German Tanks - MG-34s In Commander's Cupola?

[AttorneyAtWar]

The .50 CAL ricochet is a complete myth guys, that will not knock out a Tiger tank.

TAC air did not kill tanks (except in rare cases), TAC air killed what tanks need to fight, there fuel and ammo being carried by carts and soft skinned vehicles.

Edited April 1, 2016 by Raptorx7

[iluvmy88]

Just now, Bulletpoint said:

In the game, even a Stug is safe from strafing... it can knock out optics and radio though.

i would say its accurate too but it should at least be able to take out the engine too

[user1000]

I wish someone could clean up that documentary I have seen it before, I love the old VHS stuff! Many old vets talk about the war on VHS tapes still to be found.

Edited April 1, 2016 by user1000

[iluvmy88]

Just now, user1000 said:

I wish someone could clean up that documentary I have seen it before, I love the old VHS stuff! Many old vets talk about the war on VHS tapes still to be found.

i know, love the old documntaries. not many left to tell theyre story so those videos are like relics.

[AttorneyAtWar]

16 minutes ago, user1000 said:

A .50 cal is going to penetrate the soft upper decks of ANY German tank, very thin armor on top no ricochet needed..

 

German rifle and machine guns crippled and brought down US planes.. This was because the fact that the planes flew so slow at the time and had to get low to see objects on the ground making them an EASY target.

1. A .50 cal coming in at the angle a plane uses to strafe is going to have a hard time penetrating a medium tank let alone something like a Tiger. A cannon on the other hand has a better chance, but even at 20mm its going to have a hard time penetrating at an angle.

2. Of course this could happen but you make it sound like it was a common occurrence, German rifle fire I am sure was especially ineffective, that's just silly.

Edited April 1, 2016 by Raptorx7

[Michael Emrys]

6 hours ago, Raptorx7 said:

2. Of course this could happen but you make it sound like it was a common occurrence, German rifle fire I am sure was especially ineffective, that's just silly.

And calling it EASY to hit an attacking plane with a handheld weapon, most especially a bolt action rifle, is even more silly. The vast majority of soldiers simply lacked the shooting skills to do that with any degree of regularity. Only in the world of Sgt. Rock comix does this happen.

Michael

[JonS]

7 hours ago, iluvmy88 said:

but thy said the easiest way to take out a tank was to tear up its underbelly

Which is, of course, utter tosh.

[iluvmy88]

7 hours ago, Raptorx7 said:

7 hours ago, Raptorx7 said:

 

Edited April 2, 2016 by iluvmy88

[iluvmy88]

9 minutes ago, JonS said:

Which is, of course, utter tosh.

Watch the documentary it shows them doing exactly that. its not to say it was easy but it was effective use of ammo for them since they're only job was to kill anything that moved. you don't seem to understand the power of a .50 cal bullet they have a lot of energy even after a ricochet. but theres always gotta be someone here to argue even if the veterans of the time are saying it with actual guncam footage to back it up.

[LukeFF]

24 minutes ago, iluvmy88 said:

Watch the documentary it shows them doing exactly that. its not to say it was easy but it was effective use of ammo for them since they're only job was to kill anything that moved. you don't seem to understand the power of a .50 cal bullet they have a lot of energy even after a ricochet. but theres always gotta be someone here to argue even if the veterans of the time are saying it with actual guncam footage to back it up.

We are all very aware of the power of the .50 BMG, but that still does not mean it could kill a Tiger by means of being ricocheted up into the tank's belly. JonS is right - the idea is utter nonsense.

[iluvmy88]

38 minutes ago, LukeFF said:

We are all very aware of the power of the .50 BMG, but that still does not mean it could kill a Tiger by means of being ricocheted up into the tank's belly. JonS is right - the idea is utter nonsense.

20mm aft (less than an inch) belly plate 40mm forward belly plate is all the tiger had underneath, easily pened by a .50cal hell a 7.62 can pen that at 90deg. .50 would go through that and some engine block and ill bet if they are anything like AFV's today the only thing above that armor is a grid plate for the crew to stand on and some torsion bars if that.

 In any case ill take the word of combat exp vet who did it with guncam footage to prove it over a forum poster.

Edited April 2, 2016 by iluvmy88

[iluvmy88]

And im going out on a limb here but maybe your thinking of a kill like th thing blowes up into tiny pieces or burns up in a fiery death. you dont have to do that to knock out a peice of equipment, ,expecially with the supply issues the german had. all it would take is a hit to a critical engine component and that tank is usless and will get blown up and abandoned by its crew. which is why they would go for the engine compartment on other tanks, pz4 ext. even if they managed to recover it its gonna take a crew of mechanics at least a week to get that vehicle combat effective again and thats assuming they have the parts on hand and it is practically repairable.

