A great time for ground attack missions

[PantsPilot]

Is between 6.30-8 am on a cloudy morning; can't go wrong cos the enemy vehicles/trains are still using their headlights in the gloomy winter conditions - just aim for the illumination in the snow! Best to follow the road/rail from behind, then you get more aiming time, you can also use the road/rail to line up your bombs. Been having a great time with the LaGG-3 doing this, makes a good ground attack aircraft as it's more manoeuvrable than the il-2 for last second targeting adjustments. Finding bombs more effective than rockets at the mo, but guess that will come with practise - great game, gonna be special when it's finished, you can tell combat flight sim enthusiasts are building it; labour of love. 

[Fodder]

I wonder if rockets were as crap in real life as they are in BoS? I've given up on them and find even the smaller calibre cannon far more effective.

[Georgio]

I wonder if rockets were as crap in real life as they are in BoS? I've given up on them and find even the smaller calibre cannon far more effective.

 

You just need big rockets; the Tiffie never had a problem in Normandy...

[Finkeren]

I wonder if rockets were as crap in real life as they are in BoS? I've given up on them and find even the smaller calibre cannon far more effective.

Then you share that experience with many RL IL-2 pilots, who prefered guns to either rockets or bombs.

 

Rockets in WW2 were essentially area weapons and almost always fired in salvos, and they were still extremely inaccurate. The problem for the VVS was, that even the RS-132 was much too weak to do damage to a vehicle except on a direct hit. The ROSF-132 had some succes as an anti-personel weapon, but against vehicles the PTAB cluster bombs proved much more effective.

[LLv34_Flanker]

S!

 

 Interesting side note on Typhoons and rockets. I am reading a book of a German Panzer-Lehr soldier(will add the name when get home) who was assigned to recon duties in Africa(was one of few that was sent home before Africa front collapsed) and later in Normandy during 1944 before bing captured in april 1945. He wondered if Typhoons had problems with their rockets as they seemed not to hit very well. And he was first place watching it on the ground. They did stay in cover a lot or as he said, moved from tree to tree with their vehicles to avoid being spotted.

 

 Another interesting tidbit was that he witnessed the destruction Wittmann caused in the battle of Villers-Bocage. His recon team entered the scene after the fight was already over. British soldiers had been put aside in rows to await burial etc. when they got attacked by P-38's that strafed and bombed the already destroyed column and splattered the bodies. So seems friendly fire was not that uncommon or the P-38's just chose to shoot at anything moving.

 

 Very interesting book from the POV of a German soldier fighting in Normandy and the retreat to Germany before being captured. Not very common to read about the recon units at work and live to tell about it.

Edited April 8, 2014 by LLv34_Flanker

[PantsPilot]

Interesting; I think rockets were more of a terror weapon from the sky than 100% effective, like has been said against armour you really need a direct hit. I think the reason the tankers were so terrified of them was the relative thinness of their top and rear armour. Certainly Typhoons caused great damage on the congested roads in the Falaise pocket - but they could hardly miss and a lot of the trapped vehicles were softskins or even horse-drawn. Nasty.

I'll look to try out my rockets against the rear of tanks , firing salvo's, gonna be tricky though. 

[LLv34_Flanker]

S!

 

 The author is Otto Henning. Member of 130th panzer recon battalion.

[69th_chuter]

S!

 

 The author is Otto Henning. Member of 130th panzer recon battalion.

 

 

You may also be interested in  Panzer Commander: The Memoirs of Colonel Hans von Luck.

[oneeyeddog]

You may also be interested in  Panzer Commander: The Memoirs of Colonel Hans von Luck.

+1. Seems like von Luck was always in the thick of things. A very good read.

[Brano]

Source: "Shturmovaiya aviaciya Krasnoy Armii". Petrov, Rastrenin.

 

The Soviet Union was the first country to develop effective air-to-ground rockets, dating far back to even before the war. In the 1920's, Russian scientists discovered the formula for Pyroxyline TNT Powder, or PTP, which was the basis for rocket propellant. Continuing their work through the 1930's and during the Great Patriotic War, they developed three major rocket sizes: 68mm, 82mm, and 132mm. While the 68mm rocket was deemed too small for military use since it could not carry an adequate warhead, the 82mm and 132mm rockets became the RS-82 and RS-132 respectively. The smaller RS-82 rocket was even used for experiments in rocket-assisted take-off in the early 1930's.

Like most other air launched rockets of WWII, the Russian RS-82 and RS-132 were developed from army rockets used by the NKVD's Katyusha units. They had good performance, although suffering from the usual poor accuracy, and could be found on most fighters, bombers, and attack aircraft in the Russian arsenal. According to Soviet records, over 12 million RS series rockets were produced before and during the war.


RS-82 (High Explosive Rocket)

The RS-82 was Russia's best early rocket and could be found on many of her aircraft, such as the LaGG-3 pictured above. It was available for use by aircraft in 1937, and it was first used in combat against the Japanese on August 20, 1939, by an experimental fighter group engaged over Nomonhan. With five I-16 "Ratas" carrying 4 rockets each, the Russians claimed the rockets destroyed 2 Japanese aircraft, although this has been widely discredited. While the air-to-air effectiveness of the RS-82 was questionable, the psychological impact was not: Japanese intelligence concluded the Russians were equipping their aircraft with 76mm guns, which had many Japanese aircraft designers scratching their heads.

