dieseltaylor

W00T Acronym(s) Definition(s) W00T Root (hacker slang) W00T We Own the Other Team (gaming) W00T Wonderful Loot (Everquest) W00T Woohoo Straightforward then. I am sure you have let your wife know us nerdy types love the name : ). All happiness to you all.

Thank you very much Captain Pies that will be so useful in our debate : ) Now to find out if Typhoons and Thunderbolts were going faster in their ineffective efforts : ) Actually I am sure the answer is a big yes!!! In case you are interested I have seen the 87B quoted with a cruising speed of 180mph and the 87D at 115mph. How true I know not but an interesting reduction!

Thanks for the link. It will be interesting when someone does decipher the flak claims to compare. I always feel that flak claims will be suspect as several could fire at the same aircraft and the crash if it occurs may be miles away. I think Rudel could well be overstated. It also could be true that he was an honest man and he did the kills. It will need a great flight sim to bring the ease or otherwise of the kill to light. The more I think about the exploits of the WW1 pilots wh fought at similar speeds and the tales of the naturals who coned there sights at short range to guarantee the kill the more I think it possible for G's to get T34 kills. I drive frequently at 100mph and to my mind if you are attuned to the speed and your vehicle you become very adept at anticipating, braking , slowing, steering etc. I think the brain can calculate well at these speeds and possibly towrds the 200mph. I have severe doubts that when close to earth the brain is anywhere near as good at handling all the information at speeds in the 300-400 range which might explain part of the poor results in W.Europe. Of course the rockets and bombs may not have been the ideal weapons either : ). And the terrain is a lot bumpier, there are more houses/woods etc to hide behind. BTW not much feedback on ammo penetration and using the back of the turret as a target - I have scared the others off? Or is it bedtime : )

Andreas if you recall from the other thread it was armoured breakthroughs that were regarded as the best target as they often would outrun or lose their AA support. If it is an infantry breakthrough I think we can asume that mobile AA would also be there hence my comment . I bitterly regret not mentioning I did not see it as an armoured breakthrough. : ) I have posted on the other re: your last comment

I agree that 500 is a lot and that there were propaganda benefits. What I find surprising is that the ineffectiveness of the Normandy attacks leads to a general conclusion that killing tanks by plane was ineffective. I would like to think that in breakthroughs where tanks were without AA and probably in open terrain that killing tanks was not ineffective. The chances of getting statistical evidence being remote, unless the Russians find some, we have to go on possibilities. I think it is probable that a person flying many missions devoted solely to killing tanks will/can become very skilled at it. That in Western Europe in 1944 this was not seen does not make it impossible in the plains of Russia. While scorning his score how do you explain his drive to be back at the front when he could have had a cushy number. Does rather suggest a man who really believed he was making a difference. We then perhaps can consider if all those other tank-killers were figments of imagination or propaganda lies. The more in the lie the more likely it is that it is rumbled post-war. I suppose therefore someone can turn up anything about 87G pilots saying this? In view of the acknowledged fact that virtually all forms of warfare tank, air to air combat, sniping we get exceptions. Why not tank killing? I am content to believe Wittman did not get 10% of the kills claimed on the Eastern Front as I have not seen the Soviet corroboration. Sounds a little harsh? I suspect in due course will we have a game where you can fly Stuka 87G's with realistic enough controls to see how difficult it really is. Is it not in IL2?

No that plane did seem a little more rapid than slow speed. I assumed it ewas not a breakthrough area and the plane was worrying about flak hence a speedy pass. Propaganda film for sure but nice to enjoy.

Somewhere posted in the thread was a link to the ballistic powers of the 37mm which with tungsten seemed easily able to penetrate Russian T34 top armour. The sight did account for slope of approach : ) Given the angle of approach and all things considered I think my preferred target might be the rear of the turret. It is angled at 30 degrees and 59mm becomes the equivalent of almost vertical. There is lots of good targets in the area for every penetration and there are claims of tanks exploding. BTW all armoured tracked vehicles with turrets are tanks so lets allow that some were light armour also. "The remaining German guns were all adaptations of ground guns. The first was the 37 mm BK 3,7, a modified version of the FlaK 18 AA gun firing the same 37x263B ammunition. This meant that it was bulky, heavy and slow-firing by comparison with the NS-37, for example. It also remained clip-fed, with a maximum capacity of just 12 rounds. It mainly fired Hartkernmunition ammo, capable of penetrating up to 140 mm / 100 m / 90 degrees although this was halved at a striking angle of 60 degrees."

