LW cannon ineffective against tanks?

[bloom25]

Tonight I attacked a tank with a FW190.  I was using the largest ammo load possible with 2 20mm and 2 30mm + the machine guns.  At base 60 I attacked a tank and made 10+ passes on him.  After using some 600+ cannon rounds, as well as 500 mg rounds before he somehow hit me with his main gun, I still hadn't killed him.  I have a film of the last two passes, showing at least 50+ cannon hits on him before I blew up directly above him.  Now I've attacked tanks in a typhoon this tour, and I can tell you that it only took one good pass.  I must have made at least 10 on this tank without any visible damage.  After he blew me up, I took a tank from 60 and blew him up with one round from the main gun.  (That sure felt good.   )  I asked him if I had damaged him with my 190, and he said "none."

It seems to me that if 50 or so 20mm hispanos can roast a tank, 600+ Mg151/20mm and at least 80+ rounds of 30mm in addition to probably 400 rounds of 13mm should probably kill it as well.  I'll post the film here:

ubertank.ahf

Here's a bonus film of me getting credit for a ditch in my tank right after I blew up the tank.  Notice where I am when I exit.

ditch.ahf



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bloom25
THUNDERBIRDS

[LLv34_Snefens]

I have had one sortie in the 190 with the 30mm's where I killed 2 panzers, with fairly low ammount of rounds (I still had 30mm left).

Another sortie I spent my majority of the rounds on a panzer and I didn't kill it.

Btw 13 mm rounds are completely useless against panzers.

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"Head-ons are for pilots that don't know what their next move should be"

Ltn. Snefens
RO, Lentolaivue 34

[HABICHT]

hiya,
i usually fly the 109G10 with 30mm cannon.
have no probs with killing tanks.
it's harder for me to kill a buff with
30mm than a tank :-).


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JG2 "Richthofen"

[This message has been edited by HABICHT (edited 05-21-2000).]

[Hristo]

MG 151/20 is ineffective against tanks.

MK 108 is very effective.

[bloom25]

Just a question here, but wasn't 30mm a high explosive round?  If so, then it would be worthless against a tank.  What bothers me is that Hispano 20mm is so incredibly effective, versus Mg151/20 20mm is completely ineffective.  Now I realize that a hispano round is about 20% more massive than Mg151/20, but this doesn't account for the enormous difference in damage caused against a tank.  (Planes too for that matter.)  I used to fly the f4u-1c quite a bit, and I can tell you that only about 50 rds or less will easily kill a tank.  I used 500+ rounds of Mg151/20 on this tank with absolutely no damage.  (Take a look at the film, it shows only the last 2 passes, each registering probably 30+ hits per pass.)

I have another question to ask here.  I believe that a 50 caliber AP shell would penetrate 3/8 inch of steel if fired directly perpendicular to it.  Considering that the top turret of a panzer IV is only 15mm thick, then even 50 caliber should be able to penetrate a panzer's armor.  (P47s using 8 50cal killed many German tanks using 50 cal.)  Now obviously we can't have our panzer's armor toned down to where a p51 can make a one pass kill on a tank, but if he made several passes it should be possible to at least take the track off a tank.

Please don't take all this as a whine.  On the contrary, this is the best game I've ever played.  I'm just curious as to there can be such a difference between mg151 and hispano 20mm versus tanks.  This is just something to look into for 1.03.

(This was the first night I flew the 190 ever, and I was very impressed with it.  In fact that tank was the only thing that shot me down all night long.    You can bet that I'll be flying the 190A5 when it comes out quite regualarly.)



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bloom25
THUNDERBIRDS

[Pongo]

Bloom.
The numbers for penetration and kinetic energy for the HS vs the 151 are quite different.
Paricularly at your typical d700-900 anti tank shot the HS is much more powerful at that kind of thing.
I dont know that the 151 would be as totaly ineffective as it is here. But a good ammo load out for air to air use would be nearly useless for anti tank. And more so for the 151 then the FS I believe.

