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Originally Posted by NeuralDream
What was the angle of a strafing attack against a tank and what part of the armor would the plane go for in order to get a kill (not just to track it)? The top, the back, the side? Assume late-war tanks. E.g. could the Tiger II be killed by aircraft?
Rudel killed hundreds of tanks with his 2x37mm cannon and 6 rounds per gun. How many rounds would he spend on average to get a kill? Also, what were the toughest to kill and which ones were easy job? What part of the armor was he going for and how could the Stuka G's 2x37mm penetrate armor that the Tiger's 1x88mm would need several rounds to penetrate?
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While i'm not sure on the angle of attack of strafing aircraft, guncam footage shows a rather shallow angle, except maybe for the highly specialised tank killers like the Stuka G.
The armour a plane would go for is most likely the rear deck. This is possibly the only part of the armour that is thin enough for the plane to penetrate. Au contraire to what most people think about air assets performing strafing actions in WW2, aircraft would have a Really, and i can't stress this enough, really hard time disabling a tank. Things like distance, dispersion and attack angle would all work against the strafing aircraft.
Softer tanks may be immobilised still by cannon ammunition, but crew kills are highly, highly unlikely. Destruction of external equipment would be most likely in this case, which would limit itself to air filters, aerials, misc. equipment etc. Most vision ports and optics however are safely hidden away or armoured and these would sustain little damage if at all. In addition, tank tracks, especially on heavier tanks are extremely tough and hard to take out.
A Tiger B, being an extremely rare example by the way, is probably not going to sustain any damage from strafing aircraft (using anything less than 37mm cannon maybe). bombs or a lucky rocket hit are a different story though. What might happen is that rounds may reach the engine because of the grille on the engine deck. However, these grilles are slanted so that entry by foreign objects is rather improbable (perhaps by some magic ricochets?).
Also, revised evaluation on air power confirms that most air to ground "kills" were highly overstated by all sides.
Rudel mostly went for the rear deck as i recall correctly, either that or the side turret of enemy tanks. In the case of the heavier ones he'd probably exclusively go for the engine deck/top. The BK 3,7cm with its high velocity tungsten ammunition is actually far inferior in penetration compared to the 8,8cm KwK 36 L/56 of the Tiger tank. The reason for easy penetration is that the armour he targeted was usually thinner.
On a final note, the Tigers did NOT have a hard time with T-34s, in fact, i'd imagine them to have a far easier time than the BK 3,7. Because of the tiny round diameter the BK 3,7 must rely purely on scoring a lucky hit on a critical system (thus, requiring more penetrating hits), whereas the large 88mm high-explosive anti-tank round just enters the tank and explodes inside creating deadly shrapnell. Furthermore, the large shell diameter compared to the rather thin (angled or not) armour of the T-34 (most common target anyway) has such an overperformance in terms of shell/diameter ratio that it simply slams itself through the armour. If the shell would not explode it would probably enter the T-34's side turret on one side and exit on the other.