Aircraft against tanks

[mav1]

In cm the aircraft are useless in destroying tanks unless they are open topped. Aircrft such as the Sturmovik are unable to knock out tiger and panther tanks with gun fire. The stastics say they can and in the war they could but not in cm.

The sturmoviks nickname in the war was black death but in cm it's nickname is the black pansy.

[Earl Grey]

Actually, it's not true. Granted, they need a lucky hit most of the time, but I had Panthers knocked out by Shturmoviks which penetrated the engine deck or the turret top...

Further, i don't understand why you're angry - if your tanks aren't KO'ed ever, just play Germans all the time and make yourself a very happy player.

[ParaBellum]

Originally posted by mav1:

In cm the aircraft are useless in destroying tanks unless they are open topped.

Wrong. Aircraft equipped with bombs and rockets are more than capable of destroying tanks. You might want to take into account that armour claims by aircraft were usually greatly exaggerated in WW2.

Aircrft such as the Sturmovik are unable to knock out tiger and panther tanks with gun fire. The stastics say they can and in the war they could but not in cm.

Wrong. The 37mm-armed IL2s are very capable of knocking out Panthers with gunfire. I doubt they could take out Tigers with gunfire alone though. Please cite your sources for Tigers that got knocked out by aerial gunfire.

The sturmoviks nickname in the war was black death but in cm it's nickname is the black pansy.

The IL2s in CMBB are deadly ground attack aircraft. I don't know what expectations you have, but they are doing just nicely for me.

[JasonC]

Strafing it not undermodeled in CM, it is ridiculously overmodeled. Particularly the accuracy and the perfect target selection and visibility. IL-2s will fire twice per pass up to 6 passes, giving 12 engagements. They can readily KO Panthers. Tigers only get immobilizations from track hits, but it takes that much armor to stop it. The averge IL-2 showing up KOs multiple armored vehicles.

In reality, the average IL-2 never killed a single armored vehicle, even a light armored one, over its entire service life. The Russians fielded as many IL-2s as the Germans fielded AFVs. And air never accounted for more than 10% of their losses.

Air to ground kill claims are notoriously the most unreliable reports regularly generated in warfare. On the scrupulous sides, when propaganda is not an issue, they are routinely high by a factor of 50 (yes 50 times), wherever claims can be checked by enemy side loss reports.

As an example, western fighter bomber losses over Normandy definitely exceeded any tanks they took out on the ground, by at least 2 and possibly 3 orders of magnitude.

The first effective air to ground AT weapon was napalm. Rockets were more effective than strafing, by far, but still not effective. In Korea, detailed operations research established that napalm accounted for 70% of all actual air to ground kills, against only 20% of claims.

Before precision guided munitions, air to ground weapons simply fail to hit point targets with anything like reliability. Unless they can have an effect even when they miss by 20 yards, they don't have an effect. That makes the only effective unguided air to ground munitions (against armor) napalm and cluster bombs.

Large scale air power in WW II was completely unable to effect large bodies of full armor. Its greatest effect was general interdiction of routes against soft vehicles. Trucks, railway boxcars, and wagons were the targets aircraft were effective against. Because they come in big honking targets of a hundred vehicles at a time. And they are hit with full squadrons at a time.

The kills per sortie of even such soft vehicles are still around unity, or less. Over their service lives, fighter bombers accounted for dozens of them, which made them operationally effective against soft targets. Those dozens of soft vehicles were racked up over scores of sorties, with the numerical average per sortie generally between 0.5 and 1.

Loss of transport and restriction of times when movement was safe, the need to avoid large convoy targets, forced use of all routes in penny packets, lost time in organization inefficient it all causes, etc, all made tac air interdiction operationally effective. It cut movement rates of mechanized formations and reduced rail thruput. More it was never able to do.

[PanzerMiller]

Jason,

As an example, western fighter bomber losses over Normandy definitely exceeded any tanks they took out on the ground, by at least 2 and possibly 3 orders of magnitude.

