JonS Posted February 22, 2007 Share Posted February 22, 2007 John. You are just not credible. You are, quite literally, incredible. Everything you say is about as reliable as a rant from your hero Rudel. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JasonC Posted February 22, 2007 Share Posted February 22, 2007 Side by side, let's compare An A-10 in Desert Storm has A, a JU87 in Russia has B A complete air supremacy B enemy fighters everywhere A total networked C3I B a radio A J-Stars spotting targets B mark I eyeball A night vision and IR B dawn patrol A stationary dumb targets B the Russian front A tightly packed target area B the Russian front A desert terrain B some steppe, lots of forest A guided missiles B deflection shooting A HEAT warheads B plain AP A cluster bombs B 37mm or dumb frag bomb A 1000 rounds cannon B 12 rounds cannon A 70 rounds per second B 2 rounds per second A claim 0.25 tanks per sortie B claim 0.2 tanks per sortie A actually got 0.1 to 0.15 B actually got jack 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tero Posted February 22, 2007 Share Posted February 22, 2007 Originally posted by JasonC: A complete air supremacy B enemy fighters everywhere Now, who is buying the propaganda line, hook and sinker ? A total networked C3I B a radio So ? A J-Stars spotting targets B mark I eyeball Both prone to all kinds of spoofing and misidentification. A night vision and IR B dawn patrol See above. Plus the camo discipline was undone by the early mufflers in the machines belching smoke and sometimes flames. A stationary dumb targets B the Russian front The difference being ? A tightly packed target area B the Russian front You are a selfproclaimed expert on EF technics, tactics and doctrine. Given the Red Army tactics and doctrine would you say (and deny your own axioms) that the Red Army deployment stressed dispersal of forces and loose deployment, especially when setting up an attack , thus denying the enemy a target rich environment ? A desert terrain B some steppe, lots of forest Which would mean the A-10 would have failed in Europe in case of a shooting war ? A guided missiles B deflection shooting Deflection shooting against (relatively) stationary targets ? Really ? A HEAT warheads B plain AP Composite armour vs plain steel plate. A cluster bombs B 37mm or dumb frag bomb The Germans did have cluster ammunition available. A 1000 rounds cannon B 12 rounds cannon 675 kmh vs 344 kmh max speed. A 70 rounds per second B 2 rounds per second See above. A claim 0.25 tanks per sortie B claim 0.2 tanks per sortie A actually got 0.1 to 0.15 B actually got jack B got jack only because that is the only way to make the A-10 not look sucky ? 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Kettler Posted February 22, 2007 Share Posted February 22, 2007 JasonC, While I appreciate the breakdown you provided of AFV kills for Desert Storm, and I agree with your logic on Maverick as the primary A-10 antitank weapon and the issue that full Maverick loads weren't always carried, it would appear, judging from the plummet vs. the Yom Kippur War Maverick performance (SSPK given target lock of ~0.8) that the Iraqi air defense was markedly more effective than was the Egyptian. I say this having read the detailed analyses in which extensive ground truth OR was done. During the Yom Kippur War, the Israelis, using mostly TV guided and some Scene Magnification Mavericks, learned the hard way about overkill when they found that a tank hit by a Maverick was good only for scrap. The Israelis responded by offset targeting the tank's shadow, yielding repairable M-Kills instead of K-Kills. When I was at Hughes, we used to joke that the warhead was there only in case the Maverick missed. An IIR Maverick with inert warhead got a K-Kill by smashing the (running) engine compartment apart so completely that the tank was set ablaze. I believe it's now Jacques Littlefield's task to rebuild that tank, seeing as how he bought it! Why so devastating? The KE on that big missile is in the ballpark with a battleship's AP shell! As for your last point, Rudel himself said that on many missions he saw no tanks at all. He did best when he caught tanks jammed together because of downed bridges and the like and loathed going against heavily defended river crossings and bridgeheads, basically any place where the Russians had time to organize a proper air defense. As I said, I'd love to know what the actual combat performance numbers were for the specialist German tank killing aircraft. Regards, John Kettler [ February 22, 2007, 12:37 PM: Message edited by: John Kettler ] 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Kettler Posted February 22, 2007 Share Posted February 22, 2007 JasonC, Please see my reply via insert to your laundry list of claims and curious assertions. An A-10 in Desert Storm has A, a JU87 in Russia has B A complete air supremacy B enemy fighters everywhere Even when the Red Air Force had overall air