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

[bladeracer]

Originally Posted by swiss

Don't know which Stuka he was speaking of(only B models had sirens), couldn't find that passage either(Ballatine pdf Version).
Do you know the page number or can you narrow it down a bit?

It doesn't matter which model he was speaking of, his claim is that the dive scream was not deliberately generated by a siren, which we all know was indeed a siren.
I don't have the book handy but if you have it in PDF try searching it for references to the siren.
I thought the sirens were installed more by date than by model? Weren't D's also fitted with the siren early on alongside the B's? I know when the D's were converted to G's the sirens were removed as they weren't dive bombers.

[IceFire]

Originally Posted by bladeracer

It doesn't matter which model he was speaking of, his claim is that the dive scream was not deliberately generated by a siren, which we all know was indeed a siren.
I don't have the book handy but if you have it in PDF try searching it for references to the siren.
I thought the sirens were installed more by date than by model? Weren't D's also fitted with the siren early on alongside the B's? I know when the D's were converted to G's the sirens were removed as they weren't dive bombers.

Many veteran authors make many mistakes in their technical accounts. I've red at least a few books that mention 30mm cannons when they really mean 20mm cannons for example. That's just about their own equipment. Then you have them talking about what the enemy uses and that gets even less accurate... but that's easy enough to chalk up to the fog of war.

I think veteran accounts are important pieces of first hand historical research but they don't always make for the best place to gather technical details. It doesn't invalidate the research but it does mean that you have to look in many places for the best answer.

[bladeracer]

Originally Posted by IceFire

Many veteran authors make many mistakes in their technical accounts. I've red at least a few books that mention 30mm cannons when they really mean 20mm cannons for example. That's just about their own equipment. Then you have them talking about what the enemy uses and that gets even less accurate... but that's easy enough to chalk up to the fog of war.

I think veteran accounts are important pieces of first hand historical research but they don't always make for the best place to gather technical details. It doesn't invalidate the research but it does mean that you have to look in many places for the best answer.

Yes, that is my point when it comes to offering it as evidence to support "brewing up tanks with 20mm cannon fire". I'm sure it's easy enough to achieve, but "Stuka Pilot" is not the reference to be looking at.
If the man that made the aircraft world famous, and reknown for its screaming dive, didn't understand how it worked, or deliberately denied the system while knowing otherwise, it certainly taints anything else he offers as factual data.
The book is a good read, but it is far from factual and is certainly tainted by his own political agenda.

[Janosch]

I don't remember Rudel making such mistake about the sirens, but then again it's been a while since I read the book. I do remember that he misremembered some Soviet plane designations though. It's still a great book, I had some great laughs reading it (not because of the content or errors, but emotion and style)!

[swiss]

Stuka Pilot pdf

Sorry, still cant find any reference to sirens.

If the man that made the aircraft world famous

Actually he only made the G famous, that was the one he was involved in the development.
That's probably the only plane you should trust him when it comes to specs.

[bladeracer]

Originally Posted by swiss

Stuka Pilot pdf

Sorry, still cant find any reference to sirens.



Actually he only made the G famous, that was the one he was involved in the development.
That's probably the only plane you should trust him when it comes to specs.

Do you have a link to the original German edition?

[swiss]

no
was a pita finding the Englisch .pdf already

[Pursuivant]

Getting back to the problem of over-effective aircraft weapons vs. tanks, here's a useful data point.

http://www.dupuyinstitute.org/ubb/Fo.../000016-2.html

The takeaway (by Niklas Zetterling, author of several books on the Battle of Kursk) is that on the Eastern Front the OKW reduced the number of ground vehicles claimed as killed" by aircraft by 50%, and reduced the number of ground vehicles claimed as killed by ground forces by 30% when figuring estimates of actual totally destroyed AFV. The numbers produced using these formulas agree fairly well with actual Soviet records.

So, while I'm still hunting for actual confirmation in primary sources, it seems like pretty good evidence that air power is overrated against tanks.

Of course, what these formulas don't take into account is repairable damage and crew injuries/kills.

IIRC, the rule of thumb for repairing AFV during WW2 was that for "killed" vehicles 1/3 could be returned to service overnight, 1/3 could be returned to service in a few days, and 1/3 were write-offs.

For a slow retreat or poor supply situation, I'd guess that the 1/3 that could be repaired in a few days actually had to be written off - either cannibalized, abandoned or destroyed to keep them out of the hands of the enemy. For a rout or terrible supply situation (e.g., Stalingrad pocket, Normandy Breakout), assume that any damaged AFV is a lost AFV.

Perhaps not relevant to single missions, but useful for dynamic campaigns.

[bladeracer]

To give vehicles and other ground units more involved damage modeling does it require re-coding?
Or is it a simpler matter of extracting the SFS and editing the text for each model?