Tigers destroyed by 12.7mm guns?

From the air.

A book of mine claims that the P-47 Thunderbolt was capable of destroying tanks with guns only, even tanks as heavily armoured as the Tiger. I know they sank a couple of German destroyers, but how did they knock out Tigers?

My book doesn't explain. Except for saying that sometimes the rounds from the Thunderbolt's guns would ricochet off the ground into the less protected underbelly of the tank.

 

I assume the angle of approach would expose the turret top and more inprotantly the engine top at the back which I would have thought wouldn't have been heavily armoured as it's impossable to hit with normal AT weapons.

FNG

 

The stories of 0.50 cal. machine guns destroying tanks are nonesense. They might be able to damage the engine, but there is no way they could penetrate the armour of the Tiger.

The pilots of the Allied aircrafts beleived that they could penetrate the hull floor by shooting into the ground, and the ricchocheing the bullets up into the tanks. There are no records of this actually succeeding, tough, and for a deflected bullet to penetrate 20 - 40 mm. of steel would call for a higher caliber than 12.7 mm.

In the Ardennes, there are armoured turrets for observation bunkers, which have been showered with .30 and .50 cal. machine guns, none of which actually penetrated.

The pilots also claimed several submarines, because they fired at the submarines, which then dived (since the aircrafts might bring bombs as well, or could call for backup), which the pilots then believed meant that the submarine sank. To assume that a .50 cal machine gun could penetrate a hull capable of resisting the pressure of several atmospheres is rediculous.

Christian

 

Shoot up a tigers engine though and crew bail then yes it's a type of success.

But I agree that the mechanics of these cannon penetrating the armour of medium and heavy tanks is just not going to happen.

As for the bouncing bullet idea, was the under hull of a tank thinner than it's top? I would have thought it would have some thickness to protect against mines? Whoever came up with that idea must have been mad or hopelessly optimistic.

FNG

 

I heard that American pilots had the technique of firing rounds into an open hatch down to a science.All that Yankee ammo careening around inside a Tiger is bound to do some damage.

 

These the same American pilots that couldnt tell the difference between a Tiger and a Sherman? But could stick a round through the open hatch at 300 mph and 500 ft?

Those fly boys, you have to love em.

FNG

 

Absolutely!!!

 

I heard that the .50cal machine gun would in theory be able to penetrate up to 30mm of armour, which would suffice to penetrate the top of most tanks.

 

I can imagine that the angle of deflection would be fairly high as the planes would come in fairly flat or at a shallow dive and the tank top is also flat. This would have a fairly negative effect on penetration values.

Did the allies use any type of specialist AP round on the guns or just standard rounds?

FNG

 

Also consider that only 13 Tigers and TigerIIs have been known to bedestroyed by fighter-bombers. That's about 6.8 % of the total known combat causes. Not really that many...

Christian

 

I have seen film of Japanese transports being litterally sawn in half by 20 mm from a B-25 Mitchell.

The P-47 did have eight guns, I could imagine them cutting off threads, and rockets.


>Also consider that only 13 Tigers and TigerIIs have been known to be destroyed by fighter-bombers.


Link?

I think that a salvo of 6or more 500 pound (225 kg) bombs would damage a Tiger, I have seen pictures of them intact, upside douwn in a massive old tree.

The P-47 could be used as a dive bomber and the 50 cal was ~ +/- super sonic. I have also heard the Tiger fuel system was known to leak, a phosphorus tracer round could explain this.

Eight fifties could blow up a train locomotive in a variety of scenarios.

 

On the way back from raids, pilots shot up targets of opportunity, which led to the realization that the P-47 made an excellent fighter-bomber. Even with its complicated turbosupercharger system, it could absorb a lot of damage, and its eight machine guns meant it could cause a lot of damage as well. Armor-piercing rounds could even chew up a German Tiger tank, smashing into the relatively thin top armor on top and bouncing off the road to penetrate the belly.

