On tank busting aircraft

[danielprates]

I just came across this bit of information:

 

https://www.historynet.com/myth-of-the-tankbuster.htm

 

Thought it could be worth sharing, since we are soon to be getting the Typhoon, the Mosquito etc., and the Hurricane.IId in CloD.

 

I mean no controversy with the text's idea that the tankbusting fighter was a "myth"; I particularly do not agree. I am sharing for the info's sake, only.

[Raven109]

Some interesting information. There is one point to make here, regarding the accuracy of an attack. Although the article claims that the anti-tank attack was not easy to get right in real life, we, as virtual pilots have the benefit of ~1000s of hours/attacks during which we can learn the particularities of one weapon. Even so, I always thought that sims are simplified (and for good reasons) in their portrayal of real life operations, for the sake of accessibility and fun, and so we might have a view about operations which is far from reality.

 

I love how this keeps coming up over the years (its becoming the Wilhelm scream of .50 cal discussions):

 

"Some of them claimed to have knocked out German Tiger tanks simply by firing their .50-caliber machine guns at the road surface adjacent to the tank so that the rounds ricocheted up beneath the tank’s supposedly vulnerable underside. In fact, the Tiger had one-inch armored plate on its underside, which would barely have been scratched by a machine-gun bullet striking at an obtuse angle."

Edited January 5, 2020 by Raven109

[Lusekofte]

There are a lot of ww2 tanks destroyed by air attacks. But main thing was they did not move on clear days during Normandy and Ardennes if not in crisis. All support vehicles was decimated. So needed supporting infantry and fuel and supply was decimated. 
IL 2 took out just about anything moving around the tanks. Same with western Europe. 
I read medium bombers also took out tanks hiding in forrest. They attacked because of spotted there. Air attacks is much about making life unbearable for the enemy too. 

[danielprates]

It is my reasoning too. A particular weapon doesn't have to destroy a target to achieve a relevant effect. Supression works under that principle. Even if the  numbers claimed were much, much inferior, merely paralysing an entire armoured division for a few hours already during Overlord is a great achievement - maybe a defining one.

 

RAF kills during the Battle of Britain were grossly exagerated too, was the "finest hour" a myth then? Surely not.

Edited January 5, 2020 by danielprates

[MasserME262]

32 minutes ago, Raven109 said:

I always thought that sims are simplified (and for good reasons) in their portrayal of real life operations, for the sake of accessibility and fun

I think the reason is actually for the sake of dev's mental health. Simulating everything of real life in a computer could be a little difficult

[Lusekofte]

Take a simple thing as maneuvering a plane. 
In a fighter at speed it is actually hard work. 
Maneuverable fighters was not usually a stable gun platform. Fingertip maneuvering as we do was out of the question. You do not have realism because there is no stick with hard enough resistance to replicate real thing. 
The pilots flying a Cessna can tell you differencd in yoke resistance in speed

[Raven109]

1 hour ago, danielprates said:

It is my reasoning too. A particular weapon doesn't have to destroy a target to achieve a relevant effect. Supression works under that principle. Even if the  numbers claimed were much, much inferior, merely paralysing an entire armoured division for a few hours already during Overlord is a great achievement - maybe a defining one.

 

RAF kills during the Battle of Britain were grossly exagerated too, was the "finest hour" a myth then? Surely not.

 

That is true, but the issue with this is that most of the time it just doesn't translate into an air-combat game, since the aspects of logistics and ground troops morale is very much simplified (or totally irrelevant). 

 

One German memoir recounts how supplies/replacements just couldn't get to the front lines, because of the constant air attacks just after D-Day.

[danielprates]

16 minutes ago, Raven109 said:

That is true, but the issue with this is that most of the time it just doesn't translate into an air-combat game

 

I was talking more about the historical data of the text and not the in-game mechanics, but yes, I agree. To be fair there is a lot that a game will never be able to replicate.

[cardboard_killer]

4 hours ago, Raven109 said:

". . . striking at an obtuse angle."

 

Wouldn't that be an acute angle?

4 hours ago, danielprates said:

RAF kills during the Battle of Britain were grossly exagerated too, was the "finest hour" a myth then?

 

I'd guess it all depends on what the finest hour means. I've always thought it meant that Great Britain decided to, and did, fight on "alone" despite the odds. That they "won" the battle doesn't make it their finest hour--win or lose, the courage to fight on was what made it their finest hour.

