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

[gaunt1]

Checked achtungpanzer.com

It turned out, the Pz.III should be tougher than the Pz.IV!

thickness/angle:

Pz.IIIH:
Turret Top / Bottom: 10/89
Upper Hull Top / Bottom: 17/77
Lower Hull Top / Bottom: 16/90

Pz.IIIL/M:
Turret Top / Bottom: 10/83
Upper Hull Top / Bottom: 18/79
Lower Hull Top / Bottom: 16/90

Pz.IVD:
Turret Top / Bottom: 10/83
Upper Hull Top / Bottom: 12/84
Lower Hull Top / Bottom: 10/90

Pz.IVG:
Turret Top / Bottom: 10/83
Upper Hull Top / Bottom: 12/85
Lower Hull Top / Bottom: 10/90

Starting from the H variant, turret top was reinforced.

StuG IIIA:
Top / Bottom Superstructure: 11/78-90 & 17/85
Top / Bottom Hull: 16/90

StuG IIIG:
Top / Bottom Superstructure: 11-11/75-90
Top / Bottom Hull: 16/90

I think all of them should be quite vulnerable to 30mm and above, but enough to stop 23mm, unless the aircraft dives on them vertically. (which is very unlikely)

For curiosity, the King Tiger:

Top / Bottom Turret: 40/78 / 40/90
Top / Bottom Superstructure: 40/90
Top / Bottom Hull: 40-25/90

Should be totally invulnerable. (except for the Hs-129B3)

[Pursuivant]

Originally Posted by gaunt1

I think all of them should be quite vulnerable to 30mm and above, but enough to stop 23mm, unless the aircraft dives on them vertically. (which is very unlikely)

Perhaps even 20mm AP. Depending on the exact shell type and striking angle, 20mm AP could penetrate up to 60 mm of armor plate:

http://www.tarrif.net/cgi/production...ration_adv.php

But, the numbers given in the article above only give information for 100 m and 500 m distances and doesn't correct for strike angle relative to the armor.

More typically, an attack aircraft is going to be shooting at ranges from 100-300 m and at angles of 45-60 degrees relative to the target's top armor (or 30-45 degrees relative to its side armor). An angle is going to boost the effective armor value. At deflections of much more than 45 degrees, there's a high chance that the shell will either richochet, break up or gouge the armor without penetrating.

Originally Posted by gaunt1

The King Tiger: . . . should be totally invulnerable. (except for the Hs-129B3)

Again, depending on the exact shell type, a hit from a 20mm gun at 100 m and at close to zero degrees angle off might still penetrate.

So, it's just possible that the armor values for the heavier tanks aren't broken and our Yak-9T pilot might just be very brave and very good. That's a possibility, since players in IL2 get a LOT more gunnery practice than their real-life counterparts ever did, and they're a lot more fearless about getting close to their targets since death, injury or capture are just momentary inconveniences.

Additionally, the hyper-inflated kills might be a product of bad scenario design. Realistically, by the end of WW2, just about every worthwhile target was protected by lots of flak. Protect those tanks with a few AA guns and the Yak driver's virtual life gets much harder.

[Art-J]

If you're trying to hit a tank from 100 m, or even 300, diving at 45 degrees and above, it's highly unlikely that you're going to pull out of a dive at all . A bit too low for these kind of stunts I'd say!

[majorfailure]

Originally Posted by Art-J

If you're trying to hit a tank from 100 m, or even 300, diving at 45 degrees and above, it's highly unlikely that you're going to pull out of a dive at all . A bit too low for these kind of stunts I'd say!

Nah, 300-400m in a 45° degree dive is okay to do (especially in a slower plane with good elevator authority) - and if memory serves me right was a tactic used by IL2 pilots in real life. Takes some training till you learn to judge the right moment for the pullout, but then you can do it on a regular basis. With the VYa armed ILs it is possible to destroy PzIII/IV AFVs that way. It gets unreal when you need a ~60° dive at ~400m in a fast plane with so-so elevator authority (Try destroying PzIII/IV vehicles with a Beau/Mossie - it is possible to pull that off, but the risk is beyond what non suicidal real life pilots would have done IMHO).

[gaunt1]

Perhaps even 20mm AP. Depending on the exact shell type and striking angle, 20mm AP could penetrate up to 60 mm of armor plate:

Impossible with ordinary guns. Thats almost as powerful as a GAU-8 Avenger! The weapon you are referring to is a 28/20mm squeezebore gun, with very special ammunition.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2.8_cm_sPzB_41

Check the other guns on that site. They are using much larger cartridge than aircraft guns, and their barrel lenght is also significantly longer. (except the Breda).
Even modern 20mm guns are unable to penetrate more than 40-45mm armor:
20mm APDS DM-63 44mm at 1km (1988 )
Bottom of this page: http://collinsj.tripod.com/protect.htm

WW2 20mm guns could penetrate around 10-15mm armor, which is not enough against tanks due to the dive angle.
A Tiger, KV-1, IS-2 should be completely invulnerable, only the 75mm could kill them.

Also, from wikipedia:

In spite of the large round, the VYa-23 proved to be a disappointment in its intended anti-tank role. Light German tanks could be defeated from the side or rear only, with front armor of all tanks impervious. Medium tanks could be defeated if hit into the top of the turret or the engine compartment from under 400 m (1,300 ft) in a greater than 40-degree dive -- a very difficult maneuvre in Il-2 even under the most ideal conditions compounded by the difficulty of aiming at a small target.

