[Igo kyu]

Originally Posted by Gryphon

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.

I agree.

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 stopped tank is a target, a moving one is a serious threat.

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.

I thought Rudel was German, and thus wouldn't have been targetting Tigers?

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.

Explosive rounds from tank guns are for soft targets, very useful for that, but only for that. With all tank vs tank gunnery (except HEAT warheads, which are more used from bazookas than guns, and may never have been used from tank guns in WW2) the shot are solid, they go in, they lose a lot of energy doing that, and then they bounce off the inside of the armour on the other side. Brewing up was a known phenomenon, it wasn't instantaneous.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M4_Sherman

When the Sherman first saw combat in 1942, its 75 mm M3 gun could defeat the armor of the German Pzkw III and Pzkw IV tanks it faced in North Africa at normal combat ranges. However, starting with the invasion of Sicily in August 1943, it was discovered that the 75 mm M3 gun was ineffective against the front of the Pzkw V Panther and Pzkw VI Tiger I tanks and the front of more common Jagdpanzer anti-tank vehicles at typical combat ranges. The problem increased dramatically with the fighting in Normandy after June 6th, 1944.

...

When the Sherman first saw combat in 1942, its 75 mm M3 gun could defeat the armor of the German Pzkw III and Pzkw IV tanks it faced in North Africa at normal combat ranges. However, starting with the invasion of Sicily in August 1943, it was discovered that the 75 mm M3 gun was ineffective against the front of the Pzkw V Panther and Pzkw VI Tiger I tanks and the front of more common Jagdpanzer anti-tank vehicles at typical combat ranges. The problem increased dramatically with the fighting in Normandy after June 6th, 1944.

...

In the relatively few tank battles of the Pacific War, even the 75 mm gun Shermans outclassed the Japanese in every engagement. The use of HE (High Explosive) ammunition was preferred because anti-tank rounds punched cleanly through the thin armor of the Japanese tanks (Type 95 Ha-Go light tanks and Type 97 Chi-Ha medium tanks of 1930s era design) without necessarily stopping them.

I didn't know that about the Japanese, but I very much doubt the same applied to the T34, and with JS2s about, you wouldn't want HE loaded.