Two to three orders of magnitude? Really?? What specific time frame are you referring to? Could you cite your source on this? I don't claim to have different data, I'm just very surprised to hear this as we've all heard about the lethal advantage Allied air power proved to be in the West. If your timeframe is just a few days or so after D-Day, I would be more inclined to accept your statement at face value. Would love to know the original source.

Thanks...always great to learn from y'all...

[Wicky]

Long CMAK thread on Air to Ground effectiveness

[John Kettler]

Not only is JasonC right about the general level of CAS airpower effectiveness, but even in the 1980s, the level of performance was ~1 kill per sortie, and that didn't change until Maverick came on the scene and acquired the necessary avionics to permit multiple launches per pass, multiple passes being out because of attrition issues.

The whole reason for things like what we today call the Sensor Fuzed Weapon and other multiply delivered smart weapons was to get the kills per sortie high enough to be able to stop the anticipated Soviet armored horde while still retaining a viable Air Force.

The 1973 Yom Kippur War showed just how bad air losses could get and how quickly. Even with massive resupply from the U.S., Israel took such severe lumps from integrated SAM/AAA defenses that it had to cease CAS missions altogether until it could put tanks across the Suez Canal and literally shoot up the SAM and AAA sites. Only then was it able to resume CAS sorties, but solely in "sanitized" zones . It was only when the Egyptian ground force moved out from beneath most of its static air defense umbrella (SA-2.SA-3, heavy and medium AAA) and away from the Canal that it even became attackable by air at a reasonable cost, and doing even that took the development of a whole new Israeli playbook, to include fast FACs, coordinated artillery and air attacks vs. SA-6, etc.. That in turn led to the surrounding of the Egyptian Third Army, an event which nearly led to direct Soviet intervention in the region.

Regards,

John Kettler

[JasonC]

Panzer Miller - the whole campaign within the departments of Normandy, proper, from D-Day to breakout, but excluding the pursuit and Falaise, which took place physically outside Normandy. The Germans lost only about 50 tanks TWO to tac air attack over that period.

There are single days within it for which the allies claim 50 or more full AFVs killed e.g. Panzer Lehr's counterattack on the US front in early July. But German side records show they lost only 22 AFVs to all causes in the entire 2 week period centered on the fight, and nearly all of them can be explicitly accounted for by TDs and other ground force causes. (TDs by far the largest). The only thing they might have lost to air on that occasion were some halftracks parked along a road after the Pz Gdrs disembarked.

At no time do German accounts of their loss breakdown ascribe more than 15% of their losses to air, and the usual figure is single digit percent. The Allies were using far more fighter bombers over the theater, than the Germans had tanks on the ground. Some reports give 13000 planes available. Tac air might be only a third of that, but it is still twice the number of German AFVs sent to Normandy.

2nd TAF and 9th AF *claimed* just under 400 armored kills in Normandy, between them. From 13800 sorties. But they didn't get that many, German side reports make clear, and everything we know about exaggeration of air to ground kills fits.

Those groups lost 625 planes between the invasion and the end of June, alone. I've seen figures for allied tac air losses (alone) over Normandy that go as high as 2600 planes. (The Germans only sent 2200 AFVs to Normandy, all told). And that is perfectly believable - it was completely normal for plane losses to run 1000 per month.

Ergo, around 50 aircraft were lost to ground fire for every tank they managed to take out. Not that they were firing at tanks very much - trucks and railway cars were their primary targets, as already explained.

Between 70% and 90% of AC lost were to ground fire - the uncertainty stems from the number lost to unknown causes. III Flak corps claimed 462 alone, using a total (including replacements etc) of 160 88 Flak and around 120 light flak (counting 37s and quad 20s as 1, single 20s as 1/4). There is no sign those claims are exaggerated, since allies report far higher losses themselves. So a typical Flak gun may have taken out ~2 planes over the campaign as a whole (could be higher, that is one formation's claims) - and mostly lived - while only about 1/100 fighter bombers got a tank, while losing half their own numbers.

