Hardest tank to kill?

[stugumby]

Built some missions using the British Valentine tank as lend lease and I have a hard time killing it. Tried the Hs129 37 gun pod, Kills half the time, tried the stuka with 2 37mm and lots of hits all over the rear deck etc, no kills. Also tried the Hs129 30mm mk101 and some kills, takes about 6-10 hits in a shallow dive. Valentine isnt that heavily armored especially on the rear deck. Interesting indeed.

[Tolwyn]

Tiger II is tough.
I try a STEEP dive right at the top of the tank.

Originally Posted by stugumby

Built some missions using the British Valentine tank as lend lease and I have a hard time killing it. Tried the Hs129 37 gun pod, Kills half the time, tried the stuka with 2 37mm and lots of hits all over the rear deck etc, no kills. Also tried the Hs129 30mm mk101 and some kills, takes about 6-10 hits in a shallow dive. Valentine isnt that heavily armored especially on the rear deck. Interesting indeed.

[NightTrain]

or you can use the Hs-129 B-3 or Ju-88 P-1 and hit them the side and usually get a kill with one shot regardless of what tank it is.

[Music]

All of them seem too hard to kill, even dropping a 5000kg bomb in a pack only kills/disables the ones it actually hits. Every crew in the vicinity should be jello in side their tanks.
Same with cannon fire, you may not hit anything important on the tank, but some of those shells went through the armor and injured/killed crew. Especially the ones ricocheting off the road behind them into the belly.

And on the same note, ships, you can hammer them with gunfire for ever and rarely sink them. P-51 pilots claimed they cut through the side at the water line with their guns to sink them.
The Junks should be sinkable even with a low caliber gun and enough hits.
And you need a direct hit to cause damage when a very near miss was just as devastating, breaking the hulls and again mushing the crews with concussion waves.

AAA guns, if you hit enough around it, it should disable the crew, especially with a Il-2 cannon or a 30MM. The gun may still be usable, but they need time to re_man it, kind of like the gunners having to reload now. (don't like that when I'm a gunner I'll telly what)

Cheers!

[NightTrain]

Took out 3 King Tigers on the Normandy quick battle map with a Ju-88 P-1 coming from the back coming from a good downward angle. Wanted to go for more but was chased away by a few hits of flak and Fw-190's.

[stugumby]

Have tried and tried on a simple column of 4 tanks going along a runway and i cant kill these tanks with any of the 30/37 mm guns on the hs 129 or ju87. Changed tanks to t34 or sherman and no problem. I know kv had very thick armor but from in a shallow dive etc cant kill it by aiming at back deck behind turret or from the flank.

[Igo kyu]

Originally Posted by Music

All of them seem too hard to kill, even dropping a 5000kg bomb in a pack only kills/disables the ones it actually hits. Every crew in the vicinity should be jello in side their tanks.

I'm not convinced that this is true. Tanks have heavy armour, and sit on sprung shock absorbing suspensions. Turning people into jelly is not something a shock wave will do if it doesn't get through the armour, and shrapnel probably won't go through armour unless it's pretty big shrapnel.

[Verdun1916]

Originally Posted by Igo kyu

I'm not convinced that this is true. Tanks have heavy armour, and sit on sprung shock absorbing suspensions. Turning people into jelly is not something a shock wave will do if it doesn't get through the armour, and shrapnel probably won't go through armour unless it's pretty big shrapnel.

That's true. The bit about the crew getting turned to jelly is bullshit aslong as all hatches are closed and the shock wave can't enter the crew compartement.
But if a bomb, say 500 kg and above, or heavy artillery shells detonates next to tank it's very likely that the blast will rock the vehicle pretty violently or even turn it on it's side. If the bomb or artillery shell is heavy enough the blast might even throw a tank a far bit or turn it completely over.

