Best Tank Killer of WW2 continued

[DerAdlerIstGelandet]

Originally Posted by OGGleep

The A-10 is my favorite aircraft by far. I couldn't imagine being in a ditch in some desert watching 2 circle in for their attack run on my position.

I imagine a C-130 would have the same "crap in my pants" factor only you probably wouldn't notice them until everyone around you starts imploding.

Ever notice that the title of the thread is "Best Tank Killer of WW2"....

[OGGleep]

Yes someone mentioned the A-10 so I chimed in =)

[DauntlessDriver]

Hmmm... how about the Thunderbolt? Or are we talking specifically designed planes here?

If we're talking about specifically designed planes, then my vote couldn't be with the Stuka... good, sound frame, but without any fighters, it was target practice.

I'd have to go with the "Tiffy."

[kool kitty89]

The Typhoon wasn't designed for ground attack though, it just happened to fit that role very well, like the P-47.

And the only main problem with the P-47's anti-tank ability was not a design limitation, but the standard weapons. The USAAF's main ground attack rocket was the 4.5" rocket launched from bulky 3x cluster "bazooka tubes" which were inaccurate and performance degrading. The 5" HVAR were much better and could be launched from simple wing racks (Zero length launchers) which had almost no effect on performance, there were eventually fitted to the P-47, particularly the P-47N. The Corsair was using these much earlier though. (the NAVY being the major user of the HVAR)

And the P-47 was included in the Poll as well: http://www.ww2aircraft.net/forum/pol...2-a-12055.html (The Best Anti-Tank Aircraft of World War 2....)

[DauntlessDriver]

Ahhhh.... I undershtand now... I zink I'll go take an Adveel!

[Mitya]

The best tank killer Il-2 & Il-10. И хикакин!

[DerAdlerIstGelandet]

Why dont you state your reasons why?

It is hard to start a discussion when someone just states that "said acft is the best".

[Mitya]

Originally Posted by DerAdlerIstGelandet

Why dont you state your reasons why?

Why? Just me. Ok?

[DerAdlerIstGelandet]

Great conversation starter...

[Waynos]

I would choose the Typhoon due to its heavy armament of 4 20mm cannon plus rockets or bombs, heavy tough structure (just look at the thickness of those wings, how did Camm think he was designing a replacement for the Spitfire???) and 400mph top speed.

True, it wasn't designed specifically for the role, but if it had been, it should have looked exactly the same

[buzzard]

I think that the P-47 was the most effective tank-killer. The Typhoon was unreliable, and demanded a huge amount of maintenance. It was also more susceptible to battle damage, and the exhaust gases leaking into the cockpit didn't help much either...

The Il-2/10, Ju 87 and the Hs 129 were all easy meat in the presence of enemy fighters. the Jug may have been at a disadvantage vis a vis the German fighters down on the deck, but it could still acquit itself quite well, and by the summer of '44, the caliber of the average LW pilot was no match for the Americans.

Fast, tough, reliable, and armed with 8 .50s, 500 lb bombs, rockets, and napalm, the Jug was the best.

Incidentally, I've read that due to a design flaw in the Tiger's air vents, many Tiger crews were slaughtered by .50 cal. bullets ricocheting around the crew compartment. Can any Panzer buffs confirm this?

JL

[Tony Williams]

Originally Posted by buzzard

Incidentally, I've read that due to a design flaw in the Tiger's air vents, many Tiger crews were slaughtered by .50 cal. bullets ricocheting around the crew compartment. Can any Panzer buffs confirm this?

Another baseless legend...

The Typhoon and P-47 were both great fighter-bombers, well able to destroy a range of ground targets, but they were both quite useless at the specific task of tank destroying. The reason was the same in both cases: their guns weren't powerful enough to knock out tanks (except very rarely, by chance), and the rockets and bombs they carried were far too inaccurate to hit a tank (except occasionally, by chance).

When the British Operational Research teams examined Panzers left on the battlefield immediately after various 1944 battles in Northern France, they discovered that very, very few of the knocked-out tanks had been hit by air attack. On average, the Typhoon and P-47 units claimed about ten times as many tanks as they actually destroyed.

To consistently knock out tanks from the air in WW2 required one of two different tactics: one was to saturate the area with bombs dropped by vast fleets of heavy bombers (this did work in Normandy, but was very inefficient). The other was to fit large-calibre high-velocity guns, which were far more accurate than rockets. The Hurricane IID and IV were very good at this, but the 40mm guns weren't powerful enough to deal with Tiger tanks. The Ju 87G was effective in Rudel's hands at least, the Hs 129 was probably the most accurate, but suffered from poor performance.

[buzzard]

While it's true that Allied fighter-bomber pilots made grossly exaggerated claims, this hardly makes the P-47 (and others) 'useless' in the anti-tank role. Numerous accounts by the panzertruppen tell a very different story...

Tanks are not aircraft or ships. They do not crash or sink when damaged. A knocked-out tank that is not totally destroyed can often be recovered and put back into action. the Germans were masters at this. Even after the saturation bombing of the heavies, many of the damaged and overturned tanks were rapidly put back into action. I agree that the effects of the rockets have been over-hyped, but the 500lb bombs used by the Jug did not require a direct hit to knock out a tank. And IIRC, most of Rudel's kills were made with bombs much smaller than that...

Napalm was an extremely effective weapon against the WWII tanks, and had it not been in such short supply, it would have made the Jug even more effective. Certainly more so than the sitting duck Hs 129. In any case, even the heavy cannon armament of the Henschel and the Ju 87-G was not a guarantee of success. They still had to hit the areas of vulnerability to ensure the complete destruction of the tank.