And the Vya was far more powerful than any 20mm in the war!

[RPS69]

First of all, in game considerations of ground objects vary a little, but to the effect of calculating armour thickness, they are just two boxes when refered to tanks, and a single box when refered to TDs.

Tanks got front, rear, sides and top armour. Tanks turrets got side the same.
There are not that many hit boxes, only 2!

You can't diferentiate a track hit, a tripulant shot, or an engine disabled by a lucky shot. To the effects of the game, a damaged tank, is a destroyed tank.

Actually that's not so different from actual war, any crew inside a disabled tank in the middle of a battle, will get the hell out of the tank. Disabled tanks on the battlefield, aquire the strange property of being magnetic to lead...

On the guns side, they got a pen table porbability, if low caliber, you require more than one pen to kill the object, higher calibers may kill them with a single shot. 37mm is efective against almost all in game tanks.

Now, the game accept a .50 killing thick armour, if you are capable of hitting them in really big numbers. But it is actually not likely.

TD have allready made ground vehicles far tougher. It is not so easy to kill a light AFV as before TD taking the lead.

So, if a guy could kill so many tanks and armour with a single plane, getting 100% efficiency, they being mostly Pz IVs and less, I will just think it is mostly unlikely to be done without any extras. His aim is far too good. But the pen is perfectly normal for all of them unless he killed them all from the front.

[majorfailure]

Originally Posted by gaunt1

Impossible with ordinary guns. Thats almost as powerful as a GAU-8 Avenger! The weapon you are referring to is a 28/20mm squeezebore gun, with very special ammunition.

http://www.wwiiequipment.com/index.p...kets&Itemid=60
Accordind to this 20mm Hispano was almost capable of this when using special APCR ammo - that in turn had considerable accuracy issues.

Originally Posted by gaunt1

WW2 20mm guns could penetrate around 10-15mm armor, which is not enough against tanks due to the dive angle.
A Tiger, KV-1, IS-2 should be completely invulnerable, only the 75mm could kill them.

That is not entierly correct.
From above source standard AP shot for 20mm Hispano penetrates almost 30mm of plate from ~100m, 0°. For ~350m and 40°, this is about half.

And if I remember correctly BK 37 with APCR penetrated 140mm, 100m, 0°. Even if a 45° shot at 300m does less than half of that it would still punch holes in Tiger I/II (30/40mm top armour) and IS2(25?mm top). And the NS37 should be able to do roughly the same, having somwhat lower muzzle velocity while firing a much heavier shell. So there is nothing wrong with that part of the game IMHO.

Wrong(and changeable) is the every hit is a kill concept because:
-at higher angles there should be a considerable rate of failing projectiles
-not all projectiles that penetrate an AFV result in a kill or even damage, especially if the projectile is of low mass and has low remaining energy

Wrong(and not changeable) is further what human online pilots can achieve:
-hit rates far exceeding that what real life pilots could do, in part because of much better training of players and in part of conditions not simulated(e. g. battlefield smoke or inaccurate projectiles)
-flying maneuvres that would put a real pilots life in danger and the ability to train those maneuvres many times over at no cost besides lots of crashed virtual planes and lots of virtual lifes lost.

[gaunt1]

I dunno. That 140mm sounds unbelievable to me. If you check the link about modern ammunition, you can see that such performance was only possible with APFSDS munition (Bofors). Also, the much larger ZIS-2 AT gun was capable of penetrating 145mm armor @ 500m, with tungsten ammo.

I read somewhere that the reason why the Gemans desperately tried to mount the PaK40 on aircraft was because the BK 3.7 was totally useless against IS-2 and ISU-152 tanks, both with 30mm top armor.

From russianammo.org:

Ammunition used in the NS-37:

BT, AP-T, bullet weight 760g, muzzle vel.: 880m/s, Penetrated 50mm of armor at 200m.

[Pursuivant]

Originally Posted by Art-J

If you're trying to hit a tank from 100 m, or even 300, diving at 45 degrees and above, it's highly unlikely that you're going to pull out of a dive at all . A bit too low for these kind of stunts I'd say!

Maybe. If you shoot just as you come out of your dive and you're not going too fast you can sometimes make it. I agree that it's not something a real life pilot would do, though.

Alternately, you can strafe at 20 m or less, getting a nearly 0 degree angle off shot at a tank's rear side or turret armor. That works too, but again it's far more aggressive than a real life pilot would be.

[Pursuivant]

Originally Posted by gaunt1

Impossible with ordinary guns. Thats almost as powerful as a GAU-8 Avenger! The weapon you are referring to is a 28/20mm squeezebore gun, with very special ammunition.

I agree. A good general rule of thumb is that a WW2 era gun will penetrate mm of armor equal to its mm of bore at 100 m.

My point was that some types of 20 mm ammo could hypothetically penetrate the top armor of a PzKw or even a Tiger if fired at very close range at just the right angle. But, I think it's quite unlikely and would require a very aggressive, very skilled on-line pilot.

More likely, I think that the armor values for certain late war AFV are crocked, or IL2 overstates penetrating ability of 20mm guns vs. armor, or both.