Tank Busting Armaments... Whats The Best Setup???

[Tony Williams]

Well, he CLAIMED 519 tanks. When the tank-kill claims of Allied fighter-bomber pilots were copmpared with evidence found on the battlefield, it was found that they overclaimed by 10x...

Tony Williams: Military gun and ammunition website and Discussion forum

[cheddar cheese]

Wow really? That would mean he only got 52 tanks...

[Tony Williams]

He probably did better than that, since the Ju 87G's 37mm guns were far more accurate than the rockets and bombs used by the Allies.

Tony Williams: Military gun and ammunition website and Discussion forum

[the lancaster kicks ass]

when using 60lb rockets accuracy isn't a huge issue, they'll destroy anything within a adaquate radius...............

[cheddar cheese]

Good point.

[Tony Williams]

Originally Posted by the lancaster kicks ass

when using 60lb rockets accuracy isn't a huge issue, they'll destroy anything within a adaquate radius...............

Nope. You had to score a direct hit with an RP to knock out a tank (with bombs you could do it with a near miss). And the chances of that? In training, they could get up to 5% hits. In combat, this was officially estimated to drop to 0.5%. In other words, one hit in 200 rockets. That's why they didn't knock out many tanks...

With big guns firing aimed single shots, the claimed hits in training were between 25% and 60%. Accuracy would have reduced in combat, but by nothing like as much as rockets as guns were easier to aim.

Tony Williams: Military gun and ammunition website and Discussion forum

Originally Posted by the lancaster kicks ass

when using 60lb rockets accuracy isn't a huge issue, they'll destroy anything within a adaquate radius...............

5" HVAR (General Purpose):
length: ~ 6 feet (1.83 m)
diameter: ~ 5" (12.7 cm)
weight: 140 lbs (63.5 kg)
payload: If I recall correctly about 20 lbs of RDX. This warhead was housed in a steel casing capable of penetrating 1.5 inches (3.8 cm) of armor or 4 feet (1.2 meters) of reinforced concrete.

There was also an anti-armor verson but I don't have specifics on it.

The point however is, even with the 5" HVAR, which was much more potent than the 3" rockets, you had to hit the tank to have a chance of disabling or killing it. In Korea, they found they had to hit the tank on the side, and the most common result from a single hit was to knock off a track not to "kill" the tank. Usually these were fired in salvos of 4 or 8 rockets at a single tank, and several hits were likely to kill it. The T-34's were about equivalent to German WWII tanks, perhaps a little tougher to kill because of the diesle engine (German tanks burned gasoline), but the rockets were also improved with shaped charge warheads.

The 5" HVAR's were actually pretty accurate, a skilled pilot could hit a stationary tank most of the time with a single rocket in ideal conditions. In post war competitions using a P-51, the winner put 10 of 10 HVAR's in a 10 foot radius circle, the 2nd place finisher scored 9 of 10 "hits". During WWII (and for most pilots in Korea), pilots had to learn to hit with these weapons in combat, there was no training for this, which probably explains why so many were not very good with them. And of course, conditions were generally not "ideal".

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Lunatic

[Tony Williams]

With the RAF's 3 inch RPs, the average miss distance in action was around 60 yards (tightening up to around 40 yards or so later, with better sights). With bombs, the average miss distance for the Typhoons was 120 yards.

Tony Williams: Military gun and ammunition website and Discussion forum

Originally Posted by Tony Williams

With the RAF's 3 inch RPs, the average miss distance in action was around 60 yards (tightening up to around 40 yards or so later, with better sights). With bombs, the average miss distance for the Typhoons was 120 yards.

Tony Williams

I don't know about the British rockets, but with HVAR's they were fairly accurate. Pilots who used them say a tank on the field of battle in Korea could be hit one in three passes with single shot salvos, one in two passes with a salvo of 4. This was after they had experiance in firing them, early on they did poorly since they were not well trained with rockets. The best approach was from about the 4/8 oclock position at 30 degrees.

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Lunatic

[MP-Willow]

But guns were still better. The only problum is the rpg coun t for the guns and rate of fire. I am a strong supporter of any platform that will keep its guns or rockets over the battle for long times.

Originally Posted by MP-Willow

But guns were still better. The only problum is the rpg coun t for the guns and rate of fire. I am a strong supporter of any platform that will keep its guns or rockets over the battle for long times.