superiority, the Germans could and did dominate critical airspace while conducting critical operations. Rudel et al. SOFAIK never went in without escort, and I mentioned just such an instance where the Russian fighter cover turned and ran. Surely you're not saying Rudel in his lumbering Stuka scared off a bunch of nimble, heavily armed fighter planes? A total networked C3I B a radio High tech doesn't ipso facto guarantee better performance. See U.S. comm in Grenada for a sterling example. A J-Stars spotting targets B mark I eyeball Mark I Eyeball coupled with expert CAS pilot has vastly better capabilities than does J-STARS. I say this having looked at screwing with same electronically. The first is much better at discriminating real targets from decoys, dead tanks from pretenders, etc. Remember, typical open fire range is a mere 400 meters. J-STARS is several hundred miles away and is looking for entire formations on the move--on roads. A night vision and IR B dawn patrol Dawn to dusk, visibility permitting. Would bet the day he flew 17 sorties went well past dawn! A stationary dumb targets B the Russian front Grotesque oversimplification. A tightly packed target area B the Russian front Concentration of targets varied. Please see my earlier post. A desert terrain B some steppe, lots of forest Don't recall Rudel's ever having mentioned attacking tanks in the forest. Attacks went in when the tanks were in the open. A guided missiles B deflection shooting You're kidding, right? Lead on PzGr 40 fired at at least 770 m/sec (don't have exact number, but this one's for 3.7cm Flak 18 firing AP) at ranges cited would be minimal and then, only against crossing targets. T-34s don't cut across at 300 knots. A HEAT warheads B plain AP Not plain AP, PzGr 40 (box marked Nur fur gegen Panzer --Only for use against tanks) A cluster bombs B 37mm or dumb frag bomb Germans had cluster bombs from early in the war, one version of which was a canister of 5 cm mortar bombs. The SD-2 butterfly bomb was so horrendous that the British classified a strike after one such attack completely paralyzed a town, fearing the Germans would do it again somewhere else if they learned how crippling the effects had been. Germans also had bombs with fuze extenders for maximum blast and frag effect. If you can find a copy, please see German Explosive Ordnance. A 1000 rounds cannon B 12 rounds cannon 1450 rounds for an A-10; 12 cannon rounds total (should've been 14 but aerodynamic forces interfered with feed mechanism, meaning 6 rounds per clip) A 70 rounds per second B 2 rounds per second A-10 has a high (4200 rpm) and low firing rate (2100 rpm); don't know about BK 18. A claim 0.25 tanks per sortie B claim 0.2 tanks per sortie A actually got 0.1 to 0.15 B actually got jack Haven't run the numbers for either case, but logic alone tells me you're wrong as to B. If they weren't producing useful combat results, the Stuka tank busters would've been replaced long since, but instead served to the end. See Green's WARPLANES OF THE THIRD REICH under the Ju-87G if you doubt me. Regards, John Kettler 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Kettler Posted February 22, 2007 Share Posted February 22, 2007 Tero, As of 6:12 a.m. PST, YouTube is STILL doing site maintenance! Suspect upgrades are all being carved into stone! JonS, While you're entitled to your opinion, that doesn't necessarily make you right. As for ranting, I've got both feet on the floor. Regards, John Kettler 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JasonC Posted February 22, 2007 Share Posted February 22, 2007 Tero - that was the most pathetic set of excuses I've ever heard. You are hosestly trying to maintain that a no tech JU-87 operating over Russia late war had better combat conditions to find ID and KO targets with 12 rounds of 37mm Flak than A-10s did in Desert Storm, by talking down the latter. It is just farcical the lengths to which the fanboys will go. As for claims that Desert Storm was a step down in maverick outcomes, there is no reason to think so. Claims from the pilots themselves run as high as 95%, but that doesn't translate into actual dead vehicles because, surprise, they are claims. Same is true of prior Israeli use. Smart weapons are routinely marketed and have pilot claims of effectiveness near unity, and detailed OR routinely finds they instead achieve effectiveness rates in the range "one divided by a single digit number". Which is still vastly higher real effectiveness than any non-smart weapon system in history. On target acquisition, pilots in Desert Storm had thousands of eyes in the air, satellite photos of enemy dispositions, 24 hour BDA from those and from gun camera analysis, real time tracking of moving vehicles en masse by lookdown radar, used to vector them in to targets, IR on which hot tank bodies stood out against background like light bulbs, all at high mag, highly trained pilots, all supplemented by equally powerful sensors