The Bouncing .50 cal - can it kill a tank?

[Tero]

Originally posted by JasonC:

If the Germans actually achieved 100 to 1 exchange ratios between 37mm stukas and Russian tanks, they would simply have made and fielded 1000 37mm gun stukas and won the war.

Where does this 100-1 exchange ratio come from ?

If they had actually routinely achieved anything like Rudel's claims even with the size fleet they had, all Russian tank losses in 1943-4 would have been accounted for by the Luftwaffe. Instead losses to air were a handful of percent, all types.

Why don't you reveal what you consider to be a kill: a write off or a combat loss ?

The US destroyed thousands of tanks in the space of 40 days using approximately 200 aircraft for dedicated tank killing missions. The operational effect was total paralysis and entire tank armies evaporating. The Germans had a tank busting force of comparable size (within a factor of two at any one time, easily) and easily 10-20 times the time period to run up sorties. If they had routinely achieved kill rates even with a factor of 2 of US ones with smart weapons, even that tiny air arm would have KOed at least as many Russian tanks as Tigers and Panthers did.

Why don't you reveal how many Russian tanks the Tiger and the Panther killed then ?

You are making all kinds of suppositions based on modern US weapons systems performance. Why are you not comparing the German WWII CAS with the contemporary US CAS ?

It readily would have, if Rudel scale claims were readily achieved by tank busting aircraft.

How many Rudel scale (less than 1 kill every second mission) claimants are there then ?

They simply were not. It is not a matter that can be rendered doubtful by spin. The explanation is simple - the claimed kill rates per sortie simply did not happen.

Rudels kill per sortie rate is less than 1 every second mission flown. If he claims for example 5 kills during one mission that means that he flew something like 13 missions without a single kill to his name to balance his kill/mission rate.

[Sergei]

Originally posted by Tero:

Rudels kill per sortie rate is less than 1 every second mission flown. If he claims for example 5 kills during one mission that means that he flew something like 13 missions without a single kill to his name to balance his kill/mission rate.

And you seriously believe that he could have killed 5 tanks during a single mission? Consider for instance that Finnish 50mm AT gun crews had to use up to 41 grenades to set a T-34 on fire. Certainly the AT gun crew has better conditions to achieve a kill than a Jabo - and better conditions to confirm it as an actual kill.

There is no proof that Ju 87 G was effective. It was really just a glorified toy.

[Other Means]

Originally posted by Sergei:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Tero:

Rudels kill per sortie rate is less than 1 every second mission flown. If he claims for example 5 kills during one mission that means that he flew something like 13 missions without a single kill to his name to balance his kill/mission rate.

And you seriously believe that he could have killed 5 tanks during a single mission? Consider for instance that Finnish 50mm AT gun crews had to use up to 41 grenades to set a T-34 on fire. Certainly the AT gun crew has better conditions to achieve a kill than a Jabo - and better conditions to confirm it as an actual kill.

There is no proof that Ju 87 G was effective. It was really just a glorified toy.

</font>

[Bigduke6]

Go here for an article from a Russian-language web site and forum for WW2 aviation, and a discussion on Herr Rudel.

http://allaces.ru/cgi-bin/s2.cgi/ge/publ/05.dat

Here are the some of the criticisms of Rudel's account of the attack on the Marat, by one Andrei Liubushkin, who purports to have read Soviet records like Baltic Front PVO, Soviet overall tank loss records,

1. Rudel reports his bomb sank the battleship Marat, while Soviet records show two bombs - Rudel's and his wing man's - sank the battleship.

2. Rudel says he dropped a 1000 kg bomb on the warship. The Soviets concluded the ship had been sunk by two 500 kg bombs.

2. Rudel reports there was no Soviet interceptor effort, the Soviet record shooting down Stukas.

3. Rudel claims he destroyed he destroyed 519 tanks - that is ten per cent of all tanks the Soviets knew they lost to air attacks, during the entire friggin' war.

4. Rudel reports he fired on tanks at targets at 100 - 200 meters. Given the speed of a Stuka and the fact diving a Stuka at a tank requires a good deal of a pilot's attention, this begs the question, how did Rudel manage to see what the rounds did?

