Author Topic: B25 Tank Killer! (Read 13994 times)

Bronk · « **Reply #75 on:** October 01, 2007, 04:49:16 PM »

Quote

Originally posted by BBBB
I am not saying it is not possible to kill a tank with the 75MM gun. I am just saying it is not something that has to do with skill. As in finding an aiming point on a tank and they will pop every time. I am saying a lot of guys who are claiming 15-20 kills in a B-25 are just full of it. You said half his kills were Panzers.

My question is how many kills were from the bombs on board his B-25 and how many other tanks and friendly aircraft were in the area busting tanks at the same time? My guess is more than a few. So my statement above still stands. Guys are not able to take the B-25 H out and just fly tank busting missions. The 75MM on board the aircraft is not a tank killer. Kills made by it are flukes. Nothing more.

-Spot

I believe there is a bit of "skill" involved. You can outright kill tanks with the 75mm, and it does take practice to do it. Each tank has a soft spot. Take the tiger for instance. You have to go through the top of the turret or it just wont pop. How do I know this. I loaded up AH and set MA settings. I made multiple passes from various angles till I popped it. I also can repeat it, so it is defiantly not a fluke. I will say it is much harder under MA conditions, but it can and has been done.

Bronk

opposum · « **Reply #76 on:** October 01, 2007, 04:53:22 PM »

Quote

Originally posted by BBBB
That is a pretty interesting statement considering you only had 4 kills on Panzers during the tour of Aug. Killing tanks with the B-25H is a pretty hard thing to do. Sure you can take out an engine, turret or pop a track, but to get a solid one shot, one kill on a tank is more a thing of luck and less an exercise of skill.

I remember a about 3-4 years ago killing a Panzer with the 20mms on the C-Hog. My aim was dead on, but the fact the tank went boom was totally a matter of luck. So, these things can happen. However it is a fluke and nothing more.

The B-25 is a slow lumbering target. It's 75MM is deadly on soft targets, M-8s, M-16s, M-3s, LVTs and Flaks. However a full time tank buster it is not. I love the B-25, but all of this B-25 tank killer business is just nonsense. Guys claiming to be landing dozens of kills in it are just full of it. When you pull up their scores and check their kill claims the numbers just don't add up.

My advice is just go out and try to kill tanks with the B-25. Spend a whole tour doing only tank busting missions. You will find a few things out really quickly. You die more often then you land. You most likely will not bust over 50 tanks all tour and you will spend more time flying to a target, rather than killing.

-Spot

i landed 16 kills in the b25 just maybe 3 days after it came out. its not that hard to get a bunch of kills in the b25
i believe and respect what evenhaim landed.

Spikes · « **Reply #77 on:** October 01, 2007, 05:43:51 PM »

Quote

Originally posted by opposum
its not that hard to get a bunch of kills in the b25

It is not hard to GET them...but getting out alive is another story...

opposum · « **Reply #78 on:** October 01, 2007, 06:34:51 PM »

Quote

Originally posted by SpikesX
It is not hard to GET them...but getting out alive is another story...

lol yes agreed another time i had 11 and i ended up fighter food when i tried to land

Saxman · « **Reply #79 on:** October 01, 2007, 09:26:24 PM »

Best defense I've found the 25 has is to get low. I mean LOW. I mean scraping paint off the belly and spooking the sheep low. Opponents have no choice but saddle up or risk augering in diving on you, and chances are they'll have to stay where you can bring the top turret to bear.

hubsonfire · « **Reply #80 on:** October 02, 2007, 12:00:34 PM »

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Guys are not able to take the B-25 H out and just fly tank busting missions. The 75MM on board the aircraft is not a tank killer. Kills made by it are flukes. Nothing more.

Eh, no. They are, it is, and they are not.

BBBB · « **Reply #81 on:** October 03, 2007, 01:57:09 AM »

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Originally posted by hubsonfire
Eh, no. They are, it is, and they are not.

Well then, I will let that be your little secret.

Tiger · « **Reply #82 on:** October 03, 2007, 09:56:14 AM »

I spent last night bouncing 75's off of a T-34. Medium range (d400), short range (d200), point blank (tank was filling up the windshield. They plunked and went bouncing way off into the distance.

Apparently my ground crew loaded up the wrong ammo

Bronk · « **Reply #83 on:** October 03, 2007, 03:32:37 PM »

Quote

Originally posted by Tiger
I spent last night bouncing 75's off of a T-34. Medium range (d400), short range (d200), point blank (tank was filling up the windshield. They plunked and went bouncing way off into the distance.