Bugger! mended

As it is about argument JonS "Rudel may well have been the best CAS pilot to ever put up wings, and the Stuka may have been the best CAS vehicle ever to grace gods green earth, but I personally find it hard to credit that he destroyed more than a couple of dozen proper 'tanks' in his career. Regardless of his claims. It wouldn't surprise me to learn that most CAS pilots - like most fighter pilots - never KOd a single thing. And that, of course, is the problem of yusing Rudel. Outliers make poor arguments. We might as well take a sample of men called Armstrong, Aldrin, Conrad, Bean, Shepard, Mitchell, Scott, Irwin, Young, Duke, Cernan, and Schmitt, and conclude that everyone has been to the moon" Thank you for making the point. Despite the huge majority of people who have not been to the moon it does not make it impossible that some have. Lets call them Rudel et al

Basically as this link to the film comes on page 6 of the "Thorn in the Tiger' side" thread it was unlikely to get much viewing. That thread has become quite groggy about planes killing tanks. The general agreement is that they were very effective against soft targets and caused great morale problems. The nub has come to the point where, based on research on normandy battles, some are decrying the supposed aces of Russia with tank kills in the hundreds. If you want to read about all the details please go there. As the formatting has also gone a little loopy I will bring the arguement to here. Edit format back to normal on page 7 The film is here http://www.ww2aircraft.net/ Look in " Aircraft Requests" You may need to join, it is instantaneous, to download the film. If anyone speaks German it would be handy. It is poor quality and late war by the look of things and we may not be looking at proper Rudel attack techniques. It does give the rate of fire beautifully though. [ August 12, 2005, 12:51 AM: Message edited by: dieseltaylor ]

I cannot handle the posting width : new thread

I am disheartened that with all the resources available to you knowledgeable grogs about FB's and them being uselessish against tanks it is left to me to link you to film of a G in action. Tsk tsk web page I give the full linky also as you may need to join, it is instantaneous, to download the film. If anyone speaks German it would be handy. It is poor quality and late war by the look of things so we may not be looking at proper Rudel attack techniques. It does give the rate of fire beautifully though.

"That's not in dispute. Hitting a target that small from 400-500 meters while traveling at, say, 200kph while being shot at from the ground and having to keep an eye out for enemy fighters though is another kettle of fish. The average fighter pilot just wasn't that good a shot." So can we assume that those that were good and those that were exceptional would be those that racked up the scores then. Hmm? The cruising speed for the D was 115mph and we know that Rudel said it was important to fly slowly so I think we can assume a speed nearer 100mph or below. Rudel also mentions that it is easy to miss seeing a tank at 400 metres so I assume that when he attacks he may well like to be a lot closer than that when he fires to make certain. His guns may have been set up for a cone at 200 metres and use a centrally mounted MG to lead him onto target. His modus operandi then is to go low and slow and to avoid AA defended areas - seems sensible. Getting shot down 30 times shows that even with those precautions it was a risky business ... but not impossible. If you fly several times a day then a score will rack up. And as for the young minds - its nice to be considered to have the flexibility and open-mindedness even when you are as old as me : ) BTW ME I thought you were moving from West Auatralia : )

Jason C "That report leads to the conclusion, attack bridges, not on tanks." Apparently from reading the postings the attacks on large fixed objects were not that effective either. It becomes more apparent that in effect CAS is a terror weapon that incidentally is very good at shooting up transports . Like all terror weapons it plays with mind more than the actual effects warrant - if you were a tank crew. Regarding the training of the TAF it seems that Rudel's concept of hunting down tanks at slow speed and the Allied's fast aircraft but ineffective results may be suggesting something. I congratulate Battlefront for beefing it up until it becomes the "terror" weapon it was in 1944. To have left it from the game on the grounds of ineffectiveness or treated it so it was never worth buying would have been a weakening of the game experience.

Thanks.