5. Rudel reports at one point, his superior flying skill enabled him to avoid 20 Airacobras. Problem: 20 x P-39 is an entire fighter regiment, and the Soviets never operated an entire regiment in a single small airspace. Even if they tried, the chances of a regiment actually having 20 x P-39 functional at any one time are next to zero.

6. Rudel was an excellent pilot but also an egotistical bastard, self-centered, and a trophy hunter. Yet his diary for all its "today I destroyed 20 x T-34s" doesn't if you count them add up to 519 tanks.

7. Rudel's tank kills were confirmed not by people counting hulks on the ground, but by other pilots under fire like he was, and for practically all purposes under his direct command.

8. Rudel's book doesn't just toot his own horn, but describes kills by his wingmen etc. A reasonable reading of the effectiveness of his air unit, based on his description of his own kill rate, would make it logical to conclude somewhere between 15 and 50 per cent of all tanks lost by the Soviets during WW2, were destroyed by Rudel's unit.

9. Rudel says he was shot down 22 times - and not once by Soviet aircraft. Every time by ground fire. How reasonable is that, given that close to half of his missions took place in 43-45?

There is plenty more but you get the idea. People on the Russian side think Rudel's claims are laughable.

Here is the standard boilerplate, from the www.airwar.ru site:

"We should not that the claims of German pilots about the destruction of large numbers of Soviet tanks, as well as other ground targets, were usually not supported by anything else than their own words. On the majority of aircraft there were no gun cameras, and if there were they recorded at best shell strikes, rather than actual damage. As one would expect, real losses of Soviet tanks to bombs and aerial gunnery of German aviation was dramatically more modest, than was expressed in the reports of the German pilots."

So there you have it. Rudel says he was a stud, and the Russians say he was liar, and further that his claims don't have a leg to stand on.

[Michael Dorosh]

Originally posted by Bigduke6:

4. Rudel reports he fired on tanks at targets at 100 - 200 meters. Given the speed of a Stuka and the fact diving a Stuka at a tank requires a good deal of a pilot's attention, this begs the question, how did Rudel manage to see what the rounds did?

Cue Jason for a mathematical analysis...dive speed, etc. How many seconds would a firing pass last?

[Moronic Max]

Rudel claims he destroyed he destroyed 519 tanks - that is ten per cent of all tanks the Soviets knew they lost to air attacks, during the entire friggin' war.

They lost five thousand tanks to air attacks during the war?

Holy crap.

[Guest Mike]

Well they built over 100,000, had a few 1000's more via lend lease, and ended the war with about as many as they started........give or take 10,000......

[Fußball]

One of Rudel's greater known achievements: Being the only man to receive the Knight's Cross with Golden Oak leaves, swords and diamonds.

One of Rudel's lesser known achievements: Causing people to fret over his feats in a forum on the internet.

Tschüß!

Erich

[JonS]

Originally posted by Fußball:

One of Rudel's greater known achievements: Being the only man to receive the Knight's Cross with Golden Oak leaves, swords and diamonds.

Probably one of the few things we know to be true about his WWII career

[Michael Dorosh]

Originally posted by Fußball:

One of Rudel's greater known achievements: Being the only man to receive the Knight's Cross with Golden Oak leaves, swords and diamonds.

One of Rudel's lesser known achievements: Causing people to fret over his feats in a forum on the internet.

Tschüß!

Erich

I take it you're a fan of his?

I think even a cursory reading of the thread will highlight several important themes as to why this isn't a trivial subject. If you can't see it, we can't spoon feed you. Did you have anything else to add?

[Fußball]

Originally posted by Michael Dorosh:

I take it you're a fan of his?

I think even a cursory reading of the thread will highlight several important themes as to why this isn't a trivial subject. If you can't see it, we can't spoon feed you. Did you have anything else to add?

I see what you did there.

Tschüß!

Erich

[John Kettler]

Bigduke6,

Looks fabulous, but I don't read Russian. I thought maybe there was a translation or that the site had part of its content in English like Battlefield.ru. Very much appreciate the summary of Liubushkin's views!

