Best Tank Killer of WW2 continued

[Lightning Guy]

I'm not claiming that the Il-2 was a wonder weapon but I do believe it was the best tank-buster (at least best aircraft designed as a tank buster). And my point about the rear gun was that it did have a higher level of self-defense than any of its German opponents.

[Erich]

how could it when the mode of attack against the Il-2 was to get under it and shoot out it's cooling system. Some of the hot shot pilots of JG 52 came up with some hihg scores against these Soviet a/c

[lesofprimus]

Does anyone remember hearing about the German Luftwaffe using Napalm????

For Tank Busting???

[Erich]

yes they had it but not for destroying tanks

The IL-2's VYa 23mm cannon were more than capable of taking out most German armor on the E. front during the crutial first two years of the war on that front. German tanks had relatively weak top and rear armor. The SH37 mounted on the 1943 IL-2M3 and on the 1944 IL-10 was capable of penetrating 48mm of tank armor at 500 meters, and was reliable to kill German medium tanks even from the side, and heavy tanks from the rear.

The Hs129 was also an excellent tank killer, though it's low performance was a major weakness. It is hard to understand why the German's were not able to take the lessons learned with this plane and make a much superior successor plane?

I still think the most effective plane was the P-47 or P-38 (or any other plane) delivering naplam, which was nearly 100% effective in taking out targeted tanks. I suppose the P-38 was probably the best for this, as it could carry two large napalm bombs.

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Lunatic

Originally Posted by lesofprimus

Does anyone remember hearing about the German Luftwaffe using Napalm????

For Tank Busting???

No. The Germans had something called an "oil bomb", but it lacked the expansion and stickyness characteristics of napalm, and did not reach the same high temps or cover so wide an area. It was used mostly against British cities, and to a small degree against troops (with minimal success). I believe these bombs were basically cooking oil and a little kerosine to make it ignite better.

The Germans tried using the oil bombs in combat before the Allies started using napalm, but did not pursue it.

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Lunatic

[CharlesBronson]

In mi opinion the best was Henschel Hs-129 equiped with the maquiavelic Sg 113 magnetic-triggered recoiless rifle.




It was a litle slow but very well armored.

[mosquitoman]

Is it a bit like MAD equpiment on Catalinas with retrobombs designed to fire backwards?

[mosquitoman]

MAD=Magnetic Anomaly Detection

[lesofprimus]

Ive read that the MAD gear in use for this kind of use was not altogether trustworty/reliable.....

[Lightning Guy]

I would be skeptical of using MAD for something like these. Even modern MAD sets have to be fairly close to a submarine to detect it. And a submarine creates a much larger magnetic field than a tank. The idea was ingenious, but not very successful in practical terms.

[mosquitoman]

It probably works fine if there's a big group of tanks clustered together but it probably wouldn't work on a single tank

Originally Posted by mosquitoman

It probably works fine if there's a big group of tanks clustered together but it probably wouldn't work on a single tank

The nature of the weapon was such that it would be useless against anything but a single target. I suspect it required the aircraft to fly very close above the target tank. The problem is that it would have been totally dependant on proper positioning of the attacking plane, and in general it's pretty hard to see a tank sized object from low level flight well enough to line up such a weapon. It would fire even if the plane were a little off to either side, thus requring at least 3 rounds be fired (one direct, one to each side) to give much chance of hitting a tank target, and even then odds of a kill would be somewhat limited.

In my opinion, Napalm was the best ant-tank weapon, followed by clusters of large numbers of small bombs (as used by both the Soviets and the Germans), followed by anti-tank cannon such as the NS-37.

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Lunatic

[CharlesBronson]

Indeed, it was for single target only.

A plane without those complications: The reliable Junker Ju-87G-2.

Here a rare video of a Stuka Attacking Russian Js-2s in Hungary, late 1944.

Originally Posted by CharlesBronson

Indeed, it was for single target only.

A plane without those complications: The reliable Junker Ju-87G-2.

Here a rare video of a Stuka Attacking Russian Js-2s in Hungary, late 1944.

I seriously doubt that is real combat footage. It looks like a German propaganda film to encourage its troops. For one thing, the dive angle is too steep to be effective. For cannoning tanks you needed to make a much lower attack run.

The problem with the Stuka (or the IL-2/10 or Hurri-IID) was the plane was extremely exposed to ground fire while making its attack, and was quite vulnerable to enemy fighters, and results were dependent on many uncontrollable factors. Far less than a 1:1 ratio of attack runs vs. tanks killed was achieved. If you check into it, I would bet you will find something greater (probably far greater) than a 5:1 ratio of anti-tank sorties vs. tanks killed. It was just not that easy to get a good opportunity for a tank kill, often battlefield smoke and dust made it nearly impossible.

With napalm, and to a lesser degree the cluster bombs, one fighter could make a high speed pass and have an extremely good chance of killing the target tank(s). The area of effect was so huge it did not require the precision of cannon, and even the heaviest tanks could be destroyed from any angle. Napalm also had the advantage over cluster bombs in that no special dispensers were necessary.

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Lunatic