[Ping]

 I was the infamous tank driver that bloom refers to.
 I can verify that I had taken no damage in the passes that were made against me.
 I did want to comment tho on the attack style he used. He manged to keep outta my gun angles for the most part untill that last pass he made.
 If more pilots flew their attacks with this in mind, you would see a lot less tanks killing their attackers.
 Nice fight Bloom <S>

[Greg 'wmutt' Cook]

A lot of the damage issue depends upon what year our panzer is modeled in.  Do we have mantlet plates, or the improved turret armor. also late in their deployment life they were fitted with standoff plates to pre detonate HEAT rounds.  But the base armor for the Panzer Mk IV could be penatrated by enough .50 cal fire placed at the correct point and at very close range.  Armor was considerably thiner at the base of the gun, and near the driver hatch.
I think range is the big difference between RL engagements and what we have in the sim. (well, that and all the death and destruction)  In WWII while not unheard of 1000 meter kills with the 75mm and 76mm guns were quite rare.  Which brings me to a question, is the distance repersented by our icon system in feet, meters, yards, or AUs   ?  If it is anything but feet, our engagement ranges for tanks are ludicrous.  

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Greg 'wmutt' Cook
332nd Flying Mongrels

[bloom25]

Hehe ping, it was an interesting experience to say the least.  I used to fly the 1c alot and I could easily kill 5 to 6 tanks with guns alone.  When I saw a tank below me and I had a full loadout of ammo in a 190 I almost drooled all over my keyboard!    After making pass after pass I was getting low and ammo and a little frustrated, so I got low and was trying to hit you as long as I could on that last pass.  Unfortunately for me, you blasted me out of the sky.  

It was my first night flying the 190, so I was unaware that LW guns are worthless against a tank.  I'll bring bombs next time.  



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bloom25
THUNDERBIRDS

[MANDOBLE]

I've suffered this effect twice in 190, all the 20mm rounds on the same tank and no effect at all. Both times I landed and took off in F4U1-C, and with a single pass the tanks were destroyed. As a matter of comparison, last Sunday I was flying 190 and found a F4U, I hit the hog several times with short burst (300 yards 20mm), no effect at all, then I put myself at 200 yards and discard a very long burst on him, he lost a wing. Later I was flying a Nikki (just testing that plane) and found another F4U, I shoot a forced short snapshot and saw a single tracer hitting the F4U right wing, wing blew away...

[StSanta]

Well, dropped two 1000lb's on tank, then fired 10 rockets. Nothing he kept on moving afther the bombs but stopped after rockets.

Then took a single Hispano, shot around 40 rounds, some of them hit, kabooom.

Sure is a nice gun the Hispano.

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StSanta
II/JG2

[Vermillion]

Ah but Santa your looking at this too conservatively  

Is the problem with the hispano? Probably not, given the info posted recently about Hispano AP penetration capability, and the armor thickness of the rear and top of the Panzer IV.

Or.... is the problem with the Bombs and Rockets, having too small to no blast radius? bing... bing... bing... bing... bing !!!!!

I wish we had some ordinance experts around here that could tell us the effective blast radius of a 500lb bomb.

But in AH I can tell you that I can drop a 500lber within 1.5 aircraft lengths of a P-38 and it has no effect (which is simply ludicrous). And that you can shoot a rocket within 1/2 a single wings length of the same 38 and again have no effect (once we actually hit with a rocket right between the tail booms, with a ping sound but no damage listed on the damage list). This is from some testing me and some others have done in the TA.



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Vermillion
**MOL**, Men of Leisure
"Real Men fly Radials, Nancy Boys fly Spitfires"

[bloom25]

Here's another interesting film: mg151vHS.ahf

In this film I start out in a fully loaded 190.  Soon I spot a tank below me and set up on it.  I end up making 3 passes firing only cannon before skimming the ground and disabling my engine.  I then glide in for a ditch.  You will then see me pick a Typhoon, select 25% fuel, and guns only. (I had to set convergence, which accounts for the delay.)  Soon I'm back over the tank and make one pass.  The tank dies, but he shot my tail.  Somehow I kept the plane level and managed to ditch a flaming lawndart after I finished rolling.  (Try pressing rewind right after my typhoon starts smoking and has no tail or wings.  You can back it up to my pass on the tank again, but the plane will still be wingless and smoking.    If you do it again you can put the wings back on, but still be missing the tail.   )

Notice a couple things here, (besides my expert ditching skills   ) first of all I used 300 or so 190 cannon rounds and even though I shot rather poorly, I still managed to land at least 50 hits or so.  Note that it was the full loadout of 30mm and 20mm and that I used only cannon.  Next on the Typhoon run I used maybe 100 rounds total, hit with about 50% of them, and the tank blows up.

I just need to learn not to go after tanks in a 190.  



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bloom25
THUNDERBIRDS

[funked]

Haven't tried it in the game, but MK 108 should bounce right off a tank.

[funked]

Also, if the penetration values and armor thicknesses that guys have been posting are correct, a slightly heavier tank than our current model will become immune to the aircraft guns in this game.