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



 
 
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  #21  
Old August 7th 03, 08:16 AM
Blair Maynard
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On 6 Aug 2003 22:07:01 -0700, (Tony
Williams) wrote:

(John S. Shinal) wrote in message ...
aartamen wrote:

Saw this mentioned several times. Sounds somewhat implausible. A whole
lot implausible actually. Was this a common practice, an isolated
incident blown out of proportions or a myth? Is there an approximate
tally of German heavy armor (Pz IV and up) destroyed by the western
allies attack planes?


No firsthand knowledge but plausible. Recent gun camera
footage of strafing attacks shows a tremendous number of tracers on
ricochet trajectories from low angle strafing passes on dirt
airfields.


By definition, the angle at which the bullets would strike the
underside of the tank would be the same as when they hit the road in
front. If the bullets would bounce off something as soft as a dirt
track, why should they be able to penetrate 10mm of armour plate at
the same angle? For this to work, it would first be essential for the
road to be harder than the armour...

Tony Williams
Military gun and ammunition website:
http://www.quarry.nildram.co.uk
Discussion forum at: http://forums.delphiforums.com/autogun/messages/


I could only see this as being a successful killing technique if the
crew left the underside escape hatch open, assuming the tank had one.
Otherwise, the bullets will not penetrate armor because:

1. They will not be striking "nose first" with the same vector to
drive the tungsten core into the plate.
2. Probably be tumbling.
3. The angle will not be perpendicular to the base of the tank
(probably glancing), exact angle would depend on the angle of the
aircraft's dive.
4. Energy lost after striking the ground/road.

Maybe the pilots who reported this technique as being successful
didn't notice that the tank crews had left a roof hatch open, and that
was how the bullets destroyed the tanks.
  #27  
Old August 8th 03, 07:41 AM
Tony Williams
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Bill Shatzer wrote in message ...
On 7 Aug 2003, ArtKramr wrote:


Well if they destroyed 10% of what they claimed then we know for a fact that
the P-47's destroyed one hell of a lot of tanks.


I seem to recall that the British did a battlefield survey of
disabled/destroyed German armor. The numbers which could be attributed to
aerial weapons was quite small, as I recall in the 2% range.

Perhaps someone with access to a printed reference to this survey
or a better memory could provide firmer numbers.


This is what I wrote in 'Flying Guns: World War II':

"The fighter-bomber pilots pressed home their attacks with great
courage throughout the campaign despite the often ferocious light FlaK
which caused loss rates far above those experienced by fighter units
(one Typhoon squadron suffered 100% casualties in an eighteen-month
period). They were confident that any German tank they spotted was as
good as dead, and they earned a considerable reputation for tank
killing, with substantial claims being accepted. However, British
operational research (OR) carried out at the time (but not publicised
for obvious reasons) presented a more complex picture. As the Allies
were advancing, intelligence officers were often able to examine a
battlefield shortly after an air attack, and what they discovered
causes controversy even today. (Much of this section is taken from Ian
Gooderson's "Air Power at the Battlefront", which explores this issue
in great detail).

The evidence gathered by the OR teams indicated that very few tanks
were destroyed by air attack. A British War Office analysis of 223
Panther tanks destroyed in 1944 revealed that only fourteen resulted
from air attack (eleven to RPs and three to aircraft cannon). During
the Mortain battle of 7-10 August, the RAF and USAAF launched
sustained attacks on a German armoured column over a period of six
hours, claiming 252 German tanks destroyed or damaged in nearly 500
sorties. It was subsequently discovered that there had only been a
total of 177 tanks or tank destroyers deployed by the Germans and just
46 of those were lost, of which only nine could be attributed to air
attack (seven to RPs and two to bombs). During the German retreat from
the Falaise pocket later in August, the RAF and USAAF claimed 391
armoured vehicles destroyed. Shortly afterwards, the battlefield was
examined and only 133 armoured vehicles of all types were found, of
which just 33 had been the victim of any sort of air attack. In the
retreat to the Seine, large numbers of armoured vehicles were left
behind and Typhoon pilots alone claimed 222 destroyed, but only
thirteen out of 388 AFVs examined were found to have been knocked out
by RP attack. In the Ardennes salient, just seven out of 101
knocked-out AFVs were definitely or possibly attributed to air attack,
compared with claims for 90. It should be noted that in the prevailing
circumstances of a continuing retreat, there was no question of the
German Army having recovered any damaged tanks in these later actions,
in fact the battlefields were often littered with undamaged tanks
abandoned by their crews.

