question

Mission changes, and there's some very valid doubt about how effective they really were. The P-39 is also mentioned as a tank-buster, but that's also mostly a myth. The truth is that the cannon armament carried by the P-39/P-63 was not enough to penetrate most German tanks (the machine guns on the P-51 and P-47 were next to useless). The 8" rockets were better, but very inaccurate from a plane.

That's not to say that airplanes didn't kill tanks in WWII, just that there were no real, successful, tank-killers at that time. My knowledge of British and German planes is not as extensive as what I know about American planes, but I suspect that they had similar results. They would still have the problem of hitting power and accuracy.

There really is nothing that compares to the A-10!

Regards,

The Il-2 Stormovik & cannon-armed Ju 87G Stuka were perhaps the most successful airborne tank destroyers of WW II.

Pixilator,

You nailed it, man. The Stormovik was a tank killing machine! The grandfather of the A-10. I read somewhere not too long ago about how many the Russians made during WWII and, while I can't recall the exact number, it was staggering.

I'm hyped up about the Stormovik because I got the Accurate Miniatures kit not too long ago. Boy ain't she SAAAA-WEEEEEETT!

To me the germans were the ones with the most ourtrageous looking tank killers. LIke you said pixilater, the stuka, and some of the versions of the 262 with just an obscenely huge cannon strapped on the front. Personally, I don't know how sucessful they were, but if looks counted, they were the baddest.

Maybe it was just because the T 34 was killing them!

Did they ever use the Mosquito as a tank killer?? I'm planning on buying a kit in the next couple of months, and have ordered a book, but haven't started the research....just curious.

the stormovik wreaked havoc on them tigers and panzers

i also got the accurate miniatures, early version with skis

The Stormovik was definitely one of the best. The Russians also had a lot of success tank busting with the P-39 with several pilots gaining impressive scores.
The Stuka G-2 with the 37mm guns was definitely a potent asset on the battlefield. While the 50mm armed Me-262 did not see combat, several other planes were armed with big guns to go tank busting with the most popular version being the HS-129 with a 76mm gun under the belly.
The British also had several good tank busters. They used Hurricanes with 40mm guns under the wings. The squadron was known as the flying canopeners and had quite a bit of success in North Africa. The Beaufighter was another that served with distinction but the best know was the Typhoon. Armed with 4 20mm guns and bombs or rockets, they tore up the German armor in the Falaise Gap.

Actually the P-39 used by the Russians as primarily a tank buster/ground attack aircraft is a falsehood. I wish I could remember the website, but a Russian journalist let the cat out of the bag on this subject, after interviewing many Russian P-39 pilots. The whole lend-lease project was really downplayed by the Russians to place more attention on there own arms production during the war. In fact lend-lease aircraft (including P-39's) accounted for around 20% overall of the Russian Air Force. P-39's were actually PREFERED by the Russian fighter pilots since it performed very well at the altitudes they fought at. Most of the Russian pilots interviewed said they even prefered it to the Spitfires and Hurricanes. In fact several Russian pilots scored kills that numbered in the 40's and 50's against German BF-109's, FW-190's and ME-210's with the P-39. The Russian pilots liked the P-39 because it was rugged, had good armament, and was quite nimble below 15,000 ft.
Anyway, do a search on the subject. The site was a real awakening as too propaganda and the real story of how the lend-lease aircraft performed during WWII.
I've read that the Typhoons, and Tempests really took it to the German armor as well.

hi guys,

salbando, the stuff about the p-39 was quite interesting, and fits in with the russian view of "the great patriotic war" that they won it through russian blood being spilt, and not allied equipment being shipped...

Lufbery, i'm no ballistics expert, but i think you are wrong regarding the effectiveness of heavy calibre machine guns against tanks.
remember that we are not talking about a tank vs tank battle; obviously the tank with the .50 cal is mincemeat!!
by their very nature, p-47s and p-51s attacked from the air, and thus would have a tank's (largely unarmoured) engine-deck comprising around 50% of their target make-up; fire some .50 cal rounds in there (as they did) and most tanks are knocked out/blow up (as indeed they did). as soon as you up-gun to the 20mm armed typhoon, the odds swing even more into the planes' favour.
i do concur regarding the inaccuracy of rockets from ground attack aircraft in anything but an "area blast".

please feel free to say i'm barking up completely the wrong tree by the way!!

regards,
nick

Hmmmmmmmmmm I would have to say the Ju-87G, the Hs-129, the Il-2 Stormovik, and the Hawker Typhoon stick out the most in my mind.