in the noses of the missiles themselves, and all operating in a zero air threat, unlimited time environment, over a tiny packed battlefield with zero terrain cover. In contrast, the stuka pilots had to find their targets by armed recce and the seat of their pants, with at best ground unit reports typically 24 hours old as to where there would be action, over a front of a thousand miles, against a numerically superior enemy air force. How many more times do you think a Stuka had to abort than an A-10 in desert storm? How many more times did they get chased off by fighters (remember, for the A-10 the answer is "zero"). How many times did they fail to find the intended target - if there was one at take off? How many times did they settle for a line of wagons, a train, or an enemy held town? Does anybody honestly think the Ju-87 is going to get more tank engagements per sortie? Then when they do engage, they have 12 rounds all told and seconds to fire at the lowest altitude in a shallow dive. Gee is AA more likely there during those few seconds or at maverick range, with half an hour to pick your time to fire, if you want it? The A-10 can fire 150 rounds in a single 2 second burst, with vastly greater penetration overmatch and inherent accuracy (80% within 5 mils on a test range) - when it isn't using a guided missile powerful enough to destroy anything. Does anybody honestly think the 37mms are going to get more hits or full kills per engagement? Rudel's claims are as high as the A-10 claims, and they are ludicruous. The A-10 claims are *still* high compared to actual A-10 kills, but not ridiculously so. They had gun camera of all of it, they had 24 hour BDA by multiple means, and they still overclaimed. We have surveyed wrecks and known before and after, and full accounting of weapons used. And from it we can deduce the A-10s with all advantages probably did not reach 0.2 tank kills per sorties. Rudel claims he did with none of those advantages. And the explanation of why is simple - Rudel is a bald faced liar. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
civdiv Posted February 23, 2007 Share Posted February 23, 2007 Mike Dorosh, My toaster does whatever I tell it to, also, with no thought for its own life; that doesn't make it brave.Now that is funny. Great reply! 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael Dorosh Posted February 23, 2007 Share Posted February 23, 2007 Originally posted by civdiv: Mike Dorosh, </font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />My toaster does whatever I tell it to, also, with no thought for its own life; that doesn't make it brave.Now that is funny. Great reply! </font> 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tero Posted February 23, 2007 Share Posted February 23, 2007 Originally posted by JasonC: You are hosestly trying to maintain that a no tech JU-87 operating over Russia late war had better combat conditions to find ID and KO targets with 12 rounds of 37mm Flak than A-10s did in Desert Storm, by talking down the latter. It is just farcical the lengths to which the fanboys will go. Do you actually read what you write ? It was you who presented the "data" on the kill rates per mission. The conclusion you made yourself talked up the Ju-87. You just replaced the actual kill rate of the Ju by "jack" because anything above 0,1 would have been very close to A-10 actual performance as presented by your numbers. Which is still vastly higher real effectiveness than any non-smart weapon system in history. How do you determine real effectiveness ? Kill per $ ? In contrast, the stuka pilots had to find their targets by armed recce and the seat of their pants, with at best ground unit reports typically 24 hours old as to where there would be action, over a front of a thousand miles, against a numerically superior enemy air force. Funny how you can make the modern "targets of opportunity" seem like mission impossible if you are not equipped with everything but the kitchen sink. How many more times do you think a Stuka had to abort than an A-10 in desert storm? How many more times did they get chased off by fighters (remember, for the A-10 the answer is "zero"). How many times did they fail to find the intended target - if there was one at take off? How many times did they settle for a line of wagons, a train, or an enemy held town? How many times did they come across an enemy force where it was supposed to be when it was supposed to be ? Does anybody honestly think the Ju-87 is going to get more tank engagements per sortie? That is not the issue, is it ? The issue is kills per mission. Gee is AA more likely there during those few seconds or at maverick range, with half an hour to pick your time to fire, if you want it? How many times could they creep up on the enemy by flying NOE and get away with the no tech AA not being able to fire off a single shot ? Only because the AA did not have proximity fuses, radar control and had only a fraction