[c3k]

Please re-read my admittedly terse post upstream. There's a nugget or two in there.

If you've never fired at an airborne target, a couple of issues may not be apparent. The first is range estimation. If you don't correctly estimate the range, you WILL miss. Bullets drop. You need to correctly account for that drop when firing at a (distant) target. 300m is ridiculously close for an air-to-ground attack. That would be the break-off distance for a kamikaze strafing run. Seriously. If there were any AAA coming up, no pilot would press to 300m slant range. 1,000m would be a bit more "normal" for an aggressive attack run. At 300mph, that ~1/2 mile distance is covered by the aircraft in (2,600ft / 440 ft/sec = 6 seconds) about 6 seconds. Think about the drop a rifle round would have at 1,000 yards. A quick check of a table or two shows that a .308 168gr boat tail round (equivalent/better than Nato 7.62x51 which is similar to WWII era 7.92) has a drop of 421 inches at 1,000 yards. That's 35 feet! (Note that this drop is in comparison to a 100 yard zero.

 

The gunner has to estimate the range. Then, he has to estimate the correct hold-over. 35 feet at 1,000 yards? Wow. Okay, at 500 yards it's only 5 feet. It is non-linear between (and beyond). And, that plane is changing the range at the rate of 150 yards per second.

Correct range estimation is CRITICAL to landing rounds on target. And, that range is changing at a great rate. Any error in range estimation means the round misses.

What's next? Oh, yes...the plane may be moving laterally, strafing a nearby target. That introduces the need to lead the target. Let's look at that...

It takes that same round 665 milliseconds to travel 500 yards. (Again, it is non-linear, so you cannot just extrapolate other ranges. 100 yards is 111 milliseconds.) If that aircraft is 500 yards away, it will cover 300 feet before the bullet gets there!!!

 

So, the gunner, in an oblique position relative to the path of the plane, has to estimate the range (let's say the true value is 500 yards to make it easy on the gunner), and he has to realize that he needs to aim 300 feet in front of the plane (try doing that into the air: really, try to estimate a point 500 yards in front of you in the air, and then try to imagine where a point 300 feet in front of that is.) Next, the gunner needs to adjust for drop. In the case of 500 yards it's only 5 feet. So, aim 300 feet in front and 5 feet above. And that solution changes by the second. And none of that takes into account the vertical aspect of firing.

 

Third, the human eye CANNOT distinguish distance via binocular vision at those ranges. Depth perception simply doesn't work. The gunner has NO FEEDBACK other than the plane is still flying. His tracers may be going high, low, in front, or behind the aircraft. The pilot knows...but to the gunner it is just a stream of tracers which overlay the image of the aircraft. (At least, if he is competent at all.)

 

Again, as I already posted, the ONLY purpose of such weaponry is to keep the strafing pilot "honest" and force him to stay a little further away during his attacks.

 

Ken

 

[Bulletpoint]

Another factor: Planes have a small cross-section when seen from the front. So to the enemy, a plane at 1.5km distance would be a small dot (the engine and cupola) with two faint lines on either side (the wings), whereas to the pilot, trucks and vehicles would be seen as rectangular objects. Especially when coming in from the side of the column.

[General Jack Ripper]

20 hours ago, Michael Emrys said:

SLIM, would you mind my asking what do/did you fly? Most anything about aircraft fascinates me.

Michael

I trained on a Cessna 172, a Piper Seneca, and a Diamond DA-42. I also have some time in a Cessna 421.

[AttorneyAtWar]

10 hours ago, iluvmy88 said:

And im going out on a limb here but maybe your thinking of a kill like th thing blowes up into tiny pieces or burns up in a fiery death. you dont have to do that to knock out a peice of equipment, ,expecially with the supply issues the german had. all it would take is a hit to a critical engine component and that tank is usless and will get blown up and abandoned by its crew. which is why they would go for the engine compartment on other tanks, pz4 ext. even if they managed to recover it its gonna take a crew of mechanics at least a week to get that vehicle combat effective again and thats assuming they have the parts on hand and it is practically repairable.

If simply strafing a German tank caused that amount of damage we would have been in Berlin by Christmas.

[General Jack Ripper]

18 hours ago, Raptorx7 said:

1. A .50 cal coming in at the angle a plane uses to strafe is going to have a hard time penetrating a medium tank let alone something like a Tiger. A cannon on the other hand has a better chance, but even at 20mm its going to have a hard time penetrating at an angle.