Have you ever been inside a tank? Well I have. Historical tanks is what I work with for a living.
The inside of a tank is a damn cramped environment with lot's of hard surfaces aswell as pointy corners and lot's of euipment. If a tank gets flipped on it's side, not to mention turned over by a bomb or artillery shell blast it will cause injury to the crew because they will be thrown about inside the vehicle and hit themselfs on or against the many hard surfaces, corners and objects inside. It's enough to cause pretty severe crushing injuries or have bones break. Not to mention how exposed your neck and spine is to concussive injuries. The term whiplash would be a big understatement in this context. Even if you wear a modern day tankers helmet that protects your head far better than anything used by WWII tankers your knees, elbows, hands, feet and face are exposed to injury if something like this happens. Just accidentally dropping a hatch on your head, fingers or feet can be enough to ensure a trip to the hospital. Even the mental and physical shock for the crew when your tanks is suddenly rocked around like a maraca, not to mention if it's thrown over on it's side by a bomb or shell blast can be enough to put the tank out of action for a good while.
Imagine beeing inside this Tiger I for example when during the bombing raid that caused this: https://goo.gl/images/c6JS9F
Or inside this Sherman when it endet up on it's side: https://goo.gl/images/YpT2CQ
Or inside this Jagdpanther: http://photo.i.ua/user/991126/228596/6158930/

So to cut a long story short, as a tanker you don't need to be exposed to the direct pressure wave nor the shrapnel from an exploding bomb or shell to be able to get hurt.

Several WWII tanks (not to mention WWI tanks) also had issues with the armour plates spalling when hit by heavy shrapnell or projectiles that didn't penetrate. This could cause a swarms or small, sharp fragments from the tanks own armour plate to fly and ricochet around inside injuring or killing crew members aswell as damaging internal equipment.
Tanks with riveted armour were especially prone to this kind of damage since a shell fragment or a projectile hitting without penetrating could cause the rivets to pop and rivet heads on the inside to fly around causing injury and damage. The M3 Grant/Lee was known for having this happen.

But then again you don't have to injure or kill the crew inside a tank to put it out of action. A bomb or shell blast could throw a track = tank out of action.

Shrapnell or shell fragments from an exploding bomb or artillery shell could jam the turret, the gun, the running gear, damage the optics such as periscopes and sights or the engine. The Panzerjäger Tiger (P) belonging to the collections at the United States Army Ordnance Training and Heritage Center in Maryland, USA, was knocked out by a piece of shell fragment from the projectile from a 57 mm M1 AT gun jamming it's running gear and forcing the crew to abandon it. Otto Carius describes in his memoirs "Tiger im Schlamm" how his Tiger I was put out of action because a single piece of shell fragment managed to cut a hose or pipe to the engine cooling system. That could just as easily happen to the fuel lines. Especially if shrapnell or projectiles hit the engine compartement from above since there are plenty of weak points easily penetrated on most WWII era tanks.

So as far as I see it the reason why it might be so hard to put tanks out of action in the game might be because the in-game tanks doesn't have complex enough damage-models. This is after all a combat flight sim and not a tank simulator so it's very possible that the majority of the ways a tank can be put out of action was never considere when it was made.

[Igo kyu]

Originally Posted by Verdun1916

That's true. The bit about the crew getting turned to jelly is bullshit aslong as all hatches are closed and the shock wave can't enter the crew compartement.
But if a bomb, say 500 kg and above, or heavy artillery shells detonates next to tank it's very likely that the blast will rock the vehicle pretty violently or even turn it on it's side. If the bomb or artillery shell is heavy enough the blast might even throw a tank a far bit or turn it completely over.

Have you ever been inside a tank? Well I have. Historical tanks is what I work with for a living.
The inside of a tank is a damn cramped environment with lot's of hard surfaces aswell as pointy corners and lot's of euipment. If a tank gets flipped on it's side, not to mention turned over by a bomb or artillery shell blast it will cause injury to the crew because they will be thrown about inside the vehicle and hit themselfs on or against the many hard surfaces, corners and objects inside. It's enough to cause pretty severe crushing injuries or have bones break. Not to mention how exposed your neck and spine is to concussive injuries. The term whiplash would be a big understatement in this context. Even if you wear a modern day tankers helmet that protects your head far better than anything used by WWII tankers your knees, elbows, hands, feet and face are exposed to injury if something like this happens. Just accidentally dropping a hatch on your head, fingers or feet can be enough to ensure a trip to the hospital. Even the mental and physical shock for the crew when your tanks is suddenly rocked around like a maraca, not to mention if it's thrown over on it's side by a bomb or shell blast can be enough to put the tank out of action for a good while.
Imagine beeing inside this Tiger I for example when during the bombing raid that caused this: https://goo.gl/images/c6JS9F
Or inside this Sherman when it endet up on it's side: https://goo.gl/images/YpT2CQ
Or inside this Jagdpanther: http://photo.i.ua/user/991126/228596/6158930/