Other USAAF guff " The effectiveness of the Anglo-American air support at Normandy-and through the collapse of Germany as well-is beyond question, attested to alike by airmen, ground commanders on both sides, soldiers in the field, and prisoners of war. A battalion commander in an armored regiment reported: Our air cover has been excellent and has helped us out of many tight spots. At E1 Boeuf they knocked out eight German Mark V [Panther] and Mark VI [Tiger] tanks that were giving us a great deal of trouble. They also helped us at Tessy-sur-Vire by knocking out tanks. They are on call by any unit down to a platoon, calling through company and battalion, and giving the location of the target. Then the ASPO [Air Support Party Officer] contacts the air cover and gets a strike within a matter of minutes. I have seen the air strike within three minutes after the call was made. We like to know the air is there. We want it all the time. Two other battalion commanders from the same regiment endorsed his remarks. VII Corps's "Lightning Joe" Collins stated that "we could not possibly have gotten as far as we did, as fast as we did, and with as few casualties, without the wonderful air support that we have consistently had." Particularly interesting is the ability to call in support down to platoon level. I have seen opinions before saying that such and such support would not be available for small level encounters - learn something every day.

Jason C said that armoured kills claimed at Mortain where 250. I had not questioned it however the Usaaf site gives these figures below for the entire Normandy campaign. There appears to be a huge discrepancy. "Even allowing for some exaggeration and duplicate claims, the sortie claims of the Ninth AF and 2 TAF during the Normandy fighting is most impressive. Fighter-bomber sortie claims in Normandy 2 TAF 9 AF Total Sorties flown 9,896 2,891 12,787 Claims for motor transport destroyed 3,340 2,520 5,860 Claims for armor destroyed 257 134 391 Total claims 3,597 2,654 6,251 Claims per sortie 0.36 0.92 0.49

JC "Guys, I don't know how many times it has to be said before it registers, but claims of air to ground kills of any kind from the pilots themselves are complete fantasies, there is no reason whatever to assume they have any connection to reality, and they can easily by wrong by a factor of 20 without anyone having made anything up consciously." I do not believe all that I read but on the other hand I am prepared to give some weight to the claims as they cannot all be complete hogwash. I think your requirement of proof is very high and suggests that the opposition keep accurate records to correlate against the pilots claims. Given the fun that can be had in who wiped Wittman I do not demand unreasonable high levels of proof if figure form. If the Germans report skulking around and being inhibited by the constant threat of Jabo's then we may assume they fear them. We go to Mortain and on JC's figures we find that 20-40% of the enemy' 50 tanks left on the battlefield were taken out by airplanes. It should be remembered that the Germans were extremely good , and keen , on tank recovery from battlefields. Now if we can get past the concept that the claimed kills are important to the actuality that the Germans skulked because they considered them dangerous as amply demonstrated by the kills at Mortain when they did deliberately attack. Several aircraft shooting the same tank, or a previously dead tank, will lead to inflated claims but the number of claims is not what we are establishing. Aircraft do take out tanks. Establishing how inaccurate various nationalities pilots were is not that interesting or potentially fruitful. I am curious about Rudel's claimed score but have very little faith in accurate information being available. Particularly if the Germans had use for disabled Russian tanks removed from the battlefield BTW some one remembered this vaguely - here is the full version. We can only assume that Lightening Joe did not really know what he was talking about: "Besides their bomb and rocket payloads, the P-47 and the Typhoon both boasted powerful gun armaments. The Typhoon had four 20mm Hispano cannon. The P-47 carried eight .50 cal. machine guns with 400 rounds per gun, and it proved "particularly successful" against transports. The machine guns occasionally even caused casualties to tanks and tank crews. The .50 cal. armor-piercing bullets often penetrated the underside of vehicles after ricocheting off the road, or penetrated the exhaust system of the tanks, ricocheting around the interior of the armored hull, killing or wounding the crew and sometimes igniting the fuel supply or detonating ammunition storage. This seemed surprising at first, given the typically heavy armor of German tanks. Yet Maj. Gen. J. Lawton "Lightning Joe" Collins, Commander of First Army's VII Corps, was impressed enough to mention to Quesada the success that P-47s had strafing tanks with .50 cal. machine gun fire." USAAF site web page

If Rudel was getting a confirmed kill on every 5 missions he ever flew. I imagine some flights where aborted by enemy fighters or failures due to strong ackack. A touch of famine and feast. I see Bauer got 51 in a total flying career with 1071 flights. Given he was out injured for 10 months in 1942 he could have racked up many more before he switched to fighters. "Herbert Bauer was credited with 11 aerial victories, including one flying the Ju 87 Stuka and 10 flying the Fw 190, in 1,071 missions. In addition he claimed a further 12 unconfirmed aerial victories, 51 tanks and two tank platoons destroyed and recorded hits on the Russian Navy’s battleship “Oktjabrskaya Revoluzia” and a cruiser in the port of Kronstadt."

