Yak-9T - incredible firepower (or maybe incredible tank's lack of armor?)

[JtD]

There are explosive AP rounds.

Aircraft weapons were very well capable of destroying tanks, the biggest difficulty was to hit the target. And that was easiest with guns.

One can also be sure that a single hit of say a 100g projectile of a 20mm cannon penetrating armour and then exploding inside the tank would not always destroy the tank. That's something not even a ~6kg round of 75mm cannon would manage all the time. But, nonetheless, against medium tanks say up to Pz IV size, even the small 20mm cannons did occasionally work as tank killers, provided they had a high muzzle velocity and a heavy projectile with decent AP qualities. The Hispano for instance had all that.

[IceFire]

I'm just wondering if there is no problem at all here. Sure in a testing environment you can wax a dozen medium tanks with a high angle 37mm shot. I'm not sure if this is an issue or not... in real life you'd likely be dealing with small arms fire and maybe mobile AAA making this sort of repeated attack against a formation of tanks somewhat unrealistic.

[gaunt1]

Please, read this:

http://operationbarbarossa.net/Myth-...hbusters4.html

"During WWII, the large majority of aircraft attacking tanks with aircraft mounted weapons used 20mm cannon or simply HMGs. These include aircraft such as the Supermarine Spitfire, Hawker Typhoon, Hawker Tempest, De Havilland Mosquito, most Ilyushin Il-2s and Il-10s (some had 37mm cannon), Yakovlev Yak-7/9, Petlyakov Pe-2/3bis, Lockheed P38 Lightning, North American P51 Mustang, and the Republic P47 Thunderbolt. The average 20mm cannon with standard ammunition had great difficulty penetrating the 12-15mm top armour on the Pz IV H, and almost no chance against the 16mm top armour on the Panther and the 25mm top armour on the Tiger I, even if they managed to hit them! The reader should also bear in mind that on average the strike angle of cannon shells on the top of AFVs was usually in the region of 30 to 60 degrees, because aircraft could not attack vertically downwards (the Ju 87 Stuka came closest to this ideal attack angle, which also dramatically increases the accuracy of any air launched ordnance). In general 20mm cannon only inflicted superficial damage on even light tanks, with the most severe damage being penetrations through the top engine grill covers and damage to the engines."

"German fully tracked AFV losses on the East Front from 1941 to 1945 amounted to approximately 32 800 AFVs. At most 7% were destroyed by direct air attack, which amounts to approximately 2 300 German fully tracked AFV lost to direct air attack, a portion of which would be lost to other aircraft types such as the Petlyakov Pe-2. From 22nd June 1941 to war's end, 23 600 Il-2 and Il-10 ground attack aircraft were irrecoverably lost.(21) Whatever these aircraft were doing to pay such a high price it wasn’t destroying German tanks. If that was there primary target, then over 10 Il-2s and Il-10s were irrecoverably lost for every German fully tracked AFV that was completely destroyed by direct air attack on the East Front during WWII.
"

WW2 aircraft guns had low armor penetration capability. The GAU-8 Avenger, even with uranium rounds is only capable of penetrating 69mm @ 500m. (only 38mm @ 1000m) The Hispano or the VYa is nowhere near to this monster gun.

[Igo kyu]

Originally Posted by JtD

There are explosive AP rounds.

Aircraft weapons were very well capable of destroying tanks, the biggest difficulty was to hit the target. And that was easiest with guns.

One can also be sure that a single hit of say a 100g projectile of a 20mm cannon penetrating armour and then exploding inside the tank would not always destroy the tank. That's something not even a ~6kg round of 75mm cannon would manage all the time. But, nonetheless, against medium tanks say up to Pz IV size, even the small 20mm cannons did occasionally work as tank killers, provided they had a high muzzle velocity and a heavy projectile with decent AP qualities. The Hispano for instance had all that.

The thing with armour piercing rounds is that if the round hits the armour, it either bounces off, breaks up, or goes through. If the round breaks up, it won't go through because it's no longer a single mass but a bunch of smaller masses. When a round goes through armour, then the armour has broken up and the projectile retains most of the kinetic energy it had when it first hit the armour, so it does a lot of damage from that, if it gets into the engine comparment probably breaks the engine. There may be an explosive payload, but to do damage there doesn't really need to be.

[Pursuivant]

Originally Posted by JtD

One can also be sure that a single hit of say a 100g projectile of a 20mm cannon penetrating armour and then exploding inside the tank would not always destroy the tank.

An AP projectile penetrating armor sprays red-hot or molten fragments of metal around a very small space. Those fragments ricochet and start fires. You DON'T want to be in that space. While a 20-30 mm projectile won't usually make the tank blow up or burn, it will damage the engine (if it penetrates the deck armor or ventilator grilles) OR kills or injures part of the crew (if it penetrates the turret or hull).

Even if it doesn't catch on fire, a tank with a badly damaged engine and/or a dead/seriously wounded crewman is going to retreat. Alternately, the crew might bail out, either because the tank can no longer move or because the drivers are dead, or on the reasonable assumption that more bad things are about to come their way.

In any case, the tank is as good as "dead" that day, even if the mechanics can later wash out the blood, fix the engine and patch the armor.

A simple fix to the ground vehicle damage model in IL2 would to be have three damage states: Undamaged, Immobilized/Partially destroyed (representing a crew kill or actual mobility kill) and the current damage model "Brewed up"/completely destroyed. No new damage textures are needed for Immobilized - the vehicle just stops moving.

This intermediate damage state is important, since the disabled tank remains a target for further attacks. That means that you and your allies waste ammo on a "dead" foe.

Pictures of knocked out WW2 AFV frequently show multiple penetrations. Example here:

http://i73.photobucket.com/albums/i2...ps736b6ffd.jpg