Best Tank Killer of WW2 continued

[Burmese Bandit]

Again and again and again and again and again I will say:

for those who want to know the actual accuracy of rockets against tanks right up to the 1970s....before the microchip revolution....I have this to say:

There's a reason why the A-10 warthog was designed with a 30 mm gun firing DU ammo with a humongous cartridge case!

[lesofprimus]

Amen..

[parsifal]

Im not going to get into this rocket argument, because i dont know. But in relation to the tank killing argument, it is indeed true that very few tanks were lost to air attack. However, in the case of the allied ground attack effort, whilst they were inneffectual against tanks, they were highly successful against soft skinned vehicles, trains, and personnel. The losses suffered by Lehr attest to that.

Since the Allied FBs were mostly equipped with bombs and rockets, and i know they were effective against soft targets, they cannot have been all bad. maybe it was the firepower that made them deadly????

One more thing....airpower generally was relatively inneffective in killing things. perhaps 5% of all battlefield caualties can be attributed to air attack. By far the most lethal weapon systems were artillery , follwed by mortars, followed by tanks, then small arms. Aircraft were a distant last in the overall lethality. What airpower exceolled at was the suppression mission. you didnt get killed unless you tried to move. If you were forced to move, the Jabos would swoop on you

[Clay_Allison]

Originally Posted by Burmese Bandit

Again and again and again and again and again I will say:

for those who want to know the actual accuracy of rockets against tanks right up to the 1970s....before the microchip revolution....I have this to say:

There's a reason why the A-10 warthog was designed with a 30 mm gun firing DU ammo with a humongous cartridge case!

Yeah, because it's AWESOME.

[drgondog]

Originally Posted by Burmese Bandit

Again and again and again and again and again I will say:

for those who want to know the actual accuracy of rockets against tanks right up to the 1970s....before the microchip revolution....I have this to say:

There's a reason why the A-10 warthog was designed with a 30 mm gun firing DU ammo with a humongous cartridge case!

You are right.. one slight modification.

The gun came first - THEN the A-10 was designed around it..

[drgondog]

Originally Posted by projob66

5 inch rockets are very very good. They drop little. Decent range. You can use the rudder in a last minute correction and it will for the most part work. Above all your time straight and predictable in the run is much less than with free fall weapons or 2.75. all good things... survivability is a key ingredient from the perspective of the cockpit.

By the time you get a 'read' on rocket impact point you are way past the original launch position and probably pulling out. Rudder no use at all for rockets, especially 2.75's. Even 5 inch, as more destructive, compared to 2.75s is still not a thing of beauty if 'perfectly straight' meets that standard.

The Zuni is a lot better than the WWII rockets but even it needs the forthcoming laser kit to be truly effective.

Cannon or heavy machine gun you can make some flight control alterations in time - maybe.

[SoD Stitch]

Rockets are definitely more of an area-suppression weapon, not something you plan on actually hitting something with.

[DerAdlerIstGelandet]

Originally Posted by projob66

5 inch rockets are very very good. They drop little. Decent range. You can use the rudder in a last minute correction and it will for the most part work. Above all your time straight and predictable in the run is much less than with free fall weapons or 2.75. all good things... survivability is a key ingredient from the perspective of the cockpit.

In what video game?

This is about real life, and as most people have pointed out they were not accurate at the time.

[Elvis]

Originally Posted by DerAdlerIstGelandet

In what video game?

LOL!

[imalko]

Originally Posted by Burmese Bandit

Again and again and again and again and again I will say:

for those who want to know the actual accuracy of rockets against tanks right up to the 1970s....before the microchip revolution....I have this to say:

There's a reason why the A-10 warthog was designed with a 30 mm gun firing DU ammo with a humongous cartridge case!

And I would have to agree on your oppinion about gun armament. Becouse of that I think that best tank killer in WW2 was Junkers Ju-87G Kannonewogell.

[Clay_Allison]

Originally Posted by imalko

And I would have to agree on your oppinion about gun armament. Becouse of that I think that best tank killer in WW2 was Junkers Ju-87G Kannonewogell.

Was the Ju-87 accurate enough to divebomb a tank with the swinging bomb?

[imalko]

Originally Posted by Clay_Allison

Was the Ju-87 accurate enough to divebomb a tank with the swinging bomb?

Junkers Ju 87 Stukas accuracy as a dive bomber was such that it was capable to hit target in radius of about 30 meters. (For comparison B-17s accuracy was about 150 meters off target.)

But Ju 87G was specially designed tank killer armed with two underwing 37 mm cannons and not with bombs, so it didn't performed its attacks as a clasical divebomber and even its underwing dive breaks were removed. (Besides in German language "kannonewogell" means "gun bird".)

The best of German Stuka aces - Oberst Hans-Urlich Rudel - destroyed over 500 Soviet tanks and large number of other vehicles operating this type of aircraft.

[lesofprimus]

Propaganda at its finest.... Half that number and its probably still too high....

I would rank the Ju87G-2 second behind the Fw190F-8 because of the survivability aspect... The Panzerblitz II set up was more accurate and devastating than the standard Allied 60lb, using the R4M motor...

Rudel himself was shot down many many times, too many times for me to appreciate the 37mm cannons lethality on the Stuka airframe compared to what the F-8 could do at ground level....

And it could carry bombs as well....

[imalko]

And Hans-Joachim Marseilles was himself shot down 17 times. Does that make him less of an ace or does it change the fact that he shot down over 150 Alied aircrafts?

I assume you are reffering on number of tanks destroyed by Rudel. I can only state the numbers I have found in literature (and that is around 500 tanks), but even if there was only a half of that number it still would be very impressive. Wouldn't be?

Ju 87G also could carry bombs if cannons were removed. And it could be easily done so if neccesary. Fw 190F had greater survivability becouse it was different category of aircraft derived from a fighter and not to mention that it was designed five years after Stuka.

For me it is incredible that even towards the end of war, when Stuka was already 10 years old design and outclassed by more modern aircraft, it was still able to hold its own and get the job done.

[davebender]

Not nearly as cool as a Tempest or Fw-190F. But this is the real tank killer of WWII.