of a second to determine the axix of attack ? Which had more casualties during Desert Storm, RAF or USAF ? Why did RAF have to switch during Desert Storm from "real" low level CAS missions they had trained for for decades to US style mission profiling ? The A-10 can fire 150 rounds in a single 2 second burst, with vastly greater penetration overmatch and inherent accuracy (80% within 5 mils on a test range) - when it isn't using a guided missile powerful enough to destroy anything. "Inherent accuracy" applies when doing max speed at NOE ? Does anybody honestly think the 37mms are going to get more hits or full kills per engagement? The data as presented by you seems to indicate that if "jack" is more than 0,1 then the actual rate was comparable to A-10 performance. Rudel's claims are as high as the A-10 claims, and they are ludicruous. The A-10 claims are *still* high compared to actual A-10 kills, but not ridiculously so. They had gun camera of all of it, they had 24 hour BDA by multiple means, and they still overclaimed. We have surveyed wrecks and known before and after, and full accounting of weapons used. And from it we can deduce the A-10s with all advantages probably did not reach 0.2 tank kills per sorties. How many sorties against how many potential targets across what time period are we talking about here, respectively ? Rudel claims he did with none of those advantages. And the explanation of why is simple - Rudel is a bald faced liar. Based on what ? Has anybody actually been able to actually verify the Soviet army figures you base your claim about Rudels claims being bogus on ? It is a well established fact a kill is not always a kill even if the vehicle is made combat ineffective. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
imported_Wildman Posted February 23, 2007 Share Posted February 23, 2007 Originally posted by JasonC: Now here is a little OR reality check on air to ground with armor, under the most favorable possible conditions and with modern smart weapons. JasonC, Two issues I'd like to talk about with this. 1. What source did these numbers come from? Just for my own curiousity. 2. You have given total munitions expenditures and placed them against one particular target set. The 5000 GBU-12s that were dropped were NOT dropped all on AFVs, or even MBTs. So the unknown in all of this is how many Mavericks/GBU-12s/etc were actually fired/dropped at an AFV versus how many AFVs were actually destroyed by those weapons. I don't know that answer, but everything I've seen in the USAF planning so far (and I've been assigned to USFK J-staff) is a much higher PK for air munitions that your stating. I believe your underestimating the effectiveness of Air munitions as this stage of development. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RockinHarry Posted February 23, 2007 Share Posted February 23, 2007 Originally posted by John Kettler: RockinHarry, Don't you mean the Hs-129? The Hs-123 was a biplane used for CAS during the early years of the war. Regards, John Kettler yep, did mean the HS129 off course. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Kettler Posted February 24, 2007 Share Posted February 24, 2007 Tero, Finally got to see the clip. Spectacular, and that's w/o the Stukas! From what I can tell, each Stuka's getting off 3 or 4 shots/two gun volleys in the firing passes shown. Don't know or remember how the guns could be fired, hence the slash. Regards, John Kettler 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Kettler Posted February 24, 2007 Share Posted February 24, 2007 Forgot to mention that I finally found some pretty good comparison data (from The Dupuy Institute) from both sides for a specific attack by Hs-129s against Burdeiny's 2d Guards Tank Corps at Kursk. The discussion is detailed and groggy, to include forces involved, unit organizations, German claims vs. Russian loss reports, tactical impact, previously unknown sources, etc. Also, I found an authoritative source (Chinn, THE MACHINE GUN) from which full technical info on the German BK series tank busting aircraft guns may be obtained as either downloads or a CD. See last page of this thread under my name. http://www.battlefront.com/discuss/ultimatebb.php?ubb=get_topic;f=23;t=011914 Regards, John Kettler 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Broompatrol Posted February 25, 2007 Share Posted February 25, 2007 What was the question again? 