 

Quote

‘A time may come soon,’ said he, ‘when none will return. Then there will be need of valour without renown, for none shall remember the deeds that are done in the last defence of your homes. Yet the deeds will not be less valiant because they are unpraised.’

And she answered: ‘All your words are but to say: you are a woman, and your part is in the house. But when the men have died in battle and honour, you have leave to be burned in the house, for the men will need it no more.

 

[Bremspropeller]

I hear the P-39 was a good tank-busting aircraft...

 

*ducks and covers*

[357th_KW]

Tanks are very similar to aircraft - they have big "teeth" but in turn require an enormous logistical "tail".  A tank without fuel, or mechanics, or spare parts, or ammunition, or food and water for the crew is useless.  Fighter bombers were exceptionally effective at destroying trucks, horse carts and trains.  While some tanks were destroyed by direct rocket and bomb attacks, air attacks mostly deprived them of their logistical support and mobility.

[PatrickAWlson]

Not very controversial at all.  It is entirely OK IMHO to state that claims (air or ground) and awarded victories often had little to do with reality - and IMHO this can be stated without taking anything at all away from the  pilots that flew.  Saying so is also not an indictment of the effectiveness of air power.  Air power was critical on all fronts, just not quite as awesomely effective as the individual pilots might have believed.

[LukeFF]

10 hours ago, danielprates said:

I mean no controversy with the text's idea that the tankbusting fighter was a "myth"; I particularly do not agree. I am sharing for the info's sake, only.

 

Well, it was a myth. The after-action reports after Mortain bear that out perfectly. 

[danielprates]

3 hours ago, PatrickAWlson said:

Not very controversial at all.  It is entirely OK IMHO to state that claims (air or ground) and awarded victories often had little to do with reality - and IMHO this can be stated without taking anything at all away from the  pilots that flew.  Saying so is also not an indictment of the effectiveness of air power.  Air power was critical on all fronts, just not quite as awesomely effective as the individual pilots might have believed.

 

True and, as far as I am concerned, most exagerations were honest mistakes and not intentional inflation of data. Specially so if combat happened across the enemy lines and kills could not be confirmed by checking out the remaining wrecks.

 

[HerrBree]

4 hours ago, Bremspropeller said:

I hear the P-39 was a good tank-busting aircraft...

 

*ducks and covers*

I heard some dont even consider it a plane

[Raven109]

10 hours ago, ME-BFMasserME262 said:

I think the reason is actually for the sake of dev's mental health. Simulating everything of real life in a computer could be a little difficult

In my opinion the main reason is a simple cost/benefit analysis. As opposed to WW2, where you were more or less forced into a role (e.g flying a Stuka that won't most of the time kill a tank), virtual pilots can choose what to buy and what to fly, which in the end dictates the "realism" which is implemented and sold. (e.g. not many will want to fly a tank buster when it can't even hit its target, so, you either don't implement it, or implement it and make it more precise/easy/fun to use - by this you actually contribute to the myth of the tank busting plane)

 

6 hours ago, cardboard_killer said:

 

Wouldn't that be an acute angle?

 

Yes, acute would be the more appropriate term. However, in the given context, I think not even "acute" applies, perhaps "shallow angle"?

 

Edited January 5, 2020 by Raven109

[=621=Samikatz]

One thing in the sim pilot's favour is that we aren't afraid to die (in game, anyway), so we will get a lot closer and be a lot more accurate. You can reliably sling a heavy bomb right between the tracks of a tank if you get close and that's going to mess up even the heaviest of heavy tanks

[BornToBattle]

On 1/5/2020 at 5:46 PM, =621=Samikatz said:

One thing in the sim pilot's favour is that we aren't afraid to die (in game, anyway), so we will get a lot closer and be a lot more accurate. You can reliably sling a heavy bomb right between the tracks of a tank if you get close and that's going to mess up even the heaviest of heavy tanks

Oh man, how many times I screwed the pooch playing Iron Man with a pilot’s career due to this. And judging by the vids on YouTube I’m not the only one being too eager beaver who has paid the price.

[MikhaVT]

With aircraft "kills" on tanks we do have to consider different types of "kills" and compare them to what we generally consider a "kill" (often the tank being inoperable until taken to a dedicated depot and repaired). 

