Ju-87G Stuka

[majorfailure]

Originally Posted by RPS69

Sorry, I understood that you were implying a 90° dive. It wasn't clear.
Anyway 30mm are easily penned by 37mm BK, on any angle in between 45° and 90° at around 300m

Penetration even if easily achieved is not a sure kill. It is possible even for a 122mm shell to penetrate and do no harm -though unlikely.

Originally Posted by RPS69

I must disagree. The pilot job is done, it can't depend on the ground troops performance to be asigned as a kill.
Tank is abandoned, crew is badly injured, or temporarily out of comission, the attack is a kill.

And that was just what happened. Pilots claimed kills because they believed to have destroyed a vehicle. But if not for a spectacular kill like a ammo cook-off, it is not easy for pilots to assure a kill, a hit vehicle may stop because its engine is dead, or crew killed - or it might just stop to engage a target.

Originally Posted by RPS69

Many kills were scored by pilots that never realized that they were that successful. Not all kills are spectacular.

Exactly. But this works the other way round too, e.g. many kills were claimed by pilots that were not sucessful. And also anything in camouflage is a tank, at least at 400 mph....

Originally Posted by RPS69

Propaganda inflated most probably, as some other british bomber pilots.
Anyway, my comment was supposed to be an irony.

Usually I'm sceptical, but Rudel was beyond human -and I don't mean that to be a compliment, and if such someone has a lot of luck, and quite some talent as a pilot he might as well get to such feats without cheating. He made a few thousand missions, and got shot down countless times, survived every time, if nothing else he is the luckiest WWII aviator ever.