WW II era tac air simply was not effective against fully armored targets. People who get their ideas of the air to ground war from flight sims might as well be reading comic books.

[Michael Dorosh]

The devastating abilities of Il-2 were best demonstrated during the Battle of Kursk. On 7 July 1943, marauding aircraft destroyed 70 tanks from the German 9th Panzer Division in just 20 minutes. On another occasion, 3rd Panzer Division lost 270 tanks and suffered 2,000 casualties during a non-stop two-hour attack. The 17th Panzer Division lost 240 of its 300 tanks during another four-hour raid .

From wikipedia. I take it this is bunk?

EDIT - must be - the whole artcile read like a love letter to the Sturmovik. Um, well, before I edited it that is. JasonC, would love to see your expertise over there kicking ass and taking names...

[ June 07, 2006, 02:14 PM: Message edited by: Michael Dorosh ]

[JasonC]

Just laughable, who writes this stuff?

To start with, take the ridiculous claim that 3rd PD lost 270 tanks and 2000 men in a single 2 hour air raid at Kursk.

3rd PD didn't have 270 tanks. It had 105, counting Marders. Total write offs from the entire battle of Kursk, all causes - 12. Another 70 tanks were put into the repair shops by enemy action, all causes combined.

As for the personnel, they had 2061 causalties up to July 21, from all causes combined. Not from one air raid, from 2 weeks of intense offensive combat on the left flank of the southern drive. They fought 2 RDs and an entire Mech corps, in succession.

For 7 July, 3rd PD reports "During the day the division suffered from continuous bombing and strafing by Soviet aircraft, despite strong German fighter presence (which was weaker than on previous days). Numerous downed aircraft from both sides observed, including 4 Soviet aircraft downed on 5 and 6 July by the division's own 20mm flak." They also report night bombing by level bombers on the 9th, one area in particular reporting bombing at 2100 hours. On the 19th they report "At 1030 the division's flak unit shot down a Soviet IL-2 aircraft."

There are no other reports of Russian air attacks in its combat narrative. Only the first of those can possibly have been meant. On 6 July, they report 82 tanks on strength plus 14 Marders. On 8 July it is lower by only 9 - 3 Pz IVs, 5 Pz IIIs, and 1 Pz II. No report from Marders that day, but Marders sent into repair for the whole offensive was only 6. Ergo, tanks lost on the 7th were 15 or less and probably only 10, to all causes.

Once again, own side air to ground kill claims are off by a factor of at least 18, and probably more like 50 or more. If the Marder losses that day were 1 - likely - then they may have lost 10 tanks. But there is no reason to assign them all to air, since they were attacking throughout the day against ground opposition. There is precious little reason to award air even half of them - but that is already enough to convict the claim of being inflated by a factor of 50.

As for the personnel losses, for most units the first day was 2-3 times as heavy as the others. After the 13th the lose rates drops by about half. So you can count "weighted days" in July, and estimate that losses on the 7th may have run about 1/14-15th of the total, or around 135-150 men for a typical day.

Other formations show losses running around 25-30 per battalion per day, and this PD had 4 infantry type battalions, plus 1 recce and 1 engineer, which had similar loss rates. There is no particular reason to think they lost much more than the average on the 7th, and they certainly did not lose all or half of them then, since their losses are in line with other units per battalion-day in combat.

[John Kettler]

Michael Dorosh,

Part of the problem may be misperception as to the scale of the attacks. In CMBB, for example, we tend to see airplanes in onesies and twosies, but in the examples cited, you're probably talking about much or even all of a given Front's air power, drawn from an Air Army with a strength of ~1000 aircraft, focused on one German division.

The link gives some examples of the kind of aerial clout disposed of by these Air Armies, and that's with nothing supplied by way of additional reinforcements from STAVKA's vast resource pool.

Ballpark, though, you're talking ~250 Il-2s per Air Army, with each Il-2 carrying something like one substantial bomb or several bombs full of antitank bomblets, plus rockets and lots of cannon ammo, operating against a foe almost certainly rapidly denuded of air defense means. IOW, we're talking an early Highway of Death type environment, using only the Front commander's private air force, which also has more PE-2s than Il-2s and fighters sufficient to essentially equal the combined strength of Il-2s and Pe-2s.

