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Old September 7th 03, 09:02 PM
Guy Alcala
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Guy Alcala wrote:

"Paul J. Adam" wrote:

In message , Mike Marron
writes
In other words, maybe squeezing a few hundred rounds of .50 caliber
underneath a German tank was an exercise in futility as you say -- but
then again -- maybe it actually worked just as Art et. al. said it
did even if it was only a fluke and didn't always kill the tank as
advertised every single time.


I can easily imagine "worth a try". Especially because many "suspected
Tiger tanks" were actually much less well-protected vehicles, which
_were_ vulnerable to .50" fire. Try identifying road vehicles at a mile
with the naked eye: even standing still on a good day, it's hard to get
much more than colour, size and general type. Pilots were doing well to
find targets and hit them, let alone precisely identify them not only as
"armoured vehicle", get beyond that to "tank" and further to pick out
the differences between a Tiger and a PzKW IV.

Okay, so a Tiger would actually pretty much ignore being shot up by
fifty-cal (or 20mm, for that matter) - but the half-track or truck you
might actually be strafing would be much more affected if you hit it,
regardless of what you'd identified it as. Be a shame to let killable
targets get away because a pilot mis-identified a half-track as a Tiger
tank and pulled off his run.


snip

Of interest to this discussion is the following site:

http://www.geocities.com/spades53.geo/prodocs.htm

and go down to the "Firing Trials of 20mm H.S. Ammunition" section. Armor
penetration of homogenous plate at 200 yards and normal impact is described, as
well as various other targets representative of parts of a/c. These are static
tests, so penetration should be boosted somewhat for a moving a/c attacking a
ground target. Even so, it does give a good idea about the chances of 20mm
Hispano ammo penetrating rear or top hull tank armor. The chances don't appear
that good, but it is certainly possible for the lighter tanks.

Guy