying Guns – World War 2: Development of Aircraft Guns, Ammunition and Installations 1933-45' by Emmanuel Gustin and myself:

"The Hs 129 was not the only anti-tank plane in the Luftwaffe's arsenal. Equally famous was the Ju 87G, armed with two BK 3,7 guns underwing, mainly as a result of the activities of the phenomenal Hans-Ulrich Rudel, who was credited with destroying 519 tanks in his long career (as well as sinking warships and downing 11 aircraft!). The BK 3,7 was not a particularly impressive gun. It was a modified version of the FlaK 18 AA gun, was big, heavy and slow-firing in comparison with the NS-37, and the ammunition clip could only contain a maximum of twelve rounds (six and eight-round clips also being used). However, it was quite powerful and the tungsten-cored Hartkernmunition could be extremely effective, penetrating 140 mm / 100 m / 90°, although this reduced sharply to 70 mm at 60°."

Penetration also fell off sharply with distance, which is why a diving attack could not be used: the Stuka usually pulled out of its bombing dive far above the target, but it was necessary to get much closer with the guns, which is why the 87G also attacked in a low-level run. The weight of the guns would also probably have pulled them off the wings in the high-G dive recovery.

The photo below shows AP ammunition for WW2 aircraft guns. The BK 3,7 fired the 37x263B. The one at the bottom shows the bigger German ammunition. Both pictures come from the book quoted from above, and are also on my website where you will find an article ("Tankbusters") providing details of the WW2 airborne anti-tank guns and the aircraft which carried them.

Tony Williams: Military gun and ammunition website and discussion
forum

 

i read somewhere that the hurricane II D was called the can opener, it is true?

 

I've not heard that, but it might have been used informally. This nickname was used for the big-gun Hs 129, as indicated in another extract from FG:WW2

"The B-2 series of the Hs 129 concentrated on providing for the installation of large-calibre guns, bomb racks often being deleted. Although the MK 103 remained the standard anti-tank gun, a number of B-2s were fitted with the BK 3,7 described below, with twelve rounds. More famous is the B-3 version, fitted with the enormous BK 7,5 cannon derived from the PaK 40 anti-tank gun, aimed by a ZFR 3B telescopic gunsight. With this weapon installed, the MG 151 cannon were deleted to save weight. Only about 25 of these were built, being used operationally from the Autumn of 1944 until grounded by lack of fuel in 1945. The BK 7,5 featured a rotary 12-round magazine and could fire at about 40 rpm. It was normally possible to fire four rounds in one attack, starting at 1,000 m and finishing at 200 m range. Armour penetration of the big 6.8 kg APHE projectiles was 132 mm / 500 m / 0º (104 mm / 500 m / 60º) so the B-3 was easily able to penetrate the armour of the toughest Soviet tanks, earning itself the nickname of Büchsenöffner, or tin-opener."

The Ju 87G also had nicknames:

"As a result, the model, now officially designated Ju 87G but unofficially called the Kanonenvögel or Panzerknacker (Tank Buster) started arriving for regular service on the Eastern Front in October 1943."

Tony Williams: Military gun and ammunition website and discussion
forum

 

I read that it was standard Allied practice to call in Typoons if the armor had a pesky little Tiget/Kingtiger blocking its advance.

I have also seen a picture in a book called Fortress Europe, a tiger I completly overturned. Guess what took it out? Not a plane, not artillery (sorta), not even a heavy bomber on a carpet bombing run, but a salvo from the 16inchers on a US navy battleship giving firesupport. The coolest thing about battleship support is they can hit most anything with lots of huge shells really fast, as long as the target is within 20 miles of the shore. that means a battleship could shell my house from Penobscot bay on the maine coat. I live about 18 miles inland from the bay. The USS Iowa could take me out if it wanted! (Why would the navy send the Iowa after me? It would make more sense to send a plane.)

 

Your comment about naval fire is missguided.

Firstly if they tried to kill your house at 20 miles they would miss with the first shot. By a lot. Yes they would oblitorate the house they hit but the chances of it being yours are nil.

Then they have to spot the shell fall and fire again. If the guy that's doing this is sat on the ship with binoculars I would say that you could light the BBQ and get the sausages out as it could take a while before they hit you. Unless you are unlucky.

If the guy spotting is across the road with a radio then you probably still have time to go for a pee, before heading for safety.

Naval fire is devistating and I don't disagree with that.

Being hit by naval fire is just bloody unlucky. Especially if you are a tank commander minding his own business under a tree.

FNG

PS

Nazi ideology was scum. Everyone back then in Germany was a nazi as you had to be to survive. Being is not the same as doing. Read the history books before you make such stupid comments. This is a forum about technology and it's application and affect. Not about politics.

PPS

We now have a section dedicated to guns and gun size if you would like to redirct your post

 

Thats why battleships carried spotter planes...

The DDay fire control maps from June 1944 from the battleship Texas (Caen/ Cherbourg) are on display in the ships operations center in San Jacinto , Texas.

The recon photographs of their fire missions tend to give me an impression that they were effective in their actions. Additionally, the guns had 'ballistic computers'.


This "Hitler Jugend " piece has Panzer Meyers recollections on the subject..


While machine gunners and the Flak shot it out with enemy fighter-bombers, the entire area was saturated with naval bombardment from ships in the harbor clearly visible to Meyer.


search on the word 'naval' ..

(You can remember the radio links set up by the front line troops at Normandy. )


Finally, at 10:00 a.m. a group of fifty Panzer IV reported in. The rest were still on the way and oared not move until the cover of darkness shielded them from air assaults and naval artillery



http://mars.acnet.wnec.edu/~grempel/cou ... attle.html

 

I have also seen the upsidedown tiger photograph as mentioned above by.

 

A Bü 181
:kill:


Why did nobody talk about the "Schlachtflieger" using the Fw 190 F-Versions?
I think the Fw 190 was more or less the best AT-a/c of WW2. Rudel did not destroy all 519 russian tanks with the Ju-87, he also flew some of his 2.530 combat sorties with the Fw 190.

Regards,
Che.

 

This is the only 'overturned' Tiger I from anywhere in France. It was a direct result of aircraft bombing and nothing to do with naval gunfire.