Those fighters not needed to provide air cover, as occurred some days after the battle began, can themselves be used for ground attack, but aren't as survivable as the Il-2s, nor unless bomb or rocket armed, do they hit as hard. I'd expect the Il-2s to average at least two passes per plane, and likely three or four.

http://dspace.dial.pipex.com/town/avenue/vy75/rusobair.htm

That I've got the gist of the story more or less right is borne out by Cornish's IMAGES OF KURSK, pp.129-130, where we learn of a sea change in Russian ground attack practice, going from ineffective penny packets of often unescorted Il-2s and Pe-2s, with Il-2s operating in high speed, hasty passes on the deck, to regimental formations to simplify escort and provide the kind of firepower needed to effectively suppress defenses so the real killing could begin, a situation greatly enhanced by flying line abreast and making diving attacks from (Fair use) "under 1000m, at angles of 30-40 degrees, releasing their bombs and rockets when 200-300m from their target, and making repeated passes with

cannon and machine guns." Thus, attacks largely negated by normal impact on largely vertical armor plate, are now coming down upon the much thinner top and deck armor, and against a bigger target, thanks to the dive angle. Unsurprisingly, this worked better.

I checked THE BATTLE OF KURSK by Glantz and House in an effort to confirm or deny the damage claim against 9 PD for 7 July 1943, and was unable to find (pp.115-116) even a mention of an air attack, let alone one that destroyed most of the unit's beginning 83 tank strength. The date, the unit, and/or the statement itself may all be wrong, but something's clearly way off here. Nor is there any evidence to support this claim in Biryukov and Melnikov's important work ANTITANK WARFARE on page 115, even though the authors are at pains to present examples of effective airstrikes against tanks. The closest I can find are these: (Fair use)

"For example, on July 7, 1943, the enemy tank attack in the area of Kashara was frustrated by our attack aircraft. Acting in groups of 20-30 planes each(,) our attack aircraft destroyed 34 enemy tanks and forced the enemy to discontinue the attack. On July 8, 1943, six Il-2 planes attacked a group of enemy tanks in the area of Yakovleyvo and destroyed 15 tanks with antitank bombs dropped from an altitude of 600-800m, as well as with cannon fire and rockets launched during low-level flight.

Glantz and House mention Kashara on pp. 120-121, but there is no discussion whatsoever of what would've been such a devastating air attack that it would surely have rated a comment, but there is a mention (p.135) of the precedent setting impact of four misnamed (listed as Hs-109) Hs-129 squadrons had on Burdeiny's 2nd Guards Tank Corps,

whose attack "suffered an unmerciful beating from German aircraft and Totenkopf's Panzer Regiment, losing fifty tanks in the process."

Apparently, the tanks didn't do much, for we read (Fair use)

"This unprecedented action, in which a tank attack was halted by air power alone, set a dangerous precedent. Indeed, throughout this battle, Soviet movements had to be conducted at night to minimize such losses. This in turn delayed the arrival of reserves to block the German penetration."

Summing up, I have found zero evidence to support the devastation of the 9 PD claim and nothing to indicate any effective air attack at Kashara. Could the latter have happened? Maybe against bunched up tanks, but it seems to me that losing 15 tanks, practically a quarter of a PD, would rate some remark, and I find none. From what I can tell, the aerial tide did not run the Russians' way until 11 July, which makes it that much harder to believe the various claims for 7 and 8 July.

Regards,

John Kettler

[JasonC]

JK - sorry, hopelessly inflated own side estimates of air effects again, plus flight sim notions of tactical usefulness.

The Russians had 900 IL-2s in 3 air armies at Kursk, and 2668 A/C total. They exceeded one sortie per day average only for a surge attempt to knock out the Luftwaffe on its airfields, on 5 July. Which failed completely.

