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

[the lancaster kicks ass]

I think if you investigate you will find the "60 pounder" was in fact refering to the total weight of the warhead

that's proberly true, the Grand Slam weighed 22,000lbs but "only" had a 9,135lb warhead............

[cheddar cheese]

MOAB all the way...

[Tony Williams]

Originally Posted by RG_Lunatic

Every source I've seen refers to the British supplied rockets as being of 3.5" diameter. This may well have been the outside diameter, with a 3" rocket being inside the 3.5" casing. That'd just be a standards and nomenclature issue.

The diameter of the body of the RP may have been 3.5 inches (although the diameter of the 60 lb HE warhead was considerably larger), but I've never heard it referred to as a '3.5 inch rocket'. It is generally known as the RP (for Rocket Projectile), sometimes the 3 inch RP or 3 inch rocket, for the diameter of the motor.

Yes, I've seen references to the 4.5" FFAR (I think it was designated FFAR) as well, and perhaps this represents a different warhead on the same 3.5" rocket? In any case these were the tube fired things and they were a failure.

Why would it use the British 3 inch motor? It was American, not British, and was of 4.5 inch diameter anyway. FFAR stands for 'Folding Fin Aircraft (or Aerial, or Air-launched) Rocket' - the fins have to fold to fit into the launch tube, they spring out on launching - but this term was I think first coined to describe postwar rockets in multiple pods (which have been highly successful), not the 4.5 inch.

The US nomenclature for the British type 3.5" rocket is FFAR (Forward Firing Arial Rocket), and this term is also used for the 5" version, which had the same rocket motor. The 5" FFAR was found to be unsuitable by the USN because of it's inaccuracy and low speed, but perhaps the British used their own variation of this anyway? In any case, to support the 5" warhead the USA developed the HVAR.

Re FFAR - see my comment above; ever heard of a backward firing aerial rocket? . The term FFAR does not apply to any British rockets of this period - they all had fixed fins. I don't know anything about a 5" FFAR; if there was such a thing it wasn't British AFAIK.

I think if you investigate you will find the "60 pounder" was in fact refering to the total weight of the warhead, not HE payload. If it did refer to just the HE payload, that'd mean a warhead weighing something on the order of 150+ lbs!

If you read my earlier post you will see that's exactly what I said; a 60 lb warhead with 14 lb of TNT.

I agree conditions were different in W. Europe than in N. Africa and the Stepps of Russia, in many ways, resulting in different results.

As I've said, the results were different because the weapons were different. The Russians did have RPs (in fact they were the first to use them) but found them too inaccurate to be effective against single tank targets. They PTAB cluster-bomb was their best anti-tank weapon, but the British and Americans had nothing like it.

As for the claims for Korea, there is often film to back it up (I have lots of 8mm Korean war Skyraider footage and combat assement photos). One thing is clear in Korea, hitting the tank with an HVAR was often not enough to take it out of action. Most attacks were to the sides, and the most frequent damage damage was to the tracks or wheels.

Camera gun footage which is released to the public tends to be selected to show the successes - which may be only a very small percentage of the attacks. So it does nothing to prove how accurate such rocket attacks were in general. And I've never argued that rockets couldn't hit tanks, just that they rarely did in the WW2 timeframe which is what we're talking about, so made an unsatisfactory anti-tank weapon (although they were very destructive against area targets).

Tony Williams: Military gun and ammunition website and Discussion forum

Originally Posted by Tony Williams

The diameter of the body of the RP may have been 3.5 inches (although the diameter of the 60 lb HE warhead was considerably larger), but I've never heard it referred to as a '3.5 inch rocket'. It is generally known as the RP (for Rocket Projectile), sometimes the 3 inch RP or 3 inch rocket, for the diameter of the motor.

Well, the point is it was the same rocket section. All the sources refer to the 3" or 3.5" rockets as having been supplied by the British.

Originally Posted by Tony Williams

Why would it use the British 3 inch motor? It was American, not British, and was of 4.5 inch diameter anyway. FFAR stands for 'Folding Fin Aircraft (or Aerial, or Air-launched) Rocket' - the fins have to fold to fit into the launch tube, they spring out on launching - but this term was I think first coined to describe postwar rockets in multiple pods (which have been highly successful), not the 4.5 inch.