As Rudel's stats were queried I thought this interesting if long article might be of use, it does discuss CAS and the US at the end. "Historically, CAS operations have a mixed record of success and failure in large-scale mobile wars. The most notable successes on a sustained basis were in World War II: (1) The German cannon-firing JU-87 "Stukas" in mobile defense supporting the retreat of the German forces after the Stalingrad debacle. (2) The Americans -- primarily in P-47s -- supporting the advance of the First and Third Armies across France in 1944. And General Kenney's "Cactus" Air Forces in the Southwest Pacific, particularly at the Paratrooper drop at Nadzab, New Guinea in 1943. German CAS on the Eastern Front. By 1943, the Germans were on the defensive, facing a Russian adversary who vastly outnumbered them in terms of men, tanks, artillery, airplanes, and motorized transport. Although the Germans always tried to maintain strong mobile reserves, and were willing to make extreme sacrifices of front line strength to do so, the numerical imbalance was so severe that they were always short of reserve forces. Consequently, the Germans were constantly countering deep penetrations, flank attacks and encirclements by Russian armored forces. Soviet doctrine was a direct descendent of these post-Stalingrad offensive armored operations against the Germans. Although the anti-tank operations by the cannon equipped Stukas were too small in scale to affect the outcome on the Eastern Front, their effectiveness at the tactical level was most impressive. The unit commander, Col Hans Rudel ran up a personal score of over 500 confirmed tank kills (note: confirmation required that at least two people see the tank burn or explode) in over 2700 combat missions. Col Rudel, in a series of interviews, stressed the following aspects of successful CAS operations: Target Acquisition Rudel states repeatedly, and most emphatically, that this is the most difficult aspect of anti-tank operations. The pilot must be completely free to concentrate all his attention on tank hunting. Therefore, if the enemy has air-superiority over the battlefield, this distraction will make it impossible to find tanks. Enemy air defenses also make acquisition much more difficult. Most important, high speed "is poison" for finding tanks. Rudel was adamant that even though high speed might be desirable, under "no circumstances" should you sacrifice low speed performance to get high speed performance. His reason is simple: you can not find tanks at high speeds. (Comment: There are several reasons why Rudel's comments should be taken very seriously on this crucial point: He was the most experienced and effective combat pilot in the history of anti-tank warfare. Tanks look pretty much the same from the air today as they did in World War II. He was describing the difficulties of finding tank in the relatively open steppes of the Ukraine as opposed to a much more cluttered environment in Central Europe. Finally, he was relating to the top speed of the slow and clumbsy Stuka.) Generally, you had to be within 400-500 meters slant range in order to determine if a carefully camouflaged moving vehicle was a tank, determining if the tank was an enemy often required that you get much closer. Recognition problems were toughest during breakthroughs because friendly and enemy tanks became intermingled; however, air defenses were weaker because the enemy had outrun his flak. Command and Control The German Army had no control over the Air Force, it could simply make a request for air support. Decisions were made at Air Division headquarters; however, usually by the time an order reached Rudel, conditions had changed and the order was no longer relevant. Rudel's reputation and stature were such that he had the freedom to choose his own area of operations so he normally adjusted his response to account for the changed conditions. In effect, this informal arrangement permitted Rudel to work directly with the ground commanders, and under this decentralized arrangement, he was usually able to achieve a response time of 15-20 minutes. Luftwaffe liaison officers were placed in special tanks which had the guns stripped out and radios installed. These tanks were normally up front with the spearheads. Although they had no control authority, they were in constant contact with the Stukas, identifying targets to be attacked, or areas to be searched. When the Stukas were making identification passes, friendly ground troops would mark their positions using color coded flare pistols (German troops were not worried about giving away their positions because each side always knew where the other was located and Russian air power was generally ineffective.) Rudel stressed repeatedly that the key to good control was that the pilots must think of themselves as Soldiers. Target Kill As soon as Russian tank columns were attacked, they would get off the roads and try to hide or start weaving maneuvers to defeat the aim of the attacking Stuka's. This is an important point because it illustrates the need to destroy the unit before it has time to disperse. This implies that the pilot must be able to re-attack quickly without losing sight of the target -- i.e., have a short turning radius -- and that the CAS force should attack in mass. Survivability The majority of losses occurred while the pilot rolled out and was tracking the target. It was essential to survival to minimize tracking time. Rudel would approach the target in hard erratic jinking maneuvers, roll out for one and a half seconds, fire, then resume the hard jinking. (Note: The HITVAL tests in the mid-1970s reaffirmed the importance of minimizing tracking time against the ZSU-23. The issue of tracking time is very important because PGMs such as the Maverick missile require in excess of 10 seconds to lock the guidance system on to the target. During this period the aircraft is flying a steady predictable flight path. Moreover, in a no-FEBA breakthrough scenario, the concept of standing off to survive loses its meaning because, although you may be standing off from an enemy tank, you