P-47 Tank busters

[mora]

Originally posted by ramzey
I said he is lier, if he lie about small things why not about stats?. Nazi scum anyway

Flawed reasoning. What has he lied about btw?

[Grits]

LOL...OK, I have nothing against the Finns (best Rally drivers in the world) but do you notice they say they werent Nazi symathizers in WWII, yet they all jump in to defend a Nazi they perceive to be slighted?

I am NOT saying Finns are Nazi's, I'm saying maybe you will understand why people might get that idea when you defend them so vigorously.

[Brenjen]

I never saw where the OP stated anything about Ma Duece killing tanks. And if all the nay sayers out there who believe tanks were not killed by aircraft in WWII would stop and ask yourself;

 How did all those thousands, literally thousands of superior german tanks get destroyed? They weren't all killed by inferior allied tanks in engagements where they were just outnumbered.

 It was a mix of aircraft with guns/bombs/rockets; infantry with AT weapons & explosives, mines, artillery, tanks...the Finnish troops even trained stray dogs to eat under german tanks & then strapped explosives to them & turned them loose.

 If aircraft didn't work, it's funny how modern combat has evolved in that direction despite it. Everyone said Billy Mitchell was crazy too, didn't they.

[Widewing]

Originally posted by Bruno
It doesn't matter as the figures on the site you linked and those that Toad posted are the same:

1 inch = 25mm
.9 inch = 23mm  

However, .50 cal tank 'busters' are just as much 'fantasy' as Rudel's 518 'busted' tanks.

Destroying a battletank with .50 cal MGs was little more than wishful thinking.

Nonetheless, while a single .50 cal BMG round will not likely penetrate the deck armor of a battle tank, the errosive effect of being hit by hundreds of rounds can, eventually, penetrate the lighter upper deck armor of most WWII tanks. Odds still remain high that this would not occur, simply because such a concentration of fire was very unlikely. However, virtually every extenal piece of hardware can be damaged or destroyed. Lights, pintle guns, periscopes, tools, rubber road wheels and the like are susceptable to gunfire. Rounds occasionally finding their way into the engine compartment can disable the tank long enough to eliminate its immediate effectiveness.

However, support vehicles such as trucks, half-tracks and scout vehicles such as armored cars were far easier to destroy with gunfire. Indeed, self- propelled artillery was quite vulnerable to .50 caliber AP rounds.

Generally speaking, most battle tanks lost to fighter-bombers were the result of direct hits from bombs and rockets. Yet, even that was relatively uncommon. Most tanks not destroyed in fights with enemy armor were abandoned due to running out of fuel, or were disabled and could not be repaired due to a lack of supporting men and equipment.

As it was, Allied control of the air over the battlefield was such that any attempt to repair or recover disabled tanks had to be done under the cover of darkness. For the Germans, getting armor to the front was the biggest problem, as the railroads were prime targets. I've seen several photos of tanks lying upside down along rail lines, having been blown off of flat cars by bombs.

I guess in this respect, Aces High is accurate. Strafing tanks with .50 caliber MGs may knock off a track. Maybe even knock out the engine. However, it will require a bomb or rocket hit to destroy a tank in the game.

My regards,

Widewing

[Bruno]

There have been multiple, very long discussions on this forum about the 'effectiveness of HMGs against MBTs.  In any one of those threads battlefield studies of destroyed German MBTs were posted. I can dig them up but anyone can search the forum as easy as I can. The number of tanks confirmed to have been knocked out by strafing was 0.

As Widewing said even the number of MBTs destroyed by bombs and rockets was very small, especially compared to the number of MBTs abandoned or destroyed by their own crews.

In the past in AH .50s cals and Hispanos were knocking out tanks left and right. This was due to a bug that eventually was fixed. However, many of the AH fan bois were ranting on and on about how real it was for HMGs and Hispanos (which, at least in the RAF, were never loaded with AP) to 'bust tanks'. We heard again and again about how 'bouncing .50 cals' off the ground would knock out an MBT by penetrating the 'soft underside'. We also heard claims of tanks crews being 'welded' in their tanks as the .50 cals hit the hatch lip. All sorts of nonsense like this was thrown out to rationalize was was proven to be a bug.

The most effective way to stop an armored assault with air power was to destroy the support vehicles. Once the tanks were out of fuel or ammo they were abandoned and/or destroyed by their own crews. Even the vaunted Il2 (same goes for the 'rocket firing Typhoon) wasn't as effective at knocking out MBTs as its modern reputation claims.

Destroying MBTs from the air was a very difficult, if not damn near impossible to do.

Even the number of tanks attributed to have been destroyed by Rudel in his Ju-87G are disputed by his own squadron mates.

[Bruno]

LOL...OK, I have nothing against the Finns (best Rally drivers in the world) but do you notice they say they werent Nazi symathizers in WWII, yet they all jump in to defend a Nazi they perceive to be slighted?