That's exactly right. Angle of impact for a strafing aircraft is usually very low, which is why you see the rise of dive-bombers refitted with cannons as ground-attack aircraft. Dive bombers allow for very high angle-of-impact for better penetration of the target. From a ballistics standpoint, it makes sense.

I know guys like Rudel claimed lots of tanks, but I haven't read much about anti-tank effectiveness of Stukas with those 37mm guns on them.

[c3k]

Dive bombing was done to decrease the CEP of the bombs. Stukas could get VERY accurate results, especially before widespread auto-fire weapons appeared in the air-defense role. They could (and did) press to very low levels. The vertical dive "aimed" the bomb. Horizontal bombing (or the modern loft-bombing) introduces a great degree of lateral dispersion. A millisecond's error in release timing could result in no effect on the desired target.

Back to the OP. The cupola mounted MGs disappeared from German tanks because they weren't worth the bother.

[Michael Emrys]

1 hour ago, c3k said:

Back to the OP. The cupola mounted MGs disappeared from German tanks because they weren't worth the bother.

It was usually safer just to duck back down into the turret and slam the hatch.

Michael

[panzersaurkrautwerfer]

It never fails to amaze what historical fictions carry on despite the existence of massive amounts of evidence to the contrary.  

[JonS]

15 hours ago, iluvmy88 said:

And im going out on a limb here but maybe your thinking ...

You'd be much better off investigating the limb labelled "Dunning-Kruger"

[user1000]

The documentary video got me thinking Tigers with towed trailers? Or churchill crocodiles.. OUCH! I really hope the pilot didn't........

Edited April 2, 2016 by user1000

[iluvmy88]

7 hours ago, JonS said:

You'd be much better off investigating the limb labelled "Dunning-Kruger"

Once again im reminded why i hate this forum, never said i was skilled or entirely knowledgeable in anything i just pointed to the evidence where people who are experts and the people who where there tell you what they did, sounds like you have a problem denying your own ineptitude unless you where there and have guncam footage to prove it otherwise your not as experienced as they are.

As for my experience in combat damage i was responsible for assessing battle damage in iraq 2006 2009 and 2011. i have seen first hand what various munitions can do to various types of steel plate setups as well as being a mechanic for 10 years in active duty so i know the ins and outs of armored vehicles. am i a WW2 expert? no but ma deuce is still in service and i have fired her in and out of combat so i also have that little bit of knowledge, you line up 6 of these weapons and they can do a lot of damage. add in that they also carried bombs and they where more than capable of tank busting up to and after they where overshadowed by the p51 mustang which with its longer range came to be the preferred aircraft.

Drives me nuts how you can show hard evidence that something is true with things like balistics tests personal testimony and footage showing something work and someone comes along and says oh thats wrong not providing any evidence to the contrary and then you have the nerve to say i have a mental disorder i would argue you are more likly to be the one suffering, if you have evidence that it wouldnt work please show it otherwise stop with the cheap shots.

Edited April 3, 2016 by iluvmy88
t

[LukeFF]

23 hours ago, iluvmy88 said:

20mm aft (less than an inch) belly plate 40mm forward belly plate is all the tiger had underneath, easily pened by a .50cal hell a 7.62 can pen that at 90deg. .50 would go through that and some engine block and ill bet if they are anything like AFV's today the only thing above that armor is a grid plate for the crew to stand on and some torsion bars if that.

If you seriously think that a .50cal round is going to have enough energy to penetrate the belly of a tank after skipping off the ground, then this conversation is hopeless. 

23 hours ago, iluvmy88 said:

In any case ill take the word of combat exp vet who did it with guncam footage to prove it over a forum poster.

...a forum poster who does know a thing or two about weapon ballistics and who was an armorer during his time in the military.

8 hours ago, panzersaurkrautwerfer said:

It never fails to amaze what historical fictions carry on despite the existence of massive amounts of evidence to the contrary.

No kidding.

[LukeFF]

44 minutes ago, iluvmy88 said:

add in that they also carried bombs and they where more than capable of tank busting up to and after they where overshadowed by the p51 mustang which with its longer range came to be the preferred aircraft.

If it was that bleedin' easy to take out a tank with .50 cal/12.7 mm weapons, the Soviets would have simply fitted a pair of UBKs to the wings of their Il-2s and then told their pilots to simply skip the rounds off the ground when attacking tanks. But, that's not what happened.  

Edited April 3, 2016 by LukeFF