Regarding point 4, Jim Steuard told us that the dive was shallow, certainly not anything like a vertical or near vertical dive. Firing from close range, in a fairly slow platform, with high velocity guns, and at a fairly shallow angle, why wouldn't he be able to observe his strikes? The Stettin clip that Tero provided shows that there was in fact ample opportunity for the Stuka pilot to fire repeatedly and observe the impacts. Shall have to look at this in detail later, as am still on deadline.

Believe it might be interesting for you to see if you can locate a Russian language book by Korotkin titled in English BATTLE DAMAGE TO SURFACE SHIPS. Originally published in Russian and seen by me as a National Technical Information Service translation, it was a major study of all such incidents to cruisers and up during WW II. The derived from microfiche copy I had was so valuable that I passed it to my brother Ed who was hard at work on the Command at Sea series for Chaos Games in order to support his war effort there.

Link to resources on I.M. Korotkin

http://www.ask.com/web?q=korotkin%2C+battle+damage+to+surface+ships&qsrc=0&o=0&l=dir

If you read German, plenty of copies here. German version is #3.

http://www.abebooks.com/servlet/SearchResults?sts=t&an=korotkin&y=7&x=26

Regards,

John Kettler

[Tero]

Originally posted by Sergei:

And you seriously believe that he could have killed 5 tanks during a single mission?

Could, yes. Did, dunno.

Consider for instance that Finnish 50mm AT gun crews had to use up to 41 grenades to set a T-34 on fire.

Indeed. But IIRC the fact they tried to set it on fire was indicative of the fact that only a write off would guarantee the bugger would not be recovered and returned to duty at a later date.

And lets not forget he was not firing at the top of the tank.

Certainly the AT gun crew has better conditions to achieve a kill than a Jabo - and better conditions to confirm it as an actual kill.

Agreed. Then again the summer of 1944 Finnish KO claim is in the order of 600 tanks and my Google-fu could not produce the Red Army figure for their losses but IIRC it was in the order of 200 vehicles. The Winter War figure is available and it indicates that the actual verified kill/write off rate was 6 kills for 1 write off.

There is no proof that Ju 87 G was effective.

It was really just a glorified toy.

Says who ? Is there actual proof Ju-87G was ineffective ? The Kuhlmey Ju-87D's sure as hell delivered. Their casualties were high but they delivered.

Nice pic, BTW. I'll have to show it to my kids.

[Tero]

Originally posted by Bigduke6:

1. Rudel reports his bomb sank the battleship Marat, while Soviet records show two bombs - Rudel's and his wing man's - sank the battleship.

2. Rudel says he dropped a 1000 kg bomb on the warship. The Soviets concluded the ship had been sunk by two 500 kg bombs.

AFAIK even in the Allied air forces the flight leader got to keep the kill even when the wingman participated in making it. BTW: what does Rudel actually say: he dropped a 1000kg bomb or 1000kg of bombs was dropped ?

2. Rudel reports there was no Soviet interceptor effort, the Soviet record shooting down Stukas.

What about the actual, official LW reports ? Assuming Rudel submitted his report and it was filed somewhere.

3. Rudel claims he destroyed he destroyed 519 tanks - that is ten per cent of all tanks the Soviets knew they lost to air attacks, during the entire friggin' war.

The Soviets knew or admitted to ?

4. Rudel reports he fired on tanks at targets at 100 - 200 meters. Given the speed of a Stuka and the fact diving a Stuka at a tank requires a good deal of a pilot's attention, this begs the question, how did Rudel manage to see what the rounds did?

Take a look at the youtube link I found.

5. Rudel reports at one point, his superior flying skill enabled him to avoid 20 Airacobras. Problem: 20 x P-39 is an entire fighter regiment, and the Soviets never operated an entire regiment in a single small airspace. Even if they tried, the chances of a regiment actually having 20 x P-39 functional at any one time are next to zero.

How do you account for the fact that during their summer of 1944 offensive against the Finns their air strikes regularly had comparable numbers of single aircraft types in them ?

6. Rudel was an excellent pilot but also an egotistical bastard, self-centered, and a trophy hunter.

And that makes him different how from all the aces in all the airforces ?

