P-47/51 deflection shots into the belly of the German tanks, reality or fiction?

In message , Emmanuel Gustin
writes
The gist is that WWII fighter-bombers were very poor tank
destroyers. They stopped the tank divisions by wreaking havoc
among soft-skinned supply vehicles and the supporting infantry
and artillery units -- a German WWII panzer division was really
a mixed mobile unit, not a unit purely equipped with tanks.

General Bayerlein tried to move Panzer Lehr the short distance by road
from Vire to Le Beny-Bocage (it's a short trip, I've passed the junction
several times). As he put it,

"...by the end of the day I had lost 40 petrol wagons and 90 other
trucks. Five of my tanks had been knocked out, as well as 84
half-tracks, prime movers and SP guns."

Apparently more tanks were abandoned undamaged than were
actually destroyed by the fighter-bombers. So the main effect
appears to have been a moral one. The strafing and bombing
scared the tank crews so much that they drove the tanks into
cover and often jumped out and hid in the nearest ditch. And
perhaps did not survive the attack.

To say nothing of the problems of keeping tanks fuelled when the bowsers
are burning wrecks some miles behind...

--
When you have to kill a man, it costs nothing to be polite.
W S Churchill

Paul J. Adam