Tanks blah

[Silat]

Tanks shooting planes out of the sky with their main cannons is bs...........

[Gianlupo]

NO WAY!1!!

You winher, the Germanz did that at Pearl Harbour when those few Dutch fighters upped!1!1!1111 HiperVelocity Tank Ammo and Dar targetting systemz weere already used in teh war!

[Bruv119]

don't fly down the barrel of their gun stupid! 

[DMVIAGRA]

[R 105]

 I was a Tanker in the real Army and no tank in the history of the world ever shot down a plane and if it ever did happen I can tell you the tank crew never knew it. If you ever had an opportunity to look through a tanks sight you would see why you can't shoot a plane down.  

[Fish42]

Not unheard off...

On page 43 of Otto Carious's book "Tigers in the Mud"

"On the other hand, we had a lot of trouble with Russian fighters. They 'lurched' past us, almost without a break. That's really the way one has to describe that type of flying. My gunner, Unteroffizier Kramer, can take credit for a deed which was probably unparalleled on the Eastern Front. That is, he succeeded in shooting down a Russian fighter with the tank cannon. Of course, he was also helped by chance. This was how it happened. Kramer, upset by the unrelenting nuisance of these guys, elevated his cannon along the approach route. I talked him in. He took a chance and pulled the trigger. On the seco0nd attempt, he hit one of the 'bees' in its wing. The Russian crashed behind us."

[FLS]

Tanks shooting planes out of the sky with their main cannons is bs...........

If by bs you mean beautiful shot I agree. 

[titanic3]

If it can be done, it will be done.

Why are you even flying that close to the ground anyway? Even the planes with antitank guns can't even penetrate most of them without attacking from the top at a steep angle.

[realgood]

 + here kitty kitty kitty

[APDrone]

Tanks shooting planes out of the sky with their main cannons is bs...........

Quit thinking about is as tanks shooting planes down. 

The tank is tossing up multi-pound blobs of steel/lead/TNT and the planes are flying into them.  Quit flying into them, and problem is solved.

I mean, really, since the tank is tossing them out there first, it's really up to the pilot to avoid the collision.

[Slate]

Planes shooting Tanks out of existance with their main cannons is bs...........

   Fixed  

  Nothing gives me quite a giggle as thinking of the look on the face of an overconfident fighter jock as he explodes. 
 The smart ones don't strafe at low angles.

[Gianlupo]

Well, jokes aside, even if it's theoretically possible and if it's been done during the war, it should be extremely difficult: notice how the German tanker says «My gunner [...] can take credit for a deed which was probably unparalleled on the Eastern Front [...] Of course, he was also helped by chance.»

In Aces High it happens too often, and flying close to the ground doesn't have anything to do with that, a fast airplane it's a fast moving target, it's not easy to kill it, especially with a tank main gun (it's different for bombers making bombing runs low and in a straight course, as I saw in AH, but, knowing Silat, he was probably flying a 38). Even a fighter accelerating on a runway shouldn't be an easy target, in real life, even if you put the tank in line with it's path.

[Slate]

The Typhoon had four 20mm Hispano cannon. The P-47 carried eight .50 cal. machine guns with 400 rounds per gun, and it proved "particularly successful" against transports. The machine guns OCCASIONALLY even caused casualties to tanks and tank crews. The .50 cal. armor-piercing bullets often penetrated the underside of vehicles after ricocheting off the road, or penetrated the exhaust system of the tanks, ricocheting around the interior of the armored hull, killing or wounding the crew and sometimes igniting the fuel supply or detonating ammunition storage. This seemed surprising at first, given the typically heavy armor of German tanks.

   So lets talk about how soft Armor is to Bullets in AH.  I think tanks should be harder to kill with strafing runs.

[titanic3]

You say it was possible to damage a tank with HE/.50s rounds but want it to be harder to kill tanks with them? 

Typo?

But anyways, we don't have "luck" factored into the game and rounds don't ricochet off the ground. It's all or nothing. If it was factored in, you'll have guys saying how come their tank gets damaged but the other guy's doesn't, etc etc.

I think it's fine as is. You can kill a tank with a Il2, Hurri2D, B25H or even the YAK-9T/P39Q if you get a really good hit.

[SmokinLoon]

The Typhoon had four 20mm Hispano cannon. The P-47 carried eight .50 cal. machine guns with 400 rounds per gun, and it proved "particularly successful" against transports. The machine guns OCCASIONALLY even caused casualties to tanks and tank crews. The .50 cal. armor-piercing bullets often penetrated the underside of vehicles after ricocheting off the road, or penetrated the exhaust system of the tanks, ricocheting around the interior of the armored hull, killing or wounding the crew and sometimes igniting the fuel supply or detonating ammunition storage. This seemed surprising at first, given the typically heavy armor of German tanks.

   So lets talk about how soft Armor is to Bullets in AH.  I think tanks should be harder to kill with strafing runs.

The "ricocheting off the road" fantasy isn't something to stand on.  The amount of energy lost when the .50cal FMJ's hit the "road" and the deformation of the projectile would have made that nearly impossible.  Perhaps vs a kubelwagon or other such non armored vehicle, but not a tank with enough armor to initially stop a .50cal in the first place.  

Penetrating the top armor is a much higher probability with massed AP/FMJ rounds from .50cals, especially if the impact point crosses where the convergence of the guns is set.  

I've destroyed a tank ONCE with .50 cals.  It happened while I was in a nearly vertical dive in a P47 with all 8 guns blazing and I was able to have a solid string of rounds hit on top of the engine compartment.  The Panzer IV H went up in smoke.  I was awarded the kill and asked over vox if anyone else had hit that Panzer to soften it up prior to my strafe but no one else even knew it was there.  The M18 and M8 both have just enough armor to effectively stop small arms fire and not much else.  The impact angle is the only thing that might save the M18 and M8 from .50cals.