may be directly over enemy air defenses.) In general, Rudel felt attacks into static enemy positions with coordinated defenses resulted in unacceptable losses. For example, Rudel asserted that it was usually not worth the effort to attack bridges because they were quickly repaired and his losses were too heavy. He also avoided attacks on target-rich staging areas. However, after a breakthrough, the enemy forces would outrun their AAA and the enemy became much more vulnerable to air attack. (Note: This situation can be expected in the modern scenario because the delicate electronic systems and the requirements for internetting of missiles and guns make today's systems much more susceptible to breakdown or reduced effectiveness during rapid movement. On the other hand, in a static scenario, internetted modern weapons may be so lethal as to make air attack prohibitively expensive.) American Army Air Corps/Air Force CAS on the Western Front. Whereas Col Rudel's CAS experience is particularly enlightening at the tactical level of operations, the American Army Air Force experience in France and Germany yields important insights into the grand tactics (often referred to as the operational level of war) as well as the tactics of successful of CAS operations. The central aspect of this grand tactical dimension was the decision to integrate air and ground operations at the army level. This was done with the First and later the Third Army. Two Tactical Air Commands -- IX and XIX TACs -- integrated their operations with the operations of these armies. Here, we begin to see the potential of TACAIR as part of a combined arms team. One airman was responsible for this innovative application of TACAIR -- General Pete Quesada. In the days immediately following the invasion of France, air support of the ground forces suffered from excessive response times and unproductive results. The leadership of the Army Air Corps (later Army Air Force) insisted on channeling requests from the beachhead back through headquarters in England. Apart from the delays, this system permitted little coordination of ground and air planning. The Air Corps' leadership centralized decision making in England because they believed, incorrectly as it turned out, that support of the ground forces would be an unnecessary diversion of resources away from the independent war-winning role of strategic bombing of German industry. Quesada demonstrated an undogmatic willingness to decentralize the command relationships in response to the needs of the ground battle. He moved his headquarters near to General Omar Bradley's, the commander of the First Army; and established a close personal relationship with Bradley. He persuaded Bradley to put high frequency aircraft radios into special tanks and to place these tanks at the spearheads of the divisional combat commands. Army officers were given the authority to call down their own air support. Quesada was a frequent visitor to the front to see what his units were achieving and to keep in touch with the realities of the ground battle. He also worked hard to keep the ground commanders up to date on the air situation. His pilots flew as many as five missions a day, living between the sorties in the same mud and discomfort as the ground troops. When Third Army was activated, Gen Weyland, Commander of XIX TAC, patterned his operations after Quesada's. The following features of the CAS operations stand out: Command, Control, and Reconnaissance Each of the advancing tank columns was covered at all times by four aircraft which maintained armed recce in advance of the column. Directing their attention to the terrain in front of the column, these aircraft were permitted to attack any target identified as enemy. The divisional combat command commander would monitor the aircraft radio channel to receive their recce information, and could request the flight to attack the targets immediately in front of him. Target requests requiring more strength would be passed through air support party channels, and the missions would be accomplished by aircraft on strip alert. Friendly tank columns would often display bright fluorescent panels to identify their positions (enemy air power posed less of a threat than the bombing of friendly troops). With these arrangements, the fighter bombers could often attack enemy tanks or strong points within 100 meters of friendly positions. Viewed from the grand tactical level, TACAIR served as a highly mobile recce/artillery force that was used to enhance ground force mobility. Perhaps the best example was the support of the Third Army; the fighter bombers served as a flank guard on Patton's right flank as he raced across France. It is clear from the memoirs of the German panzer commanders that they considered the fighter bombers to be the most effective anti-armor weapon employed by the Allies -- they felt this way because the constant pressure from the air destroyed their mobility. Tactical Effectiveness The following information was obtained from Col W. Yale, U.S. Army (Retired), former commander Combat Command "B" (CCB), 11th Armored Division, 3d Army. It provides some detail of the tactical cooperation that can be achieved by superb informal relations between the air and ground forces. "The night before an action, the CCB operations staff made up small maps of the next day's prospective action and marked them with code figures showing probable hostile positions. The maps were mounted on small cardboard panels (to make them easy to hold in the cockpit) and delivered to XIX TAC with the divisional call signs on them. CCB was always prepared to provide artillery support to suppress enemy air defenses just prior to an air strike. These factors contributed to a common outlook and the spirit of mutual support. Under these conditions, normal response times were between 10 and 20 minutes, and sometimes CAS was available in 5 minutes". As far as Col Yale was concerned, XIX TAC ... "won the war for me." This anecdote is impressive because it comes from a World War II U.S. Army officer (who were well-known for their disdain of air power). web page