I don't know why, other than that there were a load of British made rocket sections available.

Originally Posted by Tony Williams

Re FFAR - see my comment above; ever heard of a backward firing aerial rocket? . The term FFAR does not apply to any British rockets of this period - they all had fixed fins. I don't know anything about a 5" FFAR; if there was such a thing it wasn't British AFAIK.

Well, the only source I've seen defining it defines it as "Forward Firing" but you could be right. There could also have been research into downward firing rockets.

Originally Posted by Tony Williams

If you read my earlier post you will see that's exactly what I said; a 60 lb warhead with 14 lb of TNT.

My applogies, I misread that. But you also say the HVAR warhead was 40 lbs with an ~7.5 lbs HE load where data I've found says 55 lbs with an ~20 lbs HE load.

Originally Posted by Tony Williams

As I've said, the results were different because the weapons were different. The Russians did have RPs (in fact they were the first to use them) but found them too inaccurate to be effective against single tank targets. They PTAB cluster-bomb was their best anti-tank weapon, but the British and Americans had nothing like it.

Russian RP's were tiny by comparison to an HVAR. In fact I think they were small even by comparison to a British 3" RP.

Originally Posted by Tony Williams

Camera gun footage which is released to the public tends to be selected to show the successes - which may be only a very small percentage of the attacks. So it does nothing to prove how accurate such rocket attacks were in general. And I've never argued that rockets couldn't hit tanks, just that they rarely did in the WW2 timeframe which is what we're talking about, so made an unsatisfactory anti-tank weapon (although they were very destructive against area targets).

The footage I have was never released to the public. I have the entire stock of guncam footage from my Father's attack squadron 1951 and 1952 tours. He was the squadron CIC officer and took a lot of photos from his plane's cameras, and some 8mm footage from a wind up camera he kept in the cockpit, though often it's from too high to make out much detail. I have located several films of rocket attacks on tanks, but only in a few of them are the results clear. Often the smoke and/dirt (often hard to tell the difference) in the air makes evaluation difficult within the short period of the film clips. I have a good number of shots of tanks that have been destroyed, but it is hard to tell exactly how they were destroyed. And I have a large number of before/during/after photos of bridge attacks.

In the end though, I have to go back to his statements that firing rockets one at a time, you'd probably hit the tank within three shots, and a salvo of 4 rockets (fired in 2's) was enough to hit a tank well over half the time.

=S=

Lunatic

[the lancaster kicks ass]

MOAB all the way...

NO!!!!!

[cheddar cheese]

Hell yeah, Go USA!

[the lancaster kicks ass]

NO The Grand Slam's a symbol of everythig that's good about Britian!!

[cheddar cheese]

What, Big, fat and heavy? I think not

[the lancaster kicks ass]

no, sleek, fast, well buit...............

[cheddar cheese]

British items are famed for their lack of build quality, only behind the Italians...

Originally Posted by cheddar cheese

British items are famed for their lack of build quality, only behind the Italians...

Leading up to WWII, the British reputation for quality was quite good. During WWII they had to cut corners to maximize quantity, and they seem not to have been able to completely recover from that.

They still eat Kidney pie, something you would normally only eat in the hardest of times.

=S=

Lunatic

[Nonskimmer]

Originally Posted by cheddar cheese

British items are famed for their lack of build quality, only behind the Italians...

I think the politically correct term is "functionality".

[cheddar cheese]

Kidney pie is NOT nice...

[Maestro]

You're wrong, CC. Italian items are worst. British items are great ! Only think about all the great planes Britain built : Spitfire, Hurricane, Tempest, Lancaster (or more recently) the Harrier. Or the great cars : Rolls-Royce (I know it was bought out by BMW at the end of the 90s) and Benkley (or Bentley, can't remember).

[Nonskimmer]

Hey Maestro, didn't Bomber Harris especially like the Canadian built planes for quality?

(back me up here! )