One source estimates that probably no more than about 100 tanks were
lost due to hits from air weapons during the entire Normandy campaign.
In contrast, the RAF's 2nd TAF (including elements of the Air Defence
of Britain which took part in the campaign) and the USAAF's 9th Air
Force lost over 1,700 aircraft between them.

The ineffectiveness of air attack against tanks should have caused no
surprise because the weapons available to the fighter-bombers were not
suitable for destroying them. Put simply, the heavy machine guns and
20 mm cannon were capable of hitting the tanks easily enough, but
insufficiently powerful to damage them, except occasionally by chance.
The RPs and bombs used were certainly capable of destroying the tanks
but were too inaccurate to hit them, except occasionally by chance."

Tony Williams
Military gun and ammunition website: http://www.quarry.nildram.co.uk
Discussion forum at: http://forums.delphiforums.com/autogun/messages/
  #28  
Old August 8th 03, 07:51 AM
Tony Williams
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) wrote in message . com...
As usual I mixed up terminology. Sorry about that. Therefore the
conclusion so far is that the pilots telling these stories only
assumed that this technique worked. If anything worked in that attack,
it was something else. And please do not birng in other craft and
calibers. P-47/51 were not armed with 20/30/40/75 mm cannons.


More's the pity; the USA had an excellent 37mm aircraft gun in the
inventory - the high-velocity M9 - but never used it. A pair of those
slung under a P-47's wings would have transformed their tank-killing
ability.

There's a very interesting article about the effectiveness of Il-2
against heavy armor. Even though when anyone says Il-2 people
automatically think tank-buster, the effectiveness was nearly
negligent. If they got any, it was by massive application of firepower
or luck. They were excellent against soft targets with rockets, bombs
and guns though. That article could be found at
www.batllefield.ru
somewhere. Unfortunately, I could not find it just now. The site is
mostly armor oriented.


The Il-2 3M was equipped with a pair of high-velocity 37mm NS-37
cannon, which were capable of penetrating just under two inches of
armour plate at normal firing range - plenty against the side or rear
armour. However, they were difficult to use as the recoil of this
weapon was severe enough to push the nose down on firing. The main
tank-killing weapon of the Il-2 was the PTAB 'cluster bomb'; they
could shower an area with bomblets, to great effect, and they demanded
much less accuracy from the pilot.

Tony Williams
Military gun and ammunition website: http://www.quarry.nildram.co.uk
Discussion forum at: http://forums.delphiforums.com/autogun/messages/
  #29  
Old August 8th 03, 11:06 AM
Keith Willshaw
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"Emmanuel Gustin" wrote in message
...
"Dave Eadsforth" wrote in message
...

Do you happen to know what the real kill rate was at Falaise? The
Typhoons were supposed to have just about wiped out every bit of useful
armour


The battlefield examination team found 33 armoured vehicles
that had been the victim of air attack. The original RAF and
USAF claim was for 391 -- about three times as much as the
total number of wrecked tanks and other vehicles on the
battlefield, and probably also about three times the number
the German had, as they lost almost everything.

You have to keep in mind that the number of German tanks
at Falaise was rather low. No more than about 30 tanks and
armoured vehicles per worn-out 'Panzerdivision' seems to
have been the norm.

- was that the only big, verifiable success for rockets?


Depends on what you call a success. No large numbers of
tanks were destroyed, but the German stopped their movement
and hid under cover when the sky cleared. Their mobility was
restricted to times when there was a fog or in the dark of the night.
(No moonlight!) As a force they were extremely vulnerable
to air attack. Much of their mobility depended on horses, not
armour.


And even more depended on horses, my father reported that
it was the number of dead horses at Falaise that shocked him
most when they finally secured the pocket.

Keith



  #30  
Old August 8th 03, 02:36 PM
steve gallacci
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John Halliwell wrote:

In article , Tony
Williams writes
I recall being told, in my target-shooting days, of a range which had
a lake between the firing point and the targets. On a calm day with no
ripples, they found that if they aimed at the reflection of the target
the bullets would ricochet off the water and hit the target. Of
course, the angle was very shallow.


There's a scene in The Dam Busters where the guy playing Barnes Wallis
explains that in Nelson's day the RN gunners used to bounce cannon balls
off the water to improve their effectiveness. No idea if correct or why
though?

To get a hit right at the water line. The solid shot punched a hole only
so big, and a waterline hit was the most effective way to get the
opposition's attention.
 




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