Apparently my ground crew loaded up the wrong ammo

Hit it in the from the side on at the drivers compartment at d400 or less.
In between the 1st and 2nd boggie wheel pops em.

Bronk

Tiger · « **Reply #84 on:** October 03, 2007, 03:44:16 PM »

I hit from the side and the rear. These were dragging the belly of my plane onthe dirt runs. Maybe next time I need to come in from a high angle and try poppin the top?

hubsonfire · « **Reply #85 on:** October 03, 2007, 05:06:28 PM »

Quote

Originally posted by BBBB
Well then, I will let that be your little secret.

I feel silly now- you don't even play anymore. Nice troll, hooked several of us.

sethipus · « **Reply #86 on:** October 03, 2007, 05:24:26 PM »

Let's see. A guy can post claiming 17 tank kills in a B-25H and that's a huge problem, right? This begs the question: were the enemy not bringing any Ostwinds?

If you're in a ground attack on a base and a B-25H keeps showing up and popping your tanks, a simple solution to this is to bring some flakkers. It doesn't take many hits with the 37mm flak gun to break something important on a B-25.

I'm liking the new dimension the B-25H has brought to the game. It's another tank-busting option, especially for when the ords are down. Is it a game breaker? Hardly! Relatively few people have the skill or the patience to accomplish with a B-25 75mm cannon what can't also be accomplished by a lot more people dropping 500 or 1000 lb bombs on the same tanks from any number of different fighter-bombers, the A-20, the Lancaster, B-17, B-24, Stuka, etc.

I just don't see a problem here.

sethipus · « **Reply #87 on:** October 04, 2007, 04:57:57 AM »

By the way, here's a technical question. Of what nature is the HE round for this 75mm gun. Some might not know, but one of the very common sorts of anti-tank round used for decades is called (by the British at least) the HESH round, or High Explosive Squash Head (I kid you not).

This was a relatively thin-skinned round filled with a plastic explosive. On impact, the explosive would spread out (ie: splat) over the surface of the armor, and then the fuse would detonate it. The pancake of explosive on the outside of the armor would create a shock wave through the armor plate resulting in massive and catastrophic spalling of metal from the inside of the armor plate into the rest of the tank interior, f*cking it all up good.

It's entirely possible, depending on the nature of the B-25's HE round, that this same kind of effect could have been accomplished, at least on thinner armor plate. I wouldn't immediately count out this round as a tank killer just because it's an HE round, untill we find out more about it.

BBBB · « **Reply #88 on:** October 05, 2007, 09:06:35 PM »

Quote

Originally posted by hubsonfire
I feel silly now- you don't even play anymore. Nice troll, hooked several of us.

How am I trolling? You made a claim, yet had zero evidence to support that claim. There few people on here who have made consistent kill claims against hard armor in here and yet they have mostly been proven to behave been full of it. Their scores do not confirm their respective claims.

Now, if you can offer up something more than "Eh, no. They are, it is, and they are not." Then maybe it would be worth my time to debate the issue with you. However, at the present time it is not. Save the name calling for grade school.

-Spot

Urchin · « **Reply #89 on:** October 05, 2007, 11:02:24 PM »

Quote

Originally posted by sethipus
By the way, here's a technical question. Of what nature is the HE round for this 75mm gun. Some might not know, but one of the very common sorts of anti-tank round used for decades is called (by the British at least) the HESH round, or High Explosive Squash Head (I kid you not).

This was a relatively thin-skinned round filled with a plastic explosive. On impact, the explosive would spread out (ie: splat) over the surface of the armor, and then the fuse would detonate it. The pancake of explosive on the outside of the armor would create a shock wave through the armor plate resulting in massive and catastrophic spalling of metal from the inside of the armor plate into the rest of the tank interior, f*cking it all up good.

It's entirely possible, depending on the nature of the B-25's HE round, that this same kind of effect could have been accomplished, at least on thinner armor plate. I wouldn't immediately count out this round as a tank killer just because it's an HE round, untill we find out more about it.

HESH rounds were not in use until after WW2 was over AFAIK. At any rate, the round used in the B-25H is almost certainly standard thin walled HE shell. I can probably find the original source material at work if anyone is very interested, assuming there is still a copy in one of the libraries.