On the 6th and 7th they managed a sortie per AC. By the 8th, the sortie rate fell to 3/4 of that. Their sortie rate was well below German levels, and their losses were much higher.

Russian admit 1000 aircraft lost in the defensive phase of the Kursk battle. 16th air army lost 346 by July 10, which is 33% of strength in just 6 days. Losses in 2nd air army lost 153 in the fighter category alone, 39% of strength. For comparison, the Germans lost only 200 AC in the offensive phase, while conducting 27000 sorties.

Russian IL-2 sorties may have totaled around 6000 during the defensive phase, spread over 2 weeks and 5 attacking panzer corps. A typical German PD in the battle might have been hit by a squadron a day - with other missions going after other targets, some being broken up before they reached their targets, etc.

Nor was German flak evaporating, globally on it areas being attacked. German flak losses in the entire battle were quite modest. For example, the whole SS Panzer corps over the whole attack period lost 7 88s, 12 37mm or quad 20mm (call them medium), and 21 single 20mm Flak (call them light). To all causes, not just air attack. Out of total strengths (with a few replacements) of 37 88s, 52 medium, and 123 light. So the total drawdown of their flak strength over 2 weeks was only about 1/6th.

Claims that anything about it were "highway of death" like are absurd. The term can only come from it being the period of about the first attempt to use submunition "bomblets". But it is hyperbole. The Russian air force underperformed the German one at Kursk. But neither had a significant impact on the course of the ground battle, which was decided by armor reserves and the overall Russian numbers.

[John Kettler]

JasonC,

I was attempting to investigate, with nothing like your data base (where did you get the extremely groggy German flak loss numbers?), the provable losses related to the purported Il-2 attacks. While this exercise has given some sense of the air power available in the battle, I can't find any effective Russian air attack against the Panzers for July 7 or July 8.

The "Highway of Death" remark was based on the concept that the strike effectiveness was as advertised, when clearly, after doing some research, nothing even proximally resembling such losses can be found, at least by me. That aside, I think I wrote a pretty good piece analyzing the claims for which I could a) find data and tie to a specific date and place.

Since you seem to have information of the most incredibly detailed sort, can you provide an example of a documented effective Il-2 strike at Kursk? I must say, though, that based on what I've seen, and on the way the Russians fight, that I feel compelled to disagree with your assertion that the typical strike package would be a squadron/per PD/ per day, when the source I've seen clearly indicates that the formation size was a regiment, some 32 aircraft. I highly doubt that

you'd find such strikes evenly distributed over all the PDs, either, but would instead expect a few critical PDs in key sectors to get royally hammered. Per Kornish, pp.127-129, the order to use Il-2s by the regiment came from no less than Chief of Air Staff General Khudyakov. He must've been doing something right, because according to this rather disturbing article, he went on to become Marshal Kudyakov.

http://www.shunpiking.com/ol0207/0207-SW-rd2berlin.htm

From there, he rose even higher (see No. 68)

http://www.iatp.am/stamps/1995.htm

RED STAR AGAINST THE SWASTIKA (HSU Il-2 pilot memoir) might be useful. Have you read it? I just heard of it.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1853676497/102-4347675-0017768?v=glance&n=283155

Excerpt and brief bio here

http://www.iremember.ru/misc/books/emelianenko_e.htm

Regards,

John Kettler

[coe]

Hey I remember two accounts - one during I think Operation Blau when some soviet division or unit like that was caught in the open steppe and disrupted severely or in 1944 during the Brody encirclement when the 8th Pz Div decided to go on the road rather than the forest and was hit hard....maybe those are times when air units did well?

Conan

[JasonC]

JK - I don't doubt that they hit in waves of 36 ac often enough, and occasionally more. (Doesn't take 2 hours to hit with just 12, etc). But for every such occasion there is another PD left alone for 2 days.

The picture I was attempting to correct, which you may not of intended but someone might read into your previous, was of hundreds of IL-2s conducting wave after wave of massive strikes that destroy AA then deplete entire PDs. That simply did not happen.

