For much of the last year I've been using a technique to kill planes that strafe my tanks. I am most often in the T34, and I have found this technique to be insanely good at killing a lot of fighter dweebs with nothing better to do than spray machine-gun and 20mm cannon rounds at my tanks. For the first few months I hardly told anyone about this technique except squadmates, and even then I never saw anyone else do it. In recent months I've been telling people about it, and still not seeing much uptake of the technique.
Recently I shared this technique with a bunch of tankers in the beta frame of the current Tunisia scenario, so I'm thinking some others are finally going to be doing it. I also recently sent film of this technique to some specific players whom I'd killed with it, and at least one of them, Strong10, has been doing it the last several days, and sending me excited PMs in game about how cool he thinks it is, and how many kills he's racked up with it.
Well, I want everyone to know about this. I may well reduce the number of kills I get with it once it becomes more generally understood, but that's OK with me. It will change the ground game to some small degree I hope, making it harder to get away with strafing tanks. I think this would be a good thing.
I am
not talking about the technique of aiming just over the engine cowling of an incoming plane and firing an AP round into the engine or cockpit, killing the incoming plane. I do this technique as well, when I can, and it's very effective, and very satisfying.
This other technique is one I use when I know I will not be able to get my turret around in time to get a shot off at the incoming plane. It's also somewhat easier to get kills with, though shooting tank rounds into the engine block is pretty darn easy once you get the hang of it.
This technique is also often effective when the planes are coming in at too steep an angle to shoot at directly.
Ok, so now to the technique.
When you recognize that a plane is incoming to strafe you, turn your turret
away from that plane. I mean exactly opposite of the plane's incoming path. As soon as the plane passes overhead, fire an HE round into the ground. The timing is not hard to get right, especially if your tank's engine is off, because you will hear a very pronounced doppler effect as the strafing plane passes overhead.
If you did it right, an HE round will be going off on the ground pretty much right under a plane that's usually no more than 20 feet or so off the ground. This will instantly kill most planes. Sometimes, when the angle isn't exactly right, you'll merely break a wing off or something, and they'll plow into the ground and die. On occasion I've merely lit a plane on fire, or smoked their engine, but these are fairly rare. By far the most common result is instant death.
This game has been around a long time, and I cannot claim that nobody else has ever done this. If so, then the technique has been invented independently multiple times. I invented it myself about a year or so ago having never seen it done before, or heard of it being done. Not having ever seen or heard of this being done before, I've thought of this as the Sethbag technique for killing strafing fighters, and I wanted to share it with everyone, so it becomes common practice for experienced tankers.
I've gotten very good at it. In tank runs with lots of planes eager to strafe me I've racked up as many as multiple dozen kills this way, or through a combination of this technique and direct-fire shots into the engine block.
Here are some film clips demonstrating this technique.
This first film demonstrates me blowing up a Bf 110 that strafes my tank. Notice that I see the plane coming from the commander's cupola position, so I know he's coming, and approximately from what angle. I switch to my gun, load up HE rounds, and take the shot as he passes overhead. It's not even perfectly underneath his plane, but he still blows up.
When viewing these clips, make sure to check the "Use recorded views" option, so you see what I was seeing as I did this.
t34 kills strafing 110This second film demonstrates a kill against a Spitfire strafing me from the side. Notice that I see the incoming plane, and watch him for a couple of seconds, so I know he's coming. You can see me rotating the turret around to approximately opposite the flight path of the incoming plane, and take the shot. Instant plane kill.
t34 kills Spitfire strafing from the sideA couple of comments. In addition to the doppler effect that gives away the timing of the plane passing overhead, if you have good headphones you can tell as you rotate your turret about when you're pointed the right direction, because the incoming airplane engine noise will go from coming more out of one side of the headphones, to coming out more or less balanced in both sides. That means the guy's straight behind you, and he's going to fly right over the spot your aiming at on the ground.
Remember to depress the muzzle all the way down, so you shoot into the ground very close to the tank.
This technique works in any type of tank, but it works the best in the T34, because the T34 turret rotates so quickly, much more quickly than any other tank's turret. If you're moving, however, if you get a good feel for what direction the gun needs to be pointing to get this shot off, you can just turn the tank, and then jump into the gunsight for the shot. This helps if you're in a tank with a very slow-traversing turret, such as the Tiger.
And now, here's one more film clip, but it's not using the techqnique outlined above. It was just a very good tank to plane kill that I wanted to kind of show off. Sue me.
nice tank to IL-2 lead shot from main gunBtw, this technique, once mastered, leads to other really cool tank vs. plane killshots. The other day I saw a 109 K4 diving in to strafe an M3 from my side that was about to release troops. I aimed my T34 main gun at the ground near the M3 and selected HE. When the K4 passed over the M3 I fired, and killed the K4. Unfortunately for me, my round hit too close to the M3 and the killshooter effect killed my own tank too. But I've done this with other friendly tanks where I killed a guy strafing them, without killing myself.
Anyhow, there it is, now discuss.