Regarding the Stuka - it was a very stable aircraft indeed which made it a good gun platform. I suspect its stall speed was low so coming in at 100 mph or less would be straightforward. I note that MG's for lining up the cannon are not mentioned! but that is not to say field additions do not occur And some details "Ju 87G The Ju 87G was the final version of the Stuka. It abandoned the dive attack in favour of an armament of two 37mm Rheinmetall-Borsig BK3,7 anti-tank cannon. These weapons fired special armour-piercing ammunition, with tungsten cores, at a muzzle velocity of 850m/sec. They were installed in gun pods fitted outboard of the landing gear legs. The ammunition was in six-round clips. The first operational trials were made in March 1943. The normal 7.9mm or 20mm wing guns were deleted. Dive bombing was not possible with the additional weight of the guns, so the dive brakes were also deleted -- the Ju 87G could still drop bombs, but not in a dive. Initially, the Ju 87G was seen as quite dangerous to its crews. The additional weight and drag of the wing guns adversely affected performance and handling, and low-level attacks in the face of the Russian AAA and fighters seemed suicidal. But true as that was, it remained that the Ju 87G was extremely effective. The 37mm gun was in 1943 considered obsolete as an anti-tank gun on the ground, but from the air it was still effective, because the Ju 87G could attack tanks from the rear or from above, were their armour was much thinner."