I am not sure how you categorize who is a 'Nazi' but Rudel was never a member of the NSDAP. Technically, he wasn't a 'Nazi'. He was a member of the SS, Rudel held SS membership number 206913. In a document dated 9th October 1943, concerning Knight's Cross holders of the Allgemeine-SS, he held the rank of SS-Sturmmann. During the war Rudel would have been on the Allgemeine-SS 'inactive' list while serving with the LW. After the was Rudel was  active in the 'Kameradenwerk' helping SS officers etc... He was also member of the post war 'Deutsche Reichspartei (DRP)' which was as 'right wing' as they come.

He was unapologetic about his service during WW2. He was well liked by the Nazi leaders, including Hitler.

[Boxboy]

Facts are there were some confirmed tank kills by P-47 and P-38's but not for the reason one would think.

All tanks of WWII vintage leaked some fluids, and these fluids could and would build up under the tank on the bottom and under certain conditions could be set alight from .50 cal, rocket, and or close prox bomb hits.

Also the deck armor over the engine compartments were usually vented in some mannor and were inherently weaker at those spots.

[ramzey]

how about killing all crew if you aim  haches? ;-)

[Fariz]

What I know for sure about Rudel that if war continued for a little bit longer then world would witness first cyborg creation.

[Oldman731]

Originally posted by Bruno
I am not sure how you categorize who is a 'Nazi' but Rudel was never a member of the NSDAP. Technically, he wasn't a 'Nazi'. He was a member of the SS, Rudel held SS membership number 206913. In a document dated 9th October 1943, concerning Knight's Cross holders of the Allgemeine-SS, he held the rank of SS-Sturmmann. During the war Rudel would have been on the Allgemeine-SS 'inactive' list while serving with the LW. After the was Rudel was  active in the 'Kameradenwerk' helping SS officers etc... He was also member of the post war 'Deutsche Reichspartei (DRP)' which was as 'right wing' as they come.

He was unapologetic about his service during WW2. He was well liked by the Nazi leaders, including Hitler.

That's close enough to "Nazi" for me.

- oldman

[Brenjen]

I doubt he enjoyed his time in the SS if he wasn't a member of the nazi party, they didn't ink those lightning bolts on just anybody. I sure wouldn't trust his non-nazi self around any unsuspecting Jews.

[Chalenge]

Sort of resembles the actor from Pearl Harbor; Ben Affleck. Hed make a great tank buster.

Isnt there a resource on the web for Air Force gun camera footage from the war? Ive seen Time Life photos of Thunderbolts leaving the scene of a tank column with all vehicles burning and smoking. Was that propaganda?

[ramzey]

how many handsomehunkes here left thinking SS was not a elite unit of nazi NSDAP and rudel  was not nazi
hands up

Originally posted by Chalenge


Isnt there a resource on the web for Air Force gun camera footage from the war? Ive seen Time Life photos of Thunderbolts leaving the scene of a tank column with all vehicles burning and smoking. Was that propaganda?

in the dark all cats are black

link please

[Grendel]

Originally posted by Killjoy2
I was looking up my Father-in-laws P-47 squadron.  He was a mechanic in the 396th FG at Strabben, Germany.  The 'Thunder Bums"  That sounds like my new squad name.

I was struck by how many tanks they killed with P-47s.

You just should remember, that those are claims. Real figures are often quite different. As I made a short summary of larger studies:

British War Office analysis of 233 destroyed Panther tanks in 1944 revealed, that only 14 of those were destroyed by aerial attack. 11 with rockets, 3 with cannons.

During battle of Mortrain 7-10. August RAF and USAAF air forces claimed destruction of 252 German tanks destroyed. Germans only had 177 tanks and tank destroyers in that battle. Of those, 46 were lost. Nine were destroyed by aerial attacks. Seven by rockets, two by bombs.

During the German retreat to Seine, 388 AFVs were destroyed and examined. Of those only 13 were destroyed by aerial attack.

During the battle of Ardennes, of 101 destroyed AFVs only seven was destroyed by aerial attack. Claims were for 90.

During whole Normandy campaign only about 100 tanks were destroyed to Allied air attacks. None of those were destroyed by .50s.

These numbers come from combination of British and American battlefield studies.

So you see that claims are always much much higher than the real result. About anything that moves can look like a tank from air.

[Simaril]

Originally posted by mora
Flawed reasoning. What has he lied about btw?

Dont know squat about Rudel, but I'm callin you on this one.

The victim's neighbor says he saw the accused exiting the victims back door. But, Vinny the Mooch, three times in the pen for fraud and twice for perjury, testifies that he was with the accused watching HBO reruns the entire night of the murder. You going to accept Vinny's testimony because you dont know he's lying THIS time, eh?

A pattern of demonstrable dishonesty sure OUGHT to make us skeptical when the liar speaks up again....