WWII tank killers? Hans Ulrich Rudel destroyed over 500 tanks with a Ju-87.
Aircraft have always been effective against armor.
Ray
518+ Tanks
700 Trucks
150+ Flak and Artillery positions
9 Fighter/Ground Attack Aircraft
Hundreds of bridges, railway lines, bunkers, etc.
Battleship October Revolution, Cruiser Marat, and 70 landing craft
As well as flying 2,530 combat missions...More than any pilot in history.

P-47s and P-51s were most useful against vehicle columns. See all the pix of beat up vehicles and dead horses from the Normandy Breakout and Falaise Pocket...

The battery of 50 cals may not have penetrated the main armor of the hull and turret of a tank but tanks are useless without logistic and infantry support which the Mustangs and esp T-Bolts were VERY effective against. Trucks, horses and Kubelwagens had no armor. Tanks become pillboxes without fuel to move them. And then a little arty makes them a burned out hulk.

Targeting sustems (ie. gunsights) were comparatively rudimentary in those and days and one had to get eyeball-to-eyeball with the target in whoever's anti-tank plane you were flying (Sturmovik, Ju 87G, Hs 129, Typhoon, T-Bolt). Pretty gutsy job in any dense air defense environment.

QUOTE: Originally posted by nmayhew Lufbery, i'm no ballistics expert, but i think you are wrong regarding the effectiveness of heavy calibre machine guns against tanks. remember that we are not talking about a tank vs tank battle; obviously the tank with the .50 cal is mincemeat!! by their very nature, p-47s and p-51s attacked from the air, and thus would have a tank's (largely unarmoured) engine-deck comprising around 50% of their target make-up; fire some .50 cal rounds in there (as they did) and most tanks are knocked out/blow up (as indeed they did). as soon as you up-gun to the 20mm armed typhoon, the odds swing even more into the planes' favour. i do concur regarding the inaccuracy of rockets from ground attack aircraft in anything but an "area blast". please feel free to say i'm barking up completely the wrong tree by the way!!

Hey, no problem. I like a good debate, and I'm always willing to learn more. My primary source on this topic is discussions at the "Military Guns and Ammunition" forum at Delphi.com:
.
http://forums.delphiforums.com/autogun/messages
.
That forum is hosted by Tony Williams who has written a book on cannon, machine guns and ammunition, and one on aircraft guns from WWI to the present. There has been a lot of discussion on that board about air-to-ground tank killing in WWII.

The main points that I picked up were that most aircraft mounted guns lacked the punch to reliably take out a tank, the rockets were more effective but rather inaccurate, and claims of tank kills all the way around are much higher than reality.

Check out this link for some good info. It's an essay by Tony Williams looking at what type of plane and armament would have made the bets tank buster during WWII:
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http://www.quarry.nildram.co.uk/tankbusters.htm
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Regards,

-Drew

QUOTE: Originally posted by salbando Actually the P-39 used by the Russians as primarily a tank buster/ground attack aircraft is a falsehood.

Excellent post salbando. I remember reading somewhere that even if the Russians wanted to tankbust they couldnt do much good as the only 37mm shell we gave them in LendLease was a high explosive round. All of the armor piercing rounds went to other Airacobra units... or some of our tanks that used the 37mm.

hi drew,
thanks for the link, i'm just about to take a look...as i said i'm no expert on ballistics, but just thought intuitively about what happens when you fire a .50 cal through a thin wire mesh (which most tanks had covering at least some of their deck) into an engine...usually not good!! obviously most of this ammunition would just bounce off a tank's turret/front and side armour.
obviously no offence was meant, and i think that none was taken!
it's discussions like this which are one of the reasons i love this forum: people are usually happy to say "oh, maybe i was wrong"....i know, i've done it loads of times!!
anyway, here's to my 500th post!!!
regards,
nick

