Effects of strafing tanks with .50 caliber guns.

[Ack-Ack]

Found this little tidbit on that other message board where the cool guys hang out.

This is from a book called Angels Zero by Robert V. Brulle, a Jug pilot with the 366th FG.  Here's an excerpt that talks about strafing German tanks with .50 caliber machine guns

The .50 cal AP round fired from a fast moving aircraft does indeed have a
high momentum but the German tank armor was very hard and massive and the
round only dinged the armor. The most vulnerable area (least armor
thickness) is the rear deck engine compartment and the top of the turret.
The tracks are extremely hard steel and .50 cal rounds were shrugged off
with little damage. A lucky hit was possible that might cause the tank to
throw a track, but if they were on a hard surface they could just keep
moving on their road wheels. The Germans had three main battle tanks in use
in 1944-45. They were the Mk IV, which was a medium tank comparable to the
American M4 Sherman and two 50+ ton heavy tanks, the MkV Panther and the
MkVI Tiger. The Panther and Tiger tanks completely dominated the Sherman.

The MkIV had a lightly armored rear deck that could be penetrated by our .50
cal rounds and set the engine on fire, but the Panther and Tiger tanks were
mostly impervious to our strafing. In those tanks the tank crew could button
up and hope we wouldn't call in some aircraft that had bombs since that
would finish them. There is a case on record where a Panther tank was
strafed by P-47's for an extended time. The massive strafing shot off all
the equipment and parts carried outside the tank, and entombed the crew by
dinging the hatch lips, essentially welding the hatches closed. If we could
catch the tanks while on a road march far from the front lines they
sometimes carried extra fuel and ammo strapped to the outside. In those
cases strafing could ignite the fuel or ammo possibly destroying them.
Although we couldn't be sure of damaging or destroying a heavy tank, our
strafing was sure to affect the crew psychologically, having to stay cooped
up and hear the constant rattle of our rounds hitting the tank and not
knowing when a bomb or other heavy weapon would finish them off. In a
summary, strafing a tank could do nothing or it could destroy them,
depending on the circumstances.

Thanks to Drano for posting this on BigWeek.


Ack-Ack

[Wotan]

thats been posted here before and if you think that the crew can get "entombed" as if theres only 1 hatch I imagine you believe that they could bounce 50s of the ground as well.

[Dowding (Work)]

It's been posted before. I can believe most of it, apart from the bit about trapping the crew by dinging the hatches.

Most tanks had hatches underneath the vehicle.

The psychological effects of repeated strikes against a tank on the crew is well documented.

[Wotan]

I agree that tank crews abandoned thier tanks and can believe following strafing runs that they may leave as well. As to all the rest I believe and wulfie and hortlund both provide excerpts from a report by the allies that examined battlefields and armor and found that very few were disabled by air power. Of the few most were a result of rockets. But take the so called "Day of the Typhoon".  The typhie was successful in stopping an armored thrust not because they killed all the mbts but because they eliminated the support vehicles. The ones that supplied fuel and ammo. Most of the tanks were found abandon by the crews with no fuel or ammo. During the battle of the bulge Peipers group abandoned everyone of their vehicles do to no fuel or ammo.

But the point is still straffing mbts was not an efficient way to kill armor. The germans learned this on the eastern front as well.

[Dowding (Work)]

The Typhoon didn't just eliminate. It moidered support vehicles and light armour. Check out the Falaise Gap.

But against MBTs of any category, it was much less successful, although there were exceptions. There are isolated incidents where rocket attacks took out a Tiger that was holding up an infantry advance, for example.

The targetting of the logistics network was much more effective, however.

[brady]

Even in the Falaise gap the same is true the light vehicals were often taken out but the Heaver tanks were not taken out by air power. For the most part this all pooo propagated by by hollywood and Allied Jabo piolets spreading BS, thier is a ton of evidance that show quiet clearly that Jabo's in WW2 were particarly ineffective in their atempts to destroy Tanks. As Wotan states above A number of Allied survey crews sent to places lie the Falaise Gap discovered that only a fraction of all tanks were actualy distroyed by Jabo's, If I remember corectly less than 10% of all ordance expended agast Tanks had any effect, of those that were effected oly a Fraction were put out of action. In summery It could be said the That Allied JABO's killing a German tank was akin to wining the lottery.

[Wotan]

The twin battles of Mortain and the Falaise-Argentan "Gap" were primarily Army Air Forces-RAF combined-force Battlefield Air Interdiction attacks; they had a devastating impact upon German forces. In the postwar years, there was little opportunity to examine battlefield air support in the high-tempo environment of a fluid, mechanized, total war; nevertheless, the few cases that do exist offer confirmatory evidence that Battlefield Air Interdiction (BAI) played a larger and more significant role than Close Air Support(CAS).

BAI operations clearly have been more useful in their impact upon maneuver land battle; the blitzkrieg, Western Desert campaign, Italian campaign, breakout across France, and epic air-land battles of the Russian front in 1943-45 were essentially campaigns where BAI predominated. Luftwaffe planners emphasized assaulting second-echelon forces, beginning in the latter stages of the Spanish civil war and continuing into the Second World War. So did the Voyenno Vozdushnye Sily (VVS--the Soviet army air forces). Both services blended CAS operations at the front with more numerous second-echelon attacks to a depth in excess of 30 kilometers behind the front. During the Normandy landings and the subsequent consolidation phase, BAI by fighters and tactical bombers seriously hampered the arrival of German forces on the battlefield. British and American armored-column cover operations in support of the breakout and pursuit of German forces across France varied between CAS and BAI, but many were more clearly BAI operations, well beyond the range of friendly ground forces.

as a rule, when mobile forces join combat (particularly in open country) BAI is employed more frequently--and decisively--than CAS.