Yet his diary for all its "today I destroyed 20 x T-34s" doesn't if you count them add up to 519 tanks.

Maybe because his diaries were not identical to and perhaps not even as "accurate" as the reports he submitted. He could (and propably would) write in his diary he killed 20 but he propably could not put down on his report more than 5 because they had to be corraborated by somebody.

7. Rudel's tank kills were confirmed not by people counting hulks on the ground, but by other pilots under fire like he was, and for practically all purposes under his direct command.

The ground forces were also by 1943 falling back more often than not so hulk counting was not possible.

In case you did not know it during the Battle of Britain the most accurate claim/actual kill claims for both the RAF and the LW were made during the phase when the fighting was done over water.

8. Rudel's book doesn't just toot his own horn, but describes kills by his wingmen etc. A reasonable reading of the effectiveness of his air unit, based on his description of his own kill rate, would make it logical to conclude somewhere between 15 and 50 per cent of all tanks lost by the Soviets during WW2, were destroyed by Rudel's unit.

People read the book and are miffed at the selfcongratulatory claims and make hyberbolic remarks like that.

Somehow I find it incredible that the Red Barons Flying Circus is acknowleged to have been a very effective unit of highly skilled professionals and excellent kill/loss ratio but somehow Rudels unit could not possibly have been anything remotely like that.

9. Rudel says he was shot down 22 times - and not once by Soviet aircraft. Every time by ground fire. How reasonable is that, given that close to half of his missions took place in 43-45?

Very reasonable. The Soviet airforces were mission driven. Free hunt was not their thing. The Finns were able to move entire divisions via rail from one part of the front to another only some 150km behind enemy lines even when the Soviets had absolute air superiority. The FAF was also able to conduct quite extensive bombing missions against point targets without undue casualty rates as the Red Army fighters was tied to protecting the bombers to a very large degree.

The fallacy in the Soviet CAS and CAP doctrine was it was restricted to FEBA as a part of the overall plan. Interdiction some distance from the frontline was not a priority. Mostly because their plans called for gringing the enemy reserves piecemeal by the ground assault and not disabling or reducing it. The CAP was tasked with protecting the bombers against enemy fighters.

People on the Russian side think Rudel's claims are laughable.

We Finns are familar with this aspect of the Russian mindset and their views on facts and their interpretation. The feeling is mutual.

"We should not that the claims of German pilots about the destruction of large numbers of Soviet tanks, as well as other ground targets, were usually not supported by anything else than their own words. On the majority of aircraft there were no gun cameras, and if there were they recorded at best shell strikes, rather than actual damage. As one would expect, real losses of Soviet tanks to bombs and aerial gunnery of German aviation was dramatically more modest, than was expressed in the reports of the German pilots."

Again this boils down to the guestion about what constitutes a kill. The Red Army had a very extensive battle field recovery set up. Finnish troops observed some KO'd tanks had been hastily repaired and it was supposed the Red Army could recycle KO'd tanks to combat ready status over night in many cases. This is why, like Sergei stated, Finnish AT gunners would use up to 41 50mm AT rounds just to make one single hulk burn thus rendering it a write off instead of a regular kill.

So there you have it. Rudel says he was a stud, and the Russians say he was liar, and furt her that his claims don't have a leg to stand on.

Somehow if the Russians say he is a liar does not make Rudels claims less credible. The required specific data on indivdual engagement is elusive.

[RockinHarry]

Originally posted by JasonC:

RockingHarry - there is no evidence whatever that the JU-87 with 37mm was actually effective as a tank killer. No, pilot claims don't count as evidence, any more than other fish stories. As for IL-2s, the Russians lost more of them than the Germans built tanks, so we can safely conclude the average IL-2 had a remarkably poor chance of ever accounting for a single German tank. (They flew 25 plus missions, 90-95% of German tanks lost were to other causes, ergo...)

As for killing a dozen tanks by destroying a supply column, it overstates the case. What actually happened in the OR case cited is bombs took out a *bridge* the tanks needed to cross, and cross rapidly, to get away from pursuing, superior ground forces. Yes, acting through logistics is the way aircraft had an effect on tanks (also changing when and how they operated). But no, it doesn't mean they were effective tank killers even by that indirect mechanism. They simply weren't effective tank killers at all.