QUOTE: anyway, here's to my 500th post!!! regards, nick

congrats nick!
you an asset to the forums (here and there)

obiwan hi,
thanks for that; i don't know much, but always try to help out wherever i can
regards,
nick

i had a feeling about the stuka but did not know for sure. as far as the russian a/c field it is one that i am extremely lacking. overall i knew there had to be some that were used primarily as tank busters but was not sure, as a said before, if the armament was the change or if it was just that the missions were changed. like nmayhew stated heavy lead hitting light armor would equal loss of life to the tank. i honestly overlooked the british contribution to this effort. it also seems like i read somewhere that med. bombers such as the b-25, b-24, and the b-26 were used. if memory serves they used the bombers similar to "rail guns" lined them up and opened fire. the bombers were fitted with a nose cannon of higher caliber. i dont remember how effective they were but it sure would be a heck of a concept. like i said "if memory serves", it has failed me in the past.


joe


p.s. now this is what i call a real armor topic
.

fightnjoe hi,
i must admit i had a wry smile on my face when i read your response:
"i honestly overlooked the british contribution to this effort. "
although i know you were only talking about this specific topic, it seems that most people forget the brits were doing the fighting for a good few years before D-Day...otherwise i'd be typing this in german!!
regards,
nick

The one that came first to my mind was the Henschel Hs 129. It was build for one purpose only: groundattack. It had some pretty big guns for it as well. One 30 mm canon, two 7.9 mm Mg's and two 15 or 20 mm Mg's

If memeory servers me the standard attack approach when attacking tanks from the air, was from the rear. There were two reasons for this:

1. Limited armour at rear, also 'soft' components such as radiators etc. T34s were particularly vulnerable to this.

2.If you get hit, you are at least flying towards your own lines.

Even allowing for the 'soft' nature of certain components at the rear of a tank, the average 0.50 cal round is unlikely to do more than superficial famage, as even the 'soft' elements were usually behaind armoured loures etc.

Therefore if you wanted to do real damage you needed 20mm cannon or above. After all the Hurricanes used 40mm cannons, while the Germans went all the way up to He177, yes the big ones!, with a 75mm PAK slung underneath.

As for rockets, post war review showed that the overclaim on these attacks was huge, due mainly to the blast effect obscuring the target after the attack.

There you go, that's my cents, or for Nick, my two Reichmarks!

nmayhew,

thanks for pointing that out. although my post does sound bad in general i am refering to only the tank busting efforts. i had forgotten about the higher firepower of the hurricane when it came to tankbusting. the defense of britian was a showcase for the abilities of both the hurricane and the spitfire. if i offended any i do apologize.

QUOTE: Originally posted by fightnjoe nmayhew, thanks for pointing that out. although my post does sound bad in general i am refering to only the tank busting efforts. i had forgotten about the higher firepower of the hurricane when it came to tankbusting. the defense of britian was a showcase for the abilities of both the hurricane and the spitfire. if i offended any i do apologize.

fightnjoe hi
no, ofcourse no offence was taken; it just sounded a bit funny that's all; anyways, i like chatting on these forums!!
regards,
nick

nmayhew,

my biggest problem, er. fault is that i post then read what i have posted. sometimes i catch it others i dont.

I had a treadhead (tanker) tell me once that the thing a tanker feared the most on a battlefield was a bunch of pissed off infantrymen. lol

nmayhew, or anyone else

were mosquito's used as tank busters?

fightnjoe
As far as I know, no mossies were used as anti-tank aircraft. The version with the 57 mm cannon in it all went to Coastal Command. guess they worked great on shipping.

Just to add to the .50 cal vs. cannon issue, sure you'd probably be a lot less likely to get a tank kill with MGs, but you might well accomplish other things that contribute to the overall mission. First, you might well kill or drive off the armored units supporting infantry, whether they were on foot or in soft-skinned vehicles. Second, you are at very least going to force the tankers to button up.
In combination, this will slow down the advance for several reasons. In most cases, that armor is not going to want to advance without its infantry support, for if they do, it makes them much more vulnerable to attack by the enemy's infantry (I guess the desert or frozen tundra are the only types of terrain where this does not so much matter). Without infantry support and buttoned up just makes matters worse. Plus buttoned up, the tanker is less likely to spot and identify mines, ditches, other obstacles etc. And a guy driving looking through vision blocks is just going to drive slower than a guy with his head out of the hatch.

Al