"Classic" air interdiction has proven disappointing and of less significance than either BAI or CAS; its impact upon battle-field operations is questionable, particularly when it is not synchronized with ground maneuver warfare. Four examples exist from four separate conflicts that call into question the efficacy of non-BAI interdiction: Operation Strangle (Italy, 1944); Operations Strangle and Saturate (Korea, 1951-52); French interdiction efforts against Vietminh supply lines, 1952-54; and the long and arduous campaign against the Ho Chi Minh trail network over a decade later. Strangle in Italy never attained the degree of supply denial to German forces that its planners had hoped; as a purely "interdiction" effort, it failed. But strikes closer to the front undertaken during the subsequent Diadem phase did hamper German mobility near the line of engagement--another example of BAI effectiveness, as reflected in contemporary Nazi accounts and postwar memoirs.

At Mortain and the Falaise-Argentan "Gap" the allies "interdiction" effort struck against vehicles closer to the the front.

The fighter-bomber has always performed more satisfactorily in the CAS/BAI role than the special-purpose attack airplane. The fighter-bomber possesses the intrinsic performance, flexibility, and safety to perform the CAS/BAI mission better than more specialized attack aircraft. Both the fighter and the attack airplane appeared in the "Great War," and the performance disparity between them was slight. By war's end, as discussed earlier, the bomb-carrying fighter had appeared as an element of ground-attack warfare.

The lw on the east front knew this. While trying to get Schlacht groups resupplied with the new fighter bomber versions of the 190 they still utilized the stuka but modified to fill the roll.

the ground-attack airplane had generally evolved into a twin-engine machine almost indistinguishable from contemporary medium bombers or, on the other hand, the specialized dive-bomber. Both proved vulnerable to opposing fighters and the intense low-level flak that increasingly accompanied ground forces, just as both were incapable of undertaking the kind of "swing-role" missions that fighters could. By war's end, both the Allied and Axis powers expressed a clear preference for the modified fighter-bomber (such as the P-47, Typhoon, FW-190G, and Yak-7B) for battlefield ground attack. In the United States' case, this superiority was recognized not merely by the AAF, but by the Army ground forces as well. In the postwar years, even the Soviet Union, which had operated specialized Shturmovik (assault) aircraft since the 1920s, abandoned them in favor of the jet fighter-bomber, beginning with the Su-7 Fitter.

The Sturmovik when intercepted by fighters was slaughtered much like the stuka. The typh otoh found new life as in the fighter bomber roll.

Yes the typhoon.

moidered support vehicles and light armour

I dont doudt the the allieds straffed tanks and I imagine the psychological impact on those being straffed was intense. But 50 and hispanos killing knocking mbts doesnt seem likely.

When you read post that "bouncing 50 off the ground" or "entombing tank crews by straffing" its just so incredible it makes me wonder how anyone can believe it.

[Vermillion]

Guys, thats why if you want to stop an enemy's armored spearhead, you don't attack the tanks.

You attack the fuel and ammo supply trucks that are following them.  Much more effective use of air power!

[ATC]

Originally posted by Vermillion
Guys, thats why if you want to stop an enemy's armored spearhead, you don't attack the tanks.

You attack the fuel and ammo supply trucks that are following them.  Much more effective use of air power!

Vermillion hits the nail on the head.  

Also a major mistake that Japan did at Pearl.  Had they destroyed the fuel storage capabilities at Pearl, according to the US, we would have been in a world of hurt.

ATC

[eagl]

There's also a big difference between a "functional" kill and a "hard" kill.  A .50 through the engine is a functional kill, as that tank is out of business until it gets a major refit.  A hard kill might be a crew area fire that cooks off the ammo storage, knocking the turret off with enough force that it cannot be remounted, etc.

Strangely enough, crew death may only be a temporary functional kill.  This can't really be modelled in AH until/unless HTC puts in a stragetic limiter on vehicle/aircraft availability.  In those cases, just because the crew is dead, doesn't mean you should stop attacking the tank.  Run up to it and blow that sucker up so nobody else can use it either.  Maybe someday a mission arena or war arena might have limited vehicle/aircraft resources in addition to limited fuel/ammo/whatever, but for now a functional kill, crew kill, or hard kill all has the same result.

[Turbot]

I had posted this before - but I agree after talking with this guy (who is a very respected attorney in town now).

 had opportunity last night to talk with a US WW2 vet, silver star, british military cross, three purple hearts and something else I forget the name of. He led 51 missions, most of them combat (the other missions being recon). His unit suffered 300% casualy rate by the time they made it into Berlin. The man saw his share of action.

I asked him once if he had ever had any close air support, and he says once the airforce took out a bunch of panther tanks near his position - saved his live that day he figures. Quite a show he said. The planes were using bombs and rockets.

This seemed like a good place to ask the question, Can 50 caliber kill a tank? He gave a very quick and simple "No". I mentioned why I was asking and seemed OK to go a little farther with it, so I asked what about taking out the motor on a tank "Not very likely, you had to hit it in exactly the right place." he added on his own, "Now you might get one of his tracks, if you hit it just right." (I am writing this as close as I can recall his words)

He was there and this is his opinon of it. He actually saw the battles and the battle damage on the ground. I lend great credibility to his account.

[-ammo-]

This was discussed back in June. http://216.91.192.19/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=55038

[Nath[BDP]]

y r there tanks in AH? y r there?

[Nath[BDP]]

b cuz i think they suxx0rz and if i want tanks i play combat mission 2

kthx

[Nath[BDP]]

but i do like how the tanks hover like the amphibious assault vehicles that is cool! didn't know krauts had that technology.