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JasonC Posted February 25, 2007 Share Posted February 25, 2007 Wildman - (1) USAF summaries of the role of air in Desert Storm. (2) I single out the two weapon systems that did the bulk of the armor killing, which were the A-10s (112 of them) and the F-111s (84 of them). The former mostly using Maverick and the latter using LBU-12s, and picked for it because of their superior IR sensors for the night tank plinking mission. I am well aware that LBUs were used on other targets. But the large 2000 lb jobs were the type preferred by the F-15Es and F-117s going after C3I and infrastructure targets. (The former also used CBUs on scud hunts, which incidentally were singularly unsuccessful for the effort expended). I still allocate only a portion of the LBU-12 to tank plinking, but it is a high portion - USAF sources are clear that over half of them came from the small F-111 fleet. As for the Mavericks, the USAF gives figures that show over 90% of them were fired from the A-10s, which had armor killing as their primary mission. We have a good sense of their target set from their kill claims, which say they got more full tanks than APCs and artillery systems combined. Since the latter are also vastly more vunerable to their other weapons (CBUs mostly), well over half of the A-10 mavericks must have been fired at the full tanks. We also can tell the total claims are somewhat high (though within a factor of 2) because taken literally they add up to more tanks than the Iraqis lost in the air campaign. Put those together and it is clear the figures of up to 88% sometimes claimed for maverick shot-to-kill ratio cannot be accurate, and something closer to 33% is an upper bound. This is entirely typical of every piece of OR ever done. Firepower is systematically overestimated when analysed on a single engagement under idealized or test condition basis, or when claims are relied upon. This has been true as long as measurements of firepower have existed. The aggregates from whole battles or campaigns never "track" what such figures suggest would happen in the large, they are always lower. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JasonC Posted February 25, 2007 Share Posted February 25, 2007 Tero - utterly clueless, still. 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. 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. 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. This is falsified directly by the entire operational history of the war. The eastern front did not consist in the Luftwaffe working over the Russian tank force in a sustain air campaign leaving little for their ground forces to fight. It readily would have, if Rudel scale claims were readily achieved by tank busting aircraft. 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. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Mike Posted February 25, 2007 Share Posted February 25, 2007 If you go to the site posted by Amadeo in that other thread here you can look up the number of daily Ground attack sorties flown by the LW 4-18 July 1943. Was the 87G in service at Kursk? Unfortunately it doesn't list seperate anti-tank and bombing figures but it does list sorties for Hs-129's, which should approximate as the minimum number of AT sorties. Soviet tank losses are given for each day yoo, so the maximum possible ratio of kills/sortie should be relatively easy to work out assuming 100% Sov tank kills were to the LW (which we ALL know was not the case, but it gives a factual starting (?!!) point) 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Kettler Posted February 25, 2007 Share Posted February 25, 2007 JasonC, I think your argument is hyperbolic in that you know full well that Rudel was even more of an outlier, in terms of battle achievements, than even Wittmann was. There is a long thread over on the WW II Forum devoted to tank killing aircraft and their pilots, from at least two sides (Germany and Russia), in which you can read the bios of a bunch of the German tank killers in Hs-129s, Ju-87Gs and Focke Wulf 190 ground attack birds. One of these guys is credited with 200 tank kills. Again, an outlier. As I have repeatedly pointed out, the 80:20 rule seems to be very much applicable to combat killing. Most of the heavy lifting is done by a relative few. Also, I remember posting some time back about a new book on Russian fighter and ground attack aces. Would be interested in what the top Il-2 guy was credited with as far as tank kills. (tabs out to do research) Found it! Are you familiar with STALIN's EAGLES by Hans Seidl? http://stonebooks.com/archives/980920.shtml The RED CROSS, BLACK STAR series would appear to be well worth exploring. http://books.stonebooks.com/cgi-bin/foxweb.exe/base/subjects?1000276 Regards, John Kettler 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Mike Posted February 25, 2007 Share Posted February 25, 2007 I have books 2 and 3 of Red Cross Black Star, and it is not what you are looking for....at least not yet. It does have lots of intersting info, lots of anecdotes from both sides, lots of examples of overclaims, but all for air-air. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moronic Max Posted February 25, 2007 Share Posted February 25, 2007 We also can tell the total claims are somewhat high (though within a factor of 2) because taken literally they add up to more tanks than the Iraqis lost in the air campaign. Put those together and it is clear the figures of up to 88% sometimes claimed for maverick shot-to-kill ratio cannot be accurate, and something closer to 33% is an upper bound.How does a target getting hit multiple times by multiple aircraft because they aren't aware the target's already been hit and killed factor into that analysis, if at all? 