So to cut a long story short, as a tanker you don't need to be exposed to the direct pressure wave nor the shrapnel from an exploding bomb or shell to be able to get hurt.

Several WWII tanks (not to mention WWI tanks) also had issues with the armour plates spalling when hit by heavy shrapnell or projectiles that didn't penetrate. This could cause a swarms or small, sharp fragments from the tanks own armour plate to fly and ricochet around inside injuring or killing crew members aswell as damaging internal equipment.
Tanks with riveted armour were especially prone to this kind of damage since a shell fragment or a projectile hitting without penetrating could cause the rivets to pop and rivet heads on the inside to fly around causing injury and damage. The M3 Grant/Lee was known for having this happen.

But then again you don't have to injure or kill the crew inside a tank to put it out of action. A bomb or shell blast could throw a track = tank out of action.

Shrapnell or shell fragments from an exploding bomb or artillery shell could jam the turret, the gun, the running gear, damage the optics such as periscopes and sights or the engine. The Panzerjäger Tiger (P) belonging to the collections at the United States Army Ordnance Training and Heritage Center in Maryland, USA, was knocked out by a piece of shell fragment from the projectile from a 57 mm M1 AT gun jamming it's running gear and forcing the crew to abandon it. Otto Carius describes in his memoirs "Tiger im Schlamm" how his Tiger I was put out of action because a single piece of shell fragment managed to cut a hose or pipe to the engine cooling system. That could just as easily happen to the fuel lines. Especially if shrapnell or projectiles hit the engine compartement from above since there are plenty of weak points easily penetrated on most WWII era tanks.

So as far as I see it the reason why it might be so hard to put tanks out of action in the game might be because the in-game tanks doesn't have complex enough damage-models. This is after all a combat flight sim and not a tank simulator so it's very possible that the majority of the ways a tank can be put out of action was never considere when it was made.

I don't have any problem with any of that, the idea as I read it was that one 5,000lb bomb (who made that? was it a 2,000kg?) should knock out a squadron of tanks, and even if they weren't spread out as they were known to do to mitigate the effects of enemy artillery, it would seem to me that that's unlikely.

[Verdun1916]

Originally Posted by Igo kyu

I don't have any problem with any of that, the idea as I read it was that one 5,000lb bomb (who made that? was it a 2,000kg?) should knock out a squadron of tanks, and even if they weren't spread out as they were known to do to mitigate the effects of enemy artillery, it would seem to me that that's unlikely.

I understood what you meant I just wanted to elaborate it a bit.

5000lb is equivelent of about 2268kg by the way. But Music wrote 5000kg bomb. I think one of the four engined Soviet bombers in game has a bomb about that size.
I agree with you that a single bomb of that size would not knock out that many tanks unless they were bunshed up and the bomb hit right in the middle of them.

But then again, one bomb seldom comes alone. And tank units were not always spread out. There are plenty of examples of armoured units that found themselfs bunshed up now and again. While passing through urban areas for example or along a single road were the ammount of traffic and terrain would not allow them to spread out. Or at railyards during loading onto or unloading from trains. And if an enemy bomber formation would come in and unload everything they had in the way of heavy bombs it could do some pretty serious damage to an entire company/squadron for example of tanks and their crews.
If a unit was caught in a traffic jam along a narrow street while advancing through a town a single heavy bomb could possibly knock out a handfull of tanks as buildings came tubling down ontop of them.

There are plenty of examples were large units found themselfs in massive traffic jams because to many units tried to advance along the same road in difficult terrain with little to no room to maneuvre. If hit by an air raid or heavy artillery shelling at such a place at such a moment the effects could be devastating.