.50 cal questions.....(tank v. planes)(how to kill tanks)

[BotaBing]

Well...the last few weeks of running ground units, and attacking ground units, has left me with a couple questions. Please respond if you can help shed light  

#1 - It seems to me that tanks are incredibly difficult to kill, unless you are flying something that shoots 20mm. Then, if a pilot can come in from behind, at a steep angle, he can 20mm kill you each pass, without any risk to himself. Does anyone else think that tanks are too vulnerable to these types of attacks? Any strategies on how to avoid it?

#2 - I have been flying the p47 a lot lately. I have repeatedly attacked tanks with the .50cal guns, and last night took the cake. I must have landed about 500+ pings on this tank, from all angles, with my p47...NO DAMAGE. I reloaded, and did it again, NO DAMAGE. He finally ejected cuz he was out of ammo.

Is that right? Would 1000+hits from a .50cal machine gun anywhere from 100-800 distance really not effect a tank?

[Karnak]

Quite likely 1000+ hits with a 50 cal would have no effect.  20mm cannon may be a bit too powerful against tanks right now, but they did hit A LOT harder than a 50 cal.

Unlike in arcade games where you slowly wear the armor down (tank has 500 hits, each 50 cal round does 5, each 20mm does 20, 100 50 cal hits kills tank, 25 20mm hits kills tank) AH attempts to model reality.  If a 50 cal round hits the armor of a tank it will almost certainly just bounce off.  It does no damage to that point and if that point is hit again the new round will also bounce off.  The 50 cal rounds don't hit hard enough to degrade the armor.

Sisu
-Karnak

[Fariz]

Well, you can annoy someone to death with that endless pings; it is the only way to get kill against pnzr with .50  

If you want a kill against pnzr with only guns get tiffy or f4uC. Spits are not that effective against pnzrs now due to twice less hispanos and much less ammo that 2 abovementioned planes have, but you still can get couple of kills against panzers with spit IX.

 
 

[Fishu]

I don't know where from you've got that in your mind that .50 caliber would kill Pz-IVh.. lol..
If you didn't know, .50 caliber is equal to 12.7mm, so you see that theres *bit* difference between 12.7mm and 20mm.
Also, 20mm is bit too strong at the moment against tanks.. specially those hispanos.

Karnak;
I don't think that this system is like in WB that ### amount hit points in a spot and it equals same as 20mm..
There is penetration values too.
(I have empited 3000 rounds of 12.7mm from point blank range with M16 into a tanks butt  )

[Jigster]

.50's would normally work very well against the tracks but due to side skirts it ain't happenin.

The only thing that is lacking is turrent jams. While the gun would still be capable of firing, turrent power loss seemed to happen alot due to lesser guns. I believe this was due to chunks of steel from guns such as .50's deflecting off the armor and lodging between the roof and turrent. Not real sure about it. I do know that 20mm's caused it with great frequency for the detenation on impact.

We also don't have leaking fuel systems on alot of the German tanks. MG strikes could and did light them off effectively making the tank abandoned.  

- Jig

[Spatula]

.50 cals are just chunks of lead, they are not armour peircing rounds. You can shoot a tank all day long with a 1000 50 cal machine guns and all you'll do is ruin the paint job.

Its not just the size of the round. 20mm is 7.3 mm bigger (just over 1/4 inch) - they are specially designed to penetrate amour and explode shortly after contact. The are bigger rounds, heavier rounds (more kenetic energy) with special tips to knock stright thru armor.

Also it seems that Hispanos are something in the realm of 10 times more likely to kill a tank than mausers, havent tried SHVAKS or other types. I know the hispano round is heavier and has a higher muzzle velocity than the mausers, so it should do more damage. But i have never even damaged a tank with mausers, and i can kill a panzer in a single pass with hispanos  

If ya wanna kill a tank, get a tiffie, or a hog-c - that'll do the trick.

Spat.

[Citabria]

if possible roll a darn tank to kill that tank its more fun for all involved.

but if not so inclined
drop a bomb on the dang sucker


HTC has fixed the bomb damage to reward a good drop on a vehicle with a kill so any plane in teh set that carries large bombs can knock a tank out easy if the hit is close enough or multiple bombs are dropped.