Gradually, the P-47 became the USAAF's best fighter-bomber, carrying 225 kilogram (500 pound) bombs, sometimes with extended "daisy cutter" fuzes to provide greater blast effect against exposed targets; napalm tanks; the triple-tube M-8 11.5 centimeter (4.5 inch) rocket launcher, which was inaccurate; and eventually the much-better HVAR. Thunderbolts were one of the mainstays of the USAAF in tactical support of the Normandy landings, and continued the tradition through the rest of the war, destroying thousands of tanks, locomotives, and parked aircraft, and tens of thousands of trucks and other vehicles.

http://www.faqs.org/docs/air/avp47.html

I dunno how authoratative this is

 

Besides their bomb and rocket payloads, the P-47 and the Typhoon both boasted powerful gun armaments. The Typhoon had four 20mm Hispano cannon. The P-47 carried eight .50 cal. machine guns with 400 rounds per gun, and it proved "particularly successful" against transports. The machine guns occasionally even caused casualties to tanks and tank crews. The .50 cal. armor-piercing bullets often penetrated the underside of vehicles after ricocheting off the road, or penetrated the exhaust system of the tanks, ricocheting around the interior of the armored hull, killing or wounding the crew and sometimes igniting the fuel supply or detonating ammunition storage. This seemed surprising at first, given the typically heavy armor of German tanks. Yet Maj. Gen. J. Lawton "Lightning Joe" Collins, Commander of First Army's VII Corps, was impressed enough to mention to Quesada the success that P-47s had strafing tanks with .50 cal. machine gun fire.

http://www.usaaf.net/ww2/dday/ddpg8.htm

 

I guess we have to wait for Tony to show up to get a definitive answer, but I believe the P-47 usually/often carried a mix of rounds including regular, armour piercing and incineraries ( sp? ). The P-47 was a stable gun platform and a good shot could saturate a slow/non-moving target like a tank easily with rounds from his eight 12.7mm MGs. If a few of those rounds managed to penetrate the engine deck, through the grille perhaps, I don't find it unthinkable that they could cause an explosion effectively putting the tank out of business.

As for Tigers, I just remembered that Americans had a tendency to call all German heavies 'Tigers', including the more numerous Panther. But it's no less impressive with a Panther.

 

http://ww2aircraft.net/forum/viewtopic.php?p=24614

45 FORUM PAGES ABOUT THE BEST TANK KILLER AIRCRAFT IN WWII

IL 2, TYPOON, STUKA, P-47 ETC

 

Stonewall
The P-47 did have rockets, but they were notoriously inaccurate, having an accuracy of only about 2 %.

I'm not sure what you mean by 'link'.

It is true that some Tigers also fell victim to bombs. 15 in total, that are known, so about the same as the fighter-bombers (which means that the total number of Tigers destroyed by aircrafts on the western front was 28. Add to this the two Tigers which are known to have been destroyed by fighter-bombers on the eastern front, and the total if 30 Tigers to have been known to be destroyed by aircrafts.
In all firness, though, the Germans lost five Tigersto friendly firefrom aircrafts on the Russian front, which you may want to add. (Quite embarassing or the German pilots, that they destroyed about 14 % of all Tigers destroyed by aircrafts).

Christian

 

I think all of the above needs to be passed through two "accuracy filters", being Tigerphobia and air kill claims. The first honours the fact that all German tanks were seen as Tigers by many Allied ground and air crew, probably because the Panzer IV is easily mistaken for a Tiger at first glance due to hull shape. Therefore, a claimed kill of a Tiger could very well actually be a knocked-out PanzerIV, which had much thinner armour and was much more common in German armoured units. The second filter applies especially to ground attack aircraft, which were very prone to overstate kills in their after-action report, probably because they'd only had a quick glance of the havoc they left behind which must have been shrouded by smoke and dust. Even though literally thousands of tanks have been claimed as air kills, the actual number is hardly higher than a few dozen per type, of what I've seen presented on these forums.

If you keep these two "filters" in mind, not much remains of the vaunted AT capacity of the .50cal, though I do believe it must have been effective against light armour and soft-skinned vehicles.

 

link= any supporting pages or quoted sources

I got the impression the IL-2 Strumovik (sp) 'Tank Buster' was built by the thousands..like 40,000

Why was this plane known as the "tankbuster" built in such great numbers if only a few tanks were killed by all types of aircraft in WWII.

as far as accounts of operation Cobra go,


I guess a few hundred B-17s did nothing to Panzerlehr, or was it the 116th Panzer on 17 July 1944?


hmmm

like I said here are 45 pages debating the 'best tank buster' in WWII..

and 40,000 IL-2;'s were built for nought?