A fighter bomber represents a much larger investment of technology and resources than a simple tank destroyer or other upgunned AFV. There are any number of things it might do better. But kill tanks is not one of them. They can't even be considered more survivable, when the number of sorties they need to accomplish anything is taken into account.

Killing trucks or railway boxcars from the air is reasonably efficient, if you can get something on most sorties and fly many sorties before losing the plane. Trying to kill tanks wasn't, using WW II weapons. You simply had to fly too much and expend too much effort and lose too many, each much more valuable, aircraft, to get anything, and the total numbers reached were insignificant.

The German tank fleet had to be killed on the ground. This really doesn't change even with napalm in Korea (though the NKs had so few tanks and the US so much air, it was approximated). It only really changes with smart air to ground weapons like TOW, Maverick or Hellfire.

Thanks for the info. Didn´t think either that the 37mm Ju-87 or upgunned Il-2 would´ve been overly "effective" as tank killer. I guess the Ju-87G was rather "experimental" as those other german flying toys were like Komet or the mortar lobbing Me109/FW190 variants used against allied bomber formations. I can´t tell, beeing not overly interested in airforce matters and not at all for anything beyond 1945.

So what were production numbers of this 37mm Ju-87 version after all? HS129? And with regard to Rudel, what sort of planes or plane variants did he fly during his "career"? I neitherly did read his book nor any available biographies, so I would be interested to know tank kills (no matter if credible claims at last or not) made on an aircraft model flown base. Something like similar to Wittman who started to make tank kills as Stug commander and switching over to Tiger at last.

So at last what was the most "effective" tank hunter/FB version with regard to armament? I guess it shares between rocket and bomb armed version of any AC type and nation. The Brits appear to have been more or less satisfied with the existing FB versions (Typhoon, Mosquito ect.) as well as were the US with the P47, Lightning and MP fighters. Maybe for similar as the "M4 Sherman is good enough" reasons, dunno.

How much of that is implemented in Combat Mission? IIRC I have seen in at least 1 Combat Mission game a near miss from a heavy bomb (500lb?) disabling 2 or 3 AFVs the same moment. After some repeated tests it looks like those Combat Mission FB armed with about 2 or more heavy bombs like russian PE-2 FT and german FW-190F have the best chances to become "tank killers" generally. The gun versions HS-129 or Ju-87 G caused mainly an occasional immobilizing hit or tank commander loss, a whole tank kill maybe every 2-3 games played. So far I´ve seen nothing that makes me think that the air to ground attack routines in CM are broken or overly unrealistic.

[JasonC]

"the Ju-87G was rather "experimental""

Definitely. They made 5700 Stukas and all of 174 of them were purpose built G-2 models. There were more with 37mm than that, because some Ds were converted (the G-1), but the whole gun force was a twentieth the size of the fleet that dropped bombs.

As for the HS-129s, a tad under 1200 of those were produced, dwarfing the number of 37mm Stukas. They also just dropped bombs half the time. The 30mm they carried had 4 times the ammo load and more than twice the rate of fire.

But this still wasn't the route the Germans actually went with ground attack. The bulk of their ground attack planes over the war as whole were F and G model Fw-190s, with well over 5000 built, some sources say over 6000. Think 4 high performance FBs using bombs and 20mm cannons plus 4 Stukas dropping bombs, for each attack plane using bombs and 1 30mm cannon - and four of those for each modified dive bomber using 2 37mm.

Rudel flew bomb only Ju87s, the earliest Gs, then switched to FW-190 ground attack versions, and reverted to flying the Gs later. His unit was the only one still flying the G model Stukas in late 1944. The bomb carrying ones had moved over to night missions only and daylight ground support was pretty much all Fw-190 by then.

His claims are never specific enough as to time place units numbers etc to allow anything like the breakdown you want. He was also hardly a credible man in any other respect, but that is another matter. (Hitler youth to unrepentent post war Nazi etc).

"what was the most "effective" tank hunter/FB version with regard to armament?"