Unlike the Katyusha, the RS-82 was not used during the Great Patriotic War until late 1941. This was because most of the Soviet air force was smashed during the German invasion, and because rockets were not sent to front line aviation units out of fear that the rockets would be captured. It wasn't until the German advance was slowed that major Russian rocket use began. The RS-82 had a high-explosive warhead and was good for destroying un-armored vehicles and small fortifications. Another variant with a shaped charge armor piercing warhead was also developed, named the BRS-82, and could penetrate 65mm of armor - but it had to impact at or near a 90 degree angle. The stats and weights of the two rockets are identical.

In a Russian study of rocket effectiveness vs. enemy armor, 182 rockets of the type RS-82 were fired at a stationary tank 500 meters away with only 7 hits, none of which caused any damage. The next test moved the firing distance forward to 300 meters and the target was a vehicle column. Accuracy improved slightly, up to 3.7%, but the only damage observed were direct hits on light tanks and half-tracks. Near misses of 1 meter or more did no damage to any armored or semi-armored vehicles.


RS-132 (High Explosive Rocket)
While the RS-82 was Russia's premier rocket early in the war, its power wasn't strong enough to knock out heavy fortifications and tanks. In 1942 the 132mm RS-132 rocket appeared, although it had been in existance since 1932 for experimental purposes, it wasn't available for regular use until after the war began. It was too heavy to be carried by many of the smaller fighter aircraft that could mount the RS-82, so this 132mm rocket was mostly carried by the IL-2 "Shturmovik" and other attack / bomber aircraft.

The RS-132 came in three varieties: the standard high explosive (RS), high explosive fragmentation (ROFS), and a shaped charge armor piercing version (BRS). The BRS-132 could penetrate 110mm - 160mm of armor, but had the same problems as other HEAT weapons, with a narrow impact angle needed to work properly.

In the same Russian study mentioned above, 182 of the type RS-132 rockets were launched against a similar stationary target at 500 meters range. No rockets hit the target. Again the launch range was decreased and the target became a column of vehicles. Against this column, at 200 meters range and with 134 launches, only 2 rockets found targets, both of which were medium tanks and both of which were deemed out of action. The results of these tests proved to the Soviet high command that rockets were useless in attacks against tanks, and it encouraged the development of PTAB bomblet cases - which proved much more effective.

 

[senseispcc]

I did somewhere, a long time ago, that the Soviet rockets did have a parabolic trajectory so the pilots did have judge the site of impact of the rockets.

 

The UK rockets where like guided gun bullets and in the beginning shot per pairs then later as single rockets and because of their flat trajectory could be directed at an objective move easily!

 

I cloud ask you all to read the book from "Charles Demoulin" a Belgium pilot how did fly Thyphon's over Normandy.

 

[PantsPilot]

Yes I believe the RAF used AP specific rockets on Typhoons, Beaufighters and Mosquitoes, so they were obviously intended for use against armour whether tanks, halftracks or warships, as well as HE warheads. The VVS were certainly ahead of the game in developing rockets, as to whose were the most effective I wouldn't like to say. Germans were equally terrified of Sturmoviks and Typhoons!!   

[Brano]

In general,both soviet and british/american rockets were stabilized in flight by winglets/fins.Not very accurate.Germans were a bit ahead,as their rockets (starting with nebelwerfer) were stabilized by rotation.

I remember one story from Sasha Pokryshkin memoires.When they first got ''eresy'' for their MiGs,ground crew just spilled them of the crates on ground like potatoes from the sack.No wonder that stabilizers were bend and rockets flew anywher but straight.They just didnt realise what were those funny pieces of metal sheet attached to rocket body for

Edited April 8, 2014 by Brano

[taffy2jeffmorgan]

A salvo of 8 x 60 lb rockets fired by the Typhoon was equivalent to a broadside of a light cruiser 

[Georgio]

S!

 

 The author is Otto Henning. Member of 130th panzer recon battalion.

Nice one, I'll look this up as I'm always on the look out for a good read.

[Georgio]

My Grandad was in Normandy and witnessed first hand the destruction of Caen which he said was the single worst incident he saw especially as he was still in the outskirts and knew nothing about the bombing until it actually started.

After the bombing they went into the ruined city but far from flushing out the Germans it just blocked all the streets with rubble and made it a sniper's heaven. All the dead French had a profound effect on him, even 30 years after when I was talking to him about it he got emotional and I had to change the subject.

 

He also saw Typhoons in action and told me that the effects of their rocket barrages was devastating to anyone on the ground. Apparently they came across one German tank that had been blown into a ditch by a close miss of rockets, the outside of the tank was completely splattered with mud, the engine was still running but every crew member was dead presumably from the shockwave or something.

He likened the Typhoons to 'smiting like the hand of God' which being death from above is pretty accurate. He always spoke fondly of the 'Brylcreem boys' saving their butts during the push out of Normandy.

[Fodder]

I always find accounts of deaths from shockwaves strangely compelling. I don't know why, I think I understand the reasons for death, I guess its the apparently unmarked body thing.

 

I watched a programme on Channel 4 a couple of weeks back about the sinking of the Tirpitz (highly recommended and probably still available on CH4 player). It was stated that the shockwave from close near misses of the Talboy bombs contributed (possibly entirely) to the ship capsizing. Whether that was a shockwave above or below the water I don't know, but I'm still impressed.

[HeavyCavalrySgt]

I wonder if rockets were as crap in real life as they are in BoS? I've given up on them and find even the smaller calibre cannon far more effective.

 

 

:-) I have given up on bombs in favor of rockets.

[Finkeren]

A salvo of 8 x 60 lb rockets fired by the Typhoon was equivalent to a broadside of a light cruiser

Yeah, if you completely ignore such minor factors as effective range, impact velocity, penetration, accuracy, ability to fire indirectly and overall reliability, then yeah they're kinda sorta almost the same.