41,129 were built by the war's end


http://www.nasm.si.edu/research/aero/ai ... yushin.htm

 

I would suggest you get Ron Klages' Trail of the Tigers, which has the most comprehensive record of the fate of the Tigers published.

I don't know where the Il-2 got its reputation from, and I don't know how it performed against other German tanks than the Tiger, but two Tigers destroyed is all that is known to have been destroyed by Il-2s.

You can refer to as many discussions and articles as you'd like, it won't change the numbers. I won't read through the discussion you posted, since forums are generally inaccurate, being filled with a lot of self-proclaimed experts.

Christian

 

?Also consider that only 13 Tigers and TigerIIs have been known to bedestroyed by fighter-bombers. That's about 6.8 % of the total known combat causes. Not really that many... ?

> the Allied Typhoons and P47s were friends of British and American armored forces, they also proved implacable enemies of German armored, mechanized, and infantry forces. This was an aspect of Warfare - the airplane as enemy of the tank - that even the formidable Fuller had failed to prophesy. In opposing offensive mobile armor, as in North Africa, the fighter-bomber was of limited use. Now, as German armor typically lay in defensive ambush, or retreated in tight columns, the rocket- or bomb-loaded fighter proved devastating.

ANOTHER PIECE
Investigation of the incident illustrated the parochial interests in battle. Patton criticized the air support commanders for lack of fighter cover and particularly for their failure to stop an enemy tank advance.

http://www.usaaf.net/has/jops/cas_kasserine.htm

>ihmmm why has Patton bitchn? only one dozen tanks were ever killed by close air support you say..


By May Allied air forces, including the determined close air support units, helped the Allied ground forces corner 270,000 Axis troops in northeast Tunisia. Allied air finally dominated the Axis air forces, compelling all but a few scattered fighter units to operate from Sicily and Italy.


Introduction of the fighter-bomber, fighters with bomb racks and extra armor, promised more effective attacks on the small well-protected targets favored by the ground forces. The new aircraft type, developed from combat experience, was also important as a symbol for the joint air-ground operations team. The close air support portion of the theater tactical air forces now had an aircraft specifically identified for ground attack. The air support command no longer relied only on fighter and light and medium bomber units that were also responsible for other Army Air Forces missions. Furthermore, now close air support was a more clearly defined mission of the theater tactical air forces, even if it held a lower priority than air superiority and battlefield isolation missions.

The military and civilian leaders in Washington and London and the commanders in the Mediterranean Theater were generally pleased with close air support doctrine and practice, even though the debate over allocation of resources and precise points of force control continued among staff officers. Eisenhower appreciated the new centralized, more personal style of air support, although he worried that he was not effectively transmitting his thinking to the field commanders. New doctrinal points did not flow systematically through successive commanders. American inexperience, individualized field generalship, differing opinions about command, and enduring prejudices prevented a smooth transfer of close air support lessons. Much might be blamed on poor coordination of doctrine between theater and field staffs. The different viewpoints of theater and field and those of brigade, division, and corps levels were not bridged successfully. Inadequate command and control systems caused problems. The newly declared independence of the air forces, at a time when tactics and organization for air warfare were changing rapidly, put additional strain on the air-ground relationship. Air and ground leaders had to continue the struggle of forming a cooperative corn bat team



oh well they were happy, even though with a few hundred thousand fighter bombers, and I emphasize BOMBERS, they only killed 12 tankks in six years of war...?

hmmm

The P-47 did have rockets, but they were notoriously inaccurate, having an accuracy of only about 2 %.


later versions faired much better

>2% - could you supply supporting links or sources for your comments

I dont want to site 'facts' without back ground and context

http://www.usaaf.net/ww2/dday/ddpg8.htm




Both fighter-bombers had, for their time, prodigious weapons- carrying capabilities. Both could lug up to a 2,000-lb bomb load, one 1,000-lb bomb under each wing. Typically, however, both operated with smaller loads. A P47 would carry an external belly fuel tank and one 500-lb bomb under each wing; many were also configured so that the plane could carry air-to-ground rockets, typically ten 5-in HVARs (high-velocity aircraft rockets). P47s on an armed reconnaissance mission would usually operate three flights, two armed with a mix of bombs and rockets, and the cover flight carrying only rockets. Over 80 percent of the bombs dropped by P47s during the European campaign were 500-lb weapons; less than 10 percent were 1,000-lb bombs, and the difference was made up by smaller 260-lb fragmentation bombs and napalm. While acknowledging the spectacular effects and destructiveness of rockets, the AAF considered bombs more effective for "road work" due to accuracy problems in firing the solid-fuel weapons.