They had hundreds of them, got them into the air about once a day. But not all together, remotely. Instead spread over multiple major target areas hundreds of miles apart, over strike times staggered by hours, etc.

On details on Flak, the unit histories provided in the raw data files of the Kursk online page (which you can download in large zips) have such information. It is based on the unit's own combat narratives and staff reports. Coverage of PDs is not perfect but close enough, each PD having two files, one for staff reports and one for operational narrative. At the end of each staff report there are strength tables by equipment item with starting, lost, damaged, and replacement information.

As for successful Russian air strikes at Kursk, the most famous is the strike on the first day that hit PD GD's divisional CP as the whole division bunched up to cross a bogging ravine. But it was the men hit that made it effective, rather than widespread losses to armor.

In relevant part the narrative says "At 0950 the Red Air Force attacked the tempting concentration of tanks at the Beresowyj crossing. There were heavy losses, especially among the officers. The GD's CP took a direct hit, killing the GD Gren Regt adjutant and 2 other officers."

GDs first day was a fiasco in all respects, of which that was only a minor component. Their main problems were Panther engine fires, a muddy ravine AT obstacle, uncleared AT minefields, poor planning and control that backed up large bodies of vehicles behind the intended breach, and heavy artillery fire on the crossing. The infantry attacked anyway with no tank support, and lost heavily to all arms.

They were much more frustrated by the terrain and the mines than by air attack, but getting the divisional CP blown up at mid morning certainly did not help sort out the confusion.

[JasonC]

The biggest single success against a sizable ground unit, mostly KOed by air, that I am aware of at least, occurred in July of 1944 during AG North's retreat from the farther Baltic states into Courland. The unit involved was the 4th SS brigade, a Dutch volunteer formation, and specifically a KG composed of its 48th Pz Gdr regiment and its artillery. They were the rear guard for the rest of the formation and other units in the sector.

Basically they muffed the withdraw route and it sent them over wide open terrain. IL-2s found them and strafed them for hours. While they were pinned, Russian ground units got far enough forward to block further withdrawal, and most of the survivors were taken prisoner (a trickle got out in small groups). But basically the regiment was shot to pieces from the air, while in march order in the open. It was the larger operational context that forced the error, though. And the unit was not armored, it was a soft target paradise of motor vehicles and manpower in open ground.

[Shmavis]

Originally posted by JasonC:

On details on Flak, the unit histories provided in the raw data files of the Kursk online page (which you can download in large zips) have such information.

Christ, man. Can you post a link? 40,000 submarine sites/articles, a few irrelevant battle websites and one rock band home page...

[mav1]

So airattacks on tanks are exagerrated?

But can't a sturmovik with 37mm gun penetrate 30mm, meaning it is possible to penetrate the 25mm top armour of a tiger tank.

The strifling of aircraft on infantry is useless in cm, so i take it this is true.

It look's like I was wrong. No matter, my knowledge has increased,. Being wrong is sometimes a benefit. But now I ask the question why do people who supposedly know better than me, agree with my wrong assumption in many books or on the internet.

[ June 09, 2006, 06:28 AM: Message edited by: mav1 ]

[Holien]

Hi Mav1,

Because there are a lot of people who don't know better and just take the tripe they are fed by others who don't know better.

Also, there are lots of people who make gross generalisations and expect others to take those generalisations as fact.

What category do you fit in?

[Kingfish]

Originally posted by mav1:

So airattacks on tanks are exagerrated?

But can't a sturmovik with 37mm gun penetrate 30mm, meaning it is possible to penetrate the 25mm top armour of a tiger tank.

The strifling of aircraft on infantry is useless in cm, so i take it this is true.

It look's like I was wrong. No matter, my knowledge has increased,. Being wrong is sometimes a benefit. But now I ask the question why do people who supposedly know better than me, agree with my wrong assumption in many books or on the internet.