I fly the f4u1c when the opposition knocks out the vehicle hangar and rolls an armored assault and use 1k bombs as the primary weapon against tanks and the rockets against m16s each is effective if aimed accurately

[Karnak]

Yes, Fishu, thats exactly what I was saying.  I was saying its NOT like the arcade-like system I described.

Sisu
-Karnak

[Tac]

I second Citabria.

Bombing a tank is the easiest and fastest way to kill it. All you have to do is fly directly over the tank, pull a loop and drop the bomb on the way down from the loop. It works for me  

[eskimo]

In the spit 9, this tour, I have 51 panzer kills (and 5 deaths from panzers).  It typically takes me 1 to three passes to kill a tank in my spit.  I have, a few times, taken 4, 5 and even 6 passes to kill them though.  My overall hit % is about 22%, and against panzers I think it is a bit higher, so it takes quite a few whacks to knock out a panzer with a spit, but it can be done with practice.  I agree that the 50's are worthless against armor.  I try to save them for AC defence when I need to bug out.

Try the spit, use just the 20's, and be persistant.

eskimo

[eskimo]

BotaBing, (Great name BTW) in fighters you have 22 kills and 10 assists.  You have a total of 2319 hits.  That's 72.5 hits per kill/assist.  You probably only hit him a few hundred times.

eskimo

[fdiron]

I killed a Panzer with just the nose guns from my B26.  It took 5 or 6 passes.  Each time I kept shooting at the side of the tank from almost 0 altitude.  It finally was destroyed.  Hopefully they have fixed this.  A 20mm shouldnt be able to kill a tank. The only way I can think of that a 20mm could kill a tank would either kill the commander while he was exposed or maybe start an engine fire.

[Fishu]

 

Originally posted by Spatula:
[B
Also it seems that Hispanos are something in the realm of 10 times more likely to kill a tank than mausers, havent tried SHVAKS or other types. I know the hispano round is heavier and has a higher muzzle velocity than the mausers, so it should do more damage. But i have never even damaged a tank with mausers, and i can kill a panzer in a single pass with hispanos   (Image removed from quote.)

If ya wanna kill a tank, get a tiffie, or a hog-c - that'll do the trick.

Spat.[/B]

Those russian 20mms are same caterogy.
I had once La-5 taking off from nearby field all the time, he made it 4 times, emptied probably all his ammunition on 3 earlier times and then I thought 'thats enough' and shot him down with MG34.
Yes, Hispano has more power and stuff, but still it does not make that much difference that other cannons just tickles while hispano makes it like cannon, if not even better (when sees that it can kill tank by shooting its front plate)

[BigJim]

Not to be arguementitive but there are documented cases of tanks being "knocked out" by .50 cal fire in WWII (now I suppose I will have to go find them again)

BigJim

[SC-GreyBeard]

As a tank driver, the thing that is most obnoxious to me is the f4u-1c.

As for bombs, a near miss by a 1000 lb'er will kill me every time.

I've had b-17's and b-26's drop strings of bombs on me and survived them.. (I watched from the external view, as a group of 6 bombs strung from in front of me to behind me as I was running full speed...and survived it. musta been smaller bombs because 1 hit directly in front of me and 1 hit directly behind me)

yet with the Hispano's, I've been killed with as few as 5 rds. (what I feel is really odd, is that what I hear, is a string of pings, perhaps as long as 20-30 seconds sometimes, and the pilot reports he only used 15-30 rds)

haven't noticed it much in current version, but in the last one  a bomb hit in front of the tank would take my engine out almost every time, but a near miss to the rear wouldn't..  go figure..

As to 50 cal's???
For the most part,
hehehehehehhehehehehe hahahahahahahahahhaah
eventually you'll come in below my main gun level, and yer dead     nuthing like a 75mm Main Gun enema from 400 yds or less....
But on rare occassions, they can knock out a turret, (prolly turret ring damage), wound the driver, kill the engine. (the vented hood over the engine is highly susceptable to 50 cal penetration) only on rare occassion have they actually killed me.

------------------
GreyBeard, Squadron Leader
Commander, "E" Flight, Aces High
Senior Staff Council
"The Skeleton Crew"
"Fly with Honor"[/i]
"Keepin' the Faith"

[This message has been edited by SC-GreyBeard (edited 07-25-2000).]