I'm not so sure guns were better. Hitting the tank with guns was not so easy either, and often hitting it did not take it out, and to do so you had to get in close. Rockets (5") almost always took out a tank if it was hit squarely. The idea is to get in, kill the tank, and get out, without having to make a lot of passes. For this, 8 x 5" rockets were ideal. One plane could take out 1-2 tanks with a fair degree of reliability and relatively little exposure to ground fire (compared to using guns).

Figure it would take 4 rockets to have a 50% chance to take out a tank. It would probably take 3-10 shots with a cannon to do the same job, depending on the conditions, the cannon, and the type of tank. With rockets, you make a high speed pass and fire from about 750 feet altitude and about 1500-2000 feet distance, with a gun you have to fire from about 100 feet altitude and about 750 feet or less distance, and lower speed.

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Lunatic

[Tony Williams]

You have to remember that we are talking about WW2 technology, when rockets were new and not very good. The USAAF's P-47s had RPs but made relatively little use of them, normally carrying bombs for ground attack, which suggests that they didn't find their RPs very effective.

The pattern of gun attack varied considerably depending on the plane and the nature of the target. The Hurri IIDs normally began firing at 900m from the target (3,000 feet), getting in about four shots per gun (each pair of shots being aimed individually) before pulling up to avoid hitting the tank. The Ju 87G normally had its guns zeroed at 450m (1,500 feet) but Rudel reduced his to 100m when the JS heavy tanks came out.

Provided that the gun was powerful enough to penetrate the tank, then gun attack proved to be many times more effective than RP attack in the WW2 timeframe.

Tony Williams: Military gun and ammunition website and Discussion forum

Tony, which rockets are you refering to as RP's? As far as I know there was very little difference between the 5" HVAR of late WWII and the 5" HVAR of Korea.

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Lunatic

[Tony Williams]

I meant WW2 RPs in general. I have no specific accuracy figures for the HVARs, but circumstantial evidence (the fact that the P-47 groups generally preferred bombs, and also the fact that very few tanks were knocked out by RPs) suggest that they were not very effective in WW2.

Changes to improve performance may not have been obvious - they could consist of subtle changes to improve consistency of rocket performance, for example.

TW

It really depends on so many factors...

Not that many true 5" HVAR's were used in WWII, especially in the ETO. The first rockets were 3.5" motors behind a 4.5" warhead fired from a tube. These were horribly inaccurate. When the zero-length launchers were first installed, the rockets had a 5" AA shell as a warhead on them but used the same 3.5" motor, and while quite a bit more accurate because they had the fins on them they were not effective on tanks. Later the 3.5" rocket motor was replaced with a 5" rocket motor, and these were both accurate and effective vs. tanks, but by the time they actually reached combat the war in Europe was nearly over. I'm not sure how many tank targets were there to be destroyed by the time the 5" HVAR's reached the battle field. Also, the terrain in Europe proper was not generally open enough to allow tank attacks like those conducted on the E. Front or in N. Africa. It's questionable how effective cannon would have been in that environment (lots of trees and obstructions in N. Italy, France, and W. Germany).

During WWII, pilots were not trained in firing rockets, they had to learn in battle. They had been trained in dropping bombs. Furthermore, no experimentation about how to take out a tank with a rocket was conducted. So pilots were going into it pretty blind. Even in Korea, pilots had little idea how to go about attacking a tank with rockets, and it was not until the 2nd year of that war that a relatively successful attack docrine was developed.

In Korea, Skyraider pilots prefered rockets to bombs for attacking T-34's. The rockets were usually identical to those used in WWII, though there was a type that used shape charge technology gleaned from the Germans (but these were rarely carried as they were not so effective on anything but armor). As far as accuracy goes, there was no change at all as far as I know.

In 1946 or so, there was a competition where P-51 pilots fired 10 rockets at a 10' radius circle chalked in the dirt. The winner put 10 of 10 rockets in the circle, the 2nd place finisher put 9 of 10 rockets in the circle, and almost all the competitors put at least 5 rockets in the circle. However, all were vetrans experianced with firing rockets.

So I would argue that it was the pilot's lack of experiance with rocketing tanks, not the technology, that prevented the 5" HVAR's from being an effective anti-tank weapon in WWII.

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Lunatic