The BOR teams were on the battlefield after the enemy had been driven off by land forces, so it's not surprising that most of the tanks they examined were destroyed by the same. And since a force retreating under the harrassment of ground and air attack does not always have the luxury of recovering its damaged tanks, many repairable AFVs were left behind. Do the reports mention how may of the tanks found had been previously damaged and repaired?

"quite useless", indeed

JL

[Tony Williams]

I looked into this in some detail for Flying Guns – World War 2: Development of Aircraft Guns, Ammunition and Installations 1933-45. These are some relevant extracts:

The fighter-bomber pilots pressed home their attacks with great courage throughout the campaign despite the often ferocious light FlaK which caused loss rates far above those experienced by fighter units (one Typhoon squadron suffered 100% casualties in an eighteen-month period). They were confident that any German tank they spotted was as good as dead, and they earned a considerable reputation for tank killing, with substantial claims being accepted. However, British operational research (OR) carried out at the time (but not publicised for obvious reasons) presented a more complex picture.

As the Allies were advancing, intelligence officers were often able to examine a battlefield shortly after an air attack, and what they discovered causes controversy even today. (Much of this section is taken from Ian Gooderson's "Air Power at the Battlefront", which explores this issue in great detail).

The evidence gathered by the OR teams indicated that very few tanks were destroyed by air attack. A British War Office analysis of 223 Panther tanks destroyed in 1944 revealed that only fourteen resulted from air attack (eleven to RPs and three to aircraft cannon). During the Mortain battle of 7-10 August, the RAF and USAAF launched sustained attacks on a German armoured column over a period of six hours, claiming 252 German tanks destroyed or damaged in nearly 500 sorties. It was subsequently discovered that there had only been a total of 177 tanks or tank destroyers deployed by the Germans and just 46 of those were lost, of which only nine could be attributed to air attack (seven to RPs and two to bombs). During the German retreat from the Falaise pocket later in August, the RAF and USAAF claimed 391 armoured vehicles destroyed. Shortly afterwards, the battlefield was examined and only 133 armoured vehicles of all types were found, of which just 33 had been the victim of any sort of air attack. In the retreat to the Seine, large numbers of armoured vehicles were left behind and Typhoon pilots alone claimed 222 destroyed, but only thirteen out of 388 AFVs examined were found to have been knocked out by RP attack. In the Ardennes salient, just seven out of 101 knocked-out AFVs were definitely or possibly attributed to air attack, compared with claims for 90. It should be noted that in the prevailing circumstances of a continuing retreat, there was no question of the German Army having recovered any damaged tanks in these later actions, in fact the battlefields were often littered with undamaged tanks abandoned by their crews.

One source estimates that probably no more than about 100 tanks were lost due to hits from air weapons during the entire Normandy campaign. In contrast, the RAF's 2nd TAF (including elements of the Air Defence of Britain which took part in the campaign) and the USAAF's 9th Air Force lost over 1,700 aircraft between them.

And on the subject of the accuracy of bombs and rockets:

In contrast, one direct hit with a bomb or 60 lb RP meant certain destruction for the heaviest tank. However, their accuracy left a lot to be desired. Even under practice conditions, the hit rate for the RPs against tanks was no better than 5%. This was graphically illustrated by a demonstration put on by Typhoons against a captured Panther tank placed in the middle of an open field, helpfully painted white with large red crosses on it to make sure the pilots could see it. Of the 64 RPs fired (launched in a typical steep dive at ranges of 750-900 m), only three hit the tank. In battle, RP accuracy was considerably worse than this, with the official British calculation of hit probability against a single tank being 0.5% (in other words, 200 RPs had to be fired for each hit). Furthermore, some 20 – 30% of RP warheads failed to explode.

And:

Bombs were even less accurate than RPs. An analysis of Typhoon bombing attacks revealed that only 50% of bombs dropped landed within 120 m of the target, with an average radial error of 144 m. The absolute minimum safety distance from friendly troops for P-47s dropping bombs was about 250 m. The probability of dropping a bomb close enough to a tank to disable it was extremely small. Napalm bombs were used later to some effect, but were an even greater hazard to any friendly troops in the area.

[Kruska]

Hello TW,

German records show a similar picture regarding attacks of Allied Ground Attack a/c’s. The Alarm call; “Tiefflieger” (Low Level a/c attack) horrified many Wehrmacht soldiers to such an extent that even some tank crews fled their tanks upon hearing this, some got subsequently killed (being exposed) and therefore intact tanks were left behind.

Due to the massive destruction of soft/light armored vehicle columns, infantry formations, trains or artillery emplacements the alarm call “Tiefflieger” contributed largely to even panic reactions by many Wehrmacht formations, also due to the reason that the majority of the units deployed against the western allies were of inferior quality and mostly non-combat experienced.

Many undestroyed tanks were simply left behind, because the fuel supply trucks and the repair maintenance crews and vehicles had been destroyed during the attacks. Many tank commanders were inexperienced and simply lost direction, upon receiving information that bridges had been destroyed by allied ground attacks (only very few were able to support a 40t + tank in this period) especially in France, the tank crews were even ordered on many occasions to abandon their tanks.

Even though the a/c themselves were not particularly very successful in the “direct” immediate destruction of tanks, it would still be their overall battlefield contribution that in return caused the Wehrmacht to lose considerable numbers of tanks.

As such the western allies did not really have “tank buster” a/c but as I mentioned in another post, I would refrain from separating/dividing the mission task of Ground Attack into strafing and anti tank role.

As for the question; best Tank Killer I would still forward the Hs129 despite the argument of underpowered engines. It had about the same speed as the IL-2 but was far more maneuverable then the IL2.

I do not have much information, if not to say almost none, but I do not recall that the Hs129 suffered under allied a/c in the North Africa campaign more than a Ju87 or Bf110.

Regards
Kruska