Questions on strafing and tank busting

[NeuralDream]

I have some questions on strafing and tank busting. It would be great if I can get knowledgeble replies to any of them. I'm interested more in historical reality rather than game representation.


What is the realistic distance from an enemy tank/troops/train/trucks at which a strafing attack can achieve a kill? Assume that there is opposition in the form of antiair and we can't get too close.

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?

[IceFire]

Average distance depends on the average effective range of the gun your firing and what your firing at. If its a .50cal against a soft skinned vehicle then in game you want to be firing at 800m or less. You'll have to eyeball it. The closer to your convergence distance the better....I have killed trucks at maximum .50cal range (around 1200 meters) but that was more of a fluke and sheer number of rounds than something I'd do seriously.

Get down low and fire in an effective burst. Don't try to hit everything...aim for a single target and sweep across it. If its a row of trucks then maybe try to get them all...but you start by aiming at one.

Also don't make the mistake of not pulling out in time. Your objective is to deliver ordinance...not to kill everything in the first go. So plan your attack, shoot at the target and plan when to pull out.

Versus tanks the general rule is to always attack from above and behind. Thats where the armor is weakest. Do not use machine guns against tanks. Use rockets or bombs preferably or heavy cannons if you have an aircraft so equipped. A single hit from properly armed 37mm cannons will penetrate the top rear armor completely both in IL-2 and in real life. But that round has to be an AP round...HE rounds explode on contact. So that means that the German MK108 cannon will kick up allot of dust and smoke but is totally useless against tanks.

Tiger tanks are killable in IL-2 but they require a full on hit by a bomb or rocket.

In practice during the war...it was unlikely for a tank to be completely destroyed by an aircraft. The flak and inaccuracy of rockets tended to make it unlikely. Proximity hits would potentially throw off the treads or cause more superficial damage but rarely completely destroy the tank. Airpower was best used against lighter targets although bomb and rocket hits made tank movement difficult as they would chew up fields and roads pretty badly.

By far the most powerful weapon in the aircrafts arsenal was its impact on enemy morale. When one sides aircraft are constantly firing at anything that moves and another sides is not...such as during parts of the Normandy campaign...the effect is immense if not direct.

[Gryphon]

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?

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.

[NeuralDream]

Thank you for these very useful replies.

[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.

[Gryphon]

Originally Posted by Igo kyu

I agree.


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


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

Never said he was targeting Tigers, i was merely stating that Tiger's gun was far more effective at taking out tanks than the BK 3,7.

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.

I said high-explosive-anti-tank but realised this is a rather poor choice as this is obviously confused with HEAT, I of course meant armour-piercing-high-explosive or APHE (also known as armour piercing shot with HE filler). Most people don't use the designation however and instead refer to just "AP". I never mentioned dedicated high-explosive.

What? HEAT rounds were VERY common in tank guns. In fact, as far as the German forces alone go, all self propelled artillery (Wespe, Hummel etc.), support halftracks (Stummel) and close support tanks (Pz. IIIN, Pz IV short of all types), etc used shaped charges to combat armour in self-defence.

In WW2 the shot was almost never truly "solid". A lot of ammunition smaller than approx 50mm was, but most larger rounds (75mm and up) posessed HE filling which would burst the round once it penetrated. Finally, i never mentioned brewing up, but it sure as heck can be instantaneous when the ammunition gets hit and sets off.

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.

Like i said, AP(HE) does the job.

[Igo kyu]

Originally Posted by Gryphon

I said high-explosive-anti-tank but realised this is a rather poor choice as this is obviously confused with HEAT, I of course meant armour-piercing-high-explosive or APHE (also known as armour piercing shot with HE filler). Most people don't use the designation however and instead refer to just "AP". I never mentioned dedicated high-explosive.

I don't know about that, a book I have mentions AP, APC, APCBC, APCR, APDS, HE and HEAT. My understanding is that an exit hole in armour would be much bigger than the entry hole, and the extra material would fly off and that, plus the incoming projectile, would frequently detonate ammunition.

What? HEAT rounds were VERY common in tank guns. In fact, as far as the German forces alone go, all self propelled artillery (Wespe, Hummel etc.), support halftracks (Stummel) and close support tanks (Pz. IIIN, Pz IV short of all types), etc used shaped charges to combat armour in self-defence.

I think we have a terminology problem here, the way I would use the term is that those are artillery pieces used in an anti-tank role, not guns fitted to tanks as primarily anti-tank weapons.

In WW2 the shot was almost never truly "solid". A lot of ammunition smaller than approx 50mm was, but most larger rounds (75mm and up) posessed HE filling which would burst the round once it penetrated.

Do you have a source for that?

Finally, i never mentioned brewing up, but it sure as heck can be instantaneous when the ammunition gets hit and sets off.

Starting yeah, stopping, often not, AIUI.

Like i said, AP(HE) does the job.

As I read the quote, against the Japanese, the Americans actually used HE.

No offence intended, if I can learn something here, that's good.

[Gryphon]

Originally Posted by Igo kyu

I don't know about that, a book I have mentions AP, APC, APCBC, APCR, APDS, HE and HEAT. My understanding is that an exit hole in armour would be much bigger than the entry hole, and the extra material would fly off and that, plus the incoming projectile, would frequently detonate ammunition.

Yes, that is right, but when armour is thin enough and the shell is overpowered sufficiently there will be little to no material flying off, or in any case, not enough to cause any damage. The frequent thing that will happen upon penetration is just "inconveniences" to the crew or vulnerable systems, most of the time tanks do not brew up, unless they are notorious for doing so especially easily. Anyhow, after-armour effects are increased substantially with larger shells and their bursting charge.

Furthermore:

http://www.janes.com/articles/Janes-...les--APHE.html

In addition: Encyclopedia of German tanks of WW2 (Chamberlain & Doyle, 1978, somewhere around p.300 off the top of my head), Tiger Tanks (Jentz & Doyle, 2000), http://www.battlefield.ru/content/ca...44/64/lang,ru/



"This drawing illustrates how the APCBC round (the main type of armor piercing ammunition used by the Tiger's crews) works. The first cap, the aerodynamic one, makes possible an efficient trajectory. Then, it disintegrates when the target is hit. The second cap, the blunt one, designed for ballistic performance, takes over and avoids the projectile from ricocheting off inclined armor. The projectile penetrates the armor and then explodes inside the tank, causing catastrophic damage." (source: http://www.fprado.com/armorsite/tiger1.htm)

Do you have a source for that?

look above.