Flying IL-2 seems dangerous : ) Il-2's out of total aircraft shot down by pilot ace Oblt. Otto "Bruno" Kittel 94 267 Hptm. Joachim Brendel 88 189 Maj. Johannes Wiese 70+ 133 Hptm. Franz Schall 61 133 Oblt. Günther Josten 60 178 Maj. Erich Rudorffer 58 224 Oblt. Anton "Toni" Hafner 55 204 Maj. Franz Eisenach 52 129 Hptm. Wilhelm Batz 46 237 Oblt. Kurt Dombacher 43 68 Hptm. Rudolf Trenkel 42+ 138 Maj. Diethelm von Eichel-Streiber 42 96 Lt. Herbert Bachnick 41 80 Hptm. Robert "Bazi" Weiss 40 121 Lt. Peter "Bonifaz" Düttmann 38 152 Lt. Hermann Schleinhege 38 96 Hptm. Helmut Lipfert 36 203 Oblt. Oskar "Ossi" Romm 34+ 92 Obst. Walter Dahl 34 129 Oblt. Hans Waldmann 33 134 Maj. Erich Leie 32 118 Hptm. Werner Lucas 31 106 Hptm. Erich "Bubi" Hartmann 30 352 Oblt. Fritz Seyffardt 30 30 Lt. Josef "Pepi" Jennewein 29 86 Oblt. Gerhard Thyben 28 157 Hptm. Karl-Heinz Weber 28 136 Hptm. Wilhelm Lemke 28 131 Ofw. Wilhelm Philipp 28 81 FjOfw. Heinz "Negus" Marquardt 27+ 121 Oblt. Heinrich Höfemeier 27+ 96 Hptm. Emil Bitsch 27 108 Maj. Viktor Bauer 27 106 Oblt. Hans Grünberg 27 82 Lt. Heinz Kemethmüller 26 89 Oblt. Siegfried Engfer 25 58 Maj. Walter Nowotny 24 258 Maj. Heinz Lange 24 70 Oblt. Walter Wever 24 44 Lt. Reinhold Hoffmann 23 67 Oblt. Max-Hermann Lücke 22 78 Oblt. Wolf-Udo Ettel 21 124 Lt. Rudolf "Rudi" Rademacher 21 97 Lt. Otto Gaiser 21 66 Lt. Ulrich "Seppl" Wöhnert 20+ 86 Hptm. Emil "Bully" Lang 20 173 Lt. Ulrich "Pipfax" Wernitz 20 101 Lt. Günther Scheel 20 71 Lt. Hugo Broch 18 81 Oblt. Edwin Thiel 18 76 Maj. Erwin Clausen 17 132 Lt. Walter Zellot 17 86 Ofw. Fritz Lüddecke 17 51 Oblt. Walter Wolfrum 16 137 Hptm. Alfred Grislawski 16 133 Hptm. Franz Dörr 16 128 Lt. Johann-Hermann Meier 16 78 Ofw. Heribert Koller 16 50+ Oblt. Wolfgang Böwing-Treuding 16 46 Maj. Günther Rall 15 275 Maj. Theodor Weissenberger 15 208 Lt. Hans-Joachim Birkner 15 117 Oblt. Hans Schleef 15 99 Hptm. Alfred Teumer 15 76 Lt. Hans-Joachim Kroschinski 15 76 Lt. Hans Fuss 15 71 Hptm. Lutz-Wilhelm Burkhardt 15 69 Maj. Wilhelm Moritz 15 44 Lt. Alfons Klein 15 39 Maj. Günther Bleckmann 15 33 Maj. Joachim Müncheberg 14 135 Lt. Heinz Sachsenberg 14 104 Lt. Heinz Ewald 14 84 Oblt. Hermann "Anatol" Lücke 14 78 Oblt. Kurt Ebener 14 57 Lt. Johann Badum 14 54 Lt. Georg Schwientek 14 31 Hptm. Walter “Graf Punski” Krupinski 13+ 197 Maj. Hartmann Grasser 13 103 Hptm. Hans Götz 13 82 Lt. Karl "Fuchs" Munz 13 60 Fw. Heinz "Figaro" Golinski 13 47 Lt. Franz-Josef Beerenbrock 12 117 Hptm. Hans Roehrig 12 75 Lt. Ludwig Häfner 12 52 Obst. Hermann Graf 11+ 212 Obst. Johannes "Mäcky Steinhoff 10 176 Hptm. Wolfgang Tonne 10 122 Obstlt. Helmut Bennemann 10 93 Oblt. Alfred Heckmann 10 71 Lt. Karl "Quax" Schnörrer 10 46 web page

I cannot help feel this is a new scenario actually , : ) Congratulations to the pair of you. By the way do you mean Hello as in English or Hello [Ello]as in French. I think the latter. 'Ello-ease to English speakers. A very pretty and elegant name. My daughter I named Isobel [iz-obell]which means she is now Izzy : )

Another great Tarkus interface. I too have reservations about the direction arrows - not of the period : )

Soddball doesn't read posts! BTW the short barrelled MkIII at war end has it also I think. Regardless of that I did a trial as the Germans knocking out Matilda's with 150mm -- or not as it turned out. I was amazed that several hits did nothing to it. Of course the 105 and 75's were no use either. I take a view that the delicate workings of a 2pdr were not susceptible to violent explosions! I knew someone who left his 76.2mm firing across a bridge at night. It went rather wrong when he advanced his troops roughly about when the gun ran out of HE. It got 22 infantry kills - and many routed units : )