The British, on the other hand, preferred rockets, the Typhoon carrying eight having 60-lb armor-piercing warheads. Possibly this difference of opinion stemmed from launching methods; the P47s used "zero length" launchers while the Typhoons used launch rails. It could be expected that the rails would impart greater accuracy, stabilizing the rocket immediately after ignition until it had picked up sufficient speed for its tail fins to stabilize it. (There is, however, an interesting report from Montgomery's 21st Army Group that questions the alleged success that British air-to-ground rockets enjoyed against tanks and motorized transport.)


I dunno, I would say many tanks were killed by fighter bombers.

I would be hard pressed to try and dispute my own pre concieved notions on that.

Maybe you can, but betwen the Il-2, The Tempest/Typoon and the P-47 I would say many german tanks were killed by aircraft in WWII.

Some fools have suggested the tank was obselete...

We all know better, but a popular notion none the less.


6.8 %

If Tigers were produced at about 5,000 units including Koenigs and Ferdanhand T.D.'s etc, then 3% would be 150 destroyed

for example

5000 @2 % =100

etc



There may certainly have been exceptions, but for the most part airframes
had some scores of hours on them in training before they ever saw combat.
This would have been especially true of NINTH AF aircraft at that time, as
they had been undergoing intensive operational training as well as being
deeply involved in preparatory ops. I don't say it couldn't happen, but in
a film I would rather have seen something more representative. I imagine
that the owners simply didn't want their nice planes messed up.

>Additionally, at no time in the attack are rockets seen. There only three
>or so explosions. The rockets would have certainly fired in salvoes of
>two or, if singly, more than one in an attack.

Standard doctrine was to salvo the whole load of rockets at one time, six
generally for a P-51 (although ten might be carried if the mission called
for no bombload). The hit probability was miserable with a salvo, and worse
for single launches -- see below.

>When subsequent P-51s are in the scene the explosions occurjust after the
>planes pass overhead. Rockets would surely have exploded well in advance
>of their arrival directly overhead. In only one shot would it be able to
>discern rocket rails on the P-51s.

Actually, rocket performance in those days was remarkably poor.
Readily-available propellents had very limited Isp and economical rocket
airframes did not permit high propellent mass fractions. Most of the NINTH
AF's rockets at the time of Normandy were 4.5" M8s, which had a burnout
velocity of only 850 ft/s -- about M 0.75 at s.l. (Even the Navy's 5" HVAR,
which was available to the USAAF in quite limited quantities at that point,
only got to 1,300 ft/s, or about M 1.2.) Burn rate of course was very much
a function of temperature; on a warm day in June the 4.5" would have been
good for about 13g over a total burn time of about 2s. Thus at burnout it
would have been only about 850 ft down range relative to the launching
aircraft, neglecting air friction.

If we assume that the launching aircraft was approaching at about 300 TAS =
450 ft/s then the rocket will burn out about 1,750 ft down range of the
launch point at TOF = 2s. Again neglecting air friction it will be about
3,000 ft = 1,000 yd down range from the launch point at TOF = 3s. This was
the maximum range allowed by doctrine. To fly the same 3,000 ft the
aircraft will take 6.7 s, so it arrives over the target 3.7 s after impact.

Spec dispersion was 15 mils, implying a CEP of about 45 ft at 1,000 yd.
Thus the Phss will be of the order of 1%, and the cumulative hit
probability for six rounds will be of the order of 6%, under test-range
conditions. Thus assuming that the pilot was highly skilled and that
everything worked right, there was about one chance in 17 that he could
make a hit. With two aircraft firing, you would expect about one hit in
nine attempts. Of course the odds of hitting something in a multi-unit
formation were better, and this was how the weapons were normally used. But
when you are in tight spot, you try whatever you have.

I conclude that the dramatic save by the P-51s was somewhat more plausible
than the rest of the film's scenario, but not at all representative.

I didn't care much for anything beyond the first 20 minutes of SPR, but to
each his own taste.

Will O'Neil

http://lists.ibiblio.org/pipermail/wwii ... 07083.html

seems fairly divided

I think they improved the rockets as time went on..





others do however agree with you