The F4U Corsair carrying napalm. Didn't have many tanks to go after until Korea, though, and not all that many then. Napalm is easily 10 times as effective as anything else available in the era, as an anti-armor weapon.

At the time, the allied pilots thought their rockets were the most effective anti armor weapons. But OR simply fails to back up their claims. This persisted even when there werer better weapons - in Korea, 80% of pilot kill claims were ascribed by the pilot to rocket or cannon, but 80% of the actual dead tanks had been hit by napalm.

The pilot tends to think he has hit the target with rockets if the rocket blast obscures it, and thinks his cannons have destroyed the target if the fire stream walks across it with visible hits. When neither is true.

A few cannon hits were common enough but generally ineffective, while the rockets and bombs got near misses, but it essentially took a contact hit and a clean one in the case of the rockets, to actually KO. And they were quite rare. Napalm works because the near misses become effective - over 50% of tanks within 25m of the strike point are typically burned out.

"How much of that is implemented in Combat Mission?"

In CM, the strafing is ridiculously over modeled and absurdly effective. The bombs are somewhat overmodeled as large HE. They are marginally more accurate than they should be (compare the number of hits SBDs got on aircraft carrier sized targets with the typical distance from aim point you see in CM - CM is very generous), but the real issue is all very high blast ratings in CM have too extreme an effect in the inner half or so of their blast radius. The rockets are about right in effectiveness, which is to say, not very. They readily bracket a target but typically have to significant effect. They are probably a bit too effective against light armor.

In CM, the greatest effect comes from cannon armed planes that get a high number of passes, especially if they have good chances of penetrating the armor of what they attack.

The single biggest benefitor of the overmodeling is the standard model IL-2s with twin 23mm guns. They can fire twice per pass on up to 6 strafing passes. Those have a very high chance of damaging any vehicle with 30mm or thinner armor. Tigers they won't hurt too much, though they can immobilize with track hits, and 12 shots makes 1-2 of those rather likely.

In CM, it is entirely typical for a single IL-2 strikes to kill or disable 2-3 armored vehicles, in a single sortie. In reality, the Russians fielded something like 40,000 of the things, flew them for 25 missions apiece in midwar and more like 40-50 late, and probably didn't KO a 4000 armored vehicles (probably not a 2000, in fact, unless you count the halftracks and such) using them. So the real KO chance per sortie was a fraction of 1%. Not all of them arrived on target, many went after things other than armor, obviously. That'll get you from one in five thousand to one in a hundred maybe, but not to 2 or 3 each.

JU-87s on the other hand, are somewhat limited by having only 3 passes (still generous, 2 is more likely), very high hit chance per pass (when in reality there are very few rounds being fired, making a clean miss overwhelmingly likely). They typically get one each, damaged or killed. Cost a lot less too. But the IL-2s with twice the passes and 2 shots per pass and bombs and rockets too, are vastly more effective.

As for the cheap FBs, types with multiple passes with cannon armament, and a decent bomb or two, are also effective. They tend to be incapable of hurting real tanks (20mm guns etc), but hurt light armor readily. The bombs hit or miss, and are usually aimed at something other than infantry. But their main effect is usually on infantry nearby. A lot spottier coverage than a fire mission, though. 100 point FBs pay for themselves, when they do, by KOing light armor. If the bomb is effective, that is an upside bonus but not something you can count on.

Incidentally, besides the large bombs having large effective, the bomb loads are also overstated, particularly for the allied AC. They represent maximum loads rather than typical ones. P-47s practically never actually carried 2 such heavy bombs, for example. A single 500 lb bomb was a much more common load. 4000 lbs is more like the bomb load a B-24 carried into Germany.

[Hetzer38]

4. Rudel reports he fired on tanks at targets at 100 - 200 meters. Given the speed of a Stuka and the fact diving a Stuka at a tank requires a good deal of a pilot's attention, this begs the question, how did Rudel manage to see what the rounds did?

Wasn't there someone else on board with Rudel, who could confirm if the target was knocked-out properly ? :eek:

"We've got him, he's burning!" /

"You missed him, you suck!" /

"You give me that bottle of Cognac of yours and I confirm that you knocked-out 3 tanks." "FOUR!" "Deal."