Air attacks on tanks are grossly exaggerated. A good example is the Mortain counterattack. The RAF pilots claimed 84 tank kills, plus another 35 probably destroyed and 21 damaged. The US IX Tac Air claimed 69 killed, 8 probable and 35 damaged. Take away the probables and damaged and you have 153 tanks the pilots are positive they destroyed.

The total actually killed by aircraft? 11.

[JasonC]

The Kursk data page is here -

http://dspace.dial.pipex.com/town/avenue/vy75/

Look for the "raw data" part of the site. The higher level OOBs are also useful.

Warning though, plenty of other superficial stuff on that site is flat wrong (e.g. ranges for tanks to kill tanks etc). But the raw data stuff comes from excellent operations research.

[rum]

Originally posted by JasonC:

The first effective air to ground AT weapon was napalm.

I though it was cluster shaped-charge bombs.

Which were introduced in WWII, for example on Il-2.

[JasonC]

Not much sign those were actually effective against armor, in an operational sense. We don't see armor formations disappearing under them, and kills per IL-2 can only have reached about 0.1 overall, from loss accounting. They were effective for fragmentation, no doubt, and may have helped IL-2s attrite modest numbers of tanks over their service lives.

The theoretical penetration (60-70mm) is high enough, but only with a perfect orientation hit. And they dropped independently from the height of the aircraft, giving a wide scatter.

Tests of rockets showed you can fire 100 to get one hit, and those are aimed. Dropping 200 unaimed hand grenades is unlikely to hit a single tank target.

Against a large target with many vehicles, with a whole squadron dropping them, you might start to get coverage.

E.g. 12 IL-2s each drop 192 PITBs in a random scatter over a 500x500m area containing 30 tanks. Total dropped 2304, total area 250000, area represented by tanks each 6mx3m = 540. Portion of area 0.00216. Expected hits 5. Then reduce those for orientation issues to get effective hits.

You might take out one tank and damage another. With a squadron, not one IL-2, and a large target, not one tank. That is still a meaningful amount if you could do it 35 times per plane. You won't get the target every sortie, though, other missions etc. We know they didn't actually get a tank each because there are more IL-2s than there are dead tanks, and most dead tanks are due to AP hits etc.

Compare modern cluster munitions. Those can carry 700-1800 submunitions per, with 7-10 inches penetration for direct hits. (Flechette versions carry 600 per submunition). The dispenser makes a pattern the size of a football field, not half a klick from slow release from bomb bays at altitude. A typical use is 2-4 planes each dropping 2-4 CBUs. Delivered area can be half to a quarter of the above size, submunitions can be 10 times from a strike with far fewer AC, and penetration from each is 2-4 times to help with orientation issues.

[ June 10, 2006, 06:09 AM: Message edited by: JasonC ]

[JasonC]

Compare a strike in Korea by 12 Corsairs each carrying 2 napalm canisters. They drop 2400 gallons of jellied gasoline, which burns for 15-30 seconds at 1400 degrees, instead of 2304 HEAT grenades. The area of effect of single napalm canisters can be as large as 40m by 150m (though that is personnel and secondary burn effect).

Hits within 50 feet of a tank were routinely effective. That means the effective target area goes up to 700-750 square meters per tank, from 18 square meters, or about 40 times. It is a lot easier to get a near miss within 50 feet than a contact hit with the right orientation.

Some accuracy claims for napalm delivered by fighter bomber are as high as half within 100 feet of the aim point, for low enough delivery. That is probably test conditions, though, and not realistic for operations.

More conservatively, the same area as used above might be covered up to half, not 0.2%. Since there would be considerable overlap, a quarter to a third might be more realistic. But the coverage is 2 orders of magnitude higher.

[JoMac]

I agree with most replies above, ground attack is alittle overrated. I simply do one of 2 things.

- Before a game starts my scenario briefing would say that ground attack airpower has reduced causulties by a certain percentage depending on wither its a Defense, Attack, Meeting Engagement, etc. Same thing i would do if there were an Artillery pre-bombardment.

- If i do use ground attack airpower i justify the higher percentage kills by saying that when purchasing aircraft it actually means a flight of 2 or more not just one.