 

While a tank may be covered in armor it has plenty of other bits on it that are fairly delicate. If you manage to take out the gun or sight on a tank such that it cannot be replaced/repaired in the field, you've just gotten a mission kill -- that's one less enemy tank that can complete their current mission. That tank will likely be pulled back and repaired, but you've effectively taken that tank out of action for the short-term. Likewise damage to the suspension/tracks has a similar effect, except it turns the tank into a pillbox instead of an APC. Suspension/tracks hits are often repairable in the field with just the tank crew since spares are carried. This will tie up the tank from moving for a few hours or so depending on how many people/what resources are available to assist with repairs. 

 

Also comparing how countries recorded kills/losses you have examples of the US which tracked enemy tanks knocked out as any time a tank was put out of combat. This could be as simple as a shell punching through a tank with the crew bailing out, regardless of if the tank could be re-crewed and put back into service despite said hole(s). Losses were tracked separately for "tank put out of combat" and "tank is not salvageable" on the US side to ease the reporting of the way too many statistics that they recorded. On the German side enemy losses were reported similarly; however, their own tank losses were only reported when the vehicle was salvageable. (These being for the ground-side of combat, i havent read up much for the airforces statistics on any side). In either case, clashes with enemy tanks where they were disabled outside the attacker's lines can often mean inflated kill counts as tanks only got disabled/mission killed, but were reported as destroyed. 

 

This might explain a portion of the numbers inflation if aircraft attacked a tank, thought they got a hit, then saw the crew bail out. From the tanker's accounts i've read in WWII, bailing out to even very minor damage was common because tanks of the day had about an 80% chance of lighting on fire when penetrated. Very few people want wait around to see if the metal box they're in is going to erupt in flames. 

[danielprates]

31 minutes ago, Kataphrakt said:

bailing out to even very minor damage was common because tanks of the day had about an 80% chance of lighting on fire when penetrated. Very few people want wait around to see if the metal box they're in is going to erupt in flames. 

 

Also, penetrating ammo dramatically rises the temperature inside the tank when it passes through, or so I read somewhere. 

[Gambit21]

Spalling is the problem generally - next to getting hit with the actual round.

[MikhaVT]

3 minutes ago, danielprates said:

 

Also, penetrating ammo dramatically rises the temperature inside the tank when it passes through, or so I read somewhere. 

I havent read anything on that (havent really looked either) but at the very least you tend to get spalling (little bits of molten metal shooting out in a cone. For anyone who isnt familiar) which can light things they strike on fire. 

[Gambit21]

My  understanding is that the shards bounce around the compartment and wound/kill. I haven't heard of them being molten, but I've only ever read one book about this so not my area of expertise.

[danielprates]

41 minutes ago, Kataphrakt said:

which can light things they strike on fire

 

Crew included, it is to be imagined!

[MikhaVT]

39 minutes ago, Gambit21 said:

My  understanding is that the shards bounce around the compartment and wound/kill. I haven't heard of them being molten, but I've only ever read one book about this so not my area of expertise.

Not often molten in WWII, but often very hot. The temperature will depend on the projectile, and the energy absorbed in the impact. 

 

19 minutes ago, danielprates said:

 

Crew included, it is to be imagined!

yep! And fun fact: The US armor steel in WWII was specifically chosen for its endurance and the low amount of spalling it had. To obtain this the armor had to be relatively soft which allowed the plates to flex more during an impact. I havnt read any crewmen's reactions to knowing about this, but i imagine they wouldnt take too kindly to the notion of having weaker armor in exchange for less spalling when the armor was penetrated. 

[danielprates]

3 minutes ago, Kataphrakt said:

Not often molten in WWII, but often very hot. The temperature will depend on the projectile, and the energy absorbed in the impact

 

This is more or less in line with what I recalled; actual hits by splinters, molten metal, and fire itself was bad enough, but a common (maybe the most common?) Issue was the temperature rise. You cant blame the crew for bailing if everyone is allright but the internal temperature just rised to 80C or so.

[MikhaVT]

40 minutes ago, danielprates said:

 

This is more or less in line with what I recalled; actual hits by splinters, molten metal, and fire itself was bad enough, but a common (maybe the most common?) Issue was the temperature rise. You cant blame the crew for bailing if everyone is allright but the internal temperature just rised to 80C or so.

i imagine so. I've heard that the tanks get very hot inside when the engine is running and especially when the guns are shooting. Though some tanks like the M4 had the engine intake air from the crew compartment to help with ventilation. This case caused the tanks to be too cold in the winters though!