...or whatever comment the Ju87's rear gunner made in such cases... :confused:

7. Rudel's tank kills were confirmed not by people counting hulks on the ground, but by other pilots under fire like he was, and for practically all purposes under his direct command.

Sorry, but isn't it quite dumb to say that none of his tank kills were ever confirmed by ground troops ? In four years of combat ? On the Eastern Front ? :confused:

Cheers, Hetzer38.

[Michael Dorosh]

I think Rudel's rear gunners tended to die gloriously für Volk und Vaterland.

Sorry, but isn't it quite dumb to say that none of his tank kills were ever confirmed by ground troops ? In four years of combat ? On the Eastern Front ?

Weren't they retreating during the whole time Rudel was shooting tanks? How do you confirm tank hulks if you are constantly going the other direction?

[JasonC]

An attacking Stuka is going around 100 m/s, maybe 75 if not in a steep dive. So the engagement time at those ranges is a second and a fraction. Really the shot might start as far away as 400m and the pilot might pull out after getting to half of that, 2-3 seconds later. The firing rate would burn all 12 rounds in 2 1/4 seconds anyway, using both guns.

Stretching that into 2 passes would have been rare. At 400m, the 37mm has adequate penetration for flat side hits on stuff like T-34s. The point blank claim is again not very credible, and is probably giving the force something to aim for rather than actually routinely done etc.

As for bomb accuracy and CM, consider SBDs at Midway. It was a war changing outlier on the achievement side. But the number of hits compared to bombs dropped ran about 1 in 8. The target sizes are, in CM terms, 11 to 13 tiles long and 1 to 1.5 times wide. The hits actually achieved against targets that size suggest the 50% circle is more like 8 tiles across, or in other words only about half dropped can be expected to land within 80 meters of the aiming point. And that is for dive bombing, which was inherently far more accurate than the shallower glide bomb approaches typically used by fighter bombers.

There is a reason they sent out entire squadrons at a time.

[Hetzer38]

Originally posted by Michael Dorosh:

...

Weren't they retreating during the whole time Rudel was shooting tanks? How do you confirm tank hulks if you are constantly going the other direction?

Good point!

But a retreat could take several days, if not weeks.

(for example: the retreat from Rschew in March 1943 took what, 20 days?)

Weren't there enough examples of attacking / broken-through russian tanks which had to be defended against / counterattacked with parts of the Army retreating and other parts defending / counterattacking to make the retreat possible ?

Wouldn't these defending / counterattacking units notice the difference when being helped by dedicated anti-tank aircraft?

Cheers, Hetzer38.

[JasonC]

You confirm dead Russian tanks by reading the contemporary Russian staff reports where they write "and we lost 12 tanks today". Why is this hard?

[Hetzer38]

Edit:

You confirm dead Russian tanks by reading the contemporary Russian staff reports where they write "and we lost 12 tanks today". Why is this hard?

Let's take your "most famous air strike at Kursk" - example.

How could it be that an entire formation [4.(Pz.)/Sch.G 1 and I. Gruppe of Sch.G 1] are mass hallucinating dozens of knocked-out russian tanks belching smoke and fire north-east of Belgorod when in fact only 4 T-34s and 3 T-70s were knocked out?

No pilot armed with "space age weaponry" has ever achieved 80 aerial victories, so it is silly to believe Manfred von Richthofen did so in world war I using "stone age weaponry".

No "modern" combat pilot has achieved 352 aerial victories in any war so Erich Hartmann is just a comic book fantasy-figure.

I just don't think that conclusions about Desert Storm aerial-weaponry effectivness are the ultimate proof that the Ju87-G sucked big time when being flown by highly skilled professional pilots, often with years of experience.

Cheers, Hetzer38.

[ February 27, 2007, 03:52 PM: Message edited by: Hetzer38 ]

[Sergei]

Confirming aerial victories is a bit different from confirming air-to-ground kills.

[Hetzer38]

And in my opinion WW II is a bit different from Desert Strom, therefore the silly comparison.

Cheers, Hetzer38.

[Moronic Max]

And SBDs are different from Stukas, and carriers are different from tanks, so that's a bad comparison too, I presume?