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.

[Furio]

Originally Posted by gaunt1

Please, read this:

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

.

I read several pages of this myth-buster. Overall, I strongly believe that over claiming was enormous, and not only in aircraft versus tank. However, this same myth-buster gives some suspect numbers and makes some unsubstantiated claims. This, for example: “In addition the RAF and USAF had given the Soviets critical air superiority for the first time (in 1944)”. No comments or details are given to this piece of “undisputable truth” that sounds to me as a simple nonsense, reducing the accountability of the whole analysis to the typical low level of web literature.

As off topic it may sounds, this discussion is probably pointing to the one of the most important point of any “realistic” simulation. If true combat effectiveness would be really implemented, we should expect our kills (of anything: tanks, aircraft, vehicles, ships, anything) to be reduced by a factor of probably ten. On the contrary, the probability to end our simulated career as KIA would be augmented by the same rate. Not very fun, I think…

[gaunt1]

As off topic it may sounds, this discussion is probably pointing to the one of the most important point of any “realistic” simulation. If true combat effectiveness would be really implemented, we should expect our kills (of anything: tanks, aircraft, vehicles, ships, anything) to be reduced by a factor of probably ten. On the contrary, the probability to end our simulated career as KIA would be augmented by the same rate. Not very fun, I think…

Yes, I completely agree. In fact, I also dont want it to be changed. (especially because I love to fly IL-2/10) I just pointed out on that in RL, things were different.

[Pershing]

Originally Posted by Furio

If true combat effectiveness would be really implemented, we should expect our kills (of anything: tanks, aircraft, vehicles, ships, anything) to be reduced by a factor of probably ten. On the contrary, the probability to end our simulated career as KIA would be augmented by the same rate. Not very fun, I think…

I think nobody wants "true combat effectiveness", but maybe DT should correct airguns/armor ratio to reduce power of AP rounds a little...
Sortie results shown in start post seem too unreal to me..

[gaunt1]

There were very few AP weapons to rely solely on kinetic energy in WW2.

Yes, very few. Just all existing british AP ammo starting from the Boys rifle to the 20pdr AT gun. They didnt use APHE at all. Americans also had these "shot" rounds for 57, 75 and 76mm guns. (although their use in combat was limited)

[JtD]

Yep, British practice was different. They went with solid AP shots in land warfare for most of the war. Not so in the air or at sea.

[swiss]

Just some basic knowledge:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinetic_energy_penetrator
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_explosive_squash_head

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spalling
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyrophoricity

[Pursuivant]

Originally Posted by Pershing

I think nobody wants "true combat effectiveness", but maybe DT should correct airguns/armor ratio to reduce power of AP rounds a little...

Why not? For online campaigns which track things like number of AFV and ground vehicles available some people want historical realism for ground kills.

As I suggested before, why not just have an option for historically accurate AFV kills, at least against aircraft-mounted guns?

If you don't like it, just turn it off. That way, people who want the ability to shoot up dozens of tanks to emulate the purported feats of the IL2 at Kursk and the Typhoon and P-47 in Normandy will still be happy.

I don't think that anyone is suggesting that rockets are overpowered, or that it's unrealistic for a single aircraft to shoot up dozens of soft ground vehicles. The only issue is that cannon-equipped aircraft are a too effective against medium and heavy tanks.

The simple solution would be to just double or triple "panzer ratings" for those vehicles against aircraft guns.

A better solution that would require a whole lot more work would be to provide hard targets such as ships and tanks with a "damage resistance" or "hardness" rating, where unless energy from a shot exceeded a certain threshold, there's no penetration.

After that, you'd have some sort of "hit point" mechanism for generalized damage, with either more detailed modeling for "critical hits" to engine, drivetrain, ammo or crew, or just a fixed percentage chance for a critical hit of some sort.