"David E. Powell" wrote:

Did western antitank planes rely
more on bombs and rockets? (Outside the P-39 of course?)

DEP

Of course not. There were upgunned Hurricanes, and numerous fighters and light
and medium bombers outfitted as strafers/gunships. The 37mm gun on the
Airacobra/Kingcobra was a contraversial weapon to the Americans (some pilots
liked it and many didn't), and it was generally thought that anything bigger
than 20mm on a combat airplane was effete. Perhaps it was more of a logistics
issue than anything else...since the .50 caliber machine gun seemed to be
adequate in a general-purpose sense, why upgrade?

The Allies (in particular the Americans) never fielded a specifically anti-armor
airplane in spite of going through dozens of designs. Simply fitting bomb racks
and rocket rails on a day fighter--or packing extra machine guns on a medium
bomber--made more sense from a production standpoint than having a specialized
type created and put into action.

Allied wartime CAS thinking ultimately resulted in the Douglas Skyraider. We'll
never know what a plane like that would have done on the Western Front, but to
me it would have done what the Thunderbolt, Typhoon, Tempest, Beaufighter,
Mosquito and Mustang did...and more of it.

Stephen "FPilot" Bierce/IPMS #35922
{Sig Quotes Removed on Request}