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JasonC Posted February 25, 2007 Share Posted February 25, 2007 JK - no subject is full of such sustained romantic mendacity as air to ground tank killing. The most famous air strike at Kursk is often described as 68 Hs-129s with 30mm guns attacking a brigade or more of Russian tanks, and destroying 50 of them within an hour, turning back the Russian attack by air power alone. But what actually happened is it is pretty much made up, as to scale of effect anyway. At least the attack actually happened. There were 68 such planes in the area. Only 53 sorties were flown by them on the day, however. There was a Russian tank brigade attack. It had about 25 T-34s and about 15 T-70s. It was turned back - but at least as much due to running into a panzer regiment on the ground, as the intervention of the planes. There was a large scale air attack by the Hs-129s. But total Russian tank losses in that formation for that day, all causes, were 4 T-34s and 3 T-70s. Probably the 30mm hail KOed a couple of the T-70s. Maybe it damaged one of the T-34s to the point of abandonment, but though that seems doubtful. The overclaiming is at a minimum 7 to one and probably more like 17-25 to 1. And this was the biggest outlier success on record. As for Stuka Gs at Kursk, there were all of 8 in the entire theater. There is no sign they flew a single combat mission until August. The only claim anywhere that they did, is the solitary word of Rudel in his own memoire, which claims that he took off in one of them (assigned to a different squadron, his still had Ds) and knocked out 12 tanks. 12 is suspiciously the ammo load. It is not credible in the slightest, in any respect. There is no specificity as to date, place, units, etc. It has all the markings of a typical Baron Munchausen story. The only thing missing is a claim to have returned riding a Russian 152mm howitzer shell. As for overall air effect, the Germans flew 27000 sorties all types in support of the battle of Kursk. The ground attack varieties flew over 5000 in a shorter period (to July 12). Theirs might have reached 9000 by the end. Call it 7000 and leave an error bar. Air as a cause of loss typically runs single digit percent even under much heavier tac air. Estimates range from 2% to 5% in the west for Germans in Normandy and the Bulge, for example. It is extremely unlikely Russian rates of loss to air exceeded those figures, since they were not subject to thousands of FBs with full air supremacy etc, while they were subject to superior enemy PAK and tank guns, while the Germans for whom those figures are known, did not. 3.5% to 5% may therefore be considered a very generous upper bound to all Russian tank losses to air. Most of them will be to bombs, not dedicated cannon equipped types. Russian tank losses in Kursk defensive were 1614. That means the upper bound comes in at 55-80 tanks to air attack. Against the 7000 sorties, that puts the tank kills per ground attack sortie at around 0.01 - and it is an upper bound, because it is based on a rate of loss achieved elsewhere by more intense tac air. The real figure could easily be only half that. There is every reason to believe modern smart weapons are at least an order of magnitude more effective than WW II dumb ones, and the real relation could be as much as 50 times as effective. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JasonC Posted February 25, 2007 Share Posted February 25, 2007 MM - sure, overkill and overclaiming go hand in hand, and might easily account for half of the difference between single engagement claims and actual operational results. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JonS Posted February 25, 2007 Share Posted February 25, 2007 It goes to weapon accuracy (ie, does the thing hit and splode what it was pointed at?), but goes against pilot claims (ie, killing the same tank twice is not the same as killing two tanks) and probably implies there is a systemic problem. In other words, if the pilots cannot tell their target has already been deaded before they dead it again, then there is a problem with the overall system. Regardless of the cause, when we can count the number of wrecks on the ground and come up with a number that is a half or a third of the numbers claimed, even if some of those wrecks have several killing holes in them, then we can see that pilot claims are still not terribly useful. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moronic Max Posted February 26, 2007 Share Posted February 26, 2007 Righto. Thanks, folks. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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